From One Jungler to Another.

If you're reading this, I'm going to assume that you're at least halfway interested in learning how to be a jungler, or possibly already have your heart set on being one but aren't sure where to start. I'm by no means a super good player, I have good matches and bad matches, usually more bad than good. If you were to look up my profile, the only team I'm on that's done their provisionals ended up Bronze V, and I've been avoiding doing solo queue ranked because it honestly just doesn't seem like it's worth the effort for me right now. I'm not perfect, and I'm not claiming to be the best, but I had to start somewhere Learning how to jungle was perhaps the most difficult part of learning League of Legends that I've come to face, and in many ways I'm still learning it. In fact, I used to hate it. The thought of playing in the jungle was far from my mind, I just wanted to make sure I kept my farm up in lane, and when I needed help that whoever WAS jungling came to my aide. I felt more comfortable in lane, but as I realized that being basically trapped in a lane reduced my tactical contributions I started learning the jungle instead.

My first few matches were terrible. Even playing as Warwick I had a bad time making my way through the pathways that were to be my new home. Previously they'd just been something for me to sightsee on my way to defend an objective, and it took some time to adjust. I learned to love the jungle and the advantages it brings to anyone who enjoys playing mind games with opponents or forcing strategic advantages. I might not be right about all of it, and if I find this post a year from now when I'm hopefully a much better player I might shake my head at myself, but these are just some concepts I've come to grasp onto where I am currently. So these are just some tips, from one jungler to another, to help you get started or possibly to help you improve how you play if you already have.

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Index (CTRL+F for specific sections):

Runes are everything Know your roles

• Tank
• Fighter
• Assassin
• Mage

Knowledge is power Vision Secure objectives Do what you feel you need to

1. Runes are everything - Well, at least in the early game. If you ever need to understand why, try surviving your first clear without all those wonderful tier 3 armor seals, and good luck getting solid clear times without your offensive marks and quints. A lot of the reason that you don't see people jungling at lower levels during the climb to 30 is because you just lack the sufficient pregame resources to make sure that jungling is even viable. Even with full sets of runes once you've hit that point, depending on the champion you're playing, you might still have to back after a clear or two and it's absolutely terrible to see a lane that you could possibly gank after finishing off wraiths only to realize that your health is far too low to safely go in for it. Do yourself a favor, and make sure that you've got solid rune set ups and try and go for a variety of pages, at least the most that you can. Pages don't come cheap, so make the most of what you have. If you've only got the standard two, have one that's AD and one that's AP, along with armor seals, and MR/level glyphs (by level 6 you’re getting more out of them than flat runes). As you get more start to sprinkle in more situational pages.

http://i.imgur.com/xkAIPho.png

These are my own set ups, and what I would recommend for anyone who’s a bit lacking when it comes to rune pages. I’m a bit more of an offensive, aggressive player, so I don’t have a tank page personally, and these are only suggestions, but take what you want from them. An attack speed page for AA based champs, AP pages that help you to hit a bit harder through spell pen, possibly one that has more tank than any Rammus has the right to shove down someone's throat, give yourself a variety of things to work with because as a jungler you'll be filling a variety of roles, which brings me to my next point:

2. Learn your roles - Most players, by the time they hit level 30, are familiar with the basic concepts behind the roles in League. ADCs are there to right click harder than anyone else, APCs melt the opposition with particle effects, and tanks sit there in the middle of teamfights spamming their taunt. The basic ideas behind each of the roles are simple enough, but the application can be much more difficult. As a jungler, you end up filling out the roster with much more freedom than other roles. ADCs will always be squishy but damaging, APCs are the same. Support gets some variety between tank, a wee bit of damage, and various... well, supporty type things (CC, heals, buffs.) The top lane is usually either a fighter or a tank. Depending on what the different laners pick though, you have an incredible array of roles to fill in any one given match.

Say you get a tanky Garen in the top lane and the support goes Leona, another tank. 2/5s of your team are already playing tanks so you can afford to give up some survivability, which opens you up to playing more damaging roles like a fighter, my personal favorite, or an assassin. If the top lane wants to be a fighter, and the support ends up going for a squishier but more CC heavy champ, you might want to consider taking a highly disruptive tank into the fray instead. Don't be afraid of any role and learn the merits available in all of them, and where best to apply which of them. This is a small guide to help you better decide based on my own understanding of roles that are common in the jungle.

• Tank - Probably the most simple of the set. You're there to be a damage sponge, and it's your job to essentially babysit the more fragile team members in a fight. Tanks tend to have some form of CC available for them to use. Learn who to target with your CC during fights because if anyone, YOU are the guy that's gonna make that first blow. Making sure you get that solid knockup on the enemy carries to lock them down for that fraction of a second it takes your team to take them out can make all the difference. Solid tank picks have a mix of CC and AoE abilities. Some of my personal favorites for this role are and , with close behind them. However, your slow clear times make you vulnerable to losing camps to enemy junglers, and you will usually spend more time farming, at least during the early game, and less time ganking.

  Recommended builds for a tanky jungler are a into and , appropriate boots for the match, and then to stack as much resistances and health as you can depending on the playstyle of the tank. , , and are some of the better choices available, with being an early priority for any champions that specifically require mass amounts of health to be effective. If there are two or three champions on the enemy team who are heavily AA reliant, a can be incredibly destructive but reserved for mid to late game as having more than 300 armor will generally deal more damage to squishies than they deal to you.

• Fighter - Arguably the most versatile of the roles you have available, and my own personal favorite. The fighter's job is to mix bulk and power to make a force to be reckoned with on the fields. You can nearly delete squishies without any help, barring a clutch escape on their part, and you're just bulky enough to survive long enough to stay on someone in a teamfight with proper focusing and assistance from your team. You mix the distractions of the tank with the damage output of the assassin, and can lean more towards one or the other depending on what the team, or more specifically you, end up needing. A good fighter should, with proper skill use and focus, be able to 2v1 other players as long as it's not entirely skewed in their favor due to their abilities, or their build/level being far ahead. Get your double, steal red, walk out of the enemy jungle leaving nothing but a ward and bodies in your wake. A good fighter should have a solid mix of AoE abilities and single target damage. , , , and are some of my favorite choices for fighters.

  Builds for a fighter in the jungle are incredibly varied, and you have most of the item shop to work with if you deem fit. You should have a small priority over damage, usually building one or two damage items first, and then going into more defensive options. If you're doing incredibly well, or your team doesn't need as much tankiness on it, you can build another damage item or two, but always make sure that you've got enough survability to get the job done.

  Recommended builds are a into either or , depending on the champion, and then items like , , , or . Solid defensive options are , , , , and .

• Assassin - I would say that this is probably the most difficult role to play in the jungle, and one that I'm still perfecting my plays with. No one should see you coming, and the only thing that should be left is their QQs in the allchat. Assassins generally have high damage abilities, and at least some small escape mechanics. While they may have some CC it's generally more focused towards locking down single opponents to unload their unholy levels of burst upon than for contributing to team fights in a more broad sense. However, as a result ganking at lower percentages of health can be risky, and when your abilities are off cooldown you're at a serious disadvantage. In early levels you're also very vulnerable to counter jungling, as a fighter or a tank can simply make your life hell. You've yet to get to the point where you're doing the sort of significant single target damage you will later in the game, and they can carve away at you before you can eat them.

  If you can get through the shaky early game though, you can probably start getting in some solid ganks. However, you lack the survivability of the fighter, and the aiding CC of the tank, so you have to be more careful. If a lane isn't pushed up, it might not be a good idea gank it as it isn't particularly safe for you to attempt a tower dive like you could with a tank or a fighter. If possible, and assuming they don't have wards, wait in a position where you can easily get where you need to be in a lane, and watch for when the enemy laner has popped a spell or two; they're now significantly weaker for about ten seconds or so while they get their full kit back. Assassins can need some of the most help getting going, and a good laner will understand that and give you an early kill or two in order to get that snowball rolling. If you fall behind as an assassin, you will feel it, and you have to either play smarter to try and net kills or relinquish some of your sweet, sweet damage potential for some durability to help you out. Some of my favorites to play as assassins are , , and .

  As an Assassin your only priority should be damage; overwhelming, unrelenting, instagibbing single target damage. Recommended builds are a into or depending on your damage type, and then to load yourself up on single target damage. This is where being an Assassin can be tricky, as there are very different focuses for each one. can provide overwhelming single target damage by combining a with and , but a does better with and a , , or a .

  • Mage - Although not as common as more AD oriented roles in the jungle, mages can serve several niches at any given time. Mages in the jungle are no simple task, so this section will be slightly more in depth than the previous three, and I will be condensing the various niches they can play in lieu of separate sections for the specific variations given the similarities to the above roles.

  There may be times when it can be necessary to bring AP to a team (the midlaner decides to play an AD based champion mostly) or when you might just want to mix things up a bit. A mage is the best way to do so. An incredibly varied group, mages tend to dabble in several different roles at a time, mostly depending on the champion being played, and can land anywhere on the spectrum from tank to squishy caster while still retaining a few key functions. However, this is not a role that I would suggest for someone who is initially picking up how to play as a jungler for several reasons I will go over later. But first, the advantages.

  In general, mages will come with a healthy mix of potentially high damage abilities and hard crowd controls. As a result they end up playing secondary damage roles to the APC. In trade they excel at locking down out of position, priority, or otherwise targeted enemies and dealing magic damage via single target or AoE abilities, and most can do so from a safe distance. Providing an interesting mix of both offensive magic damage and defensive tank stats when necessary, mages can make it difficult for an enemy team to itemize against, and can generally take on more opponents through the midgame as a result due to this small mindgame. Taking a mage into the jungle throws a wrench into the enemy team in two major ways:

  • They are forced to respond to having twice as much magic damage on your team by sacrificing the normally prioritized bulk amounts of armor for some early MR as well, making them more susceptible to AD based teammates.

  • They opt to stick to what would normally be a core build path and finish major armor items before purchasing any MR, making them more susceptible to both yourself and the APC instead.

  Something that most people learn very early on is that while the average player is familiar with the concepts of counter building, most still fall into certain set patterns based on what they deem their core build is for their champions. Putting an AP based jungle roaming the map instead of an AD can throw most low level players off quite easily, while also making higher leveled players have to make a difficult decision with itemization order. In addition, mages will bring twice as much magic damage, twice as much CC, or both, to teamfights. If done properly, both a mage jungler and an APC can rip apart the ranks of an enemy team by working in tandem. Some of my favorites for playing in more damaging roles are , , and , while , , and make for excellent tank mages.

  However, playing a mage in the jungle can be risky for newcomers to the role for as many reasons as they bring advantages to the team. First and foremost being that they are some of the most susceptible, save for a few key exceptions, to early counter jungling. In early jungle fights, a mage's cooldowns, even with blue, can be much too long to get as many as would be necessary to win, and they don't pack enough punch with auto attacks to hold their own against early game fighters or assassins. Tying in with this, the first few clears in the jungle can be painfully slow and resource management, even with blue buff active, can make or break your ability to balance clearing the jungle and ganking lanes. Blue buff is an absolute requirement for most mages, and this can cause an issue if your midlane needs second or third blue as one of you will have to go without. Many mages also have iffy ganks pre-six, making this a very farm heavy role, especially if the champion requires the . Mages tend to be reliant on skillshots for much of their crowd control or AoE damage, which can make solid ganks and consistent damage hard to reliably pull off. Missing either a damaging spell or a possible stun can turn what could have been a double for an ADC into a lost opportunity and a counter gank from the enemy jungler. While this is certainly not a role that is as easy to pick up on as the more AD oriented ones, it brings many advantages if you can cope with the disadvantages.

  Recommended builds for jungle mages are either the or build paths depending on your intended place on the damage to tank scale, and past that they share the similarity to the fighter role of having much of the item shop available to use. Boots are half dependent on the champion, half on the enemy team, but are necessary if you aim to play as a damage dealer. More common items are , , and for damage oriented builds, or , , and for more defensive focuses alongside standard defensive items. Mages have access to several build paths, usually more dependent upon the champion being played than the enemy team. While and both usually end up in damaging roles, Fiddlesticks favors spell vamp, CDR, and pure AP while Elise gets more from spell pen and synergizes well with a mix of defensive stats and AP. on the other hand benefits much more from on hit effects like or and activated items like .

The junglers that you will learn to play will usually fall under one of those three roles. The way that each jungler fulfills each role is different, and it's up to you to understand which you need to fill what role in what way. Because segues are hard, that will bring me to my next point:

3. Knowledge is power - League of Legends is a game about knowledge, there's no other way to cut it. It doesn't matter how high you can set your mouse, or how much damage you're doing if you don't know who to focus in a fight, or why it is that the Rammus you're attacking seems to do more damage to you than you do to him. There's an entire item shop's worth of stats to learn, if not memorize, and on top of that there's well over a hundred champions in the game that you have to be familiar with, even if you don't intend to ever play them. You have to know what the enemy team is bringing to know what you need to bring as well. The best advice that I was given was "the best way to beat a champion is to know a champion." There is nothing more frustrating than losing to an enemy and not being able to understand why it happened. Learn what champions do, I’d suggest spending some time on the wiki to familiarize yourself with their skills and builds, and better prepare yourself to face them. But while you're learning other champions, you should be mastering your own.

Start with the ones you like, ones who have characteristics that you can get behind, say things that you enjoy, or have kits that you find particularly enjoyable. Not every champion is for everyone one, and while you should become acquainted with the mechanics of all the champions, you won't find all of them to your liking. By starting with the ones you do enjoy you give yourself a solid head start on the learning curve.

As an example, is an amazing AoE fighter. Against a team of squishier champions she can be the stuff of nightmares with a wealth of AoE abilities and her natural survivability. But she's easily locked down, so against more CC heavy teams she isn't the safest bet. , on the other hand, is also a fighter, but she comes with CC of her own, and a respectable amount of AoE damage although a bit less. Whereas has to run into a fight and risks getting locked down by a snare or a stun, can simply target a squishy with her ult and let her natural survivability carry her through the ensuing teamfight as her team capitalizes on the opening she's created. Both of them can be played as either fighters or tanks, but both of them do so in different ways.

Don't be afraid of any of the champions, either. Even the ones that you might not like at first, you might come to enjoy once you’ve learned them. , for example, can feel odd to many players, but is a very strong choice in the jungle. While I wouldn’t suggest learning a champion just because it’s what the pros play, there is a reason that some champions become more popular than others. Learning how to play junglers that are considered high tier pics can greatly improve your games. Many champions can sub as junglers, and they all bring different things to a fight. Become familiar with how all the champions work, so you can look at an enemy team and easily narrow down your choices alongside what your own team is picking.

4. Vision - I don't have a transition for this one. If you can't see, you don't know what's happening. It should go without saying that darkness is bad, and light is good. Just as Mufasa said to Simba, "Everything the light touches is our kingdom." Only in this case, the kingdom is the Fields of Justice, and everything you can see you can steal... granted you have smite available. As a jungler, you have the ability to travel anywhere you want on the map, and while it may not be the best idea to go foraging for double golems in the wilds of the enemy jungle, it might be a solid one to risk walking a bit in from the river to drop a ward at the bushes near top, or near their blue buff. Whether you’re giving yourself defensive vision by warding crucial areas for your laners or keeping your own jungle well lit, or warding offensively by trying to track the movements of an enemy jungler, just make sure you’re getting as much vision as you can for every part of a game. Remember though that warding isn’t just the job of a support or a jungler. Laners have a free ward now via their trinket. You might be able to forgo that for a to help you get in better ganks as an assassin or to counterjungle, and can simply buy wards as you need.

You should be learning to always watch your map as well. Laners can tend to tunnel vision at times when they're under a bit of pressure, and there's nothing wrong with that; they need to defend themselves first and foremost. But in the jungle, while you're idly hacking away at red buff, you can spare a glance. When you start moving through the jungle, be checking your map. If you play locked like I do, unlock the camera for a bit and scroll around to take in the state of the board, then relock it when necessary. A jungler shouldn't miss a single blip of an enemy champion popping up on the minimap; your danger ping could be the difference between saving your botlane from a 3v2 gank and having them bait the enemy to stay around long enough for you and the midlane to turn it into a 4v3 in your favor. The more you see, the more knowledge you have to go off of. And like we covered earlier, knowledge is power.

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So you know about the roles, you know about the champions, and you're learning how best to make sure you've got your eye on the entire game. What do you do with this?

5. Secure objectives - As much emphasis as is put on kills (kills = gold = doing better than the enemy), no amount of kills will end a match. This isn't Call of Duty, and that 25 and 0 isn't going to be dropping a tactical nuke on you anytime soon. In order to win a match of League of Legends, you have to take objectives:

• Three outer turrets
• three inner turrets
• three inhibitor turrets
• three inhibitors
• two nexus turrets
• one big, glowing nexus with that sweet, sweet 50g just waiting for your lucky last hit.

Your shortest path to victory is seven objectives: the two field turrets one inhib turret, and inhib in any given lane, then the two nexus turrets and the nexus, but that might not always be the easiest path. Learning to put pressure on lanes accordingly and helping your laners to push can secure turrets, and as you get better with your map awareness you'll find yourself learning to predict enemy movements. If you're playing a tankier character and there's no teamfight imminent, draw attention by pushing up top lane so your minions can start taking the inner turret while your ADC and APC team up to push the mid turret. Start giving your enemies no right answer in how to approach the situations you will learn to force on them.

Alongside the objectives required to complete the game, make sure you're securing your own personal objectives in the jungle. They've recently patched in timers, a welcome addition, that show you your own buff timers so you can always be there when you need to be, and if you get vision of enemy buff camps you can also get a timer up for when theirs will come up as well. Use these to your advantage, because losing buffs is crippling for a jungler. Learn the best times to secure a dragon kill for that team gold, and when it's a good idea to bring your team top for a Baron fight. In addition, learn how to use to your advantage times when enemies are doing the same. If they're spread thin trying to push lanes, use this to get kills by ganging up on ones who are caught out. If you have vision of Baron and Dragon (which you should with help from your team) swoop in at the last second with your team to steal Baron, mop up what he's left of their team, and march off to grab an inhib or two. Even if you can't hit that last smite and the enemy team gets it, you can still walk away with four or five kills to your team's name.

Honestly though, as much as you need to learn all of these things, the single most important piece of advice I can give to you outside of mechanics is to

6. Do what you feel you need to - It's your jungle. Teammates should know that you will need help with your first camp, and after they've helped you they're going to expect help of their own at some point or another. In fact, the first thing that you'll come to notice when you change mindset from being a laner to a first time jungler is that laners are needy. You haven't seem complaining until the still trying to run Blue Ez is feeding bottom lane, or your top keeps overextending to try and get early kills only to be punished for it. And it'll be your fault that you weren't there to save them, at least unless you're playing with decent people. Many times, playing as a jungler can feel like babysitting. You can have three lanes crying for ganks while you’re trying to farm up jungle camps, and it can get infinitely worse when you have to entirely cover lanes.

Never feel pressured to help a lane if you don't think that you can. No mixture of movement speed and abilities is going to get you from blue side double golems to top lane when a rushes out of the river bush to gang up on that feeding . You benefit a lot more from learning how to give constructive criticism and guide laners from afar, via chat or pings, while you handle your own business until the time comes for a gank. Try and figure out for yourself who you should be helping more: a toxic who's already six under might not be the best choice to try and get caught up, but that 4 and 3 in the mid lane has been awful nice. Give her your second or third blue, and help her to get farther ahead. She'll contribute far more to teamfights than will, and you'll get kills and assists of your own along the way. Getting one or two other teammates ahead can make up for one who's behind, and they can catch up later on by being careful during teamfights. It only takes them one auto attack or connected ability to get points for the assist.

No one should make you feel pressured to do anything. This isn't to say that you won't feel pressured, nor that you should entirely abandon lanes, only that you shouldn't let your team make decisions for you. Just like everyone else on the team, you have a job to do. A jungler who sits in the jungle might never die, but you won't help the team much either. Learn the balance between the two. You may not like that top laner who didn't leash you blue, but if there's an enemy breathing down their turret it's a safe bet to say that a well-placed gank could assure one of you a kill, and the other an assist. Learn to take feedback on how you're doing and better apply your growing skills in the jungle, while using your new oversight over the entire state of the game to better guide your laners. Just like in lane, handle your area your own way and use the freedom you have to your advantage. There is no role with as much variety, tactical importance, or strategic advantages than the jungle and it's up to you to decide how best to use what you have.

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And with that, I wish you the best of luck.

If you liked what I had to say here, let me know, or if you're a better player than I am and think I missed or was wrong on something, feel free to say so. If anyone is ever interested in some hands on practice, I'm more than happy to help you learn jungle paths and champion mechanics if you friend me and ask.

This has been your League of Legends Jungler spotlight.