DOTA 2 Guide for Jungling

Introduction

Ah, jungling. A very understated part of DOTA 2. Jungling consists of killing Neutral Creeps throughout the game to gain gold and experience, and to get the items and abilities that you need fast. In this guide, I will show you how to jungle efficiently, understanding jungling hero's and strategies for and against junglers.

Basics

The Jungle consists of NEUTRAL CREEPS, which will attack any hero or any creep, Radiant or Dire.

The jungle creeps swan in the sections circled 30 seconds after the game begins in places called, "camps", and will reswawn every minute. However, these creeps will not respawn if a hero or unit is within view of the camp.

For the Radiant, the jungle is near bottom lane. For the Dire, the jungle is near top lane.

The GREEN creep camps are the relatively easy creeps to kill. They have weak abilities which can be a danger to most junglers early game, but definitely harmless late game. These abilities can ben STUN, or POISON, very few are actually magic immune.

The ORANGE creeps are creeps with more HP, magic immune, and have better counter abilities against farmers (STUNS and POISON). Junglers usually do not go for these spots until mid-game.

The RED creep is a devastating monster;

ROSHAN

STATS;

He has 7500 HP and can deal 128 dammage per attack. His abilities are;

"Spell Block", allowing him to block one targetted spell every 15 seconds.

"Bash", Roshan has a 15% chance to stun a targetted creep or hero for 1.65 seconds.

"Slam", which will damage and slow creeps and heros in an area by 50%. He will not cast this unless there are 3+ creeps/hero's in the area.

"Strength of the Immortal", giving Roshan +0.5 armor, +500 HP and +10 damage every 5 minutes after spawn, and will continue until it reaches a max of +5 armor, +4500 HP and +90 damage.

Roshan respawns at a fixed rate of 10 minutes after death, instead of most creeps who respawn at a specific time on the game clock.

What's rare about Roshan is that he drops extremely rare items when defeated. One is the AEGIS OF THE IMMORTAL, which will allow the person to respawn after death at the place where they died with full HP and MANA. If Roshan is defeated a third time, he will drop an AEGIS and a CHEESE, which will replenish a hero's HP and MANA to max instantly.

Jungle Heros

If you want to jungle effectively, you need to know the best hero's to jungle with. Here's a list of all the junglers in DOTA 2 in alphabetical order;

AXE

BLOODSEEKER

CHEN

ENCHANTRESS

ENIGMA

LIFESTEALER

LONE DRUID

LYCANTHROPE

NATURE'S PROPHET

URSA

These hero's are the best to jungle with. For a game, there is usually only one jungler on a team, because if there were more in the jungle, the enemy would be able to push a lane at ease.

Types of Junglers

Even though jungle hero's are a hero type, there is still much to learn about these hero's. In DOTA 2, there are THREE types of junglers.

Summoners

These junglers rely of summoned units to do most of the farming for them. When jungling, they put these units in front so that they themselves do not take any damage and can avoid any enemy ganking easily. Examples of these junglers are ENIGMA and NATURE'S PROPHET. Usually, summoners get items that will increase MANA regeneration and strengthen their units. Items such as RING OF BASILIUS or ARCANE BOOTS are acceptable items.

AoE's

AoE (Area of Effect) junglers rely on their own abilities to take down neutral creeps. These abilities can require mana, such as URSA's "Overpower" ability, or can be a passive such as AXE's "Counter-Helix".

For Mana-dependent AoE junglers, get powers that will increase MANA and HP regeneration, such as a BOTTLE.

For Mana-independent AoE junglers, focus mainly on your STRENGTH abilities to take limited amounts of damage.

Life-Stealers

These junglers rely on Life-Stealing abilities in order to suck the life out of neutral creeps to take them down faster. An example being (obviously), LIFESTEALER. These hero's rely more on their HP than MANA.

These hero's focus on their Life-Stealing abilities, such as LIFESTEALER's "Feast" ability, or items such as VLADMIR'S OFFERING and SATANIC.

Jungling Strategy

Junglers really want to farm neutral creeps in the early game, as late-game jungling will be much more difficult. This is because enemies will take down towers in the jungling area so that anyone jungling will have limited view of the lane and won't have any towers/allies to run to. For jungling early game, get items that will support your jungling needs. This all depeends on the type of jungler you play as.

A practice not often used by players in DOTA 2 is "Creep Stacking". This is when a hero draws jungle creeps away from their base so they can generally have more creeps to kill since they respawn at specific times. In order to do this, a jungler must first get the attention of a neutral creep, and lure it away from the camp until the next minute passes.

An extension to this trick is called "Creep Laning". To do this, you must first lure the jungle creeps away from the camp and bring it into the creep lane. Not only will you gain support from your own lane creeps, but it also allows more creeps to respawn. A jungler should not do this, however, if the lane is being pushed by the enemy team.

Countering Junglers

To counter a jungling hero, you can frequently attempt ganks to limit their ability to jungle. Observer/Sentry wards will make this easier. Fun fact, if you place an observer ward in a camp before the creeps respawn, they will not respawn. Again, jungle creeps will not respawn if anything is within view of the camp, including wards!

For junglers that have this happen to them, try to find another place to jungle, or place OBSERVER/SENTRY WARDS yourself to forsee any oncoming gankers.

Devastating hero's to be farming against are ganking hero's, who can come up and attack you when you least expect it.

The best hero's to counter farmers are the following, in no particular order;

PUDGE

NIGHT-STALKER

BLOODSEEKER

NYX ASSASSIN

Conclusion

In conclusion, there are many ways to jungle and to counter junglers. With some practice and further understanding of DOTA 2, you can be an efficient jungler/counter-jungler yourself.

Thanks for reading! I hope you found this guide useful!