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The game of vision.

Lord Renning··2 votes·645 views

Just had a game where a topic came up that I feel pretty strongly about. The topic was; vision, sightstones, and who should and should not get them. Let me preface by saying this was a normal game that we won. The jungler on my team was curious as too why the support had not built a sightstone, to which our toplane said that they(the jungler) could buy one. The jungler seemed to ignore that comment and kept saying that not having vision was making us lose and was going to cost us the entire game, at one point they even refused to fight with the team until the support purchased a sightstone. At no point was our jungler friendly with the support when discussing vision or even helpful, they never upgraded out of their yellow WARD PLACING trinket and kept complaining.

Giving that explain I now would like to say that vision, like League of Legends itself, is a team game. The entire team can provide vision through use of the trinkets, sightstones, and pink wards. There are many ways to provide vision, but it should not be completely dependent on the support. Also if your support is using wards but placing them in spots you don't think are good you can buy a sightstone or similar item and place wards yourself. But do not belittle, argue, or curse out a team mate because of vision. That negative attitude will only divide a team you are with and make it far more likely for you to lose a game you want to win.

Just keep in mind, sightstone is a item that any champion and any role can buy, not just supports.

17 Comments

Shikigami2 votes

No. I'll go out here and say it. Sightstone is trash on every champion other than supports. The grand majority if not all support mains in high elo upgrade towards the eye enchants (the SS + Support item). Why? Because Ruby is inferior to it. In any given game, the jungler will have x gold by y minutes, and so will the enemy jungler. If you spend 800 gold buying sightstone on most champs instead of 23 AD or 300 HP (All 800 gp worth of stats), you are going to be behind your enemy jungler, which could lose you key fights early which could snowball the game. Support builds are also the cheapest (cheap items and income with support items) and benefit the least from stats due to generally high tankiness and base damages, so they're the perfect candidate for sightstone. The Tracker's Knife warding upgrade isn't bad though if you don't need the slow or the on-hit damage, but only stores 2 charges, and you run the risk of losing skirmishes if you're that type of jungler. Pink wards are useful though, I encourage everyone to get those. Yellow trinkets are underrated by so many low elo players. They call it "un-upgraded" when it's the only form of invisible vision in the game. Invisible vision lets you exploit mistakes.

Overall, your support was in the wrong. You need sightstone to play support because your role has a high gold income from support items, which are the strongest to build right now and the overall build cost is very low.

Keep in mind, right now, it's not viable for the jungler to get sightstone. Tell the support to get it.

Lord Renning1 votes

I'm not saying you're wrong, I'm not saying the support in my game was right, and I'm certainly not saying that I am right.

Let me start again with the major idea I wanted to get through. Vision is a team game, everyone needs to help provide vision so the team can make educated calls. There is no reason to argue and curse out a team mate who isn't providing vision especially when you also are not.

On to what you said, I completely agree. Just by straight stats and gold income it is best for the sightstone to be on the support champion. But if its just a regular normal game there is no reason to turn it into a heated agrument if they don't have a sightstone. If our game was ranked I would have sided with the jungler, I would not have been as heated as they were and certainly used kinder words, but I would have been on his side. But the idea that only one role can provide vision is outdated and wrong especially when there are so many vision tools at your disposal.

Shikigami1 votes

This may not be the case, but the way I read it is that you patronized him for not building something that sucks on his champion. If it were me in my games I would also be upset to some degree.

Think about it from his perspective. You're playing the game and the enemy jungler gets kills on you or your team. You're poised to lose unless you win some fights but your team gets caught because of no vision. You see your support building poorly and you tell them you need sightstone, and suddenly you're the bad guy because in season 4 junglers used to build sight-stone and people remembered it.

He could be less toxic about it, but my approach would be a /mute all tbh. Providing vision is a team game sure. But the support should be the one doing it. Just like providing dps is an ADc's primary objective. If he does low damage/inefficient damage he fails his job. If a tank provides low peel he fails his job. If the major objectives aren't warded and are lost the support fails their job.

Zerolera2 votes

Completely correct. There is a reason the current meta exists - it's the most optimal way to win the game with each person responsible for a core aspect of the team. Sightstones and the "Eye" related items really just benefit supports the most. As a support your early game is extremely important to offset the ADC's typically awful start. Supports typically don't need a lot of damage related items as they have strong bases and if they are needed to tank they usually have the necessary skills to do and aren't the only ones.

On the other hand other roles all have responsibilities they must be able to fulfill properly such as providing burst damage, high continuous damage, strong initiation, tankyness, objective control etc...

KillerKell1 votes

{quoted}

No. I'll go out here and say it. Sightstone is trash on every champion other than supports. The grand majority if not all support mains in high elo upgrade towards the eye enchants (the SS + Support item). Why? Because Ruby is inferior to it. In any given game, the jungler will have x gold by y minutes, and so will the enemy jungler. If you spend 800 gold buying sightstone on most champs instead of 23 AD or 300 HP (All 800 gp worth of stats), you are going to be behind your enemy jungler, which could lose you key fights early which could snowball the game. Support builds are also the cheapest (cheap items and income with support items) and benefit the least from stats due to generally high tankiness and base damages, so they're the perfect candidate for sightstone. The Tracker's Knife warding upgrade isn't bad though if you don't need the slow or the on-hit damage, but only stores 2 charges, and you run the risk of losing skirmishes if you're that type of jungler. Pink wards are useful though, I encourage everyone to get those. Yellow trinkets are underrated by so many low elo players. They call it "un-upgraded" when it's the only form of invisible vision in the game. Invisible vision lets you exploit mistakes.

Overall, your support was in the wrong. You need sightstone to play support because your role has a high gold income from support items, which are the strongest to build right now and the overall build cost is very low.

Keep in mind, right now, it's not viable for the jungler to get sightstone. Tell the support to get it.

You do realize Pro Jungles will, on certain Champions, but Sight Stone. Right?

Also, he did state Pink Wards and Trinkets as well... not just Sightstone. He merely listed ALL the options available.

His main crux is that Vision is a TEAM duty.

Shikigami1 votes

Not in soloqueue. In team games it's a different story. In LCS, sightstone is built when the junglers aren't funneled gold, so they're inheretly losing their leads to benefit the team but use some of their remaining gold share to add vision. There is 0 reason for me in a solo game to gamble on the fact that my team will use my goldshare to carry, while in the LCS/Premade 5's it's a viable strategy. Source : http://lol.esportspedia.com/wiki/Sightstone/Match_History Look at the scorelines and go view the games if you want to see % gold share. None of these junglers are winning on their own, they're being additional supports.

KillerKell1 votes

{quoted}

Not in soloqueue. In team games it's a different story. In LCS, sightstone is built when the junglers aren't funneled gold, so they're inheretly losing their leads to benefit the team but use some of their remaining gold share to add vision. There is 0 reason for me in a solo game to gamble on the fact that my team will use my goldshare to carry, while in the LCS/Premade 5's it's a viable strategy. Source : http://lol.esportspedia.com/wiki/Sightstone/Match_History Look at the scorelines and go view the games if you want to see % gold share. None of these junglers are winning on their own, they're being additional supports.

All League Games are Team Games. That's the point.

Pros don't skimp on vision, we should take note of that and follow suit. Regardless of role. And certain Jungles DO benefit from Sight Stone, like Lee Sin. Though the numbers for Sight Stone Jungles is only like 2 or 3, not many, but it IS a thing.

We still want to be cowboys and only count on ourselves carrying... Dynamic Queue is trying to shift us to a more Team Oriented style of play. To a more 'Group Help' style of play. (Largely because they want More New Players, and it's easier to keep New Players if it's easier to get into and understand Ranked, because of help from Team Mates you know.)

League isn't about Winning on your own, never really was and never should be. It's that emphasis that players put on Winning On Your Own that lead to the mass toxicity in the Community, and such a disrespect towards Support Players.

Shikigami1 votes

{quoted}

All League Games are Team Games. That's the point.

Pros don't skimp on vision, we should take note of that and follow suit. Regardless of role. And certain Jungles DO benefit from Sight Stone, like Lee Sin. Though the numbers for Sight Stone Jungles is only like 2 or 3, not many, but it IS a thing.

We still want to be cowboys and only count on ourselves carrying... Dynamic Queue is trying to shift us to a more Team Oriented style of play. To a more 'Group Help' style of play. (Largely because they want More New Players, and it's easier to keep New Players if it's easier to get into and understand Ranked, because of help from Team Mates you know.)

League isn't about Winning on your own, never really was and never should be. It's that emphasis that players put on Winning On Your Own that lead to the mass toxicity in the Community, and such a disrespect towards Support Players.

A support's job is to catalyze leads. What helps that? Vision. Here's another source : http://probuilds.net/ Find me one jungler that's not Lee sin who builds sightstone consistently (and also not queuing as 5). ALL pros know that Dynamic queue (more precisely, queuing alone in a normal) is about making your impact more powerful than your enemy jungler. Sure, you can ward with sightstone, but is your team going to use it? Will they escape ganks or watch map? Probably not.

You're at an inherent loss if you trust your team with vision at the cost of 300 HP or 23 AD, which is a lot mind you. Last season a 5 AD change on the finished jungle item curved down junglers by up to 5-6% winrate (Vi, Jarvan).

I'd re-iterate the importance of less dependence on random variables and more dependence on your own ability, but you're Bronze 4. You've shown inability to climb the ladder so maybe your approach isn't correct about the game.

And there's no disrespect towards support. They're currently the role who always plays the victim card when they have the inability to learn game fundamentals.

KillerKell1 votes

{quoted}

A support's job is to catalyze leads. What helps that? Vision. Here's another source : http://probuilds.net/ Find me one jungler that's not Lee sin who builds sightstone consistently (and also not queuing as 5). ALL pros know that Dynamic queue (more precisely, queuing alone in a normal) is about making your impact more powerful than your enemy jungler. Sure, you can ward with sightstone, but is your team going to use it? Will they escape ganks or watch map? Probably not.

You're at an inherent loss if you trust your team with vision at the cost of 300 HP or 23 AD, which is a lot mind you. Last season a 5 AD change on the finished jungle item curved down junglers by up to 5-6% winrate (Vi, Jarvan).

I'd re-iterate the importance of less dependence on random variables and more dependence on your own ability, but you're Bronze 4. You've shown inability to climb the ladder so maybe your approach isn't correct about the game.

And there's no disrespect towards support. They're currently the role who always plays the victim card when they have the inability to learn game fundamentals.

I completely agree that an essential function of a Support is Warding. Never denied that, and didn't defend the support in the OP that didn't have a Sight Stone. You get no argument on me there.

To be fair, you said NO Jungle. I gave you Lee Sin, and the Pros will on occasion give Sight Stone to Rek Sei and one other I'm failing to remember right now (I don't think it's Gragas, but perhaps? Maybe you know.).

What I said is that with Dynamic Queue the shift isn't on playing alone, but enhancing your ability by playing with others you can Synergize with. Where there CAN be more trust in your team. That was my entire point of bringing up Dynamic.

So in Solo/Duo Queue, I'd absolutely agree. But with this change to Dynamic Queue we can now more properly operate as a Team in Games, instead of 5 Individuals trying to win our Lanes.

I doubt it's my approach. I have rather good Macro knowledge. My Micro can use some work. I'd love to not have HughesNet... I'm stuck with 600+ Ping so now it's just Bots again. If you look, you'll see that my Shen and Braum are both rather strong, and if I just played them I'd likely climb easily enough. I've improved at ADC this year, when I could play, so I may be adding more to the 'climb' list. Was surprised to find my Garen isn't to bad, not sure why I hadn't played him before. But yeah, there are absolutely champs I suck with (Zed, LeBlanc, Vayne). I have generally played a very wide range of Champions in Ranked, trying to find which ones fit me best, and that comes at a cost. Of course, then Riot brought Dynamic Queue, so I can get the role I want... the goal was 3 Champions at each Role with 62.5% Win Rates and 2.50 KDA, then focus those and climb. I no longer have to spread myself out like that.

But me being Bronze has nothing to do with if I can understand Concepts of the Game or not. Most Coaches weren't great Players (some were, most not). Don't fall into that fallacy. :D

I'd say it's more a combination of a lack of mechanics over all and spreading myself over way to many Champions trying to cover all the bases before moving up. That's why I'm where I am, which are certainly Me Issues. But it's not some lack of understanding.

Shikigami1 votes

Lee sin is uniquely because of his W + R interaction to make plays. It's not to secure the best vision. At any point lee will have 1-2 wards in his sightstone, placing effectively one per back, not really working like a sightstone huh? He also needs blue smite to aid skirmishing. Soloqueue gragases don't take SS, neither do Rek'Sai's. This game was very clearly the jungler alone with at most one other teammate. it was clear because the top suggested something in chat, the support was not cooperating and the OP was one of the remaining players. That's a Soloqueue situation. My one clear caveat was that sightstone works in 5v5 situations. 2.5 KDA is low and I've coached bronze only teams in the past, all of them high silver or gold, currently doing a gold+ team. I understand and strive to understand macrogame. Bronze 4 is about bottom 95% of the playerbase. If you can't surmount that hurdle you can't nearly understand the mentality required to climb. It's that simple.

KillerKell1 votes

{quoted}

Lee sin is uniquely because of his W + R interaction to make plays. It's not to secure the best vision. At any point lee will have 1-2 wards in his sightstone, placing effectively one per back, not really working like a sightstone huh? He also needs blue smite to aid skirmishing. Soloqueue gragases don't take SS, neither do Rek'Sai's. This game was very clearly the jungler alone with at most one other teammate. it was clear because the top suggested something in chat, the support was not cooperating and the OP was one of the remaining players. That's a Soloqueue situation. My one clear caveat was that sightstone works in 5v5 situations. 2.5 KDA is low and I've coached bronze only teams in the past, all of them high silver or gold, currently doing a gold+ team. I understand and strive to understand macrogame. Bronze 4 is about bottom 95% of the playerbase. If you can't surmount that hurdle you can't nearly understand the mentality required to climb. It's that simple.

I understand why Lee takes it... for the Ward Hops for amazing positioning and closing/escaping.

Also I was speaking of LCS on the Rek Sei and other, who I assumed was Gragas but may be wrong there.

Also I guess you skimmed over the 600+ Ping part. Makes my games extremely tough. Which is why I've stopped playing Rank yet again. Satellite Internet just doesn't do.

http://na.op.gg/summoner/userName=KillerKell

However, while your here, I wouldn't mind you looking at my Champions in Season 4, 5 and 6. Since you said you've Coached Bronze Teams, I'm always interested in hearing more.

Ashe, Garen, Caitlyn and Braum have been decently strong for me in 6, with enough games to matter.

Shen, Braum and Cait pretty strong for me in Season 5.

Shen and Braum in Season 4.

Some others with a quality KDA, but not the WR to back it up.

Obviously, some Champs I suck at (I should NEVER play Zed again). So we can by-pass the Train Wrecks.

I know numbers don't tell the whole story, I get that, that maybe you can bring me some Champion Insight off what I've compiled.

Shikigami1 votes

Well as you've nicely put it, if you have 600+ ping it's unplayable. My ping right now is the same so I also don't play ranked. The largest focus at your rank is easy champions. Xin Zhao, Garen, etc. will take you a long way. Play selfish. Your teammates will all be around bronze 4. Helping them win their lanes may or may not win you the game. If you really believe you are better than bronze 4 you need to consistently win your lane first and foremost before working towards objectives and helping a losing lane. At no time should you lose your lead for the sake of someone else's. Just the vibe that I'm getting from your mentality. Generally this will help you get a good climbing mentality. Dependence on teammates to win is the first and biggest mistake.

KillerKell1 votes

I started out as a Support. Actually, I started out as utter garbage. Way bad. Way way way bad. You can look at my Champions and look at my Game List and see there are some good games. But I started in Pre-Season 4, and as soon as I hit 30 and had 16 Champions, I jumped to Ranked. Stupidly bad idea. Forged by fire.

Ping was only 125 back then though, was up in Colorado stationed at Ft. Carson.

But the point is, once I got some sort of balance going on, I went Support. Tank CC Engage, specifically. Your Leona, your Thresh... then they released Braum.

So I still play with that mind set. I want to crash in, but I want to help others.

I found Shen at the End of Season 4, went 5-2 with a 3.37 KDA. Was hooked. Won 58% on Miss Fortune (59/43) but didn't feel I was effective as an ADC (2.72 KDA, 7.8 Kills per Game).

I felt my Leona was strong, but looking back neither the WR or the KDA are impressive. I'm still very comfortable on her, but I wasn't as good on her in 4 as I thought I was during 4.

Despite a 3.26 KDA, only went 28/28 on Ziggs.

Was a rough year, I sucked on almost every ADC I went with as far as KDA, and I was at the point where people said Supports couldn't climb, find another role. So that's what I was doing. Trying literally everything.

Season 5, as far as 'effective' Champs, was all Shen, Braum and an accidental Darius run. But again, I'd get to Bronze 1, get to Promos, Lose... and start looking for another Role to get out. In hindsight, not the best idea.

Then I became certain I needed to stop worrying about climbing, and started looking for 3 in each Role (the 2.5 KDA, 62.5 WP thing I mentioned earlier) and take those 15 Champs THEN move on. So it became about playing any and everyone, to find those champs. Because I wanted to be a Gold+ PLAYER, not just a Gold+ Braum/Shen, and back then we didn't have Dynamic so I was never certain of what Role I'd get. Again, likely hurt my chances to climb.

End of Season 5 it's down to Alabama and Hughesnet and 600+ Ping. I've still managed to get a few Champions looking good, like Ashe, Garen, Cait, Braum and Leona (they killed my Shen, he's dead to me now).

But regardless of where I play, I keep pulling off when I get a lead to go help other lanes. It's worst when I'm ADC, as I'll get a huge CS Lead... then stop farming as I focus on Team Fights and flowing to my team. For instance, my last game as Caitlyn I had 332 CS, 6.3/M, most in the game. The problem is, I had a 60 CS Lead over Vayne earlier, and she finished with 323. I stomped her in Lane (went 12/8/20 to her 6/10/9) but instead of keeping that pressure on her I go with the Team and she free farms to catch back up. I mean, we Won. I feel I made the right choice. But often I feel my CS isn't where it SHOULD be, because I'm putting to much focus on other things... but I feel those other things are Win Objectives.

Like I said... it's the Support in me. Pulls me off crushing something to aid others. But really, after 6 Items, I don't see the point in more CS... just shove the waves and take what is given.

Shikigami1 votes

It's something you need to work out of. It's that fine mix of knowing when you can help your team and when you can't. Until you get to the point where you're not significantly better than your opponent, keep playing selfish and worrying about your lead first and foremost, because you can absolutely win your lane 1v1 90% of the time. Then when you go around 50-50, you can work towards focusing on feeding carries on your team and working on the teamgame.

OldDirtay1 votes

{quoted}

I completely agree that an essential function of a Support is Warding. Never denied that, and didn't defend the support in the OP that didn't have a Sight Stone. You get no argument on me there.

To be fair, you said NO Jungle. I gave you Lee Sin, and the Pros will on occasion give Sight Stone to Rek Sei and one other I'm failing to remember right now (I don't think it's Gragas, but perhaps? Maybe you know.).

What I said is that with Dynamic Queue the shift isn't on playing alone, but enhancing your ability by playing with others you can Synergize with. Where there CAN be more trust in your team. That was my entire point of bringing up Dynamic.

So in Solo/Duo Queue, I'd absolutely agree. But with this change to Dynamic Queue we can now more properly operate as a Team in Games, instead of 5 Individuals trying to win our Lanes.

I doubt it's my approach. I have rather good Macro knowledge. My Micro can use some work. I'd love to not have HughesNet... I'm stuck with 600+ Ping so now it's just Bots again. If you look, you'll see that my Shen and Braum are both rather strong, and if I just played them I'd likely climb easily enough. I've improved at ADC this year, when I could play, so I may be adding more to the 'climb' list. Was surprised to find my Garen isn't to bad, not sure why I hadn't played him before. But yeah, there are absolutely champs I suck with (Zed, LeBlanc, Vayne). I have generally played a very wide range of Champions in Ranked, trying to find which ones fit me best, and that comes at a cost. Of course, then Riot brought Dynamic Queue, so I can get the role I want... the goal was 3 Champions at each Role with 62.5% Win Rates and 2.50 KDA, then focus those and climb. I no longer have to spread myself out like that.

But me being Bronze has nothing to do with if I can understand Concepts of the Game or not. Most Coaches weren't great Players (some were, most not). Don't fall into that fallacy. :D

I'd say it's more a combination of a lack of mechanics over all and spreading myself over way to many Champions trying to cover all the bases before moving up. That's why I'm where I am, which are certainly Me Issues. But it's not some lack of understanding.

ur one division from bronze 5 after 3 yrs....

dont think u exactly know what ur talking about...

btw if u had good macro knowledge u could break 200cs in more than 2 games out of 20....

learn the game b4 u comment plz, or least make it out of bronze

Shikigami1 votes

learn the game b4 u comment plz, or least make it out of silver.

KillerKell1 votes

Just so everyone knows, I don't respond to OldDirtay since he made jokes about head trauma and wounded soldiers in another thread... and THEN try to tell me he appreciated my Service.

I don't particularly appreciate those kind of people, and I've reported him for such remarks as being offensive. I haven't responded to anything else he's written, and now he's following me into other threads.

I won't respond to him here either.

Just letting you know the situation.

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