Jungling in enemy forest at start

Question

I would like to know if jungling in enemy forest immediately at start or at level 2 or 3 is a tactic in ranked.

I used to jungle with Amumu in ranked but due to the fact that its path is really fix (obligatory blue golem start) I never thought to invade the enemy forest.

This week I tried Warwick and it seems really flexible so that in theory I can take wolves in my forest and (or also) immediately go and steal witches/red buff/golem duo or other monsters.

Is this tactic valid or it has no chance or not really efficient in ranked?

Answer 1

First Off, I dont know what is your current ranked ELO, but as far as I know, on mid-high ELO ranked games, both teams have a jungler, by saying so, if the opposite jungler allows you to steal red/blue buffs and other monsters you will be ahead exp/gold wise.

If the other team does not have a jungler, and you have appropriate map control you can wipe their jungle up and that will harm the opposite team because carries usually want to get red buff before team fights, and so do mages with the blue buff.

Take into account that in these mid-high ELO ranked games, usually the teams coordinate up to gank the junglers who usually begin on the blue buff, the map below illustrates the points where the ganks are prepared:

Therefore as your ELO scales up, you should consider alternative jungling routes, the one I do on most of my junglers is the following:
1) Golems
2) Wraths
3) Wolves
4) Recall to base
5) Blue or Red, depeding on the need for a gank and in current gold/items
6) By the time you are done with Blue or Red the Golems should have been respawned again, rinse and repeat.

Answer 2

This tactic is valid, but also risky if you can't predict the path of the enemy jungler. The most important thing to remember is that if you get stumbled upon by the opposing jungler, their teammates are a lot closer than yours.

Because of this, invading the enemy jungle is more viable for junglers who jungle at close to full health (Fiddles, Nunu, Warwick, etc.) as you need to be ready for a possible 1v1 at any time (going to a 1v3 or worse if you can't end the fight quickly).

A tactic that you might have better luck with is simply trying to steal the enemy's wraith spawns when you know their jungler is starting at Blue. More than likely their team will be watching the entrances to the blue-buff side jungle, allowing you to steal the wraiths uncontested.