Views: 2105 Jungle Planning for Early Game Try 2
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Adapted from a post I originally made on my all that is ranked thread.
This may all be a no brainer for higher level junglers, but for people that are just getting into jungle or have hit a wall at their current ELO this might be of help if you aren't already doing it.
The idea is to have a plan about how you are going to path in the early game to increase your likelihood of impacting the map early in a positive way and hence increase your chances of going into the Mid game with a lead.
If you are like me for the longest time you had no plan other than to clear your camps and maybe gank overextended lanes if they were near to where you ended your clear. And if there were no ganks available you would go back to farming.
But what if you could pretty much ensure your clear ended up at an almost certainly overextended lane? Sounds pretty good, right?
To be clear this is an early game plan and one which you may have to adapt if you get invaded or if your team calls for and conducts an invade, but for now I'm going to lay out the bones of how you go about deciding what your early pathing will be. It says nothing about the Mid game other than if early is good, Mid probably looks good too.
Step 1: In champion select make a prediction about which lanes will push.
Cheat sheet: (IIRC there are more elements than this and I'll update it when I look at my list at home)
Ranged pushes Melee
Higher threat pushes
It is rare for lanes to go even (someone will hit lvl 2 first and then they are likely to get aggressive).
This tells you which lanes will be gankable and which lanes you might need to countergank.
Step 2 Ask yourself do I win the 1v1 vs the enemy jungler?
Step 3 Do we win a 2v2 countergank scenario?
Step 4 What will be the enemy junlgers path?
Cheat sheet
9x out of ten the enemy jungle will start with their Bot lane leashing them even if that is not optimal. Your map hack is
A) seeing when the enemy laners come to lane
B) checking their mana
If their laners come to lane late they likely leashed. And if they are missing some mana they almost 100% leashed. You can fake leash, but it is rare in soloqueue for this to happen.
Then the enemy jungler is probably going to do camps that play to their strengths with the intent of hitting level 3 as fast as possible. (if they do a lot of single target damage like
Udyr a common path would be Red > Wolves > Blue > Gromp or Blue > Gromp > Wolves > Red (both paths will get you level 3).
So junglers with the capability to gank will most likely complete 4 actions and on their fifth action they will look for a gank.
If you really want to get into the weeds you can time yourself doing various clears and if you know the enemy junglers clear speed you can factor that in to where they could be and what their choices should be.
For example I now know that Pantheon's clear speed is low so in the time it takes him to do Red > Raptors > Blue (3 camps and be level 2), Hecarim can do Blue > Wolves > Raptors > Red (4 camps and be level 3) and be in the enemy's jungle looking to invade or get vision). Note: this is with using a trick to heal off of Raptors while you do Red.
Ergo if you have a fast and healthy clear and are a good duelest your plan may be to kill Pantheon before he hits level 3.
Step 5: After a game, watch at least the early game and see if your assumptions are correct. If they are not then watch the lane and see why not. Maybe they purposely didn't push for lvl 2 because they were concerned about a lvl 2 gank say from a Twitch jungle. Then update your mental lexicon.
The point is to build up a league sense about what is likely to happen and why. And yeah, you'll probably be bad at it at first.
My coach put it this way. League is a big IF statement that you will add to over time and you can judge your progress as a player by how many things your IF statement takes into account.
For instance last night I learned that Jarvan IV does not win the 1v1 vs Lee Sin at level 3. So in future games I may decide to start on the opposite side of the map from Lee, especially if I have a gank on that side of the map since I don't want to interact with Lee because I don't win the 1v1 or the 2v1 (because of his shield and mobility, Lee is quite good at counterganking). Or maybe I don't even pick Jarvan IV because Lee counters what I want to do as Jarvan (like not picking J4 into Janna because that is aids if the Janna knows what she is doing).
So part of building up your League sense should be sticking to a champion for at least 20 games and then re-evaluating so you can start understanding which 1v1s you can take and which 2v2s you can take.
This may all be a no brainer for higher level junglers, but for people that are just getting into jungle or have hit a wall at their current ELO this might be of help if you aren't already doing it.
The idea is to have a plan about how you are going to path in the early game to increase your likelihood of impacting the map early in a positive way and hence increase your chances of going into the Mid game with a lead.
If you are like me for the longest time you had no plan other than to clear your camps and maybe gank overextended lanes if they were near to where you ended your clear. And if there were no ganks available you would go back to farming.
But what if you could pretty much ensure your clear ended up at an almost certainly overextended lane? Sounds pretty good, right?
To be clear this is an early game plan and one which you may have to adapt if you get invaded or if your team calls for and conducts an invade, but for now I'm going to lay out the bones of how you go about deciding what your early pathing will be. It says nothing about the Mid game other than if early is good, Mid probably looks good too.
Step 1: In champion select make a prediction about which lanes will push.
Cheat sheet: (IIRC there are more elements than this and I'll update it when I look at my list at home)
Ranged pushes Melee
Higher threat pushes
It is rare for lanes to go even (someone will hit lvl 2 first and then they are likely to get aggressive).
This tells you which lanes will be gankable and which lanes you might need to countergank.
Step 2 Ask yourself do I win the 1v1 vs the enemy jungler?
Step 3 Do we win a 2v2 countergank scenario?
Step 4 What will be the enemy junlgers path?
Cheat sheet
9x out of ten the enemy jungle will start with their Bot lane leashing them even if that is not optimal. Your map hack is
A) seeing when the enemy laners come to lane
B) checking their mana
If their laners come to lane late they likely leashed. And if they are missing some mana they almost 100% leashed. You can fake leash, but it is rare in soloqueue for this to happen.
Then the enemy jungler is probably going to do camps that play to their strengths with the intent of hitting level 3 as fast as possible. (if they do a lot of single target damage like
Udyr a common path would be Red > Wolves > Blue > Gromp or Blue > Gromp > Wolves > Red (both paths will get you level 3).So junglers with the capability to gank will most likely complete 4 actions and on their fifth action they will look for a gank.
If you really want to get into the weeds you can time yourself doing various clears and if you know the enemy junglers clear speed you can factor that in to where they could be and what their choices should be.
For example I now know that
Pantheon's clear speed is low so in the time it takes him to do Red > Raptors > Blue (3 camps and be level 2), Hecarim can do Blue > Wolves > Raptors > Red (4 camps and be level 3) and be in the enemy's jungle looking to invade or get vision). Note: this is with using a trick to heal off of Raptors while you do Red.Ergo if you have a fast and healthy clear and are a good duelest your plan may be to kill Pantheon before he hits level 3.
Step 5: After a game, watch at least the early game and see if your assumptions are correct. If they are not then watch the lane and see why not. Maybe they purposely didn't push for lvl 2 because they were concerned about a lvl 2 gank say from a Twitch jungle. Then update your mental lexicon.
The point is to build up a league sense about what is likely to happen and why. And yeah, you'll probably be bad at it at first.
My coach put it this way. League is a big IF statement that you will add to over time and you can judge your progress as a player by how many things your IF statement takes into account.
For instance last night I learned that
Jarvan IV does not win the 1v1 vs Lee Sin at level 3. So in future games I may decide to start on the opposite side of the map from Lee, especially if I have a gank on that side of the map since I don't want to interact with Lee because I don't win the 1v1 or the 2v1 (because of his shield and mobility, Lee is quite good at counterganking). Or maybe I don't even pick Jarvan IV because Lee counters what I want to do as Jarvan (like not picking J4 into Janna because that is aids if the Janna knows what she is doing).So part of building up your League sense should be sticking to a champion for at least 20 games and then re-evaluating so you can start understanding which 1v1s you can take and which 2v2s you can take.
t = their (meaning camps that are in their team's jungle)
A path I've discovered that some junglers, especially those with good single target clears will use to counter the Korean clear, which is Red > Krugs > Raptors > Wolves > Blue path is to go tRed > oBlue.
This can be a nasty surprise if they win a level 2 duel and you are concerned about them invading and instead go oRed > oBlue to make sure you don't get 3 buffed.
A way to counter this is to run out and cover your blue buff (if your team is starting on the Blue side (bottom) of the map) and drop your ward in the blue side pixel bush at 50seconds. Then base and buy and
Assuming your trinket ward spots the enemy jungler out as they go to your blue you have some options.
1. If you win the 1v1, you can go after them yourself
2. If you would win the 2v1 you can ping your laners to collapse*
3. You can go to tBlue side and set up a vertical jungling path**
*If your laners aren't level 2, I wouldn't ping or ask them to move. It is just too costly for them to be a level behind their laner, which is what will happen if they leave lane to collapse on the invade. Yeah they may get a kill, but they come back to lane a level down from their lane opponent and they will also end up down some XP meaning they will hit level 6 later than their lane opponent, which can be decisive if some lanes.
**Downside here is that if you've switched out for a sweeper you can not ward to see if the enemy jungler goes tRed > oBlue > tBlue, which is something a champion like
Suffice to say, the point of paying attention to all of this stuff and thinking through your opening moves at least initially is to get an idea of what capabilities your champion has compared to their champion, and what common patterns emerge from your observations.
It is still a guessing game to some extent, but your guesses eventually become educated guesses that can include techniques to counter what the enemy jungler is likely to do.
The payoff being more reliable early games that allow you to punish the enemy jungler and their team more often and more severely the better you get at it.
For example.
My point here is that XP wise that route may be very efficient but it may prevent you from getting a gank or a countergank off if it takes too long or gets you too low on health.
You do of course need to farm, but farming is not proactive it is just something you should do in your downtime, such as when one or more of your teammates is back in base.
So to put this in an example. As
So if I'm Red side and I'm on the Blue side of the map starting Red buff with a leash from my Bot lane and I think my Top lane will push and the enemy junglers path will bring them Top side and I think we win the 2v2, then I need a different route to get there in time for the countergank.
My route then would be Red > Raptors > Wolves > Blue and setup for the countergank.
Why? A double kill is better than a kill. So if my options are one kill or a double kill, I 'm going to choose that since it is the hardest way I can punish the enemy team.
Combination in this case was
You should use a jungler that can reliably gank at level 2.
You don't even need Red buff, though I believe the strategy is slightly better on Red side.
Because Top and Mid laners are ridiculously lazy about covering jungle entrances.
1. With your Top laner investigate the enemy Blue Buff. If it is not covered then start on their Blue. The enemy top laner will start clearing their wave which will inevitably cause the lane to push toward your side of the map. Coming from Blue buff you get to gank them from behind, highly increasing the likelihood of a kill (at minimum you will get a
2. Go do your Red buff and head back to Top lane if they have
3. Go do your Krugs, then Scuttle. Kill Top lane again. Top lane will probably rage quit or sit under their tower where you can dive them over and over to get first tower.
4. Vertical jungle and control the Top side of the map along with your Top laner. With your item lead you can most likely dunk on the enemy jungler if they ever try to come over their to collect the camps.
5. Your Top laner and you can now use your lead to accelerate the breaking of Mid and Bot.
Note if the enemy jungle is smart they will simply split the map with you once you've established such a substantial lead (tell your Mid and Bot lane to be chill and avoid ganks and you will carry them).
If the enemy is guarding their Blue side jungle at the start of the game that is fine. Just start Red buff and gank Top after that. Krugs, gank Top again. Then counterjungle their Blue side.
If you are on the other side of this you need to work on getting one or more of your lanes fed and get wards in to mainly protect your Mid laner. If both their Top and Mid laner get ahead you are most probably screwed. If you are verses a highly mobile champion like