With the new jungle out, I've been practicing and practicing my clear-times and early ganks. Thing is, I always feel way behind when I do.

The first clear is rather binary. Get double buff and be ahead of the laners but be dangerously low on health OR go for a single buff and fall behind in exp.

Machete is a must, which means an early game ganks I'm at an item disadvantage. Clearing is disastrous (failed a gank? Good luck recovering). With the new items, supports seem to have a better (stable) income compared to jungling (which varies in degrees to successful ganks/kills)..

I used to be the main jungler for my team S2 (we we're about 1300ish elo) so it's not like I'm bad [certainly not great] but I can't pull myself together and play some PvP.
*It's why I've been playing soo many bot games, trying to mechanically adjust myself to the new jungle*

I know stonewall said the best 'opener' now is madred's with boots+5, but after a clear and successful gank I feel lucky to get cloth and boots.

...Anyone on here got any hints or personal successes in the new jungle?

try playing shaco jungle he's surprisingly strong as you can get double buff with no help from team and minimal self dmg (NEVER PLAY AP SHACO) and if you get fed you will instakill their adc with q/w/AA.

JUST DO IT! While you can learn a lot from watching other people, the more you play, the better you get. Hopefully.....

You noticed how you must choose between either efficient clearing or early ganks.

Riot mentioned that is exactly how they wanted to change for the rules in the jungle lol :P

who are u using for jungle? for me machette +5 pots i can throw 2 ganks and clear my jungle with about 1k gold b4 going back with the new champ vi. Also have ur team damage ur buff for u in the beggining, thats probably why ur time in Bots is slow, nobody to help you damage buff.

oh also i usually have my team hard leash me so i dont have to smite first buff, just incase other teams jungler throws a lvl2 gank i can go steal his buffs lol

It's really dependent on the champion, low sustain champs like Jarvan aren't doing too well, medium sustain champs like Hec, Lee, Olaf and Nocturne do alright. They have the problem you have with getting dangerously low. High sustain junglers like WW and Nunu are doing really slow clears, but they're always good for a gank. Fast junglers like Mundo and Shyv do slightly better than medium sustain junglers.

The guys who really do well are the high sustain AoE junglers, Naut and Maokai. Pick up one of them if you want to learn the new jungle on easymode.

These are my findings anyway ~1500 elo