Ward Value Depreciation

Sir ArmaMalum··2 votes·685 views

We all know the ward changes in S4 by now I hope. Since then the value of a green ward, as I see it, has dropped significantly with the presence of sightstone and green trinket. Whereas Pinks' went up slightly with their infinite duration.

And now we the season 5 changes, which I have found have depreciated green wards even more so than the previous season. We have several new avenues for vision, primarily Wolf smite reward and Scuttle Crab, on top of a new method of removal, Razorbeak smite reward. Now none of these individually do much and are honestly fun additions imho. But something I've run into for a few games now is green wards being less needed and removed consistently (with Razorbeak reward and more instances of sweeper trink, as the free vision on dragon and baron doesn't incentivize green trink as much as before.)

In short, I've found it very difficult to keep vision up for my team this pre-season and find even fewer reasons to get green wards as they last less that a minute in a lot of cases. Thoughts?

2 Comments

xvshanevx1 votes

The value of green wards did not change for Top and Mid lane. These two lanes still need greens to help protect against ganks. Will they buy wards? Eh, probably not.

As for the Wolf Smite Ward, and the scuttle crabs, from what I have seen from High Elo players, is that it is only beneficial to smite the wolves in the enemy jungle, because you simply want to save your smite for the chickens (oracles lens). As for the scuttle crab, these primarily give vision for Dragon and Baron, and do not close off any jungle routes; it is still the responsibility of the laners to get wards to protect their lane.

Also, if you're supporting, then due to having a sight stone, keeping ward coverage shouldn't be too different than season 4 (unless the enemy has control of both jungles).

MrBuffington1 votes

Scuttlecrab and Wolves basically lasts as long as a trinket ward; it isn't a true replacement for green wards. Razorbeak is super powerful though, I feel like it takes a lot of the strategy out of the red trinket (I've only been playing jungle since the new patch; Razorbeak is just a free roam ticket). I think there's less emphasis on buying wards as a jungler since you have a lot of ways of getting or denying vision (which is nice, since gold gain seems to be lower without conservation or bonus flare gold).

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