When it comes to ganking in LoL, there are a few things you can do to entice your jungle player to support you more in lane. Although many jungle champions are designed to gank with various tools to assist them, most junglers still need their laners to meet certain requirements below to ensure the gank is effective.
1. Make sure you have enough resources to help the jungle player
If you want the jungle player to assist you, you need to be in a position where you can reciprocate and help them back. The best way to achieve this is to ensure you have enough resources to stick with the jungle player and participate in fights when necessary.
If you lack mana, you will be entirely reliant on basic attacks, and if you’re an AP champion or deal low damage, you will hardly be able to take down the enemy. A general rule in every gank scenario is that you need enough mana to use at least one of your skills. If you’re a tank, you need enough mana to use your CC skill, or if you’re a Mage, you need enough to finish off the enemy with your ultimate.
Besides mana, you also need to ensure that you have enough health to participate in fights when necessary. If you’re too low on health, it will be very difficult for the jungle player to do anything, as you risk going down too quickly, and then they will have to face the enemy in an undesirable 1vs1. In most cases, if you lack both health and mana, the jungle player will rarely want to gank for you and will only request you to back off or try to hug the turret instead.
2. Inform the jungle player about ward locations
Although the jungle player has to keep an eye on the entire map, they cannot monitor every lane and know all enemy ward placements. Therefore, you need to ping whenever your lane opponent goes missing and inform the jungle player about the locations that have been warded. Otherwise, you will waste their time trying to gank for you and potentially lead to their death.
The jungle player can quickly fall behind in experience if they do not actively farm or gank. If the jungle player is hiding in a bush that has been warded, they will not receive any shared experience and gold, and they will quickly fall behind in levels and items compared to the opponents. They can also easily fall victim to counter-ganks, leading to you and your teammates dying or providing opportunities for the enemy jungle player to gank other lanes. This is when pinging “Enemy has vision here” should be used to provide your jungle player with the necessary information.
3. Bait the enemy’s CC skills
Not every champion in LoL has CC skills, but if your opponent does, try to bait them into using it first to make the gank safer, as it reduces the enemy’s chance of escaping.
Not only with CC skills, but you can also bait the enemy into using their important skills first, such as escape skills or ultimates, to set up for an ideal gank.
4. Pay attention when the jungle player is ganking
When the jungle player is heading to gank, they will need you to engage at the same time with them or even move ahead to reduce the enemy’s chance of escaping. If you are not attentive, you will waste their time, which will decrease their likelihood of coming back to gank for you.
If you see your jungle player moving toward your lane, don’t back too far away, as you will need to move to support them when they approach the lane. Additionally, you should conserve your mana, health, and CC skills to effectively assist the jungle player once the gank occurs.
5. Understand the jungle player’s winning conditions (when they can or cannot gank)
Depending on the champion and matchup you are playing, the jungle player may not gank for you at all. Some jungle champions are very difficult to gank with due to a lack of crowd control, and if you also do not provide enough CC, they will not want to gank for you because it’s hard to succeed.
Furthermore, some jungle champions will not gank unless they reach a certain level, such as Evelynn at level 6 or Shyvana in Dragon form. Therefore, until the jungle player reaches the necessary power threshold, do not expect them to help you beforehand.
6. Stop pushing the lane
Unless the enemy is very low on health and can be easily finished off under the turret, the jungle player will not be able to gank for you if you continuously push minions into the turret. Most jungle champions, especially in the early game, lack the stats to protect and support them when diving the enemy turret. This is why if you want your teammates to assist you, you need to stop pushing the lane.
7. Stop feeding the enemy
If you are losing your lane and want the jungle player to help you, you need to save yourself and stop feeding kills to the enemy. If you keep dying, you not only make yourself fall behind compared to the opponent but also make it very hard for the jungle player because they have to do much more in skill trades. Facing a fed Renekton or Fiora, ganking to help you can easily lead to both of you dying and allowing the enemy to snowball faster.