Since the beginning of Season 3, the average NA SPL game has gone on for 37 minutes of play once you exclude the dramatic outliers of games that go over 60 minutes or are shorter than 15 minutes. From looking at the games that fall around that average, it is easy to see that most junglers are sitting pretty between five and six items.

However, this is a game with professional players who generally play out a game until the titan has died. I’m sure I’m not the only one that has complained about games ending before 20 minutes have passed because one team chooses to F6 instead of playing to the end.

Before the 20-minute mark, players are generally still farming. They’re in lane, taking objectives, and farming for the infamous late-game. Often, though, the late-game never appears. With Golden Bow, ADCs had an easy time clearing the lane, which let them rotate for ganks or look for early kills with all of their abilities available to them. High-clear Hunters like Neith were pushed out of the meta since late-game Hunters like Rama and Hou Yi could reach their late-game easily and quickly.

Once in a while, though, games will bleed into the 30 and 40-minute mark and I have noticed that losses can easily come up when a jungler fails to understand how to be a jungler in the late-game. Teamfights are aplenty and squishy junglers like Serqet can find their KD drift from 7/2 to 7/6 if they try to treat a late-game teamfight like an early to mid-game gank opportunity.

Let’s break that down, then, and explain several different roles that junglers can fulfill in the late-game depending on character. This will be specific to assassins or assassin-type characters.

Initiators

There is a general idea that supports are initiators, the only initiators, and sometimes that is not true. There are several junglers that are amazing at initiation and it’s often because of their ultimates. So consider what your pick has in terms of group CC and escapability.

Thor and Thanatos have AoE stuns on their ults and can be effective while building slightly tankier to withstand the damage thrown at them. It can easily save your support an active slot by not forcing them into blink or they can follow up with even more CC. Not only that, but a god smashing down from the air is unexpected unless the enemy team is paying attention to the sky. Fenrir and Hun Batz have an easy time getting into an enemy team with jumps and teleports and their ultimates are amazing for disruption and CC. They can force Relics and your team can easily follow up to rain death on the enemy team.

Pickers

Players who pick up the extremely squishy junglers like Serqet and Ao Kuang tend to struggle the most in the late-game because 5-man teamfights are different than 2 or 3-man ganks. These are also gods that tend to have very strong 100-0 potential on a single target. However, they often can’t function in a teamfight because they will often die before they can get off all of their damage.

There are a few things they can do. They should stand off to the side and away from their team to more easily rush into the backline for disruption or kills. If this fails and picking off the backline ends up with your death, just wait during the next teamfight. Let your frontline push forward and wait for the enemy team to end up scattered with their abilities and escapes down. A Scylla who has already thrown out Crush and used her escape is a prime target for a pick.

These gods can also stay in their own backline if they have abilities that displace the enemy (like Awilix’s ult) or their support has phenomenal displacement skills (like Sobek or Ares). The number one thing to remember and understand is that these characters are squishy and cannot dive into a teamfight otherwise they will be made obsolete. There is often pressure to “get in there” and dish out your damage, but patience is vital.

Split-Pushers

These are going to be gods that have some viability outside of the actual teamfight. Smite is an objective-based game. If you have 10 more kills on your team than the enemy, and you lose your Titan, those kills mean nothing. Even if behind, split-pushers can stay relevant by building power and penetration to focus on killing structures.

This will mostly be gods that have the ability to spawn their own minions such as Bastet and Bakasura or thrive the most off of full penetration builds like Loki. I should also stress that, while Loki is frequently not currently a jungler, he can thrive just by pushing towers.

Team-Fighters

These are gods that generally have a lot of control, AoE damage, sustainability, and can thrive in the midst of a teamfight. With Kali, for example, a teamfight in the late-game can lead to a deicide if Kali manages to focus down her targets one after the other. Other gods like Mercury have amazing follow-up CC that can be used to disorient and distract once the teamfight has already begun.

Positioning is important for a team-fighting jungler as they can still be easily blown up if they are not paying attention. Try to wait until the primary CC has been utilized as that will often be key to surviving. You may also note that some junglers (like Mercury, Susano, and Ratatoskr) have two “escapes” and you can easily use one to get into a fight and the other to get out

Good luck, and happy jungling!

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