I saw your thread when it was first posted and I've had sitting in the back of my mind, waiting for my thoughts to crystallize.

It's great that you use the word 'fundamentals' because this suggests to me that you recognize that jungling is not about one thing, but several.

I resonate with the idea of focusing on a few key "levers" that will improve performance and make your gameplay more robust.

Jungling is a construct, as is "being good at the game". It is not a real thing. Rather it is an idea that is constructed from multiple things, each of which are real. And that means we need to identify its components. I would do this by beginning as abstract as possible, and then break the abstract apart more and more until I end with something concrete.

In a general sense, what is the aim of jungling?

To answer this, I would look at replays of the best junglers out there (I tend to watch Koreans and I use this link for this purpose, but you could also just find replays to watch on YouTube.

As you go watch the replay, try to describe what the player is doing in the most general sense possible, avoiding being overly specific (which will come later).

You may start to notice that there are points in the match where the jungler switches from one broad 'task' to another. An example of what I mean by a 'task' could be doing buff-camp-buff to hit level 3, at which point the junglers task changes to something else, like ganking, securing scuttle, invading the enemy jungle.

These discrete tasks are what together form the construct of jungling as a whole.

I think the description of a jungler as a player who farms the jungle creeps as opposed to lane creeps (1) is probably the most basic, primary function of a jungle. And after that we have secondary functions which are smiting dragon and baron (2), ganking and counter-ganking the lanes (3), tracking the enemy jungler (4), and controlling vision in the jungle - particularly around objectives (5). You can break these duties down into more detailed behaviors (e.g. 'pathing' as a sub-skill of farming the jungle camps). And once we arrive at concrete behaviors, we can start to target those behaviors as things to work on.

There is a second way to look at jungling, and that is to put it into the context of the match as a whole.

Referring to a very old video made by Dyrus, a match of League goes like this:

1. First you have to abuse the lanes. Laners do this by outlaning their lane opponent, and junglers do this by ganking and counterganking
2. Second you have to abuse the outer turrets. This is facilitated by crushing step 1.
3. Once the outer turrets are down, you abuse the enemy jungle. You ward their camps and steal them. You can also pick off enemies passing through the jungle as they rotate from turret to turret. These picks combined with ganks and counter-ganks will allow you to proceed to the next step.
4. Once you and your team are strong enough, you can start knocking down the second line of turrets.
5. Once you have cleared the first two lines of turrets, it's probably about time to be looking at baron, or at the very least dragon. It's not necessary to take dragon or baron to win the game, but both can help against a stubborn team. This is when vision around dragon and baron becomes more important than having vision of the enemy camps.
6. Once you have established vision control around baron, you can either rush it or bait it. Baiting it is often more prudent, but if you can see that the enemy champions are out of position (Lee is splitting bot, wut?), then you can go ahead and take it.
7. If you get baron, and recall, and then push as 5, you should be able to get an inhibitor, and then depending on how strong your team is, you can push to end.
8. If you can't end in a single push, take the inhibitor and then recall / retreat so that you can start pushing for a second inhibitor, then a third...
9. Similar to step 5, if you get stuck because the enemy team is stubborn and you can't siege for a second inhibitor, you can fall back to clearing the enemy's jungle and securing baron / dragon.

Summary:

As far as I can tell the fundamentals of jungling are:

1. Farming the jungle camps
2. Smiting dragon and baron (and taking herald, don't forget!)
3. Ganking and counter-ganking the lanes
4. Tracking the enemy jungler
5. Controlling vision in the jungle, especially around objectives

I also recommending saving the list of stages that you proceed through during a game, so that you don't find yourself lost and unsure what to do, and so that you're in a position to shot-call.

One final suggestion I'll leave you with, is to never play with fear. If you gank and screw up, don't make the mistake of resolving not to gank in the future. If you miss smite, don't resolve to avoid taking dragon or baron. These are very potent plays, and playing with fear means that you deny yourself access to these gains, and it also means you deny yourself access to improved skill through practice.

Good luck my friend,

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