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As with any experience in League of Legends though, the learning process can be streamlined with the help of useful tips, which once taken on board will help players realize just how fun jungling can be.
10 Use The Practice Tool
The Practice Tool available in League is exactly that, a tool that should be utilized. It provides players with a safe and controllable environment in which to practice a whole range of skills, which for junglers includes clearing camps safely and efficiently.
While elite junglers spend plenty of time in the Practice Tool fully optimizing their clears, beginner jungler should focus on getting used to fighting each unique camp of monsters and navigating to the next one. After clearing the entire jungle once, the player can then reset the game using the Practice Tool UI to go again immediately. As each champion clears differently, this tip can also be used when trying out new junglers.
9 Focus On The Big Monsters
Certain jungle camps, namely Krugs, Raptors, and Murk Wolves contain multiple monsters which can all be killed for more gold and experience. However, the large monsters within each camp are the most important and should be focused on for two main reasons.
First of all, when large monsters are killed, players receive a heal which if low can come in extremely useful. Secondly, if a player doesn’t have time to kill an entire camp before they are needed elsewhere, as long as the large monster is killed, the smaller ones will naturally die after a small amount of time. Although the player won’t get the extra gold, the camp will now level up and respawn in a few minutes, ensuring the player has a better farm in the future.
8 Trust Your Jungle Companion
Jungle Companions have one purpose and that is to help players farm the jungle. Anytime a champion attacks or is attacked by a jungle monster, their pet will strike back, healing the player for a portion of the damage dealt. With this consistent source of extra damage and healing, there is less worry when in low health.
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Other than the main benefit of keeping junglers’ health bars topped up, knowing exactly how companions work can be extremely useful. For example, the fact that a pet will attack two times after a player stops hitting a monster means that junglers can start walking to their next camp, trusting their pet to finish off low prey, which is more efficient.
7 Learn Spawn Timers
The jungle and the map as a whole are dictated by timers, and being aware of when camps or objectives are due to spawn will help in all games. First of all to be learned are the initial spawn timers, followed by how long they take to respawn after being killed, all of which are shown in the table below. A lot of this information, especially for objectives and more important camps, can also be seen on the minimap or the scoreboard by pressing TAB.
6 Identify Lanes To Gank
Ganks are one of the best ways to snowball and get ahead, but identifying suitable targets can be tricky. The first thing to do is look for enemies that are either immobile, squishy, lacking Summoner Spells, or pushed up too far. Some champions also have annoying mechanics, such as Vladimir’s pool, which make them particularly hard to gank.
After finding an enemy who is susceptible to death, the next thing to consider is whether you and your teammate have the necessary catch potential, Crowd Control, and damage, to result in a successful gank. In the case of allies who have excellent gank setup, ideally lots of CC, even slippery opponents can be caught.
5 Don’t Gank Losing Lanes
Part of the jungler’s job is to help their team and this help will often come in the form of ganks. The aim of most ganks is to either get kills or at least force enemies to use key summoner spells like Flash. Unless the enemy jungler or a roaming laner turns up for a counter-gank, a numbers advantage is made which usually results in success.
However, if a lane is already losing heavily, an attempted gank may turn south and potentially end in a double kill for the opponent. Instead, it is better to focus on winning or even lanes, which can provide win conditions for the team. Alternatively, if no lanes present welcoming opportunities or if the jungler’s champion has good scaling, they can prioritize farming and securing objectives like Dragons.
4 Use A Sweeper When Ganking
To get themselves or their teammates ahead, junglers will want to attack and kill enemy laners but ganks generally only works if the target doesn’t know what is about to hit them.
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Other than avoiding natural pockets of vision like lanes, junglers can switch out their own ward in the shop for an Oracle Lens, which can then be used to sweep bushes for enemy wards. Control Wards can also be bought and used for the same purpose, but note that only one can be placed on the map at any given time.
3 Enemy Jungler Top? Take Dragon
Knowing when to take Dragons can be difficult for beginner junglers, and as no situation within a game of League of Legends will ever be exactly the same it is a skill that simply requires experience. That being said if the enemy jungler appears on the top side of the map, the Dragon on the bot side should be relatively easy to secure.
Alternatively, if the enemy jungler or their team is ever spotted doing the Dragon and you can’t contest, now is the perfect time to take Rift Herald, especially before the 14-minute mark when a Herald charge can secure gold from Turret Plates.
2 Play On Mute
Due to the ability to influence every part of the map, jungle is regarded as one of the most important roles in League. The downside to such potential power is that teammates tend to have unrealistic expectations of their jungler, so when things go wrong they are often the first to be blamed.
As such it is a good idea to mute the chat and focus on the game, and if players get aggressive with their pings too, these can be muted as well.
1 If Monsters Scare You, Play Ivern
For players who find the prospect of fighting jungle monsters too daunting, there is always League’s friendliest tree, Ivern. Instead of fighting and killing his forest friends, Ivern simply clicks on the camps and frees them in return for gold and experience.
Each time Ivern takes a camp he sacrifices a set amount of HP and mana, and if he doesn’t have enough the action cannot be completed, meaning players will never die from simply farming. Besides providing an easier way to farm the jungle, Ivern is also the only enchanter jungler, offering players a more supportive way to play the role.
League of Legends is available for PC and Mac.
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