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[Suggestion] Support Warding

Crimson Pyre·11/19/2014, 8:41:19 PM·3 votes·1,057 views

So, I have been thinking a bit. One of the biggest jobs of supports is vision. And yet, because of Feral Flare, junglers had the best warding capability, a ward placement range of 1000, compared to the default 600.

Why not offer supports the ability to ward further? I had the thought of a standalone item that, "Increases ward placement range", as well as offering number of other simple, non-combat stats, but I realized that if the stats are too reasonable, or rather too useful, it may become too much of a staple item, offering no real advantages of not buying it, but if it was too weak, it would just be an item that no one would ever think of buying.

So I thought, how about a new Sightstone?

Amethyst Sightstone Sightstone + Sapphire Crystal + 400g (Total Cost: 1600g) +200 Health +200 Mana UNIQUE Passive - Increases the placement range of Stealth Wards by 400. UNIQUE Passive - Ward Refresh: Holds 3 charges and refills upon visiting the shop. UNIQUE Active - Ghost Ward: Consumes a charge to place a Stealth Ward that reveals the surrounding area for 3 minutes. A player may only have 3 Stealth Wards on the map at one time.

(Unique Passives with the same name don't stack.)

Looking at the stats, I couldn't quite figure out how to balance it properly. Having the 4 charges of Sightstone would make it far more powerful, as many supports don't even think of upgrading to Ruby Sightstone until nearly at endgame.

The upgrade from Sightstone and Ruby Crystal to the Ruby Sightstone, costs 400 gold, and does 2 things. 1, is it increases the charges held by 1. The second is that if also offers a bonus 100 health, (150 from Sightstone, 150 from Ruby Crystal, but 400 on it)

This spec here, with the same 400 gold of an upgrade from Sightstone to Amethyst Sightstone will only offer a bonus 50 health, statwise. The 400 range increase to ward range, up to 1000, felt like it would be too powerful, in comparison to "just having more wards". So I figured reducing the charge count down to 3 would force supports to be a little more careful with their charges, regardless of the greater available range. To supplement, I thought that making the extended range work on ALL Stealth Wards would allow supports who purchase this to also supplement the lack of charges by actually purchasing additional Wards, when necessary. I did think about having it effect all ward placement entirely, but felt that allowing longer range placement of Vision Wards was a bit too strong.

4 Comments

redniwediS11/19/2014, 9:20:41 PM2 votes

Sightstone, in my opinion, is a problem item. In it's current state the only reason to even upgrade one is either personal preference or excess gold. It's not mechanically superior in any meaningful way.

Sightstone is expensive enough to make purchasing it on a DPS role detrimental, yet does not provide enough combat stats to make it slot efficient for a DPS role later on. In my honest opinion I think Sightstone is detrimental to all roles in it's current state. Pure health is not a particularly strong stat at the moment, yet the usefulness of the wards almost makes it a requirement. With all of this in mind there is only one role that won't be weakened by the purchase.

Perhaps it could use an enchantment system like the new jungle items have, but I won't think it's in a good spot until I can buy a Sightstone on a Top lane champion without feeling like I've gimped myself with the purchase. And yes I know some Top laners can get it for good reasons, but I can count how many have a reasonable combat use for Sightstone on two fingers.

k wìx11/19/2014, 9:08:35 PM1 votes

Not a bad idea - i think the current vision game is a bit bland - I like the little wars over vision and all that, but so much of it is centered around warding. I'd like to see tools like the 'vision' trinket and Clairvoyance get some lovin' so we can see those have some play as well.

I'd wager that the distance buff might be a bit too far - 400 is a pretty big increase to the default warding size - I'd suggest toning it down to like 200 or 250 and buffing the stats a bit to compensate. Flat mana also feels kinda bland - I imagine most players would just prefer the health. Maybe 10% CDR? or how about a gaining a bit of gold each time you place a ward? would be interesting to see. Something thats different.

DuhRin11/19/2014, 9:13:35 PM1 votes

Why not Sapphire Sightstone? O.o

Nice ideas though, I think it would give a lot more to long-ranged supports like janna/nami/zyra and others than ruby sightstone has to offer

JustGotFired11/19/2014, 10:30:42 PM1 votes

Wow, that made me remember that I can upgrade sightstone to ruby sightstone o____o