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You've loaded up, and the team doesn't look too awful. Two heroes that could conceivably support, the obligatory Pudge/Sniper/Drow mid, an offlaner, and a Lycan/Ursa/Doom/Legion Commander/Lifestealer. You head towards the safe lane, ready to protect your carry.
"jungle"
Wait, what? There's an open safe lane! Now you're 1v2, awkwardly trying to get some last hits while your supposed carry repeatedly has to go back to base to heal. Your lane pushes under tower and then back towards the enemy's. When you go to pull, you realize the bastard has cleared your small camp. You facepalm and wish you had picked that fourth carry.
***
By definition, having a jungler means you will have two solo lanes, unless you completely abandon a lane. That means you will almost certainly face a 1v2 situation, unless the other team has a jungler of their own. This can be OK if you play defensively and the other team doesn't have stuns, but it will likely mean that your last hitting will suffer. Bad times.
In contrast, jungling at a basic level is relatively brainless. Attack creep, kill creep, switch target, move to next camp. You don't have to last hit under tower or deny. You don't even have to look at the map if you're that selfish. There's a reason it's called "AFK Jungling." You can get decent farm and experience, but realize that it comes at a cost to your teammates.
If you look at pro games, the AFK jungler is almost never done. Nature's Prophet will start in the offlane to get experience and put some pressure on the enemy's carry. Enchantress, Chen and Enigma rotate and smoke gank other lanes, even at level 1.
I don't expect that level of coordination, I really wish we could eradicate this obsession with blindly jungling. It's basically another symptom of the selfishness of pubs. The solution is, of course, to just avoid All Pick.
Adapted and expanded from my reddit post.
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On June 10 2014 08:15 UberDrive wrote:
The solution is, of course, to just avoid All Pick.
Unfortunately, this isn't quite true (though, it does help). It is not overly uncommon for a captain in CD, at least, to pick an Ursa or Lifestealer for himself to jungle with (and it is always when I decide to play safelane support -_-). On the bright side, my group has occasionally successfully convinced such a jungler to just go in to lane (though, he did blame us all for it when he started feeding . . . can't win every battle, I guess).
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Oh man, that is rough. In my mediocre CM/CD bracket (~2800) people at least seem to get the 1 carry/1 mid/1 off/2 support meta.
I've switched over to AP mostly because of the daily hero challenge, and I figure it allows you to become more flexible if you care at all about team comp.
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because basically, they think uncontested jungle farm = omgsomany items where in fact it loses most lanes. they don't understand WHY you should jungle.
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United Kingdom14103 Posts
because you dont have to deal with teammates
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i dont see this often anymore
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Dude you got a lot of great replies to this on Reddit. I think the answer is simple man. People just wanna chill in there not deal with teammates or last hitting and farm up.
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On June 10 2014 09:15 Targe wrote:
because you dont have to deal with teammates
It's this.
You also don't have to deal with enemies.
Seriously, if you've ever hit the point of hating DOTA2 with all your heart, just abandon the game you're in, get into LPQ, and cliff jungle as NP. You get to play the game without actually playing it. Stand at the top of that cliff and banter with both teams in the hands-free, mind-free experience.
It's remarkably therapeutic, and that's why people will do it every game. Also, if you have a good offlaner who can at least break even 1v2 or 1v3 (not that difficult) and your safelane duo is fine against whatever they do and your midlane is tied, you're at a huge advantage. Sounds like a lot, but all I'm saying is "offlane does okay, mid does okay, safelane is a bit stronger than usual." That's not so difficult most games.
The real killer of junglers in pro games is that it removes a support. In pro games, supports are generally more valuable than farming cores. It also opens up another point of vulnerability, but that generally doesn't matter as much.
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On June 10 2014 10:42 Acritter wrote:Show nested quote +On June 10 2014 09:15 Targe wrote:
because you dont have to deal with teammates It's this. You also don't have to deal with enemies. Seriously, if you've ever hit the point of hating DOTA2 with all your heart, just abandon the game you're in, get into LPQ, and cliff jungle as NP. You get to play the game without actually playing it. Stand at the top of that cliff and banter with both teams in the hands-free, mind-free experience. It's remarkably therapeutic, and that's why people will do it every game. Also, if you have a good offlaner who can at least break even 1v2 or 1v3 (not that difficult) and your safelane duo is fine against whatever they do and your midlane is tied, you're at a huge advantage. Sounds like a lot, but all I'm saying is "offlane does okay, mid does okay, safelane is a bit stronger than usual." That's not so difficult most games. The real killer of junglers in pro games is that it removes a support. In pro games, supports are generally more valuable than farming cores. It also opens up another point of vulnerability, but that generally doesn't matter as much.
The most popular jungler in pro games is Enchantress. The one that can easily gank on level 1.
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On June 10 2014 09:15 Targe wrote:
because you dont have to deal with teammates
This is a big one when you play solo queue. Don't have to rely on supports to pull/ward/harass, can carry the game yourself if your mid/carry fuck up. Imo jungling is one of the best ways to win with bad teammates.
And tbh in pubs, if you're solo queueing, I'd rather have a jungler than a defensive trilane with 2 supports. Chances are they'll get nothing done except pulls and you just have 2 underleveled, poor supports. If i'm the last person to pick a hero and I can choose between being the 2nd support or the jungler, I'll rather be the jungler unless the enemy has an obvious aggro tri.
I'm quite a fan of 2-1-2's in pubs, just fielding some disgusting dual offlane that repeatedly kills the carry. Sadly half the time someone calls 'solo offlane' and you're limited to jungle or defensive tri.
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Don't expect pro-like drafts and lanes in pubs. For one there's random people you're playing with and pubs are just a different kind of game, much more individual-centric.
Also your simplistic view of jungling is laughable. Even if you're something that can't help lanes directly like a LC or sylla or some shit there's still rune control, and the most important jungling efficiency.
I don't really agree with some of the people saying a carry has to rely on teammates, there are some sure. Just pick what's appropriate for a pub setting, slark is excellent for example even if your lane gets shat on you still have kill potential without items.
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On June 10 2014 18:30 Laurens wrote:Show nested quote +On June 10 2014 09:15 Targe wrote:
because you dont have to deal with teammates This is a big one when you play solo queue. Don't have to rely on supports to pull/ward/harass, can carry the game yourself if your mid/carry fuck up. Imo jungling is one of the best ways to win with bad teammates. And tbh in pubs, if you're solo queueing, I'd rather have a jungler than a defensive trilane with 2 supports. Chances are they'll get nothing done except pulls and you just have 2 underleveled, poor supports. If i'm the last person to pick a hero and I can choose between being the 2nd support or the jungler, I'll rather be the jungler unless the enemy has an obvious aggro tri. I'm quite a fan of 2-1-2's in pubs, just fielding some disgusting dual offlane that repeatedly kills the carry. Sadly half the time someone calls 'solo offlane' and you're limited to jungle or defensive tri.
A lot of it is confirmation bias though, jungling will most of the time force your team to play 4v5 and have weak lanes, so obviously they will not be doing great. When they get destroyed as a jungler you can say to yourself "omg my team sucked, fucking volvo matchmaking putting me with noobs". When they do ok you'll be able to carry the game and it will make you feel good... eventhough the game was most likely decided on your team being able to 4v5 for 15 min.
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On June 10 2014 19:41 Jetaap wrote:Show nested quote +On June 10 2014 18:30 Laurens wrote:On June 10 2014 09:15 Targe wrote:
because you dont have to deal with teammates This is a big one when you play solo queue. Don't have to rely on supports to pull/ward/harass, can carry the game yourself if your mid/carry fuck up. Imo jungling is one of the best ways to win with bad teammates. And tbh in pubs, if you're solo queueing, I'd rather have a jungler than a defensive trilane with 2 supports. Chances are they'll get nothing done except pulls and you just have 2 underleveled, poor supports. If i'm the last person to pick a hero and I can choose between being the 2nd support or the jungler, I'll rather be the jungler unless the enemy has an obvious aggro tri. I'm quite a fan of 2-1-2's in pubs, just fielding some disgusting dual offlane that repeatedly kills the carry. Sadly half the time someone calls 'solo offlane' and you're limited to jungle or defensive tri. A lot of it is confirmation bias though, jungling will most of the time force your team to play 4v5 and have weak lanes, so obviously they will not be doing great. When they get destroyed as a jungler you can say to yourself "omg my team sucked, fucking volvo matchmaking putting me with noobs". When they do ok you'll be able to carry the game and it will make you feel good... eventhough the game was most likely decided on your team being able to 4v5 for 15 min.
Nah that's the thing, even when they get destroyed you can still win the game from the jungle. Whereas if you were that 2nd support, chances are your solo lanes would still be getting destroyed, and you have no way of turning the game because you're lvl 3 and you don't have brown boots yet.
I've had Lycan games where the team does get destroyed 4v5, yet at 8:30 I take rosh, push some T1s, win some skirmishes with the aegis, and suddenly my team is on top again.
But maybe that just shows how hilariously OP Lycan was in solo queue pre-nerfs, rather than jungling being a good idea.
I did add the caveat that I wouldn't jungle if the opposing team has an obvious aggro tri. If I can identify that they have a strong dual offlane I'll support too (hard to identify though). But if they have a jungle themselves, woods it is.
All of this is AP solo queue of course.
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On June 10 2014 13:54 Yurie wrote:Show nested quote +On June 10 2014 10:42 Acritter wrote:On June 10 2014 09:15 Targe wrote:
because you dont have to deal with teammates It's this. You also don't have to deal with enemies. Seriously, if you've ever hit the point of hating DOTA2 with all your heart, just abandon the game you're in, get into LPQ, and cliff jungle as NP. You get to play the game without actually playing it. Stand at the top of that cliff and banter with both teams in the hands-free, mind-free experience. It's remarkably therapeutic, and that's why people will do it every game. Also, if you have a good offlaner who can at least break even 1v2 or 1v3 (not that difficult) and your safelane duo is fine against whatever they do and your midlane is tied, you're at a huge advantage. Sounds like a lot, but all I'm saying is "offlane does okay, mid does okay, safelane is a bit stronger than usual." That's not so difficult most games. The real killer of junglers in pro games is that it removes a support. In pro games, supports are generally more valuable than farming cores. It also opens up another point of vulnerability, but that generally doesn't matter as much. The most popular jungler in pro games is Enchantress. The one that can easily gank on level 1.
Exactly! Jungling supports are excellent because they circumvent the weaknesses of traditional supports: gold and experience. Jungling cores, though? Only the offlaner, who rotates there sometimes.
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I used to play lots of heroes, played random until I played them all.
And I found out I totally suck as lane carry.
Im old for a Dota player, 40, and the reflexes for succesfully last hitting are just not there anymore.
I played support for a while and I think I did a decent job with it, nothing special, but I warded my ass off, tried to make carry lifes easy whenever I could with heals, clarity, skills and whatnot.
But so often I played decent and we still lost the game. As a support it just felt that even if I played well it was still a 50/50 chance if we won or not. As if I couldn't make a real difference even if I played well.
It all depended on if the carry was good or not, but its so hard to still win with a moron carry.
Then I started playing carry junglers. Prophet, lycan etc.
I still support a bit with wards too when nobody else does and getting no response from the supports. And I went from 2500ish MMR to 3500ish.
It just feels when playing these heroes, no matter how much my teammates suck, I can still make a difference.
So that's my personal reason for jungling.
tldr. I suck last hitting. Couldn't make a difference when supporting. Since I play jungle carries I win a lot more.
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Because people get away with it. People will just do whatever "works" based on past experience, even if the only reason that it worked was the other team being oblivious and/or lazy to do anything about it.
It's incredibly common that people forget about enemy junglers. The lanes are instantly easier, it feels comfortable to play, everyone seems blissfully content with how laning is turning out, thinking they're on their way to a very fast Midas/Radiance/Battlefury. Then an angry animal of the bear or wolf variety comes out of the Roshan pit, wipes 3 heroes and takes a tower.
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Not everything in DotA scales the same between pro and pub.
Jungle scales down better than laning. A safelane carry on a pro can get like 80%+ last hits in the lane, but a mid range pub is probably going to pull in 30-60% last hits in an equal lane. Even less if their lane partner(s) can't secure them farm. Since there's no contest for jungle last hits the player will maintain a mediocre GPM that can still match the mediocre GPM they get from their lane. Usually you can just learn the proper jungle pattern and be pretty good. Basically the amount of farm the best jungler and a mediocre jungler (on good jungling heroes) will get is much closer than the farm of the best carry and a mediocre carry in the safelane.
A lot of players are also unable to contest the jungle. Especially in 2-1-2 pub line-ups it can be hard to make good moves into the jungle to stop the farmer so the person gets free farm. Since 1v2 lanes are also often easily drawn it just sort of works out often times I think.
As an offlane player I find it nice having junglers usually. Safelane can stay as 2 and I feel confident in holding the offlane solo.
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I generally only like Enigma/Chen/Ench as junglers on my team, but in pubs I'd still rather have a NP/LS/LC/Lycan jungler than a support who just sits in lane and doesn't pull correctly or harass well.
The key is to communicate during picks and have your lanes worked out. If someone takes a possible jungler carry, then make sure you've got two heros safelane (one who will use the farm well) and a hero who can handle the offlane solo. Also, make sure that you let the jungler know a good time to gank (taking into account lane position and their HP/MP).
The thing that's the worst is when the jungler is still fucking jungling at 15-20 mins when there's lanes being pushed in, or your hard carry needs that safe jungle farm. Especially Lycan (ult escape) and LS (rage/TP escape), they can get a lot out of the lanes midgame without it being too risky.
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Jungling is 99% of the time a bad idea in solo queue outside of trash teir.
It just gimps your safe lane, gives the offlaner an easy time to secure exp, and it completely removes the threat of rotation/ganks unless you are an enchant, chen, or enigma. And even then, you are more likely to find greedy players than helpful ones.
Most junglers are actually very good offlaners (np, doom, ld) because you can just rely on the jungle for recovery and still take advantage of lane experience and farm. These heroes actually fare considerably worse starting in the jungle if you know what your doing because of the exp difference. NP for example is much more useful with phase boots and lv 6, instead of a naked midas and lv 5.
The biggest reason picking a jungler early sucks is it leaves you really prone to aggressive tri lane picks, which can just flat out lose the game if your playing with a bunch of random uncoordinated dudes.
So basically unless you pick an aggressive/roaming jungler (ench,chen,nigma) don't do it.
And if you decide to jungle LC, please don't rush armlet. Thanks, from the rest of the world.
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Laning is hard, and its much harder to fail jungling than it is laning.
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EPT
