Is warding important at all?

Sad Robot Amumu·9/28/2015, 11:02:06 PM·1 votes·1,359 views

I was watching one of my diamond friend's solo queue games in an attempt to learn good behavior that I could emulate, but I actually found that diamond players seemed to ward no more than bronze players, with usually 3 or more people putting down less than 15 wards in the entire game. It just seems confusing that every video of how to climb says warding and map awareness is super important, and how much warding goes on in the LCS, and then watching high elo games and seeing people ward no more than bronzies. I take some pride in my warding and map vision, but if it's really not important enough that diamond players don't do it, then maybe I should just save my 250g and get more damage or tankiness.

Is warding really important at all, or is it just that diamond players have a better sense of where the enemy is?

5 Comments

ValyrianBlade9/28/2015, 11:07:09 PM3 votes

Warding is incredibly important.

It's not only placing wards, it's where you place them, and when you place them.

If I'm ADC and I see the enemy jungler top lane, I'm not going to drop a ward in the river... it's a waste, it will be gone before he gets there. Once he leaves top and has been gone for 30 seconds, now my ward is coming out.

Also, appropriately warding objectives or locations in the jungle before fights break out there. I can't tell you how many times placing a couple wards in red's blue side jungle when doing dragon has resulted in my team capturing free kills because we saw which way the enemy was running after the fight.

I'm not sure about stats, but I'd be shocked if the average diamond player outside of support is placing less than 15 wards in a 30 minute game... It may have just been a circumstance of that particular game you were watching. Shorter games will also result in fewer wards per minute because you often only have the trinket until your first back, typically one team is pushed to their towers and thus doesn't ward anywhere, or one team is sufficiently stronger that it knows it will win 1v2s and doesn't need wards so they will opt to snowball leads with more items instead.

WalkingInACircle9/28/2015, 11:18:49 PM3 votes

Hah, well, Diamond 5 is infamous for the number of people who got boosted to it.

Short answer: Yes. Watch any Esports game if you want.

Long answer: A team only needs 2-3 upgraded trinkets/sightstones. Along with pink wards, after that they really start becoming redudant. Rather, professional games see a lot more sweepers, and fight constantly over vision control by focusing on denying enemy vision. Competitive players actually put wards in really random places just to throw off search attempts. Think of having vision over an area as ownership of it. The more of the map your team owns, the more resources they have access to and safe pathways to travel. If an enemy travels over that space, you know where they are and can move around them. You can avoid bad confrontations with them and initiate a gank or surprise attack to beat them. The upgraded ward trinket is absolutely worth it.

Deep Terror Nami9/28/2015, 11:03:39 PM1 votes

Skilled players that pay attention to the map make much better use of their wards. Someone with no map awareness will get ganked no matter how many wards were protecting him. There's only so many wards you can put down on average anyway.

famouskill9/29/2015, 12:56:07 AM1 votes

I think in lower levels, warding is not so important. just get the trinket, and ward once in a while. In lower levels ganking is not that strong due to the fact that people dont know the proper way to gank, sorry. in higher levels, like diamond, warding will become much more important, you have to buy some pinks and place them down. This is because the ganking will be more strong, and map awareness will be more important. If a gank comes in and you see it, you can escape. Usually in lower levels, the support buys sightstone and wards everywhere. Later game when you are getting into the inhibs and nex turrets, then in my experience, no one wards. I am just level 22 but i have observed in higher ranked games and in the LCS. when your in mid, warding will be most important, because there are 2 rivers coming towards you. Anyways, hope this is helpful, let me know what you think...

CKwoka269479/29/2015, 3:49:57 AM1 votes

When you start to play tactically you will use wards automatically. Placing wards just to place wards is pointless.