Lets discuss sightstone
After viewing a bunch of threads with complaints over people not buying sight stone while playing support, I wanted to pitch my point of view is (as a support main since season 2)
Understandably, it can be very frustrating for anyone to not have vision of a brush, or most of the map. This is only an amplified issue with a lot more assassins being popular after the update, as well as the general pre-game stress of placement matches. Of course not having things warded isn't only the supports job, but supports have sight stone in their main items for a very good reason, because vision is primarily their job throughout the entire history of the game.
One issue I want everyone to see though is that sight stone simply isn't that good of an item anymore.
I say this because of the changes to both warding, and to vision denying things have made it far less useful. Look at the changes over time to sight stone, it started out as something supports could get to alleviate some of the pain of ward costs in season 3. After some time, wards began to have limits on the amount you could place, sweeping lens and wraith buff was added, these blue plants were added, sight stone had its ward duration cut, and now control wards nullify everything a sight stone ward does.
Thats a lot against sight stone considering you only get 3 wards.
consider this example:
as a support on the blue side, we may be pushing for mid turret. This means we would want vision on the sides to protect from flanks. I would want to ward the general area of the red, but to make it safe for me to even get there, i would have to ward the area of the black first to get to it.
And this is common with support warding strategies, is that you have to place auxiliary wards that don't provide much to team vision in order to be safe while placing the wards that count.
moving on, I would then want wards on the opposite side of the map, to protect from flanks from the left side. So I would then place the ward somewhere in the area near the blue dot. With a normal sight stone, That consumes all of my wards, (excluding the control ward, but that's more than likely in a defensive area marked by purple)
Ok so, we have good vision, right? Nope Think back to all the vision denial, most supports are going to have either the red or blue area control warded in some way. Sometimes even a jungle will have one down in the blue area. A sweep with a lens and that can clear both the red and black marked wards. This doesn't include the fact that the blue pants will easily spot out any of the three wards.
In the case that 2 of the wards are cleared, the still leaves a huge opening for being flanked/caught out. This doesn't even consider the fact that:
- warding like this leaves me nothing to contest dragon/baron vision with.
- By getting sight stone early, I delay my t2 boots, meaning once I run out, I can't go back without my team losing objective pressure.
Overall, I would much rather just purchase something rather than the (currently) useless 200hp that sight stone is giving me.
