Ivern Build Guide by Chromuro

Uhuhuh what do we have here? A newcomer? Daisy didn't tell me we would have had some guests today, unfortunately she has a bad memory so I don't blame her. What are you doing there, please come in! So, why are you here on this beautiful sunny day? It's not usual for someone like you to be here in the forest with all the dangers that it hides; moreover, it's not really usual that a human comes to look for me, my usual visitors are animals or other creatures. Oh, you come here to interview me? How delightful! I'll be honest, I'm a bit shy and knowing that someone wants to know everything about me makes me a bit nervous, I can't stop my roots to tremble ohohoh. Please, take a seat while I start talking, I'll make some tea in the meantime if you don't mind, this will be a really looong journey and I'll need something to drink. Please, serve yourself with some biscuits on that table, I was waiting for the krugs for the usual book club reunion (that if you want you can assist to later) but they always leave them there, I wonder why... HydratationBot was here	Pros and Cons Abilities Description Summoner's spells Runes Items Pathing & Ganking Warding In the game Conclusion

Never gonna give you up

PROS + great support set + + quick clears + + buff sharing + + hard CCs + + strong level 1 invades +

CONS - easy to learn, really hard to master - - relatively squishy - - really weak counter-invades - - skill shots - - requires great macro knowledge -

Ivern brings on the rift a completely different playstyle, where instead of being aggressive like a Rek'Sai or a Warwick you are more defensive and caring, gifting always growing shields with Triggerseed and saving lives with Rootcaller; these two, even if not directly, can help during a gank thanks to their special features (a slow after the explosion of the first and the AA helper of the second). For these great features, Ivern unfortunately compensates with his lower survivability, front-end jungle damage and harder choices, making it a really complex champion to fully comprehend. At least the only frog you'll meet is Lord Grompulus Kevin Ribbiton of Croaksworth.
Never gonna let you down

Passive: Friend of the Forest Ivern cannot attack or damage non-epic monsters. Instead, targeting a jungle camp initiates a 2.5 seconds channel that, upon completion, places the monsters within a grove. Placing a grove costs 131.63 − 121 (based on level) health and 148.5 − 110.25 (based on level) mana, and cannot be cast if Ivern lacks the resources. The channel cannot be cancelled in the first 0.15 seconds and in the last 0.5 seconds. The grove matures over 40 − 1 (based on level) seconds. When fully matured, Ivern can interact with the camp again to free the monsters after 0.5 seconds, sending them away while receiving their full gold and full experience bounties. Smiteing a camp within a grove will instantly free the monsters, regardless of its maturity or the monsters' current health. If the camp's large monster has already been slain, Ivern will free the camp upon completing the channel at no cost. Similarly, the grove will instantly mature if the large monster is slain. Starting at level 5, freeing the Red Brambleback or the Blue Sentinel leaves behind a sapling that can be picked up by an allied champion to gain the camp's buff, consuming it in the process. If at least one allied champion is nearby, Ivern can pick up the sapling to transfer it to the nearest one in range. If an ally kills either monster, they also leave behind a sapling that only Ivern can consume. Explanation: This passive is the particular gimmick of Ivern, making him the only pacifist jungler in all the champion roster. We will go by order of paragraph, so we don't get lost in this wall of text that is Ivern's passive. costs, invades and channeling Let's start by talking about the cost: the first thing that you have to know is that at level 1 the cost is really high, after 4 camps you'll be OOM and on the brink of death, so... be really careful and invade only when you are full health or near that. If you can't place a grove, there will be a timer on the passive, indicating how much you have to wait before the missing resource closest to the threshold (health or mana) regenerates to the point where you can use it again; it never shows two timers, so if you are missing both health and mana first it will show one, then the other. About invades, Ivern is a really particular case: everyone hates him because of his passive+ Smite "combo" and that is why a jungler with half brain cell will call for help at his buff (like, A LOT of help, maybe the entire enemy team) or make his team start warding everywhere, making your invades a lot more difficult; other than the level 1 invade, we have to consider the vertical jungling case too: you can't. Full stop. Or, better, you can do that after level 15 when you won't farm nearly anymore. Ivern has (ironically) the worst vertical jungling potential since it's all frontend damage when you do a camp, but you have to wait to complete it, so never try to do it. What else... oh yeah, the grove isn't visible when channeling, so if you are inside a brush and you want to contest a scuttle maybe, you can do it inside the brush and then Smite you problems away. Remember to run away before the jungler jumps on you and start chasing out of sheer rage. smite and level 1 invades The second paragraph explains that you can Smite a full health camp when there is a grove under him, making him the best level 1 invader. There... uh, isn't that much that I didn't explain earlier and the paragraph by itself doesn't give too many pieces of information. If you want I can give you another advice for a level 1 invade: the jungle camp doesn't need to be in its spot to place the grove, you just need to be able to right-click it. This makes the couples Ivern+ Blitzcrank or Ivern+a very skilled Pyke (it's more difficult, but doable) pretty much a guarantee successful invade. jungle camps interaction and gold income This paragraph is pretty much an invade policy, if you get invaded and the enemy jungler takes the bigger monster of the camp while leaving the others up (it's done to delay the camp cd) you can free them immediately for free, at least you don't lose resources for an incomplete camp. I take this occasion to talk about the camps priority in Ivern's routing; as you know there are 6 camps in the jungle: raptors , red brambleback and krugs in the bot side jungle and wolves , blue sentinel and gromp in the top side jungle, with krugs giving the most gold and gromp giving the least. gromp < red=blue=wolves < raptors < krugs For Ivern the order is a bit different: since Ivern frees the camp in that current state, this means that krugs won't free their smaller counterparts, making this camp be worth less, from 160 to 80 gold. krugs < gromp < red=blu=wolves < raptors You get the same experience you would get by doing it in the proper way, but you get less gold, making the two jungle sides pretty similar in total income (286-292 gold vs. the normal 286-372 gold). What all of this means? It means that, if you get invaded inside the red side, you suffer from a lesser drawback than a normal jungler. buff duplication Finally, the last paragraph is one of the most important: buff duplications. After level 5 you'll start to duplicate every buff you get, this means that one of your teammates can get a buff for free, generating a lane advantage without you been there (for a gank for example) or without losing personal power. Luckily this passive works even when one of your teammates gets the buff, with the only difference that you are the only one that can get it. In short, it always generates a buff for you and one for your team; this can help immensely midlane (with a free blue buff most mages can dictate the tempo of the lane, making possible more global plays) or even bot lane (with a free red buff ADCs can recover more quickly from poke and they can deal more damage). Even if the passive pings the new buff automatically, warn everyone in chat or with another ping (maybe in lane) to come to pick it up or else it will disappear after a minute.

Q: Rootcaller Ivern throws a vine in the target direction, dealing magic damage to the first enemy hit and rooting them for a short duration. Ivern and his allies can target enemies rooted by Rootcaller to dash to them, placing themselves at their attack range from the target. Explanation: Rootcaller has two major functions, one for Ivern and one for his teammates: first, if you root an enemy, you and/or your teammates can right-click on it to put themselves at AA range (if they are already in auto range nothing will happen). This is especially useful for champions that don't have gap closers (bruisers/tanks like Darius or Sion, immobile mages like Xerath or Malzahar or ADCs like Ashe or Jinx) or for those that can start a CC chain with it ( Poppy, Rek'Sai, Leona, Caitlyn...), but obviously the most advantaged are ADCs since they can start chunking the target down with their autos. The second major function it has is for Ivern only: this skill is especially useful when you want to get to a camp to the other quickly since the root/self-pull works on jungle monsters too. This makes Ivern's routing really quick, but abusing this dash mechanic can deplete quickly your mana pool, making impossible the creation of another grove, so use it sparingly in the first and second clear.

W: Brushmaker PASSIVE: While in the brush, Ivern becomes ranged, his basic attacks have 325 bonus range, and deal bonus magic damage. These bonuses persist for 3 seconds after leaving the brush. ACTIVE: Ivern grows a patch of brush at the target location for 30 seconds, revealing the area within and around it for 3 seconds. Brushmaker spawns more brush if used near terrain or other brush. Explanation: This is by far the most peculiar skill in Ivern's kit (and probably in the whole game) and the most difficult to master. The concept is simple: you create a patch of grass in the selected area, if there are more brushes nearby then it will merge to create a larger brush. This doesn't seem a great deal at first, but you have a really powerful vision tool and using it without thinking can backfire really heavily. vision control with fog of war Let's start with the first vision control tool you have: fog of war manipulation. Did you ever notice how the pixel brush in the river or the brush barrier in midlane creates an obscured area behind it? Creating a barrier yourself can conceal your entire team to the enemies, making impossible for them to hit reliably their skill shots. But beware, they can't see you if they don't have wards or anything that can reveal you to them, but the same applies for your team if the area isn't illuminated the right way. Let's see some situations where you can apply this: This miraculous concealment device can be yours for only 99.99$! Out of lane, it can be useful to cover objectives mostly from scuttle vision zone, this way at least you don't give away your position when trying to do an objective like dragon or herald. You have to mind that, without a ward, you won't have any tool to see on the other side too, so always carry a Control Ward or two in case you close yourself with grass. Interesting use of brushes when doing objectives is to not use them to close the area but to cut the pit in half. You can do that when you have control over the objective, but you fear for a contest; doing so, you block a good amount of possible locations to place wards, keeping the pit black for the enemy. You have to remember to pull out the dragon/herald too (unfortunately baron forgot his feet at home) or else it will be useless and the enemy will be able anyway to see the objective. Ok, maybe I can make a little discount to 98.99$, deal? For the in-lane example, we'll take midlane since it's straight and it doesn't have any brush inside it. To create a barrier you'll need all three charges of Brushmaker or else you won't be able to close the entire lane; the best points to create a barrier is near the jungle entrances walls (as you can see in the image), this way the enemy team has no chances to elude your concealment if not by walking inside the brushes themselves. If you negate vision to the enemy team, they will be obliged to overextend, putting themselves in a possible dangerous situation that your team can capitalize on with a well-fought teamfight. When using in-lane control you'll have to be extra careful on how the minion wave is behaving: if the enemy wave is pushing towards you, then creating a barrier will be useless since the minions will get over it and give vision to the enemy team; if your wave is pushing relentlessly towards the enemy, then you could waste brushes for nothing (and Brushmaker CD is pretty high). The perfect situation is when the wave is frozen just a bit over the barrier, so enemy minions can't give out your position, your minions will give you vision and you'll be able to fight from a privileged position. You can always use wards if you can't see on the other side (or maybe your support could use their wards, having a Ivern doesn't mean that they can slack off). pixel brush and targeting Pixel brushes are important too, you won't use often all three together to make the barrier. When ganking, you can use a charge of Brushmaker for two reasons: take advantage of W passive or place it on top of a teammate to cover him from possible targeted spells or autos (then if your teammate is smart enough he will take advantage of the fog of war created by the brush to avoid even more damage). This second thing is easy to do since the cursor gets magnetized directly on your ally, so it's easy to drop it on the top of his head. Be considerate when using Brushmaker during a gank tho since it can always backfire and give problems to your laner if they are placed in uncomfortable positions. brush merge Peek-a-boo! An important mechanic of brushes is merging. This is obviously useful when creating a barrier, but it can help you when merging together pre-existing brushes (for example the two brushes in bot, the three in top or the two in aram). To merge together two brushes they need to be inside the little green area that you can see when placing down your Brushmaker; for the pre-existing brushes you don't have to think much about them since they are always close enough to merge them together with only one brush, but this comes in play when creating a barrier: if you can understand correctly the merge range, you can create longer barriers without breaking them or wasting charges. Obviously, when you merge together two or more brushes they become one and the vision inside one of the "parents" extends to the entire "child"; this is useful when you want to look into a brush (maybe in bot, let's take this as an example) without wasting wards or face-checking directly. Always remember that you can see your enemies this way, but they can see you too. Brushmaker passive is just a little good addition to the kit, the lack of range is balanced by the bonus magic damage and this inspired some builds to go more towards the magic duelist, with AP and AS. I mean, you can try, but you have to dance around your brushes a lot, so personally I don't like it that much. The Glacial Augment build makes use of this passive a lot since AAing an enemy from melee range isn't... your best option.

E: Triggerseed Ivern gifts a Triggerseed to the target allied champion, himself or Daisy!, shielding them for 2 seconds. At the end of its duration, Triggerseed bursts, dealing magic damage to all nearby enemies and slowing them for 2 seconds. Explanation: Triggerseed is a really helpful skill, it gives a good amount of shield early and it has a magnificent scaling and CD, making it really strong during late game. Thanks to its dual nature (shield+damage) it goes well with Athene's Unholy Grail since you can proc Athene and then charge it immediately after for another heal; the Guardian build relies a lot on this since you'll proc the additional shield more often with Triggerseed than being near your teammate. Other than that it's a pretty linear skill, there aren't particular mechanics tied to it (luckily, this chapter is getting too long).

R: Daisy! Ivern summons his sentinel friend Daisy! at his side, who remains on the field for 60 seconds as a controllable minion. While Daisy! is active, the skill can be used to move her to the target location. If cast on Ivern himself, she will follow him. Explanation: Tibbers, but she's a rock and vaguely more useful. If you are already used to Summon: Tibbers or Eulogy of the Isles, then this won't be much different: you summon her, she has a summon time (of approximately ~1 sec.) and from there on you'll be able to control her with R (it will have a different icon) or with the Alt button (the main difference is that R is used to target someone, even yourself, while with Alt you can move her wherever you want). You'll be able to see who she is following thanks to a green line connecting her to her target, so you'll know when she'll get distracted or for some reason she doesn't follow your orders. She's a good friend, but... she's kinda dumb unfortunately. Even if riot tried its best to fix her AI, she is still pretty hard to control for the worst reasons. Other than some specifics and the questionable AI, she is still a good meatshield to send inside a teamfight to start knocking up everyone thanks to her 3-hit passive or to siege a tower while you spam Triggerseed on her. Her CD makes possible to have an upkeep time of 100% in mid-late game, meaning that if she expires naturally you'll have her ready again to send on the battlefield, so don't send her to her death without a good reason or else you'll lose a precious ally.

Now let's talk about the skill order:


Usually I don't put a point in anything at level 1 since you could start with both Triggerseed or Rootcaller: Triggerseed is helpful if you get invaded in any point during your route, this way you won't die immediately and your laner can take his sweet time to notice you're in danger; Rootcaller instead can help you navigate more quickly the jungle or to lock down the enemy jungler if you and your laner collapse on him without him noticing you. In any case, I max first Triggerseed to lower its CD and to have a bigger shield (to be the most supportive possible), then Rootcaller and in the end Brushmaker since it's the utility skill of the kit. Obviously, put a point into Daisy! whenever possible.
Never gonna run around






Flash is mandatory for every champion that doesn't have any escape/dashes/any movement skill and Ivern is one of them. Yes, you have a dash on your Rootcaller, but only towards an enemy and it's not that much reliable too. Flash is excellent for multiple reasons: to run away, to reposition yourself maybe to hit said Rootcaller, to run away, to maybe clutch a final Triggerseed onto a teammate, to run away and... wait, how do you say when you want to be as far as possible from someone or from a possible danger?

Being a jungler locks you out of secondary options since Smite is mandatory for a good number of reasons: without it, you can't buy Hunter's Talisman (necessary during your first few clears and to gain a consistent amount of exp inside the jungle), you can't free immediately camps (so no quick buffs to your teammates) and you can't regen health in a clutch situation (by smiting a camp near you). There is no other option, I'm sorry, if you don't take it with you just be a support to the top lane and hope for the best.
And desert you

An aggressive rune, gives more personal power and soft CCs for ganks. The tree is more utility centered and help you save gold to spend it for your most powerful items.		A neutral rune, it's more well-rounded and it does a little bit of everything. The tree is the classical one for an enchanter support, improving everything in your supporting kit.		A defensive rune, it's more team-reliant and it improves your ganks. The tree helps you counter the lack of self-defensive tools while giving you even more utilities.

Summon Aery Summon Aery will accompany you through your jungle walks, helping you during minor skirmishes and during invades. It synergyzes pretty well with your kit, mostly giving you that extra oomph on your Triggerseed (thanks to the additional shield that lasts a little bit more than Triggerseed itself) and on your empowered Brushmaker autos (adding a bit of DoT on top of the additional magic damage). It's a jack-of-all-trades for Ivern since you can't go wrong with it, but this lack of specialization makes it a bit weaker compared to the other two choices. Nullifying Orb This row isn't the best for Ivern, the best choice here is Nullifying Orb: a little Maw of Malmortius's shield is always helpful in those situations where the enemy team has a lot of AP champions (since it can give you that additional second to protect yourself), but even when there is only one or two (mainly in mid) it's still a good thing to have to survive ganks in those specific lanes. Moreover it scales with your AP too, so you can have even more protection during late game Transcendence CDR is a big part in Ivern's itemization since having Triggerseed on its lowest cooldown (2.5~ seconds) is pretty important. Moreover Daisy! can get to a 60 seconds CD, making her 100% time efficient with the right build (and right plays, this means that if she times out you can recall her immediatly again), so as you can see Transcendence is a must for Ivern. If it happens to go too overboard with CDR, it can be always converted to AP, increasing the strenght of your Triggerseed, it's pretty much a win/win situation. Waterwalking Ivern likes to put his feet in the river, so why not give him a good reason to do it? Waterwalking is good for moving around the map faster, even better when you have to move from top to mid (maybe for a double gank). The additional movement speed is helpful to get to the scuttle faster than the enemy jungler, make him your friend before it runs away! Font of Life Both of your main skills triggers Font of Life, so why not take advatage of it? Yes, even Triggerseed since when it explodes it slows everything in the area. It surely helps during a gank, giving a little bit of survivability to your laner; it's not crazy healing, but this paired with Revitalize and items like Redemption make it worth it to run. Revitalize Between items and skills, Revitalize can amp up quite a number of things in your kit. Its effects can be seen greatly during late game, since your Triggerseed will be really big and Revitalize can improve it even more; then I don't think I have to point out the obvious synergy with Redemption, Athene's Unholy Grail or Locket of the Iron Solari, items that you'll build a lot of times. About the shards, we already talked about how important CDR is for Ivern in the Transcendence paragraph (so the choice is obvious), additional AP for a better shield (mostly, with this you can do a bit more damage with your AA) and resistances for possible invades or sudden bursts.

Nullifying Orb:	Maybe you don't like using Nullifying Orb when there is only one AP champ on the enemy team, so let's see the alternatives: Manaflow Band is a good alternative, but unfortunately you already have a lot of things that give you mana (for example, dunno, your blue buff?) and it's a bit difficult to stack for Ivern, so meh it's not as efficient as it would be on a normal mage; Nimbus Cloak seems to be the weakest one for Ivern, the movement speed by itself isn't that helpful for a summoning ult, but it can help you to navigate the lane during a gank and to position yourself better maybe for a Rootcaller (helping Daisy! to stick to a target).
the shards:	I'm aware that the shard is really slow since it's based on level, so you can swap this for another shard. On top of this, you can keep the second shard or do a resistance+ shard combination or a double resistances shards. Change to if there are more AP champs than AD in the enemy team or if you are vs. an AP jungler that you think could be problematic.

Guardian The Guardian tree tends to be a lot more gank-heavy and with a lot more defensive playstyle inside the jungle. The main disadvatage of Guardian is that you don't have a keystone while alone, making you more susceptible to invades or scuttle contests, but this is countered by its great protective nature during a gank since you can proc it while being near to your ally (if for some reason this happens) or, better, with your Triggerseed (quite a suitable name since it triggers Guardian lol). Shield Bash Since you are a bit weaker in the jungle because you took Guardian, you need some kind of emergency rune in case someone invades you or if you are in really sticky situations. Shield Bash gives you a little bit of A/MR (especially useful early game) while shielded and then an empowered auto that goes well with your Brushmaker autos. Bone Plating Bone Plating again is an insurance for your life; something bad happens? Then at least you are covered for 3 skills/autos, making bursts a little bit less dangerous. There is nothing special about it, it's here just to counter the inherent disadvantage that Guardian has. Revitalize Revitalize syngergizes too much with Ivern's everything to give it up. I said it before, I'll say it again: both your Triggerseed and the items you'll buy benefit a lot from this rune, it's a pretty straightforward and effective choice. Future's Market Future's Market is a tricky rune to use effectively (there will be a little paragraph dedicated to it under here), but the core concept is: buy items before you have the gold to, don't go too many times in debt or else it becomes inefficient. It's a good thing if you go in debt only 2 or 3 times, perfect to buy your first items. Cosmic Insight Cosmic Insight is good thanks to its all around reduction: other than normal CDR, having Smite or Flash with a little lower CD is perfect and since you'll build a couple or more active itmes having them off CD earlier can help you have better chances during a teamfight. Having a double shard means that both your Triggerseed and your Guardian will have a bit bigger shield during early game where this kind of buff is really important for some early ganks or invades. The last shard is the usual resistance shard, just to not die in one hit as always.

Bone Plating:	We have both Second Wind and Conditioning here, both good runes in my opinion, but the second one is a better alternative than the first. While Bone Plating is useful to reduce bursts of damage (and it has a CD), Conditioning is good to reduce all damage in all stages of the game; there is a nice interaction between Shield Bash and Conditioning too since it amplifies the stats that Shield Bash gives. The problem of these runes is that one reduces a small amount of damage and it's more useful early, while the other has A/MR that is "counterable" by MPen or armor shredding, and it's more useful mid to late game (since you don't get it until 10 minutes).
Revitalize:	Even if I believe that Revitalize is irreplaceable, I can see a use for Unflinching too: thanks to the fact that your Smite will be down for a lot of time (mostly because you smite red or blue to give quick buffs to your allies) you'll have a small tenacity boost a lot of times, making you a bit more slippery and less prone to "burst without having even the possibility to react". I don't use it that often, but if you believe that the bonuses that Revitalize gives are forgettable, then you can't go wrong with this.

Glacial Augment The last rune we analyze is Glacial Augment: this rune, compared to Summon Aery or Guardian is more an offensive and personal rune than defensive and team-reliant. Other than the obvious synergy with Hextech GLP-800 and Twin Shadows (build that by now it's used by quite a number of mid laners like Ahri or Veigar), we have to talk about on how this benefits Ivern: his Brushmaker autos are still counted as such, so they proc Glacial Augment; this adds a tool that can help you ganking, by both slowing your opponent and setting up an ideal scenario for Rootcaller. This rune is especially useful for skirmishies or invades and requires a more active playstyle from the Ivern player, but you lose a lot of the shielding and protecting power that the other two runes and trees give you. Magical Footwear Ivern can benefit a lot from a Boots of Mobility rush since the sooner you can prepare a camp the better, so this rune can seems counterintuitive. The main point is: you won't build Boots of Mobility in every game for a reason or another, so there is no need to rush them; this makes Magical Footwear a great rune choice since with this you'll be saving 350 gold that you can invest in something else (maybe together with Future's Market). Moreover, the more you gank the sooner you get those boots, making it a great choice for an aggressive tree like this one. Future's Market You have much clearer item powerspikes with the Glacial Augment build and you can get them sooner thanks to Future's Market. If you didn't read the previous paragraph about it I'll insist on doing so since in this tree is especially crucial to know how to use Future's Market at its best. This together with Magical Footwear can give you a great gold advantage on your enemies. Cosmic Insight Cosmic Insight gives you more power by reducing your everything CD. This is really important for Hextech GLP-800 and Twin Shadows to since reducing their CD means that you can use more often your Glacial Augment. Transcendence You can go overboard with CDR on the Glacial Augment build pretty easily, so why not take advatage of that and convert everything in AP? The additional CDR helps too between early and mid game to compensate the lack of the Hextech GLP-800 at that point of the game. Waterwalking Since you won't have boots early because of Magical Footwear you need some kind of temporary substitute. Waterwalking is good for roaming inside the river (ganks top-mid/mid-top or bot-mid/mid-bot) or to navigate better the area while there is a scuttle up. The shard is mostly for the Transcendence AP transformation, even if it can be useful to have some early CDR paired with Cosmic Insight; the shard is self-explanatory while the shard is for some more survivability during early game.

Cosmic Insight:	Approach Velocity is a great alternative to Cosmic Insight just because of its natural synergy with Glacial Augment: you slow someone, now you're faster towards him. This helps Ivern navigate even better the lane during a gank and the possibilities to land a Rootcaller increase drastically. Obviously it's helpul even to dodge skillshots or to get to a teammate in need for a Triggerseed
The Sorcery secondary tree:	Memeing with the runes apart (if you noticed what I did with them good job), you can replace the whole secondary tree with a Domination one: the main runes I would take is one from the vision row (one between Ghost Poro and Zombie Ward, I would prefer taking the second one since you'll be sweeping wards a lot) and Ingenious Hunter, this way you'll reduce even more your active items CD together with Cosmic Insight. If for some reason you are a mad lad you can run Sudden Impact or Cheap Shot, but I don't really suggest it.
the shards:	As I said previously, the shard is pretty slow, so if you want you can switch it to something else like shard. I strongly suggest it if you decide to go with a Domination secondary tree instead of Sorcery. You can take a or shard too instead of the shard for more resistances instead of health.

Never gonna make you cry

Starting items	Hunter's Talisman
	Between the two jungle items this is the only choice you have since, to proc the effect of the Hunter's Machete, you would have to attack the camp, thing that you can't do. This item has two major functions: first you can get more exp from jungle camps than what you would normally gain, second you have greater mana regen while in the jungle. If you don't want to wait 20 seconds only at your third camp and if you want to get enough exp to be relevant in the game, Hunter's Talisman is a necessary starting item. Remember to bring Smite or else you won't be able to buy it!
	Refillable Potion
	You could choose a Refillable Potion or 3 Health Potions, but here why you have to buy the first one: your passive is all frontend damage, this means that first you get all the damage, then you get what you want. This means that you need a consistent health source (since for mana we have Hunter's Talisman) without spending too much gold; the Refillable Potion comes handy thanks to the free refill when backing to base and you'll be able to use it even for the second, third or fourth clear.

Additional notes: unfortunately you don't have many choices, these will be your starting items 100% of times, no exception. You can change them only when, for some reason, you are going support.

Shoes choice	Boots of Mobility
	This is a good item to rush (if you don't have Magical Footwear) since diminishing the time between a cast of Friend of the Forest and the other is crucial, so you can do a full clear in just a couple minutes. Fun thing is that the health and mana that you lose thanks to your passive is a cost and not damage, so you won't be counted as in combat and you won't need to wait its CD. The only draback is when you'll be actually in combat you'll be slower than usual.
	Ionian Boots of Lucidity
	Since CDR is so important for Ivern, taking Ionian Boots of Lucidity isn't a bad idea. It's useful early to reduce your skills' CD and, together with Cosmic Insight, it reduce even more your summoner's spells' CD (especially useful for Smite since you want it up the most possible).
	Ninja Tabi
	Sometimes it could happen that the enemy team has a lot of AD champs or a lot of AAers and this... is a problem. Ok that you have a shield, but it can't sustain that much damage, so you can counter this with Ninja Tabi. The armor comes handy and it synergyzes with Conditioning(if you take it) and the AA reduction can help mitigate some damage (even only the ADC damage, this is already enough to be useful).
	Mercury's Treads
	On the other hand we have the "too many AP champs on the other team" problem, with a sprinkle of "I can't move thanks to all this CCs". You already know what to do, right? No? Oh ok, you need to buy Mercury's Treads, it's simple. Some MR (that syngergyzes with Conditioning too) and CC reduction is all you need to do your work in peace.

Additional notes: when using Magical Footwear don't buy Boots of Mobility since it's not worth it. About the other three choices, you can default to Ionian Boots of Lucidity and then change to Ninja Tabi/ Mercury's Treads if you start having problems.

Core items	Athene's Unholy Grail
	Athene's Unholy Grail does wonders together with Triggerseed thanks to his "self-refilling" heal: when you cast Triggerseed on someone, you heal them for the quantity that Athene's Unholy Grail previously stacked, then you charge it immediatly thanks to the explosion. You can stack easily this items thanks to your Brushmaker AA and the healing is improved by a lot thanks to things like Redemption or Revitalize. One nice interaction is, while you have both Hunter's Talisman and Athene's Unholy Grail and you are in the jungle, you'll have a greater boost to your AP, so try to fight while inside the jungle if you can.
	Redemption
	This is a really good item to have for multiple reasons: first, it goes well with both your Triggerseed and your Athene's Unholy Grail (thanks to the amped up heal and shield); second, you have an additional teamfighting tool that can change the course of an entire teamfight if used correctly; third, in the worst case you have something that can reveal everything on the spot for 2.5 seconds. A multi-use tool that shouldn't be missing in your build.

Additional notes: when going for the Glacial Augment build you can skip Redemption and go immediatly into Hextech GLP-800/ Twin Shadows.

Icy items	Hextech GLP-800
	A lot of CDR and a lot of AP, both of these will help both your damage and your Triggerseed; getting overboard with CDR will give you even more AP thanks to Transcendence, so you don't have to worry about it. The active effect can be used during a gank to slow the enemy and have more chances to land Rootcaller, this is the perfect item to have more personal power.
	Twin Shadows
	A cheaper item that doesn't give as much stats, but it has its great uses too: thanks to its homing effect, you can use the active to see where are the two closest enemy champs (to then reveal them to your teammates) or to help one of your buddies to stick to a target that is running away; you can pretty much help from distance revealing enemies and slowing them greatly.

Additional notes: while you should build these items only when running Glacial Augment, Twin Shadows is a good choice to build with Summon Aery/ Guardian too thanks to its base active effects.

Support items	Ardent Censer
	Ardent Censer meta is back boiii. Yeah, no. Even if this item isn't like it was in its golden age (luckily, it was the most boring meta imo), this is still a good item to get mostly when a good part of your team is AA based or when your ADC is a late game hyper-carry monster. The usual healing/shield boost is nice for Athene's Unholy Grail and Triggerseed, but the attack speed buff is particularly good thanks to your Brushmaker AA.
	Mikael's Crucible
	Now we are getting really deep into support territory. The only thing that Ivern is missing is a cleanse and Mikael's Crucible gives you this additional feature. It's good both when peeling for your carry (it will happens a lot of times) or for escaping CCs that could lead to your deaths (this happens a lot of times too). The only drawback is that you lose a little bit of gold after buying it since one of its passive gets deactivated by Athene's Unholy Grail.
	Locket of the Iron Solari
	Great resistances and good shield, this item is a good start to become a little bit tankier. Even if the shield isn't great by itself (since you won't build great amount of health), it will be amplified by all the runes and items passives making it a good secondary option when you want some additional team protection other than Redemption.
	Zeke's Convergence
	Fun enough, this item stats are the opposite of Locket of the Iron Solari, I never noticed that. Anyway, you'll spam Daisy! a lot thank to her low CD, making Zeke's Convergence a great item for self-peel (the slow aura) and additional damage (the burn magic damage). Link this item on your ADC or on your engager, this way they'll benefit a lot from the additional damage.
	Knight's Vow
	Knight's Vow seems a strange item for Ivern since he isn't that tanky, but there is a reason to it: other than a great boost to your armor, you can counter the health loss thanks to your Triggerseed (it's counted as true damage, so it doesn't bypass the shield) and you get healed in the process if your target starts damaging someone in the enemy team. Great item for more AD-heavy enemy compositions.

Additional notes: never keep a fixed target with Knight's Vow and Zeke's Convergence, always change them to someone that you think is better in that situation than your current target.

Mage items	Zhonya's Hourglass
	Sometimes everything doesn't go as planned and people start focusing you for unknown reasons; quite a coincidence, those people are AD champs, what do you do? Zhonya's Hourglass, obv. Other than great stats (armor and AP are always a nice addition), the active can save you from potentially dangerous situations and it could give time for your teammates to come and save you. Just don't use it when you are isolated from everything and everyone.
	Banshee's Veil
	Sometimes everything doesn't go as planned and people start focusing you for unknown reasons; quite a coincidence, those people are AP champs, what do you do? Wonder what you did to them to make them so angry, people can't get that mad just because you are Ivern. Or become a spooky ghost yourself by buying Banshee's Veil; again, great stats both defensively and offensively and the CC-protecting shield can help you to not get engaged every five seconds by a herd of buffaloes. Spooky scary ivernton send shivers down your spine
	Rabadon's Deathcap
	Usually I can't write too many things about Rabadon's Deathcap, mostly because it's a simple item in its core. It gives you more AP, this means more damage on your Brushmaker AA and a bigger shield on Triggerseed. Nothing more, nothing less.
	Mejai's Soulstealer
	Mejai's Soulstealer is a great item to get an early lead and then start snowballing. When you get a great lead, obviously you won't start killing everybody like everyone else, but your supportive capabilities will be greatly enhanced; mejai's helps you doing so, but it's a "go big or go home" item that means it could be the best purchase of the game or a 1400 gold waste. I don't like it that much for its nature, but if you like to gank a lot then you can't go wrong with this.

Additional notes: don't build both Zhonya's Hourglass AND Banshee's Veil, build only one of them based on the enemy composition and specific champs. If you plan on building Mejai's Soulstealer, you can buy Dark Seal on your first back to start stacking it immediately.
Never gonna say goodbye

create grove free grove starting point

We'll start talking about Ivern's routing from his usual route and I'll break it down in two parts for two reasons: first, the map would be a mess, second the first part is fixed (so you always have to do it) while the second one is more flexible.

This is the first part of the route:


The route is pretty simple since it's a cycle, so if you just keep the shape in mind it's easy to remember. Between Blue and Gromp use a charge of Refillable Potion, so you can keep up with the health losses from Friend of the Forest (since Smite gives you back enough health only for a couple more groves). To make the route quicker, use the blast cone to get to Blue when you are on the red side.

Ok, why do you always start bot side? Couldn't you mirror the red side into the blue one to start always with red buff?
Yes, I could always start with red buff (and you can if you want, your choice), but I prefer to start always on bot side for only one reason: invades. You're Ivern, a lot of people will think that you are invading their buff so they do the same with yours, so expect to see 5-man invades a lot. Being on bot side gives you the possibility to call both mid (if they aren't sleeping in lane) and bot to help you and I think you can understand that 4v5 is better than 3v5. The disadvantage on blue side is that when Smiteing you'll get the red buff and not the blue one, so mana regen will be slower and it could take a bit more time (~10-15 seconds) to complete this first part of the route.

create grove free grove

The second part of the route starts when you get back to your first buff you placed a grove on:


This part is pretty much "get everything back and go towards the scuttle", this way you'll find yourself at Scuttle crab exactly when it spawns (more or less). With this route you'll get always the top side Scutte crab, but if you prefer more the bot side one and you feel lucky, then there is another option: when you are at Krugs/Gromp you'll be nearly at lvl 3 (really few points from reaching it), so you could do a quick bot gank (if possible) and leech some exp from them, getting to lvl 3 and giving some breath to your laners. This way you'll be already near the bot side Scuttle crab when it'll spawn.

Why there is a Patrick there?
That will be either your laners' reaction on giving first blood to your enemies or your laners' reaction on seeing that you successfully ganked them at lvl 2.

create grove free grove starting point

The same goes for the other side

The same goes for the other side

create grove free grove starting point

The enemy team successfully stole you a buff, what do you do? Steal theirs, obvious. When stealing a buff camp the route changes drastically, since you'll have to skip one of your buffs. It becomes something like this:


After Krugs/Gromp you have two choices: gank lane or go to the oppposite Scuttle crab. The first option puts you in the same situation after the first part of the normal route, you'll be near level 3 when ganking so you need to be extra careful with both health and mana; in the second case instead you are in a more safer situation, but your routing will be much slower since you'll have to walk all the way to the other Scuttle crab. Try your best to not lose other buffs or else your routing will be a complete mess and you'll have problems later in the game.

Can't I always invade? You said that Ivern has a strong level 1 invade
Yes, but did you see the mess your route becomes when invading? It's not worth it. Moreover, this way you are more prone to get counter-invaded, lose more camps and maybe die in the process. Invade only when necessary or when you are 100% sure of what you are doing and you want to set back the enemy jungler from level 1.
Then there is this secret route that only challenger players can use.
You won't always farm during the game (mostly because of the long timers on the various camps), so you are obliged to have some interactions with the lanes, even if you are shy. Ganking is a fundamental process for a jungler, you can have a great influence on the map and you can use that to change the course of a certain lane or of the entire game. First of all, we have to decide if to gank a certain lane or not, positioning of both your laner (if he's there) and the enemy one is important for the success of the gank.

The map describes the level of danger of a possible gank in those areas: while it's perfect to gank in both the yellow and the green area, it's a lot riskier to go into the red area since you are exposing yourself to some possible counterganks and/or possible retreats from the enemy under his tower, making you waste precious time and health in the process. Other than the enemy position you have to mind the minion wave too: if your laner has been managing well the wave you'll be in a numerical superiority in lane and minions can dish out a good amount of damage early on; if the wave instead isn't in your favor, with a lot of enemy minions damaging your laner, then it's not a good idea to gank since you could lose health for nothing and navigating between them can be really difficult.

While you are doing your usual route in the jungle, check the other lanes (thanks to a handy tool keybound from F2 to F5) and see if they need some help or if they are in a position to be ganked. If yes then start going to your selected lane, if there isn't anyone that needs help or they are in a bad position then take your time to back, buy some items and resume your route.

Remember to do this mental examination both when you are deciding if/where to gank and when you are about to gank! Always think twice before doing anything.

Now that you know when to gank you have to learn the possible ganking routes you can take. There aren't that many and they are pretty obvious, but nonetheless knowing which route to take can put you in a better position to help your laner.

On top and bot side the most used routes are the ones that use the jungle entrances; use them based on the enemy position, if possible always try to be perpendicular or behind them since you could have a clearer line of fire for your Rootcaller. The dotted line is a more unconventional and difficult route to take since it relies on your Rootcaller to hit someone: since the projectile goes through the terrain, you can hide it in the wall and when someone gets too near to the wall, you can dash to him and start the gank. Obviously you won't be able to do it always, but the gank that derives from this gives fewer opportunities to the enemies to react. In midlane you don't have any wonky route, they are all simple and again use them based on where both your laner and the enemy are. A fun thing you can do is to use Rootcaller from the brush if the enemy is near enough so you'll have again the surprise element on your part.

Remember to use your Oracle Lens (on the marked points) to go through wards undetected, so the enemy won't be alerted by your presence and you'll have more chances to do a successful gank. Always be careful about enemy Control Wards since they won't be disabled and they'll show you to the entire team!

You finally ganked, now the possible outcomes are only three: the gank has been successful and the enemy laner has died/backed to base, nothing has come out of it or you/your laner died.

In the first case there are various options to go for: go for an objective (that can vary based on the lane), help your laner push so he can go back to base or just do nothing and return to farm. The possible objectives you can go for are for example rift herald (when you are in the toplane area), the various drake s (when you are in the botlane area) or just go for the tower with the help of the laner.

Excluding the toplane objective since it has a precise timer (it spawns only once at 10 minutes), the decision in botlane can be a little bit harder since the various drake s have different effects and they give a bigger advantage to certain team compositions: casters can benefit more from ocean drake thanks to the improved health and mana regen, splitpushers can benefit more from mountain drake thanks to the bonus damage to objectives, scaling champs love infernal drake (because stats) and cloud drake is just fluffy (jk champs like divers and assassins than need to get to their target quickly will be surely happy to have some additional MS). It's always nice to have one more drake buff, that's sure, but their priority changes game by game. If there isn't any objective ready in the area or you don't feel like doing it (for a lot of reasons like health, the possible proximity of the enemy jungler...), then denting the tower plating/health is a good idea, this way you'll gain a bit more gold to buy more items.

If nothing has come out of it, then... return to farm, there isn't much you can do here. Backing is an idea too since you'll need health and mana to create your groves.

If you or your laner died, bad luck, it'll go better next time. If it's your laner that died, then it could be a good idea to stay in lane and push back the wave, to not waste both mana and gold, but only in really safe situations or else you could end up dying too. Prepare to be flamed too.
Never gonna tell a lie





The river is your kingdom and you need to look out for every trespasser that wants to steal your precious resources. Warding is important for the jungler too since having vision on every movement of the enemy team (on top of everyone the enemy jungler) can give you an advantage and it gives you a chance to answer correctly to their movements (like, if they are ganking you can countergank, if they are trying to do an objective you can interrupt them or steal it etc.)

The map shows the possible locations of your Control Wards since you have to deny as much vision as possible while illuminating the area around it. As you can see your area of work will be mostly the river since it's the easier one to control and the most common way taken to gank, this way you can stop possible roams from mid too. There are a couple of exceptions and those are the objectives and the external wards; the last one is mostly to help your laner to not be surprised from possible enemy ganks (even if you know that he'll die anyway), try always to cover the brush that your laner didn't cover with his wards. The objective wards are important when there is an objective there (so don't go waste a ward if there is nothing), so you can react properly if the enemy team tries to take it.

You can use Warding Totems too, but personally I prefer to switch to the Oracle Lens after my first back so I can start removing every enemy ward in the area. If you feel like it, you can keep the Warding Totem and just ward even more.
And hurt you





Early game:
The early game is pretty much what every jungler does: farm and gank, farm and gank, farm and gank. The more you farm your camps, the less you'll have to wait to get your items, the stronger your Triggerseed (mainly) will be. Remember that with the right setups your ganks can be really powerful, so always look out for your lanes. Your two personal priorities are to get to level 5 and 6 as soon as possible: with level 5 you can start generating buffs for other lanes, giving them an advantage even if you aren't present there, while with level 6 you obtain Daisy! that is a great gank and sieging tool thanks to her high health (that can tank a lot of skillshots or quite a lot of tower shots if constantly shielded by Triggerseed) and long knock-up.

Mid game:
Ivern doesn't have a clear item/level powerspike, he's pretty linear during all game, so the line between his early and mid game is pretty blurry, we can identify it as the moment you buy Athene's Unholy Grail (and Redemption if you are really doing good, but often this item is bought nearly at the end of mid game). Now you are starting to generate heals too, so try to go a bit less for farm and more for ganks, this is the moment to consolidate every lead that your laners have. Ganks are more important too since you have more objectives to go for ( drake s and rift herald ) and you need to get the most number of advantages you can. About the jungle start giving more attention to buffs since keeping the buff advantage for your lanes is important (mid will have a lot of fun with all those free blues); use Daisy! as a meatshield and send her under tower if you see that the enemy abandoned lane and your teammate is there to help you.

You need to keep pressure in all lanes, directly or indirectly, more pressure means more possibilities for rotations towards other lanes or objectives. Keep everything warded, even if you gather a significant lead nothing stops the enemy team to get back on track and start getting objectives by themselves like towers or drakes.

Late game:
Ok, late game starts to become a little bit more chaotic for Ivern: since you are a support you'll need to provide peel and protection for your carries, both with Triggerseed and its big shield (at this point it starts to soak a lot of damage) and Triggerseed and his route (you'll have to worry a bit less about minion blocking since they'll probably be deleted from the face of earth before you even say a word); Daisy! will be particularly important since her knock-up is AoE and it can change the entire teamfight if used at the right moment and the golem herself will have even more health, becoming an additional frontline (if you have one) to rely on; just be caution since her armor and MR is really nonexistent, so she'll have to tank every hit with her own blood.

Other than a support you are still a jungler, this means that you'll have to pay particular attention to objectives like baron nashor or elder drake and take them at the right moment. The same rule of thumb of ganks goes well even here, but on a larger scale: now instead of ganks you have to win teamfights and the stakes are higher; a baron could close the game or flip it upside down, so you need to be a good conductor for your team. Try to Smite less buffs, your Smite is particularly important now and not having it when you need it the most can be a fatal mistake.

When being around the map, never be alone, you are still pretty squishy even with a thousand shields and heals, so if possible be always together with someone. Focus your sweeping on the baron nashor / elder drake pit and enlist the help of your support to amp up the ward production on the map.
The chorus finished, I don't know what to add :<




And here we are at the end of the guide. I hope it was helpful and I'll try to keep it updated with all the new stuff that will roll out in the future. Every kind of feedback is always appreciated (even about grammar/syntax mistakes!) and I'll try to answer every type of question you have, don't be shy!
But for now, I'll see you in the rift!


Sources:

• Here is the grass template (and a couple more)!
• Here is the ground texture!
• The base for the divider is this one!

Special thanks to:

• Maintained, from whom I "borrowed" the ganking map (that I took here)! :^)
• the entire Mobafire Discord for a lot of feedback and for being just great people!