Step up your jungle game with this one-stop, everything you need to know guide to playing Jungle champions on League of Legends.
In the intricate world of League of Legends, the presence of an impactful Jungler on a team is indispensable. The Jungle role is uniquely poised to exert significant influence across the entirety of the map. Beyond its expansive territorial reach, a Jungler shoulders the critical responsibility of shaping the early game dynamics, aiding allies in snowballing toward dominance within their designated roles. Afterward, they’re in charge of keeping tempo by securing valuable buffs, key pick-offs, or even serving as a second carry.
This guide to playing Jungle champions is a resource for aspiring Junglers, offering invaluable insights into champion selection, efficient farming, vision control, timely ganking, and strategic buff acquisition.
Champion Selection: Choosing Your Jungling Identity
To embark on your journey as a Jungler, the pivotal first step is to select a champion that aligns harmoniously with your playstyle. League of Legends categorizes Junglers into distinct archetypes, each catering to a different set of strengths and strategies:
- Farmer Champions: These champions excel at clearing jungle camps efficiently. Their capacity to accumulate gold and experience from creeps equips them to scale impressively during the mid and late game. Notable Farmer Champions include Master Yi, Olaf, and Udyr. The trade-off is that you’re leaving your team alone during the early stages. Ideally, you’ll pick this into a team that’s self-sufficient in lane and scales poorly.
- Ganker Champions: Highly agile and adept at initiating engagements, Ganker Champions are expert at visiting lanes and providing assistance to their allies. Champions like Vi, Hecarim, and Rek’Sai fall into this category. While they possess outstanding ganking prowess, their jungle clearing speed may be comparatively slower.
- Duelist Champions: Excelling in one-on-one combat scenarios, Duelist Champions do not rely heavily on farming items. They are also proficient at counter-jungling, disrupting enemy junglers during their camp clears. Notable Duelist Champions include Xin Zhao, Nocturne, and Kha’Zix.
- Control Champions: Armed with potent crowd-control abilities, Control Champions can incapacitate enemies during crucial objectives such as Dragon, Rift Herald, or Baron captures. This category boasts champions like Trundle, Nunu, and Sejuani, who shine in securing objectives and thwarting opponents.
Efficient Farming: Laying the Foundation
Efficiently clearing neutral monsters is the cornerstone of a Jungler’s success. It enables you to snowball throughout the game and secure valuable buffs to assert dominance over your adversaries. To optimize your early game:
- At the one-minute mark, start by capturing either the Blue Sentinel or Red Brambleback to secure a buff.
- Subsequently, proceed to clear jungle camps in the adjacent area containing the opposite-colored monster. Repeat this process.
- If you’re an aggressive jungler you can look towards contesting Scuttle Crab and grabbing a first blood. Don’t worry if they commit a flash because that means you’ll most likely get them next time.
Vision Control: Warding for Strategic Advantage
Apart from jungle clearing, maintaining vision control is a critical aspect of Jungling. Placing wards strategically not only safeguards your team but also hinders enemy attempts to gank or secure objectives. Utilizing Control Wards and Oracle Lens effectively is key:
- Control Wards eliminate enemy wards, providing your team with crucial vision control while also yielding extra gold.
- The Oracle Lens is a cost-effective alternative for removing enemy wards and detecting hidden foes, ensuring the element of surprise remains in your favor.
- You’re in a key position to plant wards deep into the enemy jungle to track their movements. If you’re a duelist, this becomes more important as you can attempt counter-ganks.
Timely Ganking: Seizing Opportunities
Ganking is a quintessential task for Junglers. A well-executed gank can catch your opponents off guard, disrupt their momentum, and set your team on a path to victory. To optimize ganking:
- Bot lane is often a prime target for ganks, as allies are typically in position to assist. However, an overextented top lane is the easiest to gank since they have to run back much more to their tower.
- As much as possible, avoid the straightforward path down the river as there are multiple common ward zones. Either clear them beforehand or take an alternative path, like walk through their jungle or come in from your team’s bush using a blind spot.
- If opportunities for ganking are limited, consider securing the Scuttle Crab to gain vision along the river, denying the enemy jungler the same privilege. Sending enemies back early or forcing them to commit resources is also a successful gank.
Strategic Buff Acquisition: Fortifying Your Team
Buff acquisition is a strategic cornerstone in the Jungler’s toolkit. Buffs from the Baron Nashor, Dragon, and Red/Blue monsters can significantly enhance your team’s strength and prospects:
- Dragon Buffs dramatically sways the advantage towards your team. The first Dragon spawns at 5 minutes so you should assist your mid or bottom lane to create a numbers advantage beforehand. Furthermore, the Elder Dragon buff is a game-changing offensive buff and it’s your responsibility to track it. Even in a losing game it’s worth it to try to contest, rather than lose through attrition.
- The Rift Herald, available at the eight-minute mark, can be summoned to push lanes, gather tower bounties, and boost your team’s income. The first one that spawns at eight minutes is the most important since it can guarantee one or even two towers. While getting the second one is also nice, champions are usually equipped to deal with it by then.
- The Baron Nashor’s buff empowers your minions, aiding in the siege of enemy structures and ultimate victory. When you’re in a much better position than your enemies, you can instruct a teammate to split push bottom lane to buy time to capture Baron. However, if you think your team can’t fairly contest Baron, pressure them in other ways such as split pushing yourself or grabbing other objectives.
We hope you enjoyed this guide to playing Jungle champions as much as we had fun writing it! Armed with this information, go out there and try and earn cash & prizes by competing on Repeat.
