Jungling is undeniably one of the more challenging roles to take on, especially for newer League of Legends players. Unlike other roles that stay in a single lane for a significant portion of the game, junglers face numerous decisions while also bearing the responsibility of supporting teammates and securing objectives.
This can be overwhelming, particularly for newer players, but playing as a jungler is highly rewarding and is often considered one of the best roles for carrying most games. As a jungler, you can significantly impact the entire map, and it’s not as difficult as you might think.
In this jungle beginners guide, we will simplify jungling so that you can start playing it right away. Additionally, we will cover some of the best strategies you can use to achieve immediate success. We’ll discuss top starting junglers, camp clearing, routes, ganking, objectives, and more.
Picking a Champion
When deciding which champion to pick, it’s best to choose one that you enjoy or find interesting, as this is the fastest way to improve. However, if you’re new to the game and don’t know your preferences yet, here are some recommendations:
- If you prefer playing as a tank and enjoy frontlining for your team, consider picking Amumu or Rammus. They are both easy-to-play tanks with plenty of crowd control and offer rewarding gameplay.
- For those who enjoy a more brawling playstyle, Xin Zhao or Hecarim are good options for easy pickups.
- If you like seeking out solo kills and assassinating targets, Nocturne is a simple assassin to start with. His long-range engage is highly effective, especially for beginners.
And if you’re concerned that a beginner Champion wouldn’t be good in this game, don’t worry. In League of Legends, a champion being easy does not mean they’re any less strong than any other champion. In fact, it’s usually the opposite. As a jungler, you’ll have to spend a lot of time killing monster camps around the map. These characters have very simple kits that let you do that easily. Likewise, their kits are very straightforward. You will more than likely just run straight at a target and kill them. They are extremely effective for how simple they are to pilot.
Jungle Pets
So, you’ve picked up your champion before loading into a game. Make sure you pick the Smite Summoner spell; the game usually does this for you automatically if you choose to jungle, but just make sure you have it anyway. You literally can’t clear the jungle without it. Once you’re in-game, this will then let you buy one of three jungle pets. Don’t get overwhelmed; these are all the same thing.
Which one you pick will change almost nothing in how you play. The difference is a tiny buff they’ll give you: blue gives movement speed, red gives a bit of damage, and green gives a shield. Which one you pick is mostly preference, so just mess around with them to see which buff you like the most.
Okay, so what’s the actual purpose behind these cute little pets? Well, they’re mostly there to help you clear the jungle. As you kill monsters, they will restore your health and mana, which makes it so you don’t have to go back to your base all the time. Likewise, they will even deal a bit of damage to the camp as well, speeding up the process. Almost everything the pets do is automatic, so you don’t have to think about it. That being said, there is one thing you may want to track: their evolution.
Your pets grow stronger with time. You’ll notice the first time you buy one of them that the item will start with 40 charges in your item slots. Whenever you kill a jungle camp, it will feed your pet one stack. Once you get your stacks down to 20, your pet evolves, which upgrades your Smite. Now it’s going to do 900 damage to monster camps. Not only that, but you can now use it on enemy champions for a little bit of damage and a slow. It’s not much, but it’s useful. Once you get your item to zero stacks, your pet fully evolves. Your monster damage will now cap out at 1,200.
This is a pretty big spike in the game for any jungler, so make sure to keep an eye out for when your pet is fully evolving. Don’t overthink feeding your pets; play the game as you think you should, and your pets will naturally evolve.
How to Jungle Clear
Let’s discuss how you’re going to do that. Killing the camps themselves is very simple. Some camps have one monster by itself, but some have multiple creatures to kill. Regardless of what type of camp it is, you should always focus on the big monster. This is because your jungle pet will automatically deal area-of-effect damage to the camp as you fight it. It will naturally take care of the little monsters for you while you focus most of your spells and auto-attacks on the big one.
Another thing you should look to do is kite between your spells. While everything you have is on cooldown, you can kite the monster around to minimize the damage you take while your spells come back up. You don’t have to do this, but it does save you a bit of health in the long run, which can potentially add up over time.
Beginner Jungle Routes
Let’s start by breaking down some jungle routes to help you get started easily. If you’re a complete beginner, we recommend going into your settings, navigating to “Game,” and checking “Display Recommended Jungle Path.” This setting uses data from millions of players to show you exactly what camps to clear and in what order at the start of the game. It’s a helpful tool if you’re new to jungling and want to start without any hassle. However, it’s important to learn the following beginner routes, which are easy to learn and quite effective.
On your side of the jungle, there are six camps in total, split down the middle with three camps on each side. To understand your route, you only need to know about two of the camps: the Blue Sentinel and the Red Brambleback. These two camps give you powerful buffs that will help you throughout the game. The Blue Sentinel gives you infinite mana regeneration and faster spell cooldowns, while the Brambleback provides a red buff that enhances your auto attacks, applying a slow and dealing extra damage. These buffs are essential, and you’ll want to get them in your opening routes.
Let’s start with one of the most basic and effective routes: the Fast Level Three. For this route, you will clear the Blue, Gromp (the fat frog next to it), and the Red Buff. Alternatively, you can do the reverse. The purpose of this route is simple: it gives you the fastest level three in the game, allowing you to get on the map quickly and start fighting and ganking the lanes. “Ganking” refers to when a jungler goes into a lane to kill an enemy laner, which is one of your main responsibilities as a jungler.
Another quick level three route involves killing one quadrant of your jungle. You can clear either Blue, Grump, and Wolves, or Red, Krugs, and Raptors to reach level three and be ready to gank. The only difference here is that you will have only one of the two powerful buffs, but that can be okay. You can clear one quadrant of the jungle, then pass through mid-lane to gank or apply pressure based on the situation in that lane. This can be a smooth transition where you apply pressure and then return to your jungle to continue clearing camps.
Finally, we have the Full Clear, where you start by killing all the camps in order, starting with one of the buffs on either side of your jungle. This route maximizes the gold and experience you get, allowing you to reach a quick level four. Despite its simplicity, this should likely be your default route in most games as a beginner, as it provides both buffs and maximizes your income.
The beginner routes are easy to learn, but the most important thing to consider is where you want to end up. Your route choice should be based on where you want to end up, which depends on which lane you want to gank first.
Which Lane to Gank
Figuring out which lane to gank may seem daunting with over 160 champions in the game, but it’s simpler than it appears.
Champions can be categorized into melee or ranged types. Melee champions often engage in constant fighting during the lane phase, making them prime targets for ganks. Contrarily, ranged champions tend to play more defensively, making ganking them trickier. In a melee vs. melee matchup, frequent fighting increases gank potential.
If a melee teammate faces a ranged opponent, it’s often a good idea to path towards that lane. Ranged champions are vulnerable when overextended, while melee champions can capitalize on ganks effectively.
In bot lane, focus on the support since they usually dictate the lane’s dynamics. For example, if the enemy support is melee and your ally is ranged, consider ganking as the enemy may play aggressively. These guidelines provide a decent starting point for decision-making in every game.
Jungle Pathing
We’ve covered the early levels at this point, but what about after your first clear? What do you do after level five or so, when the game starts becoming chaotic? You will have so many camps to farm, lanes to gank, and objectives to take. How do you possibly know what to do all the time as a jungler? Well, the single most important thing to jungling properly is learning to be efficient.
The solution is simpler than you might think. As you proceed through the game, you want to look to impact areas that are near available jungle camps. So, for example, let’s say you notice that two of the enemy laners are pushing. The enemy top and bot are both playing very aggressively at the same time. All of your top jungle camps are down, whereas the bottom camps are up. Then, your answer would be simple: you would path towards the bottom side of the map.
This gives you more options. By going top, if the gank doesn’t work, you’ve got nothing else to do. Whereas if you gank bot and it doesn’t work, you still have your jungle camps up.
Objectives
Moving on to objectives, we’re only going to cover the ones you can take by yourself early: dragons, void grubs, and the Rift Herald are what you need to know. Dragon spawns at 5 minutes and can be one of six different elemental dragons. Killing each gives a different buff. As a jungler, you can secure the dragon by yourself fairly easily after level five on most champions.
Void grubs spawn at 5 minutes as well. Killing a void grub will give your team extra damage when hitting towers. It’s important to know that some junglers will struggle to kill all three grubs at the same time. This fight can quickly get out of hand and is the only early objective that can be difficult to take. If you feel like you’re going to struggle, it’s acceptable to take only one and leave to deny high stacks from your opponent. At 14 minutes, if all six grubs haven’t been slain, they will despawn, and the Rift Herald will take their place.
Killing the Rift Herald is straightforward; auto-attack her down, wait for her eye to open, and hit it for burst damage. Remember, objectives are a team effort, so always wait to start one until you have some sort of advantage. Cross-mapping can also be beneficial, where you make a play on one side of the map in response to the opponent’s move on the other side.
Cross-mapping means reacting to your opponent’s moves on one side of the map by acting on the opposite side. For instance, if the enemy jungler ganks your bot lane, you can use the temporary advantage on the top side to secure objectives or pressure the top lane
Invading
Invading your opponent’s jungle can be lucrative as it provides extra camps for you while denying them to your opponent, effectively doubling the value. However, it’s risky and should be approached with caution. Similar to securing objectives, invading requires an advantage to play off of. For instance, it’s a good time to invade if you’re stronger than your opponent or have a numbers advantage in the area.
The same principles for objectives apply here. Additionally, cross-mapping can be effective, where you invade the opposite side of the map when the enemy commits resources elsewhere. Just ensure you have some form of advantage before attempting a risky invade.
TL;DR
Jungling in League of Legends is tough for newcomers but offers substantial rewards. It’s crucial for controlling the map, supporting teammates, and securing objectives. Choosing a champion you enjoy, like Amumu, Rammus, Xin Zhao, Hecarim, or Nocturne, is crucial. Using Smite and selecting a jungle pet aid in jungle clearing, where you focus on the big monster in each camp and kite between spells. Different jungle routes prioritize buffs from camps like Blue Sentinel and Red Brambleback.
Ganking depends on enemy champion types, with melee champions being easier targets. Efficient pathing involves impacting areas near jungle camps. Early objectives like dragons and Rift Herald can be crucial, with cross-mapping used to counter opponents’ moves. Invading the opponent’s jungle can be risky but rewarding if done with an advantage or in response to their commitment elsewhere. Jungling demands strategy, decision-making, and adaptability, but players can succeed and lead their team to victory with practice.
