The jungle is the most influential role in Honor of Kings, and also the one that gets blamed first when a match goes wrong. A good jungler decides where the fights happen, which lane gets ahead and who takes the Tyrant. A lost jungler farms alone while the other four players lose 4v5.
This guide is about becoming the first kind. We will look at the junglers that make climbing easier, how to pick the right type for your team, and the habits that separate a “farming tourist” from a real tempo maker.
🧭 What Your Job Really Is
Think of the jungler as the director of the match. Every move you make decides what happens next on the map. Your job has two halves:
- Keep your own economy healthy by clearing camps and taking objectives
- Create advantages for your lanes by ganking, counter-ganking and helping them win fights
The second half matters more. Your area is the whole map, not just your own jungle. If the enemy jungler has already ganked twice and taken an objective while you were clearing every camp, you are behind even with more gold.
🎭 Pick the Right Type of Jungler
Before choosing a hero, decide what your team needs. Junglers usually fall into three groups:
- Carry assassins – they want the gold, snowball early and delete the enemy backline. High reward, low margin for error.
- Utility junglers – sturdier heroes who start fights, protect carries and are happy to share buffs with a hungry mid laner or marksman.
- Forgiving all-rounders – heroes that clear fast, survive mistakes and can both farm and fight. The best place to start.
If your team already has two squishy damage dealers and no frontline, a jungler who can start fights and soak damage, like Dun, Menki or Musashi can be the right call even if you prefer assassins. If your team lacks damage, a carry jungler fills the gap.
🔥 Best Junglers to Climb With
These heroes are popular choices for solo players because they can influence a match without needing a coordinated team. None of them is a free win, but each has a clear plan you can learn.
Zilong – The Safe Starting Point
Zilong is the classic recommendation for players learning the role. He clears camps quickly, has a dash and enough durability to survive a botched gank, and he scales into a solid fighter. If you are new to jungling, his forgiving kit lets you focus on decisions rather than mechanics.
Pei – The Early-Game Bully
Pei is one of the strongest early-game junglers in the game. He punishes enemies who have not finished their first items yet, invades well and forces the other team to play defensively. The catch: if you do not convert your early pressure into a lead, he loses value as the game goes on. Play him with a clear early plan.
Augran – Simple, Sturdy and Scary
Augran clears quickly, heals a lot through lifesteal and has an execute-style finish on low-health targets. He is mechanically simpler than most assassins. The main thing to learn: his first skill is his only movement, so wasting it means losing both your engage and your escape.
Luna – The Teamfight Carry
Luna becomes a jungle-clearing machine once she has her ultimate, thanks to strong area damage. In teamfights she can dive into the enemy formation, deal heavy damage and get out again. Her combo takes practice, but once it clicks she can carry games almost on her own.
Jing – For Players Who Love Mechanics
Jing combines fast farming, high mobility and big burst from early to late game, and she is hard to pin down. She is not easy, though. Expect a lot of training mode before your hands keep up. If you enjoy hard heroes, she is a great long-term investment.
Utility Options: Dian Wei and Ukyo Tachibana
If you prefer setting up your team, Dian Wei is a durable fighter who stays dangerous in the late game and can start fights with his ultimate. Ukyo Tachibana clears quickly, ganks precisely and can afford to leave buffs to your carries.
What About Li Bai, Han Xin and Lam?
These three are still excellent junglers with very high ceilings, built on mobility and burst. They reward players who have already put in the practice. If you are still learning the role, start with one of the heroes above and come back to them later.
🗺️ How to Open the Game
New junglers often clear everything in their jungle before leaving it, then discover the enemy jungler has already ganked and taken an objective. Start with a plan instead.
- Buy your jungle item and start at a buff. Heroes that spam skills and need mana usually start blue; heroes that want early damage and slows often start red.
- Clear the buff, then the nearby small camp, then the other buff. The goal is to reach level 4 and unlock your ultimate as fast as possible.
- Check the minimap. If a lane partner has pushed the enemy under their tower and you are close, look for a gank. If not, finish the rest of your camps.
Practise your first clear in training mode until it is consistent. A stable opening is worth more than a fancy one. As a beginner, avoid blind early invades: a failed invade can lose you the whole early game.
🎯 When and Where to Gank
Ganking is the heart of the role. A few simple signals make it far more successful:
- Overextended enemies – a laner pushing deep toward your tower is far from safety.
- Teammate crowd control – lanes where your ally has a stun, knock-up or freeze ready are much easier to gank.
- Burned escapes – if the enemy just used Flash or their dash, go now.
Many experienced junglers prioritise the clash lane early: a clash laner who gets ahead can then roam and help everywhere else. The mid lane is the next target, since one death delays the enemy mage’s roaming. The farm lane is usually protected by a support, so pick your timing carefully there.
Before you commit, glance at the minimap and check where the other enemies are. Ganking into a counter-gank is how early games are thrown.
Counter-Ganking
If the enemy jungler disappears from the map for a while, think about where they are heading. Waiting in a bush next to the lane they are likely to gank often brings more value than a gank of your own.
🐉 Objectives Win Games, Not Kills
The Tyrant and Overlord are your biggest levers. The Tyrant first appears early, around the four-minute mark, and its team buff makes skirmishes and pushes much easier. The Overlord helps your team push lanes and is a key mid-game tempo tool.
- Do not start an objective blind. The best moment is when the enemy jungler has just died or shown up on the far side of the map.
- Save Smite for buffs and objectives, not for small camps.
- After winning a fight, convert it: take a tower or an objective instead of chasing low-health enemies into the fog.
⚖️ Balance Farming and Fighting
The right rhythm is farm, look for a chance, farm again. Pure farming leaves your team alone. Constant ganking leaves you broke. After a successful gank or skirmish, pick up a wave if it is safe and share gold with your laners when they need it.
When you push a side lane, always watch the minimap. If several enemies vanish at once, back off. Split-pushing is meant to pull enemies toward you, not to feed them a kill.
🚫 Common Mistakes to Avoid
- Blind invades at the start – especially against an early-game jungler.
- Forcing the same lane – if three ganks failed, the enemy is ready for you. Help another lane or take an objective.
- Ignoring towers and objectives – one Tyrant can be worth more than a couple of kills.
- Playing team-reliant junglers in solo queue – heroes that need perfect follow-up are harder to climb with alone.
- Not communicating – ping before a gank or objective so your teammates are ready.
📈 A Simple Practice Plan
- Learn the clear route and combos of two junglers with different styles in training mode, for example an early-game hero and a scaling hero.
- Play a few games focusing only on the farm-then-gank rhythm, not on kills.
- Give yourself one small goal per match, such as “take the first Tyrant” or “land three successful ganks”.
- After a loss, spend a minute on the replay and find the decision that cost you the game.
💡 Final Thoughts
Great junglers are not the ones with the most kills. They are the ones who always know what to do next. Pick a hero that suits your team, open with a plan, gank with purpose and turn every advantage into an objective.
Master those habits with a forgiving hero first, and the flashier junglers will feel much easier when you get to them.