I just wanna go on record and say I LOVE the character Lycan in a non-gay non-twilight kinda way. But it seems like he's completely crippled with the nerfs he got. Please tell me this guy is still somewhat useful in some way. I really wanted to learn to play him but it's hard when my wolves bite the dust so fast at early levels. Maybe I'm doing something wrong ? I know you pull back wolves when they are low health, but I feel like they can barely take a hit at their first couple levels. Am I missing something here?

He's not worthless at all (unless I'm playing him). The key to jungling Lycan now is that Lycan needs to tank the creeps himself until you finish your Vlads. Starting items for me are a set of tangos, Stout Shield, and Blade. I rush a Basilius, then finish the Vlads. I can usually finish a Vlads by about 10 minutes. Gambit can do it in 8 .

OK. I've been practicing by having the wolves tank the damage and buying the bas ring right away. That might be old meta though. I'll try it your way Elf. Thanks

Most likely, you're going to need a second set of tangos at some point. Gambit also like suiciding himself once he has his basi ring done, since he's usually out of mana and low on health on this point. It's almost an instant respawn and no money lost.

Alright. I'll give it a shot.

Let me know how it worked out!

Lycan is very useful. There's a reason he gets banned in most pro matches still. Once you hit level 4 with two levels in both wolves and pack mentality or whatever it's called. You can jungle the rest of the game. I really like using him as a ganker in the other teams jungle as well.

Lycan is useful, but he's not banned anywhere near as often. He still excels as a mid game pusher, but the speed at which he reaches his full potential is a bit slower. Having to tank jungle creeps also makes him even more gankable in the early game since he's always running around on 1/2 HP.

When I play lycan (rarely), I like to rush bottle now since you have to tank a lot more (bottle gives both hp and mana regen). Once he hits his vlads, he's just like the old lycan: Vlads -> Boots -> Necro 3 -> BKB. Once you get your necro 3, you pretty much push every tower down in less than 10 seconds.

Not a bad idea but what items are you starting? Are you rushing the vlad's via RoB?

Ive been rushing a bacilius and then getting a medallion of courage, it makes going through camps so quick and it gives great stats. plus you compensate for the damage nerf on the wolves

the mana regen is nothing to scoff at either

OK by rushing do you mean starting with it or starting with some of the components?

It's rarely a good idea to buy a basi ring right away, even with random gold. I generally grab a set of tangoes, shield, and qblade. I'm not the greatest Lycan player though. I would build Basi first for sure, so your wolves get some armor, then build that into a vlad's. I wouldn't get a medallion first, it's kind of useful for creeps and mana regen, but the Vlads will help your jungling so much more and keep you at decent HP in case of ganks.

so far the few times ive done it its worked alot better for me, i like it because like you said theyre going to be ganking you. its alot of cheap components, and with the way people have been acting in pubs these days junglers have to stick to the camps away from the pulls so you're going to notice the other team going missing for a little while. throw up even a rune ward and get a couple MIA calls and your all good in theory, in practice it just comes down to how aware one is of those calls

this is just my personal preference that has been working out well for me.

Found this the other day. Gives me hope on top of insight, like a hope insight sundae.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zTCnpT87oY4&list=UUYcNy57IS61D8cBi2SR2I1A

Nice find! That guy has a fuckton of videos wow, apparently I need to watch a lot more youtube

One thing I can confirm is this is much harder to accomplish in radiant jungle in a timely fashion due to the dispersement of the camps. So you prolly only want to do this on dire side.

You can clear paths in the trees with a quelling blade, between the easy camp and that hard camp to the south west