Oh yeah. Every time I see smite in blind pick in 3s, I laugh. The combination of jungle camps that can put a big dent in your health, and being so close to the lane, means that a just warding the jungle will get you a couple free kills- which quickly snowballs into winning the game.

Yes, jungling can work in a premade team, with someone who knows how to deal with the problems of jungling on TT. But the map just isn't designed well for it compared to SR- Jungling is a huge risk in 3s. Simply trusting your teammate to 2v1 is a big step- particularly if you don't know beforehand whether they can handle it or not. Then you have to trust them to help you control the jungle- because of the map setup it's very easy for laning opponents to invade and kill you if your allies are just AFK farming the lanes.

To compound things- there is no competetive scene for TT- people don't get to watch and see what the pro's are doing, and nobody has really popularized a developed metagame. Everybody just picks bruisers because they're inherently strong enough to beat any other champ type in a straight fight, when you have no other developed metagame strategy (e.g. 2 CC heavy tanky champs and a tank-breaker type carry who specializes in taking down bruisers absolutely destroys- if people know how to play their roles)

Jungling in a 3 gives your team a huge advantage imo if you 1v2 can hold there own, but I find that you are quite vulnerable to being counter jungled/killed while you are jungling. All they need to do is put one ward in the middle of drag to see 2/3s of your jungle route so it's quite easy to find you >.<

the team composition that gave me most problems while getting to have jungle control was Maokai+Nautilus+Vayne, theys till didn't have a full time jungle either of mao and Nautilus would "take turns" at jugle camps and then both of them would mass cc anyone on my team so that vayne could clear us.

granted the team weakness was pretty clear: without vayne they didn't have enough damage output to actually take a tower or stopping us from taking one.
in short: they needed to sacrifice damage output for jungle control.

maybe if there was a jungle below bottom?

what if you added a blue buff?

or how bout make it so that the camps spawn at the same place every time and that its not just random?

I believe this would make jungling on 3s worth much more.

But the problem is for the new camps the map would need a complete redesign to be fair to all people. Why not just create a new map for this then.

The risks outweigh the benefits unles you are certain every person you are playing with is competant in their role. And I don't like the TT jungle so I try and avoid that role while the people I play with have never even tried it. After thousands of games.

3v3 jungling provides a huge advantage!

I love all the answers I'm getting. Just to clear things:

1) I 100% agree that jungling is hard in 3s. I've been playing it for a while now and am aware of the changes we've made

2) The goal of this thread was mostly to start a discussion regarding the various merits/disadvantages of jungling. My team always has a jungler because we can handle 2v1 lanes with ease most of the time.

3) The jungler is certainly way more difficult in 3s, but does that mean it's not worth it? The advantages that the buffs confer is just too large to ignore. Dragon is pretty much like getting Baron + acing the enemy team when it comes to the gold you get.

I solo top as Yi/Jayce/Trynd/Olaf/Darius and usually always build lifesteal/attack speed in some form or another with those champions, and after soloing top til about level 10, I start clearing top jungle and returning to lane, or running off to gank. I win those matches more than I lose.

@3, it definitely is worth it, but I almost never see a jungler soloing dragon.. ever. Unless the rest of the team manages to distract in a 2v3, the jungler will almost never get the chance to get dragon alone. It's too risky, especially at early levels. And, at least in the mindset of the casual 3s player, if you need more than one person to securely take dragon, why bother having a jungler anyway?

The only real problem (besides the major booboos that the buffs give you) that I have with the jungle is its size. It's so small that, assuming both teams have junglers, the jungle will leave both junglers behind in gold and in levels unless they gank constantly.. and even then the other jungler can just jungle your camps while you gank, leaving you even further behind.

The whole jungle, to me, seems too much of a risk for too little of a reward.. at least when both teams have a jungler. If you're the team doing a 2v1 bot with a jungler, you'll come out ahead most of the time, but jungler v jungler just doesn't make sense to me. It's too small of a jungle, not enough of a chance for junglers to redeem themselves if they get behind.