Introduction To The Guide & Myself!

(Note: To be clear this is NOT intended to be a full guide for every jungler, rather a general walkthrough for the listed heroes above and those similar to them. I will not include a threat list like I normally would with single hero guides but appropriate builds are there for the 4 example heroes)

You're probably wondering by the time you read this- what the heck is 'hybrid class'? or 'stalker class'? I'll explain =D Well, I wanted to make a guide to enter the "Know Your Role" contest but I had trouble deciding a couple things. First, what role do I choose?...I ended up going with jungle because recently it's had some huge changes and continues to evolve with every update it seems. When I finally decided that jungling would be the best choice, I asked myself "what hero do I base this jungling guide on?" I couldn't answer that because I didn't want to do just 1 hero! So I decided to do a general breakdown of the jungle and all of it's farmers. This includes categorizing all the junglers into 4 different types based on their playstyle/design (stalkers, fighters, juggernauts, hybrids), sharing strategies, and giving tips. Just a brief intro to myself- I am a dedicated ranked solo queue player who's been playing since November/October.. somewhere around there- of 2014. My rank is Tier 10, Vainglorious Bronze with around 2,300 games played. I've got 2 other guides here on vg fire, check out my profile to see all my content. Alright, let's get started with this mega-guide :')

Jungle 101, The Basics

Each jungle side has 4 camps, 1 'crystal miner' per side (mentioned as a 'minion miner in the video'), a merchant in the middle, a gold miner, and a kraken. It's crucial to know when everything spawns and how they work. 1st thing you should know is that all minions and jungle camps spawn at 0:35 seconds into a game. This includes the center 'treant' which is located where the jungle shop is in the video. The center treant will leave at 3:55 and at 4:00 minutes the jungle shop will replace it. At 4:00 minute mark the gold miner will spawn and lastly, the kraken spawns at exactly 15:00 minutes in every match to replace the gold miner.



It's important to include the center camp/treant when we're talking about jungle farming because it was introduced in 2.3 and it's usually highly contested during games because it's a good source of experience and gold. The team that secures it will gain a small lead, but keep in mind that it does respawn so if your team doesn't manage to kill it, there's always more chances so don't risk losing first blood just to get it. (First Blood is the the 1st kill of the game, achieving that will award the killer an extra +100 gold on top of the standard 200 gold awarded for kills)



Above I've created a reference image so I can more clearly point out which jungle camps I'm talking about.
"T1" is the 1st and nearest Treant to your base
"Large" is the largest camp on jungle monster just below T1.

Together, T1 and Large are often referred to as "Back jungle/farm" or just "Backs"

"T2" is the 2nd treant more centrally located on your side of the jungle
"small" is the camp which has 2 small monsters on your far side
"CT". CT is Center Treant, this is the largest Treant with a large payout

My image doesn't include the crystal miner because it's no longer able to be farmed by your team and is friendly by default now (In the past players had to kill the crystal/minion miner to bring it on their side and you could even kill the enemy miner)In Update 2.1, the Crystal Miner hits hard and acts as a guard dog for your territory. I think I should note that the 'crystal miner' doesn't actually mine or provide anything for your team other than protection and I suspect it will be renamed in the next update. It also takes 1 minute to respawn and only has 3 lives so after the miner has walked back to it's place and been killed 3 times it will no longer respawn.

In the next section "Tips & Strategies" I'll go more into detail about these jungle camps what the current meta is.

Credit for Videos goes to Vainglory's Official Youtube

(2.3) Jungle Tips & Strategies

Farming Effectively in 2.3 requires staying on top of your 'rotation' (clearing the 1 entire jungle). After your 1st rotation or sometimes after half of one your captain/roam/support will leave you to go help your laner. You want to get gold as fast as possible by killing camps right after they spawn. You can do this best if you keep farming in a planned order. For example: clear small camp, T2, Large camp, T1 & repeat.

Treants possess the ability to cast a spell that roots their attackers in place. This ability can canceled if you stun the treant as they are casting the spell, you can also try to use it against opponents if they are nearby to disable them. It can be very helpful to kill one of these before engaging the enemy because the heal will support you during the fight and may even discourage the enemy from ever engaging you, giving you a slight advantage over them.

Jungle camps payouts grow the longer they are alive until they're cleared, this allows you to break off your rotation to maybe gank the enemy laner or invade the enemy jungle without worrying about losing too much gold from your own farm. Always remember though that the longer you aren't clearing your farm, the more likely it may be stolen by a quick and sneaky enemies. Another payout that grows is player bounties. These grow not based on time but based on kills and assists. Collect them by killing a player, you will always receive at least 200 gold per kill and a maximum of 600 based on how long their kill streak is but killing the same enemy over and over in a streak will reward less gold each time, this is to prevent snowballing (gaining a big lead over the enemy to a point where its nearly impossible to have comebacks). This feature gives us the chance to make comebacks and close gaps, evening the odds of winning, that's why you shouldn't give up so fast even after a few deaths.

Below is another reference image I've created to help explain invading and vision strategies.

The red dots in the image are just a few spots I would recommend placing scout traps. While vision should be handled by your captain, sometimes players don't know that or simply forget to put down vision so placing one or two of your own is never a bad idea if that's the case. In the image above we've got 3 red dots, the top one is good to use if your team is grouped up fighting for control of the center treant because you never know if an opponent is going to try and sneak around to steal farm or sit in the bush and wait to ambush your laner. The bottom 2 dots are useful if you're jungling alone and want to know when the enemy enters your territory. On the very bottom is a scout trap spot I've been using for a while, it isn't popular yet but I expect it to be soon because it can provide a lot of information for a longer than average time if placed correctly, enemies will walk right past it never triggering it- just place it above the shop bush as shown. Yellow arrows on this image show the most common invade routes and each of the scout trap spots can alert you of an incoming invasion if you pay attention to your mini map. Sometimes enemies invade before clearing their own jungle and if you see them coming, you can always counter invade and swap jungle farm. This is often a good way to go if you're behind or aren't confident in your ability to beat your enemy at that time.


Leashing is in most MOBA's (Multiplayer Online Battle Arena) and is often used in vainglory is re-position yourself in a more favorable spot for farming where enemies are either less likely to see you or steal your farm by getting the last hit. It's also useful for bringing a monster closer to a teammate out of range who you want to share the farm with or to minimize damage taken by leashing out of range and switching targets with teammates to farm more effectively.

The gold miner and crystal miners are some important objectives to look out for and always keep an eye on. Killing the enemy crystal miner gives you a decent payout but never try to fight the enemy team near their crystal miner because it's like fighting a 4v3. You can eliminate that problem by killing it 3 times because after that it will no longer respawn. When defending try to bring the fight towards your own crystal miner for help. The gold miner is obviously pretty important but what many players don't realize is that sometimes killing it before it's full is better because your opponents will expect you to kill it when it's full and contest you for the gold. Many times people also forget that at the 15 minute mark, the kraken will replace the miner and any gold that was in the mine will be wasted, so if you can try to secure it before 15:00 min even if there isn't much gold there.

Ganking is another thing we're responsible for as junglers. Always coordinate with your team using pings for the best chance at killing the enemy laner. It's important to remember that when you kill the enemy laner not only do you get gold for the kill but you slow down their farm and push their turrets... also if you don't show presence in the lane it's likely the enemy jungler will and you'll be directly responsible for putting your team behind. So don't just focus on jungle farming and only take lane farm when it's going to be taken by your turret. If you do take lane cs/farm then be willing to share your jungle camps with your laner because by taking their cs you put them behind and having your laner well farmed is both in their best interest and yours.

Jungler Classes, Counters, & Synergy