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PSA to all top-laners: help your jungler out level 1

Barcid··40 votes·14,700 views

This isn't a "leash me" post. This is a "watch our buff" post.

Simply watching your jungler's buff does several things that grant you a great fucking advantage:

  1. You have narrowed down where the enemy jungler can possibly be. You now know they aren't taking your team's camp and won't be ganking you from behind. If they're trying to take it (or are taking it) then you have eyes exactly on where they are and can play accordingly.

  2. Your jungler is kept from being put behind. Your team can be aware if the enemy jungler is trying to steal their buff and react accordingly, meaning your jungler can go take the enemy's buff in return immediately instead of having to guess where they need to be. This prevents them losing an exorbitant amount of gold and experience and so keeps them on the same level of the enemy jungler, meaning you also benefit.

  3. You can potentially put the enemy jungler behind. If the enemy jungler walks up to try and take the buff and you're guarding it, you can take some free hits from him. Lower health means the jungler has to play more conservatively. The enemy jungler being forced to back off from taking the buff also means they have to walk back to their own, costing them both time and pressure.

Watching your jungler's buff offers all these things at the cost of nothing - it takes absolutely nothing from you to do this besides at most your first ward if you don't want to stand watch until 1:30.

You want to know the best part about this?

#This does not cost you any minions or any minion waves.

Walking to top lane from top-side buff while leaving at 1:30 (even up to 1:35) puts you back at top-lane before any minions can even be killed. There's still more than 10 seconds to spare even. That is a fucking massive margin for error.

This is called being a good teammate. It's called playing with and for your team. It's a practice in consideration for your teammates on top of just flat out increasing your chances at winning.

So be a good player. Watch your jungler's buff.

44 Comments

TakaDama5 votes

Interesting ... I usually sit until 1.15 or 1.20 and then leave a ward behind if I am opposite of my jungle (regardless of lane), but 1.25 to 1.30 could work as well for contesting the buff. Good PSA.

Only thing I would add is it depends on whether the top laner on your team is a lane bully/low level cheese or not, as attracting minion aggro is not exactly desirable to them.

Alex h87215 votes

As a top laner I always gaurd my JG's toplane buff and ward it at 1:25. However, I HATE HATE HATE junglers who demand a leash from their toplaner, GO BOTLANE DUMBASS, the leash is FASTER, You lose less HP, and NO ONE GETS PUT BEHIND BECAUSE OF IT.

Junglers who leash toplane are inconsiderate idiots: Change my mind.

Barcid10 votes

Fiddlesticks on blue side. Amumu as well.

Alex h87213 votes

neither of those jg's NEED to start blue buff, also both those Jg's have a SLOW clear on the 1st buff, which means they would benefit more from the 2man leash damage from botlane (or would keep their toplaner out of lane longer potentially setting them back).

Amumu especially can start red, taking E and W first and then easily clear raptors 2nd, and still have fine mana to do blue buff. Having an ap jungler is not an excuse to set your toplaner back, you arent going to go OOM after 2 camps and you can easily take your blue buff 3rd or 2nd.

Barcid14 votes

It's much less about the slow clear or what's fastest - it's a lot more that those two champions are examples of champs with "INVADE ME" stamped on them in neon letters. They don't need blue to clear their first camps, no - but if they get invaded and lose their blue, those champs have next to no options left. Starting it is the most guaranteed way for them to be able to ensure they get it.

If you've ever been a mana hungry jungler and had your blue taken from you, then you'd know that you are basically the kid they put on milk cartons because nobody will see you for a very, very long time.

ForFoxSakes4 votes

It's not always about which buff to start, also need to consider being unpredictable so you dont get counter jungled or invaded. Top start lets you split the map vertically in the worst case scenario, which can lead to best case of getting a 3 quadrant jg clear open vs their single which puts you ahead massively if they didnt scout properly. This is not possible if you always start bot side

I guess you dont know that too busy being hardstuck bronze to leash for your jungler

MorganFreemanBot10 votes

[{quoted}](name=Alex h8721,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=rfrroEV4,comment-id=0003,timestamp=2018-06-04T16:05:35.195+0000)

As a top laner I always gaurd my JG's toplane buff and ward it at 1:25. However, I HATE HATE HATE junglers who demand a leash from their toplaner, GO BOTLANE DUMBASS, the leash is FASTER, You lose less HP, and NO ONE GETS PUT BEHIND BECAUSE OF IT.

Junglers who leash toplane are inconsiderate idiots: Change my mind.

Your jungler should be able to choose where they start; it's not your call.

Given the margin for error, a top laner can throw out 5-ish (depending on champion) autos with 0 risk and losing 0 CS. Even if you lose a single creep, it's still worth the trade to the advantage your jungle gains.

Why do this?

Simple: To avoid the enemy jungler. Junglers who have poor early dueling can (generally) go top buff > top scuttle > farm jungle and not be behind the enemy duelist jungle, while actually not leashing them.

Junglers who CAN duel early can also abuse it. Going top buff > enemy top buff > top lane / top scuttle is my favorite route on Olaf, and there's literally nothing the enemy jungler can do about it, because he beats the shit out of enemy of them in an early duel. On Rek'sai I prefer to start the enemy buff and immediately gank top lane, securing my top laner first blood kill / assist and setting them massively ahead, so that I (hopefully) tilt the enemy laner level 1 never have to go top alone.

Helping your jungler leash is always worth it, they gain so much more out of it than you could ever possibly lose.

TheSingularity1 votes

Urgot Nautilus and most other caster junglers are simply too mana hungry to not start blue buff. So when on blue side they NEED! to start there so they can make it to red or ganks with full mana

Ackir1 votes

[{quoted}](name=Alex h8721,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=rfrroEV4,comment-id=0003,timestamp=2018-06-04T16:05:35.195+0000)

As a top laner I always gaurd my JG's toplane buff and ward it at 1:25. However, I HATE HATE HATE junglers who demand a leash from their toplaner, GO BOTLANE DUMBASS, the leash is FASTER, You lose less HP, and NO ONE GETS PUT BEHIND BECAUSE OF IT.

Junglers who leash toplane are inconsiderate idiots: Change my mind.

you expect to go blue first as rengar lmfao withbotlane on northern map

Arcanine191 votes

{quoted}

you expect to go blue first as rengar lmfao withbotlane on northern map

tbh rengar's early clear isn't that great (at least was last time I played him) and if you're not getting a better leash it's better to start blue with bot help than waste all your pots in your first 2 camps (I main jungle and I never ask my top laners to miss cs for me so I just ping them back when I know that if they don't they will lose some minions)

Cenutrio 5 rabos2 votes

[{quoted}](name=Alex h8721,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=rfrroEV4,comment-id=0003,timestamp=2018-06-04T16:05:35.195+0000)

As a top laner I always gaurd my JG's toplane buff and ward it at 1:25. However, I HATE HATE HATE junglers who demand a leash from their toplaner, GO BOTLANE DUMBASS, the leash is FASTER, You lose less HP, and NO ONE GETS PUT BEHIND BECAUSE OF IT.

Junglers who leash toplane are inconsiderate idiots: Change my mind.

Lmao. I've no intention to change your mind after reading this "GO BOTLANE DUMBASS, the leash is FASTER, You lose less HP, and NO ONE GETS PUT BEHIND BECAUSE OF IT". Stay where you are, there are people who actually try to learn the game and don't act like omniscient pricks. Just gonna say I can count 4 things wrong with what you said.

SetInMotion1 votes

well some jg need red first, and others need blue, soo....

Arcanine191 votes

[{quoted}](name=Alex h8721,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=rfrroEV4,comment-id=0003,timestamp=2018-06-04T16:05:35.195+0000)

As a top laner I always gaurd my JG's toplane buff and ward it at 1:25. However, I HATE HATE HATE junglers who demand a leash from their toplaner, GO BOTLANE DUMBASS, the leash is FASTER, You lose less HP, and NO ONE GETS PUT BEHIND BECAUSE OF IT.

Junglers who leash toplane are inconsiderate idiots: Change my mind.

Sometimes said junglers want to gank your lane level 2 and put you ahead maybe? Or even counter jungle the enemy jungler right after? Edit: Also you don't have to do the big leash that bot lane gives, while bot lane usually leaves the buff at lower health, you can leave it with a considerable health pool, if your jungle decided to start top side, most times he's a jungler that doesn't have much sustain problems/ he has fast clear (that's why he probably will gank/invade right after)

Ztoka5 votes

When I play top lane, I try to ward blue for the jung.. Anything that helps w/ vision/objectives goes a long way..

Hibeki3 votes

Sad that this needs to be a PSA, being useful iinstead of afk at turret doing nothing level 1....

Hügö3 votes

I often cheese start enemy red and gank lvl 2 top and tell bot "ward red after second wave". What I mostly get is either no ward a ward when they directly walk to lane which expires when the enemy enters my jungler.

Snowman Arc3 votes

Or, if you really need to rush to lane to get a push advntage or something, at lest ward the fucking camp. Literally, if I as a jungler get invaded and fall behind, and then not be able to do a good path to get me in a position to gank, the team is gonna blame me. But, if my allies could help me watch out or my buffs, everything would be so much easier.

It's just that people are bored and don't want to waste the first 1.30 doing "nothing" so they scroll facebook and youtube, which is sad, honestly.

Battalion3 votes

I hate the overuse of "PSA" and "Agency" on these boards, however I have to agree.

All too often the top laner will just sit under turret and AFK twiddle their knob while they wait for their slow ass minion wave to get to lane. So then I have to assume that any of the myriad of early invade junglers that are meta right now (due to the early level 2-3 duelist meta around scuttle) don't use a single braincell more than what is required to right click and smite, and not drop a deep ward on the top part of the top-side buff niche. Which would allow them to see that not a single fuck is given about the enemy team jungler (me).

Just so people know, it is entirely viable for a jungler to kill Red or Blue buff at level 1, unassisted, by using smite and basic kiting techniques. This will put them behind a bit in the way of clear times, but now they have red buff they've taken a large chunk of your Jungle's EXP & DPS across the board.

When/if this happens, don't expect me to gank top lane, and don't expect me to sympathize with "Top lane most innocent lane, pls gank" posts you see all the time here.

ModCaliCoastReplay3 votes

I agree.

But there's a corollary.

The corollary here is that as a toplaner, I will often blow many resources to help protect my jungler from invades, etc., and then they just crap the bed and never help apply topside pressure at all until I've been ganked multiple times and inevitably succumb. I just lost a game this week where I literally blew Tele to help strongly repel an enemy invade so I could get back to lane - I did okay even being a wave late to lane, but then I got ganked multiple times while our jungler literally never did anything but camps even after his counterpart had ganked all over the map.

It makes me want to never protect buffs or risk being late to lane, but I know that's not good courtesy to junglers who do their parts.

So take care of your top laner, too. Help them out - if they leashed you, try to gank them early to make up for the loss of lane pressure. Don't let them become a walking bag of gold if the other jungler is farming them while you idly do camps and pick mushrooms in the forest.

Brooks1072 votes

walk up to top jungler wants me to leash dances around camp so i take all agro go to top a third of a bar of health down and opponent is freezing as well as level 2 know jungler is never gonna come top because bot is more important anyways

ill drop a ward but otherwise screw junglers just stay bot instead of walking face first into nasus when you are half health from clears then blaming me somehow

Jerry SeinfeId2 votes

OR i could go take a piss.

PhDs Nuts2 votes

If you make your top lane leash blue or red, you need to remember to pay attention to their lane because they won't get level 2 first. You're gonna lose top scuttle and they'll be farming under turret.

I'll watch buffs no problem. If I ward a buff, I expect the jungler to ward the river bush when they take it.

Barcid19 votes

What is with all these comments about leashing.

The post is about watching the buff. In general. Just watch it. Make sure the enemy jungler doesn't steal it. I specifically said this in the first line.

Reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad.

ZackTheWaffleMan3 votes

Not gonna lie, I thought that you said "reed" at the end.

PhDs Nuts1 votes

[{quoted}](name=Toxic Control,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=rfrroEV4,comment-id=00070000,timestamp=2018-06-04T17:46:23.314+0000)

What is with all these comments about leashing.

The post is about watching the buff. In general. Just watch it. Make sure the enemy jungler doesn't steal it. I specifically said this in the first line.

Reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad.

I was responding to the earlier comments about leashing. Nothing wrong with watching a buff, that's easy (though I usually run with the team at level 1 to prevent bot-side invades, which are almost every game now).

But apparently asking for some help when the enemy top gets level 2 first for leashing or asking for a river ward in return for warding a buff is against Boards hivemind right now. My bad. I'll just be an underleveled top lane without wards for the first 4 minutes.

eaglei32 votes

I don't know about point 3 so much. That point is neglecting the fact the the enemy also has a top laner that could be roaming into your jungle side as well to help with the invade. That can put you in a bad 2 v 1 situation.

DragonShea2 votes

[{quoted}](name=Toxic Control,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=rfrroEV4,comment-id=,timestamp=2018-06-04T12:31:42.259+0000)

This isn't a "leash me" post. This is a "watch our buff" post.

Simply watching your jungler's buff does several things that grant you a great fucking advantage:

  1. You have narrowed down where the enemy jungler can possibly be. You now know they aren't taking your team's camp and won't be ganking you from behind. If they're trying to take it (or are taking it) then you have eyes exactly on where they are and can play accordingly.

  2. Your jungler is kept from being put behind. Your team can be aware if the enemy jungler is trying to steal their buff and react accordingly, meaning your jungler can go take the enemy's buff in return immediately instead of having to guess where they need to be. This prevents them losing an exorbitant amount of gold and experience and so keeps them on the same level of the enemy jungler, meaning you also benefit.

  3. You can potentially put the enemy jungler behind. If the enemy jungler walks up to try and take the buff and you're guarding it, you can take some free hits from him. Lower health means the jungler has to play more conservatively. The enemy jungler being forced to back off from taking the buff also means they have to walk back to their own, costing them both time and pressure.

Watching your jungler's buff offers all these things at the cost of nothing - it takes absolutely nothing from you to do this besides at most your first ward if you don't want to stand watch until 1:30.

You want to know the best part about this?

#This does not cost you any minions or any minion waves.

Walking to top lane from top-side buff while leaving at 1:30 (even up to 1:35) puts you back at top-lane before any minions can even be killed. There's still more than 10 seconds to spare even. That is a fucking massive margin for error.

This is called being a good teammate. It's called playing with and for your team. It's a practice in consideration for your teammates on top of just flat out increasing your chances at winning.

So be a good player. Watch your jungler's buff.

Always my man, always do that for my team unless it's Shaco as he is one of the few champs that can solo a champ.

MuffledGarbage2 votes

I would if matchmaking didn't give me literally brainless junglers

EDIT: to clarify, I haven't gotten a good jungler since three weeks ago

ModCaliCoastReplay2 votes

Walking to top lane from top-side buff while leaving at 1:30 (even up to 1:35) puts you back at top-lane before any minions can even be killed. There's still more than 10 seconds to spare even. That is a fucking massive margin for error.

This is not correct though. The margin for error in top is very small, and you make the incorrect assumption that just because someone can walk a direct line back to a wounded minion wave in that time that it makes no difference in lane pressure or CS. Some champs and situations require you to be at the wave several seconds before the first melee minions even touch each other in order to have the best chance of a hard lane win. And really good toplaners can and will use even the smallest difference in lane pressure to snowball (especially if you don't plan on coming back top to reciprocate the help or get tangled up elsewhere), and that includes wave health.

I routinely try to hold the small bush in the topside river early as a lookout, and from there make my way up top. I'd say I'm fine with watching your second buff until about 1:15-1:20 in publics. But asking for my free ward is dicey, especially if you can't promise help later, and probably earlier than you think I need to be able to patrol the top area, decide if I want an early ward in the tri or river, and decide if I need subtle lane pressure/harassment if necessary - especially in publics.

In flex or with people I know have my back I'll do much more than this, but the risk in soloQ of selfishness is way too high. I can't be even a little late to my lane in a soloQ game as a top laner if my jungle doesn't have my back - and some soloQ junglers definitely don't have my back, just as some toplaners haven't had yours.

FireDrizzle1 votes

Sorry but if mid is watching his tower instead of the other entrance im not going to watch your buff. I'm not taking any chances.

TakaDama1 votes

{quoted}

Sorry but if mid is watching his tower instead of the other entrance im not going to watch your buff. I'm not taking any chances.

Mid can watch as well, just not as long since the midlane creep waves fight each other sooner than top or bottom.

Oh Me So Ornny1 votes

[{quoted}](name=Toxic Control,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=rfrroEV4,comment-id=,timestamp=2018-06-04T12:31:42.259+0000)

This isn't a "leash me" post. This is a "watch our buff" post.

Simply watching your jungler's buff does several things that grant you a great fucking advantage:

  1. You have narrowed down where the enemy jungler can possibly be. You now know they aren't taking your team's camp and won't be ganking you from behind. If they're trying to take it (or are taking it) then you have eyes exactly on where they are and can play accordingly.

  2. Your jungler is kept from being put behind. Your team can be aware if the enemy jungler is trying to steal their buff and react accordingly, meaning your jungler can go take the enemy's buff in return immediately instead of having to guess where they need to be. This prevents them losing an exorbitant amount of gold and experience and so keeps them on the same level of the enemy jungler, meaning you also benefit.

  3. You can potentially put the enemy jungler behind. If the enemy jungler walks up to try and take the buff and you're guarding it, you can take some free hits from him. Lower health means the jungler has to play more conservatively. The enemy jungler being forced to back off from taking the buff also means they have to walk back to their own, costing them both time and pressure.

Watching your jungler's buff offers all these things at the cost of nothing - it takes absolutely nothing from you to do this besides at most your first ward if you don't want to stand watch until 1:30.

You want to know the best part about this?

#This does not cost you any minions or any minion waves.

Walking to top lane from top-side buff while leaving at 1:30 (even up to 1:35) puts you back at top-lane before any minions can even be killed. There's still more than 10 seconds to spare even. That is a fucking massive margin for error.

This is called being a good teammate. It's called playing with and for your team. It's a practice in consideration for your teammates on top of just flat out increasing your chances at winning.

So be a good player. Watch your jungler's buff.

2 issues....now i cant dance in my lane for like 1:15 mins and 2.) that means im a teamplayer, which isnt what the league community is about :(

be happy i dont go TahmKench w/ summoner 11 and take yo shit!

Tychusfindlay9181 votes

Nope

Mokuto Bunshi1 votes

Decent PSA, Ill try this in my games.

IS1a35739310e64704643991 votes

No.

Chumpzi11a1 votes

If you can take domination runes, ghost poro can watch the buff for you. I personally ward the scuttle crab at 130.

rtbf906614561 votes

I'm gonna say no, because having that early ward allows me, personally, to make aggressive plays that usually nets me first blood at 2:20 ish and if i go ward the buff I can't do that without the fear of getting ganked

Arcanine191 votes

[{quoted}](name=Twilight Assault,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=rfrroEV4,comment-id=0012,timestamp=2018-06-04T23:23:28.764+0000)

I'm gonna say no, because having that early ward allows me, personally, to make aggressive plays that usually nets me first blood at 2:20 ish and if i go ward the buff I can't do that without the fear of getting ganked

You don't have to ward the buff, most times when the enemy jungler wants to take your jungler buffs they do that at lvl 1. If you are active in the game as soon as it starts you can rush into your jungle territory without any danger of invades and just watch the buff till 1.30

Radiant Wukong1 votes

I literally just take ghost poro and leave it at the blue buff.

SetInMotion1 votes

i also do this when my jg goes top [sg-ahri-2]

Arcanine191 votes

Some part of me wants to upvote this post. But as a main jungle that actually loves to cheese the enemy 1st buff I actually don't want top laners to do this x) (I usually ask my top lane to do it for me, without them needing to ward/ I tell them to ward because I will ward their lane bush afterwards)

TheCodeisCupCake1 votes

PSA TO JUNGLERS, STOP PINGING ME WHEN IM IN BASE AND U DIED AT THE ENEMIES BLUE BUFF HALF THE MAP AWAY AND GOING 'REPORT DARIUS FOR INT'.

LordGeovanni1 votes

I dont know why people stopped watch buffs in season 4. But i watch buffs too much alone while mid sits in lane doing nothing until time to farm enemy top and jungle will come down to steal i want to fight it but cant cause mid is dicking around because game doesnt start until minions crash obviously so i have to run dont mind it then my jungler who sees that the buff is taken never goes to steal the enemy buff to make sure that he evens it up. Ps dont come top for a leash ever dont care what jungler you are this screws top lane we arent bot with 2 ranged champions who sit back and heal up.

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