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Choosing Champions Series: Junglers
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The role of Jungler is not for everyone, and his or her plight is seldom easy. Notoriously known as a team's scapegoat, the jungler is often blamed for the failures of lanes and many defeats. Although this guide probably will not prevent unwarranted team aggression, it just might give your team a bigger advantage in composition.
As always, constructing a team varies greatly depending on what game mode or map you want to play on. In normal blind pick, players must focus entirely on the synergy of their own team, while normal draft pick and ranked games must also weigh in the opponent's team.
Along with top lane, the jungler is often the player who will help to balance the team's damage and defense. If the lineup boasts a lot of damage with low defenses, then tanky junglers such as Udyr prove beneficial to balance. However, if the team has a strong front line already, it may be wise to choose a higher damage output option, such as Nocturne. These general guidelines ring true for selecting almost any role, but the Jungler tends to hold this decision most often due to the versatility of the champion pool.
Normal Blind:
Normal blind mode presents a simplified version of team select that only gives players one team to worry about balancing. Although this means you may often meet teams that counter yours well (accidentally, of course), it also allows players to ease into the strategic aspects of composition.
In addition to the general rule outlined above, normal blind mode tends to favor two main picking strategies for the jungler:
- Largely offensive - Offensive Junglers will have high damage outputs and/or fast clear times. These champions excel at invading the enemy's jungle and stealing their camps, trading with the opposing Jungler, and setting up strong ganks for an early lead.
- Largely defensive - Defensive Junglers may have lower damage and clear times, but often have better sustain, which allows them to farm more. These champions tend to be fairly immovable and insusceptible to deaths from jungle invades, sometimes focusing more on creep score than ganks until later on in the match.
When do I pick offensive or defensive?
The decision to choose between offensive and defensive Junglers is not always an easy one, but the determinants can often boil down to a few simple cases. If your lanes are strong in the early game (Miss Fortune, Varus, etc.), it may be wise to pick an offensive jungler to best capitalize on that advantage as long as it persists. If you find that most of your lanes picked champions that farm well into late game, a defensive jungler who can defend towers or counter gank without pushing the lanes into unfavorable situations may be the best decision. Finally, as mentioned before, try to balance out your team by filling a spot that is lacking.
Normal Draft and Ranked:
In normal draft and ranked queues, players must also consider the other team's champions. If the other jungler has chosen before you, consider whether their champion is more on the offensive or defensive side. You then have two choices: try to counter their champion with the opposite type, or trying to out-perform them at the same role. Both are reasonable choices, and depend on how comfortable you are competing with whatever specific champion has revealed itself.
Aside from the other jungler, look to see what other champions the enemy team has. If they are assassin-heavy and looking to jump on your carries, try to bring a tankier Jungler with some kind of crowd control to push the assassins off the squishier members of your team. Alternatively, if they seem to have a very strong front line protecting their carries, you may wish to choose an assassin such as Talon or Nocturne to crash through that line.
The careful balance of a team is typically not learned quickly, which is why normal blind picks can help ease new to mid level players into the process before also making them focus on the other team's lineup. Do your best to master the structure of your own team in normals before learning how to counter-pick other champions. Once you do reach that point, however, make sure to learn what works specifically for you, because no counter picking list will ever account for your personal play style.
Best of luck, and see you on the Rift!