Counterjungling tips to silver players from a silver player

Just got back into jungle after a long break from it, and after brushing up on my jungling, figured id share a few little tricks that i know, some are obvious, but they all tie together to help deny the enemy jungler farm

Try not to know just where the enemy jungler started, but know what route they took. With the revamped jungle, there are quite a few different routes people take, and knowing their route will help you invade a lot safer, there are a few easy ways to do this

-the easiest way to find their route is obviously to watch which lane comes in late on their team, and knowing this you know they will probably clear their starting buff at the same time as you

-after you know where they started, you want to try to time their buffs, it all varies based on clear speed of their jungler and which route they took, me personally, im a fan of krugg, red, and if i got a good leash and have almost full health and a pot left after red ill rush blue then gank, if not ill clear raptors and back to go clear blue with jungle item and more pots... There are 2 main ways to find out their route, you can ward one of the camps (my preference is raptors for the simple fact of if they smite it, it instantly gets blown on the ward you placed there) or if its too risky for you to venture over there, you can wait for them to gank and target them, if both of their buffs are expiring at about the same time, they cleared them one after another, if say red buff is 3/4 gone and blue is 1/2 or less gone, you know they probably backed before going to clear the other, and that is the key to helping you react in kind, also check how the timers look relative to yours

-knowing the buff timers, you can set yourself up for a buff steal, which any jungler knows puts you behind immensely, you want to preferably be there and have it warded before they get there, so if they cleared one right after another and cleared the same speed as you, you can either get set up at their first camp when your first buff timer has about 5-10 seconds left, or at their second camp shortly after (be careful of trying to steal blue buff if they are giving to their mid laner obviously)... If they cleared one and backed before clearing the second, you should clear your first buff without smite, then quickly rush to theirs and get yourself set up for the steal *try to let your laners know upwards of 30 seconds in advance when and where you are going to be invading so they can either help or at least defend you if their lanes leave to help their jungle

in my personal opinion, your best bet if you arent a farm heavy jungler and your lanes are all pushed to enemy tower, is to try to invade and either steal a camp, kill their jungler, or place deep wards so you can countergank, there is no real point in trying to make a gank happen where its not going to work, if you can kill their jungler just before buff/dragon spawns that gives you a massive advantage, or spotting the jungler with a ward or smiting their wolves is an easy way to set up ganks and relieve pressure for your lanes by knowing where he is heading

-obviously the red and blue buffs are the best camps to steal, but if you spot him ganking top and you are in a position to steal while he is there, taking one of the other camps can hinder a jungler almost as much. If the enemy jungle is ganking a lot, stealing his raptors will limit his ward clearing power on your lanes, so that would be the camp i would suggest taking, if they are a farm heavy jungler who isnt good at dueling, you might want to try to take their wolves and smite them so you can get vision of them in their jungle

Always watch your smite cooldown along with your timers, since with season 5 being able to use your smite on champions if you have skirmisher or stalker upgrades, quite a few times ive seen junglers fighting over a buff or ganking and they blow their smite 20 seconds before dragon or baron spawns and that is a very bad situation for your team to be in

Let me know what you guys think, like i said, some is common sense, but i really think some of this stuff could help some less experienced junglers