Top jungle mistakes you should NEVER make: From Iron to Platinum
Hey guys,
I've been maining Jungle since about season 2, and been hitting Diamond consistently across seasons since Season 3. I'm not rank 1 EU or even challenger, but I peaked at Diamond 1 EUNE in Season 4 with around 200 games played total. I never tried to go beyond that so we'll never know if I'm a hardstuck D1 or not. Nowadays I mostly duo queue with lower elo players to help them understand elo hell doesn't exist (which in my opinion is the number 1 reason people can't climb). I also do live jungle VOD reviews and explain my thought process (if I'm bored enough and there is demand for it).
You might recognize me from a pretty old but popular post I posted on /r/leagueoflegends that sounded like a marketing scam https://www.reddit.com/r/leagueoflegends/comments/2g48q3/stuck_in_gold_i_with_over_100_games_then_gold_i/ (tips on how changing ranked mentality helped me go from hardstuck gold 1 to diamond 1 in a very short time)
This time I'm back with a post on actual gameplay tips rather than mentality (even though the mentality tips are just as important)
ENOUGH WALL OF TEXT JUST GET ON WITH THE JUNGLE TIPS:
#1: Do NOT attempt to gank lost* lanes. Snowball winning lanes instead. Why? As a jungler you want to maximize your chances of a successful gank and minimize your risk. Risk is very high when you're ganking a losing lane. Not only can the laner possibly 1v2 you, if the enemy jungler is there too (which he will, if it's high elo), you're fucked. Also the chances of a successful gank are much higher on a lane that is already winning. There are of course RARE exceptions to the rule, where it's a bit safer to gank a losing lane and worth it if it keeps the lane from getting destroyed for the entirety of the game, if for example you've seen enemy jungler on the other side of the map and that lane is overextended. You will have to judge whether the difference is high enough to 1v2 you or not.
Clarification on this point: A 0/1/0 lane isn't a doomed lost lane. A lane where the enemy is 0.5 levels ahead is also not a doomed lane. A doomed lane is a lane where the enemy laner is 2 levels higher than your laner or has a huge item advantage. You shouldn't actively avoid ganking lanes that are only *slightly** losing, as the matchup is still somewhat equal and nothing is lost. BUT, do not gank them simply because they're losing a little bit and you "need to equalize it or else they might feed". Follow the rest of the rules instead to see what's best to gank (EFFICIENCY)
#2 -Do NOT deviate from your planned path just because the lane on the opposite side of the map started spamming assistance pings. This is also linked to the above tip. The lanes spamming chat and pings for help are usually the lanes that are long lost. For example, you recalled and decided your next gank is bot. You also have some wolves/gromp you can take if enemy positioning isn't exactly right yet. So you start walking bot. Then BOOM your top starts spamming pings and flaming and asking for ganks "TOP NO SUMS PERMAPUSHING OMG". For the love of god don't spend 30 seconds walking to top just cause your lane asked. It's super inefficient, and it's also distracting you from your game plan. Also don't try to explain to him why it's a bad idea to gank losing lanes. Play more chat less. Mute and stick to the plan. If you become the type of jungler that always tries to please his team by just going to whichever lane asks for help, you will never play consistently well. Your team is making your decisions for you, and your team is only looking at their lane. They are not looking at the overall outcome of the game. That's your responsibility. Your job isn't to save doomed lanes. Your job is to help your team win the game, even if it means letting your top lane ragequit after he goes 0/9/0 cause he just won't stop trying to duel rene that's 2 levels and 1 item higher than him. You help your team win the game by creating a larger gold advantage for your team. You do that by snowballing the already winning lanes.
#3 -Do NOT walk into a lane to gank it without pinging at least 2 times, 1 time on my way ping 5-10 seconds before you arrive in ganking position, 1 time ping on enemy once you start walking in for the gank. In high elo your laners usually (not always) react even if you don't ping. In low elo, you will be ganking alone with 0 help and wasting your time, maybe even dying. Pinging helps your laner be prepared anyway, even in high elo. Just do it (but don't be obnoxious about it). You will see I usually ping 4-5 times total each time I gank. Not spam pinging, informative pinging to prepare my lane. Also make sure your pings are somewhere where the laner can see it. They hear 3000 pings each game from all lanes. They need the visual cue too. Don't ping "on my way" behind enemy laner when your laner is sitting under tower. He might never see it. Ping right on top of your teamate's champion.
#4 -Do NOT try to force a gank just because. You really wanna gank mid Viktor cause he has no flash and no ghost. So you walk to mid and sit in brush and wait for him to get in a vulnerable position. 3 seconds pass. 5 seconds pass. 10 seconds pass. 20 seconds pass. Not only did you not realize it was warded the entire time, you flash stun him or whatever only to realize that there's 30 minion waves on your mid laner, he's already 50% hp from the viktor poke, and as soon as he joins to help with the gank, he is instantly deleted and misses 30 waves of gold and exp. If you can't decide whether something is warded just by watching enemy movements, a good rule to follow is don't stay in the same brush for more than 10 seconds MAX. I never stay for longer than 5 seconds unless I'm 100% sure it's not warded. If it's not low elo, the enemy will react with movement as soon as you walk over the ward, so you won't waste anymore time there. If it's low elo and you wanna gank through wards and exploit their slower map reaction time, just ping on my way before you arrive to lane and hope your laner is prepared. Do not sit around in the bush waiting for the perfect position. They will look at the map to know how far you are so they will know from which direction you will gank anyway. If it's high elo, chances are the enemy jungler already predicted you are ganking that lane since his laner is pushing, and he's waiting in exactly the opposite brush. The enemy laner sees you standing in brush cause it's warded, but he didn't even flinch. You might think it's not warded The gank looks too good and too free to be true. DONT fucking do it. It's an obvious countergank trap. If you can't win the 2v2, gtfo (this only applies in diamond+).
#5 -DO plan your path every time you return to base. Your path isn't planned only for your first clear. You must have a plan every time. Example, you've returned to base after taking your gromp and wolves. I 100% know my next gank will be top or mid. Why? Let's say by the time I walk to river from base, between top and mid, both lanes are pushed by my team and ungankable. At least now I still have the option to just farm raptors or golems for a few seconds until the wave resets. Then I can get back in position to gank, without having lost any time or exp. If you went bot side, and both mid and bot were ungankable, you have nothing to do. Chances are you will end up making mistake #4 by trying to force a gank, or you will spend 15 seconds doing nothing as you walk back to the other side of your jungle. The only chance I would go bot side with 0 camps in my jungle is if there was a crab spawning. In higher elo junglers can typically tell where the wave will be by the time they arrive to a lane. If you can't, it's a good rule of thumb to use the reasoning I described above and just plan your path based on what parts of your jungle are already cleared.
#6 -This is the most general tip, but also the most important one, and the area where lower elo junglers have the most trouble with. You hear it all the time. BE EFFICIENT. This is why tip #5 is very important. You want to always be farming something. Either camps, or champs. You don't wanna spend long amounts of time travelling through the map doing nothing. There are no simple and specific rules to explain how to be efficient with your pathing. The best way to learn is to watch players better than you explaining what they're doing.
#7 If you're doing your best to follow every other above mentioned tip, you are 100% stronger than the enemy jungler no matter what champ you're playing. USE THIS ADVANTAGE. His jungle is now also your jungle. Invade ALL the fucking time (but be aware of the map and your surroundings. If enemy lanes are super pushed and you invade, 3 people could collapse on you and block all exits. When enemies are pushing lanes invade only if you have a 100% guaranteed escape path not counting your flash, and if you are confident you can 1v2. Do NOT rely on your team helping you.). Invading does 3 things at once. 1. You get more farm. 2. You deny enemy jungler farm. 3. You track down enemy jungler which gives super important information to your lanes. I cannot stress enough how powerful invading is, even if you get 0 camps cause it's already cleared, even if you don't find your enemy jungler, you can get a deep ward, you know the jungler is on the other side of the map, and you are also in position to gank a lane from a very deadly position: From behind ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
Bonus tip
You're overthinking it. For players new to the role, jungle can seem too complicated. What do I gank? When? Why? Qiyana mid she has 2 dashes and invis I have 1 dash and flash so if she dashes I can dash if she does again I can flash my mid also has a dash gg Knight to c8 checkmate cy@. Guys, jungle isn't chess. Believe me I play and love chess but don't try to think 30 moves ahead like you're Kasparov and overcomplicate things. Yes jungling involves more planning than other lanes but don't overdo it and mess up your simple, effective plan. What you gank and when 90% of the time depends on rule #6 and #5. Being efficient. Sure it's not a bad idea to think a little bit about matchups in loading screen and identify which lanes are harder to gank before the game starts (i.e. garen vs enemy riven - garen 0 cc and gap closers, riven 30000 dashes), but don't overthink it. Follow efficient paths and gank wherever the enemy gives you an opportunity. Even the riven-garen gank could be the easiest of your life. And you didn't have to overthink it, you just happened to be at the right place at the right time after a correct efficient clear.
Bonus tip 2
You've probably already seen this before if you're a jungle player, but actually there is a map hack that isn't bannable by Riot. No I don't mean wards. I mean a map hack that lets you see where enemy jungler started without ever warding it. You must use it EVERY GAME because your first plan for your first clear is affected by where the enemy jungler started. The hack works like this:
If I see enemy bot lane in lane as soon as their wave reaches our wave, that means they didn't leash for anyone. Which means the jungler is either afk or started top side. This will also be confirmed by the fact that you will see top lane enter his lane much later than his minions (there are of course exceptions like kayn who might start raptors solo, or shaco who just stacks boxes and can easily solo a buff - but 95% of the time you SHOULD apply this simple tip).
Vice versa in the other scenario. Of course in higher elo there's other mind games that some junglers do, which I like to do as well personally when I start a non-standard path (don't worry about this below diamond): Example, I wanna start top side at my red and gank bot early. But I don't want enemy jungler or enemy bot to know that I started top, because then they will expect the gank early, or the jungler will invade my buff before I get there, etc. So I ask my bot lane to give me a "fake" blue leash. This means they don't go to the lane as soon as their minions go, instead they AFK in fog of war for 5-10 seconds, same way it would happen if they were helping me blue. That way the enemy doesn't know I started red. To make it even more believable, you can simply tell your toplaner that you don't need help (if you are playing a sustain jungler like elise for example who has no trouble doing a healthy solo clear). Then it will 100% seem like you started blue.
Bonus tip 3
Don't always rely on your lanes to tell you what is warded. In low elo, they almost never tell you. Learn to do it yourself. Top lane almost always wards around the 2:30 mark, right after they've pushed in the 2nd minion wave. You can very easily see this, by checking top lane as you're doing your last camps before gank. If they briefly walk outside fog of war towards brush, it's pretty obvious they just warded that. Don't waste time trying to gank it, even though it's pushing like crazy. You will get nothing done, and you will let everyone on the enemy team know where you are. Bad. If top lane however is equally matched (even 2nd wave is stuck in the middle of the lane, and noone really pushed), there's a decent chance it wasn't warded yet. If you've been watching the lane in between camps/ability cooldowns, like I said, you will know if it's warded with 95% certainty.
Bonus tip 4
After a successful gank, if your laner is low on hp or mana, they probably want to base. Help them push the wave hard before you leave lane. This helps deny gold/exp from the enemy laner who just died, and also helps reset the lane. On the other hand, if you are NOT sure that your lane wants to recall and the lane isn't already pushing by default, don't push it unless they ask you to. There's a big chance they wanna use the lead that they just got to freeze the lane instead and deny even more cs from the enemy when they come back to the lane.
Bonus tip 5
If you have weak mental, mute chat as soon as the game starts. Pings are more than enough to communicate important information. No shame in doing this, I myself do it too sometimes if I'm on tilt. Jungle is the most flamed role in the game, especially in lower elo, because people don't understand what the jungler's job is. They think your job is to win their lane, or to save their doomed lane, or to focus their lane because they picked a losing matchup. Which couldn't be futher from the truth. So to avoid getting into arguments instead of playing, have everyone muted from the start if you can't ignore negative comments. If people start being toxic with pings, mute their pings too.
Bonus tip 6
Applies not to just jungle, but every player out here hungry to get better at the game. Don't spend too much time only reading and researching how to get better. Play the game. You could spend 2 hours a day reading tips like this but never improve, because you play 3 ranked games a week. I can't stress how important it is to actually try to apply these in game also, not just read and nod.
That's it for now. This covers the most crucial jungle mistakes for all elos from Iron to Plat.
Finally, because I've been seeing a lot of controversy over unranked to challenger type of streams on the front page lately, and whether they really serve an educational purpose or not: I agree that many of these streamers do it simply to pubstomp low elo and get more views. However, I do believe that games closer to the viewer's elo rather than high elo games, will be able to provide much more accurate and EASY TO APPLY insight for viewers, as long as the person doing it is actually explaining what's happening in real time, and the thought process behind each decision, interacts with chat etc. Which is what I plan on doing. I have a comfortable full time job and I don't plan on becoming a streamer, nor do I think I'll ever have more than 2-digit viewers, so I'm not doing this for views. If I hop straight into diamond games, a silver player will have a harder time understanding why a jungler does a certain thing in diamond, and how he can translate that into a silver game. In a silver/gold game however, the viewer will start to realize how many countless mistakes they make, and how they could capitalize on them instead. Depending on whether people agree with this or not, and whether they find the information above useful or not, I might do one in about an hour or so.
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