Views: 1185 Jungle 2017 Quick Thoughts
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There are several ways through the jungle this season. So far on any mana based junglers I've tried the smoothest place to start for a full clear is Blue Buff. If you go Blue - Gromp - Wolves, this usually lets you put two points in a damage ability which increases the efficiency of taking Raptors especially if you have any AoE to your clear.
So the entire clear looks like Blue Smite > Gromp > Wolves > Raptors > Red Smite > Krugs. Look to gank. If I break the route anywhere it is usually to skip Krugs, which can take quite a while for many junglers to finish. If my gank is successful I can just head back to Krugs for some additional gold an XP before backing for my first item purchase.
I haven't figured out a smooth route in reverse 1) because going to Krugs really isn't an efficient option and generally speaking if you go Red > Wolves > Blue your Smite isn't back up for blue so you will have burned through a ton of resources to take those camps down basically requiring you to chance scuttle crab to give Blue buff time to give you some mana back while you heal up from scuttle, but that can be sketchy if you met the enemy jungle an they are healthier than you, so care for that.
But that is the route in the other direction.
Red > Wolves > Blue > Scuttle Crab. Look to Gank.
Three junglers I've used primarily so far this season.
Hecarim - Should come out of a full clear from Blue side at about 3/4 health counting two shots from Refillable Potion. This should leave you with enough health for a gank if something on the map looks juicy. You can Top off on Scuttle Crab if you feel comfortable about your chances should you run into their jungler in the river. Hecarim's clear goes up a notch once he gets Sheen and then it basically goes to another level when he finishes Trinity Force.
Diana - I know she isn't considered Top Tier as a jungler, but her clear is super healthy if she starts with Blue. And if they don't itemize verses AP you will destroy their team. If I'm playing ADC and they have a fed Diana, I'm pretty much forced into buying a Maw of Malmortius if I want to have any chance of staying alive in a team fight.
Warwick - is a slow *** jungler if you don't run Attack Speed Quints along with Attack Speed Marks. However, having your ult up early and often is huge so I've been running scaling CDR Quints and glyphs with Spirit Visage as my only source of CDR outside of runes. I like using Warwick when their team is squishy and highly mobile. Warwick's ult negates the mobility. I find that if my team starts to fall behind in laning phase I can bring it back with some key ganks after hitting 6th and then keeping priority targets pinned down long enough for my team to follow-up come Mid game. Smarter teams will buy Quicksilver Sash and while it breaks the suppression it does not stop the damage from Warwick's ult.
Honorable mentions:
Vi is also a good choice though she seems to get banned more often than Hecarim.
Shyvana also feels strong though I feel like you need to have a good early game to keep it from going to late game where she struggles to have the same sort of impact. So farm, farm, farm to get your items and then look to to take over the Mid game so you don't have to deal with late game.
So the entire clear looks like Blue Smite > Gromp > Wolves > Raptors > Red Smite > Krugs. Look to gank. If I break the route anywhere it is usually to skip Krugs, which can take quite a while for many junglers to finish. If my gank is successful I can just head back to Krugs for some additional gold an XP before backing for my first item purchase.
I haven't figured out a smooth route in reverse 1) because going to Krugs really isn't an efficient option and generally speaking if you go Red > Wolves > Blue your Smite isn't back up for blue so you will have burned through a ton of resources to take those camps down basically requiring you to chance scuttle crab to give Blue buff time to give you some mana back while you heal up from scuttle, but that can be sketchy if you met the enemy jungle an they are healthier than you, so care for that.
But that is the route in the other direction.
Red > Wolves > Blue > Scuttle Crab. Look to Gank.
Three junglers I've used primarily so far this season.
Hecarim - Should come out of a full clear from Blue side at about 3/4 health counting two shots from Refillable Potion. This should leave you with enough health for a gank if something on the map looks juicy. You can Top off on Scuttle Crab if you feel comfortable about your chances should you run into their jungler in the river. Hecarim's clear goes up a notch once he gets Sheen and then it basically goes to another level when he finishes Trinity Force.
Diana - I know she isn't considered Top Tier as a jungler, but her clear is super healthy if she starts with Blue. And if they don't itemize verses AP you will destroy their team. If I'm playing ADC and they have a fed Diana, I'm pretty much forced into buying a Maw of Malmortius if I want to have any chance of staying alive in a team fight.
Warwick - is a slow *** jungler if you don't run Attack Speed Quints along with Attack Speed Marks. However, having your ult up early and often is huge so I've been running scaling CDR Quints and glyphs with Spirit Visage as my only source of CDR outside of runes. I like using Warwick when their team is squishy and highly mobile. Warwick's ult negates the mobility. I find that if my team starts to fall behind in laning phase I can bring it back with some key ganks after hitting 6th and then keeping priority targets pinned down long enough for my team to follow-up come Mid game. Smarter teams will buy Quicksilver Sash and while it breaks the suppression it does not stop the damage from Warwick's ult.
Honorable mentions:
Vi is also a good choice though she seems to get banned more often than Hecarim.
Shyvana also feels strong though I feel like you need to have a good early game to keep it from going to late game where she struggles to have the same sort of impact. So farm, farm, farm to get your items and then look to to take over the Mid game so you don't have to deal with late game.
Ugh. I've lost more buffs this season to laners that I think I have from any previous seasons.
Having the timer change recently from 1:36 to 1:40 has added a bit of extra confusion as laners don't know how long they can stay in order to get to lane without missing any minions.
I'm not sure what the perfect number is either at 1:36 spawn getting the buff down to 200 health and leaving seemed to work well.
I'd guess that getting it down to 300-400 health at the 1:40 spawn timer will get the laners to lane on time.
It does kind of depending on who is leashing. Zyra leashes are freaking amazing. Malzahar leashing with his voidlings is something you have to watch out for because they will still be doing damage so you have to time your last hit or Smite to make sure it is you that gets the buff.
This **** may lead me to playing Ivern. XD
Had a Blue buff stolen by a Thresh last night that just had to get one more auto attack in after I pinged the laners off. facepalm.
In that case I think it might be better to do a 3 camp clear on the side you started and back, especially if you are a jungler, such as Hecarim, that really needs blue buff for a sustained clear. That should leave you with enough money to finish a Hunter's Potion if you started with Refillable Potion.
I think it might be a good idea to tell your laners to leave when the buff is at 300 HP to let you finish it by yourself. Which does leave your lower on health, but should completely screw your clear and gank plans as much as having the buff stolen might.
Reworked Warwick:
Still figuring him out. I crushed with him in a normal game, but I also got ahead early. Obviously every game is different, but I feel like he is one that would benefit from rocking through a full clear before ganking unless you can easily run in and finish someone off. I've found Q to be wonky. If you hold it down you are supposed to jump through the target which puts you on the other side of them. It is pretty consistent against stationary targets, but if they are moving (at angle seems to be the least reliable) it doesn't always work.
I tried going Enchantment: Cinderhulk on him over Enchantment: Bloodrazor and I feel like Cinderhulk doesn't really get the job done in terms of damage. With Bloodrazor you either kill or chunk them so badly that they are out of the fight.
Ban Malzahar. That aids is more aids to you than your aids is to him.
Gragas post buffs: Clear is decently sustained now, especially once you get Enchantment: Runic Echoes. Still find I would occasionally like more mana, so Hunter's Potion might be worth investing in especially if you are handing off Blue Buff to your Mid laner.
His reworked Explosive Cask is even more finicky than it used to be as the travel time is the same whether or not you through it far or near. It ends up being sort of an Alley-oop (if your are familiar with that term from basket ball). If not the best way to describe it is the arc it takes for long throws is relatively flat, but close up the the apex of the arc is high in the air. I suppose you can resolve this by throwing it early, but that definitely leaves more to chance than it did before (which i understand was intentional, but it feels pretty yuck).
Also ban Malzahar, especially if you have a Yasuo on your team. A) Malzahar destroys Yasuo in lane B) You have to get his passive down before any of your abilities will do anything to him as since you usually want to get up close an personal with your targets that means your are ult bait and if you don't die to his ult you will probably die to the voidlings chewing on you while your are suppressed. Or you could get a Quicksilver Sash which builds into a Mercurial Scimitar which is a classy buy on Gragas.
Rengar...another one I've been able to crush on in normals, but struggled with in ranked. Clear speed is definitely improved with Q being AoE. I find that if we have the game in some semblance of control I do much better. You see an opportunity and ult in to muderize the enemy laner(s). Peachy. But if you try to start your stealth in view of your targets you are probably in for a bad time as they can damage you to get the ripples that show your position. Since Rengar can really only dash in via a bush jump or his ult, his ability to escape a bad situation is negligible. Sure you might be able to remove some CC, but only if your W is empowered at the time. I can see where Edge of Night can come in handy on him.
Right now I'm opting for Red > Wolves > Blue > Scuttle (to heal up and for some vision) > Gank if possible or Blue > Wolves > Red > Scuttle. Then pick the most snowbally match-up (bonus points if they have CC) or the most overextended lane do my best to get a kill or Flash. Then shove lane into turret if we do get the kill and the enemy laner doesn't have Teleport.
Hecarim struggles with mana and health going Red > Wolves > Blue, but you should be good to go if you can heal up on Scuttle (mana will have time to regen if you limit your self to autoattacks and some Qs).
Tryndamere - he isn't META so you may get some griping about playing him, but you can do the 3 camp clear for a point in all your abilities and then invade at their second buff as he does good damage with a full rage bar. Most of your other assassin types Kha'Zix, comes to mind, can pull of the same cheese. If Blue side you can just use the Blast Cone plant to pop back over to your side of the map after a successful invade or if things go South (such as getting collapsed on). If the invade is successful then you can look to gank a nearby lane from behind as those are usually not warded well and in my experience most people at Silver don't think oh, my jungler just got murdered they might come after me next so I should be more cautious. Rather they probably think "Oh swell, my jungler got soloed in his own jungle (tilt) or looks like I'm going to have to carry this one myself (go aggro and push), both of which generally make them good targets.
With the reduction in healing that you get from Smite it is now more reliable for some junglers to go with Health Potion or Total Biscuit of Rejuvenation (if you took the mastery point in Secret Stash over Assassin or Runic Affinity ) over Refillable Potion. Also I'm noticing quite a few mastery pages that are taking a point in Vampirism over 5 points in Natural Talent for a little bit of extra sustain.
I've also been holding onto my Stealth Ward for longer into the game as I am finding that a few extra wards to try and keep your laners safer to be more valuable than killing off wards at least until Mid to Late game.
On split-push type junglers like Tryndamere I've been getting Scrying Orb / Farsight Orb and also trying to get a Control Ward down at a choice location to keep myself safe while off doing my split-push thing.
Clear speed is slow. Gets a little better with Tiamat and Enchantment: Cinderhulk, but still not great.
That will likely mean a refigure on jungle routes.
Just really found one I liked from Red to Blue side which was
Red > Wolves > Take Blasting Plant to Blue (to deny an invader from using it) Smite > Gromp Smite.
Left you nice and healthy and with Blue buff to recharge your spent mana.
Eh, maybe it will still work, it will probably just be a bit more dicey for some junglers.
XP drop on first clear sadness. Suspect that will hurt the farm to 6 type junglers more than the early gankers. Also going to make the routes where you don't full clear rather weird for calculating XP. E.g. the path I mentioned above leaves out Raptors and Krugs. So on your 2nd clear those should still count as first clear, while Wolves and Gromp will be giving you 2nd clear amounts of XP.
Kha'zix doesn't really need Hunter's Potion to stay sustained while clearing, which lets him go into damage items more quickly than Hecarim.
Start Hunter's Talisman if starting Red and Hunter's Machete if starting Blue.
Red side Tinjus, a notable Kha'zix player, holds Smite for an Auto + Q + Smite on the big Raptor and then kites the small raptors toward the nearby by bush to finish them with void spikes and a few autos as needed. Nice trick as it means I won't skip over Raptors on my first clear from Red side, which I figured would result in me taking too much damage.
And I can't seem to pull Tinjus' clear of the Raptors off. I keep getting creep blocked by the Raptors so I am unable to kite them all cleanly back to the bush and finish them quickly with Void Spikes. Like A + Q + Smite at Level 2 doesn't even kill the big Raptor and takes long enough that you get swarmed by the little ones. Going to have to revisit the video on this one and see what I'm missing.
Also stay away from Ryze. CC + Burst = squished or at least highly chunked bug. Or to put it another way, if they have easy CC make sure to take them on with a friend or two so even if one of you is locked down the other one can continue to murderize them.