We’ve already covered the top five gods in each role so far in Season 6 and we are here to conclude the series with the top five junglers in Season 6. The jungle role has seen some changes already in Season 6, with speed getting changed and XP gain lowered when taking enemy camps. These changes have shifted focus in the jungle role and made the early game more about farming. We spoke to Dignitas’ jungler Anders "Qvofred" Korsbo about who he thinks the top five junglers are currently in Smite.

Qvofred states, “Erlang Shen, Hun Batz, Serqet, Ravana, Ratatoskr.”

The Pros

To continue with our Top 5 format, we look at what makes these junglers highly regarded and why Qvofred puts them as the Top 5.

Qvofred says, “They're all decent throughout the game. Most of them have strong early games, but they also translate pretty well into teamfights.”

All five have a huge impact on the game early and late, some thrive better the later the game goes but most of these picks perform well at all stages of the game. Ravana is great at focusing down targets and can provide a decent amount of set up for his team. Ravana can box against most gods and can punish gods that step out of position, with his 3 providing plenty of control for him. In the early game, he can look to gank mid early once he hits level 2 to try and get an easy first blood. Once he hits 5 is when the fun begins. Taking an early Blink allows you to use his ult as either a chase down or an escape, which allows him to put a lot of pressure on the lanes.

Ravana is great at focusing out single targets and boxing them

Serqet is similar to Ravana. Her kit provides plenty of damage and control that she can utilise early game. Her Death Bane ability is the bread and butter of her kit, she can use it for damage and for mobility. Death Bane works well with her ult as well, as it allows you to get off plenty of damage thanks to her passive. Like Ravana, hitting level 5 with her allows you to apply pressure in lane. Blinking in and either ulting or using Cobra’s Kiss allows Serqet to initiate easily while also having her 3 to escape if she needs it. This tactic doesn’t just work early; it can be influential in the late game. If Serqet arrives late to a teamfight, she can swing the fight in her team’s favour with a well-timed ult.

Serqet provides good control and mobility that allows her to pick off isolated targets

Erlang Shen provides plenty of control in his kit and provides plenty of damage that can set himself and his team up. Especially in the early game, combining a pin with the knock-up from the turtle form can allow your team to follow up with their damage or allow you to use the damage from your autos to take plenty of their health away. When he hits 5, it's very hard for the enemy team to deal with him. If he gets a chance to ult a single target and isolate them, there is a high chance he gets the kill. Early game for Erlang focuses more on getting the picks like previously mentioned, but it is more about setting up your team to follow on top of your damage. He can solo targets but his kit focuses more on providing for his team.

Erlang provides a lot of control that can lock down targets

This is the same for Hun Batz. Yes, it only comes from his ult, but the ult provides so much control and is a great teamfight ult. The ult is the best part of his kit. It’s a great initiation or counter-initiation tool and can isolate a target for you and your team to focus. It works well at every stage of the game and provides a lot of set up for his team. The rest of his kit focuses on damage and mobility. His 3 allows him to chase down targets that are isolated while still being able to be safe with his jump. This allows him to overextend to confirm kills while still being able to escape in case the enemy team chooses to jump on him.

Hun Batz has a great team fight ult that provides bucket loads of control

Finally, we have Ratatoskr, who has a great ganking ultimate. Being able to travel basically half the jungle to drop on an isolated target or in the middle of teams provides a lot from him and his team while also providing plenty of possibilities for him. Even apart from the ultimate, he has a very strong kit. A stun, the ability to shred protections, and a dash that slows! What else could you want as a jungler? His acorn provides a lot for him as well. It heals him and he can upgrade it while out in the jungle, which allows him to steal camps and gank while the enemy jungler backs to get their boots. Rat provides a lot more for his team then it may seem with plenty of CC and damage that his team can follow up on. His mobility is the highlight of his kit. With the ult combined with the chase down potential in his kit, it’s hard to keep away from him. Add a Blink into the mix and he can keep up with fleeing enemies and lock them down again for his team.

Ratatoskr has a lot of mobility, which means he can cover the map with ease

The Cons

Like every god in Smite, there are things that gods won’t be great at or against, and there are ways of countering them to keep them shut down.

Qvofred mentions, “Hun Batz can have a little trouble if you are playing into high pressure, but once you reach level 5, you should be fine as long as you aren't dimensions behind. Serqet is pretty good into anything, but Geb shield and Shells can be annoying to play around.”

Pre-5 is a struggle for Batz. Gods that can put pressure on him early can set him behind, as his damage isn’t fully there and he doesn’t have his ult to get them off him or put them into prime position for his team. If the enemy team plays aggressive and take your camps early, it can set you behind but you need to look at going to get farm elsewhere or get your team to collapse on them early so you can freely farm, this only happens when the enemy jungler is playing a high pressure early game god however. The other key thing Qvofred highlighted was Serqet into Geb shield. Geb shield can negate the damage and CC from her kit, most importantly her ult. If it looks like you’re going to get the kill, Geb can shield his enemies and prevent the kill and the poison spreading, which can cause problems for Serqet. Another thing to note with both Batz and Serqet is that they are both super squishy. They are great at chasing down single targets but if they overextend and get CCed, they will just melt. You’ll need to look at getting items that allow you to survive for longer if you’re going to chase down targets. Both do provide a lot in teamfights but with them being squishy, they need follow up from their team. Otherwise, it’s a similar issue to when you’re chasing down an enemy - you will just melt.

Hun Batz has a weak early game but gets a lot stronger once he's hit 5

With the other gods it comes down to different factors, Erlang loses a lot from cripples because a lot of his control comes from his 3. He can’t knock up or slow targets if he is crippled and if he gets CC-chained, he won’t be able to get his ult off which means he can just get bursted down. He may be a Warrior, but if he can’t get his heal or his control off, he struggles. This is similar with Rat. If Rat gets focused or misses his stun, he is in a rough situation. His ult can get you out of those situations but, at the same time, you want to be using that to initiate halfway during fights more than anything in the late game. His CC helps his team out to follow up or focus down a single target but, if there isn’t any follow up, he gets isolated and struggles as the focus will be on keeping you locked in place.

Ravana is great at getting picks and his ult is great in teamfights when the enemy team is grouped up. However, he struggles against multiple targets as his kit needs you to hit autos and set up. For that, you need to be looking for picks over jumping into teams as they can just shut you down. If he gets disarmed, he really struggles. His 2 allows him to avoid that but it works best avoiding big ults or hard CC that can lock him down. Ravana relies on being up close and personal against gods, so he struggles when he can’t stay close to the enemies. The later the game goes, the less chances he gets to chase targets without getting the follow up from the enemy team.





Builds and Power Spikes

Now that we’ve covered what these gods are good at and how they can get countered and shut down, it's time we look at what items you should look at building on these gods.

Qvofred advises, “Warrior/Talaria boots, The Crusher, Blackthorn Hammer, and then either go more damage or get more survivability.”

Whether you want mobility or damage determines what boots you should go. It also depends on how you want to build. If you’re going for a bit of survivability later into the build, the added damage from Warriors will be beneficial. You will be giving up mobility, however, and that is key in Smite, so we advise taking Talaria as often as you can. High mobility is great for a jungler as you can cover as much as the map as possible and cover each lane with ease. It also gives you the added mobility early that you’d miss out from the speed buff nerf. Yes, you get this from Assassin’s Blessing but who can say no to more movement speed?

Both boots are good pick-ups depending what you're favouring

The other two items Qvofred mentioned were The Crusher and Blackthorn Hammer, The Crusher provides a lot of damage early and its passive provides DoT damage that can confirm kills if they try escaping. The Crusher is a great item all around for junglers, as it provides early pen and attack speed that can help you look more at ganking and confirming kills. Next you look at getting Blackthorn Hammer. This item has seen a lot of love early in Season 6 and looks to be sticking around for the foreseeable future. It provides good power and health that can help out junglers early. 450 extra health is a lot to a jungler and can be the difference in surviving teamfights. The best part of the item however is the passive, 10% CDR when above 25% mana and 50 MP5 when below that threshold. The CDR can help from just clearing camps to allowing you to keep on enemies while ganking. The extra 50MP5 when below 25% is great as well, as it allows a jungler to stay out a lot more and have to back a lot less, as they are able to clear camps with their abilities to kill them quicker and get back to ganking lanes. With the mana regen, there you’ll only need to back for finishing items and wards.

The Crusher and Blackthorn are core items you need to be building

Qvofred also mentions that later in the build you’ll either want to go damage or survivability. This depends on their team comp and which god you are. Squshier junglers like Batz and Serqet see the benefits of having survivability in their builds over the likes of Ravana and Erlang for example. Items like Mantle and Spirit Robe are great items that can help with survivability when diving the backline or trying to escape teamfights. However, these aren’t going to work in every match-up. Look to build against what is working. Anti-heal is currently prominent in Smite and items like Mage’s Cloak can help against CC heavy comps or ones with big CC ults, so you’ll have to look at what the enemy team is doing to see what you need to build to survive. This goes the same for damage as well, items like Jotunn’s, Hydra's and Brawler's are great items for damage, but this doesn’t mean they'll work against every comp. They are just highlighted items that you can find a lot of success on. Knowing what to build to counter the enemy team and help your team out is important after you’ve built your core items. From this point, you need to see who you are targeting as the biggest problem on the enemy team and what item will give you the biggest benefits.

Depending if you're favouring damage or protection will depend what items you need to get after the core.

With builds covered we move on and look at what power spikes you need to be aware of as a jungler and when to start looking for those ganks and picks.

Qvofred says, “Boots and The Crusher are huge spikes which, once you get online, will have a huge impact on contesting jungle camps or fighting.”

After building boots (whichever you may have picked) and The Crusher, this is your early game power spike where you can look to start putting more pressure in lanes and look to gank a lot more. By this point, you should be level 5 easily as well, which means you can start to provide more in the ganks from chasing down the enemies to locking them in place for your team to capitalise on. From this, you can start to look more into ganking while still taking camps to keep your farm up. You’ll be looking at gaining pressure across the map while you make sure you have enough gold to back and get your core items to help your team out more. From this spike, however, you need to be all over the map as much as possible, showing up in each lane and controlling the game from there while also warding where you can for your team.

Another big power spike that you can get is potentially at level 12. If there have big CC ults that can punish you early, you’ll want to get Beads to avoid it, which means at level 12 you’ll need to get Blink. On the other hand if you can get Blink first, you’ll then need your second relic to help keep you alive so either Beads or Aegis to help give you that survivability while diving targets or ganking.





Early or Late Game

We’ve briefly covered what you need to do in the early stages of the game and what power spikes you need to be aware of, but how can you get the most out of the early game?

Qvofred advises, “Actively look to get a lead by either ganking or hyper-farming and utilize the earlier power spikes over your opponent.”

You have to look at getting as much farm as possible as quickly as possible. Whether that be from securing mids or ganking lanes early to throw opponents off, whatever it is you need to make sure you are constantly farming as much as possible. The quicker you can get to the main power spike we spoke about in the last section, the better your game will go. This is the first part of the early game. Pre-5 and before your first back, it is pretty much solely focused on getting as much farm as possible. You do need to try and win mid camps as often as possible as well, as this is a great way to gain an advantage for your team. After getting boots and hitting 5, you need to start pushing advantages you’ve gotten from your farm. Put the enemies further behind. Force the jungler to pretty much follow you around the map and make sure you get more and more farm over them while also pressuring lanes with your lead. You’ll be able to cover plenty of the map and be able to help out more frequently because of the added movement speed, so you can look at pushing the advantage even further and transition that towards your teammates. This can then snowball the game in your favour, as you can back finish your next item and repeat the process, hopefully getting a few towers in the process, which opens up the jungle more in your favour, leading to more XP.

That’s just the early game and, with most games in Smite, reaching the late game, the jungler then relies on their team to take over in teamfights, allowing them to be obnoxious and look to get picks, as they can focus separated single targets or help keep the enemies in the teamfight. This asks the question of who is the best from our list in the late game?

Qvofred says, “Hun Batz has a really strong ultimate and is even stronger with good team synergy."

Shock and horror, the one with a huge teamfight ultimate works best in the late game. Hun Batz’s ult provides plenty in the late game and can work well in with many team comps. Either using it to initiate a teamfight or turn a teamfight in your favour allows for a lot of possibilities for his team. Even just using it to zone away the enemy team from a pick can change what happens in the teamfight. There are endless possibilities with his ult, even if it’s used to just pop Beads for your team to gain an advantage in the fight or reinitiate on the backline easier.

Just because he’s highlighted as the best off this list doesn’t mean the others don’t work well in the late game. Rat provides control and can jump on the backline mid teamfight to cause chaos for the enemy team. The knock up is great for him as well as it can displace the enemy team enough for your team to follow up with you. He also causes chaos within teamfights as he has plenty of CC he can bring for his team. The stun and protection shred allow for his team to follow up with him and provide plenty of damage. Serqet is similar as she can cause plenty of chaos for the enemy team from Cobra’s Kiss. This alone can be a good indicator for her team on who they should focus as if she can bring the backline closer to the fight with it and her ult allows her team to focus out that target. Ravana fits in the same bracket late game, as he works best against isolated targets. His 3 can be used like Cobra’s Kiss, as it can isolate a target or highlight an enemy for your team to focus. For the rest of the fight he needs to jump on the backline and get them away from the teamfight so he can avoid getting collapsed on. If he joins halfway through his ult, he can help swing a teamfight as well, either getting onto the enemy backline after the frontline used their kits or jumping on the frontline to finish them off after they used their kits.

Serqet works really well when facing isolated targets

Erlang provides plenty of control like we mentioned and in the late game he continues with this. Pinning an enemy down can set so much for his team as it starts the CC chain off well and can leave an enemy isolated. His Turtle Form allows him to split up the enemy team as well, as he can knock up the enemies to get to the back line. The best part of him late game is his ult can brings the enemy team back into the fight when they are looking to retreat meaning you can go for longer engagements and capitalise off any stragglers.

Counters

As we’ve mentioned before in these lists, every god has a counter and comps that can shut them down. This isn’t any different for the jungle role, so who are counters you need to be aware of for these gods?

Qvofred mentions, “Fenrir can be really annoying for Ratatoskr. You'll have to watch out for Brutalize. The rest should do decently into most gods.”

Fenrir’s Brutalize can follow Ratatoskr’s dash and keep up with his high mobility. Rat can escape Fenrir’s ult with his but, if Fenrir locks Rat down, there isn’t much he can do. Rat can stun Fenrir but Rat can get stunned by Fenrir as well so it works both ways. Fenrir can keep up with Rat away from his ult, so Rat does have to be careful going into the duo lane if Fenrir is the support. Even if Fenrir is the jungler, it can cause a rough time for Rat.

Fenrir is able to keep up and lock down Rat

We previously mentioned what doesn’t work for Serqet and that leads her to Geb being her counter. Geb can lock her down and also keep her off her team with his shield, she has a rough time against Geb as it negates the damage from her ult and can also remove the CC from Cobra’s kiss. Serqet needs to play around the shield, as it can change how a teamfight will go. Even if she ganks duo to help her team, Geb can just wait for her to ult the carry or jump on them to shield and get them out freely, negating all the work Serqet did. Other counters to Serqet are gods that can cripple her. Most of her kit is movement, so crippling her will lead her to being a sitting duck for the enemy team to focus. Poseidon and Ares are the two main ones for this as it is integral parts of their kits.

Geb shield is the best way to counter out a Serqet

Hun Batz can find it hard against gods that can prevent him from sticking onto their team. Awillix is an obvious counter as she counters his jump, so that’s most of his mobility gone already. Whether it be from chasing down a target or trying to escape, she can keep him isolated and kill him after ulting him back into her team. Kali and Rat cause a lot of problems for Hun Batz, mostly as they can keep up with him and stop him from initiating with his ult. Even if he tries to jump out or try to escape, both Rat and Kali can keep up with him and lock him down.

Awillix's ult can put Hun Batz into tricky situations.

We mentioned that Ravana struggles when he gets locked down, as he can’t utilise his kit when he’s being held in one position for a long period of time. Other direct counters to him are the likes of Nemesis and Bakasura. Nemesis can heal off his damage and thrives when he is up close to her with her Slice and Dice. Her ult can stop him in his tracks as well, as she can then look to dump her kit into him and keep up with him. Even if he gets out, there is a high chance she will be able to keep up with him with her double dash as the slow from the ult lasts an age. Bakasura is another god that can box against him. Add in the damage from Butcher’s Blades, making it really hard for Ravana to box him. Even if he tries to get away, Baka can keep up with him and even sustain back up once he’s done killing Ravana.

Nemesis and Bakasura can keep up with Ravana and cut him down

Erlang is another god that requires you to get close to the target to output as much damage as possible. We already said that cripples prevent him from using a major part of his kit of the 72 transformations, so gods like Poseidon and Ares work well against him but the main counters you need to be aware of are gods with long range CC that can keep him away from their team. God’s like Freya, Scylla, and Thoth are good for this as they can lock him in place at distance and then dump a load of burst damage into him from range, not even giving him a chance to get close to them. Another counter for Erlang is Odin, as he can lock him in the cage and prevent him from healing with his ult. This makes Erlang a massive target for the enemy team as he has little to no way of escaping.

Odin can lock Erlang in his cage and negate his healing

Summary

Overall, all these gods provide something different for their teams, either from being able to snowball a game early or providing control in the late game for their team to get kills and picks from. Some work better at isolating targets, others are better at controlling the enemy team and giving your team windows of opportunity to get the most out of the fights.

Rat's high mobility allows him to cover so much of the map with ease

From the list that was mentioned, we asked Qvofred which one is the best for players that are looking to play jungle this season.

Qvofred advises, “Ratatoskr is pretty easy to get a grip on and isn't too hard to learn.”

Rat is a great pick up for players that want to give jungle a try and it teaches you the importance of mobility and being able to cover as much of the map as possible. It also teaches you about rotations and being able to get the most off the map to gain the advantage, like we previously mentioned.

Hopefully this helps you with your jungle play and gives you some solid picks that you can use in your ranked game this season.

Don’t forget to follow Qvofred on Twitter and Twitch to keep up to date with everything Dignitas and Smite.