How to Play Jungler in League of Legends

Want to know how you can play as a jungler in League of Legends?

The jungler role is probably the most unique role in League of Legends. Junglers spend most of the early stages tucked away in the jungle between the three lanes, clearing neutral camps, gaining buffs, and attempting to gank the opposing team. 

For beginners, playing as a jungler can be overwhelming. 

You’ll need to learn peculiar and specific mechanics to learn, as well as the timing for clearing each camp to maximize your potential. 

However, this should not be a reason for you to move away from the jungler role. 

In this guide, we’ll show you how to play as a jungler in League of Legends and give you some tips on how to be better in the role.

Let’s begin!

Champion Selection

Junglers can fit most roles in League of Legends, and they are often the wildcard or secret weapon of the team. Once junglers go online, expect teams to take advantage of it by taking a tower or forcing a team fight. 

In fact, you’ll always find a champion that can jungle and fit the role needed to be filled on your team. 

With this, most junglers usually transition into a carry or tank role. 

Carry Junglers

Carry junglers often exist to add more firepower to your team composition. They farm almost the entire game and avoid early engagement with the enemy jungler. Carry junglers also don’t gank as often, but when they do, it’s usually a guaranteed kill. 

What this means is that you should plan all your actions and calculate risks when playing a carry jungler role. 

Tank Junglers

If you play as a tank jungler, you’ll be much involved in team fights. As a tank jungler, you’ll be tasked to set up the rest of your team during ganks and clashes. Tank junglers also buy cheap and cost-effective defensive items. 

This allows your teammates to carry the game and farm more items, which they need more.

 

Summoner Spells

When you play the jungle role, taking Smite as one of your spells is a must. This should help you clear out camps faster without taking too much of your health. Smite is also required to build jungle items. 

After using Smite five times on minions, your jungle item is consumed and upgrades your Smite to be usable on enemies. 

Clearing Jungle Camps

The first camps that you should clear as a traditional jungler are the two buffs and the third camp in between to reach level three fast. With the recent changes to Summoner’s Rift, the best way to farm is clearing either the red or blue buff, the gromp, and then the remaining buff.

Opting for the wolves or raptors simply won’t get you to level three after clearing three camps. 

Now, the first decision you need to make is which buff you should clear first. However, we suggest taking the nearest buff to your bot lane. This way, you can ask your bot lane to leash the camp at the start of the game. 

If you’re playing for the blue side, you’ll need to clear the red buff. For the red team, it means the blue buff. 

Keep in mind that you’ll want to get your first buff without utilizing Smite. Let your teammates leash the first camp and make sure to get the last hit to obtain the buff. 

If you do this, you’ll have access to your summoner spell for the gromp, or you can reserve it for the remaining buff.

You also have the option to go for a gank in the mid or bot lane once you reach level two to secure an early kill. However, if you want to play it safe, you can stay in the jungle and clear all the camps. 

If ever your top lane managed to ward the enemy team’s jungle, you can also try stealing some of the camps. 

Securing the Rift Scuttler

At exactly 3:15 in the game, a neutral jungle camp spawns in the top and bottom rivers. Unlike other camps, the Rift Scuttler doesn’t fight back. This is an excellent opportunity for you to regenerate your health and extra gold and experience. 

However, you have to keep in mind that the opposing jungler on your enemy’s side also thinks the same thing. 

Assuming you encounter the enemy jungler in the same camp, you can choose to fight back or disengage. When making your choice, you should consider how much health you have after clearing your camp and how strong your champion is against the enemy jungler. 

You should also consider your team’s willingness to back you up to secure the Rift Scuttler. 

Ganks

As a jungler, you can start planning your strategy during champion selection. While you won’t know how the lanes will turn out, you can have an idea which lanes of the enemy team you can take advantage of. 

One advantage you can look for is an enemy lane without crowd control. If you or your ally have crowd control, it will be easier for you to engage your opponents without stuns and slows. 

You can also take advantage of enemy champions that are weak or ineffective during the early game. 

Being a jungler, it’s your job to constantly check the map for gank opportunities to help your team gain extra experience and gold. Some things to consider are low enemy health, aggressive lane positioning, and vision. 

If you see that your enemies are in a bad position to help other lanes, quickly take advantage of it to secure a kill. 

When playing your first few games, don’t expect that you can execute all the things mentioned in this guide right away. Instead, continue honing your skills, and you’ll be a jungling force in no time. 

That ends our guide on how to play the jungler role in League of Legends. If you have questions, leave a comment below, and we’ll do our best to help.