Paragon Jungling Complete Guide
Paragon Jungling Complete Guide by Bloodmordius
Intro
Hello All! FINALLY the jungle has begun to get some depth, we have rearranged camps yet again, a new buff… and now a WHOLE new neutral objective that requires your much wanted attention. Even if you’re not a jungler, I hope this guide is of some use to you. Otherwise enjoy the ride!
Kiting
So yet again, Epic reeeeaaaallllly dislike kiting… so yeah, that doesn’t exist anymore. The only advice I can give you is to position yourself towards the next camp you’re working towards, just to save that extra second. But there is no point moving between the autos to avoid damage, it will negate nothing.
Macro
So I just want note here, although the micro in taking camps has taken a hit. It’s overall rather meaningless, especially after first clear. But the decision making and strategy in jungle has increased tenfold. The decision on when to take buffs, invade, gank, take fangtooth and what cards to keep and for how long… It’s much much harder than just controlling green and using that to gank, I will explain more depth as we go through.
Green
So Green buff has been pretty much untouched other than the no kiting aspect. You will not take much damage though providing you have jungle lifesteal. There are two aspects to this buff as always, ganking for extra burst/tower diving potential, or for clearing jungle faster. With Black buff being accessible, I recommend either combining these two for really strong gank potential, as well as speeding up your taking of black. Or use it to farm your stacked white camps fast, so you can then use black alone to gank.
Black
As stated above, black is the new ganking buff. This thing is a godsend to the jungle. It is situated in the offlane side jungle allowing you to gank the opposing duo lane even easier. It allows you to scout their green side jungle through walls. When you do get onto a target, they literally cannot escape your autos. If you land one hard cc, it is pretty much a kill as they cannot prevent being slowed without ccing yourself, or using heavy mobility. This buff is 60 seconds of easy ganking, utilise it well.
Fangtooth
This neutral objective is an amazing objective, however I do feel it is overtuned. You MUST get a fangtooth, preferably first to also deny your opponent their 1k for a further 3 minutes (further fangtooths will further prevent their 1k gold spike, so abuse this well). The first one gives 1k gold to every player, as well as some chunky extra power! To compare you only get 224 gold or so globally from a Tier one tower. This objective can allow you to snowball completely out of control. PLEASE prioritise it, even if it means preventing them taking it, over just you taking it. I will come back to all of these in more detail later in the guide.
Cards/Gems
Cards choices are even more important in the jungle now, I will cover crucial cards/gems for general use, and also for specific cases.
This Gem is still super strong as always for your jungle clear. I recommend picking it up first on junglers like Rampage, Kwang and Khaimera who have in-built sustain, as well as poised/cull/demo depending on which affinity you take with growth.
This Gem is really good this patch, even more so than after its buff. This gem will allow you to sustain the jungle indefinitely. This and the gem above I feel should be picked on every jungler in this meta. It will make your full clear super easy with full hp at the end every time. I recommend taking it first on any jungler that isn’t the 3 above with exoskeleton or living guardian. This gem means you rarely have to back allowing you to be present at rivers, your buffs on spawn times, fangtooth and to heal up from ganks.
Mana Reactor is a gem you MUST take on most junglers. The only hero I don’t run it on is full damage cheese builds, otherwise it is mandatory. This will give you infinite mana sustain as a fight or tank allowing you to spam abilities on Fangtooth/OP as well as being a consistent threat in Teamfights. You will always have mana for your zechin when needed too. Don’t forget to use it to purposely take damage from towers and such to get yourself the mana you need for full combos or crucial CCs.
There are many other useful gems for jungle, but these 3 are my top 3 that I would say are required to jungle optimally.
Now we move on to cards. Zechin fell out of meta a little while back as its only value really came from taking OP/Rivers as a secure. Now we have Fangtooth every few minutes that NEEDS to be secured, still have OP/Rivers, and TWO buffs to use it on, or even steal away from the opponent. This card is crucial on all junglers now, I take it with two other cards and keep it all the way until op is secured and we can buy a 3rd card. It is crucial for junglers to use this, use it smart, stack it up and secure the major objectives when needed.
Tyrant is a strong card for any jungler that needs a bit more umph to their kit. I take this for crunch due to his great power scaling, I also sometimes run it on heroes like Kwang/Grux if I need to be dealing more damage for my team. By no means a staple pick but provides a large amount of power with some extra hp with little cost. Stack it up, use it till you need to be more tanky, then sell it for something like Unbroken or Numbing.
Vital Waters is always a topic people bring up as it’s perfect for sustain heroes. But it is still a great pick for anyone going into a tanky build. With Growth this is one of the best pure tank cards to pick up on the 7 VIT spike as a curve card to something like Unbroken Spirit.
A necessity for any tank jungler. With hard CC being so prominent I highly recommend this on any jungler, bruiser or tank.
Non-Growth Options
Growth is needed for jungle, because zechin exists, simple as that. Usually I prefer Death for solo queue to go with it and will list options below, but certain heroes benefit from other affinities well too.
Knowledge
Knowledge I only usually run on crunch, but can work on Sevarog too.
If I do go knowledge, blink is a must, it allows heroes that like repositioning, execute better. Sev root into ult is much cleaner with a blink. If crunch dashed in, used e, but can’t knock up with R due to range, he can now blink to access the target easier. He can also long range gank with double dash blink.
Arcane Dancer is a great card if you’re Sevarog or a tanky Crunch. It will negate any ability damage burst, while still giving decent stats.
This is my go-to card for Crunch. It gives a large amount of HP, you get Bladeturn from running it. The power will give you crazy damage output with Tyrant, when you use the active you can one combo anyone who doesn’t have 13 vit or an ability armour card. With Gideon being so prominent, if he gets a good ult. Dash over asap, corrosive and aoe their whole team with damage combos. This card fits crunch perfectly and I highly recommend it.
Order
Order is great a more supportive style of jungling or for aggro plays with heroes like Grux.
Poised is a great early game card, even for junglers. You always have it up for a gank and allows you to get a decent amount of damage off that demo and cull do not give you. On a hero like Grux that scales amazingly with basic damage too, you can make great early game plays because of your high damage output.
Vanguard Captain will make you take literally 0 damage in the jungle, acts as a pseudo possessed-sprykin and allows you to go auto-shield or onslaught efficiently.
Mallenks Grace is great if you have any high damage offlaners, hyper carries or a closer range caster like Morigesh. It gives you tons of hp and curves off of vanguard, so it is easy to build. The active gives you a huge shield if you’re in trouble, but can also save your damage dealer in trouble.
Yomi Guardian is an amazing and underrated card. It gives fantastic stats for a frontline, it gives not only you, but your whole team enough basic damage reduction to pretty much ignore basic attacks from anyone other than the carry, and even they’re really low… for 8 seconds too! Fantastic tank card.
Death
My go-to for solo queue jungle, especially on heroes like Rampage or Kwang.
Cull will be your go-to for jungle clear, will help you clear faster especially with heroes like kwang/rampage who have in-built sustain.
Numbing Rogue is a great card for tanky jungler. It will make their carry lose so much dps, it ruins heroes like Grux/Kwang/Rampage who like auto-attacking. Overall a strong card to pick up asap.
Chaos
Chaos is a nice pairing, especially if you’re dealing with high damage burst, especially from basic damage sources. Also very good for aggro builds or Deathcrawler cheeses.
Living Guardian is great when paired with jungle lifesteal. You will take no damage in the clear and be durable early as most people need to use a lot of basics to kill you in the early game.
A nice curve into Tyrant or a heavy AGI build. This card gives you some nice damage early, and allows you to gank much easier with heroes like Grux or Rampage.
Thorned Yomi is a great counter to high damage burst, or heavy carry dps. They will do much less damage to you and you have 4 seconds where they cannot really hit you. Amazing counter to Deathcrawler Grux too.
Unstable is a nice late game card for heroes with high sustain like Rampage and that can stick to targets like Khaimera. This card will deal tons of damage in a fight if you’re focused.
Great card especially when paired with the Ferocity gem in vitality due to more attack speed to pair with the basic damage when low hp. Also nice with the lifesteal gem in AGI so when you do get low, you deal more damage and heal up faster. Great card on heroes like Grux who have multiple basic damage scalings to abuse the extra damage with.
Heroes
Crunch has finally got the only buff he needed, ANIMATION SPEED! This guy has gone from a slug to a cheetah. Anytime your opponent escaped you before, or caught up to you, no more. He has insane burst, highest of any jungler. His cc is much more consistent, and his escape/chase a little less predictable. I rate him very highly this patch and think he is certainly one of the best solo queue junglers you can pick up. I run him growth/knowledge and like to make use of corrosive walker for my bread and butter, zechin for objectives, then tyrant if i want damage or unbroken if I need to be tanky. If I have no use for zechin in extreme late game, there are many many options for a tanky or damage build.
Grux is a massive contender for top jungler this patch. He may have lost his mobility, but damn can he swing hard now. This guy has way more cc potential than before, and his dps can be unmatched. He can also burst super hard with a more cheesy Deathcrawler build. Personally you can run him growth with order/death/chaos as he is so versatile. Chaos if I want to cheese or be a more damage oriented Grux. Order if I want to be durable while keeping my team alive and have strong early ganks. Or Death if I want to disrupt or be a nuisance in their backline. He is extremely versatile in what you want to do with him. If he commits his ult, he can also take any objective super fast, if you have a pre-made who mains support, try Phase ult with Grux ult on any objective or teamfight, it’s hilarious.
Kwang is still a fantastic jungler this patch. His clear is still fast and well sustained with his lifesteal. He still has the longest AOE cc for a basic ability in the game allowing him to set up ganks or engagements easily. His mobility with his ult allows him to make up for a lack or a real engage/escape like Sevarog too. He can brawl other fighters really well, and pairs super good with double carry comps, rev comps, or offlaners like Grux or a melee carry who can abuse his lifesteal, or dps a target that has been tethered. With fangtooth allowing lifesteal too, he is great for fighting in that pit and taking this very important objective. I usually run him Growth/Death for the disruption and durability from the aura cards.
Rampage as always is an absolute terror in the jungle. He did lose his mobility making him waaaay harder to play as he cannot just jump to escape/chase. So his positioning is crucial. But he still has that ridiculous hard hitting stun, a slow to follow up that does high damage and is very spammable with ult and on top of all that, the most ridiculous regen that is still hard to dps or burst down with blight. His backline threat is huge and a well placed rock can still out-right win a teamfight. I usually run Growth with Chaos/Death on him for more disruption, or reactive damage. He benefits massively from cards with high armour due to his regen, and any extra damage from people hitting him is very powerful due to his large size and insane innate durability. Another jungler that is a very good hero for hard-carrying games in solo queue.
Riktor, like last patch, is still a great jungler. I feel he fell off a little bit with Ramp/Grux/Crunch getting so much attention, but he’s still in their league. He has cc that is completely unmatched as well as the best cc in the game, a hook. He also adopt Sevarog’s spam gank style with a 30 second ult cooldown and a spammable high-damage ability like his electrocute. His jungle clear is phenomenal and he can gank like no other jungler can by bringing his opponents, to him. I usually run Growth/Death on him for auras to help with survivability and to remain in the thick of it while disrupting my opponents. Knowledge can also be an option on him. Still a hero worth picking up for jungle, but a little less priority than last patch.
Sevarog. Hurt, but not dead. This guy is still a king in the jungle for many many reasons. Yes he does lose out on a large amount of early stacks (about 20 big minions). But his stacking should still be faster compared to before the buff (140–>100 stacks for max milestones). He may lose early pressure but he was already super strong there when he really shouldn’t. Late game he is still the monster he was, crazy engage potential with powerful damage output and amazing bulk durability. His root is still an amazing CC and I highly recommend him to more experienced junglers who can scale while using his root and ult to secure some early ganks. I prefer Sevarog with Growth/Death for disruption and durability, but I do like knowledge for the utility potential.
Honourable Mentions
Khaimera I find rather unviable unless used in a completely aggro/cheese manner. Rushing Fangtooths is a must and you need to control objectives/buffs well with him to utilise his kit properly. Strong hero in lower elos and would only recommend if you have a direct plan in mind. Works best with Growth/Chaos in my opinion.
Feng Mao can still jungle but I find him a bit more lackluster than before. He lost his burst gank potential and has no reliable hard cc to make up for it, I find him a much stronger offlaner than jungler this patch with his more auto-attack style of play. If you do play him jungle I also recommend him Growth/Chaos.
Steel is still a nice jungler, but he has the issue of a lack of mobility, but doesn’t have the consistent damage output or cc potential to gank often. So he relies heavily on his ult/ This isn’t enough in this meta in my opinion so I find him better used as an aggro support or an offlaner. If you do go jungler with him, Growth/Death is nice with him.
Aurora, same as Steel.
Kallari is not the best option, but she can snowball out of control. I would still recommend Growth on her but Chaos is pretty much a must, if not death. You need high damage and you need to play like an auto-attack assassin as she can do some crazy DPS if she does somehow get on a carry. I’d also recommend her for lower elos, because she does snowball like crazy.
First Clears
For first clears this patch there are many many options due to the new black buff. But I shall show you a few nice and easy early clears. Both of these will involve jungle lifesteal and jungle assassin with either exo/living guardian or cull the weak/poised based on what affinities and hero you are using.
Firstly, you should start on the right side white camp. After the back white camp is best, from here we can decide where to go next. If you want to be really aggressive, you should take green buff next. With this you get two more options;
A. Take your black and gank (you will hit level 3 if one minion dies in the lane you’re ganking).
B. Invade their black and either fight their jungler (make sure your duo/mid are on the same page).
These will both give you great early aggression and can help your team snowball. This kind of strategy works best on heroes like Grux or Rampage with good early cc and burst.
Secondly, after your first two white camps you can do the inner white camp, before doing your green. This will provide more early game farm and can set you up for more valuable farm sooner by making an extra big white minion spawn over a little one. After your green you can either do the front camp. Which will give you level 3, you can gank at 2:40 or wait for river buff with green. You can then use this river to gank or continue efficient farming.
Another option can be to go for black right after green. You can be at their river just at 3 minutes or even gank at 3 minutes with both buffs. This will give you immense pressure for the next minute.
Farming vs Ganking?
As always, this question turns up all the time and every patch. As always experience and practice will give you the best idea for each scenario, but I shall give you some basic principles to be following in case you are struggling to keep farm numbers and pressure balanced.
So firstly we will get the obvious out of the way. If you are ever in game and find yourself completely oblivious as to what to do. Don’t do nothing. Simple as that. If you cannot see a gank that’s optimal, you cannot see any pressure to create or an objective to take… then just farm white camps, while you think what to do next. The last thing you want to do is just sit there figuring out what’s your next move. This is not chess, every blinking moment thinking on that next move, your opponent has taken out a pawn and is already making his next move. Keep moving and keep being active on the map, even if it’s not optimal, at least you’re doing something with the role. Farming is always efficient, just not always the MOST efficient.
Now that the simple stuff is out of the way, let’s move onto how your hero affects your decisions. To jungle efficiently, I would start with a couple heroes to get your head around, and make sure they fit your playstyle. If you are the kind of jungler to gank more so than farm, then maybe someone like riktor or rampage will suit you, where you can use their very powerful early game cc to lock down targets repeatedly in lanes, without needing many levels or cards to do so. If you’re more into mid-late game pressure, you can opt for a Sevarog or Kwang, who scale amazingly through mid-game with powerful cc for spam ganks and good objective control with their long range circular cc. They do lack early game however, so you may look for one or two early gank, but will only use black to do so. Otherwise use your green to efficiently clear white camps and maintain river buff control.
Although farming may be your goal for the game, don’t forget that if someone is overextended you can still capitalize, losing a couple white camps of efficiency is nothing to losing a free kill in a lane.
The next big pointer is not only does your own hero matter, but your team’s composition, and not only that! But the enemy team’s composition matters too! You must consider if your composition is going to be the aggressor or not. Heroes like Murdock, Drongo, Morigesh, Rampage, Phase, Narbash can all be very very aggressive. They’re able to burn down towers and objectives fast and have the tools to close out games pretty easily in comparison to other heroes. Heroes such as Sparrow, Sevarog, Greystone and Belica all scale amazingly well and so you would wish to farm/draw out the game to get the advantage.
Lastly for ganking, if you’re interested here is the updated ganking checklist:
- Do you have a path of vision to your target?
- Is your opponents of the order affinity/have they bought wards recently?
- Do you have enough mana?
- Does your target have mana?
- Do you have green?
- Do you have black?
- Do you have a river buff?
- Are you on a power spike in your build for ganks?
- Are you on a gem power spike?
- Are you on a level power spike?
- Has your opponent used their cc/escape/ultimate?
- Are they overextended?
All of these are questions you should answer within a few seconds as you finish off a jungle camp, then if you feel most of these are in check, go ahead and gank, it should more than likely be successful if you take all these into consideration.
Kills Vs Ganking Vs Pressure
There are many misconceptions of what should happen when you’re not farming as a jungler. First, when you gank, you do not need to get a kill. Simply forcing the opponent out of lane, or drawing more opponents towards you is a great success. If they’re not in lane farming, and the other members of your team are, then you’re winning. You may also be throwing the opposing jungler out of their comfort zone and forcing them to attend somewhere else. Also you do not even need to “gank” per say, simply relieve pressure. Let’s say you cleared green side and notice your offlaner is about to have a big wave pushed in towards him, you cannot gank though because of wards. What you can do is walk over these wards, you may relieve pressure for the opponents elsewhere, but now the enemy duo has to back away, or you can gank. This prevents tower damage and gives your offlaner a ton of farm. This is creating pressure.
Counter-Ganking
Counter ganking is a key skill junglers must learn.First you need to spot the most likely place the opponent will gank. You will see laners being overly aggressive, pressuring under towers, lack of your vision in the area, river buff taken on one side. One example could be, the enemy duo is moving into the tower range, and even when you show on the ward they do not back down. Hopefully your midlaner recognises this and rotate with you to create a 3v3, which you should win. People do not usually back down if they have a jungler nearby. So then it’s time for positioning. Usually in a counter gank, it is best to focus the opposing jungler. He’ll usually think he has the collapse on your laner, but if your laner turns onto him and you collapse from behind, you can blow up their jungler much faster as it’s easier to collapse on due to him being from the side or behind.
Future Jungle Potential
As you all probably know by now, these cards were leaked. The Form of Grubbish card will probably be irrelevant to us, as will trip wire which are more than likely mid/support cards. Eyes of the beast and vision spore however, both offer us amazing stats for the cost, regen is great for early jungling. These will certainly replace cards like vanguard captain or mother tree. The vision they provide will be paramount to your success in the jungle. There will be much less guess work involved on where opponents and their vision are, and instead you will be able to make much more informed decisions on what step you want to take next. You will actually be able to pre-setup for invades, ganks and counter ganks efficiently. These cards will help Paragon actually have a vision games that’s much more exciting and interesting instead of just wards and outlander de-warding.
Conclusion
As always I will add to this guide on the go, do pm me on discord if you have any suggestions for more content to the guide and I will implement it when I can! (TO Bloodmordius#3819 is my discord).
Hope this guide was of good use to you and you can improve your jungling further than you would of without! If you’re not a jungler, I hope this helps you understand what your jungler is trying to accomplish, he may not be ganking, but notice he may be relieving pressure for you (that’s mainly pointing at you offlaners!)
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