Grandmaster Neeko Jungle Perspective
Hello, I am Zagreus, I've hit GM mainly playing Neeko jungle on the NA server twice now. I started playing Neeko around the time Agurin started playing it but I've stuck with it ever since. I'm going to explain some of the decisions behind my build, how I view win-conditions, and a pattern I follow every game.
First, is the build. Almost every single game, I will go Stormsurge -> Sorcerer Boots -> Hextech Rocketbelt -> Zhonya's Hourglass. Stormsurge is generally the more unique item I build compated to other Neeko jungle players so why do I build it?
Its cheap and does a lot of damage. Very simply, ganking lanes while rushing items like rocketbelt, malignance, etc. you will find that you do not have enough damage to result in a kill. This was my solution to that.
The movespeed. Movespeed is insanely valuable stat. It helps you clear, it helps you kite, and it helps you land ultimates. In combination with magical footwear, very often I can simply walk at teams with W and land ultimates. Not having rocketbelt this early is not as detrimental as you think. If you want a similar example, look at Garen. If you have ever played Garen without phantom dancer, thats how I feel without stormsurge.
Sorcerer boots are just good valuable because mathematically, the mpen from stormsurge makes the mpen from the sorc boots be worth more. Rocketbelt, good core item on neeko helps you land ultimates and RED SMITE SLOW (which you would follow up with abilties).
Zhonyas, and in rare cases rocketbelt, are built most games but if...
You are the only person on your team who is fed/does damage
The entire team is behind
Do not build zhonyas (again even soemtimes skip rocketbelt). Instead, buy pure damage items like shadowflame, void staff, or rabadons. Without damage, you will never make a miracle.
Items after are just what you need whether it be pen (void staff), damage (shadowflame), or utility (banshees).
Second, lets talk winning the game. Frankly, I do not think Neeko scales. As the game gets longer, people have lower cooldowns on their mobility abilites, people have zhonyas, GA, etc, and people have more damage to kill you before you can engage. Games are decided in the early/mid game.
Neeko is not too much of a niche jungle that she has to warp her playstyle from standard junglers. Basic rules like defaulting to full clearing and maintaining tempo are just as important as any jungler. The MOST common way I secure a win is by maintain high cs early into exploding a lane or teamfight with a flash ult with stormsurge/sorcs. Building the initial lead is by ganking after a full clear (only skip a full clear if a kill is obvious, a flash is not worth skipping camps). Ganking takes the form in many different ways for Neeko.
Simply walking into the lane from river like any other jungle. Neeko has cc and movespeed steroid, sometimes you don't have to be creative.
Disguising as a minion and walking with the wave. The main goal when doing this is making sure by the time the ENEMY SEES YOU you will have a perfect spacing with other minions. You can use your w before the gank to try to line up properly if you don't have enough movespeed. If you have too much movespeed, walk further in front to arrive spaced perfectly.
Disguising as a teammate and baiting an enemy's engage. This often involves needing to ping your laner to go out of vision. Then, you simply "overextend", try to force a freeze, or even just to try to catch a wave. An enemy will think they have lethal and die in the engage.
As a note, when you don't have access to minions, ganking as the small raptor, small krug, small wolf and mini-grub are preferable to the bigger camps.
Lastly, I'll talk about a pattern I follow. If you watch one of my games, you will see that I farm a lot early-mid game but my cs drops off heavily mid-late game. Why do I do this?
Again, Neeko does not scale, I do not want to play 4-5 item teamfights as Neeko because I do not scale with items as well as other champs. I want to push the game forward and end it quickly so unlike early game, I will often skip camps to look for plays on lanes.
Respawn timers are longer later. Although obvious, this encourages the switch in playstyle that I use. Kills are worth more because they are off the map for longer and a player respawning for 40 seconds loses a lot more than a player respawning in 20.
I am sure I am missing things but I can just answer questions you have below. I might stream starting next college semester during the fall (I'll drop a twitch link if the mods OK it). And finally, never ff, Neeko doesn't scale but she is what I call a "Miracle Maker". If you somehow land a 5 man ult late game, you can win.
https://op.gg/lol/summoners/na/Zagreus-wins?queue_type=SOLORANKED