Countering a Jungler: Common Junglers

Junglers can make or break a game almost singlehandedly. A jungler can farm the hell out of his/her jungle, they can gank all day long and get their team a boatload of kills, they can shut down an enemy jungler with invasions and they can keep an entire enemy team quavering in their boots at the mere sight of them flashing past a ward.

There are a myriad of junglers and each has their own unique style of jungling. In this and the next few articles in this series I'll be reviewing most of the jungler champions, including all of the Tier 1 junglers and some of the more common Tier 2 junglers. In future articles, I'll address counter picks for junglers and later how to actually counter a jungler with your play style. I'll also attempt to discuss how to wriggle out from a situation where you're being hardcore countered. So let's get started.

Shyvana

Shyvana has an extremely fast jungle clearance speed as well as an awesome movement speed boosting ability and epic early game damage. She is ideal for counter jungling and can still manage successful ganks. With a strong pull on her own blue buff, she can run over and steal the enemy wraiths and red buff before the enemy jungler even passes mid lane, or she can hang around at the red buff, smite-steal it and pick up first blood on the enemy jungler.

The dash and slight knockback from her ultimate ability, Dragon's Descent, allows her to catch up to and knock an enemy off balance long enough to kill them. Her ultimate passively makes her more tanky as it's levelled, giving her extra armour and magic resist, and doubling those bonuses on activation. However, she relies almost completely on allied cc (crowd control) to initiate a gank or keep a slippery opponent from escaping, as she has practically no cc of her own.

 

Udyr

Nobody touches Udyr's jungle. He's one heck of a tanky bruiser who can outlast nearly any enemy jungler in a straight up fight, and if you get caught invading it will be almost impossible to escape. He has a nice speed boost and stuns all day long, as well as some sweet life steal and shields, AND he has hot AOE (Area Of Effect) damage for jungle clearance. But, he can't have everything.

He has to build to increase the power of one of these specialities and sacrifice the power of the others during the early game phase. He also has the weakness of being easy to kite if the person he's chasing has any kind of speed boost or dash, as he doesn't have a single ranged move. He's all melee.

 

Amumu

Amumu is one of the best gankers in the game. As soon as that bandage hits it's practically game over man. Game over! He has mostly AOE damage to help clear the jungle, but he uses alot of mana to do it, and has low resists and health early game, making him easy to dance circles around and steal the jungle camps on his side or kill him in his own jungle. His ultimate, Curse of the Sad Mummy, is an amazing way to initiate a team fight, especially when combined with Orianna's or Miss Fortune's ultimates.

He's really quite weak early game and very susceptible to jungle invasions, as he isn't tanky enough and doesn't have a speed boost or sure-fire dash to chase with or to run away. He is also very reliant on blue buff. If he doesn't get nearly every blue buff, he simply cannot jungle. His toggle ability, Despair, will leech his mana at every jungle camp he tries to take, making mana regeneration items, runes or buffs an absolute must.

 

Lee Sin

Lee Sin is a champion with a massively high skill floor* and even higher skill ceiling*. He's rather weak during his first one or two jungle rounds and as a result is susceptible to invasions, but his mobility and early damage for level 2 ganks makes up for it. Most junglers have to take a very roundabout route and trust that the enemy team is comprised of unobservant players to take advantage of provided they overextend (e.g. Alistar and Xin Zhao), but not Lee Sin.

Just take Sonic Wave/Resonating Strike at level 2 and away you fly, kicking your enemies all the way back to the summoner platform. During the mid game, however, he's not quite tanky enough to live up to the bruiser role nor does he have enough damage to fulfil an assassin role. He really does rely on successful early ganks to get his items early enough. But when he does get those items, oh my god, he can be so awesome. He can make some epic saves and snipe kills and really carry out some epic omgwtfbbq moments.

 

Cho'gath

A less common jungler, but still really strong. He has fast jungle clearance with all of his abilities throwing out AOE damage, and beautiful sustain in jungle with his passive, Carnivore (recovers mana and health on every minion or champion kill), meaning he's always up for a gank. He has some awesome early game damage with the right runes and items, as well as his own crowd control that knocks-up and slows and can be rounded off with a flash-inhibiting silence.

His ultimate - Feast (massive true damage nuke, always 1000 damage to minions) - is effectively a second smite, making Baron Nashor and Dragon kills very hard to steal from under his nose. He has enough damage midgame along with a suitable amount of tankiness to be able to carry any teammates who are slightly behind till they catch up. Thanks to the health stacks on his ultimate he can forego Warmog's Armor and grab a Rylai's Crystal Scepter or Rod of Ages for extra damage, and still be amazingly tanky.

Once into late game he becomes a massive, hardcore, damage absorbing nom nom nomming beast of a tank, provided he hasn't been shutdown all game. A Cho'gath player has to have good timing, because missing his Rupture can lose him and his teammates a kill. He's also rather easy to kite once he's burned his Rupture. He also has 2 epic legendary skins, just sayin'.

 

Maokai

Between his cc and his decent damage Maokai is an awesome ganker. His point-and-click dash that can also root his opponent is a rare and powerful ability. It's also impossible to miss, being point-and-click and all, unless you hit a minion. He has nice sustain in the jungle with his passive; Sap Magic (absorbs a charge for every ability used by nearby champions, and once he reaches 5 charges his next auto-attack heals him). He can also place short term wards that punish enemies when they stray too far with his Sapling Toss ability.

This ability also allows him to steal buffs from the enemy jungle while feeling reasonably safe with his vision. His ultimate - Vengeful Maelstrom - is awesome for static team fights, reducing damage to his team and throwing back in the faces of his enemies. His main weakness though is his low movement speed. Maokai is a tree after all, and he shows it with his speed, or lack thereof. Once he gets fed and tanky in the late game he can become an unstoppable behemoth, albeit a slow moving one. If he lags behind and is being counter jungled, he can find it very difficult to catch up again.

However, without the constant pressure of an invader Maokai can very easily catch up again with his fast jungle speed. His only other weakness is the travel time of his dash. You can easily flash or dash or both to behind a tower to into the midst of your teammates, dragging him along kicking and screaming with you.

Dr. Mundo

Mundo is arguably the fastest jungler in the game. His AOE ability Burning Agony clears out jungle camps incredibly fast, and his passive - Adrenaline Rush (regains 0.3% of his maximum health each second) - allows him to stay in the jungle for relatively large periods of time; but without hard cc and any dashes or speed boosts (aside from his ultimate) he is actually a rather weak ganker. If he hits his Infected Cleaver it can just about slow down an enemy long enough to kill them, or long enough for a teammate to come along and throw down some cc.

If the player in lane is the one to initiate the gank with some nice hard cc, then Mundo is easily strong enough to carry out a gank. Thanks to using health as a resource for abilities instead of mana, Mundo is incredibly vulnerable to early invasions and will rarely have enough health to gank anywhere until rather late in the game. Late game though, he is an amazing tank. Mundo goes where he pleases, and his insane health regeneration and speed from his ultimate, Sadism, is what makes that a fact.

Keep an eye out for future articles on the rest of the jungling champions.

*Skill floor: The lowest level of skill you need to be able to play the champion without failing miserably.
*Skill Ceiling: The best a champion can possibly be played, utilising every ability and trick the champion has.