Reign of Gaming

Spending time with my friends and my girlfriend. Playing some games too.

I played Nunu a lot during Season 2. It was hella fun getting into their jungle, taking golems/big wraith/big wolf, then walking out like a boss. My main mistake was that I didn't ward often, so I wasn't getting a good hold of the timers and wasn't consistent at doing it. Boredom kills me, meh. I can certainly try Nunu again, haven't tried him in the Season 3 jungle, it will be interesting. I was talking about consistently killing the enemy jungler though, which is where I'm bad at.

I understand the point of Nocturne played as an over-ganker. Many times though, also due to the sightstone addition to the game, the lanes can be warded all the time, and I can only gank efficiently with ulti or risking a dive with a loop-gank. Normal ganks usually don't work these days, which is a good and bad thing. I also like giving my laners kills, so I have to kill the enemy jungler, hence the desire to go in his territory and give him some cuts.

I also see no objections with my builds, so I'll assume they're ok at least. Just a while ago, a friend tried my masteries/items/runes build for Nocturne (14/15/1, as/armor pen reds and quints) and got a pentakill on his first game. Says little for my build but it can't be a bad thing anyway.

And to those of you who say "sorry for the long post". Are you kidding? I love those long posts. I said I want to know and do everything about jungling and I mean it, so thanks a lot!

First things first, wow, thanks for the tips. Will really make use of them, thinking of taking notes for each champion's clear times and average damage output and playing accordingly. Warding wraiths/bottom river seems a must too and I only ward one of them, or none if my support wards the river. (what a noob, can't believe I've been doing this)

I like initiators, that's why I play Amumu, Maokai and Skarner (and I believe Iceborn Gauntlet is a great addition for all of them). The feeling when you dive an enemy tower, being tanky as hell and let your team wreck havoc at their carries is awesome. (where's your god now, squishy carry?) I think it's one of the aspects of jungle presence in general, diving opponents and making them feel insecure under their towers. I remember playing Alistar in season 2, when I reached 6, I dived enemies from behind their tower, knocking them into my laner and q'ing them to death while tanking the tower with ulti. Would never work against pros or people who can actually use flash, but it was tons of fun. Nocturne is my first jungler, I've played a lot with him and learned a lot with him, but I'm always playing as a pure ganker, while the champion can do a lot more than that. That's why I'm asking about counterjungling, it's my biggest mistake with Noc, I can get ahead and because of it I could sometimes turn the game into a 4v5 but I'm not doing it out of fear.

I'll keep practicing to get a hold of these tricks, will ward their wraiths every time after the first clear, play aggressively to test my limits each time and make use of each champion's clearing speeds. I'll play Lee Sin after I feel comfortable with all these. (I can't express how much I hate him and Shaco, I just can't.)

Counterjungling. So scared. No wonder my best champ is amumu, I only cj with him when I see the enemy jungler in a lane after I ganked. Probably the main reason I can't play lee sin. Can't pull of his combos, don't know when to go in the enemy jungle and kill the enemy, no nothing. So bad. Warding always helps me a ton though, can't believe I wasn't seeing that I wasn't warding enough for such a long time. So bad again.

My bad there too. I usually think of ganks as I clear the jungle the first time, not before the game starts. Not enough knowledge and experience on matchups. Sometimes I'm not satisfied with just a flash burn and I really want to see the enemy being killed. Insecure. Will fix that impatience too.

I watch OddOne right now, lol. Stonewall is also one of my favorites.

But I must admit, I don't record my games and the only time when I played 1v1 jungle against a friend is when we wanted to see the Rengar vs Khazix quest. (I won as Rengar thanks to putting too much pressure on his lanes, eventually got his head to.) I'm the only jungler among my friends so I don't know if I can really train with them, but I can certainly try and record my games.

I keep training all the time, that's why I'm here, to keep training better.

You're right. I don't ward their map enough and often. I remember games where I did ward their jungle because I wasn't afraid to go in and it really helped, not just me, but the whole team. Don't know how efficiently I can do this with Amumu, but I certainly have the guts to do it with Nocturne. I'm gonna hold onto that tip, will abuse it.

That's a point you got there. My timing either sucks or is godly. I have tracked down people in their own jungle and killed them really quickly, then got out with no scratches, but there have been times where I got into their jungled, waited 20 seconds, then 3 people came at me and I died before I said "wigglypuff". Are there some thought patterns behind that too, regarding matchups etc? Because that's how I think; a slower jungler can get ganked at his red, especially if I know he'll be at low health, a faster jungler will probably gank faster than me, so I expect him at my red or gank faster than me. I know I'm not always wrong, but I know I'm still missing something.

First post here, I'm already socially awkward and this is even more awkward. Oh well...

Let's start from who I am: I'm Morinmeth, a 1200-elo noob jungler that plays on EU West with his friends and I want to get better. I jungle since the beginning of summer and it's my main role, probably the only one I'm good at and really enjoy at the same time. Playing the game since Season 2, March of 2012, never really took it seriously until the end of summer. I've got 274 wins at normal. Since then, I've been watching streams like crazy, not only jungle-themed ones but also top-laners, mid-laners and ad-carries, just to know how everyone is thinking while playing these lanes. I've also tried to play in these lanes but I lost hard; too afraid to move or to do anything. My second role ended up being support.Taking a liking on this site, I read every article you guys post, always trying to look for ways to get better. And I must admit, I'm getting better. I understand the jungler is the tactician of the team; he has to make the right calls for dragon, baron, he has to understand how the enemy jungler is thinking and react to him, he has to ward, he has to gank, he has to sustain and farm, he has to hold and push lanes, he must be the great mind behind every move of his team. And I love that! Jungling is the only interesting role in LoL for me.

Why do I want to get better? For playing a good game. I hate games where I don't play well. I play with 9 more people, I want to be a good part of the team, even if we lose, I want to give my best for the team and make the game enjoyable for both me and the opponents. I hate flaming, I hate raging, done it a few times out of immaturity, then realised that more than 50% of the fault was mine and regreted everything

My max elo was 1337 by the end of the season 2. My 10 first ranked games were 7 wins/3 loses, then after 1-2 games I ended up playing with a couple of trolls and quit ranked games, frustrated. Then I got to thinking, that if I was better, I could have carried those games. So the fault, is not entirely theirs. In fact, the more I play, watch streams and read articles, the more I realise my mistakes and try to fix them in every game. I have ended up thinking that more than one third of my actions really, REALLY suck during a game. I also make more or less mistakes depending on which champion I play. My best bet is always Amumu, you can call him my main. I started jungling with Nocturne, so I can do some stuff with him too and I'm also decent with Skarner and Maokai. During season 2, I could build these champs depending on my opponents, now in season 3, I'm still confused with the builds: On skarner/amumu/maokai, I always go spirit of the ancient golem, then iceborn gauntlet, taking the major components of each item first, to maximize defenses, then finish the items to get the effects and sometimes I start a 3rd item in between, if I need some kind of defense I find I lack. On Nocturne, I build Avarice blade to get more gold, brutalizer for damage, spirit visage for tankiness and black cleaver/atma's/warmogs for the final cut. It's an awkward build but I find that these items that are really cheap (atma's usually costs about 1800 gold), are good on Nocturne, so far at least. But these are just my tests, could forget them anytime for new and better builds.

My real problem is decision-making and that's what keeps me at this elo and I'm not going in ranked again until I win enough normals in a row to prove myself I'm good enough. For some reason, playing with Amumu leads me to good decisions, while playing Lee Sin (my by-far worst champ ever) leads me to a ton of bad decisions. This is exactly my problem and I want to fix: General decisions and thought-paterns. how do you read your enemy jungler? How do you read your enemy lanes? What thought-paterns exist and I should be aware of? How do you counter each one or at least disrupt it enough? How do I pick a different rune page before the game starts, so that I have the advantage? How will I know which lane my enemy is going to camp? I always have in mind something wingsofdeathx said once, that in low elo, top lane is carrying games, so I like ganking top a lot, but if my enemy camps bot, the only choice I have is to outfarm, outgank and outsmart him or else, I lose my "lane". To put it bluntly, how do you become a better tactician in-game? I want to know everything about it!

Sorry for long post, meh. If tl;dr, don't mind me, just my awkward, first-time-in-this-site, ranting.