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[Unpopular Opinion] Sightstone is the Real Problem that Caused Vision Glut, not Trinkets.

MealReadytoEat·12/8/2015, 7:42:50 AM·81 votes·3,223 views

Let's be clear, I don't want sightstone nerfed. As an essential item for supports, nerfing it will make it feel like an even more lackluster item slot, yet it will still be mandatory for the amount of power vision brings to the team even if it's a painful purchase for the support.

I want it REMOVED. Being the team ward bitch was never a fun part of being a support, losing an item slot and 800 gold on an already cashed starved champion is a kick to face, and it's just insult to injury that trinkets were stripped of the ability to let non-supports contribute meaningfully to vision.

Once upon a time, sightstone was a major QoL improvement to supports, who had previously been required to keep a slot open to just to stash all the wards they needed to buy. It simultaneously added some stat functionality so wards felt like less of a personal stat burden, and got rid of the constant gold sink of buying 5 wards every trip to the fountain.

But then we got trinkets, and suddenly everyone could contribute to vision without sacrificing room in their build. Sightstone was still as strong as ever, so it was still a must for supports, but it meant they weren't alone in their pursuit of ward coverage. And Heaven forbid, if the support DIDN'T want to lose a slot for sightstone, at level 9 they could keep full ward coverage up, as could everyone else who didn't op for ward clearing or long range scrying instead.

Unfortunately, the extreme levels of ward coverage both trinkets and sightstone caused meant that aggression was much less effective, so the game became dominated by passive play. The optimal strategy was to stall out any lead you had; vision dominance means never picking fights you could potentially lose. The game revolved around not throwing, around taking objectives without risking a full on fight. Usually this meant sieging turrets with your ADC, roaming to the next objective as a group if the losing team tries to contest it, never risking any actual engagement. There's no urgency to push one's lead when vision prevents your opponents from making any plays that could threaten it.

High vision gameplay is really stale, so Riot severely toned down the power of warding trinkets. Where the upgraded green trinket used to keep 3 wards out at once, it's down to less than 1 until level 18. While I'm glad there's less vision, I'm not happy that vision is back to primarily a support function. There's no good reason a support with sightstone should provide more vision than the rest of the team combined. This is exactly what the nerfs to trinkets did, and the removal of green wards means non-supports can't contribute even if they want to.

I'd like to see the warding coverage sightstone offers spread amongst the team through stronger trinkets, and sightstone itself removed. The strength of vision means sightstone will always be required of supports so as long as it exists, but only at great expense to their power elsewhere. Supports alone are forced to make itemization and play-style sacrifices in order to provide vision for the entire team, and this lost power is one of the largest reasons so many players find them unfulfilling to play.

54 Comments

ModKnightsKemplar12/8/2015, 7:09:31 PM18 votes

This should actually be a popular opinion, if people think about it...

If green wards CAN'T be bought, and yellow trink is buffed a little, you get basically the same ward coverage. You would need to keep 3 yellow trinks on your team, probably, but that's fine. Ain't a problem.

The ONLY way to keep support from being the "ward bitch" is to make it impossible. The only way to make it impossible is for wards to not be purchasable... so we're halfway there, really.

EDIT: I guess my main point is this; yellow trink being nerfed was not good. They could buff it again if sightstone didn't exist, and then support could actually have 6 items and be a real teammate. That's what is needed.

GuiltyGecko12/8/2015, 8:07:00 AM3 votes

On one hand, you have a good point. It should be possible to balance the vision game better without having sightstone. On the other hand, I've enjoyed being the most important player in the vision game. Maybe it's just my Season 2 talking, but carrying through vision control has often been one of the parts of being a support. If sightstone was taken away, it would be nice to have that additional slot free once again.

I don't know if the vision game for this preseason has really settled yet though, because we need to see what the blue trinket nerfs do, and a Rioter was talking about putting the pink ward trinket back in at some point. One of the problems I'm having now is not having inventory space for items, sightstone, and pink wards. I used to get pink ward trinkets in place of sweeper so that wasn't a problem, but I can't do that now :(.

Interesting insight overall though. Have to think about it more.

MrSlowDie12/9/2015, 12:27:23 AM2 votes

unpopular opinion : I prefer to become a "ward bitch" rather than hoping my team ward the map after I yell 20 times a second in team chat. Thank you. Oh yeah, if sightstone removed there'll be no way I can buy red trinket without sacrificing the average ward placed by my team.

SpecterVonBaren12/8/2015, 6:21:18 PM2 votes

This thread needs waaaay more upvotes. Need some Rioters to see this discussion.

Spoofghoul12/8/2015, 10:28:27 AM2 votes

Strangely enough this actually makes sense to me.

If Riot wants warding to be a team effort then this would probably help

Teridax6812/8/2015, 6:00:13 PM2 votes

I completely agree with this. Supports have gone a long way from being the non-scaling, gold-starved, ward-stacking slaves they were in Season 2, but they still have many issues that prevent them from being as satisfying as they could be, among them the requirement to sacrifice slot efficiency for a vision advantage that has become increasingly less relevant with the addition and development of universal vision trinkets. Sightstone dulls early gameplay by making bot lane too safe from ganks, and removes the interesting choices associated with trinkets by essentially forcing supports to shift their yellow trinket to their main inventory as they pick up the anti-warding trinket. The item was designed to cover the same niche as the current trinket slot, i.e. a constant, gold-independent source of vision, and while it was a blessing to all supports when it was created, it's become increasingly redundant ever since. Vision control's been shifted consistently away from the inventory for the past two seasons now (plus this preseason), and that's a clear sign that it should be provided equally by every team member, not assigned to one specific role while the others opt out (they can't anymore).

Hemoparty12/9/2015, 4:12:46 AM2 votes

I never thought I'd agree with removing Sightstone completely. And yet, here we are. Though, having supports rely on a (hopefully buffed) warding totem means no except maybe the jungler will invest in vision denial.

AyRe CoNteMpT12/8/2015, 8:08:58 AM2 votes

well i agree partially. actually i think before trinkets and sightstone were added to the game, it was a fairly decent system except for supports. then sightstone got added and it simply gave support some quality of life bonus. nice!

then trinkets got added and i really liked the general concept but the balance of trinkets was simply not good enough and rito didnt bother to focus more than half a patch onto it. but still a good system!

now wards got removed and trinkets got changed and i really must say, its a kick in the nuts. the balance of trinkets is non-existant (yellow sucks, sweeping lense sucks, sourround-sweeper and scrying orb are too strong) and if you plan on changing your trinket, you simply can never place more than one ward (which is a pink).

thats just very painful. last season as a jungler, i got red trinket most of the time after first or second back and just kept buying tons of wards. on freelo.gg you get a tier rating (bronze-challenger) based on how good you do in a certain aspect of the game, i.e. warding. i always had challenger warding because i simply buy alot of wards, put them down (also important) and even in good spots at good times.

right now, yellow trinket is way too useless especially early on and the blue one is just broken. litter the entire map with wards, its absurd. the power of pink-wards was that if they dont get destroyed, they stay forever. so you had to choose a location that you want to keep control of and put down your pink. now you can just spam blue wards and the only difference of them is that they dont spot evelyn.

i agree, sightstone should be removed and there should be another system which involves the entire team. sadly i cant think of one off the top of my head.

Nekusen12/9/2015, 10:54:20 PM1 votes

As a support, i support this.

4NoxiousHours12/10/2015, 1:04:45 AM1 votes

It's annoying when a team mate says " WE NEED WARDS! THIS SUPPORT DOESN'T WARD! " yet they have 2 trinkets unused.....

I admire the idea of removing sight stone so that support champions can focus on other important items that can benefit in lane and late game but I highly doubt Riot would even consider this.

If anything they would probably give a really good passive to sight stone or add a " 10% Cool down " type of thing to go with the boots.

Miku Lv9912/10/2015, 4:46:50 AM1 votes

I think this is a great idea. It's lame having to build the same one item every game, and one that leaves you with less combat strength than any other role. They could just buff trinkets or summoner spells or something so that a team could get enough vision without a sightstone, and not need sightstone.

Although, I personally feel like it's the most powerful item in the game, for its price. I kinda hate playing other roles since I just feel like I can't go anywhere since the enemy is likely hiding somewhere nearby and I'll die. But with a sightstone, I feel like I can go anywhere as long as there's not some BS champion like Yasuo that can just dash to me and instakill me. I'd feel like I'd be a lot less free in my movements about the map as a support if I had to rely on the warding of my teammates.

Nekusen12/10/2015, 6:21:42 PM1 votes

yup, change sightstone with a summoner spell or just remove it, trinkets could be looked into, too.

alfavhunter12/8/2015, 11:14:34 PM1 votes

Solution increase the rate per lvl that trinket gives wards, remove sight stone

This lets people chose vision or anti vision

The jungler vision item needs to be looked into as well

Koechophe12/9/2015, 5:50:31 AM1 votes

It's difficult, because I think there should be the option to focus on a ward-centric gameplay for people who want that, but as long as that option exists, one role (or more) will be forced into it, which stunts itemization for them immensely, and almost always, that role will be support (or jungle to a lesser extent) because then itemization as a whole can just sort of get dumpstered and they can focus on baseline utility instead.

Maybe if there was a warding summoner spell (that could be taken as an alternative to exhaust/ingite) then supports could take that and have the capacity to ward without giving up itemization. I, for one, really miss CV, but it was dumpstered and then ignored pretty heavily. But something that focuses on vision in a summoner spell could provide enough meaningful tradeoffs that it's not required in every role while also giving the option for people who want it as a focus, while simultaniously leaving itemization untouched. Just a thought. I agree though, sightstone is a major problem because it pigeonholes supports into "the warding role".

Silver Fluffenbu12/9/2015, 8:49:00 AM1 votes

I don't feel like there's much "expense to my power elsewhere" for having a sightstone. and I like knowing my assists and damage output were the result of tactic and mechanical strength rather than a gold advantage. also, I like the siege playstyle and warding. if OP doesn't like the things unique to support and thinks of doing those things as "play-style sacrifices" than maybe he shouldn't play that role. And if sup isn't his pref, then why even post about it.

TacoTheKitten12/9/2015, 12:46:45 PM1 votes

I actually really like this idea. Unfortunately, I don't think we'll ever see it happen because of SOMEONE LeeSin

Social Justice 112/9/2015, 1:34:28 PM1 votes

What the shit is this?

Back when supports could place as many wards down as they could afford, the WHOLE MAP would be warded. There is a lot less total vision nowadays than in the past, not more.

Randomonium12/9/2015, 4:22:33 PM1 votes

This is actually a great idea. When I don't play support I hate not being to help more with warding and when I play support I feel like I'm the only one warding.

AMYS GRAVE12/9/2015, 6:16:26 PM1 votes

At the moment i take sightstone and yellow trinket on my supports just to ensure adequate ward coverage. I only switch to sweeping lens after level 13 or so because my teammates actually can keep some semblance of wards down and sweeping becomes actually effective when there are wards to sweep.

Unfortunately, the extreme levels of ward coverage both trinkets and sightstone caused meant that aggression was much less effective, so the game became dominated by passive play.

Actually the reverse is true. With fewer wards more aggressive play is more easily punished and passive play becomes more dominant. If you don't know you can make the aggressive play safely then opting for more passive play becomes more fruitful.

My opinion as a support? I like sightstone, and want it to stay.