The jungler role in League of Legends (LoL) is one of the most exciting and challenging positions. This role requires you to farm neutral minions hidden in the trees and help your teammates gank their opponents to help them gain an advantage in their lanes. You also need to harass the opposing team’s jungler by meddling with their side of the map to delay their gold and experience.
An effective jungler is crucial to turning the tides of the game and achieving goals to take the lead on the battlefield. When you initially consider taking on this role, you’ll be intimidated because it is different from your typical laning experience. Here’s everything you need to learn about the jungler role when playing League of Legends and some of the effective tips you need to know.
Role
A jungler’s early game is different from the other members of your team because they are focused on gaining experience and gold in their respective lanes while trying to defeat their opponents. Junglers will be fighting creeps scattered across the jungle to accumulate gold and experience.
Junglers are usually stocky bruisers who can take a few blows while still providing a fair amount of damage. Fighters and tanks are the safest bets for picking a winning team.
Since jungler champions are commonly versatile and can deal a fair amount of damage, they are considered the team’s wild card. The most common jungler roles are often tank or carry champions.
Carry junglers
Carry junglers aim to increase the team’s damage output. They strive to cultivate as much as possible while avoiding early engagement with the enemy jungler. Carry junglers are less likely to gank than tank junglers. In addition, these champions anticipate securing kills when they gank.
Tank junglers
Tank junglers often set up for the team and gank enemy heroes as often and as early as possible. These champions stock up on low-cost and resistant items to help secure kills with the team’s laners. They usually let the team’s ADC champions carry the team while acting as a backup when needed.
When and where to gank
As a jungler, you can start planning your early game pathing as soon as you select your champion. Even if you don’t predict how the lanes will play out, you can still determine which lanes on your team have crowd control. Lanes with ally crowd control will be easier to gank in if you have a plan in place.
Once you enter the game, it is your responsibility to constantly monitor the map to see what ganking opportunities are open. Always keep an eye out for your laner health, lane position, and which camps are ready to be cleared.
The health of your ally’s and enemy’s lane is called laner health. The more significant the difference between your ally’s and enemy’s health, the better. Ganking is appealing in situations where both laners are low since you have the opportunity to pick up a kill and save your teammate from certain death.
It is important to note where the laners and minion waves are placed in the lane to maximise gank opportunities. The greater the distance between an enemy laner and his turret, the more difficult it is to apprehend him before he can retreat to safety.
In contrast, if the enemy laner’s health is deficient, you can perform a turret dive, sending your minion wave smashing into the enemy turret. This allows you to get close to the enemy laner before the turret begins to fire at you, allowing you to grab the upper hand.
Top jungler champions
An efficient jungler can roam the jungle quickly and keep up with the team’s level by farming jungle monsters fast. They should also be able to set up ganks when an opportunity arises.
Warwick
Warwick thrives on his healing abilities and tanky build as a type of bruiser champion. He can clear jungle camps well and is one of the best gankers in the game when opponents’ health is low. His passive abilities allow him to move fast towards weak enemies. Warwick’s ultimate gives him an improved engagement tool and ability to lockdown the enemies’ hard carries when aimed right.
He is a great champion in jungling because he clears camps fast and has a healing ability that makes him last longer in team fights. His ultimate ability can either be used to engage or escape.
Ekko
Ekko is one of the best jungler in the game because he’s an all-arounder who has a slew of buffs that gives him incredible strength. Not to mention that he possesses the necessary equipment to be a highly efficient ganker and team fighter. Using his Timewinder ability to enter a lane, get off a slow, and deliver a little amount of damage is possible. This can be followed up with his other two abilities for higher damage output.
Nunu and Willump
Nunu and Willump or just Nunu is a tanky farmer who carries two smites with him. One is with his summoner spell while the other is with his Q ability which chomps down on neutral creatures for a massive amount of true damage. Nunu is extremely difficult to deal with for most opponents, especially given his ability to gank while moving at fast speeds while using his snowball ability.
What makes Nunu an amazing jungler is his impressive sustainability in the jungle that comes with a heal from his Q ability. He can also clear minion waves fast and jungle creeps. Known to be one of the best ganker in the game with his snowball ability.
Amumu
This champion is one of the most powerful champions to use in farming. Amumu’s engage and lockdown skills that deal incredible damage have excellent potential for tanky magic-dealing fights. He can clear minion waves fast with his high damage and long-range skills. Amumu can be tanky and deal more damage than other champions when built right.
Master Yi
This champion is one of the incredibly strong ones that can last in 1v5. Combine his high attack speed items with his insane true damage, Master Yi is one champion to reckon with.
He takes some time to get into the hard carry mode that most players want. Although he can not provide much in the form of team utility, his damage is unmatched among junglers.
Aside from his incredible attack speed and damage, Master Yi can power farm his way through most of the game’s stages and emerge as the most formidable champion. Master Yi can easily run down and dispatch any opponents including tanks by combining his W (Meditate skill) with the rest of his skills.
Graves
With League’s new item changes, Greave is now one of the formidable farming. His clearing has improved, but it is his damage potential that has skyrocketed. If he is not kept in check, this champion is on the verge of being overpowered.
Graves is an amazing jungler because of his potential to solo carry with damage buffs compiling along with new items. Like Master Yi, Graves can also power farm throughout the early game and come out as the MVP. Not to mention, his excellent mobility and continuous damage are very efficient in clearing jungle creeps.
The jungle role in League of Legends can be overwhelming at first. However, once you’ve mastered the mechanics of it, you can be the wild card of your team and achieve goals that can lead to your team’s victory.