Quote (Pr073u5 @ May 7 2012 03:13pm)

when im in top or mid its really nice for jungle to pop out early and just suprise the enemy in my lane if we get the kill awesome, if we get him low and he has to go back great, and even if it just reminds him that ur willing to come gank my lane before he gets crazy and trys diving me for a lucky kill thats still good. counterjungling is great and awesome to put them behind and deny buffs but even just showing ur face in my lane for 2 sec helps the lanes quite a bit
the other side of that is if u show where u are then they can counter u back

the main 2 champs i want an early advantage on is riven and jax so i can snowball into instagibbing the carry in teamfights and hopefully getting out

Quote (KirkHammett @ 7 May 2012 02:41)

Soo... I've thought and tested alot about this lately, but still I'm not sure what could be the best bet.

I've been playing the jungle position alot now, because I think that you have the most controll over the game (atleast at laning phase).

My favorite junglers are Nocturne, Alistar and Shyvana.


So when I see one or more lanes like this: Graves(Caitlyn/Corki/Sivir) + Soraka bot, Renekton/Olaf/Cho'Gath/Malphite top, Galio/Mordekaiser/Morgana mid

I think in this case counterjungling is always the best you could do. (Shyvana, Mundo, Skarner, maybe even Nocturne)

But when I see lanes like Olaf(my team) vs Akali/Ryze/Gragas top, Vayne + X bot, LeBlanc/Veigar/Ryze/etc mid, I usually feel that trying to snowball the lanes with heavy ganks and camping with 3 gold items + oracles + alot of wards is very very nice.

What I'm basically doing there is: wolves->blue->gank bot/top, mid, top/bot, depeding where the jungler of the enemy team is ofcourse, and also how the players react to the ganks (90% of the time they ATLEAST use their defensive summonerspell, to get away).

If there is nothing to gank yet, I go on with wraiths, wolves again, considering to do wolves/wraiths of the enemy jungle.

Stats of my jungle Alistar: Boots + 3 Pots start, 0/19/11 build for the most movement speed possible, Mercenary mastery for 24 extra gold on assist(could also consider getting Sage(40 bonus exp per assist/kill) which means something like 0/16/14). And runes something like: red->magic pen, yellow-> flat armor, blue-> flat spelldmg, big->flat spelldmg for boosting your early/mid, where you lack survivability and of course: junglespeed.

The start of Alistar jungle isn't too heavy if the enemy team is expecting the ganks. But some more time into the game this gets tricky.

Now let's say there were some not so successful or even no ganks at all.
What I do now is getting my 3 gold items + roaming boots. Also I start getting pink wards to counterward mainly top and mid, sometimes even bot.

If one lane has a hard time without me I just camp with my 1 to 3 gold items + the 2 gold per 10 of my masteries. Also I start warding the enemy jungle a bit, depending on how the lanes are going, and consider going on doing wolves/wraiths and getting blue/red for mid/top.
So I really pressure 1-2 lanes hard (constantly pink warding, a bit later oracles, destroying their wards)+ the jungler of course(warding his jungle/gank routes, freezing his jungle speed), who needs to react to this, which, in my opinion, is a nice strategy against fast junglers. From then on I start just getting tanky items (randuins(thornmail), maybe warmogs, frozen heart, aegis, shurilyas... you know the drill).

So what do you people think?

Quote (BardOfXiix @ May 7 2012 03:25pm)

It depends on your team.  If your team picks burst and cc, pick a ganking jungler.  If they don't, pick a counterjungling one.  I always prefer a ganking jungler over a counter jungling one, team permitting, because a good ganker can send the game out of control in a way counterjungling can't really do.

That being said, denying the enemy mid from ever getting a blue buff is pretty nice, too.

Quote (Trademarks @ May 7 2012 04:25pm)

Very interesting posts in this thread, I'm quite surprised Maokai haven't been mentioned.

Quote (KirkHammett @ May 7 2012 07:34am)

There are some problems though. I will list them:

1. Lee Sin is banned 90% of all ranked games.
2. Nocturne's ganks pre 6 are not as good as Alistar's/Singed's/Nautilus's (same with Udyr(no good ganks without red at all) and Skarner), also he is pretty item reliant.
3. Rammus can't counterjungle, he would be a ganker aswell, but he does only profit from 1-2 gold items.

And there are of course alot of viable choices, just not optimal

Quote (Jayred @ May 7 2012 09:04pm)

Lee Sin isn't banned that often, 70% at most.
Nocturne's pre level 6 ganks are good, they aren't godly like after level 6. He has a steroid for movement and a fear.
Udyr has a movement steroid also and a stun. All good gankers/counterjunglers.
Plus with my junglers I take movement speed quints, if you don't have those you should definitely look into them.