League of Legends: Intricacies of the Jungle

To those reading this article, I assume all of you know what a jungler is in League of Legends. Responsible for ganking and deriving their experience and gold income from neutral mobs in the jungle that encovers Summoner's Rift, Jungling is a necessary and crucial role in League of Legends but vastly misunderstood and misplayed at times. Let's take an in depth look at what makes Jungling so intricate in League!

 

I. Choosing your Jungler: Ganking vs. Counter Jungling

There are two main subtypes of Junglers that see viability at higher ELOs and in competitive play in our current meta: Ganking Junglers and Counter Junglers. Ganking junglers primarily utilize multiple CC spells and great mobility in order to frequently camp and ensure kills for your lanes. On the other hand, we have Counter Junglers. These junglers, while still able to gank lanes, may be more efficient at clearing creep waves and accumulating extra income for the later stages of their game all while denying the enemy jungler farm and experience.

A. What should I choose? Why?

Ganking junglers are typically chosen with a team composition in question. These junglers excel when a team is coordinated because they typically allow champions with better early games to nab the lead with an early kill and start their snowballing and optimal itemization a lot earlier than usual. Junglers such as Nautilus, Alistar, and Maokai are good examples of ganking junglers because of their reliable CC and hardy composition. Note that because these junglers spend so much time camping lanes, they are often restricted to buying gp10 items and build into a tanky/engaging champion as they cannot spend as much time farming their own jungle.

A popular build currently is to grab a quick Philosopher's stone for mana dependent junglers as this will allow you to sacrifice your Blue Golem to your middle laner. Most Ganking Junglers opt to go for Heart of Gold next because it gives you the extra health that can allow you to tank an extra turret shot or attempt riskier pathing when ganking. Junglers can then opt for a quick Shurelias Reverie to guarantee the success of their CC abilities or buy the popular Glacial Shroud to provide extra mana and armor for the enemy AD/Bruisers.

However, we have already noted the crucial weakness of ganking junglers. These junglers are designed for a stronger early game and denying them money from ganks or the few creeps/buffs that they actually will take destroys the fine line that seperates 'unstoppable ganking force' from 'useless damage soak'. As such, you will typically see counter junglers picked against heavy gankers.

For example, in the recent MLG Raleigh, Team Dynamic's NintendudeX frequently picked Nunu against early game junglers as the Consume + Smite combo at level 1 with team support can deny the enemy team a buff entirely. This can stop junglers such as Maokai from ganking during crucial periods where the enemy lanes may be unwarded and vision is at its minimum. Other junglers such as Shyvana and Lee Sin are also quite adept at counter jungling and have the mobility to escape should they be caught. As such, picking counter jungling champions with AoE clear and mobility excel against the enemy jungler.

 

Ganking Junglers:

        

 

Counter Junglers:

        

 

II. Oracles Elixir

Of course as Jungler's become more and more potent, lanes become more intelligent and develop new strategies to ward off ganks. Warding is much more prevalent in the current meta than half a year ago and it is not strange to see supports running around with 4-5 wards at one time with almost every route warded. As such, Oracle's Elixir has become a more and more important item to get earlier and earlier on Ganking Junglers.

The reason that they are bought more frequently on these Gp10 reliant gankers was mentioned earlier - they hope to gain much of their income through taking advantage of enemy mistakes early on and providing successful ganks for their team. They cannot afford to be constantly thwarted by map vision, and while Oracle's is an expensive investment of 400g, it allows junglers to open up opportunities to ganks, make the extra money that each ward provides, and push for objectives without the knowledge and vision of the enemy team.

Oracle's elixir, however, should be bought with caution. Junglers with an inept tankiness such as Amumu and Alistar are better suited for this item as opposed to someone like Warwick or Shaco. The latter champions are easily punished by champions for being hasty with their ganks and with the proper support, can be easily killed due to their relative squishiness which instantly loses them the Oracle's Elixir, a devastating loss early on in the game.

Always analyze the enemy team and weigh the risks versus the benefits. For example, I would be hesitant to buy Oracle's elixir quickly if the enemy team had a Blitzcrank because I know that I could easily be ward-baited or grabbed into turret range if I didn't take the best pathing for a gank. 

III. Pathing

Junglers have a much harder time ganking now than perhaps 6 months or a year ago. While Junglers used to be able to walk straight down from the river and get behind the enemy, our growing understanding of the game has taught all lanes to buy more wards and cover more paths. While there is no definitely guide or suggestion as to what pathing to take when ganking the enemy, consider the following?

A. Am I Tanky?

No doubt you have seen some impressive and some not-so-impressive tower dives when observing junglers. If you have an inherent tankiness and you make it know to your allies that you plan on tower diving, don't be afraid to go behind the enemy and bypass his wards to lay down some guaranteed CC. Champions such as Alistar and Maokai can do this very early on. As the game progresses and more defensive items are bought and base stats raised, this becomes more and more viable. Of course, be intelligent with who you are ganking. If the enemies are hugging their turret, make sure that you have a healthy line of minions to perhaps take some of the damage as you dart back and forth out of tower range. If your opponents are extremely far forward, there may be no need to waste HP and tank turrets. Always  be intelligent?

B. Can I Sneak In?

Of course, the element of stealth is always something that will assist you if you are to gank the enemy. Because brushes are available to much of the map, ask your lanes if they noticed that the enemies have placed down wards in the bushes. If not, wait for your ally to push the minion wave as to deny them map vision and make your way down the bushes stealthily. As the enemy turret will eventually reset the tide of the wave, an unsuspecting enemy that wanders into what they believe a safe bush can be instantly killed. There is no need to make yourself known if you can sneak in first!

C. At what point are my enemies the strongest?

If your enemies have a lot of early game burst or damage in the lane you're ganking (Alistar/Graves or Rumble) be extra careful when you gank. Taking an unecessary tower hit or getting counter ganked can result in your death. For these teams, it may be wiser to invest in an Oracle's elixir and destroy their wards to prevent them from making risky and bold engagements in fear of the jungler. This can also alert you as to if you need to counter jungle or attempt to steal early buffs. Junglers like Nunu or Cho'Gath can easily ward and take enemy buffs because they practically have a built in smite! As such, look for champions like Anivia who are weak early game and seek to deny them the blue buff that they require to function at maximum capacity.

 

IV. Builds, Runes, and Starting Off

There are several different runes and items that work with different Junglers. While it would take far too long to cover the differring runes that each jungler can work with, let's take a look at some general trends.

I. Runes

Examine the CC that your jungler primarily utilizes. Udyr needs to get up close to the enemy in order to use Bear Stance. As such, movement speed Quintessences may benefit him by allowing him to achieve the extra burst of speed to give you the extra second you need to score a kill. Cho'Gath is like this in the same stance. Because his base speed isn't that high and his CC may be difficult to land, movement speed Quints allow you to get close enough to silence the enemy first, then attempt to Rupture.

For champions that primarily jungle with auto-attacks such as Nocturne or Warwick, Attack speed quintessences are very beneficial. For Warwick, they synergize very well with his Hunter's Call and allows Nocturne to get more hits in between his passive. With Red Buff, extra attack speed may give you the bonus you need to continually slow an enemy with Red.

Also take a look at how well scaling and ganking is for your Jungler. Junglers like Lee Sin and Shaco scale pretty well with AD or Armor Penetration and makes their early ganks and attacks extremely deadly. With a full AD runeset and a good leash, Lee Sin can land his Sonic Wave and almost 100% force a kill or flash early on simply because he does too much damage.

Seals and Glyphs are primarily the same. Seals are almost always flat Armor or HP regen. Glyphs are almost either flat MR or MR/lvl. These shouldn't worry you too much, and you can always go with the default flat Armor and MR with no noticeable difference.

II. Builds

Far too many Junglers are building Wriggles nowadays. Remember, Wriggles is an expensive item. It's primary function is to allow certain junglers to solo dragon early on and provide more ward coverage. Champions such as Lee Sin have the necessary damage or shielding to allow them to solo dragon at a reasonable level. 

Champions like Udyr or Shen, however, have the base damage that is necessary to take down most camps efficiently. As such, these champions are more well known for their hardy base and ability to soak damage. Buying early health or armor on these champions is much more intelligent than getting wriggles. Additionally, as their passives benefit from attack speed, it is reasonable to pick up an item with that stat afterwards. There is no need to amplify their damage or give them lifesteal as it is a huge and wasteful investment.

For Junglers that spend a lot of time out of the jungle and ganking lanes such as Skarner or Alistar, buy GP10 items. These items will sustain your gold needs while you camp lanes and provide build paths into larger items that will help your team.

III. Leashes

I won't go too in depth into this section. If you are unable to discern which buff you should start at and what a leash is, this guide may be of no help to you. Instead, I am here to present the idea of a no-smite Start. If you are playing a premade or have reasonably helpful members (I say this because not a lot of people are), you can ask them for a harder leash with either the Top lane or the Bottom lane to provide enough damage for you to take your first buff without using your smite. This requires them to stay longer else you may be fatally wounded or even die unless you smite. The purpose of this start is to allow you to save smite for the next buff you approach (usually Red). This increases the speed of your jungling by roughly 20-30 seconds and will allow you to hit a faster level 4 and get out to gank or build up more gold.

Thank you for reading this guide and I hope you learned something new about Jungling!