The Vision and Ganking Game

I've seen and commented on many threads about all things jungle during the preseason, and I thought I'd make a thread on the mechanics of ganks and on the state of the vision game.

I'll start with the vision game. There are a lot of changes to vision in the preseason, from the removal of smite buffs to the rework of duskblade to the introduction of plants. So many are in favor of countervision that wards are starting to feel useless. I think there needs to be more depth in the vision game, in the form of counter-countervision. I've seen vision threads with several alternatives listed to control wards, but I think there only needs to be one more ward, more in line with a stealth ward.

Blind totem (an alternative to warding totem, with the same cooldown, duration, and stock system) Places a blind ward at targeted location. Blind wards are stealthed the same way that normal wards are, but cannot be disabled or destroyed by the enemy. Control wards will only reveal them. These wards count toward the stealth ward limit. They soft reveal enemy champions and epic monsters by showing a marker where they are standing, but do not grant vision of them or tell what champion it is. Enemies show up on the minimap as exclamation marks in red circles. These wards can tell if a camp has been cleared for the purposes of the buff timers, but do not mark monsters.

I think that stealth wards need to be made more available to the other roles too by making an alternative to sightstone that works for most champions. Right now upgrading ruby crystal to sightstone costs 400 for 3 wards, and ruby sightstone costs only 1600g. Boots are also slot inefficient, so I thought that since boot enchantments are gone, we might as well add a sightstone passive to them. All boots will have an upgrade that costs 450g for 3 wards per back. It is slightly less gold efficient, but this way champions that want to run farsight, sweeping lens, or even blind totem can still have wards without sacrificing an entire slot.

Now on to ganks. The blast cone into the river bush is about the only mechanical change that's ever happened with the way ganks are set up. Ganks are stale in that most champions just walk up into lane, and only junglers like zac who have great mobility spells can keep people guessing. I think wards need more diversity and power overall, and the rift needs one or two changes to the paths junglers can take. I suggest a couple new terrain changes that provide interesting mobility options, and would complement the increased power and number of wards with an increased need to ward.

First change: adjacent to the botside river bush there is a cliff. They could put a cave into the cliff that works like a bard portal, placing the jungler just outside the outer turret's range. You get to flank the enemy, but the cave only lets you go one way, so you'd better be prepared to fight. The passage works the same for everyone and any number of champions can use it back to back. If you have vision of the entrance, you have vision of enemies during the entire travel time, if not you can only see them while they are inside your or your turret's vision radius. Travelling through grounds you for 1 second (to avoid lee sin/irelia/alistar shenanigans). The same would be put at the topside river bush.

To balance out the first change: there is a hole in the ground between blue bot turret and tribush (and another topside). They could turn it into a magical geyser that champions can enter to channel for 3 seconds, during which time you can select (left click) where within 1000 range you will be launched at a rate of 800 units per second, and you are grounded for 1 second on landing. At the end of 3 seconds, if you do not select a location, you exit, putting the geyser on a 10 second cooldown. If you do use it, it goes on a 1 minute cooldown. Taking damage or moving while channeling drops you at the entrance and puts it on a 30 second cooldown.

Both terrain changes make ganks to sidelanes a bit more possible, but often riskier. Having vision of the entrances makes counterplay strong (you don't want to travel through the cave if they have an alistar ready to knock you under turret). Like the blast cone, they make it easier for champions with limited mobility to gank, but still come at a drawback- on landing you can receive a lot of abuse.

I made this post to discuss the health of vision, and to get your opinion on whether you think ganks need some more spice. Please, tell me what you think.