Sightstone vs Yellow Trinket

red panda z·Mar 25, 2015·3 votes·4,561 views

Wanting to get some opinions on how people feel about this...

First and foremost, if you're supporting, you should certainly have 3 of your 3 wards out as often as possible, there's no denying that. The only exception is in the beginning when you don't have the ward supply just yet. It's also advised to have a pink ward out as much as possible since it acts like a 4th ward and can help removing enemy wards.

Now lets look at the contenders: Sightstone - 800 gold Pros- Semi-unlimited ward supply, Frees the trinket space, can be purchased before level 9 Cons- slightly expensive early game, takes up an item space, must be refueled at base

Yellow Trinket - 250 gold Pos- Semi-unlimited ward supply, frees the item space, inexpensive Cons- must wait till level 9 to get it, takes up the trinket space, must buy pink wards

Comparing Sightstone's ability to place 3 wards immediately vs Yellow Trinket's 2 wards if they are both charged: I can't say I find myself in situations where I NEED that 3rd ward now. I find them both equal in this aspect.

Comparing Yellow Trinket's timed ward storage vs Sightstone's limited storage that is refueled at base: I feel like Yellow Trinket wins this one. As I said with the 3 wards vs 2, I really don't need all 3 right away, and they are stored quickly enough that I can comfortably have all my wards out at once. In Sightstone's defense, It's infrequent that I'll be away from the base long enough to spend the 4 limited wards and need more, but it does happen.

As for Pink wards: Sightstone lets you have free pink wards for your trinket, whereas you have to spend 100 gold to buy one if you're using the yellow trinket. That trinket does take up an item slot before its used... this is primarily an issue if you need it and have 6 items. Sightstone wins this argument. In Yellow Trinket's defense, you don't need to have 6 items at a time unless you're build is entirely complete, and most games end before that point.

Life before level 9: Unless you're getting wrecked in lane, you should be able to buy sightstone on your first return to base, making your warding life much easier, and lets you opt for Red Trinket to disrupt your enemy's vision. Waiting for level 9 to have your semi-unlimited ward supply doesn't restrict you because you can still buy regular wards and utilize the Yellow Trinket's pre-9 wards, though they may be short. If you and your Marksman are working together with trinket wards, you shouldn't need to buy that many wards before you hit level 9.

I think that about covers all the elements of warding... So which is better?

26 Comments

Sailor MintMar 25, 20158 votes

Supports need a Sightstone ASAP, it's often purchased before the 8 min mark. You cannot upgrade to GST until level 9, that's past 15 min as a support. Pink Wards are cheap (100g) and do not help you clear wards. The Vision Ward trinket is effectively a noob trap at this point.

Since it's not uncommon to have two Sightstones (Support+Jungler) and 1-2 GSTs on a team, you need multiple Sweepers to counter them.

KarlyrMar 25, 20151 votes

Out of subject - Honnestly the more I read about you the more happy I am seeing your name on the boards :P

Sailor MintMar 25, 20151 votes

You'd be one of the few. Too many people on these boards would rather circle jerk than having a civil discussion based on facts.

KarlyrMar 25, 20151 votes

On the boards ? I'd say pretty much over the world. But thar's way too far from being the point :P

B1naryB0tMar 26, 20151 votes

While multiple sweepers are nice and great IMO, I wouldn't say it's a bad purchase as a non-support to get upgraded yellow. Especially in soloQ, where teamwork hardly even exists.

EagleheartMar 25, 20153 votes

I really don't like the idea of pigeonholing all supports into getting a sightstone.

There's a bit of a personal split here: If I'm playing a tankier support that's going to sit around more and not do as much (Thresh, Blitzcrank, etc.) then I'm going to happily scoop up a sightstone to poot out wards as I wait around and do nothing.

If I'm playing a tanky support that's going to spend more time getting into the opposing teams face and I need more items to both effectively use my skills and survive using my skills, then I'm going to purchase items necessary for my survival first rather than using a lot of my money on a sightstone. Doubly so in that sightstone offers me little in the way of survivablity and utility compared to something like sunfire cape. (I'm looking at Leona, Sejuani, Braum, etc)

If I'm playing an AP support, I almost never buy a sightstone and I really hate it when my ADC tells me to do that and then turns around and complains that I never heal them. Say that I'm playing someone like Soraka. I need AP in order to heal you for any large number, but if you tell me to buy a sightstone instead of the AP that I need for my heal to be effective, then I'm going to be cross with you if you whine that I'm not healing you for enough.

Another thing I would like to bring up is playstyle. What if your supports playstyle does not incorporate a lot of sitting around and doing nothing? If I'm playing support I'm often harassing the enemy and using my skills in order to bother them and keep them from farming and possibly force them to back and therefore take pressure off of the lane so that my ADC can farm even easier. I need items that are not sightstone to do that.

If I play Lux/Morgana/Viegar/Annie/Nidalee then I'm going to be building AP to reach these legendary deletion capabilities that they are known and hated for in order to actually be helpful in a fight. If I'm playing someone like Sejuani/Leona/Braum/Mundo/Taric then I'm going to be building items that help my skills help you succeed. If I'm playing the "AFK supports" like Thresh and blitzcrank where your usefulness is only determined by your pulls, then I'll happily pick one up in order to have something to do while my Q's are on cooldown.

So to say that every support ever should always buy a sightstone is frankly very detrimental to the team play element and making every player feel important. Would you rather have four players and a bot that does nothing but ward all day? Because frankly that feels like what we're being regulated to.

A bot.

Less than a player.

That's not a good feeling.

The Queen ViperMar 25, 20151 votes

{quoted} If I'm playing a tanky support that's going to spend more time getting into the opposing teams face and I need more items to both effectively use my skills and survive using my skills, then I'm going to purchase items necessary for my survival first rather than using a lot of my money on a sightstone.

Then you are doing it wrong. Your primary objective is to keep your ADC safe (and provide vision to your team), not our own ass. Sounds like you do not fully grasp the concept of a support and you should probably play a bruiser top or a jungler instead.

{quoted} If I'm playing an AP support, I almost never buy a sightstone and I really hate it when my ADC tells me to do that and then turns around and complains that I never heal them.

Then you are really stupid. If you want to be a wannabe APC, then go mid instead and let someone who actually wants and knows how to play support to go bot instead. Or you could just play proper support champs that do not require AP items to be effective in the first place.

{quoted} Say that I'm playing someone like Soraka. I need AP in order to heal you for any large number, but if you tell me to buy a sightstone instead of the AP that I need for my heal to be effective, then I'm going to be cross with you if you whine that I'm not healing you for enough.

So at the end of the day, never play Soraka or your will just insta-lose your botlane since you don't want to play like a proper support.

{quoted} What if your supports playstyle does not incorporate a lot of sitting around and doing nothing? If I'm playing support I'm often harassing the enemy and using my skills in order to bother them and keep them from farming and possibly force them to back and therefore take pressure off of the lane so that my ADC can farm even easier. I need items that are not sightstone to do that.

Nope, you are wrong. If you are constantly harassing them you are naturally pushing your lane since they are backing due to your harass. And this is the part where you just fuked up your lane if you do not have enough vision to prevent the enemy jungler to come and get some free kills out of you.

{quoted} If I play Lux/Morgana/Viegar/Annie/Nidalee then I'm going to be building AP to reach these legendary deletion capabilities that they are known and hated for in order to actually be helpful in a fight.

Then go mid lane and never touch a bot lane again with that stupid attitude and playstyle of yours. You are just dragging your team down with your "i'm-butthurt-since-i-didn't-get-mid-so-i-go-APC-bot" decisions.

{quoted} So to say that every support ever should always buy a sightstone is frankly very detrimental to the team play element and making every player feel important.

Unfortunately you are wrong, and this is also the very reason why you are still in bronze 5... you have no clue how to play a support, at least. If you do not get a Sightstone as a support (and as your first core item), you are playing wrong.

EagleheartMar 25, 20152 votes

{quoted}

Then you are doing it wrong. Your primary objective is to keep your ADC safe (and provide vision to your team), not our own ass. Sounds like you do not fully grasp the concept of a support and you should probably play a bruiser top or a jungler instead.

Then you are really stupid. If you want to be a wannabe APC, then go mid instead and let someone who actually wants and knows how to play support to go bot instead. Or you could just play proper support champs that do not require AP items to be effective in the first place.

So at the end of the day, never play Soraka or your will just insta-lose your botlane since you don't want to play like a proper support.

Nope, you are wrong. If you are constantly harassing them you are naturally pushing your lane since they are backing due to your harass. And this is the part where you just fuked up your lane if you do not have enough vision to prevent the enemy jungler to come and get some free kills out of you.

Then go mid lane and never touch a bot lane again with that stupid attitude and playstyle of yours. You are just dragging your team down with your "i'm-butthurt-since-i-didn't-get-mid-so-i-go-APC-bot" decisions.

Unfortunately you are wrong, and this is also the very reason why you are still in bronze... you have no clue how to play a support, at least.

The entirety of this post screams "I'm afraid to play any other way than how people tell me to play."

It also screams arrogant and egotistical.

Afraid of change.

Change... Is good. Khazix

The Queen ViperMar 25, 20152 votes

{quoted} The entirety of this post screams "I'm afraid to play any other way than how people tell me to play."

Being afraid is irrelevant. There are ways to play right, and ways to play wrong... and if you want to win, you should be playing the right way.

{quoted} It also screams arrogant and egotistical.

Sometimes the truth hurts. Get used to it bro.

{quoted} Change... Is good.

Change doesn't matter when you are doing it wrong. But surely, we do know that the changes you have made to your playstyle are the reasons why you are in Bronze 5... so I'm not entirely sure what do you even consider as "good" to be honest. Is being a Bronze 5 player good?

BooImaghost752Sep 12, 20151 votes

But surely, we do know that the changes you have made to your playstyle are the reasons why you are in Bronze 5... its also why bjergsen DESTROYED zed mid as urgot... if you crash and burn while doing something different, oh well, learn from it and do something different next time. you learned, you adapted, you area BETTER player because of that learning experience. i ahve to admit, your tunnelvision made me laugh a little. idk its jsut... i play the GAME league of legends for FUN because games are meant to be FUN, if that means getting a sightstone, so be it, if that means getting a trinket and mobility boots to help the entire map, so be it. my two favourite games as support were as janna getting boots first with a pink and green ward then helping our yas mid get first blood at 2 minutes, and the nautilus roaming support where i helped top get 3 kills, bot get 1, mid get one, and even got our jungler some kills. i was EVERYWHERE, i was underleveled, but my adc was overleveled, farmed up from excellent cs, our team was ahead in gold, and as naut even tho i got level 6 about ten minutes or later in, i still had the cc to be relevant and my team was far ahead because of it. personally, id rather be a solo adc and have my support go help the team as opposed to wait for an opportunity that MIGHT work down with me. sure i love the gold, but i love teamwork more :)

i kinda went off the rails there, but regardless, play however u want to play, hopefully it works for the team :)

It Hertz When IPMar 25, 20152 votes

Why not both? Yellow has two upgrade paths, allowing me unlimited pink and green wardsif I get the vision totem upgrade AND sightstone.

KstLMar 25, 20153 votes

well if u r in high ranked game u will need sweeper to clean wards thats core for a sup or ur team will be explosed to the enemy team becasue their sup must ward every core bush or place .

It Hertz When IPMar 25, 20151 votes

Except I don't play ranked, I play normals, where odds are I'm doing 90% of the warding and my ADC is the remaining 10%. 'Sides, throwing down a green ward in a high-traffic area like I usually do picks up enemy wards almost every time, and lasts much longer as an anti-ward effect.

The Queen ViperMar 25, 20151 votes

You don't even need wards in normals... that's just overkill and being too "try hard".

Sailor MintMar 25, 20153 votes

Pink Wards are cheap. Even if you bought 2 of them every time you recalled, you wouldn't even hit 10% of your S3 Warding expenses.

AbiwonKenabiMar 25, 20152 votes

I really like yellow trinket as a late-game option for one of the solo laners.

Supports should ALWAYS get Sight Stone. They need both red trinket AND wards since they are the primary sight provider/denial. Most junglers should consider getting a Sight Stone as well, particularly tanky junglers; Next to maybe the support, they provide/deny the most vision, and since part of their job is to control the map, having all these vision tools just makes sense.

Mid, top and ADC are a different story. ADC's generally want to get blue trinket and not even worry about upgrading it until much later. Blue trinket helps the team, saving them from face-checks and helping with the "Late game people have no room for wards" problem. You generally don't want your ADC to risk his neck warding or face-checking bushes, etc, so blue trinket makes sense for him.

The mid and top laner generally want to get red trinket to help clear enemy wards. Since the changes to yellow trinket, however, I don't think it would be too weird to have one of them buy the upgraded yellow trinket, again to help with the "late game, my inventory is too full for wards" situation. I lean towards the top laner getting it, since they tend to be the more supportive one, but it doesn't really matter. The more vision the better, and with 3 red trinkets, 1 yellow, a blue and 2 sightstones, I say you have your bases covered as far as vision control goes.

Most importantly, whether you upgrade yellow trinket or buy Sightstone, be sure to remember to USE IT.

TehNACHOMar 25, 20152 votes

{quoted}

Wanting to get some opinions on how people feel about this...

First and foremost, if you're supporting, you should certainly have 3 of your 3 wards out as often as possible, there's no denying that.

Heh, quite frankly, I think this should apply to everybody regardless of role, except maybe the mid game carry (they need to optimize for gold efficiency).

Celeste BenalMar 25, 20152 votes

If I am buying sightstone, I sell my vision trinket for a sweeper. You always have the option of upgrading the sightstone to item 2045 , which increases your ward supply and HP.

The Queen ViperMar 25, 20152 votes

Depends if you want to win or not... if you want to win, then always Sightstone + sweeper. If not, then it doesn't matter what you build, go nuts.

UnSeenDeath88Mar 25, 20152 votes

Support should ALWAYS go sightstone, I don't care if you are a Lux support that needs a full ap build to feel useful, that sightstone will be just as useful to know where the enemy is. Support should also, at the same time they get sightstone, get the sweeper.

Jungler would be wise to get a sweeper also, sightstone isn't bought often in the jungler position but it's either that or stealth wards, mid and top would be wise to upgrade to the upgraded yellow trinket either at or shortly after lvl 9. Then the ADC either upgrades yellow or goes upgraded blue.

EagleheartMar 25, 20152 votes

Assuming that you have the divine truth is what starts a lot of wars...

Just because someone does something different than you doesn't mean that they are automatically worse or automatically wrong.

I remember when someone first played annie/morgana support and everyone raged at how effective it was.

They did something differently. It became new meta.

The only way to get something right is to get it wrong first. If you never get it wrong, you can never get it right.

The first time I played Sejuani support, before Sejuani support became a big hit, my team thought I was trolling.

One easy win later, they apologized.

If I had played with the "Meta" champions and played the "Meta" way. We wouldn't have people considering Sejuani support to be viable.

red panda zMar 25, 20152 votes

{quoted}

Assuming that you have the divine truth is what starts a lot of wars...

Just because someone does something different than you doesn't mean that they are automatically worse or automatically wrong.

I remember when someone first played annie/morgana support and everyone raged at how effective it was.

They did something differently. It became new meta.

The only way to get something right is to get it wrong first. If you never get it wrong, you can never get it right.

The first time I played Sejuani support, before Sejuani support became a big hit, my team thought I was trolling.

One easy win later, they apologized.

If I had played with the "Meta" champions and played the "Meta" way. We wouldn't have people considering Sejuani support to be viable.

I love this way of thinking

Shadow GilgameshMar 25, 20151 votes

If I'm playing a tank like Leona or Braum I get sightstone and swap yellow for red, since I can actually make use of the HP sightstone gives, but if I play an AP support I generally just buy wards as needed until I hit 9 and keep yellow so I can get a real 6th item

But that's because I play at low levels where people routinely don't upgrade their yellows and they have just one sightstone in 99% of games, if I had a high chance of actually finding wards in every bush like you see at high levels I'd probably get SS on every support and get red

Kitten of EvilMar 25, 20151 votes

I hate that Sightstone never recharges, because it means you either go back every 3-4 minutes to refuel, or you lose your ward coverage.

steverustyAug 15, 20151 votes

I main adc and support and as an adc always upgrade trinket asap as you need the vision, especially if your support isn't warding. As a support in bronze, honestly no one ever wards, so just get trinket, if the enemy support is good though you're better off with the sight stone sweeper, but I find the instand refils on trinket to be much more beneficial. But anyone but support defiantly always get trinket...

Valderis VandalaAug 15, 20151 votes

I think sightstone is a far superior choice because it allows flexibility. It gives you more wards then you "need" to place so you always have a backup, 2 if you upgrade. Needing to go back to base is not much of a issue if you run teleport or have good boots. Plus it gives you the option to do anything you want with your trinket.

Only for roles other then the support and maybe the jungler trinkets are the superior option, but only because it doesn't lock up an item slot.