Paragon Jungling Tips

Paragon Jungling Tips by Drunken Gorax

Introduction:

To start this off, i am by no means a pro or an amazing player but i feel that i have some good knowledge to share with all you Jungle Mains. I am a low-mid gold player but since i have started focusing on jungle i have had great success and I hope to keep climbing.

Hero Selection:

I believe the best Junglers are ones that have some form of CC and AoE clear. Sustain helps as well but you can get around this with cards and good play. My favorites are Kwang, Crunch and Sevarog but Khiamera, Rampage, Feng Mao, and Kallari all work as well. Play what you are comfortable with because most weaknesses can be overcome in your build.

Card Selection:

I always start with either a stalker’s or executioner’s scythe. The lifesteal/damage helps tremendously with your first few jungle rotations. I usually slot them with 3x minor kinetics. Second item is usually a brawler’s ward with 3x minor mana (the mana helps a lot in the new meta, you will be using your abilities to clear camps and can grab the river buffs for some regen when they are up). After that i work into a couple other 6cp starting cards (windcarver/fountainspike/whirling wand with 3x minor strike/cast). If you are building a crit deck I find the best way is to build a 2-4 6cp power and AS cards first and sell them for the crit cards around 30cp. I usually have one 12cp card that gives you 48% and one 9cp crit bonus card (read hunger maul/blade of agora w/ 3x minor strike/cast).

Jungle Path:

I start in the weak side jungle and take the middle most camp first. I leave the left most camp for my offlaner, he may need it more than you. The key to not taking a massive amount of damage is juking and boxing with the minions. The have very little damage but insane attack speed, you can back up and move in when your attacks/abilities are off CD. I see too many people playing jungle like they did on Legacy, they just stand there and lose half of their HP on the first camp and rage about how hard it is to jungle now. It’s not hard, you just can’t be lazy, it’s an action game so take action and use your movement skills. So ranting aside, after this I rotate over to the strong side, clear the 3 white camps and then the green buff. Next I take the jump pad over to the weak side and check the left most camp. If the offlaner hasn’t cleared it I will take it (no reason to let it go to waste).

You should be around the 3 minute mark and can start to grab River buffs for that mana regen. I typically find that ganking before 5 minutes is counterproductive. Unless someone is low/ way over extended, don’t even bother. My main goal when jungling is controlling your jungle and river buffs and getting to lvl 5 as quick as possible. I follow this rotation as much as i can and look for enemies that are over extended. Raptors I leave until I’m about lvl 11 with 30cp and can have a team mate come help. Never try to take the raptors by yourself in the early-mid game, especially if you don’t have wards around. This is a death sentence as most good teams will have it warded and come gank you and steal the raptors when you are at 1/4 hp. In the late game at around 45cp and some lifesteal you can solo the raptors fairly consistantly, but again, ward up!

Map Control/Awareness:

Monolith is such a small map and everyone is moving quickly, in order to jungle effectively you have to know where the enemies are. If you see their jungler in a lane while someone backs, this is the opportunity to counter jungle. Never invade their jungle unless you are sure of where all enemies are. Any good player will call for help when they see you in their jungle and you will get collapsed on in no time.

Wards are key. I try to have my amber link and the raptors warded in the early-mid game. If you are going to attack their amber link, drop a ward first. If they have it warded, clear the ward and move on. You can come back in a minute and hit their amber link. They will usually come to protect it when they see you pop their ward. In the mid-late game, Raptors and OP should always be warded. If the enemy tries to clear either you can go in for an gank/steal.

Lane Coverage:

This is an objective based game. If you start losing towers before the enemy, you are at a disadvantage. They will be able to rotate and pressure other lanes with ease. When you are running around the jungle clearing camps and minding your own business and a laner calls for help and/or be right back, get over there. Drop the camp you are farming (it will be there when you get back) and move your *** to that lane.

When defending someone’s lane DO NOT PUSH. If your laner has to back, they are probably already at a disadvantage. By pushing their lane into the enemy tower, you put them at and even bigger disadvantage. Any competent laner will freeze the wave under their tower and the over extends your laner who is already behind. So if you are defending their lane, get a couple last hits and prevent the tower from taking damage, that’s it. You are mostly just standing there as a deterrent to the enemy. When your laner is near your T2 you can pull off back into the jungle and mabye even sneak around and gank the lane

Team Fights:

On Monolith, team fights happen quickly and finish even quicker. Be aware of where your team is and when they are grouping up. If you see them grouping to push left lane, move up into the enemy’s strong jungle and put up a ward then join them in the lane. This gives you some warning of the enemies rotations and you can even catch one or two off guard during their rotations. However, if your team is pushing Left lane and you are on your right side jungle, go to the right lane, kill the ranged minions. Then go to the mid lane and do the same. You should always set up a lane in this fashion before heading to a team fight if possible.

My biggest advice is never be late for a team fight and focus their Carry. This usually means getting on the ranger as quick as possible but look out for a strong caster, if Mudrock is 1-4 and Gideon is 5-2, go for Gideon, he is more fed and will most likely turn the tides of a teamfight. Your main goal is to lock down and eliminate the enemy damage dealer, your secondary goal is peeling and protecting for your carry, the support should be doing this but sometimes they will need your help (If Khi leaps onto your Twinblast, stun him and burst him down).

Split Pushing:

The lanes on Monolith are very close to one another, in fact the Inhibitors are basically all in a row. Rotations are quicker and defending can be slightly easier. This makes it hard to split push the way you could on Legacy. I typically prefer junglers with wave clear or build wave clear into their decks (Thundercleaver). Don’t be afraid to use an ultimate to clear a wave and try to push faster. If your team is 4v5 at the enemy inhibitor, tell your team to be careful and try to set up minion pushes in 1 or 2 other lanes. Most teams can defend 1 inhibitor all day long but when you have 2 lanes of giant waves coming up to their other inhibitors, they have to make a choice.

Final Thoughts:

I hope to write a full Kwang jungle guide soon as i have been maining him and recently got the master skin (PVP play, I only vs bots once or twice to try a new deck before pvp). I want to get about 30-50 games in with him on monolith before hand so that i have more little nuances to touch on. So far i am 8-1 with him on monolith and the 1 loss was my first monolith game in offlane and I was used to legacy solo lane and couldn’t get into the rhythm of Monolith yet. I admit at first that I hated monolith. Then i played 4-5 games and started to understand how the lanes work, how the jungle works, how quick everyone can rotate and collapse on you and i realized that it is awesome. There are some minor balance issues but i have faith that it will all get worked out. I feel that the people complaining about monolith relied on the tank/health meta of legacy to compensate for their poor positioning and map awareness. Rotations on legacy were much rarer and you were punished heavily if you rotated to cover someone and all of a sudden they pushed your lane. The new map feels a lot more like a true MOBA and the pace is exciting.

One last thing i’d like to add is Don’t be Salty! Help your team out. Don’t go calling everyone a noob or “Worst player NA” (EU for you folks over the pond). Give them advice. Try to get them to move on and have a comeback. Spamming good job when someone gives up first blood just makes them feel worse. When you fight with your team, you have usually already lost. Playing the blame game just makes you look like a fool and makes everyone have a bad time. Teamwork will pull you through to victory and if you go around yelling at your team, they won’t listen to you when it comes time to group up and finish the game.

If you have any comments, thoughts, or criticisms, please leave them below and i will try to update this accordingly. Thanks!

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