An Idea for Sightstone Upgrades
Background
When I first started playing League back in Season 2, I knew that I wanted to play as a support. What’s not to love about people who control the battlefield by buffing their allies and debuffing their enemies? I especially loved the fact that I could light up the map with wards and fight for vision control with “ward wars”... but I hated that I had to channel all my gold into buying it. Now, as the years have gone by, vision has been spread out more equally around the team and I no longer have to shoulder the burden, but it makes it much harder to carry by myself.
One important change has been the addition of the Sightstone- an item that essentially acts as a slot for your wards while also gaining a bit of health. However, rarely would anyone- including I- upgrade it to a Ruby Sightstone. It simply wasn’t worth the money you could spend in another item for the extra bit of health and another charge. Instead, the core GP5 items and flavor-of-the-month support items took precedence, and only in a 50+ minute game would I even bother to upgrade it... after upgrading everything else.
Proposed Changes
Recently, my interest was peaked by a post from Meddler in a thread about Sightstone changes, confirming them for the near future. The possibility of changing that item had not even entered my mind. Then, he explained further what they had in mind.
There are a couple of things we want to be careful about with Sightstone. The first is avoiding making it an item that's appealing to too wide a range of positions. On one hand, too little vision's bad for the game, it stops you from making informed plays and instead just forces blind risk or extreme conservatism. On the other hand however too much vision's also a problem, shutting down the possibility for action and leading to dull, long, low action games. Sightstone not being bought too frequently in any single game's an important part of trying to keep that vision balance right.
The second thing we want to try and do is make it so supports don't feel forced to upgrade their Sightstone to the final tier before picking up any other items, given how much that surpresses chances to make item choices. At the same time, the upgrade should still decent for the slot. Decent slot efficiency, but uninspiring gold efficiency for the upgrade, might be where we end up as a result.
This post sets up two key limits in the upcoming changes-- vision is balanced right now and needs to stay that way, and supports should not be forced to rush the item in order to gain power. These boundaries are important for the health of the game, and must be kept in mind when doing any changes.
With that said, I would like to propose my own idea for changes... but first, look into how to change them.
Vision Control in the Rule of Three
When people think of vision control, they think of the pro games where people cheered over wards being destroyed. But the game is much more complicated than that- it’s a game of control against your enemy. Keeping vision- and denying the enemy vision- is something that could easily be a game in itself. Thinking of this, I narrowed down the various methods people would control vision into three categories. Note that these are not the end-all be-all strategies- a poke comp would have different warding patterns than a split push comp.
- Offensive Warding- When you’re ahead or looking for kills, you ward the river and the enemy jungle to try and find them, as well as destroying wards to deny them vision. This is a very dangerous method, making it better to do while you’re ahead and makes it easier to bait people out.
- Defensive Warding- When you’re behind or the enemy is camping your lane, you try to ward your own jungle. Finding choke points and safe places to put the wards, you try your best not to get them destroyed- but something it’s not an option if they’re that far ahead. Personally, I favor this style, as it makes it easier to catch if someone’s in your jungle and helps counter-ganking.
- Objective Control- When you want to get an objective, like Baron or Dragon, you ward the area around and usually place a pink ward in the pit. This is to both deny the enemy vision and make sure your own vision stays. This kind is usually used around late game or with a team that’s objective-based, as it allows you to know if the enemy has vision of you. More importantly, a pink in the pit allows you to quickly remove enemy wards if they’ve been placed in there in order to prevent steals.
Once you narrow it down to these methods, you may have already realized the pattern I’m going for. The rule of three has always been a favorite of Riot, so I’ll be following it here with the proposed upgrades.
Offensive Warding Upgrade
The basic gist of this style is simple- be rewarded for going out of your way to deny the enemy vision. I didn’t really have an idea for this until I saw a post on Reddit by Lellerz420. They proposed the idea of “destroying a ward... recharges one ward in your sightstone”. All credit goes to them for the idea. However, another part of offensively warding is the baiting... which points to more of an AP-oriented addition. However, if the stats were too gold efficient, everyone would buy it... which unfortunately forces it into a tiny amount.
Offensive Sightstone (Sightstone + Amplifying Tome + 365 Cost to build)
Stats- +150 health, +20 AP
Builds out of a Sightstone and Amplifying Tome
UNIQUE Passive- Ward Refresh: Holds up to 5 charges and refreshes upon visiting a shop.
UNIQUE Passive- Gift of Vigorl: Destroying a Sight or Vision Ward gives you another charge. (Cannot exceed the cap of 5)
UNIQUE Active- Ghost Ward: Consumes a charge to place a Sight Ward.
Defensive Warding Upgrade
The idea behind this item is to help you when your team is behind and you’re being denied vision left and right. Any ward you place immediately get cleared or worse- you’re caught out. This item is designed to help those who want to keep an extra eye on the enemy, but doesn’t reward them too heavily for playing this way. It’s almost the same stats as Ruby Sightstone, but with the health a bit nerfed to compensate for the added passive.
gt; Defensive Warding Sightstone _(Sightstone + Ruby Crystal + 400 Cost to Build) _> Stats- +400 Health.
UNIQUE Passive- Ward Refresh: Holds up to 5 charges and refreshes upon visiting a shop.
UNIQUE Passive- Gift of Insight- When a ward is destroyed by an enemy champion, it grants vision of them for the next three seconds
UNIQUE Active- Ghost Ward: Consumes a charge to place a Sight Ward.
**Objective Control Upgrade ** Now, this item is a bit weird, as it doesn’t play rock-paper-scissors with the other two. However, it does have its own unique playstyle, as it is an even mix of both offensive and defensive warding with the control of a monster thrown in. This means it needs to be an item that is good if you need control in one spot, but not good for general vision all over. Both items can both counter it and be countered by it.
Objective Control Sighstone (Sightstone + Sapphire Crystal + 400 Cost to Build)
Stats- +250 Health, +250 Mana
UNIQUE Passive- Ward Refresh: Holds up to 5 charges and refreshes upon visiting a shop.
UNIQUE Passive: Gift of Harmony- Vision Wards grant a 5% movement speed buff to allies within the vision range.
UNIQUE Active- Ghost Ward: Consumes a charge to place a Sight Ward.
TL;DR
**Upgraded sightstones could be divided into three different branches that each give a unique and rewarding passive effect. One would be a reward for clearing enemy wards, one would be a countermeasure against enemies destroying your wards, and one would be a mini scuttle crab for objective control anywhere. **