Welcome to the Jungle: A Jungle Guide for New Players

Introduction The jungle is one of the five 'lanes' in League of Legends, the others being Top, Mid, AD Carry and Support. Jungle is probably the most unique,as rather than directly facing an opponent in combat, the jungler fights camps of neutral monsters to gain gold and experience, then supports his team with objective control and surprise attacks on lanes (ganks). While it is very different from the other lanes, the jungle is probably the easiest to play, though possibly the hardest to master. An excellent jungle is indispensable, as he can both become fed himself and snowball the other lanes.

Why a Jungler?

At first glance, the jungle seems unnecessary. Wouldn't it be more effective to send two top or mid, or even three bottom? These are actually viable strategies, as they are usually unexpected and poorly countered, but a jungler is ultimately more effective for three reasons:

1. Gold There are a finite number of enemy minions that spawn in a certain amount of time, and splitting those between two tops or mids hugely cuts into those players' income, while jungle camps are just sitting there unused.
2. Ganks While the pressure exerted by 2v1 lanes can be impressive, smart enemies can survive fairly easily while still getting a decent amount of farm under tower. The kill potential of a surprise gank is far larger and can be applied to every lane throughout the early game instead of only one.
3. Objective Control Junglers are key to controlling objectives like Dragon and Baron, as well as jungle buff monsters. By placing wards, killing rift scuttlers, and sometimes being able to solo kill objectives (especially Dragon), a jungler can make sure these important objectives go to his team and not the enemy.

Smite

Smite is a summoner spell, like Flash or Teleport. It is key to any jungler. At its most basic level it deals 390 - 1000 true damage (depending on the caster’s level) to a single neutral monster or enemy minion, on a 75 second cooldown, storing up to two charges. This allows the jungler to more quickly and safely clear his jungle and steal/secure objectives because of the large amount of damage it deals. Additionally, smiting jungle monsters gives unique buffs depending on the monster smited, and special, very useful, jungle items can only be built when smite is chosen as a summoner spell. These items further improve the value of smite, giving the spell new features like area damage or a slow that can be used on champions.

The Citizens of the Jungle

These neutral monsters are a jungler’s main source of gold and experience, and each comes with its own unique buffs from smite. Knowing about them is a good first step to jungling. These camps first spawn at 1:55 into the game, and respawn intermittently after they are fully cleared (be careful - leaving even one small monster alive will prevent the camp from respawning.) Gromp

This frog-looking thing is alone at its camp. It isn’t particularly dangerous, and has a moderate amount of health and damage with its ranged attack. Smiting it grants Gift of the Toadstool, which deals damage to anyone who attacks the jungler. This buff is useful when clearing the jungle or for tanks and fighters who want to deal more damage in teamfights while soaking damage.

Wolves

This camp contains three wolves, one large one and two smaller ones. It is probably the easiest camp to kill, but has the least useful smite effect. Smiting wolves creates an untargetable ghost-ward that floats around the area, floating over to follow enemies who enter. This can be kind of useful if your jungle is being invaded by the enemy jungler and you want to know where they are, but it is usually better to save your smite for more useful buffs.

Raptors

This camp is surprisingly hard to kill, as these little birds do a lot of damage. The camp contains one large bird and three small birds, all of whom have ranged attacks and actually hit quite hard. This camp is very easy for champions with area damage, however, as they can kill the small birds quickly. This camp also has an awesome smite bonus. Smiting raptors gives a buff that grants true sight and an alert when you are spotted by a ward. Smite raptors before you go to gank or invade the enemy jungle, and you’ll be able to clear out enemy vision. If you are spotted by a ward with the buff active, purple waves will come off of your champion and you’ll temporarily gain the ability to see wards - go look around in bushes near you and kill the ward before the buff expires for free money and all-important vision control!

Krugs

This camp contains two rock monsters, a small one and a large one. They deal relatively low damage and have moderate health. Smiting them grants Gift of Heavy Hands, causing every 6th autoattack against minions or monsters to stun the target. This buff can also be consumed by attacking a tower, which will deal true damage to the tower. This smite buff is mostly used early on to conserve health during early jungle clears.

Red Brambleback (Red Buff)

This monster is one of the two types of buff monster, which are stronger than the other camps. The camp contains a large Red Brambleback and two little monsters. This camp has a smite bonus of restoring a large chunk of health, which can be extremely useful, particularly on a first clear on champions with bad sustain. However, the main attraction is the ‘red buff’, the Crest of Cinders, which is given to whomever kills the Brambleback. This buff lets the carrier apply a debuff to victims of his autoattacks, which slows the target and deals a small amount of true damage over time. This buff is fantastic for ganking lanes, with extra damage and slows, as well as for dueling enemy junglers if you happen to run into them. Be warned, though - if you die, this buff will be transferred to your killer - and your laners will not be happy if you die and give this buff to their enemies! Late game, you’ll probably want to try to give this buff to your marksman or other auto-attack focused champion.

Blue Sentinel (Blue Buff)

Like the Red Buff, this monster is tougher than most and comes with two small minion monsters. Smiting it will restore a large chunk of mana, though this is not usually advisable because killing the monster grants the Blue Buff (Crest of Insight) which grants ridiculous mana regeneration (so you’ll get full mana soon anyway) and an unholy amount of Cooldown Reduction (20%!) This buff is awesome for your first clear, letting you spam spells to kill camps more quickly and safely without running out of mana. Again, it transfers on death, so watch out. After you take this buff once or twice, offer it to your mid laner (help them kill it, though, don’t just make them fight it), as they will be able to spam their abilities and not run out of mana. If your midlaner is manaless, like Yasuo or Katarina, you can probably keep the buff for yourself, however, or offer it to a support or toplaner late game.

Rift Scuttler: Location: Wandering the river near Dragon and Baron This little crab doesn’t fight back, and just runs about as you attack. Easy to kill, but grants very little experience (but good gold). The main purpose of this is that once killed, the crab creates a temporary ward near the entrance to Baron or Dragon (depending on which side the crab was on) that grants vision and boosts the speed of allies near it. This allows for great control of Dragon or Baron, and they should be killed whenever you’re worried about the enemy trying to take one of these objectives, or if you want to take the objective, as the speed shrine can be handy if a fight breaks out.

Clearing the Jungle The first clear of the jungle is the hardest, but also the most important. There are a great variety of routes that can be taken to do so, but here are a few that will work with most any jungler and get the jungler off to a strong start. A few general tips: -Leashes Always let your team know where you’re starting so that they can come help you on your first camp (‘leash’). They should not be the ones taking damage from the monster but can offer some extra damage and possibly stuns or whatever.

-Invades Sometimes a team will rush the opposing jungle to try to get kills or steal buffs. Be careful of this! If you get invaded, don’t be afraid to run away, particularly if you’re outnumbered. If they manage to take over your camp, just start on the other side of your jungle (switch Gromp with Krugs, Blue with Red, and Raptors with Wolves in the routes below) and possibly try to steal the enemy buff. If your buff is missing when you get there, it probably got stolen - kill any monsters they left in the camp and continue on. You’ll be a bit behind, but you can get back in the game.

-Executes If a jungle monster kills you, you will be shown as ‘executed’. Don’t panic - you don’t lose your buffs if this happens, and the enemy team gets no gold. It is purely a time setback. Try to avoid this, but if it happens, don’t worry too much.

-When to Smite Usually, you’ll want to smite a camp at the start of the fight to get the buff as quickly as possible. However, wait until you won’t waste healing or mana before smiting Red or Blue.

Route 1: Level 4 Clear This is the best clear to use on junglers with extremely strong sustain (Fiddlesticks, Warwick, etc.) or junglers who want to farm up their jungle more than gank (Master Yi, Tryndamere, etc.). The route is: Gromp (Smite) > Blue Buff > Wolves > Red Buff (Smite) > Raptors This clear can be difficult for junglers who don’t have very good sustain or clear speed (particularly ones that were not intended to be junglers, like Kayle or Twisted Fate).

Route 2: Level 3 Clear My personal favorite clear, used on my mains, Vi and Hecarim. Best for junglers with decent clears and strong level three ganks (like the above Vi and Hecarim). The route is: Gromp (Smite) > Blue Buff > Red Buff ( Smite) > Gank After the gank, recall and then clear out the rest of your jungle (after buying items, of course!)

Route 3: Level 2 Clear A bit of a cheese strategy that requires some jungle experience and the right champion, but can be highly effective if done right. The ‘route’ is very simple: Red or Blue Buff (Smite) > Gank This strategy is mostly used with junglers with crazy strong early ganks that work at level 2 (Shaco or Xin Zhao come to mind), when the enemy has an easy to gank mid or top and your top or mid also brings a strong level 2 (Riven, LeBlanc). After the gank, recall and get back to the jungle before you lose much ground.

Route 4: Red Steal This route is a bit trickier and has a lot of potential to go wrong, but most of the time it will work out and annoy their jungler enormously, as long as you have a good clear and movespeed (Shaco, Nunu, etc.). It is similar to the level 3 clear, but with a twist: Gromp (Smite) > Blue Buff > ENEMY Red Buff (Smite) > gank/return to your jungle/whatever This is a great clear if you know their jungler is really dependant on Blue Buff and will definitely start there (Amumu, Fiddlesticks). Try to sneak over to their red during the first 1:20 or so and put a ward on it so that you can abort if they do end up starting red. A variation, best used on strong dueling junglers (Shaco, Xin Zhao, Riven, etc.) involves killing Gromp and Blue and then camping in the bushes near red buff, and waiting until the enemy jungler engages their red. Wait until the buff is low health, then smite it to steal it, jump on the enemy, and kill them. This is risky and will probably cause the enemy jungler to have a personal vendetta against you, but can be effective.

Ganking Once you’ve cleared out the jungle, it’s time to go inflict a gank on the enemy team. Check the minimap - of the lanes you’re near, which one is pushed farther? It is easier to gank a lane if the enemy is pushed up to your tower, so head over to the more pushed lane. Ping the enemy a couple times and say something in chat to let your laner know you’re headed in, then rush in and try to burst down the enemy laner. It sounds simple and really is - just don’t get too greedy or gank into lanes where you will die. A successful gank doesn’t need to be a kill, either - while a kill is optimal, forcing a flash and recall at level three is a huge advantage for your team.

Routes: The most basic route is to walk up the river to the enemy lane, and hide in the river bush until the right time, then attack. You can also sneak around the back, such as through the tri-bush in top or bottom lane. This is often a better option than the river bush, as it gets you farther behind the enemy and makes it harder to run.

Wards Be careful of enemy wards. If you know where one is, go to a different entrance point of the lane so that you are not spotted. Alternately, use Sweeping Lens trinket, Raptor Buff, or a pink ward to kill the ward, then come back a little later.

Lane Ganks: These are a bit more advanced, but can be super strong. Ask your top or bottom lane to shove the lane so that you can come in from your side of the map and enter the bushes along the edge of the map without being seen. Then, ask them to let the lane push towards your side. Once the enemy pushed past you, pop out and kill them! This is especially good in top lane, as the bushes there are almost never warded.

Counter-Ganks: Sometimes you’ll see where the enemy jungler is going to gank before they get there. This means that you can either go steal their jungle camps if you trust your lane to be fine (Not recommended) or go in to stop them. There’s not much to say about this, as it basically becomes a 2v2 or 3v3 in that lane until someone dies.

Counter-Jungling Ganking is not always the best tactic, depending on who you’re playing. Some junglers, like Shaco or Nunu, are amazing at stealing the enemy's camps or just straight up killing them.

Camp Steals: Champs like Nunu have such good mobility and clear speed that they can get in and take a bunch of enemy camps while the enemy is trying to gank. This isn’t too complicated - run in, kill monsters, and leave if they try to stop you. A Sightstone can be handy to ward up the opponent’s jungle.

Kill Counter-Jungling When you know you can out-duel their jungler (for example, when playing Udyr, Xin, Fiddlesticks, Lee Sin, or Shaco against people like Nautilus or Gragas), it can pay off to keep tabs on the enemy, so you can ambush them at their camps and murder their faces. Again, ward up their jungle and do the sort of strategy described in the Red Steal clear route (but don’t bother waiting to smite-steal non-buff camps; just kill the enemy jungler).

Jungle Items By taking smite, junglers get access to some very useful items building out of the Hunter’s Machete item. These items consist of a Machete upgrade that gives bonus gold on camp clears and a special smite upgrade. These second-tier jungle items can then be upgraded again with ‘enchants’, which offer useful (sometimes borderline over-powered) combat stats.

Hunter’s Machete: Always start with this item and two health potions when jungling. It gives bonus gold when killing camps, as well as bonus damage to monsters and health regen when fighting them. Plus, it builds into the awesome jungle items that you really want!

Tier 2 All of these cost 450 gold to build out of Machete and should be bought on your first recall.

Ranger’s Trailblazer A great jungle item, especially for champions who like to farm. Makes your smite into Blasting Smite, which stuns monsters, heals, restores mana, and deals damage in an area instead of to a single target. Always a good choice on any jungler, but especially on junglers who have poor clear speeds or just love to farm.

Stalker’s Blade The gank band-aid. Makes your smite into Chilling Smite, which can be used on champions for reduced damage and to steal 20% movespeed from the target. Again, a good choice on most anyone, but especially junglers who have low crowd control and could use an extra slow to catch a target, like Diana or Udyr.

Skirmisher’s Sabre Only good on some champions, but is fantastic on them. Allows you to smite champions, but instead of dealing damage it will debuff them to make your autoattacks place a true-damage dealing damage-over-time debuff on them and make them deal reduced damage to you. Great for junglers like Udyr, Xin Zhao, Vi, Warwick, or Master Yi, if you feel like you can catch up to targets and just want to completely shred them. Also good if you want to kill counter-jungle.

Poacher’s Knife The most situational tier 2 upgrade. Gives you bonus gold when killing jungle camps in your enemy’s jungle, and grants even more gold and some movespeed when used to finish off one of those enemy camps. If you’re going to be stealing a lot of enemy jungle, buy this, but it’s very specialized. Best on a few champs in a few situations, like Nunu, Shaco, or possibly Warwick/Master Yi.

Tier 3 These can be built out of any of the above items with a non-jungle item and some gold. They’re fantastic items, especially early on - always make sure to build an enchant!

Warrior: Gives 40 AD, 10% CDR and 10 flat armor penetration. This item is fantastic for early power on AD junglers like Xin Zhao, Udyr, Shaco, and Pantheon. It isn’t amazing late game, but it's a big damage spike when you first build it.

Cinderhulk: Now less overpowered but still overpowered. Gives 300 HP and a 25% bonus to all health you build, as well as dealing magic damage to enemies near you. The damage isn’t as crazy as it used to be, but it’s still pretty good, and the 25% bonus health is great if you build any tank at all. Strongly consider this item on any fighter like Vi or Udyr and absolutely build it on tanks like Sejuani or Shyvana. as it will make you an immortal god.

Magus: Not used as much as most of the other items, but still strong on the right champions. Grants a solid 80 AP and an awesome 20% CDR; build this on most any non-tank AP jungler (rare as those are) like Diana, Fiddlesticks, or Annie.

Devourer: The only reason to play jungle Master Yi. This bad boy gives 50% attack speed, but it’s really set apart by its passive. It gives 25 magic damage on hit, but that’s not all; every time you kill a large monster or champion, this bonus increases by 1, with no cap. This means that late game, you can deal absurd damage with this thing, as long as you farmed the jungle well earlier on. Very strong on late-game attack-speed champions like Master Yi, Tryndamere, or Kayle.

Trinkets Early game, I usually start with Warding Totem for defending against/setting up invades. Then, after by first or second recall, I switch it out for Sweeping Lens for better ganks.

Boots Boots are vital on any champion, any lane, but especially in the jungle, where you’ll be doing a lot of running. Get them after your second tier jungle item, or possibly after third tier if building devourer. Upgrades are dependant on champion as usual and can come later - just make sure you have tier 1 boots fairly quickly. Starting Champions Here are a few junglers who are easy but strong to get you started jungling, as well as suggestions for builds and routes to use with them.

Warwick Clear Speed: 7/10 Sustain: 9/10 Damage: 6/10 Crowd Control: 7/10 (4/10 before 6) Survivability: 7/10 A great choice for starters. His clear is easy to manage and his ganks (post 6) are quite strong and easy to pull off with his point-and-click ultimate, which suppresses the target so that the laners can kill them. Max your W first, then your Q, then E, with the first four levels being W>Q>W>E. Use the Level 4 clear, and build your machete into either Ranger’s Trailblazer or Skirmisher’s Sabre, then enchant it with Devourer. After that, build a mix of damage and tank, focusing on Attack Speed and on-hit effects for damage like Wit’s End or Blade of the Ruined King.

Nunu Clear Speed: 9/10 Sustain: 10/10 Damage: 4/10 Crowd Control: 7/10 Survivability: 6/10 A fantastic jungler, but a poor ganker. His clear speed with his Q, Consume, is awesome. Max your Q first and then your E for some kind of ganking power, and put a point in Blood Boil somewhere in there for the movespeed buff. Use the Level 4 Clear or the Red Steal clear. Mostly focus on stealing the enemy jungle, but don’t try to fight them - just toss an ice ball at them and run away, since they won’t be able to catch you, if you run into them. Build either Poacher’s Knife or Ranger’s Trailblazer, and enchant with Cinderhulk. Then, build tanky/support items like Locket of the Iron Solari, Righteous Glory, Randuin’s Omen, etc, and run around in team fights speeding up your carries and peeling enemies off of them with your slows and ultimate.

Xin Zhao Clear Speed: 7/10 Sustain: 6/10 Damage: 9/10 Crowd Control: 7/10 Survivability: 6/10

Not as good at killing jungle monsters as the above two, but quite good at killing enemy champions. Max whatever the hell you feel like (I like E, probably not W) and gank as much as possible by pressing all your buttons at once and then shredding the target. Use the Level 3 Clear. Build Skirmisher’s Sabre to kill people faster or Stalker’s Blade if they’re getting away before you can knock them up with your Q, then enchant it with Warrior (or possibly devourer if you want to be better late game at the cost of early power). Then, build a mix of tank and damage with items like Blade of the Ruined King, Randuin’s Omen, The Black Cleaver, Spirit Visage, and Youmuu’s Ghostblade. Late game you want to jump on enemy carries and kill them while tanking as much damage as possible. Don’t worry if you die in fights, as long as you take a high-priority target down with you. Xin’s biggest weakness is a lack of escapes, but he’s excellent at dueling and engaging fights. 

Master Yi Clear Speed: 8/10 Sustain: 5/10 Damage: 10/10 Crowd Control: 2/10 Survivability: 4/10 Not a very good ganker, but a killing machine late game if you farm up enough. Use the Level 4 clear if you can, and build Ranger’s Trailblazer or Skirmisher’s Sabre into Devourer ASAP. Farm up, build damage items like Infinity Edge, Phantom Dancer, Blade of the Ruined King, or Last Whisper, with one or two tank items (I like Randuin’s Omen or Banshee’s Veil if they have a fed AP). Late game is your time to shine: Splitpush side lanes and kill whoever tries to stop you (or run away with your ultimate), and in teamfights wait for a tank to engage then pop your ulti and E and kill people. Then, spam your taunt (“Your skills are inferior!”)

Conclusion

Jungling is a ton of fun and a surprisingly good way to carry games. The best way to get better is to go and do it, as well as watching pros and reading guides to get some new tricks. There is no right way to jungle - some people like gank champions, some like to farm, etc., and the trick is to find your favorite ways to play and get better at those. Go try stuff - if you die, there’s always next game! Good luck!