Question
I tend to like to play a support champion. Since I'm slowly making my way to mid and high level play its getting more important to get good wards up because ganks become more common.
I am therfore interested in some tips how to ward effectively?
- What are some good/important spots for wards (especially on Summoners Rift)?
- Some good timings to leave the lane to get up some wards?
- What other important points to keep in mind such as normal wards or detection wards?
Answer
I like to play support too. First thing about warding is :
- Any player should be responsible for its own warding
Meaning that the support player should not be asked to ward top+mid+bot all the time and especially in early game.
What to ward
Early game
Places you want to ward are :
- Bushes
That pretty all for the start. However, you won't have many wards, so you must chose the right spot:
- Normal setting, no advantage on the map, the battles are mainly located at mid-map.
- The enemy has very high usage of their bushes and intel is more important than gank protection (if affordable go for 1+2 in these cases). Note that the enemy sould have a HIGH usage of bushes for themselves (not traps). Low usage of bushes and traps can be dealt with your CV!
- When your tower is under siege, it's better to go for ward 3, as you would see gankers from 1 early enough.
Mid and late game
The bigger map show multiples points. Red one are for attack, blue for defence and yellow for special. Let's talk about yellow first.
You want to know when the other team goes for dragon and baron. You will place the ward near the entrance of the wells since it let you see the all thing in case someone jumps the trees. Soft yellow spot are to be placed whenever you attempt to kill the corresponding dragon so as to be able to back-off if enemy come (or get them before they can gather)
On attack, you have the advantage and you need directions intelligence. If you can predict where the defenders are going, you are able to track them.
Critical positions are red and blue bush. Defenders will try to get any advantage to counter the rushes you put on them. Denying red and blue is good for you.
Small bushes near the wraiths is also a good indicator to protect you from being flanked. Sometimes a ward in the enemy base is very practical to ensure they are still defending against super minions while your are killing the Baron.
On defence, you need to see the attackers as much as possible. So ward positions differ from the attacker's one. For our objective we do not want to control directions anymore, but positions. Note that the soft blue spot indicates places you can ward from defensive positions (over trees, or wall) if you can't afford putting a better ward.
When should you go to ward:
Early game:
- Any time you can afford to lose tempo
Every time I pushed my lane and know I won't be able to do heavy damage to the turret and the supported champion in not in immediate need of support, I go refresh some wards.
- When ward has/will expired
It is critical to have a good sense of timing. If you can anticipate ward expiration, you would be able to refresh it at the best possible time.
- When switching lane
When you switch lane for some reason, be nice: drop ward for your new lane friend(s).
Middle game
By that time, you should be gathering with your team. Use any occasion when your are moving with your team to leave ward behind you. Do small detour when necessary, but not too much.
When not to ward:
- I never go warding alone on late game unless I'm sure I'm not going to be cornered in the forest. The ward is not worth your death!
- Avoid warding when you can be seen (it's always better to stay under the radar): delay, use confusion or change position if you can afford it.
When should I buy wards
If you are playing support, ward is your first and your last item, it appears in the tab menu and in the statistics. My build uses gold items, so I buy the first element for it and 3 wards at start. Then I always try to buy ward when at the base (at least 3 if I really need other item badly). Don't delay buying wards or you won't. When you run out of ward, notify it. Refill when you can: 5 wards are 375gp.
Vision ward and Clairvoyance
The last words I can drop here too are for vision wards and CV.
Vision ward are expensive, but they could be useful sometimes to uncover invisible heroes. My view on this is : every invisible heroes tends to hide in bushes before going stealth, at least in early games (to maximise stealth time), thus falling in our sight ward intel. Furthermore, stealth is detected by towers. I honestly rarely use those wards. And they are outmatched by a good oracle late game. But should I use them, the placement differs from normal sight wards. Objective here is to cover the largest valuable area. This can be problematic on top and bot lanes, as we would be interested in covering bushes but that renders half the ward area useless.
Clairvoyance summoner spell is very useful. Use it every time you can. With a 55 cooldown reduce at 50 by Mystical Vision mastery, you can literally spam it. On early game, a well placed CV (see picture) should be able to reveal all bushes.
If you do not need CV on your lane, use it on other lanes. Try to know if teamates could use it. If nobody needs it, check reds/blues for jungler and dragons to be sure the enemy is not looking at them. At start, try to know how the enemy leaves the fountain to have insight on who you will see top/mid/bot. Use it to cover your jungler from being gank before start, or try to detect their jungler if your going to try a kill.
I think I'm done now. Good luck.
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