In the Jungle

Or: Why are people stupid?

So the other day I'm pretty much ecstatic because I've finally pieced together how to run Jungle Nocturne (and not die horribly), which is fantastic, because our team didn't really have a jungler before, and now it does, because I can accomplish that.

So yay. Got a runesheet running (ARP Marks & Quints, Armor Yellows, CDR Blues) for it, a mastery sheet, the whole nine.

And then we don't have a fifth, so we pick up this Nasus.

Now, I'm playing a jungler and the other team does not have one. So I innocently ask who's gonna take the 2v1 lane, since one of the characters who could feasably do it is a newbie I know who'd never even gone solo mid before.

She handled it beautifully.

The Nasus, on the other hand, raged a bit at me, because apparently learning to jungle makes me 'not a team player.'

I kind of take offense at that.

The entire reason I spent so much effort, and so many monster deaths, learning this shit is to make my goddamn team stronger. It pisses me off greatly that someone would say I'm 'not a team player' because I'm not in a lane.

But I'm just now getting into the ELO range where people even consider jungling, and it's not the most intuitive idea out there, so it occurred to me that not everyone understands why you want a jungler at all, much less why I'm angry the Nasus was angry.

Why does it help the team to have a jungler?

So, anyone who's played LoL before understands the idea of solo mid. The squishy carry goes there and farms minions to get a massive XP and gold lead on the rest of the team, so by endgame they're obliterating face right, left, and center.

Now, imagine if you could field two solo lanes, while a third member of the team accumulates almost that much XP basically unbothered for the first six or so levels.

Guess what: you can.

Now imagine that someone on your team can roam around to all lanes - because it is their job to do so - and violate anyone they get close to, then melt back into the forest before retaliation can happen. Terrifying, isn't it?

Guess what? You can have that, too!

Jungling provides a massive XP boost to 2-3 members of your team, while placing a certain pressure on the enemy team. It can force them to play defensively and hug their towers even when you're nowhere near them, and it can easily, easily boost your team to victory. On the other hand, the jungler can easily, easily fall behind on experience and has to be the single most attentive player on the map, since they're effectively invested in saving every lane that goes badly at all times. The jungler will cover lanes when one or both occupants need to go to base for whatever reason, and the jungler should also help out the support with warding, which means potentially lost gold.

In short, learning to jungle is one of the single best things you can do for your team apart from learning to tank or support (and kudos to a tank or support who can do the job well), and doing it well is probably the single most team-oriented thing you can do.

I'm a team player, goddammit.

( This guide here helped me immensely and will help just about any other jungler, though you'll have to adapt the specific skills to your needs.

Jungling to excess for the lulz: