Gameplay Guide - Warding Strategies
- Introduction
- Level One (Start of Game)
- Bottom Lane
- Mid Lane
- Top Lane
- Jungler
- Dragon and Baron Control
Introduction
THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO WARDING FOR LEAGUE OF LEGENDS
So you think you know where to ward? I bet you’ll learn something from reading this guide – or you can continue to think you know everything already. Yes, it’s long but this guide is broken into sections based on map area and role. For example if you predominately play jungle then you should skip to the jungle section first.
For all those that think warding is just the job of the support – you are sorely mistaken. Map control is one of the most important concepts in this game. Without proper map control your team will lose games. Having a ward in the correct spot or removing vision from the enemy team can make or break team fights, baron and dragon attempts.
Changelog
11/24/2012 - Added videos, new pictures and new items for season 3 patch
The Basics
But first, this can't be the ultimate guide without at least covering the basics. I'll try to keep it brief.
Sight Ward(Green)
Vision Ward(Pink)
New Wards in Season 3
THESE NEW ITEMS ARE OVERPOWERED AND ARE A MUST FOR ANY SUPPORT!
Ruby Sightstone
+300 Health
UNIQUE Passive - Ward Refresh: Starts with 5 charges and refills each time you visit your shop.
UNIQUE Active - Ghost Ward(Active) : consumes a charge to place an invisible ward that reveals the surrounding area for 3 minutes. You may have a maximum of 3 wards placed from this item at once.
Sightstone
+100 Health
UNIQUE Passive - Ward Refresh: Starts with 4 charges and refills each time you visit your shop.
UNIQUE Active - Ghost Ward:Consumes a charge to place an invisible ward that reveals the surrounding area for 3 minutes. You may have a maximum of 2 wards placed from this item at once.
Why do you get wards?
- See incoming Ganks
- See attempts at objectives (Baron/Dragon)
- So your team can push advantage and invade enemy jungle
- Catch enemy jungler
- Split push enemy turrets
- Initiate on unexpecting enemy champions in brushes
- Allies can teleport gank or teleport and assist in team fights
Who Buys Wards?
- Everyone in the game. However the AD carry will likely buy the least amount and the support will generally buy the most during the course of the game.
- Generally speaking: 60-70% of the wards should be the Support. 20-30% should be jungler and 10-20% should be the AP and AD carry.
- Everyone buy's wards (not just the support)
Why vision is so important, as displayed on this clip below!
Advanced
Certain champions can jump to wards and use them to hop over walls or to chase\escape enemy champions. It takes practice to get used to, but if used correctly, you can cover a lot of ground using wards. It's basically a 75 gold Flash, making it really useful.
Jax can use his Leap Strike to jump to a ward, making him very mobile. For 75 gold, he has an extra Flash that he can use every 6-10 seconds.
Katarina can use her Shunpo to instantly shift over to a ward or creep that she targets. It resets the cooldown after she gets an assist or kill, so using it on a ward to get a kill can allow you to Shunpo again.
Lee Sin is the 3rd champion that can jump to wards. He can use his Safeguard to leap over to a ward. If used correctly, you can place a ward in front of an enemy champion, Safeguard to it, and then kick the enemy champion into your team.
Change Log:
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Posted 10/3/2012 6:42:31 AMWell, I think that this guide is very good at explaining the theory behind why to ward and where. But When I look at your pictures, and the actual warding I get a lil embarrased, and think that with such a nice guide, why not use the wards to their best potential? :(
Example:
When u ward the Ancient Golem u put it next to the wall, inside the area of where the Golem itself are. Instead, put it in the tip of the bush, so you uncover the Golem, and 3 other ways...
Well, just my 2 cents
P.S.
As I said, very well written guide :)
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Posted 8/21/2012 10:37:52 PMThis guide was very cool, and extremely helpful. I thought I understood wards well enough until I read this! In fact, I like your guide so much that I am going to recommend it in my up and coming article on www.gettherax.com titled "Stevo's top League of Legends Guide picks to help you improve your ELO overnight!" Thanks for all of the hard work, and keep it up! :)
~Stevo
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Posted 11/24/2012 8:15:38 PMThank you - going to update it with season 3 spots
Team Curse Team Captain. Follow us at www.facebook.com/teamcurse
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Posted 8/20/2012 6:30:29 PM-
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Posted 4/14/2012 2:57:22 AMwell when I play solo top, I tend to buy significantly more wards than I should so I can be aggressive on my lane opponent, warding the tri bush and the entrance to blue, regardless of side I'm on. See people come out of blue or enemy going in, and see people trying to avoid that ward or coming up behind me, works quite nicely throughout, and I carry wards around later on to avoid the sorrow of death by facecheck.
I tend to be the most built in the match as I'm notorious amongst my friends for having the most gold, even when we lose, because farming and gp10 items are OP.
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Posted 4/13/2012 10:44:14 PMany advice for when you team wont ward? do you compensate and spend a few 100 gold to keep the map warded even if you arent support? or do you let some of the map stay unwarded so you can actually do yourr build? i get stuck with people that refuse to spend money on anything but items :(.
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Posted 4/14/2012 7:11:14 AMIdeally you should buy a ward every time you go back. The importance of gold and farm is too high to buy more, unless you play support. If your team does not ward you should think about, what kind of wards are essential in this particular game. You should try to answer a number of questions, if you can't decide what type of ards are most importabt. Is their jungler likely to counter jungle yours? Do you want to steal their buffs or protect yours? Are they going to go for early dragon? Is their jungler a good ganker (like Maokai) or a not (like Shyvana). You can also consider, which lane is easier to gank. If your top is Renekton then he will likely escape most ganks even when not warded. If mid lane is someone like Twisted Fate, who has no escapes, then you should assume he will be ganked and, as a jungler, you can place a ward to help him out.
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Posted 4/16/2012 9:16:35 AMEverything Gorodecki said.
if you're at an ELO where you feel that your allies aren't warding not because they choose to not spend the gold, but because they simply don't understand the value of wards, you might want to think a little more selfishly; continue to buy wards for yourself (at least one every time you visit the shop is a great guideline), perhaps pick up an extra ward here and there, and use them to protect yourself or protect objectives you need/want (I'd count dragon/baron here, if you feel like you can either convince your team to take these, or you feel that you can be in a position to contest it if the enemy goes for it).
Cynical outlook; if your teammates don't care to ward for themselves, warding for them might not be a big help, unless they have some amount of map awareness. Unless you're playing support (or possibly a support/tank jungler), you'll probably get more benefit out of warding for yourself, so you can finish out your build as quickly and safely as possible and carry your team.
There's little value in warding dragon/baron if your team isn't organized enough to do anything about it; knowing that they're all doing baron is a good bit of info, but if your team is going to just sit back and watch, you may as well save the 75g, or ward more defensively, so you can deal with them after they've picked up that gold and buff. Of course, hopefully if your team is too dumb to do anything about barons and dragons, the opponents will be about the same level.
Jungler is the toughest role to ward as in a situation like this, since you have the potential to ward the largest area, but you also don't have the gold to spare like the support does. I'd focus on maybe a defensive ward for a lane that's doing well, or a high gank target (usually it's both at once, if your laner is gathering a lot of attention). As solo-top, you can usually ignore the majority of the map, warding the jungle near you to fend of ganks, and simply farm or push as hard as possible. You can cover just about every entrance to your lane with no more than two wards, and if you push hard enough, you can even protect your other lanes by virtue of drawing a lot of attention to your lane. (works best if you're on a champ with decent escape tools.)
Mid-lane is a little more tricky sometimes, you want to ward for yourself regardless, but you can usually count on the jungler or support laying wards down around dragon and baron, which doubles as defensive wards for you sometimes. Without that support, you might want to pick up two wards instead of one, so you can cover both your top and your bottom. If you're in the odd position where your jungler won't ward, but is still giving you blue buffs, you might want to ward near there as well, to keep the enemy jungler from stealing the buff from you. (also handy in cases where you don't have a jungler, and the enemy team is taking buffs from your team.)
Er, that was longer than intended. TL;DR: Pick up an extra ward or two to defend yourself, but don't gimp yourself for the benefit of teammates who are already proving to be worse than you in terms of map control.
---- Geo - a.k.a. Jio Derako
I theorycraft harder than I play.
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Posted 4/16/2012 8:56:04 PMWhen your team wont ward; you might likely be in an ELO where the enemy team is not warding eaither. This means; grab an early oracle - play jungle and gank often.
Team Curse Team Captain. Follow us at www.facebook.com/teamcurse
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Posted 4/13/2012 6:55:33 PMNow I won't get ganked nomore :)