Jungle Objectives and You

Jungle Objectives and You.

Hello friends, I'm Fox, and I'm here to ramble to you my thoughts and feelings on Jungle Objectives and tactics from a 1500s perspective. As I type this I am a 1570, and I jungle as often as I can in ranked. Mostly this is just a lot of simple information that not enough people know or think about.

A lot of players players don't anticipate, they react. By this I mean they don't think "Blue is up in 30 seconds, I better get ready for it." instead they think "Oh blue just came up, I should finish up what I'm doing and go get it." and it really separates the good players from the great players. The jungler who didn't anticipate blue's spawn may walk there to find someone on the enemy team had beaten him to it.

Every objective in the jungle is something you should be watching out for. I highly suggest turning on timestamps in your chat, and calling out the time an objective will be up, and being there as it spawns.  Quick and agressive jungle play can put you on the path to victory. 

 

The Map Objectives

So I'd like to touch on each of the map objectives, and then elaborate on their importance and when you should be taking them.

Crest of the Ancient Golem, aka Blue Buff

This unit regens 25 flat mana regeneration per 5 seconds and 0.5% of their maximum mana (or energy) per second and has 20% cooldown reduction on their abilities. If slain, this buff transfers to the killer.

This is huge mid lane, especially against an opponent that doesn't have it. It allows you to farm, trade, and have the mana open to push, roam and gank. If a mid laner gets denied blue buff, they will lose a ton of mid game power that AP mids usually bring, and may may be very behind if their lane opponent gets blue. Blue spawns 5 minutes after you kill it, and it usually dies for the first time around 2:10 or so, so most often it will be up around 7:10.

Blessing of the Lizard Elder, aka Red Buff

This unit's physical attacks apply a debuff that slows the target's movement speed by 8 / 16 / 24% (5 / 10 / 15% for ranged attacks) for 3 seconds and a DoT that deals 10-44 (10 at level 1, increasing by 2 damage for every level gained) bonus true damage twice. If the buff holder is slain, this buff is transferred to the killer.

Where Blue Buff helps most junglers farm the jungle easier and safer, Red Buff gives bonuses that help your ganks. The damage and slow make them simultaneously difficult to fight, and difficult to escape. Like Blue Buff, this buff respawns 5 minutes after you kill it.

Dragon

Killing the dragon grants 190 gold to each player on the killing team and gives experience to killer and nearby allies. The killer receives 25 bonus gold. This is an effective 975 gold, and a large chunk of experience also. It's gold translates to around 40-50 minion kills. Knowing when and how to take dragons is extremely important because doing it right can be the edge your team needs to win. Dragon spawns initially at 2:30, and will respawn 6 minutes after killed.

Baron Nashor

This is the big objective. He's no push-over but killing Baron effectively gives 1500 gold to the team that slays him, in addition to some experience and the Exalted with Baron Nashor buff.

This buff gives:
40 ability power
40 attack damage
3% of your maximum health in health regeneration per 5 sec.
1% of your maximum mana in mana regeneration per 5 sec.

This buff is game changing. Not only will the enemy team have a hard time winning trades with you, due to the nice damage buff you get from Baron, but over time your health and mana will be regenerating, allowing you to keep pressing your advantage. This is why you see a lot of teams with Baron attempt to siege towers, while the other team can do nothing but try to play safe and wait it out. Baron spawns initially at 15 minutes, and will respawn 7 minutes after his death.

Now that we've covered what these objectives are, and why we want them, let's talk about how they come into the game.

Strategy

The Pre-Game Lobby

I'd like to start where any good jungler starts every game, in the pre-game lobby. There are a lot of things you can evaluate on in the lobby so you are ready for when the game starts. Planning invades, informing a player you want to gank their lane early, or asking for help defending your own jungle are all things you can do in the chat before the game.

Another good question to ask yourself, is where is the enemy jungler starting, and how can I use this to my advantage?

Just one example, is when there is a purple side Lee Sin. Nine times out of ten, that guy is going to do red, and go to pressure top lane. Well there aren't a lot of junglers who can start blue and counter gank top at level 2. Without red you won't be doing as much damage, and a level 2 Lee Sin is a strong duelist.

So what should you do? I personally like taking his blue.

This gives you the power to:
- Give an early blue to your mid laner(yours or theirs), allowing them a big early lane advantage.
- Counter it as soon as it's back up. If you kill the small minions, you'll know the time it's up, and he won't. 
- And  the experience and gold bonus of taking this camp are really helpful in giving you an early inch of a lead. 

I could ramble all day about theorycrafting, but I hope you at least see my point. Just think about your team and the enemy's team. The more junglers you play and are familiar with, the more you can evaluate on this. Starting positions, jungle paths, the optimal time to gank first and how or where, there are a ton of variables.

Collecting Buffs

Important things to consider, can I successfully counter jungle them, or will they be trying to counter jungle me, and where is my opponent going to start?

If you have strong CC like Blitzcrank, Taric, Alistar, Sion, pretty much anyone with easy and strong CC) catching someone out in a level 1 fight could be very advantageous for you. So attempting to catch the enemy off guard by going to catching them in the jungle, and getting kills or taking buffs. Denying a jungler's buffs can either seriously slow a jungler's ability to farm by taking blue buff or take away their ganking tools by taking red buff.

But also if you believe you know where a jungler is going to start, it can often be fairly safe to go to his other buff. If you think a jungler is going to start at Blue, starting at his read before heading into your jungle can put them behind without the volatility of a level 1 fight.

It is commonly accepted that the jungler will take the first blue buff, and then help their mid take all the rest. They generally will get more out of it than you. Feel free to feed Red to auto attackers on your team, but during laning phase, you are probably the best person to have it.

Wriggle's Lantern 

I'd just like to talk about Wriggles for a moment.
+30 armor
+23 attack damage
+12% life steal
Passive: On hit, 20% chance for target minion/monster to suffer 425 magic damage.
Active: Places a Sight Ward at target location. 3 minute cooldown. (600 cast range).

So Wriggles is great. It gives an auto attacker jungler everything they need. But I think it is a little over-rated. People just say "Oh that's good for junglers, I better get it every time I jungle!". It is not the perfect flawless jungler item, it is not required to get every time you jungle. It costs 1600 gold, and if you're getting it just for a sustain item, it is just slowing you down from getting your character's other core items.

If I were playing with a focus on ganking, I would consider getting a vamp scepter or a few Doran's Blades, and then something like Phage, etc. If my team has good map control, and I'm going for objectives, Wriggles it is. Just keep in mind, by getting Wriggle's, your Dragon and Baron control go up, and you should act accordingly. Don't wait for an opening, make an opening. 

Dragon Control

So a lot of people just don't know when to do Dragon. When I was a lowly noob, and I started figuring out how to jungle, I would play Xin, and just do Dragon as soon as I could afford Wriggles. I didn't worry about how good my ward coverage was, I didn't wait for help from my lanes, I just did it. The way you play has changed a lot since then (and people buy a lot more wards). But it's still a kind of mentality you can take. Now with agressive junglers and everyone warding, it's harder to get away with, but sneaking a somewhat early Dragon is something you should consider doing. I do Dragon as early as 8-10 minutes in, if you are snowballing especially hard and you manage to make sure the enemy team won't be able to stop you.

Times you should be doing Dragon are when...

1: Smite is up. Oh god is it terrible when the enemy Ezreal or some such steals Dragon because the jungler wasn't prepared for the damage, and figured it'd be fine to try for Dragon without Smite.

2: The enemy jungler is top lane. If the enemy jungler is in top lane, you should have no problem securing Dragon with smite, as no one can out burst you. Make sure you smite to last hit it.

3: The enemy mid laner, or (one or both) bot laners were killed or forced to recall. This will make it very difficult for the enemy team to contest a dragon in a 3v4, or even 2v4 situation. Depending on the situation top laners may head down, although at the cost of some experience, gold, and possibly their tower.

4: You have a pink ward on Dragon, good ward coverage, and maybe flash and Wriggles. This is the optimal situation to solo it if you need to.

The more of these that are true the better your chances of getting Dragon.

Baron and mid and late game teamfights

Baron is going to be a big point of conflict during mid to late game. A lot of tips from Dragon cross over. So I'll explain this map now. It's always better to fight on your own terms. I prefer to engage in fights that my team starts, instead of waiting for the enemy to engage on me, having control of the area in terms of sight and positioning advantage simply win fights.

Wards

The light pink dots represent areas you should have warded if you intend on fighting around Baron. Better sight area means better team fighting. Having an enemy escape to a bush or be unable to finish someone off because you lost sight can be the difference of winning or losing a team fight, Baron, and the game.

Blue dots represent areas I recommend warding if you are blue team. This is the likely route purple team will take when coming towards you. You don't want them to engage on you while you're in the middle of Baron, or at least you want to be prepared to handle it.

The Red dots represent areas I'd have warded as purple team. Blue team has two areas to swing around. Once again, preparation and map control will win you team fights.

Lack of ward coverage around Baron can mean that the enemies will jump on you while you're in the middle of doing it. You may be low on health, mana, and you may not be in position to fight them. Not to mention that Baron does decent area damage, in addition to a couple of debuffs. It can make it somewhat of a 5v6.

Oracles Elixir

I decide Oracles was important enough that it deserves it's own section. Oracles is key for good map control. Taking control of buffs if really hard if the enemy team knows the moment you enter their jungle, and they're going to pounce on you. Oracles allows you to take control of an enemy's jungle and take buffs, and take their camps, all without them even knowing you're there.
The other really important thing is Baron Control. If the enemy has sight on you, if they have sight around the Baron Pit, they can come and poke or even engage a team fight on you while you are doing Baron.

Another common tactic is referred to as "Baiting Baron". If you don't know what that is, you are in luck, because I will explain it! Baiting Baron essentially involves forcing a passive playing enemy to leave their base to come and fight you at Baron. You do this by 1: Getting Oracles and clearing the area of wards.

If they know you are around Baron, and they don't have sight, they will assume you are doing Baron and try to stop you. 2: If you don't have Oracles, or they have CV, Hawkshot, or are just plain stubborn, you can just do Baron. This will either get convince them to walk into your trap, or if not just simply take it. 1500 gold and a really strong buff is enough to push your advantage or bring yourself back from being behind, it really is game changing.

Conclusion

If you successfully master these tactics, you will be out-playing your enemies, taking all their buffs, and shutting the enemy jungler down all day. I hope you learned something an enjoyed, thanks for reading!