Jungling as a term is technically a reference to the act of killing neutral monsters. What many will refer to as jungling, however, is the act of a single champion roaming across the map, dedicating themselves exclusively to the farm available in the jungle and contained within the neutral monsters that occupy it. A player that does this is referred to as a jungler, and the jungle itself refers to any area of the map that is not a lane or part of either team's base, including the river that divides it.

For the most part, jungling is a role limited purely to games done on Summoner's Rift and jungling undertaken on the map. Jungling can also be done the Twisted Treeline, but this is considerably more limited and is not as major a part of team strategy due to the smaller size of the map permitting more roaming potential and the jungle giving much less farm overall.

The primary reason for jungling is resource allocation. The jungle offers a lot of gold and experience that can be accessed through slaying the monsters that spawn and respawn in predetermined locations on the map. With a lone player dedicating himself to accruing it, it leaves two solo lanes available to each gain high experience and gold rather than only one solo lane. In effect, all accessible resources are being utilized by a team with a jungler.

Jungling as a role tends to most often revolve round the concept of ganking - the act of ambushing an enemy champion. Ganking is not unique to the jungler, but is a crucial aspect to their team role, largely because their roaming nature means enemy champions cannot see the jungler through the fog of war, allowing for unexpected positioning and surprise attacks.

The final reason for jungling is being one of the lynchpins of lategame team strategy - the security of the two large monsters on the map, Baron Nashor and the Dragon. Because of the potentially game-turning advantages these two monsters can give to a team that successfully kills them, it is often a responsibility of the jungler to ensure that these camps are not unintentionally stolen by a marauding enemy team. This is done through using an extremely large burst of damage to guarantee the last hit - a few special junglers can do through the use of their own abilties, but most junglers will do it through the use of Smite.

Smite is almost invariably taken by a jungler in a game and is a clear indicator of a champion with intentions of jungling. This is done primarily to speed up the clearing time of a jungler and lets them preserve more health to perform other actions. A few highly sustained junglers can successfully clear without taking Smite, but usually do so anyway to secure and last hit large objectives that cannot be risked giving to the enemy team. It has a few other practical uses besides that, including granting 10 bonus gold when used (provided the champion in question has the Summoner's Resolve mastery), and also to allow junglers to more easily steal neutral monsters from the enemy team (colloquially termed as a smitesteal).

Jungle Overview Edit

Each team has its own jungle - an equal area with the same amount of non-boss monsters. The jungle is effectively perfectly rotationally symmetrical about the centre of the map, with the exceptions of Dragon and Baron Nashor, who are unique. They each reside in sheltered alcoves along the river and are accessible from different directions, making them slightly easier to access for the team on the side they are open to; blue team has superior access to Baron Nashor and purple team has superior Dragon access.

Neutral Monster Overview Edit

Camp	Initial Spawn	Respawn Timer	Initial Rewards
Wraith Lesser Wraith x3	1:40	0:50	+35 G; +120 EXP ( Wraith) +4 G; +20 EXP (  Lesser Wraith)
Giant Wolf Wolf x2	1:40	1:00	+25 G; +128 EXP ( Giant Wolf) +16 G; +10 EXP (  Wolf)
Big Golem Golem	1:40	1:00	+30 G; +117 EXP ( Big Golem) +30 G; +39 EXP ( Golem)
Ancient Golem Young Lizard x2	1:55	5:00	+72 G; + 231 EXP; Crest of the Ancient Golem ( Ancient Golem) +10 G; +32 EXP ( Young Lizard)
Lizard Elder Young Lizard x2	1:55	5:00	+72 G; +210 EXP; Blessing of the Lizard Elder ( Lizard Elder) +10 G; +32 EXP ( Young Lizard)
Dragon	2:30	6:00	+25 G +400 EXP +190 G to all teammates
Baron Nashor	15:00	7:00	+25 G +300 G; +900 EXP to all teammates Exalted with Baron Nashor to all living teammates

Respawn timers on the camps do not begin to count down until all monsters in the camp have been killed, including the major buff camps. This can be exploited by a jungler looking to steal his opponent's experience by leaving a single minor monster behind to deny the enemy jungler his farm and experience for as long as possible.

Champions of the Jungle Edit

Players seeking a good champion for the jungler role should search for a few key capabilities of the champion:

• Damage Output
  • Having higher damage output means the champion will be able to contest the naturally low damage-per-second of neutral monsters.
• Sustainability
  • Since a jungler will always be dealing and receiving damage in order to gain gold and experience, it is important to have as much sustain as possible. This can be through reduction of damage or healing.
• Gank Potential
  • Abilities that concern movement speed, have a crowd control effect, or that displace the jungler or the target contribute to gank potential.
  • Having higher gank potential increases your overall usefulness to your team. Kills and assists will give your team an edge against equally-farmed opponents.

Runes and Masteries Edit

There are a few common setups used to increase a jungler's potential:

Seals

•  Greater Seal of Armor (+1.41 Armor)

Marks

•  Greater Mark of Armor Penetration (+1.28 Armor penetration)
•  Greater Mark of Attack Damage (+0.95 Attack damage)
•  Greater Mark of Attack Speed (+1.67% Attack speed)

Glyphs

•  Greater Glyph of Scaling Magic Resist (+2.7  Magic Resistance at Level 18)
•  Greater Glyph of Cooldown Reduction (+0.65% Cooldown reduction)
•  Greater Glyph of Attack Speed (+0.64% Attack speed).

Quintessences

•  Greater Quintessence of Movement Speed (+1.5% Movement Speed)
•  Greater Quintessence of Attack Damage (+2.25 Attack damage)
•  Greater Quintessence of Attack Speed (+3.33% Attack speed)

Masteries

• Butcher - Increases the damage you deal to minions and monsters by 2 / 4.
• Summoner's Resolve - Smite grants 10 bonus gold upon use.
• Tough Skin - Reduces damage from monsters by 1 / 2.
• Bladed Armor - Returns 6 true damage against monster attacks.
• Hardiness - Grants 2 / 3.5 / 5  armor.
• Runic Affinity - Increases the duration of all neutral buffs (with the exception of Exalted with Baron Nashor) by 20%.

Items for Jungling Edit

Jungler itemization has gone through some considerable changes over the course of League of Legends' history.

During Season One, the jungle was a highly profitable source of gold, so much so that often a jungling champion could even obtain more farm than the lanes with some effort, allowing them to obtain expensive and deadly items if their farming efforts were not halted. This was offset by the enormous difficulty of the jungle monsters of the time - there were extremely few junglers who could even clear effectively in such an rigorous environment and even fewer junglers who could begin the game with anything other than a Cloth Armor and 5 Health Potions.

The jungle rework of Season Two reduced the difficulty of the jungle monsters and the gold and experience that they gave out in an attempt to open the jungle to more prospective champions. Despite the decreased monster health, however, it was found that the decreased gold meant that dedicated farming was simply no longer an economically viable strategy, and many junglers were forced to find alternative solutions to the resultant gold starvation, which most often amounted to early stacking of gold generating items such as Philosopher's Stone and Heart of Gold, while other potential junglers whose core item builds often demanded a high gold income to be effective could simply not function in such a low-gold environment.

The current iteration of the jungle in Season Three has increased the farm and difficulty of the jungle, though not to the degree of Season One. The introduction of the unique item Hunter's Machete has allowed many junglers to successfully clear without many sustain issues. Champions looking to be a successful jungler must often offer great utility to remain a relevant factor in the game should they fall behind, and is for this reason why the most prominent junglers of today's metagame are usually tanks or fighters who boast plentiful crowd control. Junglers whose main roles involve outputting damage, such as assassins, are often considered risky to take into the jungle as they cannot obtain their gold from pure farming and must bank entirely on obtaining multiple kills through ganks to be effective, which is not always a practical solution.

The most common setup when starting a jungle game is a Hunter's Machete and 5 Health Potions. This setup greatly improves jungle clearing speed and provides 750 bonus health to cover early health losses. Junglers who are unconcerned with issues about clearing, however, can start with a Cloth Armor and 5 Health Potions instead. This setup provides high effective health against physical damage and 750 bonus health, allowing for extended periods of jungle farming for champions who lack the sustain to do this with Hunter's Machete(eg. Dr Mundo). A few junglers may also opt to start with Boots of Speed and 3 Health Potions, which provides movement speed to improve ganks as well as 450 health to get through the first few levels. It can be used both on highly sustained junglers who do not need clearing assistance (eg. Warwick) or champions who focus more on heavily ganking enemy laners (eg. Shaco).

For extremely slow junglers who urgently require a way of improving their clear times, Hunter's Machete can be upgraded to Madred's Razors for its large magic damage proc. On certain junglers, this can also be built into Wriggle's Lantern to further improve clear speeds and provide additional map awareness. Champions who do not need much additional aid for clearing can upgrade into a Spirit Stone instead, which provides excellent sustain and also has some varied and useful upgrade paths which can be tailored to fit the jungling champion.

As the jungler is often expected to spend a large amount of time roaming the map between camps and lanes, Boots of Mobility are a common purchase to lessen the considerable travel time, particularly for junglers who can invest in a Spirit of the Ancient Golem to provide their tenacity statistic. If this is not possible, Mercury's Treads are a good alternative which also provides early magic resistance. Boots of Swiftness are the next most common option, providing high movement speed and a resistance to slowing effects which greatly aids ganking potential.

Common Jungle Routes Edit

Level 2 Gank Edit

Route:

1. Wraith camp.
2. Lizard Elder camp
3. Gank mid/bot (blue) or top/mid (purple).

This extremely aggressive jungle route is the riskiest out of all jungle routes and is most often used in an attempt to obtain the First Blood bonus before opponents have had a chance to acquire all of their spells yet. On some junglers, this also sacrifices some potential at farming for early increased offensive prowess.

Buff-to-Buff Run (to level 3)Edit

Route:

1. Giant Wolf camp
2. Ancient Golem camp ( Smite-less)
3. Lizard Elder camp
4. Gank mid/bot (blue) or top/mid (purple).

This route is a strategic route taken at higher levels of play to both prevent theft of the buff camps by the opposing team and gain a fast level advantage over opposing champions, potentially resulting in an early kill for the team either in a gank or a rapid counterjungling attempt.

Note well, however, that this route does require allies to heavily assist at the first buff camp so that the jungler will have Smite available for use at the second.

Power Clear (to level 4) Edit

Route:

1. Giant Wolf camp
2. Ancient Golem camp
3. Wraith camp
4. Golem camp or  Giant Wolf camp
5. Lizard Elder camp
6. Wraith camp
7. Gank a nearby lane.

Alternatively:

1. Wraith camp
2. Lizard Elder camp
3. Golem camp
4. Wraith camp
5. Giant Wolf camp
6. Ancient Golem camp
7. Gank a nearby lane.

This route is a well-rounded route that equally balances ganking potential, farming experience and gold, and is one of the most commonly used overall as it provides enough experience for the jungler to reach level 4 before ganking. At step 4 of the Ancient Golem clear, champions who use multi-target skills can opt to return to the Wolf camp instead of going to the Golem camp to preserve more health.

A Lizard Elder start is often the faster of the two routes, but it is only available to champions who do not have steep mana requirements in order to clear successfully and doing it first will often leave little time to benefit from the buff's slow during ganks after the clear has been completed.

Jungle Farmer (to level 6) Edit

Route:

1. Golem camp.
2. Wraith camp.
3. Giant Wolf camp.
4. Ancient Golem camp.
5. Wraith camp again.
6. Golem camp again.
7. Lizard Elder camp.
8. Giant Wolf camp again.
9. Wraith camp again.
10. Golem camp again.
11. Repeat the last three steps over and over until the other camps respawn.

This passive route is chosen to maximize gold and experience income from the jungle at the expense of supporting the lanes. Champions with low ganking potential or high level requirements to gank effectively will usually use this route to obtain their farm as quickly as possible.

Ganking Edit

Ganking refers to the act of ambushing one or more players with the intent of scoring a kill. The jungler is the champion who has the greatest capacity to do so as he is not bound to any particular lane, allowing him to freely roam across the map to appear wherever he is needed.

A gank is commonly referred to the jungler entering a lane and attempting to obtain a kill with the aid of his allies, but there are other kinds of ganks that can be observed, such as jungle ganks, where one jungler ambushes his opponent inside enemy territory.

Champions with strong crowd control tend to be good gankers. Champions who have little to no crowd control or have crowd control that can be difficult or unreliable to use effectively will have a harder time to lock down an enemy champion during a gank.

River GanksEdit

River ganks involves the jungler approaching a lane through the river, entering the brush and beginning his assault on the opposing team once correct positioning is established.

River ganks are among the easiest to spot ahead of time because a single Ward in the river bush can quickly warn a laner of the jungler's intentions and allow them to back off and avoid danger.

Side GanksEdit

Side ganks (also known as a lane gank) involve the jungler entering the side brush in order to get very close to his targets before initiating the gank. This type of gank can only be done in bot or top lane and relies on both a lack of vision within the bush from the enemy team and a lack of vision of the jungler as he enters it in order to maintain the element of surprise.

Loop GanksEdit

Loop ganks are the jungler approaches from outside the lane, but instead of travelling through the river it instead involves the champion entering the enemy jungle from near the mid lane, and (for bot or top lane loop ganks) walking around the Dragon or Baron Nashor spawning pit and entering the target lane through the tribush or (for mid lane loop ganks) making use of the entrances to the lane on the same side as an enemy turret.

Loop ganks pose some significant risks to the jungler. If their initial approach into the enemy jungle is spotted early on with a ward, the enemy team can corner and slay the champion. If undetected, as jungler will end up directly behind the target and does not have to immediately use their abilities to close the gap.

Tower Dive GanksEdit

The riskiest gank to perform. This gank involves the jungler attempting to kill the enemy while they are within range of the turret. This gank can be done on any laner through use of the jungle - bot and top lane for purple and blue team respectively uses the path and small brush directly behind the turret and the opposing side makes use of the grass near the Golem camp. Mid lane tower dive ganks make use of the path near the Giant Wolf spawns.

Direct GanksEdit

A direct gank involves the ganking champion approaching his targets by walking straight down the lane towards them. Though this type of gank is technically available to all junglers, in practice only a very specific few are capable of successfully pulling one off.

Almost invariably, a direct ganking champion will boast enormous mobility and multiple means of closing the gap with his opponents as well as strong crowd controls.

Counter GanksEdit

A counter gank is the act of a champion entering a lane where an enemy gank is already in progress with the intent of turning the fight to their favor.

This gank type follows the same rules as before in that good warding can alert a team to the incoming threat and let them back off without suffering casualties, but also equally depends on the junglers themselves. Strong counterganking junglers are champions who have excellent map mobility and can react quickly to a gank happening regardless of their current location (such as Rammus and his  Powerball). Junglers who are resistant to being counterganked themselves are champions whose methods of crowd control are divorced from their methods of escape, letting them rapidly switch from attacking to retreating when the need arises (such as Jax).

Counter jungling Edit

Counter jungling is the act of entering the enemy jungle with the intent to deprive the enemy jungler gold, experience, and neutral buffs. This can be done by stealing unattended camps or ambushing the opponent. If caught or spotted, the enemy team can easily surround the jungler as the enemy laner will have easy access to their jungle.

Good counter jungling requires map awareness and champion matchups. Champions who do not wish to be discovered must often ensure that their opponent is elsewhere at the time, such as when the enemy jungler is covering a lane for someone or has recently ganked and been forced to retreat. Likewise, champions who wish to find and fight the enemy jungler will often need to utilize their knowledge of the enemy jungler's champion to determine their whereabouts at a specific time and whether it is safe to attempt to kill them.

Invasion Edit

Invasions are a very specific type of counter jungling, undertaken by all five members of a team in an attempt to deprive the enemy jungler of their very first buff before the minion waves have begun to spawn. The presence of this strategy often dictates a team's actions during the first 90 seconds of a game and is the reason why many teammates will guard around the river area of the jungle to provide advance warning in case of an invasion.

Successful invasions can have great payoffs, granting the beneficiaries an extra neutral buff for the first five minutes, potentially the First Blood bonus and early kills. Even invasions that are thwarted by good scouting can still often be successful as the enemy team may not always be in a good position to drive off the invaders.