How can you tell WHEN and WHERE to counter jungle?

Question

I always seem to try to counter jungle and either get jumped by their jungler or there is nothing at the camps. How can I effectively tell when and what camps to counter jungle?

Answer 1

I believe that counter jungling takes much more skill and memorization than just regular jungling. But here are some pointers.

• Know the enemy jungler: If you want to counter jungle effectively, you should know the general time they take to clear the jungle, whether they start at blue, red, or wolves first, (typically), and you should know what escapes, initiates, and such they have to surprise you while you are counter jungling.
• Know the jungle timers: This just takes some memorization to know when their jungle would be up so you can some and steal it while they are off ganking.
• Know to use CV: If your support has CV, remember it has a minute cool down, and constantly ask for it on enemy buffs, dragon, etc when you think they would be there. This helps to know that you can either snag the other buff or gank without fear of their interference.

I hope this helps a bit.

Answer 2

From my experience counter jungling is an art of timing and awareness.
When you spot the enemy jungler you can pretty accurately assume his route and this gives you some rough times on his jungle camps.

Now you have seen the enemy jungler heading top from his wolves with a nice ward from mid or something, you know that his wraiths and golems will be up at this point, Is mid fast enough/high enough hp to contest you and waste your time (leblanc, ahri) if not you can pretty much safely take the wraiths then re assess the situation and head for golems.

Now the tough part
Everyone worth anything will have timers on their buffs and sometimes yours, this makes stealing buffs very hard. Dont ever try to solo steal buffs, you will most likely get caught. Try to take buffs either with some slick wards and smite steals or as a team effort (ie. enemy blue is up and the enemy mid had to b, you have 30s ish and your top and mid come with you to steal it.)

Answer 3

Counter jungle is a prove that you are a good Jungler.

• Get wardance/CV on the opponent jungle. (Mandatory after the first 6 minutes)
• Get the jungle time and order of your opponent jungle. (Mandatory)
• Get team work.

Check this video:

If you notice, they do not have Wards on Shyvanna jungle, but even so they get her in the right spot, because of the timing and order of her jungle. Moscow 5 bottom lane, make a cover up to avoid Alistar and Lee got crushed by Janna and Corky. After that, they gank Mid lane getting first and second blood, BESIDE 3 assists in the process (Alistar get assist on the FB and Lee+Karthus one the second blood).

The point here was: - They got the team communication. - They got team support.

BAD way of doing it:

If you see in this video, they don't attack as a group, playing everyone by themselves.

Answer 4

A good time to counter jungle is when you spot their jungler with wards or CV, and go to the opposing jungle side. Map vision is the Key!!!