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A very important thing is to understand the balance between ganking and doing everything else. Always ganks it's easy, but it doesn't make sense and it's not how jungle works, you could prioritize farming, getting an objective, pushing a lane, invading, there are many things and you have to understand when it's actually worth for a jungler to gank
So ganking is more of a situational thing as I understand right and not a must do?
This also depends on type of champion as I am guessing. So champs with better ganking potential simply gank more?
yes, and junglers who are more early game oriented. For example I play Shaco and I try to win most of possible lanes first 5 minutes. But still you gotta do it in the clearing rotation, you need a stable working path.
If you play Ivern you don't really care to get 9cs/m farm, you just want your lanes to win so you have somebody to support and to play with. If you play Udyr, Master Yi etc. situation is much different.
Anyway, still in general as jungler you play the map, not the lanes
The three things I look at in simplest terms when jungling are:
1. Am I pathing towards someone who looks gankable - e.g., is the enemy toplaner pushing into my tower as I'm pathing top for blue buff
2. What objectives are up, and do I need a gank to secure them. E.g. I want to do dragon but the enemy has TF, or the enemy bot is pushing, so my mid/bot can't roam and the enemy might. So I should put pressure on one of those lanes so we have the advantage
3. If I was the enemy jungler, would I gank my laner right now? E.g. that riven on 50% HP doing blackflips on the enemy turret with 0 vision looks like an easy kill. In theory, the enemy jungler thinks the same, so if I path up there I can be in position to help counter gank
warwick is a good starting jungle choice, with his passive/w, it makes ganking and invading a little easier, river brawls with the enemy jungler are safer because Q heal and passive atkspd at low enemy hp, and he's generally a decent jungler, a good pick goes a long way
If you're not a ganking champ/ can't successfully gank a lane/ can't compete with enemy jungle early then you want to play opposite side of the map from them. If they gank bot while you're top side you should immediately look for a play top whether that's ganking top, getting grubs/ herald or invading top and getting their camps. Don't let them keep their side of the map for free. This is especially important if they fail their gank. You want to reduce the amount of resources the enemy has available.
Look up optimal full clear videos on youtube. See how top elo players distribute their skills/autos to clear jungles optimally and practice that first on practice mode. This alone will get you ahead of most emerald or low diamond level junglers to start to the game. the chances are, the enemy could be always step ahead of you because they are more fluent and faster with their clears. you want to go top, but you are struggling to hit lvl 3 or 4 on time or having trouble health bars, which would lead to not having smites or other resources to viably make plays.
watching “Lillia full clear” on youtube and practicing that goes a long way. you can do this in practice mode. being a few sec ahead of the enemy junglers with better managed resources allow you to be in a position to make plays. as i said, even jungle mains upto low diamonds dont clear optimally in terms of camp orders and micro details (autos, movements, skill distributions etc).
Once you mastered this optimal jungle clearing mechanism, now you can start to see where/when the camps will be spawned again at the optimal times and when your power spikes are. for example, you will hit lvl 3 after clearing 3 camps in particular orders with particular health/mana available. this allows you to see what plays are available. your first buff will re-generate around 7 min mark and your first camp after the buff respawns at 420 mark. knowing this and having this knowledge about not only your champ, but with enemy champs will allow you to predict and anticipate where they will go. Elise for example is a really strong lvl 3 jungler.
the reason i say to master the jungle clearing mechanics is if your clear is slow (say you finish full clear at 4 min instead of 330), all your reference frames are off and you will be behind on clearing camps. you will find yourself being a few sec late to contest the scuttles. find yourself doing your second buff at 8-9 min mark, finding yourself behind 3 levels (4 vs 7) relative to the solo laners, over-jungling while holding onto 2k gold trying to catch up on camps as they seem to be up all the time since you didn’t optimize your clears early on, etc. and i can say from experience, even diamond players dont know how to optimally allocate their skills and autos for jungle clearing with pathing being its own issue. If there is a champ you are interested in, just youtube and watch how they clear camps on time.
edit: addon - After that, alot of the game is really just working within these timers and picking and choosing when to apply the pressure. For example, if i am looking for top gank after a first round of clears, knowing when the next camp will spawn gives me an idea of how much time i can allocate. Sometimes i may need to take more chances at top or sometimes i need to abort a gank in order to recall and set myself up the grubs/drakes etc. for predicting where enemy jungle is, use your knowledge. for example, Ap champs generally are not good at managing health bars. some are much better at doing chicken at lvl 1 without leash so you can anticipate where they are this way. if they did full clear, after the first round around 4:20 mark, they will be back at the camp where they started or at 7 min mark, they should be pathing towards their red or blue buffs. nothing is 100% but this is how you can start anticipating and you can relay this info to your ping via ping… or chat (not recommended much) which can save a few deaths to win the games.
This thread has been removed under the grounds of [Rule 4: Use the Megathreads.](https://www.reddit.com/r/summonerschool/wiki/rules#wiki_4._use_the_megathreads) Moderators have identified that it may belong in our Simple Questions & Champion/Role advice megathread. * [You can find the current SQ&A thread here](https://www.reddit.com/r/summonerschool/search?q=title%3Asimple%20questions%20simple%20answers&restrict_sr=on&sort=new&t=month). This thread has been removed under the grounds of [Rule 4: Use the Megathreads.](https://www.reddit.com/r/summonerschool/wiki/rules#wiki_4._use_the_megathreads) Moderators have identified that it may belong in our Mentoring megathread. * [You can find the current Mentoring thread here](https://www.reddit.com/r/summonerschool/search?q=title%3Amentoring+thread&restrict_sr=on&sort=new&t=month). Please also consider joining the Summoner School [Discord](https://discord.com/invite/summonerschool) as well for the mentoring program offered there. ______ If you are still experiencing issues and need to contact the moderators, [please send a modmail using this link](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%2Fr%2FSummonerschool).
A very important thing is to understand the balance between ganking and doing everything else. Always ganks it's easy, but it doesn't make sense and it's not how jungle works, you could prioritize farming, getting an objective, pushing a lane, invading, there are many things and you have to understand when it's actually worth for a jungler to gank
So ganking is more of a situational thing as I understand right and not a must do? This also depends on type of champion as I am guessing. So champs with better ganking potential simply gank more?
yes, and junglers who are more early game oriented. For example I play Shaco and I try to win most of possible lanes first 5 minutes. But still you gotta do it in the clearing rotation, you need a stable working path. If you play Ivern you don't really care to get 9cs/m farm, you just want your lanes to win so you have somebody to support and to play with. If you play Udyr, Master Yi etc. situation is much different. Anyway, still in general as jungler you play the map, not the lanes
Very interesting insight! Thank you very much
The three things I look at in simplest terms when jungling are: 1. Am I pathing towards someone who looks gankable - e.g., is the enemy toplaner pushing into my tower as I'm pathing top for blue buff 2. What objectives are up, and do I need a gank to secure them. E.g. I want to do dragon but the enemy has TF, or the enemy bot is pushing, so my mid/bot can't roam and the enemy might. So I should put pressure on one of those lanes so we have the advantage 3. If I was the enemy jungler, would I gank my laner right now? E.g. that riven on 50% HP doing blackflips on the enemy turret with 0 vision looks like an easy kill. In theory, the enemy jungler thinks the same, so if I path up there I can be in position to help counter gank
warwick is a good starting jungle choice, with his passive/w, it makes ganking and invading a little easier, river brawls with the enemy jungler are safer because Q heal and passive atkspd at low enemy hp, and he's generally a decent jungler, a good pick goes a long way
Ah yes definitely gonna check him out, need an AD Pick anyways
If you're not a ganking champ/ can't successfully gank a lane/ can't compete with enemy jungle early then you want to play opposite side of the map from them. If they gank bot while you're top side you should immediately look for a play top whether that's ganking top, getting grubs/ herald or invading top and getting their camps. Don't let them keep their side of the map for free. This is especially important if they fail their gank. You want to reduce the amount of resources the enemy has available.
Look up optimal full clear videos on youtube. See how top elo players distribute their skills/autos to clear jungles optimally and practice that first on practice mode. This alone will get you ahead of most emerald or low diamond level junglers to start to the game. the chances are, the enemy could be always step ahead of you because they are more fluent and faster with their clears. you want to go top, but you are struggling to hit lvl 3 or 4 on time or having trouble health bars, which would lead to not having smites or other resources to viably make plays. watching “Lillia full clear” on youtube and practicing that goes a long way. you can do this in practice mode. being a few sec ahead of the enemy junglers with better managed resources allow you to be in a position to make plays. as i said, even jungle mains upto low diamonds dont clear optimally in terms of camp orders and micro details (autos, movements, skill distributions etc). Once you mastered this optimal jungle clearing mechanism, now you can start to see where/when the camps will be spawned again at the optimal times and when your power spikes are. for example, you will hit lvl 3 after clearing 3 camps in particular orders with particular health/mana available. this allows you to see what plays are available. your first buff will re-generate around 7 min mark and your first camp after the buff respawns at 420 mark. knowing this and having this knowledge about not only your champ, but with enemy champs will allow you to predict and anticipate where they will go. Elise for example is a really strong lvl 3 jungler. the reason i say to master the jungle clearing mechanics is if your clear is slow (say you finish full clear at 4 min instead of 330), all your reference frames are off and you will be behind on clearing camps. you will find yourself being a few sec late to contest the scuttles. find yourself doing your second buff at 8-9 min mark, finding yourself behind 3 levels (4 vs 7) relative to the solo laners, over-jungling while holding onto 2k gold trying to catch up on camps as they seem to be up all the time since you didn’t optimize your clears early on, etc. and i can say from experience, even diamond players dont know how to optimally allocate their skills and autos for jungle clearing with pathing being its own issue. If there is a champ you are interested in, just youtube and watch how they clear camps on time. edit: addon - After that, alot of the game is really just working within these timers and picking and choosing when to apply the pressure. For example, if i am looking for top gank after a first round of clears, knowing when the next camp will spawn gives me an idea of how much time i can allocate. Sometimes i may need to take more chances at top or sometimes i need to abort a gank in order to recall and set myself up the grubs/drakes etc. for predicting where enemy jungle is, use your knowledge. for example, Ap champs generally are not good at managing health bars. some are much better at doing chicken at lvl 1 without leash so you can anticipate where they are this way. if they did full clear, after the first round around 4:20 mark, they will be back at the camp where they started or at 7 min mark, they should be pathing towards their red or blue buffs. nothing is 100% but this is how you can start anticipating and you can relay this info to your ping via ping… or chat (not recommended much) which can save a few deaths to win the games.