EPTThe jungle is one of the most dynamic and knowledge driven roles in LoL. You need to not only have a firm understanding of your own role, but also all of the other lanes and matchups so that you can properly assess where you need to be. It is the only role in the game that I can comfortably say you need to be competent at in order to get better overall: jungling forces you to actively evaluate objectives at every point in the game in order to maximize your impact on the game, a skill that carries over to every other role.
This is meant to be more of an overview and explanation instead of an actual guide, mostly because in order to jungle you need to be able to think for yourself. I can lay out the basics, but only experience can actually make you a better jungler and player.
The Basics
Jungling serves two roles. First, it takes advantage of a sizable amount of gold and experience that would otherwise go wasted, enabling a team with a jungler to have 4 fully farmed characters instead of just 3. In addition, jungling also serves to protect and utilize the two buffs in the game, Red and Blue. Your secondary role as a jungle is to maintain map control. Your job is to ensure that half of the map is a no go zone for the enemy team (provided they don’t have vision of you).
Of course, there are more camps in the jungle besides the buff camps. Wolves, wraiths, and mini golems are your main source of income. Just like laning, your goal should always be to maximize the amount of farm that you get. There are two general paths in the jungle: wolves>blue>wriaths>minigols/red>red/minigols>wraiths>wolves and wraiths>red>gank. Of course, neither route is set in stone. There are many times that doing blue then ganking at level 2 is an excellent option, and there are many times that there will be no immediate ganks available after you do red and it will be best for you to go back and kill a camp before attempting to gank. But typically, those are the 2 most common routes that we see.
Part of the reason for 2 distinct routes is the manner in which you should act with each buff. Blue is the farming buff. The mana and CDR makes spamming abilities very easy, and many junglers see drastic clear differences between having and not having blue. Red, on the other hand, is the ganking buff. The ability to proc slows on autoattacks is invaluable for converting ganks into kills. Given the popularity of Flash, Heal, mobile and/or tanky champions in lane, many times the only way you are going to be able to get a kill is by having Red buff up. The difference between what the two buffs enables you to do is very important. Of course, there will be times when you have perfect gank opportunities with Blue or none with Red (after all, Blue does make ganking easier by allowing you to do it more often). But don’t perform a level 1 Red route with the goal of staying in the jungle and farming.
The other 2 camps in the game are Dragon and Baron. The majority of the jungler's job midgame is to secure an advantage that allows his team to Dragon. The global gold it gives can be a huge advantage to whichever team is able to grab the kill.
There are a few ways to secure Dragon. The first is to simply sneak it: just solo it or duo it when the other team doesn’t have vision. It’s risky, but the payoff is quite large. Lee Sin, Warwick, and Fiddlesticks (with Blue) are among champions who are capable of soloing Dragon when they are level 5 or 6, so if you are in a game against them make sure to place an early ward to prevent this.
The slightly safer route is to wait until the enemy team is outnumbered around Dragon and move as a team in order to kill it. This can happen if one of the enemy lanes has to go back, dies, or if the enemy jungle is top lane. Typically, this occurs later in the game, when mid is ~level 8, and bottom lane and the jungle are ~6-7. Remember, Dragon has an AS debuff and deals a lot of damage, so make sure that you are healthy enough after the fight to attempt Dragon. There is no feeling worse than trying to kill Dragon only to have an enemy run in and kill you and the rest of your team because you are all too low from tanking Dragon.
The final way to secure Dragon is to try to force a fight. This means you know your team is stronger, so you attempt to make the enemy teamfight you so that you can exert your dominance, pick up a few kills, and also grab Dragon.
Baron is the raid boss of LoL. Big, hard to kill, hits like a truck. Most of the time you will need your entire team to help kill it; it gives 300 gold and a very nice global buff if your team kills it. Everyone on the team has the responsibility to make sure that baron is warded from when it spawns at 15 minutes on. Top, mid, and jungle share the responsibility early, while everyone on your team should be ready to buy and drop a ward late game in order to grant vision.
The upshot of Baron and Dragon is the importance of Smite. You need Smite. Never jungle without it, even if your champion doesnt "need" it to jungle. It makes clearing faster, and last hitting Baron or Dragon with Smite is often the difference between winning and losing the game.
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It is also very helpful to type out the respawns of buffs, Baron, and Dragon into the chat so that your team is capable of moving as soon as they respawn. Buffs respawn 5 minutes after they are killed, Dragon 6, and Baron 7 (baron buff also lasts for 4 minutes, so 3 minutes after it wears off it will spawn again- useful to know if you forget when it was killed).
Learning To Jungle
In my opinion, the best champion to learn to jungle with is Warwick. Why WW? His passive makes it very unlikely to die in the jungle, which is certainly a benefit. But mostly, WW is the perfect champion to learn to jungle with because of how thoroughly mediocre his jungling is. His early ganks are pretty poor, his clear speed is pretty poor, but he is SAFE. This means that he is the perfect baseline. Everyone you play after WW will be better at 1 of the first 2 aspects, but likely much less safe. As you learn more about what it takes to jungle and the style you like to play (farming heavily or ganking heavily) you will have a very good baseline to compare too.
Runes
Runes are highly dependent on the individual jungle, however there are a few consistencies across the spectrum of junglers. Flat armor yellows and magic resistance per level blues are used on 99% of the jungles in the game. Blues can be substituted for attack speed and CDR on some champions, but in general, if you want to be able to jungle, pick those up.
The other slots are a bit more variable. Most jungles tend to use some combination or attack speed and armor pen in the red slot, while a fewer number will run flat AD.
The quintessence slot is much more varied. Movement speed, armor pen, attack speed, flat ap, and armor are all used by different junglers.
If you are interested in creating a rune page for jungles, invest in armor yellows and mr/lvl blues first. From there, look at the champion threads for whatever champions you feel you will play the most and buy those runes. Pretty much every set will be useful, if not even optimal, on more than one jungler, so you shouldn’t feel too worried about having to constantly buy runes.
Masteries
Much like runes, masteries are champ specific. But it doesn’t hurt to at least discuss what is good and what isn’t as you look to optimize your jungling. There are three basic routes to take- 21-9-0, 0-21-9, and 21-0-9. I run 21-9 on autoattackers and characters who I want to turn into carries late game, Gangplank, Lee Sin, Nocturne, ect whereas the 0-21-9 (or slight variations of it) is aimed more at characters who I am aiming to build very tanky and soak up damage like Skarner, Amumu, Shyvana, and Maokai. 21-0-9 is for buff dependent gankers like Jax and Shaco. Now, when I go 21-9 I chose to pick up bladed armor instead of health, but each are equally acceptable. I personally like the bladed armor points because that path allows me to grab flat resists and it does a very good job of reducing minion damage. But again, its personal preference. The 9 in utility in the 0-21-9 and 21-0-9 is similarly open for interpretation. You can exchange expanded mind for good hands on manaless champs, or change swiftness for meditation if you feel you need more mana regen. Once again, experiment to see what works best for the character you are playing, check the champ threads, ect. There really is no hard and fast rule.
Also: be sure that if you are running a character like GP with flash instead of exhaust, switch a point out of summoners wrath and into Butcher.
Items
The standard jungle opening used to be cloth armor and 5 health pots. This is no longer the case. Minions don’t hit as hard, and you don’t need the regen. Nowadays, the three general openings are boots+3, regrowth, and vamp scepter. Boots and vamp scepter are great for those champs who want a wriggles (boots being more aggressive, vamp more for farming) while regrowth is intended for a fast philo stone, then usually heart of gold. Of those openings, boots+3 is the safest because it gives the most regen, and movespeed in the case someone invades you, while vamp scepter is the riskiest because taking damage from any source outside of minions can spell doom for your attempts at clearing the jungle.
If you REALLY feel uncomfortable in the jungle, you can still go cloth+5, but it is really a crutch at this point and you should work to get rid of that as soon as possible. After that, the 2 typical cores for jungles are wriggles lantern or philo stone and heart of gold. Check champ guides on TL for more detailed build information or ask in the GD thread.
Routes
Already went over above, but typically if you are just starting out I recommend doing a wolves-blue-wraiths-minigols-red-wraiths-wolves route. Hit wolves first, then ask your teammates to deal damage to the wolves while you attack them, being sure to make sure that your teammates dont steal any of the last hits. Then have one of your teammates pull blue before they go to lane. Use your smite at blue and red. Always be looking at the minimap. If there are good gank opportunities, by all means break off the route and go gank. After the final wolves, go back to base and buy items and heal. Then go back to farming and looking for gank opportunities.
Actually Jungling
So now that we have all the basics out of the way, time to actually step into a hypothetical game: if you chose to learn with WW, good for you (especially since the rest of this section is being written from the perspective that you DID actually take my advise). For WW, I run 21-9-0, with runes being 8 attack speed and 1 armor pen red, 9 armor yellows, 9 mr/lvl blues, and 3 armor pen quints, flash smite for summoners. Open boots+3 and start with w. Go to your wolves, having your teammates guard your blue and the entrance to your jungle so that you can run in case the enemy team comes. At 1:35 press w. Then start hitting wolves as soon as they start. Then go to blue. W should be up around the time it spawns. Kill it, grab q. Use pots as you start to lose health (probably around wraiths and red). As for leveling abilities, I like to go WQE, R>Q>W>E. Build your Wriggles and upgrade your boots to Mercury Treads, then build a Heart of Gold, build a Spirit Visage next (starting with the Kindlegem), then a Wits End, then finish Randuins Omen. As a final item, build a Madreds Bloodrazor.
As you clear the jungle, be on the lookout for ganks. Lanes that are pushed to your tower are always good options, as it gives you a longer period of time to hit the enemy before they reach the safety of their tower. Also make sure that dragon is warded for your team. Keep 1 eye on the minimap at all times so that you are ready to react in case any one of your teammates need your help. Remember that you are the most powerful force on your team simply because you can be anywhere that your team needs. Use that to your advantage to help kill and defend towers, as well as secure dragons.
Once you hit 6 your ganks are incredibly strong. Look for opportunities, but make sure that you don’t stop farming. Remember that your main goal is to take advantage of the farm in the jungle. Kills are flashy, but they make up less in wasted time than you would think.
As you play more and more jungle, you will get better at recognizing opportunities, as well as how you can better adjust your build to take advantage of the enemy team. There is a link to the Warwick champion thread at the end of this thread, go there to learn more about WW.
Part 2: Champs, Roles, Ganking, And Warding
Who Should I Jungle?
The typical role of the modern jungle is to get decently tanky, then isolate the enemy carry in teamfights so that their damage is forced to hit you instead of the higher damage dealing members of your team. This is typically done in 2 different ways, depending on the character and build you chose to go.
Carries tend to build to fulfill the role of tanky dps: running around attacking and killing enemy carries while not dying. Basically, your goal is to build enough defense to survive the enemy team beating on you long enough to kill high prority targets. Lee Sin, GP, Shaco, Nocturne all tend to fit this mold. These jungles tend to build items like Atmog’s, Ghostblade, Wits End, and Wriggle’s Lantern: items that give a mix of durability and damage.
Support tanks rely on crowd control to draw threat and shut down enemy carries. These jungles rely less on their own damage and more on their ability to get into the enemy team and hold high priority targets in place long enough for the rest of your team to kill them. Maokai, Amumu, and Rammus all fall into this group. The typical opening for these junglers is a philosophers stone and heart of gold to try to gain a passive farm advantage, then shifting to items like Shurelias, Randuins, Frozen Heart, Abyssal Scepter in order to increase the amount of punishment they can take.
The other large distinction between jungles is how strong their early gank is. Characters like Lee Sin and Shaco have very strong ganks that allow them to get an early red buff and then try turn that into kills. Skarner and Shyvana have weaker early ganks but stronger aoe farming abilities and thus use those to clear the jungle very quickly and build up an item advantage that they can carry into midgame power. The most important thing is to just realize what the ganking potential of your character is, then play accordingly. It makes no sense, for example, to pick Shaco and then never gank, or pick Warwick and gank constantly before level 6.
When selecting your jungle, look at what your team needs. If your team is light on damage, grab a jungle that will be able to do some damage as the game wears on. At the same time, if your team has a very weak early game presence but strong late game, a jungle with a strong gank can be just the thing your team needs in order to get an early boost and start rolling. Personal style also plays into this selection as well. If you don’t’ feel comfortable playing with a carry mindset, especially since you will not be very farmed for a large portion of the game, playing support tanks are probably the way for you to go, but make sure that you warn your team first.
Ganking
Ganking is one of the most powerful tools in a jungler's arsenal. The ability to have a member of your team constantly out of sight and threatening to make a lane into an unfair fight is a very intimidating ability. That being said, not all ganks are created equal, and not all lanes are either. Knowing the power of the lane you are going to gank is just as important as knowing how strong you are.
THE NUMBER 1 RULE OF GANKING IS NEVER FEED BUFFS.
It is the golden rule. Nothing will screw over your teammate more than dying and feeding a buff, or worse double buffs, to their lane opponent.
The other important thing to remember is that ganks have a cost. The benifits are obvious. More gold, you help your lane, ect. However, they are also risky. The important thing to remember is that even if you get a kill, the other jungle and every other lane has been farming while you were off doing what you do. That means that the difference in gains between the 2 teams are not as high as some people think. It also means that constantly ganking is NOT a good way to play. Its always better to be smart about when you gank. Minimize the amount you lose when you gank, even when playing a ganking jungler. If you minimize wasted time each gank you attempt, you are free to farm and gank other lanes more often.
If you are initiating a gank just to relieve pressure on a teammate (but not actually truly going for a kill), make sure you tell your teammate so that they don’t waste valuable cooldowns or mana on a gank you are not committed too. Make sure that your teammates in lane are ready, they have everything up that they are going to need. Remember- for them, a gank is a minute long diversion from farming. For you, its twice that long, if not more. Gank too much and you will find yourself hurting for farm and levels very badly.
Warding
Before we get too far further into ganking, it is very important we step back and take a look at how Summoner’s Rift SHOULD be warded.
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![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/MBmQa.png)
Blue are the wards top lane is responsible for. Typically only one of those is actually ever warded. Pink is what purple side mid is responsible for, green is for blue side mid. As a jungle you should supply one of those wards, your mid should supply the other. Red is what your support is responsible for, and orange is also the responsibility of the support, but generally only 1 of the bottom bushes will actually ever be warded at one time. Black wards are the responsibility of the entire team. If they aren’t warded, SOMEONE needs to be on their way to ward it (after 15 minutes for baron of course). What does this mean for the jungle? Well, apart from introducing a bit more responsibility on your shoulders (drag, baron, and a mid ward) we also see that ganking is a pain in the ass nowadays.
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![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/TzSwV.png)
These are all the gank routes for a blue side jungle, represented as black arrows. You will note that every route except for straight down the lane *SHOULD* all be warded. Luckily for us, they rarely are. Typically, only one of the blue wards is ever in use. That leaves 2 gank paths, down the lane and the dotted path for the river ward, or down the lane and through river if the tribush is warded.
Mid is a bit more difficult. Ideally, you should always show up if you cross into the river. However, mids have been slow to actually begin to ward. This means that there is a good chance that the pink wards wont actually be in the game, and if they are, your mid will see them as they are placed and can warn appropriately. But that is where the easy ganks end.
Bottom lane is an abomination for jungles. Not only is it the hardest to gank in terms of fights (a 3v2 is much less in the favor of the 3 than a 2v1 is in the favor of the 2) but it is also the single lane most likely to actually have the wards shown in the picture placed. That means you either have to rely on bot lane being stupid and not realizing you are coming, or just beast your way down the lane and hope that you can get into a bush that hasnt been warded (ie the orange dots arent actually there). But even if you can get there, 3v2 fights are very iffy, and the chances you actually convert a gank are pretty low simply because of how much utility bot lanes tend to have. Because of this, it generally isnt a good idea to spend a lot of energy ganking bot lane, if there is a perfect opportunity take it, but spend most of your focus on mid and top. This doesnt mean ignore them completely, as just showing your face bot can be a powerful tool that reminds the lane that they dont have free reign. But just remember that if you ARE spotted, the enemy knows that top and mid can push as hard as they want, and the enemy jungle can go into your top jungle or gank top and mid with impunity.
Actually Ganking
The actual process of a gank is highly champ dependent. WW ganks are very different from say, a Shaco gank. However, there are a few general truths that you want to keep in mind when you gank.
First, red buff is God. As I stated earlier in the guide, red buff is the ganking tool. If the enemy survives the initial burst of your damage and your teammates, red buff often makes the difference between the enemy getting away with a sliver of health and dying. Because of this, always make sure you apply red as soon as possible. This means making ABSOLUTELY sure to drop an autoattack before you start chaining your abilities together, especially now that red buff no longer applies on single target spells.
Secondly, make sure you and the teammate whose lane you are ganking are on the same page. In an ideal case, your teammate wants to bait his opponent into trading. This has a few goals. First, it encourages the lane to be a bit more static. It also puts a bit more damage on the enemy, which helps the whole killing thing. In a best case scenario, the enemy will also waste a spell on your teammate, which is very good because it is one less ability that can potentially kill you. If that spell was a root, snare, or stun, all the better. The overall goal is to have the enemy feel they are in a point of no return: they are committed to that exchange, so they will be more extended and react more slowly to your appearance.
If a trade isnt possible, try to get your teammate to drop his cc on the enemy as an opening. It cuts down on the amount of time the enemy has to run from you before you hit them. On the other hand, some jungles are excellent initiators, WW or Maokai. In this case, you want to be in a position to engage with your cc or follow up their cc with yours, but make sure that your teammate knows not to stack their cc on top of yours, wait till each runs to ALMOST full duration to maximize the amount of immobility, overlapping slightly to prevent the enemy any chance of escaping. That means that if they initiate, you should wait until theirs just about runs out before you drop your cc. Also important to note is that it is generally a good idea to hold onto skillshot cc. Missing it can ruin the gank, while having the opportunity to get closer, or applying a slow such as red buff or exhaust can greatly increase the chances of successfully landing the cc.
ONCE AGAIN, NO MATTER WHAT, DO NOT FEED BUFFS. If it looks like the enemy could get away, dont do something stupid that puts your buffs at risk. It is nowhere near worth it.
Other than those basic guidelines, each jungle is pretty different when it comes to which abilities to use and how effective they are at ganking. Broken record- check the champ threads or GD.
Jungle Guide Part 3: Advanced Jungling, Counterjungling, More Info.
Counterjungling
Counterjungling is one of the most misunderstood aspects of LoL. People tend to have the belief that counterjungling successfully is always good, which could not be further from the truth. Think about counterjungling like dropping or rushing DTs in Starcraft. Even if you manage to do a lot of damage, you always have to look at what you gave up for that opportunity. In LoL, the currency you lose is time. You have to cross river, go into jungle, and then kill a camp (make sure to leave a small creep so the camp doesnt respawn until the enemy resets it) then walk BACK across river. All the while keeping an eye on the minimap to make sure that you aren’t about to get caught and killed (i.e. all of a sudden both lanes near you disappear heading back into towards their tower is a good indication you have been spotted). Most of the time, this means that you just about give up any advantage over the enemy jungle you gained simply because of the time you had to spend traveling.
That being said, that does not mean you should never counterjungle. The most effective counterjungling occurs at level 1: gather your team, go steal a camp and a buff from the enemy jungle. It is the biggest blow you can actually deal to the enemy from counterjungling, and the least risky in terms of you being isolated and killed, but it does pose the risk of having the enemy team counterjunge YOU, and it also can force your lanes to miss cs, putting them at a early disadvantage. Again, weight the risk versus the reward.
After that though, counterjungling gets to be a bit more risky, and much less effective. I generally advise against counterjungling in your first clear save for a specific circumstance. Go about your business in jungle and do your best to get ahead by killing creeps quickly. After you get boots and there are more wards on the map, you are a bit freer to counterjungle. Typically the only small cams you are going to be able to steal are wraiths and golems, just because the others are so deep in enemy territory. On the other hand, moving as a team to secure enemy buffs is a VERY effective way to counterjungle and gimp the enemy team. Blue buff typically respawns at around 7:15- 7:20. If you can, try to get your team to move together and steal it before the enemy can take it for themselves. You NEED your team to react, however, and if they do not, don’t try to run in and interrupt a buff transfer all by yourself.
I mentioned earlier that there was a specific circumstance where you actually CAN counterjungle in your first clear. That is by actually DEDICATING yourself to it. From the start of the game, have a plan that involves invading by yourself and stealing creeps. There are a few considerations, however. You should be a character that can either 1v1 exceptionally well if you are caught (Lee Sin) or can run away (Shaco). Remember that counterjungling is a risk though. If you aim to counterjungle and fail, you will be behind the rest of the game. Even if you succeed, remember that creeps respawn very quickly. The enemey jungle will be a bit behind, but they will be able to catch up very quickly. Try to use the time you create to gank, or pass on the information to your team that they should be safe to push for a bit longer than they normally could.
Buff Transfers
A very common practice that has emerged recently is the idea of transferring buffs to carries. Early game, this typically entails giving second or third Blue spawn to your mana based AP carry, while late game this means giving Red buff to your ranged AD carry.
It is very important to understand why this is done before you do it (NEVER be a sheep, understand why things are done before you copy others). Red is transferred simply because a lot of AD ranged carries tend not to have slows, and Red buff on autoattacks with that slow makes AD carries very potent, not to mention the damage increase that scales better on characters with higher attack speed. Red does give a diminishing slow on ranged attackers, however. There are times when red is more effective on others, however. For example, Shyvana makes great use of Red because of her ability to chase down and kill enemy carries. Always make sure to think about who can use it best then give it to that person.
Blue is a bit more complex. Blue buff on an AP carry allows AP carries to use their abilities to clear waves quickly and then apply pressure around the map. However, most of the time low elo mids don’t understand this, so they don’t actually make full use of the buff. But that is beside the point. Blue is very helpful to mids, so it is perfectly acceptable to pass along, BUT ONLY AS SOON AS YOU DO NOT NEED IT YOURSELF (ie, if you are behind and need it to power farm).
Buffs are YOURS as the jungle. The trade off you face as a jungle is that you give up a very steady income in order to free up 3 full lanes for others. Of course, this means that you need to do your best to maximize what little gold income you get. For example, jungle gets blue buff the first go round so that they can make use of the CDR and mana regen to get through the first clear quickly. If you still need it after that first clear (ie you get behind because of a failed gank, someone counterjungles and kills you, ect) it is perfectly acceptable to take the next blue spawn as well so that you can use the clear speed it gives in order to catch up. Buffs always belong on whoever can use them the best. If you can use it better than your mid, take it. Just be ready to get an earful. Ideally your goal should be to have the freedom to pass blue along, but if you need it, take it.
Nonstandard Jungles
Personally, one of the most interesting aspects of jungling is the ability to use different champions effectively in jungle as you improve. One of my favorite nonstandard jungles is TF, I also love messing around with Leona, saintvicious is well known for his hard random jungling, and he often messes around with stuff like jungle Rumble and Blitzcrank. As you improve in jungle, keep an open mind. Pretty much every character has something that would make them a useful jungle. Drop armor runes on them and see what happens. Every popular pick was a troll pick at some point, perhaps you can find the next op. Just make sure you only experiment with people who wont report you
.Text by Two_Down, Edited by NeoIllusions
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/3kkFm.jpg)
