Jungle Fun: Part 2 – Wraith and Golem Camps

In part one I discussed the early ward on the wraith camp and how much information a single ward can show. Now I am going to talk about the wraith and golem camps and how they have a very real influence on the middle and the bottom lane.

As I said in part one the wraith camp was the most commonly cleared camp in the entire jungle. There are quite a few reasons why it is the most important camp in the jungle. The first and obvious reason is that it is the weakest camp overall with the lowest total health of any of the camps starting with only 1,225 health spread among the 4 wraiths allowing anyone with decent area of effect spells to kill them quickly. It also has a 50 second respawn timer where the other two small jungle camps have a full minute to respawn allowing them to be picked up more frequently.

The position of the camp allows for a benefit depending on whether you are the mid player or the jungler. As the jungler the wraith camp position simply allows you to be close to two lanes to assist them if needed. When it comes to the middle lane champion it allows most mid lanes to be able to either take or start the wraith camp from over the ledge (As seen in the picture below). With that ability it presents a much easier, safer and faster way for them to clear or steal the wraith camp. Though those may be the reasons, lets look at the impact of what the wraith camp can have on the middle lane.

When it comes to taking your own team's wraith camp it clearly just comes down to the idea of maximizing the potential farm. If your team's jungler is out looking for a gank, the chance that they will be back to clear the camp within the next 50 seconds is highly unlikely. Thus allowing you to take the camp without any negative repercussion for your own jungler's ability to farm. It also reduces the chance of the enemy jungler stealing the large creep in the camp while leaving only the little wraiths up and not restarting the timer.

However, when the chance arrives instead of roaming to another lane a mid champion can just steal the important big creep from their opponent's jungle setting their potential farm behind. When stealing the enemy wraith camp it is best to try and leave one to three of the smaller wraiths alive forcing the camp to be cleared by the enemy for only a very limited reward and delaying the respawn. Though if you have that camp warded and are able to continually push against your enemy mid you can also take the full camp and just position yourself to be able to clear the camp every respawn. I would only suggest doing that if you know you will be able to do that without any repercussion such as being forced to recall or being killed.

As a note most middle lane champions can take the wraith camp with relative ease once they have the blue buff, though some middle champions like Mordekaiser and Morgana just to name two can take the camp earlier due to their kit. Mordekaiser has great AoE damage and since he has no mana he can easily clear the camp when ever he has his cooldowns up. Morgana, though a mana user, has a great AoE ability (Tormented Soil) that at rank two of the skill is almost able to clear the whole wraith camp itself, only requiring a few auto attacks on the larger wraith.

Though the wraith camp seems to be as tantalizing for most middle lane champions as it is for the junglers, what real effect does it actually have on the game. When simply looking at the math (using the base original spawn rewards from minions and monsters) the wraith camp only gives about half of a full creep wave of experience while giving only about a fourth of the gold income. Though it may not seem like a lot, the important thing to remember is that both teams are trying to maximize their own farming capacity. So obviously the impact becomes significant when you are able to steal the enemies jungle camps.

If you (assuming you are playing middle lane) only steal the big wraith of the enemy wraith camp you still deny the enemy team 76% of the wraith camp experience and 73% of the gold. To equate that to lane minions every large wraith itself is worth a little more than three caster minions. With proper warding and constant lane pushing the ability to do this multiple times can start to create a  discernible divide in gold, but more significantly in the amount of experience. It may not seem like a really large gap at most levels of play, but even a ten creep score difference at the highest state of the game can be a massive difference.

Though you gain extra experience and gold from the steals while denying them from your opponents, it also provides a psychological advantage where your may frustrate your enemies. If the enemy jungler is consistently clearing out just the small wraiths it may start to frustrate them (I know it happens to me some games). Another advantage it can create comes from the enemy middle lane, for if you are able to constantly clear the wraith camps and they look at the creep score difference it may make them feel like they are further behind than they really are. 

Looking back to a real tangible advantage within the game that the wraith camp can provide with the extra farm, you may be able to out level your middle lane opponent and stifle the enemy jungler. Now you may only get a one level advantage, but that advantage can be paramount, for it will create certain windows where you will be significantly stronger than your lane opponent. During those times you should either try to kill your lane opponent or gather your team and force an objective. One instance of this is would be if you can obtain your first or second rank of your ultimate before your opponent, you become vastly more powerful.

Though this may not seem like a huge advantage, the closer you get to high level play, the more important small advantages become. A few small advantages can be stacked together to create what has become a very popular colloquialism within the league community known as the "snowball" effect. Though it seems a bit overused at times there are certain times where you can really see one team continue to fall behind due to a very minor mistake that could have happened over ten minutes ago.

Though the wraith camp seems to have some impact on the middle lane, many professional players have also talked about the golem camp and the distinct advantage that it provides the bottom lane for the blue side team. The advantage is not the extra 55 gold that someone is able to get but the early experience from the camp allowing an earlier level two for one lane while the other will clearly be behind. The advantage of a second spell on both champions in the one lane makes it a significant advantage without even looking at the added stats of the champion that they receive from obtaining level two. Blitzcrank and Leona are much more powerful and scarier when they have a second spell compared to them only having one spell.

Looking into the numbers, the double golem camp when given to a pair of champions instead of a single one gives both champions 78 experience. With that extra amount of xp added to the first wave of minions they would both have a total of 251 out of 280 needed to hit level two. At early levels in a double lane each melee minion is worth 38 xp and each caster minion is worth 19xp, so after just one melee minion being slain, the bottom lane that got the early double golem camp would reach level two faster allowing them to at the worst begin to zone their opponents denying them farm and experience or at best to kill the enemy bottom lane with the early level two advantage.

This strategy has been seen for a while and it works since most junglers usually avoid taking the golem camp until the very end of their first jungle clear because the camp deals the most damage and has the most health. It is also the most secluded camp in the jungle and the least potent one to be counter jungled. There have been two counter strategies used to try and stop the early golem camp though neither of them are really able to fully counter the early double golem.

The first which is clearly the most unsafe and least reliable counter is to have the purple duo lane try to harass and push the blue side duo lane off of the double golem not allowing them to take it. It is clearly an unreliable option due to the fact that they actually might not be taking the double golems. It is also unsafe because with only two champions going into the enemy jungle it requires the purple side bottom lane to face check a few brushes and make them very susceptible to the other team closing in on them.

The second option only works if your jungler is going to start with the wraith camp and then take the red buff first which is rather rare, because most junglers do not start that route. If they do, the purple side bottom lane can take the wolf camp. Though after taking the wolf camp it is a farther to lane, it is harder to kite the wolf camp as it is to kite the golem camp and the wolf camp only gives 74 experience if shared with two people.

In Jungle Fun: Part 3 I will look more at the numbers behind each of the camps and see how effective counter jungling can be without ever confronting the enemy jungler.