An Introduction to Jungling

Hey everyone! I'm Reizocain, an active MOBA player, having a voluble history including DotA, DotA2, League of Legends and now Smite. I'm fairly new to Smite (I started early Dec '14) and am not even level 30 yet. However, I seem to have a decent grasp of jungling, since my win rate has risen from 42% to 54% since I started jungling.

Introductions aside, this is a beginner's guide to the jungle - and it isn't exclusively reserved for junglers. Everyone should have at least a basic idea of how the jungle works, because Smite, just like any other MOBA, is a team oriented game and you need to know how to be the most effective not just individually, but in tandem with your teammates (i.e. you need to know how to assist your jungler, not compromise him).

Some key terms (and their definitions) used in this guide are:

• Camps: Collection of neutral minions in assorted locations in the jungle. Also called jungle camps. Example: Mana/Blue Camp, Speed/Orange Camp etc.
  
• HoG: HoG - Hand of the Gods. A jungler's common starting active. Does 480 true (non reducible) damage to a maximum of 3 minions (or jungle camps). Invaluable early game when you lack damage/sustain to kill the camps. One of it's tier 3 upgrades Wrath of the Gods executes the Fire Giant and Gold Fury when they're under 25% health (pretty useful for steals).
  
  
• Buffs: In context of this guide, Buffs refers to the specific rewards given by certain camps, like the Blue Buff/Mana Buff from the blue camp, Power/Red buff from the Red camp and so on. These aren't stack-able (you can only have one at a time), last for 2 minutes each, can only be picked up by one person (so you can't share buffs) and if not picked up, vanish after ~5 seconds.
  
  
• Rewards: The rewards for killing a jungle camp. Experience and gold, plus buffs if it's a buff camp. E.g. Power camp's rewards are gold, experience and red buff.
  
  
• Counterjungle: The act of killing camps/taking buffs from your enemies jungle, to deny them the associated rewards. This also includes killing the enemy jungler (also quite effective at denying him gold and exp).
  
  
• Invading: The act of going to an enemy jungle camp with the intent to counterjungle, or the no man's land camps, usually with teammates' assistance. This is mostly done to steal/deny the rewards to the enemy team, getting kills isn't the main focus (though nobody complains if you get a few).
  
  
• Ganking: The act of entering a lane with the intent to assist your teammate (whose lane you're entering) in killing the enemy laner. Sending them back to base is a viable, but less optimal alternative. When laners do this (go to other lanes to help in killing), it's called "Roaming". You can also do this by yourself, i.e. gank a lane without your teammate around, but it's usually not as easy or effective.
  
  
• Holding (a lane): The act of entering the lane when your teammate (whose lane it is) has gone back to base (for whatever reason) to farm minions and not let the enemy laner get damage on to friendly towers. Decent source of experience (and gold). This is different from ganking because you're killing minions and being passive, not killing the enemy god.
  
  For a general list of common Smite terms/slang, refer to this Reddit link.

Wait, why is there a section for laners in a guide to jungling? What the Hel, Reizo?

Bear with me, please. Let me reiterate something I said before: Smite is team game. In every game of conquest, you'll have at least 3 laners around (hopefully). They will too, desire your delicious Harpy camps for the gold and xp and the very very desirable buffs too. After all, you, the jungler, can only have one buff, so they can certainly take the rest, right?


Right, but wrong too.


The thing is, junglers, for the most part, have only one source of income and experience - the camps around the map. If everyone buys a HoG and kills one camp and gets a buff each, the jungler is going to be sorely under leveled and under-farmed. There's a reason Bumba's Mask exists - it gives full gold rewards for jungle camps irrespective of the number of people killing it.


What does this mean?

It means that you, the laner, can wait for the jungler to come to whichever camp you wish slaughtered, and when he comes along, have a merry time blowing up minions together. This also makes your jungler happy and more likely to gank your lane because:

• You helped him damage the camp and kill it faster, so he took less damage, and is healthier. Hence, the likeliness of him dying in a gank is less.
  
• Since we've now killed his jungle, he really can't farm jungle anymore, so he has nothing else to do except gank.
  
• He feels nice because you helped him, and feels obliged to help you in return.