Every once in a while, a jungler will find themselves behind the enemy jungler in levels, gold, and map control. If the game continues on despite such a horrible thing happening for whatever reason - be it an early invade, or a failed gank - you may find yourself wondering what to do. As a typical jungler you hope to gank a lane and use a numbers advantage to be able to kill an enemy laner. Most assassins have the potential to easily 100-0 any squishy target, but if you fall behind, your damage becomes lackluster and your capabilities suffer. Here are some things you can do to remain relevant.

Pick your battles wisely

One of the main problems of playing from behind is remaining behind and furthering that divide of gold and experience. Junglers often think that the way to return to the spotlight is to gank a lane, grab a half-dozen kills, and saunter away into the sunset suddenly ahead of their enemy. Unfortunately, that is rarely possible as your lackluster damage and capability to 100-0 will only slip further behind. A KD of 1/4 can easily slip into 2/8 and a trail of two levels can become four.

As a result, you should always look for enemies who are out of position. A jungler from behind doesn’t make plays, they capitalize on enemies’ mistakes.

Never be alone

When you are alone as any class or role, whether ahead or behind, you tend to run a risk of being picked by the enemy team if you end up wandering around. If you need to place a ward or take a camp, don’t be alone. Communicate to your team and have someone wander with you. If the enemy jungler decides to invade, you will have a better chance of turning a fight in your favor.

Wards are your new best friend

If you read any of my other articles, you will find me praising the importance of wards and I will stick to that. Wards are especially your friend when you find yourself unable to secure your own buffs. If you happen to lose out on a timer, stick a ward on that buff! The enemy jungler will know when it’s a-okay to invade again to keep you behind which can give you a prime opportunity for you and a laner to gank, secure the buff, and try to kill the enemy jungler.

Useful locations for wards. 1 and 2 are to make sure you aren't invaded. 3 is to grab the jungle buff timer.

Figure out your strength and capitalize on it

Not all junglers are built the same. Some of them are hyper-carries who might be behind the entire game until they get their core items online like Kali. Others can build tanky and be useful to the team by utilizing their CC such as Thor. Even then, some gods are very useful at poking the enemy team such as Susano-o who can easily teleport into a teamfight and then dash out of it. Even dealing 200 or so damage to a single squishy target can be the difference between life and death for your enemies. There are even gods who can be four or five levels behind and still remain useful through their abilities to split push. Whatever the strength of your god is, use that to your advantage.

Farm, farm, farm. Oh look. Farm some more.

One way to try to remain relevant or catch up is to focus on farming. Junglers can easily fall behind in levels and gold if they are spending too much time trying to gank and kill without bothering to tag waves or keep their buffs down. Even something as simple as securing your back harpies each spawn can be an easy way to try to keep up in gold and exp. They’re a weak camp, but each offers 71 gold and 170 on an 80 second cooldown. Do remember, however, that you should always have an ally with you and keeping your Bumba’s Mask will help ensure that you can gain as much gold as possible for the team. Tag every wave you can, even if you just pop into a lane to be present. That is your reward or, as I like to call it, the Jungler Tax.

Change your build up

A lot of junglers have core builds of two or three items that are considered “must buys” for that god to be effective. What does that mean for the other three items? Well, if you look up any build it will give you a lot of damaging items to best utilize a kit. However, sometimes these items are ridiculously expensive. Take Serqet, for example, many builds for her include Warrior Tabi, Jotunn’s Wrath, and Deathbringer. Crit is useful as her 1 is able to crit, but Deathbringer is a whopping 3200 gold and having the mindset of “I need to have this expensive item to be relevant” can be damaging because waiting for that power spike will keep you solidly behind. Even if you do manage to get that power spike, investing so much time into it can easily bring you problems as the enemy jungler can get 1.5 items for the same amount of gold granting them better stats.

Instead of waiting for that 3200 gold, put 2400 of it towards something relevant and the other 800 towards something else that is useful. Hybrid defense items can be a wonderful 4th slot investment. Spirit Robe especially comes to mind as it grants you 40 physical protections and 40 magical protections, 10% CDR, and 20% CC-reduction (which is good against stuns, a jungler’s weakness), and a passive that gives you % damage mitigation. It will delay your ability to 100-0 a squishy, but it will help you last a moment longer in a fight, save your life, and let you walk away with a nice reward for any kills or assists.

If you aren’t that far behind, you could buy hybrid items that give you damage and defense. One of my favorite on physical jungler is Void Shield. It offers 30 power, 50 physical protections, and reduces enemy physical protections by 20. Explore your options and be smart about your build.

Sometimes you have to be the sacrificial lamb

There are games where it feels as though you’ve fallen so far behind that you are utterly unable to do anything to help your team in any positive way. That is false. You can absorb damage. Even behind, a jungler can dive the enemy backline to disrupt them and maybe be enough of a threat for the enemy team to throw damaging abilities and ultimates at you. As long as your team is working together and generally on the same page, they can have a slight advantage in abilities available to them to turn a teamfight. However, it is a dangerous play and should really only be done out of complete desperation.

Above all, communicate

If you fall behind, it feels bad. People generally don't get into a game with the intent to feed and that fact can often be forgotten by allies. Whatever the reason is for ending up behind, own up to the problem. You could think "It is X person's fault because they did Y thing to me that has caused me to be behind," but that is defeatist. Mentally you need to accept that bad stuff happened and say something as simple as "Sorry guys. I fell behind. I'm going to focus on farm for now" is great! It lets your team know that you realize you've fallen behind and that you have a plan. Not to mention that it helps set expectations.

Whatever method you choose, remember the end goal is to win and even a hopeless situation can be used for good!

Good luck, and happy jungling!

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