Should wards grant assists? - A game theory

Yoella·Feb 17, 2015·49 votes·2,305 views

Warding is an important task in League of Legends, and it's not one relegated entirely to the support role. The vast majority of people will choose the yellow trinket and yet only a few of them will actually use it, let alone actively. Vision is king, and should not be underestimated.

So seeing as vision is so useful should an enemy getting slain in the vision your ward generates grant you an assist? Here's my take on the answer.

Yes, I think that if you place a ward and an enemy gets killed within its vision you should get an assist.
The assist should only be granted if the ward was placed 7 seconds prior to the kill happening (to prevent everyone from throwing down wards in a fight).
This would encourage everyone to ward, and would lead to better and more interesting games as a result.

What does the community think?

32 Comments

OrangesilkFeb 17, 201513 votes

The sudden rush of gold most players would get in competitive play where everything is warded anyways would lead to hypercarries being the most viable champions, this is DANGEROUS, giving away free gold really affects the meta in ways hard to predict.

YOU BEEN WARNEDFeb 17, 201527 votes

I really think LCS should be it's own game mode, it ruins a fuckton of things for 90% of League's playerbase.

MrBuffingtonFeb 18, 20155 votes

Reminds me of Halo and the MLG gametype

19348180DEL1Feb 18, 20151 votes

I quit playing Halo at net-lounges because of this.

Hyrum GraffFeb 17, 201513 votes

I think it's a good idea under the following conditions:

Assists will only be given if the ward granted vision that your team would not otherwise have had
- If you just place a ward down in the middle of a team fight and it doesn't grant any additional vision OF ENEMY CHAMPS, you get no assist.
additionally only the oldest ward grants assists
unless it grants vision in a different place (ie, a different bush)

Civil DawnFeb 18, 20151 votes

RITO PLS

Ice Weasel XFeb 17, 20155 votes

{quoted}

The assist should only be granted if the ward was placed 7 seconds prior to the kill happening (to prevent everyone from throwing down wards in a fight).

I'll counter by saying that sometimes warding at the tail end of a fight is absolutely the difference between winning and losing. Skirmishes often travel, or a ward placed in the right place may have been disabled/destroyed prematurely. People often duck into brush to force a targeting disadvantage on opponents, so throwing a ward down in the heat of battle can easily cause the killing shot to be in your favor. Also, in most cases, someone close enough to toss a ward down just before a kill has already fulfilled the regular assist requirement of participating in the fight. Since this is a concern, that means this is an additional reward over the usual assist, right? The reward amount should be less, then.

{quoted}

An assist but with a little fraction of gold.
More like 15-30.

This. Tiny amounts make more sense than full-fledged assists. People who buy wards aren't going to want to plop one down solely for a 15g reward since that's a 60-85g loss instead of potentially using the ward in a more sensible location. 15g also makes it so the only way a standard Stealth Ward recovers its full value in a single fight is if the entire team is wiped out in its field of view. Similarly, people using free wards might be more prone to wasting them just for assist bonuses, but that would still leave them at a disadvantage if they haven't recharged the trinket in time to ward a key location. Taking into account that the purpose of wards is vision more than anything else, cutting the potential reward down even more would make sense so that it's considered a bonus instead of a driving reason to use them. 5g could work without causing too much of a gold spike for Trinket/Sightstone usage.

I'm sure this goes without saying for any considering the application of this concept, but having a kill in view of more than one ward shouldn't trigger a double bonus. 1 death, 1 bonus.

It Hertz When IPFeb 17, 20151 votes

The problem is that supports consistently get less gold than anyone else, despite being an invaluable asset to the team; the trick would be to make supports and other deserving souls get the assist credit while not giving it to everyone. He's an idea:

Sightstone does the above idea, providing 15G for assists under the above criteria. (Balance Idea: max one assist per ward or max number of assists obtainable period?)

Yellow Trinket also does the above, but ONLY after being upgraded to either of the build paths.

Stealth and Vision Ward do the above, but only for 5G.

Blue Trinket ALSO procs assists, for 10G.

Sightstone being a pile of shit in terms of stats means that anyone idly buying one just for the assist credit would have to get a lot of assist credits to make the money back.. On a similar train of thought the 250g fee to upgrade Yellow does the same. Blue Trinket can provide the same service as a strategic ward, only it is harder to land. This is countered by it being way more spammable, so it IMO evens out.

alcatrazEscapeeFeb 17, 20155 votes

but... this is a lee sin buff

Great concept though

GodswordFeb 17, 20154 votes

An assist but with a little fraction of gold.
More like 15-30.

Truly PridefulFeb 17, 20151 votes

I've thought about this a lot too and it feels like a good idea, but could also be dangerous. With the charges on the warding trinket now it could essentially be used to 'tag' everyone in a teamfight for a bunch of free gold in case you can't manually hit them all. Maybe only the 'oldest' ward grants assists. Ward assists would have to be worth a low gold amount, 25g to a maximum of 50g for assisting in a big streak shutdown.

This is definitely something I would like to see them look at, they would just have to be really careful about it. Anything to get more players to actively ward though.

Lester ChanFeb 17, 20151 votes

It would ruin warding. You would have to always have a ward with you or else you miss out on potential support gold.

YoellaFeb 18, 20151 votes

Yellow Trinket intensifies

PickleBabahFeb 18, 20151 votes

I do not think that wards should provide assists because it should not provide any other in-game benefit than the benefit of knowledge. It makes the use of a ward more rewarding based on how you choose to use it. It can also give away the fact that it was warded. At this point, if people do not choose to use their free wards, then there is nothing else you can do to persuade them to use it. Assists are too big to just be thrown around. Vision is undoubtedly important, but supports / some junglers will most likely be the ones to provide them.

Kitten of EvilFeb 18, 20151 votes

People should ward because it keeps them and allies alive, not for extra gold. They really are a key part of the game already and I don't think they need to be changed. People just need to use them more. When I play normals, even if I'm mid or top, I usually am second only to the support in number of wards used per game.

VDc0zCqe0wFeb 18, 20151 votes

i'd love this, sometimes as Zyra (support) or Morgana (support) i can't Q or autoattack a guy in a teamfight and i don't get the assist while i clearly contributed in that fight, while if i'm playing Janna i simply press R (or E) and i get every assist

with J4 it's even more absurd (throw E, gg free gold)

makes no sense to me

FlemmanFeb 18, 20151 votes

if we go in that way, grant just another type of assist who give you half the cost of the ward (5 gold for trinket) only if you don't participate other way in the kill

AxlStreamFeb 18, 20151 votes

In the same vein of idea... Should taking damage count as an assist? Since you're diverting damage away from the actual killer. You know, teamwork.

Virgin RayFeb 18, 20151 votes

Well I mean it does in a way, like vision. However people like me can just ward a running away enemy and still get an assist even though there are like 400 wards on the same exact brush.

Cu SidheFeb 18, 20151 votes

What if this was made into a deep mastery in the Utility tier since it has a lot of Gold Gen/Gold bonus stuff.

ScramrailFeb 18, 20151 votes

I think you over estimate how often people die in range of a ward. In most cases the ward will show where an enemy is, and perhaps a fight will begin in vision range of a ward, but generally if someone gets caught out theyre going to try to get away via terrain hopping with skills/spells or sheer running. I think youd find that in most games, with only 10-15 gold being granted, the amount gained by people would be so minimal it wouldn't be worth riot implementing.

I like the idea of making it something in the support tree, or maybe even an added passive onto Sightstone so that only supports (and in the case of Sightstone, a few select others) can take advantage of it. And it would definitely need to be more than 10-15 gold, at least 100 in my opinion.

As an alternative, you could do something like granting 10-15g when your ward spots an enemy player in general, with an internal cooldown so if you spot an entire team you don't get a huge chunk or gold or whatever.

19348180DEL1Feb 18, 20151 votes

In my eyes, passive Aura items should grant assists before providing vision. With those items at least, you must maintain close proximity to a fight.

It is enough that providing anti-vision gives you some of the gold from killing a unit (even a champion) discovered by this method.

Example: Dropping a Vision Ward in Akali's W for the win. Akali item 3070

ThePlasticSporkFeb 18, 20151 votes

This would create some problems with throwing wards just before someone dies to get assists.

Second, wards are already ridiculously useful. Making it so that they can generate more gold for you than you spent on them by having them grant assists would be pretty ridiculous. I'd rather not have wards become a gold vending machine for people as well as a scouting tool, they're useful enough as is.

LovingPotatoesFeb 18, 20151 votes

A real assist would provoc too many changements Maybe a masteries that gave 50 gold every 3 wards placed ?

BeatzBoyFTWFeb 18, 20151 votes

Sure, but the gold gain from vision should be lower than normal assists.

SoulHookFeb 18, 20151 votes

They should leave wards as they are. Nothing good ever came of making it easier for supports to do their jobs. Am i a support? Maybe, maybe not. Maybe yes. Probably no. I'm a support, though. Or am i? Fact of the matter is, supporting as a role doesn't need any more perks, with all the trinkets and and all that crap. I probably shouldnt be calling it crap. I don't really know if other roles need it, but support don't need a god-dam thing. Supports are well off. They're doing well. They're making money hand over fist. Until you get the ezreal that wants to rush cdr boots first, but apart from that, they're fine.

eyes wide shutFeb 18, 20151 votes

no. because the dude who drops a ward in a teamfight for the top laner who tps in and gets a triple kill wouldnt get any assists

JChaosMasterFeb 18, 20151 votes

Yes provided one of to things. The champ was sighted because of it. IE in a bush or if a team mate warped to it. Like jax or lee shin who did the killing. Also the gold would have to be small. At least enough to cover the ward.

warpenguin555Feb 18, 20151 votes

it could work but it could backfire pretty badly too

TotalJerkFeb 18, 20151 votes

It's already far to easy for certain supports to get an assist. I'd say the fact that Sona is guaranteed 150 gold any time someone dies in her general area is the main reason she was toxic. It had little to do with her supposedly"oppressive" laning. She hit like a carry because she snowballed just by showing up. Adding the ability to proc assists off wards would exacerbate the problem, possibly making supports drop wards just to get the assist.

ConroyFeb 18, 20151 votes

No.

Sketchy MokujinFeb 18, 20151 votes

I think just having that ward there at all should grant an assist. My #1 saying is "Wards win games". This goes without saying in the jungle, ESPECIALLY if your team is losing and you're waiting in your opponent's jungle for a 5 v 5 assassination. Seeing them approach ahead of time removes the fear of invisible champs ( Shaco Leblanc Twitch Evelynn Vayne ) by using a item 2043 and seeing them while stealthed. Even just having a item 2044 at all in places that are high traffic can help win games. Especially near Dragon Pit.