Late Game Warding
The Problem
This has always been a problem, but it has become more apparent to me in this new season, because the trend seems to be that games last longer more frequently.
Games lasting longer means players completing their "full builds", and that means no available inventory space. A full inventory means you can no longer buy individual wards (
or 
).
Therefore, those good teammates that were buying individual wards to help provide vision in the early and mid game no longer have the option too. Yes, there are trinkets, but more often than not, one or more of your teammates will have a 
or a 
(with good reason), so that further reduces your potential vision.
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The Sightstone Option
In the above reasoning, we're already assuming the support has a 
; What really helps is when a second player on your team buys a .
In that case, Great! Your team has some decent vision of the map. But then you're essentially handicapping that player's combat ability, because remember, we're talking about "full builds": So we aren't considering whether or not the is worth the gold, we're considering whether or not it's worth the inventory space.
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A Possible Solution
Introduce enchantments (upgrade paths) to the , just like how the new jungle items work. It doesn't necessarily matter which stats or passives you offer on the enchantments, just as long as they make the item worth the inventory space.
Now, of course, if you go overboard with the enchantments, every player in the game will buy one. To stem that potential problem you have a few options:
- Limit the number of Sightstones a team can own.
- Limit the total number of wards a team can have on the map (this would be vulnerable to trolls). |
| Discussion
I understand that the is already an upgraded version of the 
with the purpose of making it more worth the space at end game. I also understand that the ability to place 5 wards (3 concurrently) is a non-combat utility that must be calculated for when considering whether or not the item is worth the space.
With those two things in mind, I stand by my assessment that--in the majority of cases--it is not worth the inventory space (again, assuming that the support player already has one).
Because in a team fight, that inventory space, which could be occupied by an item costing approximately twice as much gold, can very easily be the difference between performing your role well enough to win the team fight and falling short. So unless you get lucky and are able to pick off opponents one by one due to your extra wards, I cannot agree that the is worth the space.
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On a fresh note, an alternative solution to the core problem might be to change trinket upgrades (EDIT: Apparently there's currently a change on the PBE along these lines).
Another alternative might be to add built-in wards to jungle items again.
And lastly, a modified version of the original solution (for technical purposes) might be to remove the upgrade from the build path and just add enchantment paths directly to .
