I've been enjoying every role now that I've given them all proper play. Sometimes adc or support can be frustrating in soloqueue due to a reliance on a lane partner, but, all-in-all, every role has its fun perks.

Jungling can be especially rewarding and has definitely become a role I like to go to when I tire of another role.

When my allies are doing well I generally just jungle farm, help them push a little if they need it and play my game that way. I generally can't gank and help them secure kills, so I don't focus on it. As long as I make sure they don't get ganked, I'm in good shape.

In a game where two lanes are doing well, but one isn't, I'm usually helping the one lane more than the others, and making a difference.

If two lanes are suffering it's more taxing, but I can generally manage between them.

However, I've found that many many times I end up in a situation where ALL 3 lanes are doing poorly. At that point, I'll help bot and watch Top and Mid die. I'll go help Top, only to watch Bot die.

Meanwhile, I'm getting very little farm since most of my time is spent roaming and ganking and the ganks usually fail since my allies are in no condition to assist. I'm under leveled with no gold, and the game progressively gets worse.

I've heard that Junglers can be the key to reversing "**** hits the fan" situations like this, and, yet, I've found it nearly impossible to work out of them. It's one thing when my allies know to play passively, farm up, and we progress to a late game. It's quite another when they overextend in spite of my pings and continue to die again and again.

What should I do when these situations happen?

Edit:
Also, when should I buy Oracles in a not-risky but not-too-late manner? I don't want to do mobility+oracle "naked oracles", and yet, I find most of my ganks only force a lane to back off. While still useful, it would be nice to help get kills more consistently. Unfortunately, my main Jungler, Shyvana, really utilizies Wriggles for good jungling sustain, should I buy Oracles after Scepter but before Wriggles? After Wriggles? After HoG?

It's true that the jungler has the ability to make the greatest impact on how the game will go/change how the game goes, but do remember, you're still only 1 person, you can only be in so many places at once. I would suggest picking 1 (maybe 2) lanes, get them (and yourself!!! You need gold to function too, and even more so when trying to carry/help) back on track, and then co-ordinate a gank on the remaining lane(s). That's what I usually do anyways, but it's really reliant on whether your teammates (who you just helped get fed) care to help or not.

Or you could play someone snowbally and carry 1v5 too .

Yeah, maybe my issue is I play Shyvana, who doesn't seem to snowball well. I can also jungle Riven, but, for some reason, my Jungle Riven rarely seems to snowball as well as when I top with her. But maybe when/if I add some more snowball champs to the lineup I'll have that option. I do like playing Shyvana a lot though.

Junglers never really snowball well, they can get big, but they don't keep up with farm like lanes do. What you can do with jungling is really just keep ganking. One of the things I like doing is trying to end lane phase too, getting the gank off and then taking the tower early.

If you're playing Shyvana (who is not a very good ganker), your main priority should be crippling the other jungler and counter-ganking.

Here's how it works..

-Apply pressure in their jungle by stealing their buffs/camps. Always leave one minion in small camps, but completely clear large camps. Clearing large camps gives you the "timer" so you know when to show back up and contest it (or straight up steal it.)

-If their jungler ganks a lane on the opposite side of the map, you have 2 options: Either gank the opposite lane, or steal farm in the opposite side of the jungle.

-If you see them ganking a lane near your location, you should go in and counter-gank, as well as steal their jungle from that side of the map after you've chased them off, assuming they leave with low hp.

-Ping jungle locations constantly where the enemy buffs come up if you cannot get to them.. or if you're making your way to steal blue, tell your Mid to go help you take it.. Bot/Top can come help too.

-If one of your lanes is getting shut down, attempt to get the other lanes fed. You do not scale well into late game, but your AD carry does. If your AD carry is getting shut down, get Top and Mid fed. They can carry mid-game hardcore and either help you win or, or buy you enough time to get your AD carry farmed up.

-Gank before the enemy jungler. A successful level 2 gank can set you and the lane you ganked up for a dominant early game. Even missing out on 12 farm from having to recall can set a lane significantly behind.

-If you get First Blood, invest in an early oracles OR 1 kill and 1 assist OR 3 assists. Early oracles is expensive, but if you clear out 3 wards and get a double kill on bot lane because of it.. or even if you force enemy lanes to play more passively and spend more on wards, and furthermore, if you manage to secure an early dragon, it more than pays for itself.

I jungle Trundle, Jarvan, Rammus, Naut, and many others.. So for Shyvana I am not sure exactly what your build should be. I have jungled her but she's not one of my favorites. If you like how she plays, but dislike the fact that she has weak ganks, you may want to try Trundle. He's similar in his aggressive jungling style, but his ganks are much more brutal early game. Jarvan is more ganky and less counter-jungly, but he also scales much better into late game than Trundle or Shyvana and can fulfill the "tank" role a little better. Tanky junglers like Rammus and Nautilus you basically need to farm and gank. Counter-jungling really isn't your cup of tea, so you have to invest in more wards and depend upon your team to help protect your jungle, as well as counter-gank other lanes.

For Trundle and Jarvan, I go with the following core build:

Boots + 3 pots
Wriggles
HoG
Phage

Somewhere in there, I get an optional Oracles and buy several wards as well as a health pot any time before Wriggles. After Wriggles I don't need any pots. If my Mid AP carry needs Blue, sometimes I will invest in an early Philo Stone, because I need the Mana to stay on the battleground longer.

One route I have used a lot at lower Elo (Sub 1500) was to start Wolves, Blue, then immediately rush to enemy Red, and either steal it and gank top/bot, or wait for the enemy jungler (If I am sure I can kill them), and steal Red and kill them. If you start Red, you can gank at level 2 assuming you have a champ who can do that. (Mundo, Shyvana, Shen, Rengar, etc)

If you start blue and enemy starts Red, you should invade their blue and steal it, then immediately go to your blue, give it to your AP Mid, then go to your Red, pick that up, and gank.

Hope this helps.

That's a standard jungle build, and usually what I get for Shyv. If I don't feel I need to be tanky immediately I may get wits and mallet before HoG, but I've usually been mixing HoG in after or just before phage, sometimes before wriggles if I really need to.

I knew about Shyv's counter-jungling abilities, but, to be honest, it's always frightened me as I don't know which junglers I can take on and which ones I can't, I've often been punished for going in. However, I've also heard the tip of stealing minions when they gank, but not utilized it. I'll try your tips and see if I can more effectively bring back some of those losses as Shyv to wins. Thanks :-)

Basically, if they are not a top tier jungler, you can counter-jungle them.

Whether you can duel them or not depends upon who they are... Udyr, you should stay away from. Lee Sin is difficult because he's so mobile and can punish you. Skarner is VERY difficult to counter-jungle. You could probably handle Nunu, but he will just run away and slow you when he gets low.. and if you try to escape, he can catch you.. That said, he's dependent upon his cooldowns and damage, and if he can't kill you with weak auto-attacks and burst from his E, then he can't kill you. Trundle will win vs Shyvana, and win hard if he has his ulti. Mundo you could do okay against early game, but after he has his ulti you probably want to avoid him. Cho'gath pre level 6, you should have no problems with. Jarvan depends upon how much HP and Mana he has. If he has full HP, Blue, and Red, he would be difficult for you. It would be close. But if he's 3/4 hp, and low on mana, you could probably handle him. Nocturne is the same thing. Jax, stay away from. Jax is one of the best duelist. Tryndamere Pre-Level 6 should not be a problem, Xin I'm not sure on because I don't play him or Shyvana. Rammus or Amumu you'd probaby be fine against. Nautalis you could probably kill early game but you would have to worry about his teammates coming to help. If they come and help you have no way to escape from him.


Any lower tier or non-standard junglers you should invade constantly. Punish them for playing anything other than top tier.

One of the things you have to realize is that in Normals and at Low Elo, most people do not know how to counter-jungle properly and they do not know how to defend against it very well. You won't start running into people who can properly defend against it until you boost your Elo up quite high. If you're already quite high, then you would be seeing counter-jungling you a lot more.

This is another reason I like Trundle.. he's a great duelist. If you are playing Trundle or Jax, you can counter-jungle just because you can kill almost anyone 1v1. I have had no problems shutting down Lee and Nocturne, or anyone else for that matter. Only champs I really have a problem CJ'ing are Udyr and Skarner, for obvious reasons. After level 6, Udyr and Trundle usually comes to a stalemate. I can disengage at any time and so can he.


Bottom line, if you are NOT playing Shyvana as a Counter-jungler then you are playing her sub-par. If you just want to farm the jungle and gank or if you are afraid of CJing you should be playing someone like Nautilus, or Amumu, or Rammus, or even Hecarim. You are playing a character which excels at CJing and not taking advantage of it. That's like playing Caitlyn and staying within Melee range in team fights.

Oh, no, I LOVE the concept behind counter-jungling, just had some very bad experiences with it that have made me "shy" about it, so-to-speak.

It takes practice. There will be games you lose because you counter-jungled too much, or tried counter jungling the wrong person. Likewise, there will be a lot of games you win BECAUSE you counter-jungled. Use these as learning experiences. It took me 2-3 games going against Skarner to learn not to try to counter-jungle him.

CJing is the only true form of XP/Gold "denial" in this game. Without farm/XP, enemy junglers will be severely crippled.. Which means you deny them the power to gank lanes which means you deny them ANY income, what-so-ever.. Which means they end up being completely useless to their team. Essentially, if done properly, Counter-jungling can turn the game into a 4v5.

"Sometimes adc or support can be frustrating in soloqueue due to a reliance on a lane partner" - This is exactly the mentality problem with soloqueue, everyone thinks that just because you queue by yourself that somehow you must find a way to win the game completely on your own shoulders which is impossible and people really need to get that. Sure you're going to get trolled, and you're going to find lesser skilled players in your elo bracket but that isn't the same as just assuming everyone is a derp and not trying to work with them.

"I generally can't gank and help them secure kills, so I don't focus on it." - I'm hoping you meant that if your team is somehow winning every lane and pushed to tower that you can't gank in which case that still isn't 100% true. One of the junglers roles is to help weak lanes, lanes that either got countered or are just bad to begin with. You definitely want to be trying to force the enemy to burn their summoner spells or keep them from denying your team as much as possible by being in their grill.

If every single lane is losing, it's not your responsibility to save them. Most of the time when this happens you will have people who should be winning losing, this is part of accessing your teams strengths and playing to them. If you have a lane that should be losing and is, then you should be there trying to make a difference. I'll give you an example: If you have a top yorick going up against a fiora and he's losing, ignore that lane because yorick should be stomping all over fiora all day long and your team mate just isn't up to par.

Ganking isn't something you're suppose to be doing every second, if the lanes are all losing use the above to narrow it down. You still want to focus on your own metrics, getting your jungle cleared so that someone like shyvana or mundo can't come in and clear it for you and getting a solo lane effectively. Think of ganks as quality over quantity. If you aren't sure you can force them to blow a summoner or get a kill then you're prolly wasting your time. That being said if you notice that your lanes are all pushed, you can easily go help them reset the lane and gain that experience assuming they're not just tower hugging at full health. Use your allies going back to well as time to catch up, but don't push their lane, just last hit and get the extra gold / xp.

If you have the full derp team, try to remember the game is about fun, as dyrus once said this is when you start talking about lolcats cause there's nothing you can do about it. That being said the majority of your games will not be full derp. There's a saying in poker, if you've been sitting at a table for 30 minutes and you can't spot the sucker then you're it... Well in soloqueue, if you queue up and 8 out of your 10 games are " derp " games then you are the derp.

If you are looking for High Elo Tips, Tricks, and Guides check out my youtube channel @ http://www.youtube.com/drwaddy