I just played a game as Jungle Udyr. I was 3-0 with him in Ranked and brought myself up to promotion matches in Bronze III. However, my very first promotion match was exactly the nightmare I've been unfortunate to have in the vast majority of my ranked games thus far. My "lane" was winning while all of the others were losing. Badly. Thus it was one me to step up and solely carry the game.

I failed.

At the end of the game, Garen, who was top against Volibear, tried to blame me because I didn't gank enough (once in his lane, in fact). I admit that I don't gank very often, but that was one of the reason I picked Udyr because he can counter-jungle and I can make the difference that way.

I have a problem with Ganking because I always seem to choose to the wrong time to gank. For instance, in that game, the lanes were nearly always shoved towards the enemy tower. There were times when they were shoved back, of course, but I was never really near when that happened. I was never there when fights were happening.

I was upset because Garen didn't seem ready to admit that he didn't handle being ganked very well and fed kills to the other team. However, I still realize that plenty of the fault was mine.

I told myself my objective was to keep the Nasus down, but, with his ganking pressure, I'm not sure how well a job I did. I was up at 172 cs (most on my team), but he had 95 cs so I couldn't completely stop him from getting his jungle though I did take most of his blue buffs away.

But in the end, I couldn't do what needed to be done.

I did some split pushing and got a couple turrets down. In the first team fight I could join I peeled Nasus off but made the mistake of chasing him a bit too far. In the next team fight I peeled Varus and Sona off and then ran back to help my team but Mordekaiser and Nasus had ripped through them. I did my best to clean up but Varus had returned with Sona and I had to back off.

That was pretty much how the whole game went. It ended shortly after.

I know that I failed, but I'm at a loss as to what I can do to make it better. How do I predict the right time to gank? I have tried my best to get better at feeling the flow of the game, but I still can't figure out this detail.

As far as Runes/Masteries you aren't that bad, aside from Udyr should probably be 9/21 as he gets kited easily and needs the tenacity/slow reduction in the defensive tree as well as the other stats that prove to be very valuable.

Item wise it seems like you build no damage on Udyr, he has a nice kit that benefits from tankyness, but you should really think about buying a core damage item before going straight tank like you do. I'm not an Udyr master and they've changed a lot about him recently so I'm not quite sure what the best build for him is.

Also, if you're going to buy boots, buy boots of Mobility. They will improve your clear times and GREATLY help your ganking ability. Boots of Swiftness are fine/good if the enemy team has a lot of slows or a Nasus, but generally they are better suited for other champions.

All of this aside, I'll go over the usual problems and you can decide what it is that is holding you back.

1.) If you're split pushing, is the other part of your team dying? You should always be with your team for a fight, split pushing only works if you get an objective and your team doesn't die.

2.) Are you doing your best to snowball your lanes as a jungler? Your job is to get your lanes fed and let them win the game for you. Try your best not to take the APC's kill, and do everything in your power to give the ADC every kill you can. ADC's are so item reliant that if one gets a double kill he can win the lane from there on out.

3.) Are you warding? You should have at least one ward on you at all times, I usually buy two when I go back to base. Its best to ward common paths you see your opponent jungler ganking from. Ganks are powerful, counter ganks are even more so as when they are ganking they will put themselves in a vulnerable position. Wait for them to start to engage and run in and bam. Double kill and moral boost.

4.) Do you easily get frustrated when your lanes start failing and you keep trying to gank without success? Is your jungle farm going untouched? You need to keep farming at all aspects of the game, learn to keep calm despite what's happening. Freaking out will only lose you the game.

5.) Are you playing only champions that you know you are good with? You should have 2 champions for each role that you know you won't feed with. Then I would specialize in 2 roles, one main, and state those two are your best. Yet, be willing to go where needed as a happy team > Disgruntled team.

6.) Are you teamfighting well? This one is hard to explain because each team fight is different. Sometimes you want to focus their carries, sometimes you want to protect yours, sometimes you want to kill that fed ass Riven that's just pubstomping your entire team.

7.) Are you personally doing well and keep getting caught by an entire team? Positioning on the map is so very important, know where everyone is and don't die needlessly.

8.) Is the map warded? No? Why aren't you? Don't blame the support for not warding, they should but its bronze good luck with that. IF you want to get out, ward the hell out of the map. Vision wins games, Bronze is no different.

9.) Don't chase unless you know the other team is dead. Especially with Udyr. Udyr got a lot of quality of life improvements, but he's still easy as hell to kite around the map.

10.) Are you distributing your buffs? First blue is obviously yours, after first blue I would give it to mid. Even if they are 0/3, if you show mid that you have faith in them that might be the confidence boost they need. Also, with Blue Buff over the other champion, they can spam their spells and the opponent may overextend to get that kill on them and die in the process. After the ADC starts leaving Lane, you should always give him the Red Buff. These are always situational of course, sometimes you need to take a buff so the enemy does not get it.

11.) This is the most important one: Are you raging? I don't care if Teemo Top is 0/10, don't rage. Try and reason and understand that you have been there before and realize they are having a bad game. Do your best to sympathize with them, even if they do not contribute much to a team fight, one well placed shroom can save a life or kill an enemy. Every champion has their utility that is useful to a fight, if you rage at them they are no longer useful and don't care about the game and will continue to feed.

Awesome post Sephiroth.

Which core damage item would you recommend? Like a trinity force or are we talking smaller? I build my Udyr jungler very similar to the OP, with the defensive masteries as you mentioned except 0/21/9 for the buff duration.

Think I'm going to agree with this. A couple Udyr guides list the swiftness boots but the mobility speed stays in effect until you're hit by anything so they're definitely better for ganks.

I'm guilty of not warding much as a jungler, but where do you find the extra inventory space?

One thing to touch up on is that it's better gold taking out minion waves than creep camps so if your team is on the other side of the map, or for whatever reason you're running by an empty lane with creeps don't be afraid to go in and grab that gold.

I hope a Udyr isn't getting caught by the whole team ^_^ best escape champ in the game that I've played lol.

The OP mentioned "peeling" during team fights, how exactly do you peel 2 people out of a fight?

They had a Nasus. Also, boots of swiftness are good for Udyr because he can get kited. Boots of mobility don't keep the speed when you take damage, swiftness doesn't. It's pretty standard to build them on him.

I got an objective every time except the last one. Usually a team fight did happen at some point with the fight going about even (because I pulled someone away) but with them often coming out slightly ahead. However, if I have to run back to help my team then we don't get an objective AND they lose the fight. There's a reason I continued with the split pushing.

How was I supposed to? I only had one kill in the game, which I got in the team fight where my team couldn't protect the adc, even though I peeled off their adc. The lanes were almost always pushed when I got to them. Was I supposed to sit in the bush for a minute hoping the lanes would get shoved back? Seems to me like I'm wasting farm time at that point.

Of course I was. If you look at my gold and what I bought you'll realize there's enough of a disparity to tell you exactly how many wards I bought. You say I should have built more damage, but if I bought enough wards to make up for our support not warding then I would have had even less and made even less of an impact in fights. I bought wards, but I can't ward the whole map without help.

People don't listen when I say they need to help with vision control.

How could I have had most farm on my team if I stopped farming? I didn't stop farming. But yeah, how was I supposed to gank? There's the question I bring up in this thread. Every time I was ready to gank, my lane wasn't. There's a timing issue I'm not getting and I'm having difficulty trying to figure out where I'm wrong.

If I get Udyr, why wouldn't I pick him? I know I'm good with him. He's not my only jungler, but I've been able to carry in the past with him and most teams need that tanky front-line champ because they almost never pick them. I'm failing to see why he was bad for our comp.

Well, that seems to be part of the problem. Doesn't it? In most of the games I carried as Udyr I was able to team fight well because I dived their carries and took them out. In this game, it didn't matter who I dived because everyone on their team was more fed than my team which meant that any of them could kill anyone on their team except me. And I still couldn't 1v1 any of them, I just didn't die under a little focus.

I only got "caught out" once at the end trying to split push. I didnt' die. Leona got caught out just after it trying to save me when I didn't need saving. I only feel bad because technically I was "partly" responsible. But I would have hoped my team realized that I was t he only one that hadn't died and that I would be fine. I was fine. I got "caught out" but that merely meant I relieved pressure off of midlane while taking a little bit of damage.

I warded it. I could have done better, but I also had to try to make up for our team's lack of damage.

The biggest mistake I made in that game was chasing Nasus. My team didn't let me forget it. In spite of all the mistakes they made, Garen harped on me for chasing Nasus and leaving the team. I realized the mistake as soon as I made it. I corrected it by the next fight. It still wasn't enough. That one incident didn't lose the game for us. Why focus on it?

This, it's also why I was taking the enemy blue. The only reason I couldn't take his reds as well was because I was trying to keep some pressure off of the lanes as well. We were losing hard. I think being split between trying to help my team and trying to do my job (counter jungling) was part of the problem for the loss. But I don't think it was the whole thing, nor do I think it was the biggest factor.

I don't rage. I didn't rage. I asked Garen to not focus on other people's mistakes, but even then I wasn't negative. I've always been a positive player in League, it's why I have a green ribbon. Fact of the matter is that no matter how nice I am. No matter that I've not died. I can never get teams to listen to me or do what I ask and they're always ready to jump on me for a mistake like chasing Nasus.

The confusing thing is. When I'm bot lane as support or top lane solo, I generally have a good feeling of when a gank is going to happen. I get that feeling and I'm geberally right. But as a jungler I just see all of my lanes, generally shoved, and a dark jungle and I don't know what will happen. I try to ward the enemy jungle, but then often fall behind in items because I need to ward objectives as well and then I can't do as well in team fights. I feel like this was my first big test after really applying myself in the jungle and I failed it. The worst part is I really can't look at a replay because they're broken and show a black void instead of terrain right now which makes them confusing and problematic for viewing.

Look, I'm only trying to help when saying this. That's why I'm here, to offer advice and share my own experiences.

It seems like you're making excuses for why you lost. Bottom line is you needed to play better. If you end a game saying "There is nothing you could have done better" You won't improve.

Unless you have a full deck, you have room for wards. 2 wards > 25 AD. Trust me. If you're playing Udyr, you could buy a Wriggles which gives you a free ward. If you don't want to go that route, then buy wards.

If there's a game where its obvious warding is going to be a big issue, I will buy a sightstone. Its a nice 360 Health and will pay for itself because of the wards it saved you.

I don't care how bad your team is, even bad teams can see a team of 5 coming in on them. If there isn't a ward, you're giving away free kills because your opponent is warding.

As far as first item, Udyr is a tough one for me as I don't play Udyr. I have a friend who does, but I don't like his build but he uses:

Wriggles->ManaMune->Frozen Fist->Spirit Visage->Situational

His basis behind it is that once he finishes his Muramana he can heal absurd amounts while in Turtle form and the Spirit Visage just makes it that much more ridiculous. The Frozen Fist just keeps people from getting away from Udyr and helps him do more damage.

I would watch some high elo streamers who play Udyr and find out what they build. If you look at LoLKing(http://www.lolking.net/champions/udyr) you will notice his most common items and how often they are won with.

Again, Udyr isn't my champion so I don't know the intricacies of his play or build. Also he's not "cookie cutter" build yet because he's just been fundamentally changed and people are still figuring out what works best with him.

Again, wards alone will get you out of Bronze. I'm just saying. If you can catch people alone(Ping them, your team may hate you to death but they can't deny Ashe sitting alone soloing dragon with all 5 of you close is a bad enage)

I play Udyr occasionally to and it took me a while to realize he's not like a lot of other junglers like Volibear or Skarner who have a way of pulling a champion back into the fight (with their drags/flings). All he has is a stun, which means you have to make sure that you can A) burst them down quick or B) make sure that they are pretty far from their tower. So you have to be constantly communicating with the lanes. When I play Udyr I have to communicate more with my team then why I play Support, which is saying something.

I think your main problem is team communication.

My Item build is Usually rushing a Spirit of the Ancient Golem and the appropriate boots to counter whatever the enemy team has a lot of. If I have a good support that wards like cray then I wont really bother having one or two wards in my slot at a time, but if not I'll get a sightstone because as Seph said the health is very nice. IceBorn Gauntlets (or Frozen Fists as it's sometimes called) is literally the most broken item in the game on Udyr because it gives you a permanent AoE slow for his attacks that do damage. It's nice to chase people down with but also good for escaping as you can just hit the enemy with bear and they'll be slowed after (or you can hit a minion after using a stance and the AoE effect will make them either go through it and be slowed or have to walk around it and give you that extra second to get away). After that is just your usual tank items.

I don't know how else I can say this:

I BOUGHT WARDS.

How else am I supposed to make that point? I ward in every game I'm in. I wasn't making excuses, but your advice is so generic that it didn't address the question I asked. I know I could have played better. That's why I'm asking this question but if you're just going to give cookie cutter answers, they won't help me. Sorry.

I think you are not running your team fights well.

From the sounds of it you are chasing their ADC "out" of the fight, but unless you burst them down to kill them or keep them out of the fight for good you arent really helping your team. Since you seem to run tanky Udyr you should be helping "peel" for your ADC and APC. Mid to late game they are going to be the ones doing the most damage. So you should stay back with them and protect them, they longer they are alive the more damage they will do to the enemy team. Also if I am not mistaken your first attack in bear will stun opponents, this means you can "peel" multiple bruisers, tanks, assasins off your ADC\APC with it.

You need to tell your lanes not to push so you can actually gank them and get them some kills.

Also in the game you are talking about, all 5 of your opponents did some sort of magic damage, yet you had no MR.
You also built a 40% AS item but you have no AD. I understand you were trying to proc Phoenix (I assume) but the money on that item would be better spent an Aegis or other aura item that helps the whole team.
It is good that you took Nasus out by counter jungling him, but he still has more team fight presence even if slightly underfarmed.
As a jungler you would be better served to get your lanes fed then to get lots of CS yourself.

Cookie cutter answers are all we can give you unless we were to actually play with you or watch you Replays. What, do you want me to read your mind and tell you why you're bad?

I'm just telling you that based upon what I read from your responses and how you word what was going on that you seem to be making excuses for why you lost instead of realizing that you need to play better to get out from where you currently sit.

I was just stating the importance of wards. They will get you out of Bronze, you just need more games for it to work. Also, I would try my damndest to stay away from supports in Bronze as you will likely be supporting a dope.