My question is: Should i switch to a
jungler so that we have one, even if
it means missing out on farm for my
team?
Depends on the draft pick order, if you are a good jungler and you are first pick, you can pick one immediately; if you are not first pick and notice the enemy team has already picked a jungler, you can ask in chat if anyone is jungling. If not, it is recommended that your team has a jungler as well, then top lane will be 1v1, you can control the Dragon on bottom lane, and you can set up ganks.
What soft skills do i need as a
jungler, e.g what should i pay most
attention to when going into the
jungle?
You need all of these amongst others:
- Map awareness: Control (a.k.a) warding the river sides during early game usually after your first blue pill, doing so will prevent your bottom and top lanes of being ganked. Warding strategic places during mid/late game can win fights, baron and some of the enemy jungle bushes or even your own jungle bushes.
- Wise use of Smite: If you are going to jungle, you should almost always have smite summoner spell with you (very few exceptions here, perhaps Nunu), it will make your jungling faster and you can also kill Dragon/Baron faster having the possibility of kill stealing if you are aware of the enemy team killing them.
- Lane awareness: One of the most important things a jungler should do is besides killing the neutral creeps and roaming around, is setting up ganks / denying / defending turrets; whenever you see any lane is being outpushed you must leave jungle and defend the turret while the laner pills back, also harassing mid, by just making the enemy mid laner blue pill back will make your mid lane gain more exp/gold by killing creeps alone.
Probably another question, but what
else can i do to carry harder? I
mostly only lasthit and that means
playing safe and not getting many
kills mid in favor of harass.
Last hit is a very important thing to do overall, not only carries should do it, however you can easily harass while last hitting, it just takes a little bit of practice and knowing exactly what your champion skills are. In order to effetively carry, you should just play smart and aggresive when possible during team fights and laning phase, meaning letting your tanks engage and start the fights, targeting the enemy AD/AP carries. Also a very importing thing a carry should do is pick items accordingly to what the enemy team comp is, perhaps maybe just stacking AP flat items would not be the greatest idea if the enemy team is heavy on MR, stacking AP + Magic Pen items would do much better, same idea applies to AD carries; additionally if you as carry are having a good early/mid game, you should also buy some defensive items, such as Guardian Angel / Banshees Veil in order to have a little more survivability.
Useful links:
Assuming you are the mid lane, you should gank top and bottom lanes more frequently than if you had a jungler, the following are just general guidelines to bare in mind before/during/after ganking.
Before
- Make sure mid lane is not pushed and that either enemy mid lane pilled back or you killed him.
- Check both side lanes for enemies overextending and being below half health.
- Either ping and type in chat your intention to gank, if possible ask whether the side bushes are warded, this will save you time and lost exp/gold from minion kills.
- Depending on the champion you are playing you will most likely need to be at least 6 to make use of your ultimate.
- Make sure you have your summoner spells not in cooldown, successful ganks can be determined on this, wise use of ignite/exhaust and ghost/flash to catch up will almost guarantee a kill/assist.
To answer one of your questions determining when is early or late, usually mid towers are taken down in 15-20 minutes of gameplay, you should not gank if you are going to loose mid tower as it is the most important tower you have, therefore taking into account the things I mentioned above too early would be not having more than one of the aforementioned; as simple as it is, too late is whenever the side lane towers were taken down and you had the opportunity to gank.
During
- Make sure you and your teammates focus the weakest/most important target.
- Do not tower dive if the gank is most likely to fail, it is not worth to get 1x2.
- Do not ignore minions during the gank, specially if you are below 1/4 health! Beware of the purple caster minion (Specially during early game)!
After
- After a successful gank from mid, you can either push the lane you just ganked in order to get the tower gold and experience, this should be done if you can be aware that a counter gank is not going to happen and also if mid lane is not being pushed.
- If you are not going to push the tower, you should leave the lane for your teammates to farm gold.
- If you ganked bottom lane and if you and your teammates have the appropriate map control you can all get dragon, it gives global gold as taking a tower does, but it is worth more during early/mid game.
At what time do i expect a gank?
Expect a Gank anytime when you see the lane not being pushed and 1 or more of the enemy champions missing in action, expect a Gank whenever the enemy lane becomes over confident being below half health, meaning you are being lured into a trap. Expect a gank when killing enemy Blue/Red and whenever killing Baron and Dragon.
Best Counter gank: Proper warding of the map
Best Answer
When should you gank?
You should Gank whenever you can create pressure without harming you nor your laners. If your laners are pushed it's harder to gank, but still doable, however you have to mind where the enemy jungler is to prevent him taking Dragon or counter ganking you.
Ganking as Amumu on Top
In my opinion, it's the easiest lane to gank before 6 and the hardest after 6. If the enemy toplaner is pushing to your turret you can easily come by the river and just jump in. Make sure the river isn't warded by smiting the Raptors (The camp near midlane). If it's your own laner that is pushed, then it's a bit harder. Depending on how pushed and which side you're playing on, you can gank by the tri bush (If you're on the Blue side), but make sure your laner has CC as you're incredibly close to the turret, or just go from your own turret without giving vision of yourself and hide in the bush. Once the minion wave starts pushing so will the enemy laner and you can engage at that point. If the lane is frozen at the middle a gank from the tribush is really good if they have no dashes, if they do, try to gank from the river instead. After 6 you don't need to use your Q into the enemy champion, if you fear you might miss, aim for a minion near him and then use your ultimate to root him in place. Be careful however, since post 6 many top laners are either too safe or incredibly dangerous (Tryndamere, Teemo, Irelia, Riven are really difficult to gank)
Ganking as Amumu on the midlane This can be very dangerous since most midlaners have a lot of escapes (especially Zed and Leblanc). This means your only choice is to wombo combo them. Don't really try to gank before 6 unless your teammate can stun him , the midlane is an easy place to run away from ganks. Like in the top lane, make sure you have either a sweeping lens or the raptor buff, and you can gank from anywhere except your own turret (unless you're sion or have TP and Homeguards). Preferably only gank when your laner managed to bait a fight, so that the enemy will not have his escapes up (most escapes are used to engage aswell). The exception to this is if it's a low mobility mage. If you see a Malzahar, Morgana, Lux and the like, by all means, dodge the snares and engage. They have no way to escape (Just beware of the damage, shield and slow respectively). Never ever dive a midlaner unless you're almost at full health. Especially not Malzahar / Lissandra / Anivia / Galio.
Ganking as Amumu on Botlane
Pre 6, unless the enemy is low, don't do it (unless your teammates have a lot of CC). You're slow. You have 1 stun. They usually will have 2 flashes an exhaust and a heal. The only thing you're doing is pushing your lane, and that isn't exactly the best thing to do. However if they are either low, out of mana or you can effectively lock them down, go ahead and try to kill one of them, maybe two if the second one is dumb enough to stay there. You can try the toplane trick here though, is your botlane pushed? Hide in the bush without the enemy noticing. Once the lane pushes back and they pass by you / facecheck the bush, that's a free stun for you, and possibly a kill if your team can follow up. After 6, just run in there by the river, throw yourself at them and press R. Finish them off with your tears and if possible leave a kill for the adc
Ganking as Pantheon
Pantheon early game has everything that amumu has except a gapcloser. He does have a short gapcloser, which is his stun, but if the enemy is out of range you're screwed. Basicly the same principle applies here, run by the open gaps and try to combo. Q -> W -> E -> Q is the best combo for a gank, provided you have enough mana. If not, Q -> W -> Basic attack and Q again (You'll want your laner to be doing damage aswell , and save a Q to prevent the enemy from surviving at 10 hp, if your laner can't finish him off) Post 6 your ganks are unbelievably easy. At this point you probabbly have boots (Extra points for Mobility Boots) and you can do the aforementioned rather easily. But you also have your ultimate. Warn your team you're engaging, and where you're landing, and make sure they engage during your cast time. If the enemy backs he's gonna be crushed by your ultimate (You shouldn't ult into someone, but rather ult where they're going to be). If he doesn't back, it's still a 2v1 situation, and he took extra damage for keeping fighting (which will mean that you can kill him even easier). As Pantheon if you do take the Chilling Smite you can also slow an enemy which is incredibly useful (even if it doesn't seem so). Just don't smite while he's stunned, that's wasting your slow on someone that can't move.
Routes Both of those junglers do need mana. As such your best start is
Those Are the best starts, however I wouldn't recommend the second one. The first start allows you to reach level 3 in the best possible way. You get extra damage from the gromp and the ntake a blue buff. Take wolves for the experience. Once you take the Raptors not only you have vision denial but you'll reach level 3 (which allows you for your first decent combo). You go into base and buy the upgrade along with some pots. Do the red and gank. Use the potions to make sure you gank at high health.
The Second start is worse because you can't deny vision. Smiting the Blue Buff is a huge waste, so save your smite. You take the Blue and go to wolves. You probabbly won't be able to solo the Wolves so you'll have to smite them (if not save for raptors). Go straight to the raptors and clear them (And you'll hit level 3). Take the Red Buff and Smite it (It will heal you) and you gank a lane fairly high on health. However you might not have as much health as the first method, you're susceptible to be counterjungled at the red buff (Care for Rengar, Shaco and Warwick) and you won't have access to the Smite upgrades
Note: For the jungle routes you can also take the scuttle crab after finishing your initial clear for more health (If you have Lifesteal or Spellvamp), gold and vision. However, beware that the enemy jungler may have had the same idea.