It’s well known that the jungle is one of the most responsible roles in League of Legends. It gives you charge over the whole map, and you are expected to make the best calls possible to help your allies and win the game.
Many people are aware of the obvious advantages of ganking, taking objectives, and doing other straightforward tasks, but only a few know the true power of vision.
I will use this article as the opportunity to share all the best warding practices I learned as a Master tier jungler.
How to Ward as a Jungler in the Early Game?
Many high-ranked players will tell you that games start at 0:00. This might seem obvious, but it is an important statement. When you play with this mindset, it will make you proactive in the early game and make you gain more leads.
Before minions spawn, you can take your time to invade and ward around the map.
Warding early is great for creating leads. It allows you to have more information on enemies, essentially for free. And more information will allow you to make better calls and gain more advantages.
Early Pixel Bush Ward
Pixel Bush is the name for the bush located in the middle of the river. The bush is the most common warding location but is not always particularly useful. You will want to place this ward to protect yourself from early invading junglers.
Now consider you place this ward at 1:00. Since the ward lasts 90 seconds, at 2:30, the ward will no longer be there. It will fail to protect you from anything but early invades.
So use this ward against junglers like Nidalee or Graves.
Read Also: How to Carry as Jungle in League of Legends? (In-Depth)
Deep Buff Ward
Another common warding strategy revolves around deep warding enemy buffs. Many players are aware of this possibility, but they fail to execute the warding properly. They might go and ward the enemy red buff, for example, but it turns out to be a nonoptimal ward.
Why?
Well, if you are playing against. a full-clearing jungler, and you place a ward on their red buff, when they have started blue, you will only gain limited information. The ward will die by the time they get to the camp, and you will only know their starting location.
This is information that you would have known anyway from looking at their leash.
If you do the same when playing against a three-camp champion, the ward will be good. For example, a Warwick might clear blue, gromp, and then go to red. When he starts doing red, you’ll still have vision over him, and you’ll be able to predict his pathing and ganks.
As you can see, the same ward can serve a different purpose, and it can be either really useful or really useless. You should never place wards on autopilot without thinking it through.
Raptor Ward
The best ward, in my opinion, is the raptor ward. This is a ward you should place at 1:15 in the enemy’s raptors pit. The ward will last until 2:45, and it will provide significant information consistently.
No matter where the enemy starts, the ward will usually last long enough to expose enemies doing raptors or passing near them. When enemies are sighted by the ward, you will gain crucial information about them.
You will know what their CS and HP are, and these two factors will help you determine many things. You will be able to deduce the camps they took by their number of CS, and it will make it possible for you to predict their pathing. If their HP is low, you will also have the opportunity to invade them.
Each camp killed increases the CS score by 4. So if an enemy has 20 CS, it is clear that they emptied 5 camps. Thinking about this will also help you know when their camps spawn, and it will literally help you predict the future.
Read Also: How to Ward as a Mid Laner – Guide
Warding the Enemy Jungle
In this section, I want to present to you the almighty enemy jungle wards. These are the wards that you will want to place deep in the enemy jungle in order to gain more control over the game.
Whenever you have 75 gold to spare, you can buy a Control Ward and place it in the enemy jungle. The ward will often last very long, and it will provide you with information about enemies’ pathing and whereabouts.
The value this ward will provide is endless. It will help you with counterganking, invading, and, most importantly, keeping your allies safe. Whenever you see the enemy, you can ping their location and keep your entire team that much safer.
It would be hard to describe how many games this ward has saved for me. I have used it successfully in games up to the Master, and it never fails. When I use it on lower ELO accounts, it is even more OP, and I would definitely recommend you start using it.
Read Also: Rift Herald – A Complete Guide for Junglers
Conclusion
As a jungler you will have many responsibilities, and I have provided you with one more. Warding well and understanding wards as a jungler will significantly boost your ELO. Depending on the circumstances, you can use many different wards.
Early pixel bush ward to prevent early invades, deep buff ward and raptor ward to gain information about enemy jungler and, finally, you can ward the enemy jungle in the later stages of the game for more map control.
Read Also: How to Track the Enemy Jungler in LoL (Quick Guide)
