After watching some jungler streams,this is a question that came to my mind.Why do they buy boots after finishing the jungler item most of the time?I know it makes killing camps faster,but on the other side you can not gank as efficent as you would do with boots since you are not only slower when chasing but you also take longer to get from lane to lane.
Would it not be better to get boots as first item?It improves pressure on all lanes,helps chasing down and even if it takes a bit more time to clear the camps,the movement speed should make up the time you are in the jungle plus you can run away more easily if you fail a gank.
Or is it just a personal preference?
Best Answer
Usually Boots are important on junglers but cleartime and gank effectiveness are even more important. The movementspeed you gain from boots of speed isn't worthless but it's also not a huge advantage.
Junglers that are currently popular tend to have rather huge gapclosers (there are some exceptions of course like Udyr). If you take Lee Sin for example: Boots won't increase his gank quality but an early Elder Lizard or even Longsword will. The same goes for most other junglers.
Also one thing to keep in mind is that all jungler Items give you Life/Mana Reg on-hit. This Means you are more sustained throughout the jungle and you don't have to waste too much money on healing potions. The Items also increase the damage dealt to monsters by 30% which makes clearing stuff a lot faster.
So basically: Early boots aren't bad but the current meta favors gapcloser champions who don't need movementspeed but Damage/Tankiness and Faster cleartimes (and of course the 40g per camp-kill).
The main reason why you see this more often in Higher Elo is because they don't mess up their skillshots as often as low-Elo Players do. This means they don't rely on Movementspeed that much but on Damage.