Jungleing

[woven kernel]

I find jungler seems to be my weakest role. What I want to know is:

What are the least important camps? (which ones should I skip if I'm needed elsewhere)

Which camps I should avoid, if any? (I think of the flies as being for midlane)
*On a side note, should I ever share my red/blue buffs with teammates?

Is the knife item really that important to junglers, or should I grab the health potions instead?

What is my actual purpose as a jungler? I often feel like I'm support in disguise for the other two lanes, and it makes me feel spread thin. I often wind up under leveled from missing farm to assist them

[vast night]

Your most basic Jungler start is Red buff
Right Camp
Inner Camp
Blue Buff
Inner Camp
Left Camp

Your smite is very important because it helps you clear your buffs at certain thresholds which speeds up your camp clear rate. Timing is everyrhing in this role. At base level it does 500true damage and after a few kills it does 1,500 when it evolves. Youll definitely need this when fighting Primal Fangtooth and Orb Prime.

My usual start is Red camp, right camp invade enemy Blue Camp drop a ward on flower and then gank Mid or Nearest Lane.

Your role as a Jungler is to provide and deny vision of the river and gank routes and contest objectives (Fangtooth, Primal Fangtooth, Mini Orb, Orb Prime). Secondly yes you are a sort of a support but with more value than sit back and watch you are considered an initiator. Whenever you show up in lane it should be ifeally when the enemy is positioned past the midway mark (the river) and your laner is capable of assisting you so you may secure kills on the enemy laner. Dont worry about losing the kill to your laner the inportant thing is you wiped them off the board and now that opens up opportunities for everyone else. Your options are to push lane and get some tower damage or back and buy items. Usually the courtesy is your laners got the kill so you farm the minion wave while they back and buy from the relief you just provided.

Another role you influence battle rythm. Whenever you show up in lane it should always be an oh crap moment for the enemy team. Because you have been warding or denying vision you allow your team an upper hand in pushing lanes and knowing the enemy team doesnt have confidence in leaving a lane. Be mindful this works both ways so often times youll have to keep an eye out for thr enemy jungler and if theyre causing a stir stay on top of where they are.

As far as what to build first depends on who you pick. Typically you want a high burst damage character or a semi tanky hero with sustainability or movement. Either way your first item will always be damage based, followed by a tank item and then another damage augment. After that you should take a look at what everyone else is building and see what you need to counter build towards and or if any heroes are giving you problems during 1 on 1s. Eventually if you do those key things your team should be well enough to cover the gaps you arent able to. Remember its still a 5v5 game so dont stay in a mindset thinking you have to do everything. But a little bit of overconfidence does help lol

[dusk wave]

To add a small detail to this, your Hunt (dagger/Smite) also gives clear, sustain, and extra XP in the jungle. If you don't get the jungle role, don't think about going into the jungle, the camps will beat your ass hard

You can share buffs later in the game because the XP from the buff camps isn't the most to be super important at that time

And one correction is the dagger does 1000 damage when it evolves after 40 JUNGLE MONSTER kills

Not lane minions, jungle monsters

Aka your camps