Ask a Diamond [Week 6: Jungle]

[quote=Vynertje][center][img=http://i.imgur.com/0E2Xkv4.png][/center] [center][h1]Greetings people of Mobafire![/h1][/center] It's Wednesday again! It's time for another installment of the weekly and official Ask a Diamond series. This thread encourages people to ask all their questions to the high ranked players of this site. he goal is to help out as much players as we can with their most pressing questions, hopefully allowing them to climb the ladder and perhaps once hit Diamond as well! This week will be all about the jungle! [url=http://www.mobafire.com/league-of-legends/forum/general/ask-a-diamond-week-5-bot-lane-28356?page=1](Week 5: Bot lane)[/url] So, if you have any League related questions, you can ask them here. However, please keep in mind the rules: [list] [*] Serious, League related questions only. [*] Make sure your questions are specific. We can't help you when you simply ask "How can I get out of elo-hell". Something like "How can I more easily capitalize on my enemy's mistakes" is a lot more specific and helps us help you. [*] People below Diamond are allowed to answer questions, but always take such answers with a grain of salt. You can recognize diamond players by their flairs, next to their username. [*] Questions should be related to the week's lane (this week: jungle!). I will ask moderators to remove all questions that aren't. [/list] Fire away! [i]Credit to Emikadon for the banner![/i][/quote]

[quote=luizdeh][[olaf]]. I've tried different things with mixed results. Basic mentality for [[olaf]] jungle is counterganks, early ganks, farmville, counterjungle or what? I know it's situational and whatnot, but sometimes I find that if I hesitate on what to do I default to a 'simple basic plan' of sorts, like for [[gragas]] jungle I'd force objectives because of his siege, non-stop ganks and counterjungle with [[udyr]], etc. But with [[olaf]] things aren't that clear to me.[/quote]

[quote=I want to be a Blitzball]Wouldn't as [[olaf]] the best option to counterjungle anyone he can 1 vs 1 or gank top by the slightest overextension? I'm just silver, could be wrong.My own question though,[[jarvan iv]]/[[nunu]]? When to pick, vs who,general build etc.Also why they've fallen out of favor?,[/quote]

[quote=Darealone]Biggest question...WHEN DO I GANK?![/quote]

[quote=Emi]With trinkets and everything, most bot lanes have nearly everything perfectly warded, making it really hard to gank. What do you do if your duo is falling behind and every time you go to try and gank the enemies just back off?[/quote]

[quote=LevasK]Not a diamond player, but I will try to answer your questions. luizdeh-Due to season 4 changes to how jungle works I'd say counter jungling is your least lucrative prospect when playing [[Olaf]].I mean sure if you are passing by an enemy camp you should counter jungle it,but I believe your best bet for success would be early ganking/counter ganking. [[Olaf]] is very strong early game duelist and he's great in 2v2 scenarios, so you should focus on those things. And obviously if you see no opportunities farming is always good. Also you should consider cheesing people with stuff like red to red or lvl 2 ganks your [[Undertow]] is great for both. I want to be a Blitzball-I would advise against picking [[Nunu]] in solo q in general.He's not a popular pick, because aside from counter jungling he just doesn't do much. With the recent buffs/changes to J4 he could be a great pick again. Jarvain lost his popularity due to quite a few nerfs in the past, the best time for picking J4 is when the enemy ADC and/or mid laner has no built in gap closers that can get out of [[Cataclysm]] or when your team has a lot of AoE abilities such as [[Bullet Time]], [[Command: Shockwave]]. Builds for Jarvain depend on situation and/or preference.Here are 2 generic ones; Tank build: [[Spirit of The Ancient Golem]],[[Ninja Tabi]],[[Locket of the Iron Solari]],[[Randuin's Omen]]/[[Sunfire Cape]] + whatever the situation calls for. Damage build: [[Spirit of The Elder Lizard]], [[Mercury's Treads]], [[The Brutalizer]],[[Sunfire Cape]],[[Banshee's Veil]]. Darealone-I could give you a better answer if you were a bit more specific, but you generally want to gank when you have sufficient health/mana, when none of your buff are about to spawn , when there is little to no change of you loosing [[Dragon]]/[[Baron]] if you gank, if the enemy laner is past the middle of his lane or you see that the lane is going to push towards your side and you won't have to wait too long in a bush for a lane gank. Emikadon- Well making your enemies back off and giving your own laners a little bit of breathing room is good even if you don't actually gank. Other options are generally ganking other lanes or trying to make something happen elsewhere on the map like helping your other lanes or counter jungling. You could try to convince your bottom lane to buy a pink ward to create a decent path for you to gank through, but 9/10 times it is not gonna happen. You have to realize sometimes you just gotta let laners fail.[/quote]

[quote=PsiGuard][quote=luizdeh] [[olaf]]. I've tried different things with mixed results. Basic mentality for [[olaf]] jungle is counterganks, early ganks, farmville, counterjungle or what? [/quote] It depends slightly on whether or not you're going [[wriggle's lantern]]. If you're going feral flare, it's mostly a lot of farming while warding/ganking when your nearby camps are down. If you're going golem/lizard, you should try to gank after every 2 or 3 camps. Look for overextended lanes or force lane ganks when you have [[ghost]] if you're taking ghost. Counterjungling/counterganking depends a lot on matchup -- olaf can't fight everyone and he can get kited. In general I think he's stronger in chases than in 2v2s or 3v3s. [quote=I want to be a Blitzball]My own question though, Jarvan IV/ Nunu? When to pick, vs who,general build etc.Also why they've fallen out of favor?[/quote] I can't really comment much on [[jarvan iv]]. I don't really see any reason to play him as a jungler right now when people like [[xin zhao]], [[lee sin]], [[elise]], [[wukong]] and [[pantheon]] are all really strong and accomplish similar tasks. [[Nunu]] is pretty good against some of the weaker early game junglers, especially [[feral flare]] farmers. You'd pick him if you were planning on maximizing your early pressure through counter-jungling and pushing for early towers and dragons. This isn't the same as early pressure through tons of ganks and getting all the lanes snowballing. Nunu's ganks are good, but what's best about him is how fast he can force objectives with his team before scaling enemies have a chance to farm out the early game. End the game fast. Build golem, mobility boots and some tanky stuff like frozen heart / locket / randuin's. He's not too great in soloqueue because you need coordination to end games quickly and soloqueue teams like to throw the game a lot until it hits late game. [quote=Darealone]Biggest question...WHEN DO I GANK?![/quote] Super general question, so you're going to get a super general answer. You should gank when your presence creates an advantage in one or more of your lanes. Ganking pushed (overextended) and unwarded lanes is always best, but you can also try setting up lane ganks (takes practice) and forcing dives if you, your support or your top laner can tank the tower for a bit. You should focus on ganking for allies that scale well with gold and have good gank reception (CC, mobility, burst) or have weak early games that can be bypassed with jungle pressure (Kassadin, Jax). You should also look to gank enemies with few escapes, especially ones that have to extend to trade or pressure their lane. Your ganking decisions should change based on both team comps, the positions of the minions and the state of each lane (health, mana, level, who has the advantage). [quote=Emikadon]With trinkets and everything, most bot lanes have nearly everything perfectly warded, making it really hard to gank. What do you do if your duo is falling behind and every time you go to try and gank the enemies just back off?[/quote] I'll preface this with an admission that I prefer not to gank bot in the current meta. [[Heal]] + [[Exhaust]] is really hard to deal with even in a 3v2 and it's pretty easy for bot lane to play really passive without falling behind when their summoners are down. Sometimes going bot it just a waste of time. It can still be worth your while though. If there are a lot of wards, one solution is to use pink wards and/or sweepers from you and your support to clear out some of the vision before you come to gank. Early game bot lane usually only relies on two one-minute trinket wards, so if you keep track of where their wards are placed and when, there will be gank opportunities before the support gets [[sightstone]]. If you're purple side and bot lane is warded, but pushed, you can usually go through the enemy wraiths and behind their red buff to reach bot lane through tri bush. Even if tri is warded it doesn't give enough time for the enemy laners to respond if your lane engages. Keep in mind that you might get spotted by wards placed by the jungler or mid lane when you invade their jungle. If you're blue side, you'll usually want to make use of your bot lane tri bush. It's very easy for you or your bot lane to defend a pink ward in that bush, which means you can pink the bush and sit there while waiting for a bot lane fight to start. Even if they have a ward in the river bush it doesn't give the enemy bot lane much time to react. Lane ganks are always a possibility as well, especially since your support can sweep out the wards of one of the bushes and the enemies will probably expect they're just trying to gain bush control. Or you could just play [[Nocturne]] or [[Pantheon]] and skip the whole warding issue entirely. :D Honestly I don't gank bot often when it's warded unless I'm playing a champion like that. It's usually easier to create an advantage in another lane.[/quote]

[quote=Darealone][quote=LevasK] Darealone-I could give you a better answer if you were a bit more specific, but you generally want to gank when you have sufficient health/mana, when none of your buff are about to spawn , when there is little to no change of you loosing [[Dragon]]/[[Baron]] if you gank, if the enemy laner is past the middle of his lane or you see that the lane is going to push towards your side and you won't have to wait too long in a bush for a lane gank. [/quote] So let's say I just just finished the red buff on purple side and am at level 4 with 3/4 health. At this time a lane is usually pushed somewhere. Do I automatically go gank the pushed lane?[/quote]

[quote=Dychronius]All three lanes are beginning to fall behind/have already lost lane. What do I do?[/quote]

[quote=PsiGuard][quote=Dychronius] All three lanes are beginning to fall behind/have already lost lane. What do I do? [/quote] It depends on the champion. Your two options are: A) Do something to make your champion really really strong so that you can carry some of the weight of your team in the early game. Sometimes this means farming until a certain power spike or finishing [[spirit of the elder lizard]]. Sometimes this means looking to clean up kills on laners that overextend or overstay when they kill your ally. B) Gank everything and salvage the early game. Buy [[boots of mobility]], pressure as much as possible and get [i]at least one[/i] of your teammates back in the game. You should usually prioritize champions with good scaling or mid-game impact so they can help you carry your team through the mid game until everyone else catches up. Sometimes you have time and opportunity to gank every lane, so that's fine too. Champions like [[Amumu]], [[Nocturne]] and [[Wukong]] tend to do better with option A. They become much more of a threat at level 6 and Amumu and Nocturne can farm very quickly. If you run around trying to gank everyone with Amumu, you'll probably just set yourself behind and your team will have no chance of coming back. If you pick up a lot of lane and jungle farm that your laners miss and use your ultimate to get shut downs or contest dragon, you'll have a better chance of salvaging the game in the mid game. Champions like [[Elise]] and [[Lee Sin]] thrive on early game pressure and do better with option B. Punish your opposing laners for playing aggressive, help your laners get back some experience or maybe even a shut down, and counter gank the enemy jungler (this means you have to ward). Repeatedly gank lanes that don't have [[flash]] up until they're forced to lane more passively and let your ally farm. You can prevent yourself from falling behind in gold and XP by leeching some farm and experience off of your lanes when you succeed after a gank. It's worth it for your laners if they lose a few CS to their jungler but get two waves of experience. They would probably have lost more CS if they were alone in lane and died or were zoned from the wave, and definitely would lose more experience. Also always try to be at least close enough to hold a lane and clear minions if your teammate dies or needs to back. As long as that gold and experience doesn't go to waste, you'll still be roughly even. Sometimes the score can be 0-4 but the enemy team is only up a couple hundred gold because you picked up all the farm that your laners were losing and even denied farm to the enemy laner when they backed after the kill by pushing to the other tower. EDIT: Keep in mind that three losing lanes is the worst possible scenario for a jungler and you'll probably lose a lot of games from this circumstance. It's simply how the game works. Don't beat yourself up after a loss if you couldn't carry all 4 people on your team by yourself. Most games 1 or 2 of your lanes will win, but you might find yourself able to carry a few games that otherwise would have been lost if not for your ability to keep your team in the game after a rough start.[/quote]