Beginner's guide to Jungling in Wild Rift

The jungle is, without a shadow of a doubt, the hardest role to learn and master both in League of Legends, and in Wild Rift. Ganking, farming the jungle camps, securing major objectives, and applying pressure on the lanes are just some of the things junglers have to worry about. All of those things add up and add multiple layers of difficulty to the role, which makes it unappealing for beginners. Fortunately, in this guide, we’ll give you a detailed guide for beginners on jungling in Wild Rift, giving you a fair shot of winning your ranked games when playing this role.

What you need to do as a jungler

Strap your seatbelt on as we have a lot to talk about when it comes to the duties of a jungler.

#1 Farm the jungle camps and path correctly

The first thing that comes to mind when talking about this role is the fact that junglers clear the jungle camps instead of farming a lane like their teammates. As a jungler, your main source of gold income in the early game will be acquired from the jungle camps you slay. When you start a game as a jungler, instead of going to a lane, you’re going to approach your blue buff or red buff respectively. If you’re a League of Legends player, you’ll be surprised to find out that jungle camps in Wild Rift require no leashing and that jungle camps are fairly easy to clear. That being said, you’ll still need to take the Smite summoner spell which instantly deals damage to a neutral jungle camp and heals you for a portion of your health. Depending on your preference, after clearing 4 camps, your smite will transform to either Red Smite or Blue Smite, enabling you to cast the smite summoner spell on champions as well as monsters.

The Blue Smite slows enemy champions while the Red smite marks them and increases your damage output against the targeted enemy for a few seconds.

Whether you start the red buff or the blue buff will highly depend on the champion you’re playing. If your champion is a mage or a champion that generally spends a lot of mana quickly, you’re better off starting blue buff as it provides swift mana regeneration along with periodic health regeneration. On the other hand, if your champion is melee or doesn’t care about mana, you should start your jungle clear on the red buff as it grants your champion true damage as well as a slow on your basic attacks, empowering your ganks and skirmishes. Alternatively, if your champion has a powerful AoE Level 1 ability, you can start your clear by killing raptors and proceeding to the red buff.

After you’ve cleared your initial buff, you’ll usually start killing your other camps while waiting for the Rift Scuttler to spawn. Rift Scuttler AKA River Scuttler is a passive monster that spawns on both sides of the river. The Scuttler’s importance cannot be understated as it provides you with plenty of gold/XP and leaves a shrine that provides vision and movement speed to allied champions. The balance between clearing camps and ganking, which we’ll talk about in a moment, depends on the champion you’re playing and how the game progresses. If your team is falling behind and is pushed in, you’ll have to gank them in order to avoid a swift loss. On the other hand, if the game is progressing nicely and your team has an advantage, you’ll have more time to clear your camps and scale.

#2 Gank

If you ask your allies, this should be your #1 priority and the only thing you should do as a jungler. Ganking is the act of helping your fellow laners by engaging on an opposing champion in a 2v1 situation. Statistically, you’ll have the upper hand because you’ll outnumber the opponent, usually leading to a kill for you or your teammate or at least a flash used by your enemy. Champions that are good at ganking are champions that have in-built crowd control abilities (stun, root, slow) because that allows both you and your teammate to deal damage to the immobilized opponent.  

Ganking is vital to the role of a  jungler as it applies pressure on the opposing laners while enabling your laners to have a smoother game. It’s crucial to be very sneaky when ganking as the surprise factor is your strongest ally. Most of the ganks you’ll perform will be from a bush or river, which means you’ll have to wait for the enemy laner to push out the wave so you can catch them in a bad position. However, if your laners are pushing, you can also attempt a turret dive by ganking your enemies through the bushes in the lane.

One of the hardest decisions you have to make as a jungler is which role you’re going to gank, and how often. That will depend on the champions you’re playing along with and your pathing. Generally speaking, you’ll prioritize ganking champions that can carry harder or champions that are having a really tough time in their lane and need help. That decision also depends on the champion you’re playing, the champion you’re planning to gank, and how the game is progressing in general. For example, allied champions with crowd control abilities are easier to gank as they immobilize the opponent’s champion, making it an easy target. On the other hand, ganking champions that are very mobile is tough as they’re much more likely to escape with their dashes. Overall, you can start planning your ganking pattern in champion select, once you see which side you’re playing on and which champions are in the game.

#3 Secure objectives

One of the most important duties as a jungler is to secure Baron, Rift Herald, and Dragon when you have the chance to do so. 

Dragon is the first objective you’ll be taking a look at when the game starts, as it spawns earlier (4 minutes in) and is generally easier to kill. There are four elemental Dragons, Mountain, Cloud, Infernal, and Ocean, each providing unique buffs to your team once slain. After you kill one of these dragons, the next one will spawn in 4 minutes. Usually, you’ll be able to secure the Dragon after you gank the opposing bot lane and kill at least one of their champions, which will result in a numbers advantage should you be contested once you start the objective. 

On the other side of the map lies the Rift Herald, which is situated in the Baron pit and spawns 2 minutes after the first drake. Generally, you’ll be able to kill the Herald freely if you get some advantage on the top side of the map. Rift Herald only spawns once and it can be used to knock down enemy towers.

At the 10 minute mark, the Baron will displace the Herald (if it hasn’t been slain already) and take its place in the baron pit. Baron is the most important neutral objective in the game and it can be only secured as a team, usually after you win a big teamfight. It provides buffs to any nearby allied minions as well as empowering your recall.  

Keep in mind that, as a jungler, you are not solely responsible to secure these objectives, as the general flow of the game and lane priorities dictate whether you’ll be able to do so. 

Best champions for your jungling journey

We’ve already talked about the best champions for beginners in each role, but we’ll focus on the junglers specifically in this list. 

If you use these champions and follow our tips, you'll surely be successful in ranked. Take your time and practice as the jungle is a role that takes a lot of time and patience to learn. In the end, if all goes south, we're always here to help you on your ranked journey with our Wild Rift boosting services.