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Frustration with Pre-season Vision

Dragonzrkool·1/4/2016, 6:30:12 AM·11 votes·872 views

Sorry if this type of thread has been placed before, but a quick search hasn't offered much in terms of results. This is half a rant, and half advice-seeking for the pre-season and the incoming new season.

I have absolutely no idea what to do with wards anymore. Wards are extremely weak, broken immediately by any Jungler who decided to smite raptor camp, last very little time v. their recharge rate. The lack of green ward purchases means we need to rely on vision wards, but those are easily broken by anyone who finds them, and there's no where "creative" perse that people won't find them and crush them. Sure you place your vision ward in a spot that won't be easily found, but it won't provide coverage for your lane or your jungle. Blue trinkets are a thing, but those are even weaker than pinks and while they have the lower recharge and advantage of being long range, they simply do not provide enough information to make heavy judgments on. Even red trinkets kind of suck now, giving stealth champions even greater power and in all honesty not even worth using because of how quickly wards fall - especially in the early game. Everything has an unnecessary risk, hell even laning does. I can be under tower and you bet my ass I'll get hit by some long range skill shot I had no idea was coming and I couldn't prevent. I've been trying to buy sightstone on laners just to cover the darkness across the map and, as expected it's a completely stupid purchase that wastes my combat power just to try to get a little bit more aggression in. I'm very susceptible to camping, and will get picked off in blind spots that I couldn't make any evaluation on. Yes, I know that's my fault and this is why I'm bringing up my second point.

What do I do? I am so utterly frustrated with vision being turned upside on its head. I like the idea of strategic warding, but what's so strategic about it? Where are the key points? What should I be doing at any one time? How can I even ward reactively with a regular yellow trinket knowing my casting range is lower than that leona's zenith blade? I don't know how to make my informed decisions anymore and I'm having an awful time adjusting to the pace of the game. The map is too dark to play in for me. I'm looking for some very helpful advice of how exactly vision has changed and what I should do to adapt to it.

15 Comments

MasterSomething1/4/2016, 7:38:32 AM2 votes

While I am neutral on the vision changes, Riot may have gone overboard with the vision nerfs. Green ward isn't necessary, but our vision totems cannot make up for the removal. Riot intended to make it less "spam wards until it lights up" to "make more strategic decisions", but it seems to have backfired.

shyv1/4/2016, 6:49:22 AM1 votes

we're all there with you buddy. my advice would be to start using blue trinket as soon as you hit level 9 and spam that shit all over the map. put it in your own jungle in places it likely won't be taken out all game, then whenever it's up just use it. you can put as many blue trinkets on the map as you want and the cd is lower (i think?) than yellow trinket

Dealth1/4/2016, 9:11:14 AM1 votes

If you are top, for example, place the pink ward on the bush closest to your side and use the yellow to ward the other one. If you are bottom you don't have to worry about it since your support has sight stone plus 2 trinkets, and if you are mid use your pink on the river on your side of the jungle and if you are jungler you should make sure you are warding spots like the enemy buffs or the river.

Steelflame1/4/2016, 10:02:01 AM1 votes

Trust me, you are not alone in hating how nerfed vision is.

Personally, a change I would make would be having your yellow Trinket charge twice as fast if you have 0 charges on it, but 50% longer than current if you have a charge already stored. Overall you can build up 2 charges in the same amount of time if you want to have both up at once, say because your team wants to start prepping up for a major objective/split push, but you can instead aim for having double the current amount of uptime on vision instead if you burn it on CD, in trade for not having a backup.

Jacobofcourse1/4/2016, 5:59:35 PM1 votes

I have personally enjoyed the vision changes, even as a support main. RIOT has been pushing away from warding being a one man job to a whole team concept. There are a few things to keep in mind when it comes to warding. If you are alone, then always check the map before walking somewhere to ward. In a situation where people are missing, the best method is to ward over the wall instead of face checking a bush. You can place a ward a further distance when placed on a wall. The ward gets pushed to the closer end. As for the lanes, warding depends on your positioning. In the top lane, ward the tri and river whenever the lane is pushed. One of them should be a pink. The same thing goes in the bot lane. The advantage there is the ability to ward the lane bushes because there are two people. The mid lane is the most difficult. A certain amount of the vision battle needs to be won by the jungler to be successful. There should be a pink on one side of the lane and stealth ward the other side when possible. The jungler can either pink the other side, deep ward, and/or control the crab to help with vision. Otherwise, the support should roam up to ward the river bush. It is best to upgrade to the blue trinket once teams begin to roam. It allows to safely ward from a distance.

To follow this up, the key is to play around the vision. If you don't have vision control, lose vision of someone, and don't have summoners, then don't push your lane. You can't always defend your wards. It sucks to watch a ward be destroyed but at least it did it's job. That typically happens when someone roams or the other laner gets a better position on it. The team needs to respond accordingly. That various from counter-ganking, pressure a different lane, or just recall to heal up and get another ward. There are plenty of time when a laner has to give up some CS to avoid getting ganked.

Hopefully this helps with your frustration. I know a various amounts of people have posted stuff on the boards regarding the vision changes. The game wouldn't be fun if a team could take complete vision of the map. It has also forced teams to react quickly and roam together more. Just remember check to see who you don't have vision of and think: where were they last seen, how much health did they have, and am I in a position to get collapses on.