For Bot Lane, why use Upgraded Red vs. Upgraded Yellow with Vision Version

Zaranchi·Oct 28, 2015·4 votes·859 views

I am trying to get better about warding and want to understand why it is recommended to use the upgraded "sweeper" vs the upgraded yellow that reveals stealth/green wards. I am mostly speaking from the perspective of the Support.

My line of thinking: The Red Trinket: Will sweep an area, reveal to you a ward or maybe two. -Best case scenario, you are able to take out a ward or even two in close vicinity with both ADC and Support hitting different wards. -Worst case scenario you are denied by the enemy team's harass and you get nothing out of it. Furthermore, if you do take out a ward, it can immediately be re-warded by enemy lane. Also, you may not have enough time to clear out multiple wards, like in dragon pit as the sweeper is only for a short time. Bonus: you can scan a large area and see there is no vision in the first place.

The Yellow Trinket Vision Version: Will put a vision ward that reveals everything in a vicinity, again one ward or multiple. -Best case scenario, you are able to take out all wards and have the vision ward sit there and continue providing vision until enemy team can take it out, or you use it somewhere else. If enemy team re-wards the area, you still can kill those wards. -Worst case scenario, enemy tries to deny you. Now here, there's a difference, they can't simply harass you away, as they also need to kill it. The vision ward takes 5 hits, while the wards it reveals (green wards) take 3 hits. So, you at least have a chance to kill their ward before yours dies. Bonus: Save a ton of gold not constantly buying pinks because they keep getting destroyed.

I know I just put out the best and worst case scenario and most games are a range of those. But the point is, I don't understand why sweeper is better for a support. If the argument is that the vision ward should be used in a place defensively, then the rest of your team can still buy a total of 4 vision wards and put them down. Furthermore, the support can use the vision ward to clear out stealth wards, and then go put a pink down where the "Defensive" ward should be.

I feel like I am missing something here and I want to know what it is. Thanks!

15 Comments

AgentBlackOct 28, 20153 votes

My initial thought is that the Greater Vision Totem is on a 120 second cooldown versus the Oracle's Lens' 75 second cooldown, letting you detect wards about half as often; though in late game situations, a GVT will let you use all of your inventory slots while maintaining a vision ward. I'll try this, and I'm interested to see more replies.

ZaranchiOct 28, 20151 votes

Yeah, didn't think about the CD. Good point! That was one of my concerns about Red trinket, you have no empty slots for pinks in late game. I should have put that in my original post, but that's for pointing that out. The argument could be made though that you could simply switch out the red for a vision yellow when you have full build, so there is that.

magic poleOct 28, 20153 votes

you can only place 1 pink ward which will only allow you to clear 1 bush of vision.
upgraded red has a shorter cool down and will also allow you to see stealthed champions
lastly, the duration of upgraded red is quite long. You can cast it at mid lane river bush, clear that, the bush next to jungle entrance, and the river bush and possibly also in front of dragon/baron. You can occasionally clear 3 wards with it. If you have teammates with you to help attack the wards, you can get more
If there were no wards to kill, you can walk through a rather large area and realize the enemy has absolutely no vision there, allowing you to setup your own and make picks if they try to enter your zone.

ZaranchiOct 28, 20151 votes

True. It's a limited area of clearance, but without the threat of being immediately re-warded.
Good point about the CD. Didn't even compare those. The vision yellow trinket is what I am talking about, you can see stealth champs with it too.
So, this is a pretty niche positive aspect of the red upgraded one. If you are with your team, you can clear multiple wards because you'll have enough time and enough hits will go out in that time. If you are by yourself, you'll still only be able to clear out a max of two as supports usually don't have high AS. Again, any bush you clear or Dragon pit, can be immediately re-warded. So, again, this is a really situational thing where you have multiple allies with you to clear wards AND are not getting harassed by enemies.
That's a really good point. The knowledge that the enemy has no vision in a large area is pretty useful. Granted, the vision ward will give you vision in a vicinity, but the red upgraded allows you to check multiple bushes, so definitely more versatile. I'll keep a look out in future games to see how many times red may have been more useful.

magic poleOct 28, 20152 votes

one last little thing i thought of for your comparison to keep in mind...

not always the case, but typically the red sweeper will net you more gold than the pink trinket, as you can use it more often and clear multiple bushes with it. This simultaneously necessitates the enemy team to spend more gold on wards (which you can then clear again, especially if you notice they immediately reward) or use up their trinket/sightstone charges.

in addition, you won't be offering any gold to the enemy since you place nothing as opposed to the pink , which they may clear multiple pinks you place over the course of the game.

so all things considered, red will give you more gold while also denying the enemy gold relative to the pink upgrade

ZaranchiOct 29, 20151 votes

All good points. You know what, I think I'll try out red going forward on my supports for a few games and see how things go. I'll try to see how much better vision denial game goes with the red. Thanks for the input!

TysminOct 28, 20151 votes

becasue the upgraded reed also gives you true vision in the area around you which is useful for finding wards, traps and teemo's (and on occasion evelyn.

ZaranchiOct 28, 20152 votes

See original post, I am talking about the yellow trinket that gives you a pink ward. This reveals shrooms, eve, wards, rengars, kha'zixs, everything.

TysminOct 28, 20151 votes

i know but the fac that the ture vision surrounds you the effective range is higher than a pink ward even if it isn't permanent

AntonokOct 28, 20151 votes

Basically it's a waste of 250g. Sightstone with the ward limit makes the wards from the yellow trinket obsolete.

Say for example, you have 3 wards out already and an enemy places a ward close to you, with the yellow you'd have to kill one of your previous wards to place one to kill said enemy ward. With the red trinket, you don't.

ZaranchiOct 28, 20151 votes

See original post, I am talking about the Yellow trinket that gives you a pink ward. The sighstone you mention give you stealth wards (Greens). The pink and greens don't compete with each other. You can have 3 greens and 1 pink.

TurquoiseYoshiOct 28, 20151 votes

I think it's that Red Trinket is tougher to get otherwise. With Pink Ward Trinket, you get 1 on the map at a time, with a 2 minute CD. You can use 100 gold to buy that, if you really want it. That is (depending on your support item) sitting with a farmer for a few waves. Red Trinket has no item counterpart on SR, has a 1.25 minute CD, and can be used in basically any needed situation without repercussions.

StephenizgodOct 28, 20151 votes

Because you can buy a Pink ward and place it somewhere then become a mobile Pink ward with the upgraded Scanner. 100g is nothing for keeping one area ward free, the scanner however is mobile and can not be destroyed. It also disables them making it so they give no vision which is helpful if you just want to run through quickly without giving up information on where you are going or who is with you. The Pink ward has a certain range, you can either cover all of Baron pit or all of the River, not both, so with a Pink ward and Scanner you can cover both and make sure there are no wards. Basically though, you can buy all the Vision Wards you want whenever you want to but you can not buy an Oracle's Lens whenever you want (well i mean you can but it goes on CD forever long).

ZaranchiOct 29, 20151 votes

Yeah, that's a good point. It is pretty cheap to keep an entire area somewhere else constantly warded. Probably use it defensively to prevent counter jg in early game.

StephenizgodOct 29, 20151 votes

I normally buy the Scanner after getting my Sightstone, as a support its almost always a must buy.