Views: 1100 Jungle: Should I?
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I've been doing some work trying to understand the game beyond just clearing your own jungle.
In most games on Blue side you will start Red to get a leash from your Bot lane. Then you will do Wolves and then Blue. Gets you level 3 and gets your two buffs. And on most viable champs it leaves you in a healthy enough position to gank, countergank, or invade.
In probably 75% of my games on Blue side if I drop a
Stealth Ward ward in the tri-bush after blue I will save my Top laner from getting ganked and also be in position to countergank. If however, I do Gromp before Blue I will be late to the party. So, instead of doing Gromp before Blue, I go up and drop that ward. If your laner is pushing you might even want to hang out right near Top lane for a couple of seconds. If the enemy jungler doesn't show then go eat scuttle ****. Then go check the enemy raptors to see if they are still up. If they are still up you may have finished fast enough that your Top laner is now getting ganked. And so then you know for sure they went Blue + Wolves + Red. Because you click on the enemy jungle to see that they have the Crest of Cinders and the Crest of Insight ticking away. And you Tab to look at the scoreboard to note that they have 5 CS.
In an ideal world your laner spots the gank due to the ward you put in the Tri-bush and they back off. The enemy jungler cannot gank from the river in this scenario because you are there covering that part of the map.
This leaves you free to gank Mid lane or steal the enemy Raptor camp if you don't feel like you are going to get enough gank assistance from your Mid laner.
If the enemy jungler is not successful with their Top lane gank they will most likely go an do Krugs because Raptors hurt too freaking much and they are further away. If you have a strong duelest such as Kha'Zix instead of ganking Mid you can also go look for the enemy jungler at his Krugs to kill them or get their Flash/ Ghost while they are in the process of tanking the camp. You might even be able to Smite steal the large Krug f you get there in time denying them that gold and XP (though you may want to leave it up to let it keep beating on them while you are beating on them).
Say you do kill the enemy jungler. Then what next? Well, if you took their Raptors and killed them at their Krugs that means they have no camps on the the Top side of the map assuming you or they finished off the Krugs.
That means they have to go to the Bottom side of the map to take their wolves which have likely respawned or are about to and take Gromp for the first time. The wolves are worth more to them because that is a respawned camp.
So what to do? Well, that depends on where your laners are positioned. If your Mid lane and Bot lane have their laners pushed in, then definitely invade with the intent to kill especially if you are playing a good duelest or get information on the enemy junglers position if you think you can get in and get out if they are a strong duelest.
If your laners are hugging their own turrets the invading is probably a bad idea because their laners can collapse on you faster than yours can respond.
In scenario two you have a charge on your Stealth Ward and a pink ward. So you clear your Raptors. Drop a ward outside of their blue entrance and drop the pink ward in the small river bush nearest to Mid lane which gives both sets of your laners advanced warning of a gank through the most common paths. If you have time you can and you think you can take a fight or escape from a fight with their jungler you can take the time to take scuttle crab. Then you can look to gank either Mid lane or Bot lane if you feel like your laners are healthy enough to assist in a gank.
Now here is a tricky thing that is going to get screwed up in solo queue frequently you can just show up to a lane to generate pressure, but not really look to secure a kill or a summoner, such as when their laner has setup a freeze or your laner is so low that they can't reliably assist you in a gank. You just want the enemy laners to back off so that your laner can collect the farm and back or break the freeze so the lane can reset and put your laner in a safer position. The screw up part is when you go ham and the laner can't assist and you die or the laner decides to help on 20 hit points and they really should just stay out of the affair.
And your are probably going to forget to do all this stuff some of the time. E.g. if you don't get a ward in at the start of the game to where the enemy jungler is starting you are probably going to forget to look at the mana/health of the enemy laners as they arrive to lane or you are going to be too ingrossed in taking out your starting jungle camp to notice which laners were late to lane (and hence likely leashing for their jungler).
This sort of thing is why people recommend playing champions that you are familiar with so you can remote control your camp clearing and let your brain work on more important matters such as where the enemy jungler is likely to go. Just keep trying to add it to your thinking process, until it too becomes just the way you think about the game. And if you do miss their start. Again just click on them as soon as you see them on the map to see how much CS they have. That will tell you the path they took and where they are 90% likely to be in the next few minutes. It will also tell you which of their camps are up so you can weigh whether or not it is worth an invade.
I think these are correct.
Krugs = 10 CS
Wolves = 3 CS
Red = 1 CS
Blue = 1 CS
Raptors = 6 CS
Gromp = 1 CS
Scuttle Crab = 1-2 CS
Standard Start
Blue > Wolves > Red = 5 CS
Red > Wolves > Blue = 5 CS
Blue > Wolves > Red > Scuttle = 6 CS
Full Clear (sans Scuttles) = 22 CS
Full Clear + Scuttle = 23 CS
Full Clear + 2 Scuttle = 24 CS
If you know they end up picking up some lane farm then these calculations go out the window unles you are really observant and notice they managed to kill say an entire wave of caster + melee minions (6).
Long story short. If you can figure out where the enemy jungle is and what they are up to you can make decisions based on the relatively strengths and map positions of the champions you and their team are playing in order to decide what to do.
E.g. their Amumu + Renekton are probably going to kick the butt of your Diana + Master Yi in an early gank/counter gank situation. Their combination of damage and CC is better. Now at level 6 and depending on how the lanes/game has been playing out it may be a different story.
So there is a match-up component that you can start looking into or noting now along with predicting the pathing of the enemy jungler. Shyvana caonnot deal with even a low health Quinn in the early part of the game without the help of your laner, who is hopefully not Garen sitting on 30 hit points from all the harass from Quinn and has a minion wave sitting in front of his turret from which he is desperately trying to get what farm he can. (yes, I made this mistake).
Along with the above you can use the position of the minion waves in various lanes, if they are pushing or not to predict behavior and plan accordingly.
So, lots of layers/components to be cognizant of as your are moving about the map trying decide, should I?
In most games on Blue side you will start Red to get a leash from your Bot lane. Then you will do Wolves and then Blue. Gets you level 3 and gets your two buffs. And on most viable champs it leaves you in a healthy enough position to gank, countergank, or invade.
In probably 75% of my games on Blue side if I drop a
Stealth Ward ward in the tri-bush after blue I will save my Top laner from getting ganked and also be in position to countergank. If however, I do Gromp before Blue I will be late to the party. So, instead of doing Gromp before Blue, I go up and drop that ward. If your laner is pushing you might even want to hang out right near Top lane for a couple of seconds. If the enemy jungler doesn't show then go eat scuttle ****. Then go check the enemy raptors to see if they are still up. If they are still up you may have finished fast enough that your Top laner is now getting ganked. And so then you know for sure they went Blue + Wolves + Red. Because you click on the enemy jungle to see that they have the Crest of Cinders and the Crest of Insight ticking away. And you Tab to look at the scoreboard to note that they have 5 CS.In an ideal world your laner spots the gank due to the ward you put in the Tri-bush and they back off. The enemy jungler cannot gank from the river in this scenario because you are there covering that part of the map.
This leaves you free to gank Mid lane or steal the enemy Raptor camp if you don't feel like you are going to get enough gank assistance from your Mid laner.
If the enemy jungler is not successful with their Top lane gank they will most likely go an do Krugs because Raptors hurt too freaking much and they are further away. If you have a strong duelest such as
Kha'Zix instead of ganking Mid you can also go look for the enemy jungler at his Krugs to kill them or get their Flash/ Ghost while they are in the process of tanking the camp. You might even be able to Smite steal the large Krug f you get there in time denying them that gold and XP (though you may want to leave it up to let it keep beating on them while you are beating on them).Say you do kill the enemy jungler. Then what next? Well, if you took their Raptors and killed them at their Krugs that means they have no camps on the the Top side of the map assuming you or they finished off the Krugs.
That means they have to go to the Bottom side of the map to take their wolves which have likely respawned or are about to and take Gromp for the first time. The wolves are worth more to them because that is a respawned camp.
So what to do? Well, that depends on where your laners are positioned. If your Mid lane and Bot lane have their laners pushed in, then definitely invade with the intent to kill especially if you are playing a good duelest or get information on the enemy junglers position if you think you can get in and get out if they are a strong duelest.
If your laners are hugging their own turrets the invading is probably a bad idea because their laners can collapse on you faster than yours can respond.
In scenario two you have a charge on your
Stealth Ward and a pink ward. So you clear your Raptors. Drop a ward outside of their blue entrance and drop the pink ward in the small river bush nearest to Mid lane which gives both sets of your laners advanced warning of a gank through the most common paths. If you have time you can and you think you can take a fight or escape from a fight with their jungler you can take the time to take scuttle crab. Then you can look to gank either Mid lane or Bot lane if you feel like your laners are healthy enough to assist in a gank.Now here is a tricky thing that is going to get screwed up in solo queue frequently you can just show up to a lane to generate pressure, but not really look to secure a kill or a summoner, such as when their laner has setup a freeze or your laner is so low that they can't reliably assist you in a gank. You just want the enemy laners to back off so that your laner can collect the farm and back or break the freeze so the lane can reset and put your laner in a safer position. The screw up part is when you go ham and the laner can't assist and you die or the laner decides to help on 20 hit points and they really should just stay out of the affair.
And your are probably going to forget to do all this stuff some of the time. E.g. if you don't get a ward in at the start of the game to where the enemy jungler is starting you are probably going to forget to look at the mana/health of the enemy laners as they arrive to lane or you are going to be too ingrossed in taking out your starting jungle camp to notice which laners were late to lane (and hence likely leashing for their jungler).
This sort of thing is why people recommend playing champions that you are familiar with so you can remote control your camp clearing and let your brain work on more important matters such as where the enemy jungler is likely to go. Just keep trying to add it to your thinking process, until it too becomes just the way you think about the game. And if you do miss their start. Again just click on them as soon as you see them on the map to see how much CS they have. That will tell you the path they took and where they are 90% likely to be in the next few minutes. It will also tell you which of their camps are up so you can weigh whether or not it is worth an invade.
I think these are correct.
Krugs = 10 CS
Wolves = 3 CS
Red = 1 CS
Blue = 1 CS
Raptors = 6 CS
Gromp = 1 CS
Scuttle Crab = 1-2 CS
Standard Start
Blue > Wolves > Red = 5 CS
Red > Wolves > Blue = 5 CS
Blue > Wolves > Red > Scuttle = 6 CS
Full Clear (sans Scuttles) = 22 CS
Full Clear + Scuttle = 23 CS
Full Clear + 2 Scuttle = 24 CS
If you know they end up picking up some lane farm then these calculations go out the window unles you are really observant and notice they managed to kill say an entire wave of caster + melee minions (6).
Long story short. If you can figure out where the enemy jungle is and what they are up to you can make decisions based on the relatively strengths and map positions of the champions you and their team are playing in order to decide what to do.
E.g. their
Amumu + Renekton are probably going to kick the butt of your Diana + Master Yi in an early gank/counter gank situation. Their combination of damage and CC is better. Now at level 6 and depending on how the lanes/game has been playing out it may be a different story.So there is a match-up component that you can start looking into or noting now along with predicting the pathing of the enemy jungler.
Shyvana caonnot deal with even a low health Quinn in the early part of the game without the help of your laner, who is hopefully not Garen sitting on 30 hit points from all the harass from Quinn and has a minion wave sitting in front of his turret from which he is desperately trying to get what farm he can. (yes, I made this mistake).Along with the above you can use the position of the minion waves in various lanes, if they are pushing or not to predict behavior and plan accordingly.
So, lots of layers/components to be cognizant of as your are moving about the map trying decide, should I?
I go through phases myself where I will really want to jungle then really want to not jungle ~20-30 games later. What I do notice is that when I am not in the jungle I feel like it's harder helping my team win the game, since all I can do is win my lane/roam to the closest lane a few times. In the jungle, however, I have the opportunity to have an influence on all of my teammates throughout the game.
The thing I dislike most about jungle is that if my lanes fall really behind I feel useless sometimes. Suppose this isn't too different from any other position though, haha.
I run into games that just aren't winnable because my lanes **** the bed so hard. I had a player that was Platinum last season in my promo game last night that failed to notice the
To some degree I've started taking the LS attitude that my laners are Bots until they prove otherwise. Meaning they aren't going to play the game anywhere close to optimally.
Most games I find that if I can keep the enemy jungler from being successful, while having some successes myself outside of simply interefering with the enemy jungler then I'm more likely to win the game. So, things like getting vision down in key places, stealing enemy jungle camps, and shadowing the enemy jungler for counterganks have all become more important to me of late. Those things tend to keep me closer to my laners than AFK farming my own jungle do, though I'll happily eat Gromp if it lets me finish an item or get a level up on my way to find another way to stick it to the enemy jungler or laners.
But there are definitely games where I want to go hang out on my island in Top lane and farm it out mostly mono y mono with the enemy Top laner.
But then the siren call of the jungle lures me back.
Also VexRoth from your blog post it sounds like you could work on experimenting with counter-jungling. People in solo queue tend not to do a very good job of defending their own jungle so lots of times I get away with 3-buffing someone or just trading reds and then ganking a lane at level 2. Worth trying out at least.
Also be careful about making too many assumptions about where other junglers will go. It's best to try and get deep vision so you know for sure where they are when possible. For example, not every jungler starts on the bottom side of the map.
Sounds like you're putting a lot of thought into your early game which is good for improvement though! :)
Also VexRoth from your blog post it sounds like you could work on experimenting with counter-jungling. People in solo queue tend not to do a very good job of defending their own jungle so lots of times I get away with 3-buffing someone or just trading reds and then ganking a lane at level 2. Worth trying out at least.
Also be careful about making too many assumptions about where other junglers will go. It's best to try and get deep vision so you know for sure where they are when possible. For example, not every jungler starts on the bottom side of the map.
Sounds like you're putting a lot of thought into your early game which is good for improvement though! :)
?Good to know people aren't map aware even in diamond? But yes, I take your point regarding pinging the enemy jungler when I spot them. I definitely do this. And actually people in Silver are actually pretty good at this. It usually seems like it is the one getting gank that takes no notice. Of course you occasionally get the response that "Ya, I seem them, you can stop pinging now." But better safe than sorry IMO.
Under what conditions do your counter jungling of the enemy buff? Do you drag your laners over with you? I used to do it back in the day with Sion (do people still do that with him?) if I could get away with it. But because of that experience and also of just trying to get a ward in and having someone show up it seems like it makes for a high variance play. I actually ping my laners and ask them in chat to cover the jungle entrances or the buff and most often times they do it (at least recently). And when I'm Top lane on the opposite from where my jungler starts I drop my ward in one location and go stand in the other jungle entrance because I can't count on the Mid laner doing it. To be clear I'm not opposed to taking risk, but I'd like to pick your brain (being a more experienced and higher ranked player than me) on the matter.
Tis true on the jungle path. Just had a
Thanks. I'm still but an egg in the thinking about the finer aspects of jungling, but hoping the efforts lead to LP and rank gains. :-)
I usually duo with a top laner so often times on blue side I'll just invade and start at their red buff. Even if I'm not duod with my top, sometimes my top/mid will follow my invade to back me up. Sometimes I'm alone and just slip up to one of their buff camps and ward it at level 1 so I can see where their jungler starts and plan my route accordingly. Getting guaranteed knowledge of the enemy's starting location opens up invade opportunities and helps your laners predict where the jungler will be at different points in the early game.
It's a little bit risky to walk up by yourself to ward a buff, but in my experience it almost always pays off, especially on the top half of the map. People just sit at tower or gravitate towards bot side so it's unlikely you'll get punished.
But in general if you're playing a jungler that you think has the edge 1v1, just walk into their jungle to put wards down often. Sometimes that'll lead to taking raptors or something for free while you're there. Try not to do it when your laners are getting pushed in though 'cause then you might get collapsed on. It's easier with junglers that can jump walls like Rek'Sai or Lee Sin.
Like PsiGuard, I find warding (or getting a teammate to ward) the enemy blue buff at the 1 minute mark can be extremely helpful if you want to counter-jungle. Knowing where the enemy is starting their jungle clear is invaluable if you want to steal a camp or buff from them early on.
One thing I know and can confidently advise you on is that if the enemy jungler shows up bot/top and you aren't there to help, you should immediately look to apply pressure elsewhere on the map. This could mean ganking and sieging a tower with a teammate in the opposite lane, or simply just going into the opposite enemy jungle and taking all their camps. There's no worse feeling as a jungler then going into your jungle after a successful gank and finding all your camps gone ;)