League of Legends - Jungle Pathing Guide - Don't Waste Time

Hi there lads! Today our LoL boost team will talk about jungle pathing. During our duo queue boost sessions we saw many junglers struggling because they either gank too much, don’t gank at all or can’t farm efficiently the jungle. With this guide, you will be able to maximize your gold income and help your team - it’s time for your placement games since the ranked season will begin soon, so stay focused!

Jungling For Dummies

First of all, let’s keep in mind a few basic pieces of information. Camps respawn after 100 seconds, and the timer starts after the last monster is killed - according to our LoL elo boost team, the most efficient way to counter jungle is to take an enemy camp leaving only one small guy alive. The enemy jungler will need to go there, get only a small amount of gold and XP, and wait 100 seconds to clear that camp again.

Try to keep a mental note of the remaining time before the respawn, so you won’t waste time waiting for the respawn. Now the map shows the available camp, and it’s way easier. Second, camps level up every time they are cleared. If you ignore your krugs for 6 minutes, they will stay at the same level and provide significantly less XP and gold.

Finally, the monster on the red buff side is way stronger than the camps on the blue buff side. Keep this in mind to avoid awkward deaths at level 3 when playing a champion with bad clearing speed. According to our LoL Elo boost team, nothing can make you tilt as hard as dying to the wolves three minutes into the game, since your allies are likely to be discouraged.

Jungle Routes

Standard Route

Let’s start with the most used path. Here you start smiting Gromp, clear your blue buff, go straight to red using smite, and finally gank at level 3. On the other side of the map, the same story: start smiting krugs, red buff, smite blue and level 3 gank.

Using this path makes getting first blood pretty easy: you can gank pretty early in the game and you have the extra damage and slow from red buff and cooldown reduction from blue. Starting at gromp is the optimal option since the passive buff will help your clearing time and you can get some health back smiting the red buff.

However, according to our elo boost team this path has a great disadvantage: is really predictable. If you are facing strong early game duellers that are likely to invade you (Lee Sin, Nidalee, Shaco), they will assume that you are following this path. Rely on wards or just change your path, even sacrificing a buff if necessary. Since the recent changes buff is worth as much as a normal camp, so it’s better to play safely.

Hardcore Farming

This route is preferred by jungle with low ganking potential in the early game, like Fiddlestick or Rengar. Basically you start smiting Gromp, clear Blue buff, wolves, raptors, smite the red buff to get some health back, and finally clear krugs before recalling. On the other side, you start at Krugs and finish at Gromp.

Following this path means that you will have enough gold for the machete upgrade and a ward or two pots on your first back, and it’s the perfect start to get a devourer. According to our LoL boosting team, the downside is that you won’t be able to help your teammates with an early gank.

Level 2 Gank

This is the ultimate cheese strategy. You start at gromp or krugs, clear the closest buff and gank top or bot at level two. Chances are that your enemies won’t have wards or will overextend since nobody expects a level two gank.

During our duo queue boost sessions, we saw only strong early game junglers like Jarvan 4, Lee Sin, or Xin Zhao performing this strategy properly, since you need not only a decent clearing time, but also the ability to gank with only two spells.

It’s a high risk, high reward strategy. If it works, it’s guaranteed first blood. If you get nothing out of it, the enemy jungler will try to steal your buff and you will be behind in experience and gold. Consider the pros and cons before using it in your placement games!

Early Vision Control

You probably saw this path often in the LCS, but it’s viable also in solo queue, as it provides vision control in the early game. You start smiting gromp, clear red buff, wolves and smite the raptors. At this point, you can recall and have enough gold for a first item and a vision ward to place deep into the enemy jungle, and true sight from the raptors buff.

Keep in mind that there is an important trade-off: you are sacrificing early game pressure for vision control. However placing the ward in unconventional spots, like the bush shown in the picture, means that your pink ward will be unnoticed for a long time - hell, it’s not uncommon to check that bush after 10 minutes or more. In higher elo this extra vision will give you more information about the enemy jungler and extra safety for your laners, but for lower elos ganking early is more important.

Buff Steal

This is a pretty risky strategy, but pulling it out flawlessly will result in a great advantage in the early game. It’s pretty simple: if you are playing a champion with a strong level 2 power spike, like Lee Sin or Shaco, clear your first buff or camp and go straight to the enemy buff. Now there are two options: if the enemy started on your same side, you can try to kill him while he is tanking damage from the buff. If he started on the opposite side, you can steal the buff and secure a three buff start for your team.

To prevent a buff steal from those mentioned champions, try to coordinate with your laners and place a ward in the river - your allies will have enough time to react and kill the jungler with your help.

Finally, our elo boosting team will give some tips to clear efficiently during the game. Always keep in mind the respawn time, your smite cooldown, the location of the enemy jungler, and the position of the enemy laners.

Give yourself an objective: if you want to make a bigger impact early, focus on ganking and clear camps only when the enemies are not overextending. If you adopt a farming-oriented playstyle, try to keep your power spikes in mind and the gold required to purchase your next item. If you want to invade as much as possible, try to get the vision in the enemy jungle to spot the enemy jungler as much as possible.

This ends our article. If you like our content, check our site in the next few days for more guides and tips. If you need help with your placement games, consider purchasing our boosting services and starting the ranked season in the best way possible!