PSA to Sightstone Whiners:

Supports are not your sightstone slaves, ESPECIALLY not AP supports. It is a SUPPORTIVE item, to be certain, but there are two major factors to consider when deciding when to buy a sightstone- and what member of the team should buy one, because it needn't always be the support.

The first factor is need and efficiency. In a lot of cases, it is a MASSIVE mistake to rush Sightstone as a second item. In a botlane game where you are behind, or where the other team is fed, you should already be playing in a way that lets you leave your river completely unwarded and your tri-brush pink warded. Frozen under tower, ready to collapse on a flanking jungler or support. If you're BEHIND and you've pushed far enough for an unwarded river to be a threat, you're already at heavy risk of dying to your fed opposing laners- or dying to their jungler just walking through the warded brush after you, or walking through your tribrush, even with it pinked. - On the flipside, in a botlane game where you're significantly AHEAD, you can keep both your tri-brush and river permanently pink warded and punish the other laner for trying to clear it; this is even better than a sightstone ward at lower levels of play, as the jungler knows he's been spotted and will often abandon the attempt altogether to clear the ward or retreat. - In both of these cases, Sightstone just doesn't do much, especially considering the point I'm going to make in a moment. You are gaining NOTHING but the passive at a considerable price tag of 400 gold- almost enough to upgrade your gold item, or to buy a Doran's ring, or a pair of boots and two potions. In both of these situations, you don't gain much benefit from having more than the one ward each your yellow trinkets offer (for toplane TP, scouting bushes, etc.) which means you're paying 400 gold for a dubious vision advantage. Objectively, you're better build a or a and to dodge skillshots and soak your laners' damage in both situations.

Pretty much the ONLY time you want to build a sightstone and will use it efficiently is when your lane is completely even in power- roughly equal CS, kills, and build progression, no counterpick against you, a steady back and forth of wave pushing. Here, you can pink your tri and have a real vision war, warding a bot bush, river, and dragon with your sightstone and using your trinket for skirmish warding- or changing to a red one. Usually, though, it will be one of the above extremes- and you should be playing accordingly to make a comeback or push your advantage, things Sightstone's passive proves very little use in. Otherwise, in terms of gold efficiency, it's practically dead weight until the midgame rolls around.

Which brings me to my second point: Delivery. If your support is a squishy, immobile AP champion (like Zyra, or Sona) AND behind, fuck you for wanting them to buy Sightstone. By the time midgame rolls around, mages and assassins start one-shotting AP supports, right when Sightstone becomes actually relevant. You're expecting them to not only forgo a slot, but delay a defensive or other supportive item they should be building from behind to carry the item- which they can't use. Every two times your support dies warding, the enemy team gets enough gold to pay for the Sightstone passive and a couple potions. And if your squishy-ass support is behind, delving into the unknown alone (because who are you kidding if you claim you escort your support around the map) to get you vision, they are going to die. In a game like this, it's futile for a support to buy Sightstone- the team needs to coordinate pinks and trinkets, or someone else needs to take control of vision. Someone tanky. Maybe someone who roams around the map...

Yeah, roams around the map. Remember this item, guys? It still exists. It's essentially a sightstone for tanky junglers who can't do a ton with the or . Junglers like of these. I see a lot of hate on supports for building more stat efficient items, or 'more damage to get kills', usually- but tank junglers with nearly no attack speed or need for additional CC will still build these items over the one that is basically Sightstone, but provides relevant stats that make it slot efficient! The same goes for toplaners in the situation I described earlier- more or less even with their laner, not snowballing to stomp the whole game- they can definitely build a sightstone until they're ready for full build, considering they get to CS a LOT more than the average support and have either the tankiness or the mobility to escape any sticky situations warding might get them into.

But players don't consider that. They want the support to be the ward slave and the ONLY reason they don't have vision control. Noone considers that support players should be just as careful with their build efficiency and playstyle as anyone else. Essentially, it boils down to the attitude of the different role mains- support players are almost always team-oriented players, while everyone else wants to see themselves shine and 'carry'. Because of this, the support role has adopted a 'slave' stigma of buying ALL of the team-oriented items noone else wants to buy- but that doesn't make the items SUPPORT-ONLY items. Your toplaner or tank jungler CAN buy a ; your mid can grab a , and your jungler can sure as hell get a - it doesn't even hurt them as bad as a hurts a support (or anyone, for that matter- the final item is more or less gold efficient after an enchant!)

TL;DR If your team comp looks like then Leona should PROBABLY be warding and toting a Sightstone. If your team comp looks like then honestly, Rammus can get a and everyone else can use their yellow trinket. It will be OK.