Sightstone Thoughts

Hello friends,

I saw something recently (from Riot, I think) that said they were still trying to figure out if SightStone was in the right place. While the improvements have been welcomed, I think it needs to be pushed in one direction or the other, and below are my complaints. To begin with, I'm in the "Go AP if you want, but always buys a SS" school of thought. I also think that taking a kill is fine, but taking CS is a crime against humanity.

Having said that, here's what I think.

The major problem with wards is that they scale by bracket. I'm in low Bronze and for us, I ward a tremendous amount. In the grand scheme of things, I don't ward enough. I just saw my year end score on things, and I do a third of what pros do. As far as I see it, it's a place where I can improve, but there's a few things I've been wrestling with, so right or wrong I'm going to list them out.

1. My wards don't always prevent ganks. I'm working with a lot of people who just don't look at a map. That doesn't justify my warding, but in the cost-benefit analysis from minute to minute in a game, i'm adjusting based on the team I have. If I'm being honest, I need to spend where I think it's going to help the team most. If this Jinx isn't looking at the mini map, saving her life might mean having more CDR, because she isn't looking at the map any way.

2. Mostly because of #1, but for other reasons as well, I feel like the SS costs too much. Not in games where we're doing decently, but in those blowout games where money comes hard. Again, the problem here is scaling. To reduce SS to 400g is fine for the Bronze bracket. But wards pay bills in Gold+, and so how do you balance the worth of them given the difference?

3. All wards grant vision. And I think this is why you're seeing a disparity. We need to diversify the warding. Right now, the wards worth is based on the player themselves. I can ward all day, but if you don't notice, I may as well have put nothing there. Having said that, what if he ward did more than grant vision? What if there was a ward that, when tripped (stepped on), it slowed the enemy? This would give some benefit beyond the player noticing. They could be used more strategically.

Which brings me to 3a. Wards should be strategic, but they can't be if they only do one thing required for each individual to be on their a-game. As such, SS should operate like more of a tool kit for long-game strategy. I don't care how. Either with the blue SS, or built up into something larger, but here's how I see wards now, and how they'd change under the system I'm proposing:

You're mid-lane, defending your last turret in lane from a 4 man push. Typically, people ward their side areas to prevent long-range jungle poke or dives. In this scenario, the only thing helping you is knowing that they're there. But what if you could prevent dives by the same system Teemo's muchroom does. Or Jhin's trap does? No damage. Just a slow. This would also increase the value of sweepers.

4. I personally think 4 wards is a slim amount. The fountain should bring you to 4 automatically. But it should, after 4, slowly increase to 8.

Anyway, that's my 2 cents. Now you know. Happy Holidays.

Rook