To all of you ladies and gents trying to shape up your jungle game, for only 400 gold you can buy the brand-but-not-really-new Hunter's Machete and for an extra 70 gold you can add two amazing red Health Potions all for a bundled deal of four-hundred and seventy gold! On top of that, we'll throw on for no charge a Warding Totem if you purchase within the timespan of one game of League of Legends! Buy now at lea-

Oh, wait, you mean that this isn't a discount ad? Oh, it's a guide! Okay, ahem, take two.

Good day to all you lady-and-gentlemen junglers out there, here's a compilation of quick tips and tricks you can do with every jungler to help you level up your jungle game! Everything from clears to auto-attacks will be touched upon, so sit back, read up, and figure out what works best for you.

Image courtesy of Tioshard/Toby Burns

As a jungler, you've always got quite a few jobs to do. Warding, ganking, farming, objective-control, holding lanes - you name it, a jungler does it. Each of these jobs is a skillset on its own, making the jungler's job not to master every single one, but to master getting each job done efficiently. Of course, this mostly comes through experience, but there are also quite a few mechanical tips and tricks to up your game just *that* much.

First Clear

The first thing about efficiency in the jungle is your clear - especially your early clear. Getting a good early clear and a solid start is key to being useful for the rest of the game - and getting that early clear done quickly is extremely important to all jungles, because after that first clear is when every jungler can become relevant to the rest of the game.

Getting through that first clear is different for every jungler, but there is something that they all have in common - spell timing. Of course, at level 1, you only have 1 spell - but using that spell well can mean saving a few seconds and a hundred health on a camp, and that's never a bad thing. Timing spells in between auto-attack animations can really help your clear, especially on champions that have auto-attack resets. For example, an extremely popular jungler right now, Sejuani, has an auto-attack reset on her W. This spell is almost always taken level 1, and something that can accelerate her first clear is auto-attacking, using your W immediately for an auto-attack reset, and continuing to auto the target. This effectively gives you a free auto for no extra time in comparison to when you start with using W and then attacking the camp. Champions that have this kind of auto-attack reset include Vi, Volibear, Rengar, Sejuani, and Xin.

However, spell timing is still useful for champions without auto-attack resets. Instead of starting out by hitting a camp with spells, why not use them in the downtime between auto-attacks? Doing this effectively saves a lot of time and health during those early clears where the jungle creeps can be tough to handle. During those early clears, every second counts, after all. Along with spell timing, you can also learn to kite camps. Every jungle monster has an attack animation and time - kiting back to buy time for your spells to come off cooldown or allowing yourself to heal a small amount can help immensely with your earlier clears.

Of course, you should continue doing this throughout the game, but as times goes on camps get easier and easier to clear, so it's not as pivotal to focus on these small mechanics. After this first few clears, three or so, you should be more focused on how your lanes are doing and what you should be doing strategically to help your team progress.

Smites

So after that all-important first clear, there's the quandry about which smite to pick. This is a pretty important piece of your jungle, and should be pretty easy to figure out. First, never, ever, ever go Poacher's Knife. It's just...so, so, so bad. Rito, please fix your game. Second, there's only a very few, rare, cases where Skirmisher's Smite is useful, and most of the time not on champions you'd except. Buy and large, the two smites you should be considering on every single jungle champion is either Ranger's Trailblazer or Stalker's Blade. Both of these are almost interchangeable, and extremely useful in different ways.

First, Ranger's Trailblazer. On jungles that have trouble clearing - whether they're slow on the clear, only have single target damage, or take a lot of damage while clearing - Xin, Nocturne, Hecarim, Rengar, or Kha'Zix - it's a good idea to pick up Ranger's Trailblazer. Ranger's Trailblazer upgrades your regular smite to Blasting Smite, which does the same damage to a single target but also hit minions around your smite target for 50% of smite's full damage. It also restores 15% of missing health and mana. Obviously, this speeds up a clear an incredible amount. However, timing is necessary for optimal use of Blasting Smite. Because it heals you for 15% of your missing health and mana, you want to use it when you're lower, so you get more of a heal. Using it when you're close to full health will heal your for very little. Of course, at the same time, you don't want to save it until the monster's HP drops below smite damage - that might heal you for more, but that's also inefficient use of smite.

Blasting Smite also gives the advantage of having a heal ready for any fights around camps. Using smite while fighting on a nearby camp not only can help contribute a small amount of damage, but also the 15% heal and mana restoration can give you that slight edge over your opponent to take them down. All in all, Blasting Smite is the safest smite to go with when you're unsure of which one to choose - easy to use, but has some nifty tricks up its sleeve.

Next is Stalker's Blade. Stalker's Blade gives you access to Chilling Smite, which can be cast on enemy Champions as well as jungle camps and lane minions. When cast on enemy champions, Chilling Smite deals 20+8*level true damage and steals 20% of your targets movement speed. Chilling Smite is best on champions that need the movement speed to stick to the enemy champions; it's good on most auto-attack based jungles and jungles that don't need any help clearing, including Sejuani, Volibear, Xin, Skarner, Zac, Fiddlesticks, Rengar, and Nautilus.

There's not much else to say about Chilling Smite. It's extremely helpful on champions that have trouble sticking to their targets beyond the first dash. However, there are a few tricks to using it. When fighting an enemy jungle with Chilling Smite, wait until they smite you before you smite them - it'll give you more movespeed than they recieved, because you're stealing 20 percent of 120 percent movement speed. It's also good for when you're running away - smite the chasing enemy, and it makes it very difficult to continue the chase.

Finally, there's Skirmisher's Blade. Skirmisher's Blade is useful very rarely, and can be deceptive in its use. It gives you access to Challenging Smite, which is castable on enemy Champions as well as jungle camps and lane minions. When cast on an enemy champion, Challenging Smite reveals him or her and reduces their damage dealt to you specifically by 20% for 6 seconds. During this duration, if you basic attack the enemy champions, it applies a 3 second burn dealing 54+6*level true damage. Skirmisher's Blade is only useful on champions that can stick to the enemy and auto attack them consistently - Nunu and Warwick, for example.

However, many people take Skirmisher's Blade on champions that are auto-attack reliant, like Nocturne, Xin, Vi, or Shaco. Most of the time this is not as useful as Chilling Smite on the same champions, simply because Skirmisher's Blade is only useful if you can hit your target. Most of the time, you'll be forced to hit frontline tanks that want to soak up your damage - and the 20% damage reduction from, say, a Maokai is really not that much damage negated. Ideally, you want to smite squishy, high-damage targets, the enemy carries, but most of the time jungles that are auto-attack reliant cannot stick to that target for long enough for Skirmisher's Smite to be useful. Chilling Smite, on the other hand, allows the auto-attack reliant champions to stick to the enemy carries and therefore is more effective than Skirmisher's Blade.

Of course, there's also Poacher's Knife, but here's my advice - forget about this item. Don't even think about it. It's useless, completely and utterly. Onwards! Past first clear and past itemization! Gameplay, people, the most important part. Err, smite objectives, gank lanes, ward, and uhhh.....

Image courtesy of FranklinZero

Final Tip: Always track your jungle opponent

This is the most important thing to do. Whether you farm, gank, or whatever, you always want to know where your enemy jungle is. This way, you can gain objective control, counter-gank, counter-jungle, and help your team secure victory! That's all, folks. Good luck finding your niche in the jungle!