The Basics of Jungling

This is the Jungle. For many of you, it's where you go to shortcut your way to lane and you DIE HORRIBLY. For those of you like me who have to jungle from time to time, it's home.

What is Jungling? Jungling is a role in League of Legends where the "Jungler" gains his experience and levels by killing the monsters in the jungle camps such as Wraiths, Golems, and Wolves. Each team has their own jungle, divided by the River and Mid Lane. However, Junglers do not simply spend all of their time in the jungle killing things. The Jungler is a very important role for a team because of Ganks. To gank in LoL means to attack a lane unexpectedly with the help of your Laner(s) to kill your opponents, thus making it easier for said Laners to win their lanes and become stronger, which in turn will help achieve victory.

I cannot stress enough how important the Jungler is to a team. If you bother to look at the map, you'll see the Lizard Elder and the Ancient Golem. Both of these monsters carry a buff, named Red Buff and Blue Buff respectively. Red makes your attacks deal extra damage over time as well as slow your enemies. Blue, however, increases your mana regeneration and decreases the cooldowns on your spells. In the early game, it is imperative that the Jungler obtains these buffs for themselves, making their ganks more effective and making them more powerful. However as time goes on in the game, the Jungler can "donate" these buffs to their laners. Red usually goes to the Attack Damage Carry (ADC), while Blue typically goes to the team's Ability Power Carry, which is more often than not simply referred to as the Mid Laner. These buffs give a significant advantage to the laners over their opponents as well as making your team more powerful as a whole. Be careful, though, as if the player with the Blue or Red buffs is killed, their killer gains the buff on a refreshed timer.

As many of us know, Junglers start the game by getting one of these buffs, which will make it easier for them to clear their jungle and level faster. Different Junglers start at different buffs. For instance, a Jungler like Lee Sin would start at red buff because he is not reliant on the mana regeneration that blue buff gives. On the other hand, a jungler like Kha'Zix would start at blue buff because he is reliant on constantly using his abilities, which requires immense amounts of mana.

Junglers start their journey when the buffs spawn. All four buff camps spawn on the map in the same places at 1:55 on the clock. The clock is one of the jungler's most important resources, as everything in the jungle respawns on a timer. Buffs are on a 5 minute respawn timer. This means that once the buff monster AND the two smaller monsters are killed, the count will begin for 5 minutes, but it is up to the jungler to keep track of that. Knowing when your buffs spawn allows you to budget your time wisely and not waste any time. My rule of thumb with jungling is that you're either farming (killing jungle monsters) or ganking lanes (see above). Anything else in the early game is pointless.

The next important objectives for the jungler are the Dragon and Baron Nashor.

Dragon

Of course, I'll start with Dragon. Dragon spawns early in the game, but is very powerful. Alone during the early game, you will not be able to kill the dragon. However, with your allies, it becomes much easier. Killing the dragon grants what is called Global Gold to your team. This gold is spread out evenly among your teammates, and increases as time goes on. Dragon is a very important objective to control for your team, as the gold it grants helps your teammates build items throughout the game. Dragon is on a SIX minute respawn timer. This is easier to time because in the chat box, it will say "Your team has slain the Dragon!" and, if timestamps are enabled, which you can do in the settings, it will give you the exact time its death occurred. Add 6 minutes, and at that time when you return, you'll have a fresh new dragon to kill!

TIPS and Tricks for killing the Dragon:
1. Yasuo's Wind Wall blocks the Dragon's attacks, making it easy for your team to kill dragon without taking damage
2. At early levels, dragon does a LOT of damage to squishy/weak targets. To minimize the damage dealt to you and your allies, you can switch who the dragon is attacking. The key is moving close and then far away from the dragon, because it will attack the CLOSEST target. If done correctly, a team can switch dragon's target so frequently that it will not have time to attack, as it will constantly recognize a new person to attack.

Baron Nashor

Baron Nashor

Baron is a VERY powerful, VERY scary monster located on the top side of the river in a pit bordering the purple team's jungle. If you don't believe me, look at the map up top! More often than not, you'll want your ENTIRE team with you to fight this large octopus-snake-spider-worm-thing. Baron does a lot of AoE (area-of-effect) damage to your team, as well as periodically knocking you up into the air, and taking chunks out of whomever has the misfortune of tanking this sucker. If killed, all members of your team will receive some global gold (YAY MONEY). In addition, and more importantly, killing this Epic Monster will grant all currently alive members of your team the Baron Buff. Baron Buff gives health/mana regeneration AND bonus AP and AD. This buff and the fights between teams surrounding it can make or break a game wide open. When you die while you have the Baron buff, you simply lose the buff, and it is NOT transferred to your killer like with the Blue and Red buffs.

Baron, like dragon, will tell you in chat when it dies. Again, have TIMESTAMPS enabled. Baron buff lasts for FOUR minutes and respawns in SEVEN minutes after it's death.
TIPS and TRICKS for fighting Baron:
1. Don't do it alone
2. Make sure you have ward coverage of the area around Baron. Pink wards are essential, as they spot wards that your enemy may have placed.
3. The person on you team tanking Baron will receive a debuff which causes them to do LESS damage to Baron. As a result, make sure your ADC or midlaner as well as any "Percent-Health" damage dealer is NOT, I repeat NOT, tanking the Baron. Doing so will result in a slower kill of a very dangerous monster, making it easier for the enemy team to catch you in the act and possibly kill you all, kill Baron because you and your team just did all the work, and probably win the game because of it.

If you have ANY questions, feel free to post them in the comment section below! Enjoy your jungling and remember to use your health pots and ward!