With the elimination of hog, you will see many old gods reentering the jungle with the ability to get two actives. For those who don’t know, hog recently got a nerf causing it to be alot less favorable for junglers and support. Also with this change, jungle buffs got nerfed to be a lot easier to kill with hog being basically useless. I personally enjoy this change because it allows many people and characters to start differently depending on matchup/god.

Attack Speed Characters

Auto attack characters who scale with attack speed such as Bellona, Kali, Nemesis, and Arachne can start relatively differently than other gods. The most normal and popular build for these characters are Bumbas, Short Bow, one mana & one health potion. This build allows you to rush Ichival really really quickly and in turn allowing you to get one of the major power spikes for these characters a lot easier and a lot sooner.

These characters (mainly Kali, Nemesis & Arachne) can go for a really “greedy” start as well. This start is Bumbas into Short Blade (tier 1 Qin's Sais). This leaves you with absolutely no sustain in the jungle so if you get poked out you may die or be forced to back. However, with this build being so greedy it is WELL worth it. Adapting (Jungler for Epsilion Esports) loves this build due to how fast you can get Qin’s Sais online. I have seen Adapting get Ninja Tabi and Qin's Sais done within 8 minutes due to this build. I would suggest this build if you feel comfortable with these gods enough to know you won’t die or get poked out early.

Mages In the jungle





Magical junglers have the interesting spot of starting Bumbas and Tiny Trinket. This is identical to how mages start in mid lane with Shroud and Tiny Trinket. This build is obviously to rush Bancroft's Talon on these characters as soon as possible. This is the more “common” and standard build right now for these characters.



Red Pot Start (Early Game Gods)

Yes, it’s back, our beloved red pot start. On gods with extremely high early game pressure such as Thor, Than, Bellona, even Serqet can rush red pot out of the base in hopes of somewhat getting really far ahead. Why is this start so important? It’s much less greedy now due to you being able to get 3 health potions and 2 mana potions. This gives you the most sustain out of any build with a huge power spike off the bat at level 1. However this start is still risky due to you essentially wasting 450 gold. If you don’t get first blood, a couple kills, or die with red pot. Be warned you will be EXTREMELY far behind if you don't get anything out of it. I would only suggest this start if you are planning to invade and know for a fact you will win the early game no matter what.

The aspect of rushing actives out of the base

One thing I personally love to do is rush out of base with an active I feel will be really useful in the early game. Especially on characters like Serqet, rushing blink gives you insane gank potential especially at level 2. What does the opposing mid laner do if you have blink 30 seconds in and taunt him into your mage? Nothing, he just dies. This start does delay you going into boots which is unfortunate but I honestly feel this start is amazing on certain characters.



What two actives should I focus on?



Well to start off, regardless of character you should honestly look at getting beads. Beads is such a powerful active that not getting it puts you at risk at all times. However with you not having hog anymore, your second active slot is a lot more flexible. These are the actives you should be looking towards on most characters. On most junglers blink is a viable option that explodes your gank potential and your survivability. However, if you feel as if you are getting focused Aegis wouldn’t be a bad buy at all. Other actives that are worth buying but are more situational are Weakening Curse, Enfeebling Curse, Shell, Shield of the Underworld, & Heavenly.

What actives should you never buy?

Girdle, Teleport, and Achilles' Spear. For the most part these actives aren’t worth the gold put into them as a jungler. Achilles' is in a really weird spot where it can be good in very very small situations such as on a Kali whose ulting but in most situations blink or aegis would be a lot better.