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Jungling Help?

Mellori·3/12/2015, 5:39:31 AM·1 votes·1,057 views

I recently started attempting to learn jungle, and so far it's kinda been up and down. Granted, I've been learning it while playing with a couple under-30's (one's level 11 and one's 26) and a couple over-30's in a 5 man premade, but I don't know. I've lost so many jungling games I feel like I must be doing something wrong even if I can go 9/0 as Elise, 11/8 as Amumu, 14/3 as Diana and 16/5 as Fiddlesticks... but we still lose each game. If I do good, we usually lose. If we do bad, someone else carries me along... and we still lose.

Looking around online and talking to other people who jungle, I've been told so many different things. I've heard "If you plan to gank before 6, start red. If you plan to wait until 6, start blue." but then I've heard "If you're AP based or use mana, start blue. If you're AD based or don't have mana, start red"

Not only that, but I can't seem to gank right. I wait until the lane is pushed or is directly in front of the river, but they still get away even when I burn any CC I have (if any), and my smite. I can't seem to keep tabs on Dragon correctly. The enemy jungler walks all over my jungle and takes everything even if I'm ahead. I don't know what I'm doing wrong.

If it helps at all or you want to give champion-specific tips, I'm kinda looking at all the junglers right now, but my favorites and/or who I'm really looking at right now are as follows:

Amumu (I can never manage to not hit minions from the river with his bandage-grab. I swear. I've done well with him otherwise, though) Diana (I main her mid, so she's kinda easier for me to play) Elise (She's really fun, I've done pretty well with her so far. I just have trouble getting close enough to land her stun while hiding in the river bushes) Evelynn (She almost feels too squishy to play, then again I didn't realize you're kinda supposed to build all jungles bruiser-like lately to do well: or so I'm told.) Fiddlesticks (I have the easiest time ganking with Fids, but I still feel like I'm not doing it right) Hecarim (Haven't bought him yet, but I heard he's strong.) Nidalee (I tried her once, didn't go very well. I've played her mid and top and done really well, but for some reason, I can't play her jungle yet.) Nocturne (Same as Hecarim; Haven't bought him yet but I've heard he's strong.) RekSai (She looks fun. Same as Hecarim and Nocturne; haven't bought, heard good things though) Shyvana (Used to play her top, haven't jungled with her yet) Shaco (Just bought him today.) Vi (I have a friend who jungles with her and she looks really strong, don't have her yet though.)

Any tips are really appreciated. I want to add jungle to the list of lanes I can play well (currently only mid and support).

9 Comments

MrPerson103/12/2015, 5:54:24 AM1 votes

Amumu If you can't land bandage toss, suggest a different jungler and staying away from skillshots in general

Evelynn best built as an AD bruiser with item 3153, adding to her slows and early assassinations in combination with her passive

Fiddlesticks Try coming in behind the enemy laner and fearing them into the direction of your turret, coupled with your drain

Hecarim Recently picked him up myself, I find him strange to use as it's a different style than I'm used to but he's fairly effective in the early game, decent in the mid and doesn't really fall off late as hard as others like Pantheon

Nocturne His kit looks nice at first glance, but really isn't that great. Can be easily avoided pre-6. Post-6, keeping track of his ult timer leaves him useless.

RekSai Haven't played her enough to say definitively, I just don't like her inability to really go one way or the other as a clear ideal build path unlike others that fill a similar role. Engages for a single knockup and relatively mediocre amounts of damage if built tanky, or gets melted otherwise. I've yet to see her built bruiser, can't speak there.

Vi Currently one of the strongest jungles there is. Can lvl 2 dragon with ease, can be a serious early game threat, offers a diverse enough kit with high base damages.

As for where you start, it has nothing to do with what your champ "needs," your first clear shouldn't be dependant on buffs (with few exceptions; Red helps Pantheon sustain a great deal) though you'll usually pick up both by the time you go to gank and should be starting on the bottom side of the map, working towards top in most scenarios. The point of this is two-fold. First, you get a more effective leash with less taxing on your bottom lane than you would from your top. Second, if your top was counterpicked or goes into a hard lane, they can clear the minicamp close to them for an early level 2 - by the time you get there, it will have respawned anyway.

Don't forget, kills mean nothing in a 50 minute game. Kills are only to get ahead and get fed enough that you can take objectives and close out by mid-game before the enemy can even out in scales. Your KDA is irrelevent if you did nothing all game towards objectives.

turtlecoon3/12/2015, 10:14:19 AM1 votes

You usually want to start at the bot side buff to get a stronger leash. If the enemy jungler is like a Lee Sin or Shaco, though, and you're afraid of getting invaded at your second buff, then just reverse your order and start at the top side buff instead.

Jungling at a high level is complex, but jungling at a decent solo queue level is quite simple.

All about efficiency - if you aren't ganking, you want to be farming. If you aren't farming, you want to be ganking. Minimize time spent sitting in bushes or just running back and forth looking for lanes to gank. Rotate in the jungle farming, and constantly click to your lanes to see if anything nearby is gankable.
When you can do that, start to think about where the enemy jungler might be heading. If he's a weak clearer, do you have an opportunity to walk into his jungle and kill him? Do you have a lane that's mega overextended without wards? Consider hanging nearby incase of a gank.

After a successful gank, look to see if you can grab dragon or a turret. Also, especially after a successful gank early in the game, check whether or not you should shove the wave out with your laner. If he's low and needs to back, you want to help him quickly shove the wave. If he's fine, it's probably better to leave it to him to decide of he wants to push or freeze.

Also, as for getting really good scores and losing - that has absolutely nothing to do with jungling, lol. Once laning phase ends it becomes almost irrelevant what role you started the game as. You're probably just not functioning well in the late teamfight phase, which is a different story entirely from jungling.

WeAreAlpharius3/12/2015, 8:55:16 PM1 votes

My personal favorite junglers on this list are Hecarim , Vi , andDiana . out of these 3 champions, Vi is probably the easiest to play overall. She has great pressure to put on the map and HUGE damage to output at an early level if you can land her Q. The best of these champions in terms of scaling and post 6 pressure is definitely Hecarim . He scales incredibly into the late game because if he can safely farm, then he basically becomes unkillable in a well organized teamfight. The only thing i need to remind myself of is that Hecarim needs summoner 6. If you get the opportunity to farm on Hecarim , take it. He has a late game scaling similar to that of a jax, and the initiation power and tankiness similar to that of a tank.Diana is just overall a very powerful mid game fighter that has assassin capabilities but the base stats of a light bruiser. At 6 you just go into a lane and kill someone. Get a few AP items and try to end the game before 35 minutes. But all of these champions that i went into a bit of depth of are mid-late game champions and are indeed carry junglers by definition. in terms of early pressure, i think Elise is one of the strongest ones. (She's really not that good in this meta sadly though. if you really want a difficult early pressure high damage jungler, LeeSin is a better choice in most ways even though he's not really a meta pick either.) just try to land a cocoon starting at level 3 and gank constantly. Every cocoon with proper follow up should be a kill. These are just the junglers that i find to be most effective. Nocturne Has his place, but it's very hard to find that place. His job in times of item 3154 was to farm and kill all the time starting @ lvl 6 but with the now nerfed item 3726 , it's kinda hard to farm it all up enough to scale super well with stacks while still maintaining a decent lane presence. Fiddlesticks is primarily a matter of getting a good ulti off. If you can gank bottom lane with him at level 6 and there is no ward in gank bush, you can get an easy double kill. The thing difficult about Fiddlesticks is that landing his ultimate is absolutely 100% required. In teamfights late game, you can single handedly change the entire face of the game and win it, but those ultis are very difficult for me personally to pull off, so i don't play fiddlesticks much. RekSai is interesting. not really easy to play like everyone says. you have your tools for ganking at level 3, so you have to take advantage and snowball using those as well as you can. Amumu is similar to Fiddlesticks in that a good ultimate can win a whole game. But Amumu is also far more forgiving and easier to play, with the tradeoff that he has no real sustain. These champions are the ones that i really know on this list. I'm sorry if i left anything out or didn't quite fully answer your question, but this is what i know. :)

BigIdea3/13/2015, 5:16:33 PM1 votes

except for the 1st round of jungle camp clearing, i dont think there is any standard play that will be applicable every single game. effective jungling requires a lot of judgement. it's really important to anticipate where the opposing jungler and even the rest of his team will be at any point and base your own actions off your expectations.

for instance, if your top laner has shoved his opponent into his tower, there's a good chance the opposing jungler will attempt a gank top, so it might be a good idea to rotate top for a possible countergank.

it's also important to know whether or not to assist lanes. you would be better off farming your jungle than assisting a losing lane if you cant guarantee kills, regardless of how much your laners demand assistance. you also reveal your positioning to the opposing jungler by showing up in lanes and he may counter jungle you.

also, it helps to know the abilities and the CD's of both your laners and opposing laners. move into lane when your enemy's escape is down or when your laner's CC ability is up.

also know your own power spikes.

it's really hard to give advice without specific context since a jungler should always be improvising. i can spectate a game if you want, just add in game.