Jungle is a very creative role in League of Legends. There are many different types of champions you can play there, everything from assassins to fighters and tanks.
But in recent years, AP junglers have dominated the role. And with the rise of the AD power champions in the mid lane, it’s absolutely vital for junglers to know how to play magic damage dealers.
And so, if you need inspiration on what to play in the jungle, I’ll give you 7 AP picks that thrive there.
They’re good for carrying games in solo queue they all scale very well in the late game.
Here they are.
These Are the 7 Best AP Junglers in LoL:
7. Nidalee
Nidalee is an early-game-focused jungler with an incredibly powerful kit right from the start of the game.
She’s super efficient at clearing jungle camps and her biggest advantage is invading the enemy jungler.
Since Nidalee’s R is available from level 1 and she shifts between her two forms, she can access two sets of abilities.
In her human form, she has a long-range spear that does a lot of damage, she can heal herself, and set up traps. And in her cougar form, she can leap over walls and AoE damage the jungle camps.
These abilities don’t share a cooldown with the other form which is why Nidalee is so fast at farming the jungle.
Nidalee’s entire kit is full of AP ratios and she scales extremely well in the late game.
With enough AP, Nidalee’s spear can one-shot a squishy enemy, her combo in cougar form has an insane amount of burst damage, and her heal (E) in human form can restore over 30% HP. with each cast.
Nidalee’s only weakness is the lack of crowd control. But if you manage to aim her spears well and snowball from the early lead, you can use her to climb in solo queue.
6. Fiddlesticks
Fiddlesticks is another amazing AP jungler you can use to climb in League of Legends. He’s fantastic at almost all aspects of jungling and he performs especially well in lower elos.
What makes Fiddlesticks so powerful is that he has lots of crowd control and AoE magic damage. His entire kit is designed around his ultimate, Crowstorm, which lets him dominate every teamfight.
And to play Fiddlesticks successfully, you need to learn how to use his ultimate correctly. For instance, it’s really important to hide in spots where the enemy team has no vision, especially around Dragon and Baron.
This allows you to jump on them with R, fear, and silence all of the enemies while draining their health bars.
Fiddle’s R is a great engage tool and every team comp gets value out of it. But what’s even more impressive is how well it scales with AP. And during late game, Fiddlesticks is one of the scariest AP champions in the game!
Early on, Fiddlesticks has no problem with clearing out jungle camps quickly and efficiently. Since he has fear and silence in his kit, he’s a great ganker.
However, Fiddle mostly focuses on farming until level 6 because his ulti allows him to take over the game.
Read Also: 7 Best AD Junglers to Solo Carry
5. Evelynn
Evelynn is an AP assassin with a very slow early game. Her passive, Demon Shade, is the central piece in her design because it grants her permanent invisibility/camouflage after level 6.
And so, Evelynn must farm and get level 6 before starting to impact the whole map.
Evelynn’s abilities are pretty simple. Her Q is her main damaging spell backed by her E. Eve’s W is a charm effect that can be used both on champions and monsters to crowd control them and increase their damage taken.
This all culminates with Evelynn’s R, Last Caress, which is a hard-hitting AoE swipe that also teleports Eve backward.
It can be used in many different creative ways, but its primary purpose is to execute targets on low HP while also letting Evelynn escape the rest of the enemies.
To say that Evelynn scales well in late game is an understatement. Her AP ratios are super high and her burst damage is honestly broken.
Evelynn is one of the best champions for solo queue in League of Legends. She thrives in the chaos and capitalizes on mispositioning more than any other champion.
For example, Evelynn can sit in invisibility in lane and wait for the enemy ADC or mid to walk close by. Once they do, she can one-shot them, allowing her team to go on the offense.
Read Also: Top 10 Most Fun Junglers
4. Elise
Elise has always been one of the most powerful AP junglers in LoL, simply excellent at farming, invading, and ganking.
The first thing that separates Elise from most junglers in the game is that she gets help from her spider pets. When she shifts into her spider form, a few spiders accompany her and they can tank the jungle monsters for her.
This allows Elise to keep her HP bar up early on.
As a shapeshifter, Elise also gets access to two ability sets.
Shifting between her two forms allows her to quickly take down monsters and move on to ganking or invading which is definitely what you should do with this champion.
When it comes to ganks, Elise can stun a single target from range with her E, Cocoon. It’s a powerful ability that always gives you a kill potential on any lane even if your ally doesn’t have CC.
It’s also worth mentioning that Elise’s damage is insanely high early on.
She can duel almost any jungler and contest scuttle crab. And if you buy her core AP items fast enough, her combo is powerful enough to assassinate any squishy champion on the enemy team.
Read Also: How to Carry as a Jungler?
3. Lillia
Lillia is a very fun champion with lots of strengths that are crucial for carrying games in solo queue.
First of all, Lillia has amazing AoE magic damage that’s excellent for both clearing up the jungle and 5v5 teamfights.
All of her abilities have an excellent range (even though she’s melee), with her E even having a global range.
Secondly, since Lillia’s damage is damage over time (thanks to her passive), she synergizes very well with AP burn effect items. This allows her to always be powerful, even against the tankiest tanks in LoL.
And third, Lillia also has AoE crowd control with her R, Lilting Lullaby, which plays a huge role in teamfights.
When activated, the spell puts all enemies Lillia has damaged recently to sleep, allowing her and her team to collapse on them.
On top of this, Lillia has a fantastic movement speed that helps you kite and outplay most enemies on the Rift.
She’s a speedy champion that moves quickly from one place to another which is definitely what you want from a jungler.
Read Also: 6 Best Mid-Jungle Synergy Combos
2. Ekko
Ekko is one of those champions you can play in the mid lane beside the jungle. But he’s particularly strong as a jungler with extremely good AP scaling.
Ekko’s main source of damage is his passive which does a burst of magic damage when Ekko damages the target 3 times. But since his Q deals damage twice, Ekko simply needs to auto-attack to trigger the passive.
What this does is allows you clear jungle camps super quickly. Not to mention that if you go for attack speed items such as Nashor’s Tooth, your overall damage to jungle monsters would be insane.
Bonus on-hit magic damage is also a key stat for Ekko because it boosts his overall damage so much.
As an AP assassin, Ekko’s playstyle revolves around setting up good W circles to stun the key targets on the enemy team.
This opens up opportunities for him to one-shot the enemy ADC or mid laner and win the teamfight that way.
The cool thing about Ekko is that he can always rely on his ultimate, Phase Drive, to correct his mistakes.
This ability rewinds time, giving Ekko a large percentage of his lost health while also getting him out of any sticky situation.
Overall, Ekko is a great AP jungler and I truly recommend him!
1. Diana
In recent seasons, Diana has been one of the most influential junglers in League of Legends. She’s been in fantastic form for so long that we can safely agree on the fact that she still dictates the meta of today.
Diana is an AP bruiser, a mix of a fighter and assassin. Her ability combos play a huge role, with Q > E being the most important one. Besides damage, it allows her to dash to her target while resetting the dash for a second cast.
Diana’s W is a shield that also does damage while her ult is an AoE knock-up and a massive burst of magic damage.
However, Diana also does a lot of damage through her auto-attacks. Not only does her passive grant bonus on-hit magic damage that scales with aP, but it also grants bonus attack speed after you use an ability.
All of this makes Diana a powerful jungler in all stages of the game. She’s great early on because she can farm jungle camps easily. But she’s amazing at setting up teamfights later on as well.
The good thing about Diana is that you can go for multiple different builds. Besides the full AP one, you can build tank items and become unkillable.
So, definitely give Diana a shot!
Read Also: 10 Best AP Top Laners
Conclusion
Besides these 7, there are many other AP champions that can do a good job in the jungle.
For example, Morgana is one of them, but she isn’t as strong as she used to be in the past. Champions like Maokai and Rammus are AP tanks that are always good picks despite the meta, but they can’t carry as well as Diana or Ekko.
So, there you go! I hope this article helped you figure out what you should play in the jungle!
