Jungling Fundamentals

Udyr is a champion with relatively simple mechanics, but his unique kit and global CDs give him a level of depth that many players fail to efficiently make use of. Despite this, I think it's more important to first go over basic universal Jungling concepts. At the end of the day Udyr still has a relatively low skill ceiling, and you can only go so far with pure champion mastery, unlike other champions who allow you to cover your lack of game knowledge with raw mechanics.

In this section I will first begin with basic low-level concepts, and then work my way up to the more advanced and niche ideas. Keep in mind that even highly ranked players can learn from the simple concepts, as it's easy to lose yourself in the details and build up bad habits which you don't notice.

Clearing

Efficiently clearing the jungle is the simplest part of Jungling, and the easiest one to improve at. I'm putting this first since it's something you can literally work on in the practice tool and optimize. Udyr in particular has a very strong clear. You can find videos of Udyr's clear on Youtube. Make sure the video you're watching isn't too old to the point where it's outdated. This videos is currently a good example, but keep in mind it's not the only way to full clear, and there are other videos which are good alternatives. Many of these videos will have times that are hard to attain, so don't worry about practicing for hours and failing. It's fine if you can't do it perfectly, as long as in a real game you can finish your clear before crab spawns with a leash. When you get to higher ranks, then you should definitely start optimizing your clear so you can do it leashless and get to crab before it spawns. One last note: you usually want to smite the first buff, except for when you get a really strong leash and it's already under smite range by the time they're leaving.

Evaluating Gank Opportunities

The second most important part of Jungling is evaluating ganks. If you're just running around ganking every lane without any actual reason, you're going to waste your time with bad ganks. If you're not evaluating ganks at all and just full clearing on repeat, you might win some games on Udyr, but you'll eventually reach a wall. When evaluating whether a gank is good, you have to look at where the wave is, what the champions are, what the champions' intentions are, how low they are, and what summoners they have. At lower ranks it's good enough to just gank lanes that are pushed up past/near halfway. At higher ranks, it becomes important to look at waves and lane states and path towards lanes preemptively. For example, if the wave is crashed at their tower, you know it's going to bounce back to your tower and you can gank them when it does. Another example is if you know they're going to fight soon, or loook gankable for the enemy jungler (so you can counter gank).

Often, you want to try and run around the long way so you can get behind them, since you don't have a dash on Udyr. For example, if you're ganking a lane with the tri-bush on their side, often it's best to go through the tri bush and around the wall to get behind them, rather than just running in from the river. That said, you don't always have the time to go around like that, and you're more likely to walk over vision if you go through tri-bush.

Also, understand how to path towards people. Let's say you do go through the river to gank bot, since they're super pushed up to your tower. In this case, don't run straight at them (unless you're in a situation where you're worried about them killing your teammates). You almost always want to run in the path that they're going to be running away, so you meet them there. It's sort of hard to explain this in text, so here is a crude drawing to sort of display it. In short, don't run directly at the person you're ganking by right clicking on them. Run behind them to where you think you'll meet then when they start running back. Always try to stay behind/beside them, even if it means not auto attacking them constantly during the gank (unless it's a champion which can bounce/dash through you like Gnar or Samira, then don't stand behind them).

Orbwalking

This is a pretty basic concept that's not specific to jungle, and you should always be doing it subconsciously. I'm putting this here under the ganking section since it's related to how you should be attacking during a gank on Udyr specifically. Orbwalking is the basic mechanic of auto attacking and then inputting another input (usually a right click for movement) to cancel the auto attack. What this should look like is you auto attack, then quickly click behind them to move along with them as the attack goes off, then auto attack them again, and repeat. In a gank, it's important to Orbwalk so you're moving along side them between auto attacks. If you don't orbwalk, your character will just stand still and move only when they leave your auto attack range. This causes you to lose distance and end up behind them.

A related concept for Udyr that isn't necessarily Orbwalking is making sure you're always beside/behind the person you're ganking. Often if I'm ganking something like the top laner, and they're a bit past halfway up the lane, I'll make sure to constantly position myself behind them so they can't Flash away. In between auto attacks, if I expect them to flash, then I'll even orbwalk further away from them with Udyr's high move speed in anticipation of the Flash; so I'm still behind/on them if they do Flash. Again, don't positon yourself behind something like Gnar which can use you to escape by bouncing on you.

Objective Control

Objectives win games, and Udyr gets objectives very well. Often players struggle to end games, especially in lower ranks, and dragon souls are an easy win condition that are simple to understand. That being said, I don't think you should always be tunelling on rushing dragons, despite the fact that Udyr does them very well. Taking early dragons can be risky and costs tempo. If you're getting the first dragon, but it costs you a minute, and half your hp and mana to do it, and your bot lane has to cover for you and **** their wave state up, it might not be worth it.

That being said, objective control should generally be a priority on Udyr. If you're in low elo, you can probably get away with just rushing dragons solo, as long as you avoid vision, and position your team to win through an early dragon soul. Worst case scenario, your team starts losing and the enemy team begins getting dragons, but because you already got that first one or two dragons, the enemy team's soul win condition is stalled by 5 to 10 minutes, giving you time to get back into the game.

I'm also a fan of trading first rift herald for dragon, but this is more for higher elo play. Rift herald can be difficult to use correctly, but provides immense value. The empowered recall allows you to reset efficiently and get on the map frequently with more gold, and the threat of dropping rift herald warps how laners have to play. If you get a succesful gank and are moderately healthy, you can easily take an entire tower, even with full plating. Just make sure you don't drop it too early. For example: you kill the enemy bot lane and aren't worried about anyone stopping you, in this case you should first hit the tower until it's close to 2 and half platings and then start dropping it. The best case scenario is if you are able to take an entire tower, which can be worth up to 1250 gold for your team if it's the first tower.

Harold can also be used to easily execute a dive, by going behind the laner and dropping it early. The rift herald's slam knocks back the enemy if they are hugging their tower and deals damage, potentially killing the tower too if it's low.

Udyr Fundamentals

Orbwalking

I already discussed this in the Jungling Fundamentals section, but I'm putting a second reminder here to read that part, since it's extremely important to play Udyr. Orbwalking is really simple when you're comfortable with your attack speed, and you should always be doing it. If you're ever just right clicking on someone and standing still hitting them, even if they're not really moving, you're misplaying. You should constantly be moving in between auto attacks. At the very least it ensures you're prepared to stay on them if they do move, keeps you practiced and ready to do it subconsciously, you can predict where they might move and already be there, it helps you dodge skill shots, and it makes you more unpredictable.

Passive Usage and Approaching Ganks

Keeping up your passive stacks is important before going into a gank or fight, and you should also try to keep up your passive while clearing when applicable. That said, you shouldn't always be keeping your passive active. It costs a lot of mana to do so, and you should only be spamming abilities with blue buff or sufficient mana left.

Before I enter a lane to gank, I'm already cycling abilities, and I usually will use turtle stance just before I'm about to enter the enemy laners' vision, and then bear stance the moment I'm likely visible. For example, if I'm ganking bot lane through river, I'll turtle stance right before I enter the bot bush, then as I'm leaving the bush, my bear stance should be up and I'll use it. This way, I'll already have a shield while I'm ganking and have my passive stacked up.

I also like to delay using my bear stance situationally. In some cases, if you bear stance as you enter vision and run up to them, the movement speed will run out by the time you reach them, and they might use some powerful movement abilities to create distance from you. If you instead just use phoenix stance or something while walking up and then bear stance later, you'll still have the bear stance and can more easily stick onto them when they use their mobility.

Quit the game early s11 or w.e the previous season was. I started with a ~30% win rate over my first 30 games due to playing casually and duoing with friends, but eventually started playing more and was Masters with a ~70% win rate on Udyr in Master+ MMR games.




LeagueOfGraphs rankings mean nothing but it makes good clickbait so here's the image of me being rank 1 in NA on Udyr.