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I originally posed this in the general discussion post because I thought it might not belong on the strategy boards, but I was told it is fine here, so here goes 
How do I go about getting better at ganking/counterganking as a jungler? I'm trying to get better maining jungler. My main strength in my play (imo) is my jungle control. I'm very good at keeping timers and always being on top of my buffs and being primed to steal one of theirs. Rarely ever do I lose a buff to the enemy team. My weakness is ganking.
I usually face a few problems in the ganking department...
1) I have a hard time deciding when to use my time to try to gank. Lets say I start at wraiths (assuming both buffs clear and not coming up in the next 30 secs-1 min). I usually chose to either go wolves and look at bot and mid, or go golums and look at top and mid. Usually, in my mind, it's useless to go for a gank unless they're pushing our towers. Unless I'm playing a champ like shaco that i know I can't afford not to be aggressive on, I will opt to go to the opposite side of the jungle to get that last camp and keep farming. Usually I just feel I'm going to make the guy retreat back to his tower and basically waste my time and let the opposite lanes know they're safe for a bit.
2) I can't menuver around wards very well. Bot especially (unless I'm playing a jungler like udyr with ghost) Is hard to gank for me. But even top, I find it hard to get in past the river wards. I try ganking from the lane, but It doesn't usually work very well. Like I said, unless they're pushed to our turret, I find it hard to gank. Another problem is getting people to talk and tell me where wards are in the first place, so If I didn't see it go down, it's unlikely that my team will answer me in chat and tell me where the ward is.
3) I'm not playing at the greatest ELO, and a lot of people will feed kills and then yell at me for not helping them. I'm not thin skined enough to let that bother me, but I feel like If i knew when their jugnler was going to gank, I could at least be there to make sure my guy doesn't die. You hear so much about how sick X's counterganks are, but I hardly ever get the chance to countergank anyone because i'm not in the right spot.
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Hey,1650 noob jungler here.
I was having the same problem with my jungle.
Was farming 24/7 and did relatively poor ganks.
What boosted my ganking potential is:
1) Playing gank heavy champs (xin, lee) clear my buffs and just gank, gank, gank not even worrying about the jungle until buffs come up.
2) Learning general places for wards and buying pinks to clear them out.
3) Asking lliners about wards
4) Placing vision in enemy jungle, so i can follow their jungler movement.
5) Practicing line ganks
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upd.
Also remember that a gank is not always a kill.
Burning summoners can give your liners advantage, pushing enemys out of the line so they recall will deny them some exp and gold, constant pressure with your presense in lines will force them to buy more wards and/or to play less agressive.
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Just so we know, what is your current stable of junglers in order and why do you pick them? For example:
"I play Nocturne 21/9/0 with smite/exhaust and 10 armor pen, attackspeed reds, armor yellows, and scaling MR blues. I feel that this allows me to clear jungle quickly and put out large amounts of damage in teamfights. I build Spirit of the Elder Lizard into Aegis/Bulwark with situational defensive items as needed because I end up counterinitiating onto their ADC in teamfights with ult -> fear and being tanky allows me to put out a lot of DPS while drawing fire from their carries. My ganks early to midgame are focused on top lane and mid if they overextend or have a stun and bot primarily after getting to level 6, unless I know they are overextended in a high percentage situation with no wards."
I'll provide a detailed analysis after I know who you play and your reasoning behind them  .
As a generic thought, though, try some 0/9/21 junglers with MS quints or open boots on someone that can do a strong level 2 gank like Xin or Udyr.
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Udyr:
My go to champion. I run 4/26/0 (grabbing the ghost CD reduction and 3% CDR in offense) with smite/ghost. This was the build on the toprated guide on solomid. It eschews more points in the offense tree to grab the extra tenacity and slow reduction from the defense tree that you would otherwise lose. I feel like when I do get into position for a gank early, damage from me isn't the limiting factor on weather or not it was effective so I'm happy with the masteries. I run MS quints, AS reds, Flat Armor Yellows, and MR/Lvl blues. I use these runes because udyr's damage and utility scale better with AS (pocs your phoenix and allows you better lifesteal in turtle) than AD, and I take the Movespeed quints for better initiation (once again, you don't really need to build AD on udyr).
I play phoenix max style, prioritizing Phoenix>Turtle>Bear>Tiger. I play this way because the faster clear times associated with phoenix jungling and since the change phoenix has similar burst damage anyway. I max turtle over bear for the beefier shield (I generally dont sit around in turtle stance to lifesteal till later in the game when we're teamfighting) that keeps my HP high in the jungle (switching between Phoenix and Turtle when necissary to keep the passive stacked and for the on demand shield).
For Item builds I start machete 5 pot into a fast spirit stone and boots if possible. My first buys after this are generally Boots of swiftness for the persistent movespeed in catching up to someone (I'm already gaining tenacity from ancient golum, so I don't need merc treads as much unless I really need the MR) and a kindlegem. My core is going to be aegis, Ancient golum, and locket. I build these for team utility (and every high rated jungler guide for almost any champion runs these same 3 items, so who am I to argue?) provided by locket and aegis as well as the tenacity from ancient golum as well as a good chunk of tankieness. From here I probably will chose between Frozen Heart, Randuins, Thornmail, Warmog's, and spirit visage depending on who the big threats are on the enemy team, and either another defensive item to round out the build or one offensive item (Almost always Wit's End for the increased attack speed/MR which helps get the phoenix on hit to proc more often while making me more tanky).
For route/Playsyle, I will start blue with a decent leash and almost always I will check if either midlane or the support is already missing a ward. If they are not, I will run past the enemy wraiths (going golum side) and take his red. From here I generally decide based on their early game and the champion they're playing if I'm going to focus my ganks on mid or top (for example, If there is a twisted fate or kassadin mid and, say, a Garen top, I want the mid fed more than the top, so I will probably center my play around mid lane unless it's clear that top is a far superior player or the player in mid is bad). I generally work in 1 minute cycles based around Wraith camp. I will clear wraiths and either do golums or wolves then look for a gank/invade in the 20-30 secs before wraith's re spawn although I rarely commit unless the laner is pushing my tower or I know he doesn't have a ward top and mid if they're being aggressive. My first gank bot is usually done after I buy level 2 boots. I head straight to bottom lane with ghost and gank through the lane, then try to take dragon. It works out well enough where I can use my ghost to gank bot and put pressure on objectives (Blue/Red buff and dragon) every time ghost is up. Other than that, I rarely gank bot unless I know they don't have a ward or they're way overextended.
For playstyle, I generally just want to focus on initiating the fight first. Udyr is really suceptable to getting kited and his only gap closer is bear stance, so it can be hard to do sometimes unless we have someone else to start the fight for us. When the teamfight starts, what I'm doing depends on the situation. I either A) Go after their carry and lock them down or force everyoene to go all out on me or B) use bear stance to peel for my carry. I will chose the latter if my carry is stronger, and do the former if their carry is stronger (or I'm rediculously far ahead and I don't think they can stop me).
Nunu
I play nunu somewhat similar to udyr. I build 9/21/0 with MS quints, AS reds, Armor Yellows, Scaling MR blues with smite/flash. I take the extra points in offense to get the MPen which is more essential to nunu's kit than it is for udyr. I still focus heavily on counterjungle and objective control. I run the same routes as udyr, and the same ganking patterns (although since I run flash, I find it harder to gank bottom lane, but I will nonetheless try to gank through lane with blood boil at around the same times as udyr).
I build very similarly (I will replace the wit's end for offensive items with either rylais or twin shadows (if I'm stomping, and I'll sell that later for a rylais). The only big difference in playsyles for the two champions are that I'm almost exclusively going to peel and play a support role during teamfights with nunu. Also, I spam laugh on nunu more because Nunu bot Laugh is OP.
The rest of my champion pool (in order) would probably be..
Nasus : 9/21/0 MS/AS/Armor/Scaling MR with smite/ghost: almost identical to Udyr and Nunu; Only difference being I will usually build Gauntlet and focus on chasing down their carries in teamfights).
Xin Zhao: 9/21/0 ArP quints, AS/Armor/Scaling MR with smite/flash. One of the only champions I will sometimes build 2 offensive items on (usually BotrK, maybe building Black Cleaver). Similar to Udyr, I chose between peeling or pressuring carries. Same gank/clear patterns.
Shaco 21/9/0 Smite/Ignite MS quints, AD red, AS Yellows/AS blues with smite/ignite. I only play this very rarely usually when I'm frustrated that my team threw a game the previous game. I go total all-in on aggression. I start blue, head straight to red over baron/dragon pit with q and start setting up boxes for a FB in the jungle, then look for an opportunity to gank either lane by their red. I focus almost all my attention on ganking and keeping buff timers. I clear much less when I play shaco and will sit in brushes top or bottom waiting for kills and am usually trying to gank mid every minute or two while killing their mid/jungler at buffs or just taking them every time they're up. I sometimes lvl 6 dragon solo cheese when noone looks gankable when I hit 6. For builds I focus on the core of Hexdrinker (unless they have next to no Magic damage) and A cutlass for good ganking power with the slow and the shield. From here I will always get a BotrK (since your clone gets the passive, incredibly good for dueling), and will either decide that the game is even or we're ahead, at which point I'll build Static Shiv and Hydra and split push all day, or their carry is doing well enough that I have to build PD and IE and focus on assasinating him in teamfights (usually with GA).
Those are the champions I play most. As you can see, I play almost every champion in the same manner, more or less. I am more than happy to pick up new champions if that's what you recommend, and will do the best I can to respond to your analysis to change the way I play the champions I already play.
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Czech Republic11293 Posts
One thing that should be mentioned at the very start, Udyr Nunu and especially Nasus have quite poor ganks. Focusing on generally being aggresive in the enemy jungle is the main point of both Udyr and Nunu (moreso Nunu). That being said, ganking is still an important part of their play.
The most important thing when ganking is to know where the enemy wards are. Keep pressing tab at the very early game (before 2:00) to see how many wards each enemy has bought. While clearing your buffs, keep pressing tab and watch the minimap closely. You can almost always see when and where exactly has the enemy placed the ward. Time it in the chat (something like, "w 515). This should be probably the next thing you focus on in your following games. It should be noted that keeping track of duo lane wards can be extremely difficult (even I make mistakes therer quite often), but try anyway.
Before each gank, decide how exactly it's going to play out. Something like "I bear stance, run in just as he goes to kill the ranged creep, then keep switching between bear and phoenix until he's dead". Know exactly when you run in and in which exact order you will use your skills, and in which order you will use those skills in relation to what your teammate does. If you don't know when exactly to run in, or in which order to use your skills, have a guess! You will see how well it worked out (or didn't) and remember that for the next time.
Learn how lanes work!
This is assuming both sides only last hit:
When all creeps are in the middle and there's the same amount of them on both sides, it is random in which direction it will push.
If there are more creeps on one side, the side with more creeps will push.
(important one!) if there is roughly the same amount of creeps on both sides BUT it's closer to one of the towers, the side that it is closer to will eventually push (reinforcements come in sooner). Let's set up an important hypothetical example:
Blue side top laner kills all the creeps quickly, Purple side kills all but 2 ranged creeps quickly. The blue ranged creeps meet the purple wave before they get in tower range. They get quickly killed by the purple wave, and now the 2 full waves meet close to purple tower. Even though purple creeps took a bit of damage from these 2 blue ranged minions, being closer to the tower will make them push; then next purple wave will get into combat way sooner than the blue one.
Knowing this, you can predict how lanes will push a minute ahead! Sometimes champions will purposefully push and ruin your planning, so you can't rely on it 100%, but you can preplan your path a bit in advance thanks to this. Later you will learn when which champion will try to push, but there are too many reasons and examples to really list them out here.
For the closing statement, I guess I'll say DO NOT overgank! Remember, every jungle camp you kill will make everything you do in the future stronger (more gold, more exp).
Also, asking laners about wards will 60% of the time get you the answer "no wards" even though it is warded. Ask on your own peril :D
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You can also try to "set up" a gank for yourself by telling your laner to shove into the turret at the right time. If you do it right and get yourself in position to gank (either lane gank or not), you can get a situation where you are already in a good spot when the lane goes back to neutral, and you have a good chance of at least pushing the enemy out of lane or burning summoners.
This takes a little practice and cooperation from your laner, though. If they take too long to push, you can get a situation where the lane won't reset or the next wave will also go into tower, which will mean that it will be a really long time before you can the minions back in good position.
Well-planned lane ganks in the top lane can be really hard to deal with, because it's often difficult for the top laner to justify investing in a ward for the lane brush unless they're against a brush abuser like Rengar or Kennen.
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Two rules to follow to climb elo until Platinium as jungler, always gank and never die.
Take the experience and buff from red/blue camp and go impact the game in lanes. Don't lose time clearing wolves, wraiths while you could gank somewhere. If you clear your whole jungle and the opposite jungler gank 2 lanes, and get kills the game may already be over.
Pick champion with big cc and mobility like jarvan, Xin'zhao, Nunu, Volibear, hecarim etc. Prioritize botlane and midlane, if both those lanes are winning and pushing you can take an easy dragon. If your top has snowball potential gank there once before level 6.
Botlane tips:
-As purple side, If there are wards(there should be in the early to mid game) just take a longer way go through their jungle to gank them unnoticed, botlane should be the top priority for ganks if you see an opportunity.
-You don't necessarily need a kill to make your gank worth it, if you see your botlane having issues in their 2v2 just showing yourself on wards will make the other botlane back off and allow your adc to farm 1-2 wave freely. Just don't attract the other jungler and engage a losing 3v3.
Midlane tips:
-A champion without escape pushing is a dead champion. Your mid mate most likely has a cc of his own and plenty of damage, coupled with your cc if an ennemy pushes here, punish him.
-Don't bother trying to gank an ennemy playing passive mid with an escape kha'zix, leblanc, katarina, ezreal
-Keep the mid tower alive or you'll suffer from roaming and lose dragon control. Go defend it if your mid is in trouble and they are pushing.
Toplane tips:
-The hardest lane to gank if they ward, the easiest if they don't. If you know the ennemy doesn't have ward try to gank atleast once there before 6, toplane 1v1 is the most unforgiving lane if the opponent gets too ahead the lane is lost making it freefarm for one and struggle for the other as soon as the lane is frozen.
-Gank once or twice if you get the flash first and can assure a kill then ignore completely you want to win the botlane and midlane for possible early dragon.
-Ward for them if you have a ward to put in the river brush it'll allow you to countergank or alert the toplaner while you win bot/midlane.
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Czech Republic11293 Posts
I disagree with prioritizing bottom lane early, unless they have a hyperaggro combo like leona+graves or double bruiser. Snowballing middle has the same effect (more control over bottom lane). Ganking bot generally is really hard because of the amount of wards they have. If you absolutely dominate mid+bot early you CAN get early dragons, but that is a pretty fragile strategy to go for. I'd rather prioritize top lane early when there is no threat of a dragon yet. You can stalemate around dragon for quite a bit even when behind in bottom lane and gain off of it because your top laner will keep on gaining 1v1.
That's not to say ganking bot before lvl6 is a bad idea, but I do that like once in 4 games. On a lot of champions just farming to lvl6 asap before ganking bot is more effective, even if you can't make anything happen mid or top.
I also disagree with just showing up being worth it. I'd rather get lvl6 faster to do something useful instead of losing experience just to allow my AD carry to farm in peace for a wave or 2.
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On July 23 2013 00:07 Scip wrote:
I also disagree with just showing up being worth it. I'd rather get lvl6 faster to do something useful instead of losing experience just to allow my AD carry to farm in peace for a wave or 2.
That's probably the one point I'm sure I'm right and should be used anytime your botlane is getting shit on. Vayne, Graves, tristana with a weak support may have huge issues to even cs against a Draven, Varus, Caitlyn early especially with Doran's blade start.A level 1-2 fight may force them to give up on 12-18 cs and if you don't give them space, they will always be lower levels and everytime you can allow them to free farm without being harassed and you may even prevent the opposite lane to get cs without even commiting and risking to die in a gank/countergank you should do it.
Edit: you can play as a jungler without that much farm, if your adc has no farm and your support has no level the game is going to be 3v5.
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I lv2 ganked all the way to plat. Doesn't work anymore in plat because people counter jungle and are better at staying alive to ganks.
I have such a hard time ganking bot that I take ghost now to gank from the back. Even if they see you, most people dont have enough escapes to get away from a ghosting champ.
You can gank mid from their jungle entrance; if they dont see you going behind the river, theres no ward near mid.
Losing lanes/Winning lanes are going to get camped by junglers the most. If you want to countergank, your best bet would be to ward their jungle and go to those lanes.
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I always like to go for an early gank at top because u can often grab an easy kill if they didn't start with a ward.
I think one thing to keep in mind is to play to your junglers strong suits. When I play as Elise jungle I look to hit money stuns on there mid and top early and often because if I can get one of those to two snowballing early it can be an easy game. When I play vi I look to do more counter jungling trying to reach 6 fast.
Also keep in mind what type of mid you have if you have a kassadin or zed getting them ahead will prolly help bot more cuz of the roaming potential then you can with early ganks
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Pick an aggressive jungler (With a strong level 3)
Get smiteless blue -> Rush their red and steal it.
MAKE SURE YOU POP ENOUGH POTS TO BE HIGH-HP
Engage their jungler at wraiths and enjoy a free kill. At the very least them popping flash to get away. You have a massive advantage at level 3 to level 2.
You probably just pissed off their midlane too, so watch for that. Best scenario you just got a free kill, buffs and a wave of CS for mid. Worst scenario both you and the enemy jungle just popped flash to escape.
Its extremely difficult to die doing this gold and below unless ur bad. I had extreme success doing this down in bronze and DuoQ at high-silver / gold levels i havent done it in a while and had the most success with olaf / warwick, both are over 70% winrate atm Olaf 9-3 Warwick 13-5
Try it
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I just want to say im enjoying reading this thread a lot.
Please carry on.
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Tbh should really be running 0 21 9 on Udyr, esp if going phoenix, the extra buff duration and movespeed and all that jazz is really strong on him, more so than 3% cdr imo.
Phoenix and Tiger are both pretty decent imo, if youre going tiger id 100% go the diamondprox build with the dolans blade(and masteries i cant remember) you can gank heavy and kill things super easy without the need to stutterstep to get max hits in with phoenix, since it feels like tigers animation comes out a whole lot faster(plus all that bonus attack speed, mm)
Only other jungles i really play are like Zac/Mummy, both of which are kinda binary, and dont really need to do a whole shitload to still be retarded in the late game.
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Czech Republic11293 Posts
Wat Capped
how can you get your blue, and his red before the enemy jungler even GETS to his red after blue?
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It's possible, a slow ass jungler like Naut or Sejuani cannot compete at level 2 when you play an aggressive jungler like lee, WW, udyr, shaco.
It is possible to gank top if your ally is pushing towards their tower, you just have to do a lane gank by hugging the wall and camping the side brush waiting for the chance to jump in. Similarly with bot lane as well you can do a lane gank, but you need to make sure that the side brush isn't warded.
As a jungler, pay attention to what items mid and top have purchased and see if they have bought wards. If they have, your laners have to notify you if they have put a ward down or not (also take note if they have even used it or not). Purple mid laner would want to ward the river brush on the right side, Blue mid laner would want to ward the left side.
If you are blue team with a wall jumping skill (eg: J4, Sejuani) and enemy top laner has warded river entrance, you can cut through baron pit into tri-brush and gank their lane.
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Czech Republic11293 Posts
no, it is impossible to finish 2 buffs before they even arrive at their 2nd one, unless it was like Nautilus with no pull at all and you got 2:05 good pull. Even then you'd have problems being that fast.
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Not sure what your ELO is, but let's start with some basics:
Ganking 101
- Only gank lanes that are pushed up towards your team's towers
- Try and gank each lane at least 1 time before level 6
- Prioritize lanes that are 1 kill down (but don't completely ignore the others)
- De-prioritize lanes that are 2+ kills down (but don't completely ignore it if there's a free kill)
- To go along with this, avoid lanes where the opponent is a snowbally champion and has already begun snowballing. Example: don't try and gank a lane vs. Akali where she is already 3/0 and is 2 levels ahead of your lane. It'll most likely result in her getting a double kill and simply snowballing even harder.
- Abuse easily gankable lanes. "Easily gankable" = lanes where your lane has a cc-ability, and the opponent doesn't have a lot of CC, or can't easily escape ganks. Example: you are xin zhao, your mid lane is Ryze, his lane opponent is Twisted Fate. You have a slow, a knockup, and a guaranteed snare. All TF can do is gold card one of you. A gank will almost surely result in him having to use flash or die/lose most of his health, especially if you and ryze both have flash as well.
- Avoid difficult-to-gank lanes. "Difficult-to-gank" = lanes where your lane has little cc and/or no stun, and the opponent has lots of cc or has enough mobility abilities to easily escape ganks. Example: You are Shyvana, your mid lane is vladimir, and his lane opponent is Zed. You have no stuns, neither does vlad, and Zed has his living shadow to escape. You will almost never be able to gank and kill Zed, so focus on other lanes.
- If your ult helps you gank, then gank every time your ult is off cooldown.
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Honestly, playing Lee Sin helps so much. It teaches you a lot about ganking and jungle fights. Maybe that's just me though.
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On July 23 2013 09:37 GhandiEAGLE wrote:
Honestly, playing Lee Sin helps so much. It teaches you a lot about ganking and jungle fights. Maybe that's just me though.
I suck dick with leesin. I always end up super low HP in the jungle my first clear and feel like I can't gank. When I do go to gank, I can get kills, but I usually end up dying in the process. I'm much more successful ganking with shyvana than lee
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EPT
