I don't see enough general jungling guides online, even the so called 'beginner jungling guides" seem to focus on specific champions, and best champions to start jungling with. I realized after responding to a reddit post that I had outlined almost all of the core concepts you should be thinking about when jungling, and wanted to share them here as well, bullet point style so it's not a wall of text, and also looks stylish.
Now the main reason for this though is that while jungling, if you finish with a positive KDA ratio you may not be aware of the mistakes you did make, even if you lose. It's easy to feel like you didn't do anything wrong just because it's so easy for you to avoid the action, making the odd gank, and feeling like you contribute.
You want to do more then just contribute, you want to make an IMPACT. And this is how to do it with almost any champion. So here are some goals and objective while jungling and how to achieve them.
Did the enemy jungler control their buffs/ your buffs? Did you steal their red or blue or get yours stolen?
First, how to avoid having your buffs stolen, most common against things like shyv or lee sin, but if you catch them in your jungle early, even once, start warding your jungle entrances. If you see them come in through a ward placement, ping like crazy so your top/mid/bot comes to help you. Depending what jungler you are you may be able to duel them, but they may also just escape. Sometimes it's better to wait for a lane to come to guarantee a kill.
For stealing their buffs, map awareness and timing are key, as well as having a strong counterjungler. I like to use xin, shyv, or mundo if I'm going to be invading a lot. Watch the map, if you see their jungler gank bot, run in their top jungle and ward blue buffs bush. That way when they go for it, you can even just hide in the bush and smite steal it, then jump on them and pick up a kill.
Remember to let your mid/top/bot know through pings when you're invading. Same strat works for red, their jungler gank top? Invade bot.
Also, watch for the buff timers, if you see their red come up, let everyone know and go for it, stealthily, knowing they will prob be there when you get there. This is how you gank something without a lane (how do you kill that which has no life?), catch it in their own jungle.
Also, to be noted, if you have a solid team with you, like you see them following your pings, and reacting well, you can counterjungle with pretty much anyone. A strong counterjungler helps, but say you're maokai and jax follows you to their blue, your root will still grab him a kill.
THAT'S THE FIRST POINT. As you can see, it's a little more complex then just "watch your buffs, try and take theirs." All of these you've probably heard of being important, but I want to focus more on why it's important and how to achieve it. Obviously every time you steal a buff you deny their team that buff, as well as the gold and experience with it. For crazy early buff steal, if you start blue you can go straight to their red and camp that bush until they come. This is risky as all hell if they decide to invade you're red, because you just wasted a ton of time. But, when it works, it works very very well. Works best with Shaco, and will make opponents rage.
Also, if they start blue, remember their second blue will be up around 7:15, so start moving there then.
SECOND POINT, starting to think I should've done this as a series. Actually, you know what, I WILL!
Just kidding. The wall of text continues.
The second point is about dragon and baron control, this is YOUR JOB as jungler. Support is supposed to ward dragon yes, but shit gets fucked up in lane sometimes, and sometimes they just can't get out to do it. DON'T BITCH ABOUT WARDING DRAGON. Just do it. Don't whine, don't QQ, just fucking do it and win the game.
Dragon needs to be warded at about 8-9 minutes, and baron should start being warded 20-22 minutes. These are approximately the times its possible for a team to take either objective.
When to take dragon, well this is a little trickier, and all comes down to game sense and good calls. You can always try to make a play bot to get dragon, either through a lane gank or tribrush gank (river is always fucking warded, tri doesn't usually give them time to react.) If you get a kill ON THEIR AD you can drag. If you get a kill on support and AD is too low to do anything then you can drag. If their AD escapes unscathed and their jungler is nearby and their mid roams to dragon you're fucked. If their top is mia, could be bot, just don't do it. Like I said, map awareness is key. Knowing when you can take dragon and how to do it is probably the most important skill you can have as a jungler before twenty minutes. Then it's baron.
Baron follows basically the same formula, but more loose. What I follow for making a safe baron call is are we two champions ahead? Did we kill 2 and lose none? Kill 3 and lose 1? But then it gets more complicated of course. THE ABSOLUTE MINIMUM YOU NEED to take baron is your AD carry, and you the jungler. You NEED damage and smite. And if it's only two of you doing it, they need to all be dead, fighting even one enemy champ while also fighting baron is a surefire way to throw the game.
This also brings me to a very important part of jungling, learn to smite on time, everytime. That means if smite does 495 true damage and baron takes even one auto attack past 495, you missed it, and it could've been stolen. and that is embarrassing. Or, if your jungling cho it gets REALLY TRICKY, because then your figuring out how much feast+smite does, so you can effectively smite baron down from 1.5k health. This is just one of those small things that take you from good jungler to great jungler.
This all comes with play though, but this gives you a general idea how buffs work when jungling, and what your job is associated with them. I work soon, but tomorrow I will try to make a post about oracles, warding to track their jungler, and ganking. Until then WORK ON YOUR BUFF CONTROL.
GG NOOBS.
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