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Jungling

From Liquipedia Dota 2 Wiki

Jungling mainly refers to certain heroes ("junglers") starting out their game not in a lane but in the jungle. Instead of gaining experience and gold from the enemy creeps, they farm on the various neutral creepcamps located among the trees. Only certain heroes can pull this off, but some benefit greatly from it. How a hero goes about being effective at jungling differs from hero to hero.

The main reason for jungling is giving the team access to additional experience and gold - while gold and experience from the lane doesn't have to be pooled or split. That being said, by comparison, freefarm in a lane yield more gold than farming in the jungle only.

The disadvantage of jungling is that, since you're along in the woods, you're both susceptible and vulnerable to ganks.

How to[edit]

Every hero has a different way of jungling, and learning how to do it with your hero specifically is oftentimes required, since you need to be as effective as possible to keep up a level and income similar to that of the other heroes in the game. To find hero-specific guide,s see the References section. There are some basics though - such as having good knowledge of the geography of your jungle. Study the map and learn all the paths and camp locations. Learn the fastest way or route to get from camp to camp and how to landscape (cutting, eating, or destroying trees to open new pathways) to create shortcuts.

Picking your battles[edit]

Main article: Jungle creeps

Neutral creepcamps come in four tiers of difficulty. In each jungle you find: Easy (1 camp), Medium (2 camps), Hard (2 camps) and Ancient (Invulnerable to magic - 1 camp). Learn the locations of these when you decide to jungle.

Most heroes, logically, start out by killing the Easy camp until they have gained the levels and gold to take on the medium camps, and so on. However, some heroes can start out by killing a medium camp, or even a hard camp - if you know how! Taking out a hard camp on level 1 gives your experience a huge initial boost and it's worth it if you know how to do it. Read up on your hero and learn how to start out in the most effective manner. Other benefits like Random Gold or grabbing a rune can also enable you to take out a more difficult camp at the start.

Respawn and Timing[edit]

Creeps respawn every minute, on the minute, unless their spawn is blocked by a hero or ward in the vicinity.

When you need a camp to respawn after killing it, make sure you stay clear of it when the time comes. If you are still fighting the camp when the respawn is coming up, you can move away from the camp at the XX:52 second mark. The creeps you're fighting will follow you and they will be clear of the camp when the full minute arives. New creeps will spawn, you can finish off the old ones and immediately have new creeps at your mercy.

Opponents can prevent neutral creeps from respawning by placing one or more wards among the camps. You can counter with sentry wards, but make sure not to block the spawns yourself. To read up on how to deal with wards in detail, see Dewarding.

Safety[edit]

When jungling you are quite a distance away from your teammates, and, combined with trees obscuring incoming attackers, this makes you quite vulnerable. Apply good warding and keep extra aware of missing heroes.

Stacking[edit]

Main article: Stacking

Stacking is the act of tricking the game engine into respawning a creepcamp without the previous creepcamp having actually been removed. To do this, aggro the creepcamp and leave it at the XX:53 second mark. The creeps will follow you and be clear of the camp at the XX:00 second respawn time - at which point the game will think the camp has been cleared and respawn one. As a result the camp now contains twice the amount of creeps. The general reason of why this is useful is that, at lower levels, you don't have time to clear all the camps in under the minute at which they respawn. If the timing allows you to stack quickly, you'll end up with a big camp to insta-farm once you hit the level to do so.

Choke point jungling[edit]

Using choke points to reduce damage from melee creeps is an integral part of jungling. Using nooks and crannies in the trees around the camps, or using a quelling blade or tangoes to create choke points, you can position yourself so that only one creep can attack you at a time. Many camps have either a natural choke point or a potential one after some landscaping.

Choke points also enable you to take on a stacked camp at a low level.

Gallery of chokepoints[edit]

Items[edit]

Again, what specific items to buy heavily depends on what hero you're playing. Generally, look for the following.

Tangoes, Salves, Clarities - Your basic regen items. When you're dependant on your spells, buy enough clarities, when you're dependant on yourself, buy tangoes or salves.

Quelling blade - Not only a key item in choke point jungling, it also gives you bonus damage against the creeps.

Ring of Basilius - When jungling with summons or other helpers, this Ring gives them all an armor bonus, plus mana regen. NOTE: Make sure the ring is toggled ON

Hand of Midas - Expensive investment, but will make your jungling more effective.

Other[edit]

Morbid Mask (and subsequent) - Gives your hero lifesteal, allowing nearly any hero to survive battling the jungle creeps

Battlefury - The ultimate mid to late game jungle item. The splash damage lets you take out creepcamps quickly for additional farm.


References[edit]