What's the point of jungling?

Question

I'm fairly new to League of Legends (or DotA-likes in general), but what's the point of jungling versus just killing minions? Do they give significantly more gold or experience than the peons from either side?

Asked by Nick T

Answer

There are many good reasons to have a jungler in your team:

• The player that stay solo (top usually) while he's lane partner jungle get more gold and experience.
• The jungler can do or help doing some kills by ganking mid (2vs1) or bottom (3vs2) in any moment.
• Some champions are more efficient in jungling than last-hitting in lane (e.g. Amumu, Rammus, Malphite)
• Best junglers can also take the dragon (190 gold to all team members) early

Answered by Drake

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Why do players always use smite as the killing blow?

Question

This has been bugging me for a while. I've seen streams of high ELO junglers, and it seems like they always use smite as the killing blow on the jungle creeps. Why do they do that? I mean, damage is damage, and using it early could save you a few second on cooldown. Why don't they start fighting the jungle minion by smiting them?

Asked by BubBidderskins

Answer

SaintVicious, jungler for the CLG.NA team, once said it on stream. If you are certain that you are not going to be counterjungled, then sure, smite right away. However, circumstances can quickly change while you are attacking the creep (assuming smite is used on objectives like buffs).

Situation #1: You are jungling but leave base a little late. Like usual you head to Red and you feel confident so tell your team you don't need their help leashing it. So you smite right away and begin autoattacking it. In the animation of your last auto-attack, the enemy jungler smites it away from you over the wall, then turns and kills you with the help of the small lizards and the red buff they now have cuz your smite was down.

Situation #2: You have been jungling and cleared the jungle already. As typical, you get ready to feed your AP Carry the blue buff. While, waiting for the AP Carry to deal the finishing blow, the whole enemy team comes charging from river to the Blue led by their jungler. Fortunately this time, you saved your smite, so before the enemy jungler can smite steal it, you secure blue for your team. While not optimal, certainly better than the enemy team having both blue buffs.

Finally, it is good practice as it helps you use smite to secure important objectives like dragon and baron. After all practice makes perfect, and if you say that you always use smite first except for dragon and baron, you won't be as practiced. A few seconds lost on the smite cooldown is hardly noticeable most of the time, but gaining a little more practice on using your smite to secure kills never hurts anyone.

Answered by user22193

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How can I best position Olaf for Effective Jungling Axe Throws?

Question

I've just started learning to jungle, and I've found that there is one key to jungling as Olaf, in my experience: positioning Olaf and effectively striking the maximum number of monsters while throwing the axe the shortest distance, to reduce its cooldown instantly without having to run around to retrieve it.

I'm having issues finding the right spots for all the creep camps, however. Blue doesn't make too much difference, because with a leash they're moving anyway so they can be aligned however you like. Wolves I've been hit or miss on, but they're also not too much of an issue because they're all melee, so after the first axe, they're easy to hit.

It is the wraiths and red buff camp that I am in the dark on. I find myself running around a lot to hit the wraiths with my axes, and the red camp, since 2 of them don't move, I wind up only hitting 2/3 at a time, and that's causing my jungle time to be significantly slowed.

I've watched TheOddOne's videos on YouTube, but I can't seem to get the same position that he has in the video where he hits all 3 of the red buff camp, nor at the wraith camp. Are there any good quality images of where I should be standing, and where my cursor should be, to utilize my axe throw to the greatest potential in the jungle as Olaf, specifically on red buff and wraith camps? I'm also concerned with the top/bottom mirroring--I seem to be better at certain camps on top vs bottom, and the reverse for others.

Answer

After many more attempts, I have come up with the placement (at the Red buff), but I do not yet have a screenshot to back it up. I will attempt to explain it as best I can, and will try to get a screenshot at some point, to update the answer.

The biggest issue I was having was that I would throw the axe, hit all 3, but not be able to pick it up to lower the cooldown, without moving. What I've found however, is if you stand behind Red, between Red and the smaller vertically aligned creep, as close to red as possible without attacking, you can throw the axe to the other side of Red (so that your cursor is the red attack sword, but it is on the opposite side of Red.)

It may take a bit of experimentation, but this seems to hit all 3, and causes a reduced cooldown. The axe has a larger radius of effect than I expected, so you do not need to place the cursor all the way on the far creep.

Hopefully this helps someone. If no one else, it helped me.

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Which champions can jungle effectively in League of Legends?

Question

Which champions can solo in the jungle and keep their levels up to those in lane? I know Warwick of course, and I've seen Shaco and Udyr do okay. What others work well?

Answer

It highly depends on how you build the champion, but I've seen:

• Tryndamere (start with Agility Pot)
• Xin Shao (start with agility Pot)
• Amumumu
• Olaf

More often than not succeed as junglers. There are other heroes who can jungle, but these are particularly adept at it.

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Is it possible to jungle with tryndamere without smite?

Question

Hey you guys, i switched to playing tryndamere in league of legends, but i cant seem to get my early game right. I always die 2-3 times until i get my Infi, but basically my early game sucks.

The question is now can i get it to work, that he just stays in the jungle until i get geared and leveled enough to be of use? Preferably without using a summoner slot / using a summoner slot that helps me in battle?

There are a few guides out there using smite with a red potion/green potion, but using smite. Is there one i can also use for ranked games?

cheers

Answer

Jungling with Trynd is a bit of a pain early on due to the majority of his damage coming from autoattacks. Additionally, Trynd doesn't really benefit all that much from the Golem buff whereas most other junglers getting the buff solves some of the early mana cost or high CD problems, allowing them to jungle more effectively.

One thing Trynd does have going for him is his self heal, which will be the first thing you should put points into. Having crit runes is actually helpful here if you can afford them / have the level to do so. This, combined with a supply of health pots and a green elixir, can keep you going in the jungle early on, but with the limited duration on the elixir, it means you have to know what you're doing and you have to do it fast.

Grab a green elixir and 4-5 health pots. When the game starts, head to the small golems, pop the elixir and take them out. Proceed to wraiths and then wolves, hitting 1 or 2 health pots as necessary. Make sure you're using your self heal whenever you get your crits in.

Now you should be able to get the big golem. Depending on your health pot supply, you may want to consider going back to base after the golem, buying more health pots or a Brawler's Gloves. Getting the lizard here is tricky though. It can be done, but you really do need Smite or a nearly full page of high level runes to barely squeak by.

Typically speaking, Trynd is better off left to lane until 4-5 and then begin his jungling process. Once you get some hp under your belt from levels and a few DPS items, you can mow through creeps like nobody's business, and you'll still provide some solo xp to your would-be laning partner.

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