The Annecdotal Importance of Warding
This is a very far in advance apology if this is posted in the wrong board. I'd assume something, even if lighthearted, that seriously discusses the use and influences of a game mechanic (like wards) went into Gameplay, but understand if it needs to go somewhere else. If it does, I'd just like to be informed so that i could take care of it the best I could (if I can at all) as well as apologize for misplacing it.
This is a post about these little things right here:
We all know warding's important, that it gives you important information, that it protects you from the enemy. But one thing we've never thanked our supports, or any of our teammates for, is the level of raw influence they bring with vision.
By that, I mean that...vision control is a war. The enemy is provoked into aggressively removing vision or following up on anything they perceive with their vision, lack of, of your vision or lack of. Normally this just takes the form of immediately using a pink or sweeping somewhere the enemy knows you placed a ward, or zoning you off with that same ward (by having the fed jungler sing 'hello my honey' in the bush). They're also driven to place vision in places that seem convenient or noteworthy, and to remove yours from those same areas.
But does anyone really respect how many things vision can stop or set into motion? A few examples that may or may not be accurate but emphasize a point: A pink ward during a rengar ulti makes him (slightly) less likely to dive that Vayne - she can condemn him. A pink ward during LeBlanc's passive makes her less likely to escape. A ward in a bush that enemy champions are in will often make them disperse or engage with no inbetween. A ward in a bush can prevent bush strategem. Removing a ward near an objective can lure the enemy team. Warding near the enemy team who's ahead makes them aggressive. Warding near the enemy team who's behind makes them run. Being caught warding a neutral objective lures the enemy team. A ward can even be used to screw up an AD Carry's attacks if they use Attack Move.
And now is story time about how Darius using a blue ward led to the end of a game.
The game progresses, I do very well in lane against Illaoi and get ahead...and I become a problem. Things are going well, but then very soon start going downhill despite our huge lead. Jax is able to assassinate me, my team gets killed if I'm not around to meatshield, and everything is falling apart. I'm able to kill a carry if I can get close to them, Jhin has the damage of a truck strapped with a jet engine fueled by the laughter of Jesus, Swain's nearly unkillable, and both Malphite and Sona are VERY good at what they do CC and otherwise. In spite of this, we suddenly can't fight back. We fail team fights over and over, and the enemy manages to baron and push hard. They do this twice and push in past our inhib, managing to damage one of the nexus turrets pretty bad. The only reason the second baron didn't ruin us is because I decided to try and trade myself for someone important and got Jax, and my team was able to defend against four pushing one lane. The game goes on like this and on occasion we get a good fight.
However, the last fight, something special happened.
I decided that we were being pushed back hard enough that I could trade my yellow trinket (which I usually keep to set wards I can teleport to) for a blue one. Later in the match, I got a bad feeling and placed a blue ward behind baron. I caught them at their red buff and the entire team moved to try and catch Jax and Illaoi out. Turns out their whole team was there in that tight corridor, but the important part was the ward. Jax saw the ward and cleared it, then went back to his red buff. Illaoi saw it, became aggressive, and tried to attack us. The other three team members became aggressive and tried to catch up to Illaoi. Illaoi was caught out and killed. Without Illaoi, there was no threat to us for going in as a group. We managed to kill all four of the remaining enemies at the cost of one of ours. The enemy team believed we were able to push to end off of that ace and surrendered.
We caused the first truly favorable fight for us in that game since roughly 20 minutes with a blue trinket.
Vision does so much more than you think it does, folks. Let us all praise the almighty vision and trinkets.
Share your ward stories below, and let's see what kind of gamebreaking stuff wards have done that nobody appreciates (and maybe now can recreate?).
TL;DR: Wards are glorious.
If I screwed up grammatically, please do tell me. I do it all the time and would like to fix what I can.