The League of Legends Jungle Super Guide

This guide is to give you some tips that will help you as a jungler. You see, League of Legends is not a difficult game, objectively speaking, the point of the game is very simple. But when it comes to winning, it's a little tricky, especially if you play a demanding role like the jungle.

The League of Legends Jungle Super Guide

Starting with delivering a cap-free statement, League of Legends is probably one of the most, if not the most, popular MOBAs in our time. It’s no secret to anyone that Riot Games excels at serving the community with an entertaining free-to-play MOBA. They did it not once but twice with League of Legends and VALORANT. The way you probably start your journey in one of these games can be a word from a friend encouraging you to download one of both games, or you’ve been a fan of a particular streamer that always plays them.

Assuming you ended up here, you probably want to know the specifics of how to jungle, or you just want to get some extra tips that you believe might come in handy. The jungle is a pretty complicated lane to begin with, so it’s not really your fault that you might feel a little weak or restrained when switching from a certain lane to jungle. Due to its nature, the jungle is definitely the least forgiving role in League of Legends; you need to properly clear your camps, you need to provide sufficient ganks to help your teammates, you need to focus on map objectives, you need to keep your head up for the enemy jungler’s movements. This article is your shot into getting helpful tips and advices to guide you in this complex role; this is the League of Legends jungle super guide.

The Essential Techniques

League of Legends is one of those games where it’s not tough to win from time to time but exceptionally difficult knowing why you won and how to keep ticking the right boxes at the proper time. At the same time, it is understandable that you don’t want someone to guide you in each small step in the game; that is precisely the reason why this guide will be composed of the most essential tips and techniques on how to finesse your way into winning in the jungle role. While covering the primary classes of champions that the jungle has to offer in addition to explaining why and when to pick each one.

Yasuo, The Unforgiven

Yasuo, The Unforgiven

Balancing your team’s damage percentages

The first and most crucial part of winning the game takes place before the game even starts, the Champion Select. The team’s damage percentages are virtually the types of damage that each champion in your team deals with; this part is crucial because the enemy team can bring the appropriate items to tank one damage type, which will reduce your total team damage a bunch. The existing damage types are AD, short for Attack Damage, AP, short for ability power, also known as magic damage, and finally, true damage, which penetrates health directly without being affected by either the armor or the magic resist builds.

This particular tip needs you to be aware of a good bunch of the existing champion pool and which type of damage they deal the most; for example, Camille (top-lane fighter) does true damage and magic damage for the most part. Another example would be Malzahar (mid-lane mage) deals magic damage for the most part. The ADC will usually deal attack damage, and the support usually won’t deal that much damage unless it’s a mage like Swain or an assassin like Pyke.

There you have a specific map of damage to be in your mind once you join the Champion Select screen, in chronological order:

  • Top Laner: is typically either a tank or a fighter, the probability of the top laner to deal AP (ability power / magic damage) is somewhat scarce but never unfeasible. The top laner is usually expected to either split push or pose as a frontline in every team fight.
  • Jungler: that’s you. There is quite a variety of damage types in the jungle, which means you can always play what your team needs. Also, if you have enough damage, you can choose a tank to play with, like Rammus.
Brand, The Burning Vengeance

Brand, The Burning Vengeance

  • Mid Laner: the mid laner is considered one of the most, if not the most vital pick in your team; since most of the team will deal attack damage, the mid laner has the bliss of picking from a broad champion pool that includes assassins, mages, fighters, ap fighters, and ranged champions. You will need to coordinate with the mid laner what picks are the most possible for him, which will help you narrow down your choice in which champion you will play.
  • Attack Damage Carry (ADC): from the name, they will deal attack damage, but the ADC dealing AP is not a lost cause; champions like Veigar, Heimerdinger, Cassiopeia, Karthus, and Viktor exist, and they form a great pool of mage champions that you can pick as Ability Power Carries (APCs). They can go a little extreme and play Swain as the APC.
  • Support: as I mentioned earlier, support is a complex role; a considerable amount of support champions deal a tremendous amount of damage like Brand, Swain, Senna, etc. And others will just play around with the crowd control, shielding, executing, tanking, and damage enhancement mechanics like Lulu, Braum, Pyke, and Nami. So it’s clearly not a role to treat as an answer to the question “which damage type they will deal?” instead, you should treat it as the extra cherry on the top of a cupcake. But you should also acknowledge that the support player is as important as any of the laners and can carry the entire team on some occasions.

Helping your team with their matchups

It is almost guaranteed that someone on your team will have a hard time farming and trading in their lane, which means that you will have to help them as much as possible; this is one of your objectives as a roaming jungler. It is your responsibility to keep an eye on how each lane is performing and which ones are having a hard time to provide them with help, which ensues by ganking them or putting vision wards in specific areas to prevent the possibility of the enemy jungler ganks.

Rengar, The Pridestalker

Rengar, The Pridestalker

Ganking more than enough will likely result in your camps being cleared by the enemy jungler and weak performance in the other lanes if they’re all having a hard time. Not ganking enough and focusing mainly on clearing jungle camp after camp will result in a collapse in the other lanes. The bottom lane will definitely always make use of a couple of ganks. Always. Bear in mind that helping the bottom lane will have a significantly positive outcome in the late stages of the game, as the team is expected to always protect and help the ADC when needed.

Not helping your team will also most likely result in catastrophic outcomes for the overall game, the enemy player getting fed enough kills and gold to precede you into buying all the needed items. Some champions will absolutely smash your entire team if the enemy player played the cards at the right time, like Yasuo, and some, with a press of a button, are vowed an automatic kill or two, like Master Yi.

And since this League of Legends jungle guide is expected to leave you with some stain of fresh knowledge, a great way to approach the idea of choosing which lane to gank is to put yourself in their situation, try to find the toughest matchups, and attempt to help your teammates in it so they can have an effective role in the mid to late stages in the match.

Breathing a little deeper

This tip is the exact kind of tip I feel like I would repeat for the forthcoming guides for the other lanes. Breathing Deeper seems like a loading screen tip, and it actually is, but It’s vital, especially when playing jungle. Obviously, because you’re playing an exceptionally demanding role, you will receive hate comments when you mess up, you will get flamed, sometimes just by existing, and of course, it is the funny thing to do, to blame everything on the jungle. That’s why there’s a /mute command exactly, don’t mute pings, though; they’re necessary for you to keep a heads up in certain areas. For the most part, text chat is the most abused to communicate toxicity and general hatred.

Zed, The Master of Shadows

Zed, The Master of Shadows

Although muting a player should be a last resort option, it should always be your objective that helps you eliminate communication between you and a toxic player. It gets really nasty really fast, so my advice here is to just not engage with any kind of toxic communication. Although it might seem captivating for you to reply to each provocative comment, it usually isn’t the right thing to do, mainly because it’s the goal for the toxic person is to get a reply from you, and secondly because it’s extraordinarily time-consuming and preoccupying from the match.

And because the League of Legends jungle super guide is for everyone, this automatically means that I’m talking to both sides of the equation. If you are the toxic person, I know how hard it is not to constantly blame your team, but believe me, being nice regardless of how people are, represents a consequential key, and it influences the future performance of your team within the match. The less a teammate is satisfied with the way you communicate, the less they will be performing. That’s the most formidable part with people that have anger issues or are just generally impatient.

It takes time to master the art of being a mannerly teammate, just like it takes time to master the actual game. And trust me, controlling your anger is substantial in winning your future matches, as your anger not only affects you but also affects the entire team’s approach to the match.

Knowing how to gank in different methods

Every jungle player needs to know how to gank properly and when is the right time for each gank. It is the most effective method known to be helpful to any lane, but the thing is, it’s not easy at all. The way to gank can differ from one champion to another based on their skillset; for example, Evelynn and Shaco have quite the flexibility to choose where to gank from since they have the ability to go invisible for some time. Evelynn especially has the unique possibility to gank from within the lane itself if the enemy is aggressive.

Viego, The Ruined King

Viego, The Ruined King

Some champions like Master Yi have no flexibility in choosing where to gank from, so they have to gank from the absolute behind of the enemy. A champion like Zac can gank from any position due to his ability to jump for distances. So knowing how to gank stems from the preexisting knowledge of the champion’s skillset. We’ll explain some of the champions’ skillsets soon, but for now, the League of Legends jungle super guide will focus on teaching you when exactly to gank and how to prepare for it.

To prepare for a potential gank, you need to focus more on the performance of that exact lane; if it was the top lane, for example, you need to time which camps you clear to match with when you want to gank that lane. You need to place some vision wards conveniently in locations you think can be dangerous for you to step in. You also need to put a plan B in case things go unexpectedly south and a counter-gank happens, or the enemy becomes too powerful that he can handle both of you.

The most important thing at a gank is the surprise element, meaning you have to communicate with the laner you’re ganking to gather the required information that will help the surprise element; does the enemy have vision in the area you’re ganking from? Does he expect a gank at this time because he was pinged to go back? And you definitely need to minimally analyze the characteristics of each enemy’s playstyle, as some players tend to be excessively greedy and/or aggressive -the easy type to gank- and some others tend to be deeply cautious. You can do this by observing the way they act in the lane, or you can communicate with the laner to give you this information.

When to gank depends on multiple factors; what level are you? How tough is it already for the laner to compete? Will the both of you be able to out the enemy, or is it a lost cause? Where is the wave sitting, and where exactly is the enemy? You need to have an answer to these questions to get the idea of when exactly to gank and whether you should gank in the first place or not.

Positions to gank from

Positions to gank from

  • The area highlighted in the color red is an ungankable area; never approach ganking if the ally is fighting in this area or if the enemy is generally standing idle in this area.
  • The area highlighted in the color green is a likely gankable area; you can approach ganking an enemy if they are fighting with the ally or farming in the positions from X3 to X5 are very likely to result in a successful gank.
  • Routes highlighted in blue are areas where it’s uncertainly risky to gank from since it’s the most common place for the enemy and the allies to place the vision wards, but if the enemy is in a convenient spot like position X4, or X5, you can always go for it.
  • Routes highlighted in yellow, usually behind the enemy, are the safest way to gank. Optimal if your champion has no crowd control mechanics that can root or stun the enemy.

Tracking your enemy jungler and securing objectives

Being able to track the enemy jungler is a game-changer. It’s a skill that is not so hard to possess but relatively hard to maintain and pay attention to for the most part. This is critical in deciding which jungle objective you will take next, which lane is gankable to you, and knowing which jungle side is secure and hazardous. Tracking is also vital for the other teammates’ safety in each lane and understanding when to push and play aggressively or when to play safe.

Master Yi, The Wuju Bladesman

Master Yi, The Wuju Bladesman

It is evident that there is no static, fixed way to track the enemy jungler, but there are multiple that are used within the correct time and reason. In the League of Legends jungle super guide, I’ll break it into two stages. Some of them are in the early stage of the match:

  • If a particular lane player is late to catch up to their minion wave, that usually means they were leashing -helping- their jungler. This gives you the determined knowledge to know which side the enemy began with. You can use this valid information to steal camps from the side that they are yet to clear. But don’t clear the entire side unless you’re playing with a jungler that can quickly clear camps.
  • When you clear the Rift Scuttler ‘Scuttle Crab,’ you can usually detect if the jungler is still clearing or if he has already taken the rift scuttler. This only applies if you know which side the jungler had cleared first.

In the mid to late stages of the match, you can detect the place of the jungle with the following methods:

  • If he ganks a specific lane, that’s where he was the last time. You need to keep that in your head. And you can also determine which side he will clear next by the direction he went after ganking.
  • Keep an eye and an ear out for which objectives have been cleared; if he takes the dragon solo, this means he’s either ganking bot lane or mid lane. But generally, you now know he’s on the bot side. The same applies to the Rift Herald or the Baron Nashor.
  • Keep an eye on the map; if the mid-laner placed the wards in the convenient places, the jungler eventually appears on the map for 3 seconds or more.
  • Purchase Control Wards and place them where the enemy buffs spawn; they will ultimately clear their buff camps, and when they do, your entire team will know where they are. Keep in mind that you can only place one Control Ward at a time.
Kayn, The Shadow Reaper

Kayn, The Shadow Reaper

The last and the most significant point I have to make in this League of Legends jungle guide is that objectives are enormously beneficial to the entire team for the powers they grant. And the paramount objective you need to obtain is the Elder Dragon, as it executes the enemy if they are under a certain percentage of health. It’s always worthwhile to slay the Baron Nashor, even if you’re practically losing; by getting it, you’re making sure the enemy misses the powerful buff it has to present.

To decide whether to take an objective or not, let’s say the dragon, “where is the jungler?” should be your first concern. Using the beforementioned methods to determine where the jungler is; therefore, decide when you should obtain the jungle objective. Also, if you ever have the capacity to fight and take the objective solo, you should go for it and not request help from the laner.

Finally, don’t forget to keep your head up for the latest updates on the game, which you can always find in the official patch notes. I also find myself obliged to inform you that it’s always a game. Never regret a loss because you can always do better for the next match; you never maintain a poor level; there are always bad and good times. Everyone goes through a loser queue at some point in their life, so if you do, you can stop right away and play some other mode where you will have fun or probably change the game you’re playing for the moment. And this was all I have to say in this one. See you in the next guide.

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