League of Legends: Seeing is Believing (Wards)

This is a post I wrote for a League of Legends fansite back in 2010. Some of it may have been changed to keep it more up-to-date.

Seeing is Believing

Wards. Oh, wards. Why for do you receive such little attention? Why for do so many find you unworthy of purchase? Why for do people give you so little credit? Why for are you only used for Dragon and Baron? Why for do you have so much potential, yet people choose not to utilize it? Why for am I writing like this?

Fear no longer, wards, for I shall give you the time of day. No longer will your value be hidden in silence. No longer shall you be an item of small notice. I shall glorify you, appraise and praise you. I shall dedicate this article to you, so that your worth shall receive notice.

Wards…

•     Sight Wards cost 75g
•     Vision Wards cost 125g, but reveal stealthed units
•     Provide a respectable area of vision
•     Are stealthed after about 2 seconds
•     Cannot be destroyed by skills when hidden
•     Can only receive physical damage
•     Reduce all damage to 1
•     Have 3 health
•     Have no collision

Reconnaissance

The battlefield is a frightening place, ruthless and unpredictable. Whenever the enemy goes missing, there is the looming threat of being ambushed at any time. This fear makes people cower, often needlessly, which gives the enemy an advantage. As for those who don’t hide under safety, they can become easy prey. However, the majority of these can be prevented with well-placed eyeballs on a stick.

Wards, for a modest price, can mean the difference between life and death on the battlefield. A ward placed to scout out for potential ambushes can let you push towards your opponent’s base with confidence. Additionally, they can warn you of possible push attempts from the enemy team. Wards can also scout out enemy positioning and movement.

Since wards become stealthed a couple seconds after placement, they serve as great sentries for notable locations—particularly Dragon, Golem, Lizard, and Baron. A ward at Dragon, especially, makes a large difference. This works particularly well against junglers who often solo Dragon, since you will be able to see when they attempt to sneak a Dragon kill then quickly group up to kill him in the process. Similarly, this can allow your team to prevent enemy Baron attempts, or even gank the enemy at Golem or Lizard camps.

Seeing where an enemy champion is and where they are going is very valuable information, as it allows you to either retreat from a potential gank, push a lane away from said champion, quickly take Baron or Dragon, or intercept and gank them, among other things. In battle, where information is limited, positional information of the enemy is extremely valuable and can grant your team a strong advantage over your enemies.

Take a Peek

Sometimes you want to see what’s over a corner, in the brush, or on the other side of a wall, but it’s too dangerous to check. You can use wards as a way to check around corners, or on the other side of obstacles. Use this to your advantage to scout out potentially dangerous areas when necessary. Knowing how to scout and place wards effectively, and sometimes unusually, can save lives or allow you to take the enemy’s.

An interesting thing to note is how walls work. Walls don’t prevent you from slapping down your eye-stick on the other side. In fact, walls can actually help you place your wards further than your range. Much like Flash, if you stand against the wall and attempt to place a ward beyond the half-way point, it will pop up on the other side of the wall. However, it is important to note that when you place a ward in this manner, it will be placed as close as possible to the wall, which is often outside of any brush patches “against the wall”.

Are They Even Worth It?

Yes. Period. Why? They can indirectly save your life through reconnaissance. Without wards, your vision is limited to only you and friendly units. The fog of war shrouds the majority of the map, and can be used to the enemy’s advantage to gank you or your teammates. A ward, however, can often spot incoming gank attempts.

Now let’s suppose you didn’t have a ward and you or your teammates were successfully ganked. Not only does this grant the opposing team roughly 300g, as well as Assist gold, but it also prevents the killed champions from gaining experience and farming gold. When you die, it takes roughly a minion wave to respawn and return to lane, if not more. This potentially loses you six or seven minions worth of experience and gold, which is over 90g if only looking at gold value. Even if it were a 1v1 lane, a successful enemy gank would generate them over 300g total, and allow them to free-farm while you’re dead. This creates over 400g in gold difference between the two teams, between the gold from the gank, and the gold lost from not being in lane to last-hit.

Let us now look at the case in which you do have a ward, and the enemy tries to get into position to gank you. Your ward spots the enemy’s attempt to gank, so you back up and create an ungankable situation. This not only saves your life, but also wastes the time of the ganker. The ganker loses out on farming for gold and experience when moving into ganking position. This 75g investment in the ward is then made up not just by saving you or your teammates’ lives, but also by wasting the time of the ganker.

Before you argue that only “baddies” overextend when there’s an enemy champion not visible on the map, let us look at what wards can do in this situation. If your lane is pushing itself out toward the enemy’s side of the river due to wave management by the enemy team, you are in danger of being ganked from the river. In order to avoid this, your lane must then back up a safe distance toward your turret, usually losing you experience or gold farm if your minion wave has pushed itself too far toward the enemy turret. Avoiding a gank is obviously more favorable than giving the enemy team a kill or two. However, if you buy a ward and place it wisely (such as at Dragon to check for the river and the entrance from purple golem, if you’re blue), you can push with little worry and can see any incoming gank attempts if they try to. This prevents you from losing out on any gold and experience, and allows you to push the enemy tower or harass your opposing laners. The gold invested in the ward is then made up for by the farm you would’ve lost from having to play cautiously.

If the defensive uses of the ward have not convinced you of its value, let us look at a more offensive approach. Buying a ward and placing it at key locations on the battlefield can potentially net you a gank or two. One great location is at Dragon, since it is such an influential neutral. With a ward you can spot an enemy Dragon attempt and gank them in the process. This can net you anywhere from one to five champion kills, producing far more gold than the 75g spent on the ward. Even if you cannot gank the enemy at Dragon, seeing Dragon allows you to try and steal it, and a successful Dragon steal will net your entire team a large sum of gold, in addition to experience, and waste the time and resources of the enemy team. Just like at Dragon, you can also ward Baron, Golem, or Lizard, and capitalize on those as well. Ganking even a single enemy with the help of a ward nets you over 200g in profit, in addition to the benefits it provides for map control.

Teleport Beacon

Summoner spell Teleport has many amazing uses. It can be used to quickly defend, group up, or attack. Map-wide mobility is the key idea behind this summoner spell, and wards help with that. Teleport allows you to teleport to any friendly non-champion unit or structure. This includes minions, turrets, Heimerdinger turrets, Teemo shrooms, and wards. Since you can teleport to wards, you can gank using this method by teleporting to a warded point to intercept an enemy, or kill them while they’re killing neutrals or minions. Teleporting to a ward only briefly reveals the ward and your teleport before you pop into action, allowing you to catch a lot of people by surprise.

Another use for teleporting to wards is to quickly group up for a siege or backdoor on a turret. Placing a ward nearby an enemy turret allows you or your team to teleport to it to quickly move into place for a backdoor while the lane is pushed outward. This also works for backdooring enemy inhibitors if the enemy team manages to push out of their base toward yours.

An interesting use for ward teleporting is to quickly reinforce your team if they are about to engage the enemy team, or when ambushed. A teammate can quickly place a ward so allies can teleport to it if they have the summoner spell, quickly changing the odds of the battle.

You can also use ward teleportation strategically for team fights by placing a ward behind where you think the enemy team will be when you engage them. This allows you or your team to flank them from behind by teleporting to the hidden ward behind their position, giving you surprise access to their back line.

Ward Map

Here is a map of some popular warding spots. Many other spots are very useful for warding, but I'd rather not have a map covered in colorful spots, so I kept it pretty limited.

Yellow [Middle Lane] - Place in the brush either closest to middle, or along the curve of the enemy's brush so you can see a little into their jungle, as well as the river. Placing it in the curve of the brush allows you to see enemy champions entering or leaving the isolated brush, as well as any champions moving into the river. Placing it in the closest brushes to middle serves better to spot potential ganks on mid, in case you don't check the minimap frequently enough to notice them pass by a ward placed outside of that brush.

SkyBlue [Side Lane] - Gankers more often than not perch themselves in these patches of brush, and can easily be scouted for with a ward placed in them.

Purple [Golem] - Place it in the brush, ideally towards the "middle" of the brush so you can see around the corner as well as the Golem. Golem wards allow you to watch for junglers or team attempts at taking the Golem buff. Placing wards here lets you notice these attempts as soon as they happen so you can gank, steal, or interrupt them. The brush at Golem are also popular points of ambush, so having a ward there can keep you aware of those.

Pink [Lizard] - Same as for the Golem, except these locations are not as popular for ambushing points. Nevertheless, you don't want your enemy getting the Lizard buff.

Green [Dragon] - This is best placed outside of the dragon's pen, out enough so you can see the entrance to Purple's Golem and the entire span of the river, while also seeing if Dragon is alive and unattended. This not only watches for Dragon attempts, but also keeps an eye out for gankers heading toward bottom lane (works best for Blue team, since a ganker on Blue side can move into the brush while avoiding sight of this ward).

Red [Baron] - As the game passes the 15-minute mark, you may want to consider placing a ward at Baron. As for how early you want to place it depends on the enemy composition. If they have a Shaco or Warwick building Madred's Bloodrazors, or a Heimerdinger, you may want to ward it close to when it spawns. Otherwise, start warding it around 25 minutes, especially if you're on the defensive. Baron Nashor's buff is a highly influential team-wide buff that can easily end a stalemate, or even cause a turnaround. He even nets your team a large amount of gold. Baron also takes a long time to kill (usually) and is often a possible turnaround if you attack the enemy team while they are attempting Baron, or steal it from them.

Blue [Defensive Mid] - If your team finds itself pushed down mid-lane to the inner turret, teams often like to hide in the brush to the side of it. Keeping these warded can allow you to scout for any flanks or ambushes, which can be used to your advantage, especially if you have Blitzcrank.

Countering Wards

Since I just gave you a map, now you can find all of the wards I place in a game, destroy them, and waste my gold. You can do this either by purchasing a Vision Ward and placing it near enemy wards to reveal them, or by using an Oracle Elixir to grant yourself True Sight. Vision Wards require you to know where the wards are already, but they also provide the same benefits of Sight Wards while also being able to detect stealthed champions or enemy wards placed in the vicinity. Oracle Elixirs are great for sweeping for wards and eliminating a large number of wards around the map, minimizing the enemy team's visibility.

Remember, killing a ward not only grants you a small bit of gold, but also wastes the enemy’s gold as well. This isn’t including the fact that it may save you and your teammates from unexpected ambushes, stolen neutrals, or other nasty surprises. Just like how jungling provides an advantage, so do wards. It's always in your best interest to use that advantage, while limiting it for your enemies.