Reading minion waves?

Celial

2602 Posts

October 20 2015 13:39 GMT

I noticed lately when checking out replays and really paying attention to vods, that high level junglers just magically seem to be able to convert every single gank.

They just walk straight from the camp they were just doing into a lane, the laner is magically in the worst possible position and they force cooldowns or get a kill. Like, without hesitation, without waiting, it just appears to magically be perfect. Every single game, every single time.

So when for example OddOne sometimes mentioned that he cant gank a lane for the next five minutes because the laner messed up the wave, or just casually looking at a lane, with (for me) no discernible indicators and goes "oh yea we can gank this soon"... I figured it must have something to do with the waves.

Sooooo. I couldn't find any guides for this kinda stuff. How do I learn to base my jungle playstyle around sidelane waves? How do I read that shit properly so that I can maximise my efficiency?

ticklishmusic

United States15977 Posts

October 20 2015 14:48 GMT

You're probably having a bit of selective memory, and there's a bit of unspoken communication between the jungler and his toplaner at higher levels, that's the short story. People die in lane all the time without the jungler being able to react, but we tend to not remember those because they're offscreen and not really memorable.

The basics are about creating an opportunity--the jungler make a point to path your clear so you're around when you think there's a gank opportunity, and sidelanes control their lanes and try to create gank opportunity when the jungler is available. The jungler know what "range" he can be in to assist a gank as well. When it comes to counterganking, a good ward or two in their jungle is all you need to know (with a reliable degree of certainty) if the enemy jungler is in the top or bottom half of the map-- they don't have to show in a lane, gank or sit on a ward, a glimpse every couple of minutes is plenty to go on.

The tactics beyond that are pretty straightforward. Your sidelane forces their opponent to take an action they wouldn't have otherwise, jungler shows up to convert that. Push lane, force a trade, get "out of position", etc.

http://www.liquidlegends.net/forum/shopkeepers-inn/496557-free-coaching-for-bronze-to-platinum-players

This guy might be able to give you more advice if you're interested.

Scip

Czech Republic11293 Posts

October 20 2015 15:32 GMT

with no purposeful pushing:
wave that has more minions pushes (d'oh)
wave that's closer to blue tower pushes FOR blue (and vice versa; reinforcements come in sooner)
without purposeful pushing it's probably going to take something like 3 waves for minions to get from blue tower to purple tower?

and then you have champion and matchup specific dynamics that dictate how much each laner affects the above and for that you need quite a bit of experience.
Focusing on monitoring minion waves is a pretty good thing to focus once you get hang of basic jungling. You'll want to play a lot of games where you spend some time observing especially top lane when farming, you'll get the feel for how minions push by themselves really quickly, but judging how champions affect pushing is going to be a lot more difficult and will involve a lot of active thinking (yknow, maybe ryze doesn't usually push vs renekton, but since he got that random fb... etc.). If you do that then all you're missing's just practice, not many shortcuts around that unfortunately.

If you learn to read how the lane will push then all you need to do is to be able to determine whether a gank is good or not (not that hard to tell usually) and then estimate how much you can farm before optimal gank time. Reading the lane's the hard part of this operation.

Celial

2602 Posts

October 20 2015 16:34 GMT

On October 21 2015 00:32 Scip wrote:
with no purposeful pushing:
wave that has more minions pushes (d'oh)
wave that's closer to blue tower pushes FOR blue (and vice versa; reinforcements come in sooner)
without purposeful pushing it's probably going to take something like 3 waves for minions to get from blue tower to purple tower?

and then you have champion and matchup specific dynamics that dictate how much each laner affects the above and for that you need quite a bit of experience.
Focusing on monitoring minion waves is a pretty good thing to focus once you get hang of basic jungling. You'll want to play a lot of games where you spend some time observing especially top lane when farming, you'll get the feel for how minions push by themselves really quickly, but judging how champions affect pushing is going to be a lot more difficult and will involve a lot of active thinking (yknow, maybe ryze doesn't usually push vs renekton, but since he got that random fb... etc.). If you do that then all you're missing's just practice, not many shortcuts around that unfortunately.

If you learn to read how the lane will push then all you need to do is to be able to determine whether a gank is good or not (not that hard to tell usually) and then estimate how much you can farm before optimal gank time. Reading the lane's the hard part of this operation.

Thank you so much man... I know that thats the next "big" thing I need to learn to improve.

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