Right, so I've had plenty of time to play with you guys now, different games, different roles, different players, and I've noticed one thing (gamewise) that could really benefit the clan, yet every time I try and bring it up in game people get all bitchy about it and seem to think I'm attacking them. So I figured I'd throw a forum post up attempting to help out.

Honestly from what I've seen of our games this clan's biggest weakness is a very thing that everyone needs to learn. This is, warding. Yes I know half of you aren't even going to bother to finish reading this now because you know everything there is to know about warding, but please, humor me. The current "meta" is that no one has to worry about wards except for the support, and I highly disagree with this statement. First and the most obvious is because for the first half of the game the support will only be in one corner of the map- This alone is a reason not to depend only on your support. There are multiple positions on the map that need to be warded almost at all times. At minimum all river bushes/jungle crossings need to be warded so that you can avoid ganks from the enemy jungler, that's 4 wards across the map right there, 1 from top, 2 from mid, 1 from bot. Dragon should be warded as soon as it comes up (2 for bot) bot far bush should be warded for an offensive bot lane or bot near bush if you're laning against a kill lane (3 bot). This is the bare minimal and only treads water. Then if you're playing against someone that ganks under towers like urgot, Alistar, Amumu, and other tanky junglers, you should be warding the tribush closest to your lane for when they try to push you out from under your tower (additional 1 for bot, 2 for mid, and 1 for bot). Then to be aggressive and shut down the enemy jungler you should ward their jungle entrances (2) and their buffs (2). Ideally that puts our total ward count up to 14. Now these are ONLY the prime locations for wards. Important aspects that need to be watched and controlled.

So running with just that at 75 gp a ward (assuming there is no reason for pinks) 1050 gp in wards for 3 minutes of complete map awareness, now all these wards aren't going to be placed at the same time so in reality this would last for around eight minutes. 1k gold in the span of the game is only a small fraction of what's given out, however if you pile that all onto ONE player you are crippling their build, especially early game in which items are the most important aspect. however divde this amongst all five players and it comes down to 210 gold every eight minutes or so. 210 for complete map awareness, control over dragon (which nets you 3 kills worth of gold more then paying for the wards) control over the buffs. PLUS you don't lose gold for getting ganked, and you gain gold for each time you shut down the jungler while he's trying to collect his buffs.

Now as I said those are just the basic wards, yet those alone can win games. Wards can be used in many other situations too as the game progresses. If you're pushed into your base you can defensivly wards the jungle routes leading to your base to protect your towers and 5 man dives, you can also put wards out side the walls in your lance change routes to help carries land skillshots/engages and evade that nasty blitz grab. Same thing on offense, you can drop wards over the walls the land your shots.

And finally the infamous telegank. As most of you who have played with me know at any given moment that a fight starts, so long as they engage behind our minions, I can tele to a minion and net us ATLEAST one kill. Now this is hard because they have to push past minions or will notice the tele animation and move to evade. Also if the players are to focused on running away it can often leave me in a very sticky situation or canceling my tele which has one of the longer cool downs in the games. HOWEVER by placing wards further down the lane, be it in a lane or in a bush those 1v2 ganks can easily be turned into a 2v2 while giving us the better positioning by a quick tele to these wards. Any of you familiar with the Janna fb trick in which an entire team takes tele and janna runs a ward to the middle of their lane to score a guaranteed fb and at times a double kill (before minions even spawn) this runs along the same concept. I have seen entire teams built using this strategy. Imagine this, you're solo top, holding your own and pushed under tower to farm. Suddenly, the entire five man team teles to your tribush. Alistar ults and runs in tanking the tower while the entire team rips you apart. After you die they take your tower and walk back to their lanes.

And my last little rant here. Warding is NOT soley the supports job.

This is very important because support is a very overlooked role in the game and believe it or not they need items too. If you guys remember the big support rework the developers were talking about changing support characters because they don't like how passive they're played. They don't like the fact that your job is to sit back and NOT do anything (farm) while sustaining someone else. Supports are NOT meant to be played like this anymore. Most have had their skill changed around so they can deal decent damage while supporting, along with providing cc and anti gank methods. This is incredibly helpful, but never optimized because supports are not only expected not to farm, but to buy ALL the wards as well? Now while teams and premades can work around this you will never find a pug team which won't bitch at you for farming as a support, so I'm not even going to argue this case right now. However my duo partner and I will often change the roles. At the beginning of the game I (the support) will do all the last hitting while he harasses until I have enough for my gold/5 items, then I b, buy them, and play like normal. This will allow a quick boost of gold for the support and still give the carry the cash he needs to deal damage WHILE having a stronger support.

Another reason supports need items. Imagine a team fight early game where your support actually has a few aura items. Slows down all the enemies around you, speeds up all of your team, group lifesteal, armor buffs, etc etc.

Alright, and that's the end of my wall of text, hopefully I've given you some food for thought and perhaps this'll explain to a lot of those who ask, why I constantly have 5 wards in my inventory at all times as mid karthus -.-

*claps*

agree with everything you said there.

people in general seem to be more concerned with facerolling as quickly as possible they forget the big picture. wards win games in the long haul.

I like to grab a ward everytime I recall. Seems to work ok to me that way.

Sent from my EVO using Tapatalk 2

welp this is the second post about this... i posted the first one and yes... EVEN THE CARRYS NEED TO WARD!!!

I'm not no guru wizard here, but it only makes sense to ward. Wouldn't you rather be able to see your enemies sooner?

I normally play Solo Top or Mid and I always buy wards to help notify when a gank is incoming unless it screws up my item buy. WARDING is very important and I agree! I see a lot of people ward early game but then forget to ward late game. Mid and Late game are crucial warding times! Map Superiority is key and when you know where the enemies are... just makes it that much easier to set up a gank! This goes for junglers as well! Ward your blue red and theirs to make sure you don't lose or so you can set up a gank!

I don't buy wards if I'm playing AD Carry until late game, and I don't buy wards until mid game if I'm playing mid, but every other position I buy wards after my first or second recall usually.

I have actually kept a log of the amount of wards. My best game in term of warding, In which I had Mid/Bot river covered most of the game, when we pushed into their area I warded all the key buffs/Exit point to river drag and baron. I earned 11.5k in assists and 2 GP 10 items however I spend 8.9k In warding and oracles alone. That approx 75% of support income gone into map coverage and leaving ~25% into item that generally all the same core for many supports, It most cases that is usually the window of income spent on a support if done on the current meta. This basically put support getting the core item (in term of the meta for support) around the 20-25min mark depending on the assist total. At best the support Income runs around 7k-11k on a 2gp 10 Support with no creeps kills and around 10-13 assists.

I wouldn't necessarily call this issue the "Clan's" Biggest Downfall. A large majority of players are guilty of this. Considering I main the support role even in Solo Queue, I see this happen all the time.

The AD Carry I'm partnered with will refuse to buy wards because it apparently "slows down" his item build. Even though I can't argue that 75 gold will slow down his build, a death from a unseen gank will slow it down even further. Of course when the gank does happen from one of the three possible areas to hide at, it has to be the one I didn't have the money to ward, or the ward timed out.....and then the rage happens. >_<

I honestly don't mind the mid-late game warding. I'm sure most of you have seen me as Nunu, running around at top speed warding absolutely every bush where a buff is and side entrances to lanes. And that's fine by me. This is the time of the game where the other players SHOULD be working on finalizing their build and can't be too bothered with wards.

But the early game, you KNOW the enemy will try to gank you. It happens every game, and you know it. Why chance the possible death buy relying solely on your support to ward every bush in the area on their limited income. As cheesy as it sounds, your support could use support as well. Think about it, if the ADC buys just 1 ward for the river bush for when the support's ward times out, you can stay relatively safe in lane for another 3 minutes. Plenty of time for the ADC to make up the 75 gold lost and then some.

Maybe I'm just a bit frustrated from playing with folks who don't want to cooperate today, but I can safely say that wards do win games. I just wish there was a tab at the victory/defeat screen that shows what items were purchased over the course of a game. I would wager to say that 99% of the time, the team with more wards purchased will win.

Great post, and very good points. I think most everyone is guilty at one time or another for not buying wards, myself included. I also need to work on this.