Love jungling? DO you also love playing a mage that can nuke from across the map and use all of his abilities while dead? well then you should really consider playing jungle karthus! He is probably, the most fun you will ever have playing a jungler!I found out about jungle karthus in a reluctant way. I was in a premade, my friends started, and i was afk with fiddlestick jungle runes and SS. next thing you know, im killing blue with karthus at level 1. We ended up winning that game, and i ended up going 8/2/14. which is an amazing score for a karthus, besides the fact that i had so many assists. =/

Now the first thing for a successful player is Runes! After that game i played as jungle karthus, i tried to make my runepage better for jungling as karthus. I chose AP per level glyphs and seals, with magic pen reds, and flat ap quints. Trust me, this works out really well, late game + early game.

Now the masteries for jungle karthus are simple. go spec into the mage offensive masteries, and then you spec into defense for the reduced creep damage and reflection. Simple right? the reasons for these masteries are, you want the mage masteries in the offense tree mostly because karthus is a mage.... also you need the defense masteries because karthus is a really weak champion, when it comes to survival, i like to see him as a glass cannon, and those golems are good at breaking glass.... the masteries may not seem like a big difference but they really are.

this part of the guide is based solely on the player, some people like playing it safe, when others like Ensuring kills. I would definitely get smite, along with either flash or ignite. the choice is yours summoner! (P.S. flash is widely used offensively more than defensively)

The skill sequence is quite simple. you max your Q. when jungling you want to get your E at level 2 and at level 3 get your Wall of Pain.(DO NOT GANK UNTIL YOU HAVE YOUR WALL). playing karthus is really strange i would say. he is someone who if he dies, its k cus he has 7 seconds of life after death. so if you are going to die, i would suggest grouping up in the middle of the enemy team. For your ult, always pay attention to other lanes, because it could mean whether or not a free kill will be yours.

And it is time for the big guns. for karthus you can do a wide variety of builds(my favorite is 5 archangel staves and an RDC, :> 1.4k AP). but for a basic karthus build what i would suggest is start off with cloth armor and get 5 health pots. after that grab a sorceror shoes. Then you can go either way you want with this, get Tear of goddess, or catalyst(you will be building rod of ages first item) next you will build rod of ages, then archangel staff, and then a rabbadons(whenever you play a mage always get your rabadons in the middle of your build, on some occasions get it first) after rabbadons build into a will of the ancients, then a void staff(when you play karthus everyone likes countering you like trolls, annoying right?)

when jungling, your rotation should be Blue, Wolves, Wraiths, Double GOlems, then RED, then wraiths. you should be 4 by taht time, and i would suggest recalling to get boots before you go any further(because karthus is one of the slowest champions in the game). after you finish your jungling gank whichever lane seems fit. use your wall of pain to slow the enemy and you and your teammate(s) can demolish the enemy together. **ATTENTION** WHEN KILLING BUFFS ALWAYS AIM YOUR Q SO IT ONLY HITS THE BUFF, OR ELSE YOU WILL DIE IN THE JUNGLING PROCESS

When playing karthus you should always consider your teammates. you should always be constantly ganking lanes as jungler.(what i do is camp mid lane, i end up making someone RQ after they have 4 deaths XD.) When in a teamfight you should be staying back but not behind the AD carries. Because when the enemy team dashes on you, its not so much of a loss due to the fact that you can still cast spells after death, your ad carries do not have a second chance, and if they die you lose a lot of your core dps. But if a teamfight in the jungle erupts you can try to spam your abilities over the jungle walls. When you are chasing never use ur W first, always wait until they are running away, because why waste the slow time, if they arent moving?

In conclusion, karthus is an amazing ganker which is why he is so great at jungling