Some champions in League of Legends are just much stronger than others.
For junglers, there are multiple considerations when weighing which champions are better. The most important thing to look at, and the most obvious, is whether the champion would be good at ganking and either securing kills or aiding their teammates in doing so. Behind the scenes, though, is where things get complicated.
Clear speed, invasion pressure, and macro mobility are all factors that need to be evaluated for keeping up with the enemy jungler. The best jungle champions are the ones that can do it all.
This list of top-tier champions can change depending on a number of things. Sometimes the meta shifts for no apparent reason other than players’ tastes, but usually there’s some kind of balance update, small or large, that’s behind the sudden change. It can be difficult to keep up on the flavor-of-the-month champs, so let us do it for you.
Here’s our current tier list for the best jungle champions in League of Legends.
Here are our top five junglers for League’s Patch 10.19.
Karthus
Pros
- Global ultimate
- Impactful even after death
- Good source of magic damage in AD composition
Cons
- Needs time to scale
- Cannot contest early objectives
Karthus is one of the best ability power junglers to round out a full AD composition. This is mostly thanks to the utility from his kit, as well as his slow and global ultimate. Karthus is a power farmer with barely any cooldown on Q, allowing for quick jungle clear. But he’s rather mana hungry and struggles with early ganks.
He’s highly contested in high elo due to his ability to turn fights around with his ultimate.
Item build
The Domination tree is important for Karthus. It grants access to additional damage from Dark Harvest, Cheap Shot, and Eyeball Collection, which synergizes extremely well with Karthus’ ultimate, alongside additional sustain from Ravenous Hunter to make your clear healthier. The Precision secondary is great on Karthus since Coup de Grace increases your ultimate damage directly onto low health targets and Presence of Mind increases your mana cap to allow you to use E more often.
Ability priority
Karthus’s ability priority is R>Q>W>E. Your Q is your primary damaging tool in both the jungle and teamfights. Learn how to aim with it to maximize damage output on a single target to be able to zone out the important carries of a teamfight. Max W second since its width gets increased with level. While the damage from E is good, the utility from the slow is much more useful and it will allow you to get into range or escape much easier.
Game plan
Karthus is a power farmer who needs to reach level six as soon as possible to be able to influence the game. While his early game isn’t the worst in League, he definitely needs items and levels to get going. Don’t look to contest objectives until level six since you’ll most likely end up dead and behind, while also giving an advantage to the enemy.
After you get level six, watch over the map and look for low health enemies to finish them off. Remember not to use it wastefully since it has a high cooldown early on. Use it for guaranteed kills only. Keep farming as the game goes on. Don’t focus on attempting to gank too much since it might be telegraphed. Try to farm up, get items, and use your ultimate on cooldown for kills.
Graves
Pros
- Mobile
- Tanky
- Rewarding if mastered
Cons
- Relies on snowballing
- Hard to come back if behind
Graves is one of the most popular picks this patch after the resurgence of strong champions that can be kited, such as Ornn in the top lane, Galio in the mid lane, and Trundle in the jungle. He is the master at kiting enemies and slowly chipping their health bars down. He is one of the most reliable snowballing champions due to how easy it is to gank with Graves. You have access to a dash, which allows you to pass through walls, and a smoke bomb, which slows and denies vision from the enemy champions.
Item build
There are a lot of viable builds for Graves but the most picked one is the kiting version with the Sorcery tree as the core tree due to Phase Rush. It grants you insane kiting potential and it’s easy to proc. Sorcery’s Celerity and Water Walking make you swift and much harder to catch. While some champions could not get away with such a rune style, Graves has more than enough damage in his kit to compensate for the no-damage runes.
The secondary tree is Precision due to Legend: Alacrity, which grants you the much-needed attack speed, and Triumph for those cheeky low-health plays from which you come unscathed and gain extra gold.
Ability priority
Graves’s ability priority is R>Q>E>W. His Q is the only damaging tool in his kit which will help you clear waves. E is maxed second for the extra mobility and additional resists. Try to time it from camp to camp so that it doesn’t fall off and you will barely lose any health in the jungle, allowing you to clear camps safely and then force an invade or a gank early on. While W is one of the best vision denials spells in the game, the effectiveness of Q and E is much more superior so it’s maxed last after them.
Game plan
Graves is one of the most mobile junglers in League. You should use this to your advantage and try to gank lanes from unexpected angles. Always carry a sweeper to clear wards before you come for ganks. Use the water walking rune to your advantage and fight over in the river if someone comes to contest the scuttle crab. Your runes are perfect for such fights early on and you should win most of them with no issues.
Going into the mid-game, try to kite in team fights and use the E reset to get good burst damage on an overextended opponent. Don’t waste R for damage early on. Instead, try to catch people off guard who flash away with low health and burst them down.
Hecarim
Pros
- Strong duelist
- Mobile
- Easy to play
- AoE crowd-control ultimate
Cons
- Predictable playstyle
Hecarim rose in the jungle ranks of solo queue silently over the course of the past few patches. As more people realized how strong he is, his pick rate has suddenly increased alongside his win rate.
He is quite easy to play and can be picked up by any player, including non-junglers.
Item build
Hecarim has plenty of viable rune pages, but the most successful one currently is Precision primary with Domination as a secondary tree. Precision grants you access to Conqueror, one of the strongest keystones in the game, giving you a lot of attack damage and healing, on top of being easy to stack up. Other great runes are Triumph to help your low-health escapes, Legend: Alacrity to increase your attack speed and Last Stand to make you deadlier the lower your health is.
Domination is taken primarily for Ravenous Hunter, which synergizes very well with Conqueror. These two runes combined give you a lot of healing, making you deceptively tanky. Sudden Impact is taken since it will get easily activated with your E to increase your damage.
Ability priority
Hecarim’s skill priority is R>Q>E>W. Maxing Q allows you to farm camps easily and do as much damage as often as possible. It is a primary requirement for this build, where you need to be spamming Q’s to proc Conqueror and Ravenous Hunter. E is maxed second for the movement speed and W is a pretty subpar ability, so is maxed last.
Game plan
Hecarim is currently in a pretty good place in the jungle. Your goal as a Hecarim jungle is to clear your camps as soon as possible and then look for opportunities to gank any lane. If you see no such opportunities, focus on getting the crabs in the river for additional vision or the Rift Herald alongside the dragon. But remember to keep farming camps for the gold income to ensure you can get your core items as soon as possible.
Due to the fact that your gameplay is predictable, try to look for countergank opportunities instead of a gank. It’s much easier to get a kill in such cases instead of a gank.
As the game goes on, try to maintain good vision coverage for your team and act as an initiator for them with your ultimate. Remember to punish the champions who have no flash by jumping on them with E then following up with a R to push them into your team for an easy kill.
Rek’Sai
Pros
- Tremor sense
- Untargetability via ultimate
- Mobile
- True damage
Cons
- Hard to come back if behind
- Has one-dimensional build
Rek’Sai is back in the meta after being missing for a couple of months. She’s become more popular as other meta junglers have received nerfed. Her kit is strong overall and can be used to great effect in the correct hands. She’s very mobile, allowing you to gank through unexpected angles with her tunnels. She also has a great ultimate that can be used for dives early on to snowball your lanes.
Item build
Rek’Sai benefits from a couple of different rune builds, but the most successful is one focused on getting Precision as the primary rune tree and Sorcery as a secondary. Precision gives you access to a couple of great runes that perfectly fit your kit.
Conqueror is a great keystone rune, allowing you to gain more attack damage in combat and a healing effect when fully stacked. Triumph allows you to regain some health back during takedowns, which is crucial in the earlier stages of the game. It can be the difference between life and death during those early dives. Legend: Alacrity makes your attacks feel more fluid and deal damage faster. Coup de Grace will give you more damage against lower health enemies.
The Sorcery secondary tree became meta on junglers once players realized how broken Nimbus Cloak is. It became a requirement to have on all junglers to make them unstoppable. Waterwalking is taken in combination with it to make you a menace in the river. No one will be able to contest you when you go to take the crab.
Ability priority
Rek’Sai’s ability priority is R>Q>E>W. Your Q is your primary direct damaging tool. It serves as wave clear and your main damaging tool during ganks. E is maxed second to give you a higher finishing tool and W is maxed last since the cooldown reduced by it has a much smaller impact compared to maxing Q or E.
Game plan
Rek’Sai is an aggressive jungler who should focus on roaming the map on a constant basis and invading the enemy jungler. You’re extremely strong early on due to the tremor sense in your kit, which allows you to see where enemies are. Use that to your advantage and punish enemies who are out of position with swift ganks and dives under tower.
Contest the Scuttle Crabs early on with Waterwalking, which grants you additional movement speed and attack damage while in the river. Focus on maintaining an aggressive playstyle and constant ganks. The moment you start focusing on farm, you’ll lose the game.
Rek’Sai doesn’t scale as well as other junglers and you should keep that in mind if you intend to go to the late game. Your goal is to build an advantage early on and allow your team to carry the game.
Evelynn
Pros
- Invisible
- One-shot potential
- Hard to counter
Cons
- Useless if behind
- Weak against tanks
Evelynn excels at roaming around the map and picking up kills to snowball out of control. She has the potential to carry games with her burst damage, assassinating core carries from the opposing team. Even though her jungle clear speed isn’t as fast as other champions, she has become a contested pick in solo queue for junglers and recently made an appearance in professional play as well.
Item build
Evelynn excels at assassinating people before they can react and the Domination tree is the best rune choice for this. You get access to Electrocute, Sudden Impact and Eyeball Collection, three core runes to increase your damage in your kit. Relentless Hunter is taken to be able to move more freely around the map.
Inspiration is a core secondary tree as well with the free boots being very valuable for all Evelynn players. The most surprising rune choice is Future’s Market, which is rarely taken but is core for Eve. It allows you to get the extra gold needed for your items sooner.
Ability priority
Evelynn’s skill priority is: R>Q>E>W. You want to max Q since it directly affects your ability to clear camps. It will also increase your damage output during your ganking attempts. After maxing Q, max E for the additional burst damage. Max W last since the damage from Q and E is much more valuable.
Game plan
Your goal is to clear camps to reach level three as soon as possible to have access to all basic abilities and then look for a gank opportunity. Look for overextended enemies and then use your W to taunt them and while you get close to them, proc it for a small CC. During that CC window, you can delete them off the Rift.
Carry a sweeper trinket and use it to clear vision on the map to ensure that no one sees your pathing. Even if you have an invisibility passive, there’s still a downtime before it’s activated and smart opponents will ward near your camps to see you path. By using the sweeper trinket near camps, you will ensure the enemies won’t know where you are. Once you reach level six, look for dives on enemy champions.
Your ultimate allows you to overextend by bringing you back to safety while also dealing a ton of damage. You can easily take aggro from the tower by dealing damage to the enemy champion, then using the split-second invulnerability from your ultimate to dodge important skillshots and deliver an execute onto the low-health opponent.