Best Jungle Pathing In League of Legends: Wild Rift

The Jungle, or Jungler, is one of the most impactful roles in League of Legends: Wild Rift, as it influences the game’s outcome more than any other. A successful gank or early objective can provide a huge advantage for your team, but how exactly can you do that?

In this guide, you’ll find strategies to play as the Jungler, optimal pathings, as well as some common mistakes. Learn to control map and manage key objectives like Drakes, Rift Herald, and Baron. Also, you’ll know how to choose the right champion for your playstyle and position yourself throughout the game!

A Jungler’s Role And Main Responsibilities

As a Jungler, you hold one of the most critical and demanding roles in a five-player team. You’re in charge of various tasks at the same time:

• Controlling jungle resources: Clear camps for gold and experience. Level up fast to start ganking.
• Supporting lanes through ganks: Help your teammates gain an advantage in their lanes by ganking at the right place and the right time. You can find more on this later in this guide.
• Applying pressure by controlling major objectives such as Drakes, Rift Herald, and Baron.
• Controlling the early game to give your team an advantage, so your mid laner can carry in the mid-game, and providing space for the ADC to farm so they can carry during the late game.

In most cases, jungling effectively is the key to lead your team to victory. If the Jungler doesn’t know what to do, it can be a major setback, as the team will struggle to contest important objectives and gradually fall behind with little chance of a comeback.

How To Choose A Jungle Champion

Choosing the right champion for Jungling in Wild Rift depends on your playstyle. If you can, select a champion whose abilities complement the team composition and provide the synergy your laners need. However, this isn’t mandatory.

While you can test out new champions’ abilities in Normal matches to your heart’s content, playing a champion you’re familiar with in Ranked settings is recommended. Picking a champion you don’t know well can lead to costly mistakes, toxicity, and tilt, not just for you, but also for your teammates.

There are three main types of Jungle champions in Wild Rift: Assassin, Fighter, and Tanks.

Assassins

Assassin champions specialize in quickly eliminating squishy targets like enemy ADCs or mages. Their playstyle focuses on farming, waiting for the first item, and hunting down enemy carries. However, assassins typically have lower HP than Fighters or Tanks.

So it’s very important for Assassin Junglers to position themselves well and find the right moment to take down their targets.

As an Assassin, never chase a low-HP Tank. Tanks are very durable. They can easily outlast your attacks and defeat you instead, even though they only have a pixel of HP left while you have a full bar. Focus on taking down squishy targets instead.

Some well-known Jungle Assassins include Evelynn, Kha’Zix, Pantheon, and Rengar. Don’t be fooled by Pantheon’s muscles—despite his burly build, he has some of the highest burst damage in the early game and fits perfectly into the Assassin role.

Fighters

Fighters are versatile champions who can deal big damage, provide strong crowd control, and open combat. Fighters are more durable than Assassins. They can absorb more damage while dealing consistent output. That’s why their main playstyle focuses on creating early-game pressure by ganking lanes and disrupting enemies’ farms.

Some well-known Jungle Fighters are Leesin, Vi, Warwick, and Xin Zhao.

Tanks

Jungle Tanks in Wild Rift provide front-line protection for their teammates and offer crowd control abilities to keep enemies locked down. They can absorb huge damage while protecting and peeling for their more squishy teammates. The Jungle Tanks can initiate fights or break the opponent team’s formation. Even though they don’t deliver the highest damage, they create opportunities for their team to win. Because of this, Jungle Tanks’ playstyle should always focus on supporting teammates and securing objectives.

Some well-known Jungle Tanks are Amumu, Jarvan IV, Rammus, and Volibear.

Best Jungle Pathing

Choosing the right jungle pathing is the key to leveling up quickly and gaining control of the map. Here’s a basic path that you can follow to optimize your jungle clear:

1. Start with Blue Buff: To restore mana or energy quickly.
2. Clear the Gromp Camp: For experience.
3. Move to Wolves: To gain more experience.
4. Head to Red Buff: For stronger and true damage, applying slow debuff on attacked enemies, and bigger gank potential.
5. Clear Raptors: To hit level four.
6. Finish with Scuttle Crab: Secure vision and control of the river.

And if your goal is early game ganks, then here’s an optimal path for that:

1. Start at Red Buff: To gain strong damage for early ganks.
2. Clear Gromp: For experience
3. Clear Blue Buff: For experience
4. Look for gank opportunities on either the Baron or Dragon lane (top or bot lane), depending on where the enemy is most vulnerable.

Objective Control

Elemental Drakes, Rift Herald, Elder Dragon, and Baron are priority objectives for Junglers because of the significant advantages they provide. Each objective offers unique benefits: dragons grant valuable buffs based on their type, a well-escorted Rift Herald can help you push one to three towers, and Baron provides a powerful buff that can help your team take down enemy turrets.

Always take the Scuttle and make sure your team has vision control around the area and behind the pits before attempting to take objectives to avoid surprises. Use lens and destroy the enemy’s wards to prevent ganks or steals. Also, ensure your Smite is fully charged. You don’t want to risk losing the objective to the enemy Jungler when it’s low on HP. Keep a close eye on the objective’s HP indicator so you know when to Smite. Sometimes, even a millisecond difference can decide whether your team gains or loses an important objective.

Elemental Drakes

Each type of Drake grants a different buff, including increased damage, HP, vamp, or movement speed. Once a Drake is defeated, the map changes according to its element. When all elemental Drakes are taken or the game hits the 18-minute mark, the Elder Dragon will spawn.

When to start a Drake: Always call for your team’s assistance before starting a Drake, especially if the enemy Jungler is nearby. Help your laners chase away the enemies or, better, defeat them to keep the Dragon pit and the area around it safe and sound for your team.

If the enemy Jungler is taking Herald, don’t contest it. Head straight for Drake instead, as it provides your team a permanent buff for the rest of the game.

Rift Herald

Rift Herald can help you destroy turret plates and gain an early gold advantage. However, the ideal situation is when your team has already destroyed at least two plates before you drop the Herald. This makes it easier to take the first turret and allows you to escort the Herald for its second charge. If the first turret has very low health, it’s best to finish off the turret before dropping the Herald to avoid wasting its HP.

In Wild Rift, the Rift Herald originally only charged at the closest turret. However, this now varies depending on the map and in-game events. During Arcane, the Herald could be a walking turret that shot lasers or an orb that split into smaller balls to detonate the turret. Now, in the Bandle City phase, the Rift Herald hits the turret, then splits into three separate enemies, each with new attacks and abilities.

If the enemy Jungler is focusing on the Drake area, consider taking Rift Herald instead.

Elder Dragon

The Elder Dragon buff is one of the most powerful in Wild Rift. It instantly executes enemy champions when their health drops below 15 percent and inflicts 100 True Damage per second for three seconds, scaling with Dragon Slayer stacks. Players fight for Elder Dragon a lot more fiercely than for Baron Nashor.

It’s best to take Elder Dragon when your team is ahead and the enemy team is weaker or distracted. For example:

• When the enemy team loses a few champions. Or better yet, your team aces them.
• When they’re focused on pushing other lanes and don’t realize your team is taking Elder.
• When the enemy is securing Baron and your team isn’t strong enough to contest it.

Baron Nashor

Baron Nashor mainly offers buff to help your team push faster and can change the tide of the whole game in the blink of an eye. Like the Rift Herald, the Baron buff changes based on the in-game map during events. Originally, defeating Baron would buff your team’s minions. During the Arcane event, taking down Baron gave your team a T-Hex Mecha immune to crowd control, had massive HP, and came with a full set of abilities.

Now, in the Bandle City phase, the Baron’s buff returns to enhancing minions like before, but there’s a new minion that heals others every few seconds. This makes pushing easier, especially if your team is behind and needs to start split pushing.

Go for Baron when the enemy team is weakened or distracted, just like with Elder Dragon. The best opportunities are when the enemy has lost key players, or when they’re securing Elder Dragon and your team can’t contest it.

Jungle Tips And Tricks

Before clearing camps, always place a ward near the river or at the enemy Jungle’s buff for safety, stealing their jungle, or tracking the other Jungler’s movements. Keep an eye on the minimap, especially the enemy Jungler, to avoid getting your camps stolen.

Ganking is an art, a must-have skill in jungle play. To gank successfully, you should:

• Ping your laners before moving in for a gank to ensure they are ready.
• Always prioritize ganking lanes where your teammates are under pressure. If an enemy, or enemies, are about to dive your team’s turret, that’s your opportunity to strike back.
• Enter the lane through the river or bushes to avoid detection.
• Use your crowd controls, allowing your laners to follow up and secure the kill.

Junglers can also choose to camp one lane. No one likes being camped by the enemy Jungler, but for your team, it can be a game-winning strategy if you can do it right. Look for enemy laners who frequently overextend and punish them until they tilt. However, don’t tunnel vision. Keep farming and securing objectives. Shutting down one lane won’t matter if the rest of the enemy team scales out of control.

Avoid forcing ganks across lanes if you fall behind in gold and experience. Instead, focus on farming to catch up. Look for safe opportunities to gank and adapt your build to counter the enemy team’s strengths. Stay positive and try not to tilt. LoL is toxic, and Wild Rift is no different. If your teammates start blaming you, mute them and stay focused on your game.

Common Jungle Mistakes To Avoid

Even experienced Junglers make mistakes, and that’s okay, because we are all human. That said, some mistakes can cost you the whole game. So, here are a few you’ll definitely want to avoid: