Jungling 101

[Jonathan Meer]

I've asked this a billion times, but just so it's all here, for my sake and others

I want to get into jungling after seeing Tryg's hilarious shit (first blooding karma, pwning yi at his blue, lolol). How do I get into this?

As I understand it:

1) Watch Stonewall's videos for information on paths
2) Catch a build (somewhere? Mobafire?)
3) Practice it in a custom a few times to get the path down
4) When in-game, think of jungling as ganking, with brief forays into jungle to farm, rather than farming jungle creeps with brief forays for ganking

And at this point, developing jungle ability is just a matter of playing a shit-ton of games as jungler, ya?

Who should I start with? And please don't say Nunu. Nunu is boring.

EDIT: I'm thinking Amumu, as I love his ganking ability, but I've heard he essentially requires blue, and is very easy to counter-jungle.

[Tyr]

You could also go with Warwick, though he's one of those that some people like to stay in jungle and get to level 6 prior to ganking for a secure kill on one of the solo lanes, which probably wont get you accustomed to the way of jungling with everyone else, where being fast in the jungle can gain you the element of surprise.

You could try the European jungle Akali, though as far as I know, you'd need to get some attack damage quints. I can't really suggest more champions as I don't know every champion you have, but even Soraka can jungle these days (albeit in a very strange fashion). It's a pretty open playing field. Any role in particular you want to fill in the jungle (besides jungler).

[Rafael]

I saw a list like a week ago saying jungle maokai was tier 2. That could be interesting fun and hilarious

[Trygelan]

Warwick is very easy to start with, but boring and not a great ganker. Trundle is easy to jungle with, Xin Zhao, Amumu, Rammus are all easy to jungle with as well.

Stonewall's path's are a pretty good start, and yes, practice them in custom games until you can do them w/o dying, though you don't have to follow his runes/masteries to do it, those are just what he uses to get the fastest times he can for that champion.

For Generic runes, flat armor yellows are pretty much required. For reds, Armor Pen, Attack Speed, flat Attack Damage, or Magic Pen all work depending on the champ you use. Quits, move speed, health regen, armor pen, attack speed, flat ap, flat attack damage, and flat HP depending on champion. Blues are pretty much always whatever you want, I tend to use magic resist per level blues(most of the champs I jungle with), flat cooldown reduction on (taric), or ap per level (fiddle). For quints and reds, can do armor pen for all (25 pen), but your time in the jungle is going to be a bit slower. I usually tend to get a mix of armor pen + attack speed or attack damage for the ad champs, for the ap ones I tend to get mpen reds and either movespeed quints (amumu), or flat ap quints (fiddle).

Masteries... there's a lot of ways masteries can be built for junglers. 1/14/15, 1/18/11, 16/0/14, 21/0/9, 9/0/21, and some others that I don't use very much. Some points can be swapped around here and there to make sure you have the mastery for flash or ghost depending on which you have and such.
http://i.imgur.com/Eka4Z.jpg

As for paths, yeah stonewall's videos are a great place to start learning the paths. Also this from TheOddOne.

Also this. Though some of it might be a tad outdated.

Also this, for everyone, even ones that don't jungle. READ THIS!

I'm not going to link to a tier list, because meh on those. They are mostly done for high ranked queue and competitive play. Pretty much everyone that you jungle with can have a good impact on the game depending on how you play it.

And finally, as a jungler, the most important thing for you to remember is that you HAVE to adapt and have damn good map awareness. You have to be flexible. If you've paid attention to my jungling too much, I'm almost always watching for ganks and will leave camps uncleared or even in mid clear of a camp if I can go secure a gank. Also, just because you don't secure a kill doesn't mean the gank failed. Did you get their flash, ghost, or exhaust? Without using multiples of your teams? Successful gank. Come back before the cooldown is up and get that kill then.

[Jonathan Meer]

That second link ('Also this, for everyone...') was massively enlightening.

I'm excited for this. Don't quite have the runes for it yet, but still excited.

And yeah. WW is boring too.

[Mal Nova]

WW is not boring..

[Kaden]

Jungle Yi is a lot of fun. He's about the only champion that I would be able to jungle in a ranked or equally tryhard game. My Xin and Lee Sin are ok.

But yeah, map awareness. So much map awareness. A jungler isn't so much about ganking as it is about giving your team map control. Ganking enemies so there are fewer on the map at any given time is just a very simple form of control. Things like warding the enemies jungle, getting an enemy's neutral buff for an ally, and helping get dragon are all things that can be instigated by the jungler to help control the map.

[Trygelan]

Oh, one thing I forgot to mention.

Smite. If you are jungling, you fucking take smite. If you don't, I will find you and slowly torture you until you admit the error of your ways.

Smite is insanely important as a jungler, you need it to secure buffs, dragon, and baron. Without smite, it's so easy for your buffs to be stolen by an enemy jungler, for dragon to be stolen, or for baron to be stolen. Never mind the fact that smite dramatically increases your speed in the jungle. And it also makes it so that you can counter jungle or steal buffs easier from opposing junglers.

I can't count the number of times I've stolen buffs/dragon/baron with smite.

TL DR - FUCKING TAKE SMITE IF YOU ARE JUNGLING!

[Kaden]

That guide to laning from a jungler's perspective is an awesome read.

A couple of my favorite parts are in the end:

If I meet the enemy in our jungle, please stop what you're doing and kill them.

...

If I'm pinging dragon and you're mid or bot and not going to lose your tower in the next 30 seconds, COME HELP.

Something that happens a lot is that people will get so caught up in what they're doing that they think they have to finish it before they can do anything else. I can't count the number of times a team fight has broken out in mid with someone getting a neutral buff instead of helping. Yeah, it's great that you got that blue buff, but we just lost three people and a tower while you were doing it BUT ITS OK YOU HAVE INFINITE MANA!!!!!11

Just respond to shit. If someone is asking you to help with X, assume they have looked at what you're doing and made the decision that you helping is more beneficial than you finishing whatever it was you were previously occupied with.

[Sigfried Hunin]

The only problem I'm having with jungle right now is how/when to successfully gank.

My pathing is fine, I rarely have problems unless a teammate super fucks me over (as they often do.) I think my most DETRIMENTAL thing I can't get straight is how much time I should "waste" running to get to a position and then how much time to I spend sitting in a bush waiting for the right moment?

Literally the only thing that's holding me back with jungle is not having enough kills. That fucks over my gold and exp which just makes me useless.

[Kaden]

Literally the only thing that's holding me back with jungle is not having enough kills. That fucks over my gold and exp which just makes me useless.

That's actually a fallacy. One champ kill is worth 15~25 creep kills, depending on the individual champion's score. If you consider the time it takes to move to a lane, wait for the gank opportunity and then the likely recall+heal time afterwards, it's almost always more gold efficient to continue creeping through the jungle.

Of course, killing a champion has plenty of other benefits. But yeah, don't think that no champ kills = no gold gained. A Nasus, for example, can go solo top for 25 minutes, not get a single champ kill, and easily be the strongest character in the game.

[Sigfried Hunin]

That's actually a fallacy. One champ kill is worth 15~25 creep kills, depending on the individual champion's score. If you consider the time it takes to move to a lane, wait for the gank opportunity and then the likely recall+heal time afterwards, it's almost always more gold efficient to continue creeping through the jungle.

Of course, killing a champion has plenty of other benefits. But yeah, don't think that no champ kills = no gold gained. A Nasus, for example, can go solo top for 25 minutes, not get a single champ kill, and easily be the strongest character in the game.

Ok, so only hang out and wait for a gank opportunity for a few seconds and then bail back for jungle (unless obviously lane needs help)

[Trygelan]

Ok, so only hang out and wait for a gank opportunity for a few seconds and then bail back for jungle (unless obviously lane needs help)

Pretty much this. You can't sit around for too long, or else you fall way behind on xp and gold, which is likely to happen as a jungler any way, but sitting around waiting for them to move up or whatever just makes it worse. Not only that, the longer you sit around the longer you leave your camps in the jungle up which is wasting potential time/xp for the being up and also giving the enemy jungler a better chance to steal xp/gold from you.

Another thing to keep in mind, don't rely on kills as a jungler. Sure you might get some from ganks, but more often than not, your ganks are only going to get their summoners down. One thing you can do to help alleviate this is to build the gold per 5 items. Heart of gold and philo stone are well worth it for most junglers, and even the one that builds in to the ghostblade for characters that build it. If you get them early enough, then they will pay for themselves over the course of a 30-40 min game.

Just remember, the jungler isn't really about getting kills, it's about creating a potential of a gank for everyone on the map at most times. When ganking, your goal shouldn't necessarily be to "get the kill" as it should be to create an advantage for your teammates in that lane. Getting rid of their summoners, pushing them back to base, or killing them. All of those creates an advantage for your team in that lane, making it easier to secure kills later because of level advantage, gold advantage, and still having summoners. Of course, this advantage can go to waste if your team mates don't capitalize on it, but that's still the goal I always have as a jungler, create an advantage.

[Sigfried Hunin]

Pretty much this. You can't sit around for too long, or else you fall way behind on xp and gold, which is likely to happen as a jungler any way, but sitting around waiting for them to move up or whatever just makes it worse. Not only that, the longer you sit around the longer you leave your camps in the jungle up which is wasting potential time/xp for the being up and also giving the enemy jungler a better chance to steal xp/gold from you.

Another thing to keep in mind, don't rely on kills as a jungler. Sure you might get some from ganks, but more often than not, your ganks are only going to get their summoners down. One thing you can do to help alleviate this is to build the gold per 5 items. Heart of gold and philo stone are well worth it for most junglers, and even the one that builds in to the ghostblade for characters that build it. If you get them early enough, then they will pay for themselves over the course of a 30-40 min game.

Just remember, the jungler isn't really about getting kills, it's about creating a potential of a gank for everyone on the map at most times. When ganking, your goal shouldn't necessarily be to "get the kill" as it should be to create an advantage for your teammates in that lane. Getting rid of their summoners, pushing them back to base, or killing them. All of those creates an advantage for your team in that lane, making it easier to secure kills later because of level advantage, gold advantage, and still having summoners. Of course, this advantage can go to waste if your team mates don't capitalize on it, but that's still the goal I always have as a jungler, create an advantage.

Thanks, that really helps. This and the video from TheOddOne really has helped change my perspective on what the job of the jungler should be. I'LL BE MUCH BETTER NAOW I THINKS.

[Ashe]

Haven't read thread. I enjoy Trundle, Xin Zhao, and Nunu for my junglers if I give a shit, Jungle Taric if I don't. Lee Sin is fun as well.

Most others can eat a dick JAJAJAJAJA

[Anzekay]

Trgy basically covered everything about the right mentality for jungling, but one more thing I always like to keep in mind is that not only do you have all these potential bonuses from jungling but you are also giving your team one more solo lane. The extra XP and gold gain you get for your team just for jungling for 15 min or so is a huge boost overall.

As for my jungle heroes, I still really enjoy Nocturne as my number 1. Skarner is also really fun for me if the team comp allows for it, but I am still frustrated by his terrible level 1 DPS and how he essentially requires blue to jungle well at all. I do plan to pick up Lee Sin sometime too as another option.

[Ashe]

Skarner really does need his mana issues dealt with. Its pretty frustrating how he's almost worst than Amumu without Blue.

[Sigfried Hunin]

Haven't read thread. I enjoy Trundle, Xin Zhao, and Nunu for my junglers if I give a shit, Jungle Taric if I don't. Lee Sin is fun as well.

Most others can eat a dick JAJAJAJAJA

Jungle Udyr is ONLY Udyr. I just like to call him, "Udyr."

[Tyr]

Jungle Udyr is ONLY Udyr. I just like to call him, "Udyr."

He's a somewhat popular solo top after the changes to his Q. I rarely see him in the jungle these days.

That said, Trundle is fucking legit. Funniest jungle ever because it's so satisfying when people with a straight escape suddenly flip around due to a pillar in the way.

[Piper Juunanagou]

I love jungling with WW. I grab a Wriggles and ward the shit out of things, plus by the end of it, I tend to be unnaturally good at absorbing damage. I've even gotten better at ganking before 6, because I know that's a big complaint with WW's.

I want to try jungling with Xin or Tryn. They both seem like fun.

I'd also like to try jungling Nunu, but I have so much fun laning with him.