League of Legends (Old)

[BrutalAztecs]

The issue is one bad player not only loses you the game - it also makes it impossible for you to do anything cool individually for the most part. At least in a shooter if I have shitty team-mates I can still do my own thing and put them on my back.

It all boils down to the fact that these sorts of games can do a lot better job at skill-matching and grouping people playing to win vs playing to learn. And if you aren't doing one of those two things, you're in the wrong genre of game.

I am one of those people who will give suggestions to shitty players when they are on my team and sometimes even white knight for them if an idiot is harassing. But generally I get met with anger/animosity at the notion that anything they are doing wrong is a poor play. People don't want to be helped because they are exposed to this "blame someone else" approach in so many rooms that they automatically do it when they play bad. "It's not my fault I was the first 3 deaths of the game - it was my lanemate for not backing me up!"

It makes playing LoL absurdly frustrating to a point where I only played with people I know and even some of them were dicks when approached with advice.

((Level 30, around 200-250 wins here, played as just about anyone with most games as Rammus and Mordekaiser))

[BrutalAztecs]

The issue is more a gameplay issue than a community issue. Any time one person can ruin a session there is going to be anger and finger pointing. This applies to team RTS's, high level MMO play, and DotA type games moreso than any other.

[BrutalAztecs]

Even if you're playing for fun in DotA, you cannot have fun if one person ruins the game for your team. That is why even at casual play the community are dicks to people who are playing poorly and deflect whenever they are playing poorly. The time involvement is too steep. If games lasted 10 minutes no-one would care at the casual level. 30+ mins is an investment, and you expect to be paid in adequate fun.

[BrutalAztecs]

Here's a livestream video of mine!

Apologies for me laughing at my own jokes/repeating myself. It's a tic that pops up if I'm not careful to reign it in.

Obviously works 20x better when you have 2 melee in your lane, lol.

And you laughing at your own (often poor) jokes kinda kills it the vid.

[BrutalAztecs]

LEGENDARY DARKNESS

[BrutalAztecs]

If you're going to play AP Teemo you might as well run AP Shaco and put triple/quadruple boxes in spots. Much more enjoyable and lethal.

On another note, just hit a 10 game win streak with Nocturne and snacker running Orianna

[BrutalAztecs]

Haven't been able to play him against a competent set of players yet, but Wukong's W is so good. Was able to get away so frequently.

Youmuu's is a great item for him for that reason. Can be used to chase or to GTFO after popping W. His low cooldowns make him a great poker in drawn out teamfights, and his W means he can eat quite a few skills if used wisely.

[BrutalAztecs]

Is there any other champ that Revive is viable on other than Karthus?

pantheon
sivir
jax


probably more

You forgot Master Yi!

[BrutalAztecs]

Gaining elo doesn't involve winning every game, it just means winning more than 50% of games. You can "play perfectly" for fifty straight minutes, but it's a drop in the statistical bucket. Getting worked up or frustrated about these kind of games probably means you need to think more about consistency and the elo system.

But I should never lose because I always play perfectly

[BrutalAztecs]

Ok, I know a few people struggle with jungling. I'm not the best jungler, but I can give the advice that I know and better players can correct me/fill in the gaps.

Runes and Masteries:

I've gone over this a bit before but heres a recap. The only runes that I'd run on virtually every jungler are armour yellows. Armour yellows are what allows you to jungle most characters - the very strongest junglers can jungle without them (and so can fiddlesticks, but that's cause fiddles is bizarre.) Some junglers can get away with dodge yellows instead of armour, for a stronger lategame, but this will almost always mean you get lower overall in the jungle. Reds can be armour pen, attack speed or rarely magipen. Even on ap junglers like amumu, the physical damage runes are an option when jungling because of the increased jungle speed (which also makes your jungling safer overall). Alternatively, some can take magipen runes for stronger ganks and stronger midgame. Whether you want attack speed, armour pen or (what a lot top junglers use nowadays) a mix of flat ad and arpen is entirely dependent on the jungler. Gangplank, for example, needs attack speed both because he has an ad steroid and because he wants to stack his passive poison damage on creeps as quickly as possible. Blues are your luxury slot - attack speed, magic resist/level and cdr are the most common, but what you put here really is up to you as there are a lot of viable options. Quints can be flat ad, arpen, health or some mixture of two of those.

For your masteries, the only thing that is set in stone is that you want at least 9 points in utility for the buff duration and experience masteries. When starting out, the defence tree is a good place to put your points. The defence tree makes your jungling safer and less vulnerable to counterjungling. The offence tree, unsurprisingly, makes you jungle faster - this has the knock on effect of making your jungle slightly safer, but the effect is not as large as the defence tree. It also makes your ganks somewhat scarier. The utility tree gives a lot of nice goodies, but after the mandatory nine points no longer really adds anything to your jungling. Strong junglers can take the utility tree and abuse things like the bonus movespeed for ganking.

Routes:

There are two basic types of jungle routes - blue start and little camp start. Blue start into full clear is probably the most common route - it gives you both buffs and level 4 by about the 4 minute mark, depending on the jungler and the runepage setup. At level 4, the jungler will either bluepill for health and then gank, or if they are healthy enough after their jungle route will gank directly. This is a key timing for ganking as your jungle will be totally clear and there's pretty much nothing else you can be doing on the map. You are basically forced to gank at this point. The route is blue(smite)-wolves-wraiths-red(smite)/golems-red/golems. For this path, it is important that your teammates give you help at blue - if your mid laner attacks the blue buff once first, then it will chase after them and you can get free hits on it. This will keep you safer through the jungle and allow you to jungle faster. Some characters can optimise the route by killing the big wolf at the wolf camp before taking blue, as wolves spawn before blue buff.

The second route is a more sustained route and an easier route. Which camp you start at depends on the jungler - characters with strong single target damage (like tiger udyr) will typically start at the little golems while characters with more aoe (like phoenix udyr) will start at wraiths or wolves when taking one of these paths. After taking the initial camp, the remaining two camps will be cleared before bluepilling. The most important monster to use smite on during these routes is the big blue wraith - it has too much lifesteal for most junglers to comfortably kill at level 1 or 2. A second full clear will put them at level 5 with red and blue buff and ready to gank at around the 7 minute mark.

Ganking

Ganking is where jungling gets hard. The mechanical act of killing creeps is significantly easier than laning and is mostly a case of optimisation and maybe a little bit of practice. There are two tings to consider when setting up a gank - firstly, the likelihood of success and secondly the importance of the target.

The most obvious factor when ganking a lane is the position of the characters in the lane. It's immediately apparent that it is much easier to kill a character who is standing miles away from his tower than it is to kill that same character when he is under his tower. When your lane is pushing, it is much harder to successfully kill the enemy, and when their lane is pushing, it is much easier to successfully land a kill.

Also hugely important, however, is the status of the champions in the lane. It's immediately obvious that an ezreal with 200 health is easier to kill than an ezreal with 600 health, but not so obvious is that it is also much easier to kill an ezreal with 20 mana than an ezreal with 200 mana. Keep a careful eye on both the health and the mana of all champions in the lane you are expecting to gank - allied as well as enemy. If your laners are too low on mana they may not be able to contribute fully to the gank effort, and if they are too low on health they may not be able to contribute at all. The worst result for a gank is when you or your laner dies and the other guy gets away - this is normally because you didnt pay attention or misjudged the strengths of the heroes in the lane.

Also part and parcel of the status of the laners is the status of their cooldowns. A character with both flash and ghost and a built in blink (like ezreal or leblanc) is intrinsically harder to gank than a character without these escape summoners. Abilities like flash have an extremely long cooldown - competent laners should keep you informed of the status of such cooldowns. If you dont trust your teammates to do so without prompting, ask them to keep an eye out for enemies using summoner spells like flash exhaust ignite and ghost and also long cooldown abilities like ultimates. Characters lacking these cooldowns are easy prey. When ganking also, it is sometimes worth waiting to see if the opponent will blow a cooldown like ezreal's blink while you wait in the brush. You can then instantly jump on them knowing that the blink will not be available to him for the next 10 or so seconds. Competent laners will try to bait these abilities by giving the opponent the opportunity to use them offensively.

Again, like with health and mana, it is important to keep track of the cooldowns of your own laners. An annie is a joy to gank for - with so much damage, you normally just have to hold the enemy in place for a second or so while annie unleashes her combo. However, if annie does not have her ultimate, then her combo will be significantly weaker. Also remember to look for things like whether annie has a stun charged before ganking.

All combos of jungle and laner have a certain amount of kill potential, a certain amount of burst and cc that they can combine for a kill. Knowing the capabilities of as many characters as possible is essential so you can correctly judge when an enemy is in killrange.

It is crucial to be aware of your own position on the map before deciding to gank a lane. What might seem an opportunity for a kill can very well disappear by the time you have traversed the entire map. Ganking is a time investment, and unsuccessful ganks cost you fairly dearly in terms of lost farm from jungling. A gank which takes a long time to set up correspondingly costs you more. It is so so so important that you dont just gank mindlessly - a gank should have some chance at success (or at least force the enemy laner to use summoner spells to survive). Killing, forcing back or burning summoner spells are acceptable results for a gank. Walking in, hitting a few creeps and shooting a single spell at the enemy laner is not.

In order to successfully gank a lane, it is vital to co-ordinate with the champion(s) whose lane you are ganking. A competent player should see you arriving on his minimap and be ready to assist you, but to be on the safe side it is always worth pinging your target as you arrive. In a 2v2 lane, this also helps co-ordinate your focus fire - pinging which of the two to kill helps ensure that everyone is on the same page. Co-ordinating with your laners can also be more in depth than that - for example, deciding on the order in which to chain cc (so that none of the cc is wasted. Normally, the most reliable stun should be cast first, such as taric's dazzle.)

Wards will ruin your ganks. It's very hard to avoid wards when you dont know where they are, however by keeping tabs on the enemy champions inventories you can check to see which heroes have wards and hence which lanes are warded. If you are unsure if a lane is warded, keep an eye on the behaviour of the enemy laner - if he backs up as you approach, that is a good indication he knows you are there. In general, ask your laners to keep an eye on the exact positions of enemy wards and to ping them if possible. For most lanes, there is an alternative gank path available if you happen to know that one of the entrances to the lane is warded. Tip: in the sidelanes, it is possible to gank a pushed up lane by sneaking into the sidebrushes from the turret. This can allow you to surprise a hero who thought he was safe because of his river wards.

Deciding who to gank is not just a process of knowing the most likely successful gank targets, however - some targets are higher priority than others. For example, it is important to gank a Nasus or a Tryndamere before he begins to get farmed and scary. Some matchups are also naturally snowbally, and giving one character an advantage early on can make the lane virtually impossible for the other lane - most lanes with xin zhao in work like this. Give a xin first blood and the enemy laner will have a hell of a time laning against him, but put him behind early on and he'll find laning has become extremely difficult for himself. A lane with a disadvantageous matchup (like akali vs lee sin) can be equalised by giving a quick early gank before the situation gets out of hand. Always try and concentrate your ganks on the lanes that will benefit most from them.

Counterjungling:

Counterjungling is not my forte, so I'll keep this relatively short. To my mind, there are two primary types of counterjungling - the type where you deliberately avoid the enemy jungler and steal his camps and the type where you deliberately seek out the enemy jungler knowing he will be low on health and attempt to kill him/set him behind. Both types of counterjungling depend heavily on you having knowledge of the opponent's whereabouts and health - most often through clairvoyance (a summoner spell your support character should be running and spamming on the enemy jungle attempting to find their jungler) - but also through wards and knowledge of the characteristics, capabilities and common routes of the opposing jungler. Seeing an opposing jungler gank top is an opportunity to take his jungle buff on the bottom side of the jungle.

Counterjungling is risky. If you are caught (or deliberately seek a fight), be prepared for the enemy laners to come support their jungler. Running blindly into the enemy jungle will simply get you killed. You have to be smart about your counterjungling or you will simply set you and your team behind. Outside of a few specific strategies (wraith jacks, blue steals etc) it is normally an opportunistic endeavour.

One specific type of counterjungling is aimed at so called "blue-dependent" junglers. These junglers are characters like fiddlesticks or amumu who use a lot of mana on their jungling and who therefore require blue buff to jungle at reasonable speeds. A competent player will be able to recover from the loss of this blue to a certain extent, but taking the blue from an inexperienced blue-buff dependent jungler can screw up their jungling almost beyond repair. This form of counterjungling relies on knowing that the enemy will be starting at blue buff because their character choice demands it. As a result, the enemy team will very likely be sitting at his blue buff to protect him from any attempted interference. Invading the enemy jungle for their blue at level 1 is thusly a teamwide issue. Whether or not you should invade depends very much on the composition of each team. Some characters (for example alistar) are notoriously strong at level 1, while others are relatively weak. Having a strong level 1 teamcomp means you can invade through careful use of cv.

Map Control:

As the jungler, you are (generally) the sole character roaming the map for the first 10 or so minutes of the game. As a result, it is incumbent on you to maintain map control for your team - particularly you must work to secure teamwide objectives like dragons and towers. As you are roaming, it is relatively easy for you to get wards out on the map, though as your gold income is fairly low, you cannot be expected to keep all lanes warded at all times. You can, however, keep dragon warded.

Dragon is very important in the early game. A dragon is worth roughly 3 kills. If you can secure the dragon for your team, then you can give them an across the board advantage. Always be looking for opportunities to do dragon. If you spot the enemy jungler out of position (for example, ganking top) then you can use this as an opportunity to take dragon, knowing that at worst the ensuing teamfight will be 4v3 in your favour. If you land a successful gank on bottom or mid lane, you can then use your numbers advantage to take dragon. Be aware that the opposing team will also likely know the worth of dragon - as such they may well have dragon warded, and attempting to take it sneakily could end in disaster. At dragon is one of the few places a pink ward is sometimes worth placing. Keep track of when dragon died so you can be in position to kill it again when it respawns.

Dragon is important early game, but later on it loses its relevance and baron starts to become the more important teamfight objective. At this point in the game, as the jungler, it is very important that you remain on the top half of the map at almost all times. Having one player be in bot lane can be an opportunity for the other team to take baron - doubly so if that player is the jungler, as the threat of even a smite steal is gone. Try to keep baron warded and try to remain in position to contest should the other team attempt to do baron.

As a general rule to maintain map control as a jungler you must try to remain invisible as much as possible. The enemy team catching you in a ward or a cv immediately reduces your presence elsewhere on the map. You must try and be feared by the opposing team - if they fear you, then that will allow your laners to dominate.

General Info:

Respawn timers:

little camps 1:40
buffs 5:00
dragon 6:00
Baron 7:00

Character rundown:

Amumu

Role: Tank
Notes: Amumu is a blue-buff dependent jungler. He uses despair and tantrum for creep damage and bandage toss for ganking. His pre-6 ganks are mediocre, relying on a skillshot stun and with him bringing little damage to the table but become scary, if infrequent when he gets his ultimate. Amumu is primarily chosen for his ultimate which is one of the best teamfight skills in the game. His standard route is blue start to full clear and he may get low at his first red depending on runes and masteries

Fiddlesticks

Role: Magic damage dealer
Notes: Fiddlesticks is a one of a kind jungler, not only satisfying a unique niche in terms of role but also in terms of his capabilities in the jungle. He is very blue buff dependent (perhaps the most blue buff dependent), but taking this blue is the unique time that a fiddlesticks gets low in the jungle. He is capable of ganking at level 2 by taking fear or continuing to jungle almost indefinitely by taking dark wind and more levels in drain. His ultimate allows him to gank from different areas to any other jungler, including jumping over the wall at wraiths to gank mid lane and so on, and hence his ganks are hard to ward for. He brings both strong cc (in fear and silence) and heavy damage to his ganks, making him one of the strongest gankers in the game. Despite this, fiddlesticks is fragile and easily focused with use of cc or ignite and scales fairly poorly into lategame. Fiddlesticks has no need for red (except for gold and experience) and can even give his first red buff to an allied laner to help give them an early edge, though doing so will cost him fairly substantially in terms of his levels and gold.

Gangplank

Role: Melee dps/Bruiser
Notes: Gangplank is an excellent ganker and fairly mediocre jungler. As a result, he typically starts at small camps. His parrley applies on hit effects, allowing him to apply both red buff and his passive from range - especially potent as he receives the stronger version of red buff slow accorded to melee champions. A successful ganking gangplank can snowball relatively hard to become something of a lategame monster. He is also the only jungler in the game to have a truly global ultimate, making him a truly terrifying force on the battlefield. Despite this, gangplank is bad at actually killing creeps, running low on health throughout his jungling until he gets a wriggles lantern. Gangplank, like most bruiser types, has excellent diversity in his possible builds, allowing him to tailor his strengths to the situation. However, unlike most bruisers gp does mediocre damage without damage items and thus needs to build some form of damage to remain relevant.

Jarvan

Role: Tank/bruiser
Notes: I honestly dont know much about jungle Jarvan. He has a decent level 2 gank, is relatively slow and relatively safe in the jungle. His ganks are strong at level 6. He's gone out of fashion somewhat since the constant nerfs.

Lee Sin

Role: Bruiser
Notes: Another of the many jungle bruisers, lee sin stands out by virtue of his tremendous versatility. His sustained jungling is top-notch, rivalling the likes of nunu and warwick - a fact compensated for by his sometimes fairly awkward ganking - the skillshot on his q is one of the hardest to land in the game. Should he successfully land it, however, his actual damage and cc potential is up there with the best of them. He can gank as early as level 2, and dragon as soon as he has his madreds. Lee sin is able to run a plethora of different routes and starting setups, but very rarely gets low on any of his paths. Lee sin is able to snowball rapidly out of control should he land a number of ganks, and is very difficult to put behind through counterjungling. Late game he is one of the best bruisers in the game, able to rapidly reach the key targets and extricate himself from sticky situations with his excellent kit.

Master Yip

Role: Melee dps
Notes: Yi is best known for the extremely random nature of his jungling. He relies for speed and safety on securing procs from his alpha strike - so some games he can be fast as lightening, and other games slow as molasses at jungling. He puts out very little cc of his own during ganks, relying entirely on red buff's slow which he can easily apply using alpha strike. Lategame yi has one of the highest (if not the highest) sustained damage potentials of any champion in the game, but suffesr from his innate squishiness, making it hard for him to remain too long in the thick of teamfights.

Nocturne

Role: Melee dps/bruiser
Notes: DARKNESS

(More seriously, Nocturne is an extremely strong ganker thanks to his innately high damage, fear and gap-closer-out-of-nowhere ultimate. His jungling is fast, but unsafe - a nocturne will typically get very low on his first clear. Nocturne is another snowbally jungler - if one successfully lands two or three ganks, he will quickly get totally out of hand. As such, he particularly potent in solo queue.)

Nunu

Role: Tank/Support
Notes: Nunu is one of the most forgiving junglers out there for new players. Thanks to his inbuilt smite/sustain, a nunu will stay at full health throughout their run, and can take virtually any path with any setup that he wishes. He can easily gank at level 2 through the use of iceball. Consume and his natural mobility make him the premier counterjungler in the game - a nunu will frequently begin by stealing the enemy jungler's big wraith with consume. In the early game he is a force to be reckoned with, running from lane to lane and through both jungles with impunity. The double smite is invaluable for securing objectives like dragon and baron, and his ultimate is useful for forcing the enemies to waste cc on you that might otherwise be used to lock down your more valuable allies. Nunu is something of a support jungler, and requires his team to take advantage of his slows and buffs to work to his highest potential. Nunu has, unfortunately, one of the weakest lategames around, and if he can be shut down early will be mostly just a liability to his team.

Olaf

Role: Bruiser
Notes: Olaf is notorious both for the speed of his jungle clear and for how low he gets when doing it. Olaf's passive incentivises him to jungle at low health, meaning he is perhaps the easiest jungler to counterjungle in the game, but if uninterrupted, tears through jungle creeps like a hot knife through butter. His ganks are also probably the worst of any: his skillshot slow being his only form of cc. However, if you can stomach the weakness of his early game, late game Olaf is a force to be reckoned with - can't be cced, can't be bursted down and dealing massive amounts of damage to anything in range. Olaf is not a jungler for the inexperienced.

Rammus

Role: Tank
Notes: Rammus is a solid jungle tank with potent ganks and a mediocre jungle phase. I dont know rammus very well, except that jungle rammus rune pages are some of the most amusing runepages around, thanks to his synergy with bonus armour. Blue helps him clear quite a bit faster. Lategame his taunt disables for 3 seconds - the same duration as a warwick ultimate on a significantly lower cooldown.

Shaco

Role: Melee dps
Notes: Shaco is the most feared early game ganker in LoL for good reason. Able to take a very early red buff using his jack in the boxes, shaco comes out of the jungle with his stealth and his shivs and starts wrecking your lanes - and as you try to run, his passive makes him do more damage. He is, however, mediocre at killing creeps if he does not have jack in the boxes already stacked to kill them. As a result, although he is not blue dependent, a level 1 invasion of a shaco's jungle can be extremely potent in screwing him over by popping his boxes prematurely. His window of effectiveness is short - a shaco really falls off lategame, becoming relegated to a split pushing role as he simply dies too fast in teamfights. He must make the best of his early game strength to try and secure a quick win for his team. Not recommended for inexperienced junglers.

Skarner

Role: Melee Dps/Bruiser
Notes: Yet another jungler bruiser, and yet another jungler who I dont really know that much about. Has pretty good scaling, pretty mediocre ganks (stronger with his ultimate, but still pretty meh). Jungles fairly slowly but fairly safely, I believe.

Trundle

Role: Bruiser
Notes: Trundle is a top tier bruiser jungler. Thanks to pillar and his ground contaminate, he is an excellent ganker who puts out a fair amount of damage. Pillar is unusual cc in that it trolls mobility skills like vladimir's pool but is relatively less useful against blinks skills like ezreal's arcane shift. Use of his ultimate greatly increases the damage output from both laner and jungler, helping to ensure a kill. His jungling itself is middle of the road speed and high sustain, only really getting low at his first red and staying at full/gaining health off creeps from then on. Lategame he has diverse build paths, able to act either as a strong defensive carry-peeling type, using his ultimate and his q to weaken champions like irelia who attempt to dive your carries, or can be built as a carry diver himself.

Tryndamere

Role: Melee Dps
Notes: It's a tryndamere. It farms for 40 minutes then it attempts 1v5. It just happens to be in the jungle. Is countered by exhaust.

Udyr

Role: Tank/Bruiser
Notes: Udyr has, right at the beginning of his route, a choice - bird or cat. Phoenix Udyr farms the jungle extremely fast, Tiger Udyr does more damage with ganks and scales better. Whichever route he chooses, Udyr is a strong and versatile jungler, very rarely (if at all) dropping low on health and bringing impressive cc and damage potential to his ganks. Udyr is able to secure dragon fairly early. He can start at many different camps, but normally tiger udyr starts at blue buff and phoenix udyr starts at wolves. He has one mortal weakness - being kited. Beware the mighty Ashe!

Warwick

Role: Bruiser
Notes: The granddaddy jungler. Warwick has been jungling longer than anyone else, and hes good at it. He never gets low, he ganks like a boss. However, his jungling itself is actually fairly slow, and his ganks are mediocre until 6, with no good way to catch or slow anyone he is attempting to kill. His ultimate is the ultimate ganking tool with a low cooldown. The net result is that a warwick has a kind of window (like shaco) in which to be effective from around level 6-11. If he fails to do damage during that time, warwick's team will be largely disadvantaged. Warwick is able to build in a number of different ways - either as a kind of high damage anti-carry or as a tanky initiator.

Xin Zhao

Role: Melee dps/Bruiser
Notes: I dont know much about Xin Zhao as a jungler except that he normally starts little golems and frequently ganks at level 2. Xin zhao is innately a snowbally character, and letting him get early heads from his early ganks (terrifyingly strong though they are) will rapidly cause a loss of control of the game. In his ideal dreamworld he's be stacking his ghostblades and black cleavers - in the real world, he has to buy defences to survive teamfights. His midgame is strong, but like most squishy melee characters, he falls off in lategame.

TL;DR

Short Version: Play Nocturne, make Youmuus, wreck shit.

DARKNESS

[BrutalAztecs]

Ok, I know a few people struggle with jungling. I'm not the best jungler, but I can give the advice that I know and better players can correct me/fill in the gaps.

Runes and Masteries:

I've gone over this a bit before but heres a recap. The only runes that I'd run on virtually every jungler are armour yellows. Armour yellows are what allows you to jungle most characters - the very strongest junglers can jungle without them (and so can fiddlesticks, but that's cause fiddles is bizarre.) Some junglers can get away with dodge yellows instead of armour, for a stronger lategame, but this will almost always mean you get lower overall in the jungle. Reds can be armour pen, attack speed or rarely magipen. Even on ap junglers like amumu, the physical damage runes are an option when jungling because of the increased jungle speed (which also makes your jungling safer overall). Alternatively, some can take magipen runes for stronger ganks and stronger midgame. Whether you want attack speed, armour pen or (what a lot top junglers use nowadays) a mix of flat ad and arpen is entirely dependent on the jungler. Gangplank, for example, needs attack speed both because he has an ad steroid and because he wants to stack his passive poison damage on creeps as quickly as possible. Blues are your luxury slot - attack speed, magic resist/level and cdr are the most common, but what you put here really is up to you as there are a lot of viable options. Quints can be flat ad, arpen, health or some mixture of two of those.

For your masteries, the only thing that is set in stone is that you want at least 9 points in utility for the buff duration and experience masteries. When starting out, the defence tree is a good place to put your points. The defence tree makes your jungling safer and less vulnerable to counterjungling. The offence tree, unsurprisingly, makes you jungle faster - this has the knock on effect of making your jungle slightly safer, but the effect is not as large as the defence tree. It also makes your ganks somewhat scarier. The utility tree gives a lot of nice goodies, but after the mandatory nine points no longer really adds anything to your jungling. Strong junglers can take the utility tree and abuse things like the bonus movespeed for ganking.

Routes:

There are two basic types of jungle routes - blue start and little camp start. Blue start into full clear is probably the most common route - it gives you both buffs and level 4 by about the 4 minute mark, depending on the jungler and the runepage setup. At level 4, the jungler will either bluepill for health and then gank, or if they are healthy enough after their jungle route will gank directly. This is a key timing for ganking as your jungle will be totally clear and there's pretty much nothing else you can be doing on the map. You are basically forced to gank at this point. The route is blue(smite)-wolves-wraiths-red(smite)/golems-red/golems. For this path, it is important that your teammates give you help at blue - if your mid laner attacks the blue buff once first, then it will chase after them and you can get free hits on it. This will keep you safer through the jungle and allow you to jungle faster. Some characters can optimise the route by killing the big wolf at the wolf camp before taking blue, as wolves spawn before blue buff.

The second route is a more sustained route and an easier route. Which camp you start at depends on the jungler - characters with strong single target damage (like tiger udyr) will typically start at the little golems while characters with more aoe (like phoenix udyr) will start at wraiths or wolves when taking one of these paths. After taking the initial camp, the remaining two camps will be cleared before bluepilling. The most important monster to use smite on during these routes is the big blue wraith - it has too much lifesteal for most junglers to comfortably kill at level 1 or 2. A second full clear will put them at level 5 with red and blue buff and ready to gank at around the 7 minute mark.

Ganking

Ganking is where jungling gets hard. The mechanical act of killing creeps is significantly easier than laning and is mostly a case of optimisation and maybe a little bit of practice. There are two tings to consider when setting up a gank - firstly, the likelihood of success and secondly the importance of the target.

The most obvious factor when ganking a lane is the position of the characters in the lane. It's immediately apparent that it is much easier to kill a character who is standing miles away from his tower than it is to kill that same character when he is under his tower. When your lane is pushing, it is much harder to successfully kill the enemy, and when their lane is pushing, it is much easier to successfully land a kill.

Also hugely important, however, is the status of the champions in the lane. It's immediately obvious that an ezreal with 200 health is easier to kill than an ezreal with 600 health, but not so obvious is that it is also much easier to kill an ezreal with 20 mana than an ezreal with 200 mana. Keep a careful eye on both the health and the mana of all champions in the lane you are expecting to gank - allied as well as enemy. If your laners are too low on mana they may not be able to contribute fully to the gank effort, and if they are too low on health they may not be able to contribute at all. The worst result for a gank is when you or your laner dies and the other guy gets away - this is normally because you didnt pay attention or misjudged the strengths of the heroes in the lane.

Also part and parcel of the status of the laners is the status of their cooldowns. A character with both flash and ghost and a built in blink (like ezreal or leblanc) is intrinsically harder to gank than a character without these escape summoners. Abilities like flash have an extremely long cooldown - competent laners should keep you informed of the status of such cooldowns. If you dont trust your teammates to do so without prompting, ask them to keep an eye out for enemies using summoner spells like flash exhaust ignite and ghost and also long cooldown abilities like ultimates. Characters lacking these cooldowns are easy prey. When ganking also, it is sometimes worth waiting to see if the opponent will blow a cooldown like ezreal's blink while you wait in the brush. You can then instantly jump on them knowing that the blink will not be available to him for the next 10 or so seconds. Competent laners will try to bait these abilities by giving the opponent the opportunity to use them offensively.

Again, like with health and mana, it is important to keep track of the cooldowns of your own laners. An annie is a joy to gank for - with so much damage, you normally just have to hold the enemy in place for a second or so while annie unleashes her combo. However, if annie does not have her ultimate, then her combo will be significantly weaker. Also remember to look for things like whether annie has a stun charged before ganking.

All combos of jungle and laner have a certain amount of kill potential, a certain amount of burst and cc that they can combine for a kill. Knowing the capabilities of as many characters as possible is essential so you can correctly judge when an enemy is in killrange.

It is crucial to be aware of your own position on the map before deciding to gank a lane. What might seem an opportunity for a kill can very well disappear by the time you have traversed the entire map. Ganking is a time investment, and unsuccessful ganks cost you fairly dearly in terms of lost farm from jungling. A gank which takes a long time to set up correspondingly costs you more. It is so so so important that you dont just gank mindlessly - a gank should have some chance at success (or at least force the enemy laner to use summoner spells to survive). Killing, forcing back or burning summoner spells are acceptable results for a gank. Walking in, hitting a few creeps and shooting a single spell at the enemy laner is not.

In order to successfully gank a lane, it is vital to co-ordinate with the champion(s) whose lane you are ganking. A competent player should see you arriving on his minimap and be ready to assist you, but to be on the safe side it is always worth pinging your target as you arrive. In a 2v2 lane, this also helps co-ordinate your focus fire - pinging which of the two to kill helps ensure that everyone is on the same page. Co-ordinating with your laners can also be more in depth than that - for example, deciding on the order in which to chain cc (so that none of the cc is wasted. Normally, the most reliable stun should be cast first, such as taric's dazzle.)

Wards will ruin your ganks. It's very hard to avoid wards when you dont know where they are, however by keeping tabs on the enemy champions inventories you can check to see which heroes have wards and hence which lanes are warded. If you are unsure if a lane is warded, keep an eye on the behaviour of the enemy laner - if he backs up as you approach, that is a good indication he knows you are there. In general, ask your laners to keep an eye on the exact positions of enemy wards and to ping them if possible. For most lanes, there is an alternative gank path available if you happen to know that one of the entrances to the lane is warded. Tip: in the sidelanes, it is possible to gank a pushed up lane by sneaking into the sidebrushes from the turret. This can allow you to surprise a hero who thought he was safe because of his river wards.

Deciding who to gank is not just a process of knowing the most likely successful gank targets, however - some targets are higher priority than others. For example, it is important to gank a Nasus or a Tryndamere before he begins to get farmed and scary. Some matchups are also naturally snowbally, and giving one character an advantage early on can make the lane virtually impossible for the other lane - most lanes with xin zhao in work like this. Give a xin first blood and the enemy laner will have a hell of a time laning against him, but put him behind early on and he'll find laning has become extremely difficult for himself. A lane with a disadvantageous matchup (like akali vs lee sin) can be equalised by giving a quick early gank before the situation gets out of hand. Always try and concentrate your ganks on the lanes that will benefit most from them.

Counterjungling:

Counterjungling is not my forte, so I'll keep this relatively short. To my mind, there are two primary types of counterjungling - the type where you deliberately avoid the enemy jungler and steal his camps and the type where you deliberately seek out the enemy jungler knowing he will be low on health and attempt to kill him/set him behind. Both types of counterjungling depend heavily on you having knowledge of the opponent's whereabouts and health - most often through clairvoyance (a summoner spell your support character should be running and spamming on the enemy jungle attempting to find their jungler) - but also through wards and knowledge of the characteristics, capabilities and common routes of the opposing jungler. Seeing an opposing jungler gank top is an opportunity to take his jungle buff on the bottom side of the jungle.

Counterjungling is risky. If you are caught (or deliberately seek a fight), be prepared for the enemy laners to come support their jungler. Running blindly into the enemy jungle will simply get you killed. You have to be smart about your counterjungling or you will simply set you and your team behind. Outside of a few specific strategies (wraith jacks, blue steals etc) it is normally an opportunistic endeavour.

One specific type of counterjungling is aimed at so called "blue-dependent" junglers. These junglers are characters like fiddlesticks or amumu who use a lot of mana on their jungling and who therefore require blue buff to jungle at reasonable speeds. A competent player will be able to recover from the loss of this blue to a certain extent, but taking the blue from an inexperienced blue-buff dependent jungler can screw up their jungling almost beyond repair. This form of counterjungling relies on knowing that the enemy will be starting at blue buff because their character choice demands it. As a result, the enemy team will very likely be sitting at his blue buff to protect him from any attempted interference. Invading the enemy jungle for their blue at level 1 is thusly a teamwide issue. Whether or not you should invade depends very much on the composition of each team. Some characters (for example alistar) are notoriously strong at level 1, while others are relatively weak. Having a strong level 1 teamcomp means you can invade through careful use of cv.

Map Control:

As the jungler, you are (generally) the sole character roaming the map for the first 10 or so minutes of the game. As a result, it is incumbent on you to maintain map control for your team - particularly you must work to secure teamwide objectives like dragons and towers. As you are roaming, it is relatively easy for you to get wards out on the map, though as your gold income is fairly low, you cannot be expected to keep all lanes warded at all times. You can, however, keep dragon warded.

Dragon is very important in the early game. A dragon is worth roughly 3 kills. If you can secure the dragon for your team, then you can give them an across the board advantage. Always be looking for opportunities to do dragon. If you spot the enemy jungler out of position (for example, ganking top) then you can use this as an opportunity to take dragon, knowing that at worst the ensuing teamfight will be 4v3 in your favour. If you land a successful gank on bottom or mid lane, you can then use your numbers advantage to take dragon. Be aware that the opposing team will also likely know the worth of dragon - as such they may well have dragon warded, and attempting to take it sneakily could end in disaster. At dragon is one of the few places a pink ward is sometimes worth placing. Keep track of when dragon died so you can be in position to kill it again when it respawns.

Dragon is important early game, but later on it loses its relevance and baron starts to become the more important teamfight objective. At this point in the game, as the jungler, it is very important that you remain on the top half of the map at almost all times. Having one player be in bot lane can be an opportunity for the other team to take baron - doubly so if that player is the jungler, as the threat of even a smite steal is gone. Try to keep baron warded and try to remain in position to contest should the other team attempt to do baron.

As a general rule to maintain map control as a jungler you must try to remain invisible as much as possible. The enemy team catching you in a ward or a cv immediately reduces your presence elsewhere on the map. You must try and be feared by the opposing team - if they fear you, then that will allow your laners to dominate.

General Info:

Respawn timers:

little camps 1:40
buffs 5:00
dragon 6:00
Baron 7:00

Character rundown:

Amumu

Role: Tank
Notes: Amumu is a blue-buff dependent jungler. He uses despair and tantrum for creep damage and bandage toss for ganking. His pre-6 ganks are mediocre, relying on a skillshot stun and with him bringing little damage to the table but become scary, if infrequent when he gets his ultimate. Amumu is primarily chosen for his ultimate which is one of the best teamfight skills in the game. His standard route is blue start to full clear and he may get low at his first red depending on runes and masteries

Fiddlesticks

Role: Magic damage dealer
Notes: Fiddlesticks is a one of a kind jungler, not only satisfying a unique niche in terms of role but also in terms of his capabilities in the jungle. He is very blue buff dependent (perhaps the most blue buff dependent), but taking this blue is the unique time that a fiddlesticks gets low in the jungle. He is capable of ganking at level 2 by taking fear or continuing to jungle almost indefinitely by taking dark wind and more levels in drain. His ultimate allows him to gank from different areas to any other jungler, including jumping over the wall at wraiths to gank mid lane and so on, and hence his ganks are hard to ward for. He brings both strong cc (in fear and silence) and heavy damage to his ganks, making him one of the strongest gankers in the game. Despite this, fiddlesticks is fragile and easily focused with use of cc or ignite and scales fairly poorly into lategame. Fiddlesticks has no need for red (except for gold and experience) and can even give his first red buff to an allied laner to help give them an early edge, though doing so will cost him fairly substantially in terms of his levels and gold.

Gangplank

Role: Melee dps/Bruiser
Notes: Gangplank is an excellent ganker and fairly mediocre jungler. As a result, he typically starts at small camps. His parrley applies on hit effects, allowing him to apply both red buff and his passive from range - especially potent as he receives the stronger version of red buff slow accorded to melee champions. A successful ganking gangplank can snowball relatively hard to become something of a lategame monster. He is also the only jungler in the game to have a truly global ultimate, making him a truly terrifying force on the battlefield. Despite this, gangplank is bad at actually killing creeps, running low on health throughout his jungling until he gets a wriggles lantern. Gangplank, like most bruiser types, has excellent diversity in his possible builds, allowing him to tailor his strengths to the situation. However, unlike most bruisers gp does mediocre damage without damage items and thus needs to build some form of damage to remain relevant.

Jarvan

Role: Tank/bruiser
Notes: I honestly dont know much about jungle Jarvan. He has a decent level 2 gank, is relatively slow and relatively safe in the jungle. His ganks are strong at level 6. He's gone out of fashion somewhat since the constant nerfs.

Lee Sin

Role: Bruiser
Notes: Another of the many jungle bruisers, lee sin stands out by virtue of his tremendous versatility. His sustained jungling is top-notch, rivalling the likes of nunu and warwick - a fact compensated for by his sometimes fairly awkward ganking - the skillshot on his q is one of the hardest to land in the game. Should he successfully land it, however, his actual damage and cc potential is up there with the best of them. He can gank as early as level 2, and dragon as soon as he has his madreds. Lee sin is able to run a plethora of different routes and starting setups, but very rarely gets low on any of his paths. Lee sin is able to snowball rapidly out of control should he land a number of ganks, and is very difficult to put behind through counterjungling. Late game he is one of the best bruisers in the game, able to rapidly reach the key targets and extricate himself from sticky situations with his excellent kit.

Master Yip

Role: Melee dps
Notes: Yi is best known for the extremely random nature of his jungling. He relies for speed and safety on securing procs from his alpha strike - so some games he can be fast as lightening, and other games slow as molasses at jungling. He puts out very little cc of his own during ganks, relying entirely on red buff's slow which he can easily apply using alpha strike. Lategame yi has one of the highest (if not the highest) sustained damage potentials of any champion in the game, but suffesr from his innate squishiness, making it hard for him to remain too long in the thick of teamfights.

Nocturne

Role: Melee dps/bruiser
Notes: DARKNESS

(More seriously, Nocturne is an extremely strong ganker thanks to his innately high damage, fear and gap-closer-out-of-nowhere ultimate. His jungling is fast, but unsafe - a nocturne will typically get very low on his first clear. Nocturne is another snowbally jungler - if one successfully lands two or three ganks, he will quickly get totally out of hand. As such, he particularly potent in solo queue.)

Nunu

Role: Tank/Support
Notes: Nunu is one of the most forgiving junglers out there for new players. Thanks to his inbuilt smite/sustain, a nunu will stay at full health throughout their run, and can take virtually any path with any setup that he wishes. He can easily gank at level 2 through the use of iceball. Consume and his natural mobility make him the premier counterjungler in the game - a nunu will frequently begin by stealing the enemy jungler's big wraith with consume. In the early game he is a force to be reckoned with, running from lane to lane and through both jungles with impunity. The double smite is invaluable for securing objectives like dragon and baron, and his ultimate is useful for forcing the enemies to waste cc on you that might otherwise be used to lock down your more valuable allies. Nunu is something of a support jungler, and requires his team to take advantage of his slows and buffs to work to his highest potential. Nunu has, unfortunately, one of the weakest lategames around, and if he can be shut down early will be mostly just a liability to his team.

Olaf

Role: Bruiser
Notes: Olaf is notorious both for the speed of his jungle clear and for how low he gets when doing it. Olaf's passive incentivises him to jungle at low health, meaning he is perhaps the easiest jungler to counterjungle in the game, but if uninterrupted, tears through jungle creeps like a hot knife through butter. His ganks are also probably the worst of any: his skillshot slow being his only form of cc. However, if you can stomach the weakness of his early game, late game Olaf is a force to be reckoned with - can't be cced, can't be bursted down and dealing massive amounts of damage to anything in range. Olaf is not a jungler for the inexperienced.

Rammus

Role: Tank
Notes: Rammus is a solid jungle tank with potent ganks and a mediocre jungle phase. I dont know rammus very well, except that jungle rammus rune pages are some of the most amusing runepages around, thanks to his synergy with bonus armour. Blue helps him clear quite a bit faster. Lategame his taunt disables for 3 seconds - the same duration as a warwick ultimate on a significantly lower cooldown.

Shaco

Role: Melee dps
Notes: Shaco is the most feared early game ganker in LoL for good reason. Able to take a very early red buff using his jack in the boxes, shaco comes out of the jungle with his stealth and his shivs and starts wrecking your lanes - and as you try to run, his passive makes him do more damage. He is, however, mediocre at killing creeps if he does not have jack in the boxes already stacked to kill them. As a result, although he is not blue dependent, a level 1 invasion of a shaco's jungle can be extremely potent in screwing him over by popping his boxes prematurely. His window of effectiveness is short - a shaco really falls off lategame, becoming relegated to a split pushing role as he simply dies too fast in teamfights. He must make the best of his early game strength to try and secure a quick win for his team. Not recommended for inexperienced junglers.

Skarner

Role: Melee Dps/Bruiser
Notes: Yet another jungler bruiser, and yet another jungler who I dont really know that much about. Has pretty good scaling, pretty mediocre ganks (stronger with his ultimate, but still pretty meh). Jungles fairly slowly but fairly safely, I believe.

Trundle

Role: Bruiser
Notes: Trundle is a top tier bruiser jungler. Thanks to pillar and his ground contaminate, he is an excellent ganker who puts out a fair amount of damage. Pillar is unusual cc in that it trolls mobility skills like vladimir's pool but is relatively less useful against blinks skills like ezreal's arcane shift. Use of his ultimate greatly increases the damage output from both laner and jungler, helping to ensure a kill. His jungling itself is middle of the road speed and high sustain, only really getting low at his first red and staying at full/gaining health off creeps from then on. Lategame he has diverse build paths, able to act either as a strong defensive carry-peeling type, using his ultimate and his q to weaken champions like irelia who attempt to dive your carries, or can be built as a carry diver himself.

Tryndamere

Role: Melee Dps
Notes: It's a tryndamere. It farms for 40 minutes then it attempts 1v5. It just happens to be in the jungle. Is countered by exhaust.

Udyr

Role: Tank/Bruiser
Notes: Udyr has, right at the beginning of his route, a choice - bird or cat. Phoenix Udyr farms the jungle extremely fast, Tiger Udyr does more damage with ganks and scales better. Whichever route he chooses, Udyr is a strong and versatile jungler, very rarely (if at all) dropping low on health and bringing impressive cc and damage potential to his ganks. Udyr is able to secure dragon fairly early. He can start at many different camps, but normally tiger udyr starts at blue buff and phoenix udyr starts at wolves. He has one mortal weakness - being kited. Beware the mighty Ashe!

Warwick

Role: Bruiser
Notes: The granddaddy jungler. Warwick has been jungling longer than anyone else, and hes good at it. He never gets low, he ganks like a boss. However, his jungling itself is actually fairly slow, and his ganks are mediocre until 6, with no good way to catch or slow anyone he is attempting to kill. His ultimate is the ultimate ganking tool with a low cooldown. The net result is that a warwick has a kind of window (like shaco) in which to be effective from around level 6-11. If he fails to do damage during that time, warwick's team will be largely disadvantaged. Warwick is able to build in a number of different ways - either as a kind of high damage anti-carry or as a tanky initiator.

Xin Zhao

Role: Melee dps/Bruiser
Notes: I dont know much about Xin Zhao as a jungler except that he normally starts little golems and frequently ganks at level 2. Xin zhao is innately a snowbally character, and letting him get early heads from his early ganks (terrifyingly strong though they are) will rapidly cause a loss of control of the game. In his ideal dreamworld he's be stacking his ghostblades and black cleavers - in the real world, he has to buy defences to survive teamfights. His midgame is strong, but like most squishy melee characters, he falls off in lategame.

Oh, I forgot to note that I felt you didn't cover the importance of warding enough as jungler - particularly warding the enemy jungle.