So you’re down in bot lane, you’re all set and ready to tear that opposing Vayne to shreds, your ADC’s farming up a storm… and then it happens. The enemy jungler blindsides you from a route you weren’t expecting. The opposite mid laner roams. The top ganks you with teleport. Vayne gets a double, the lane snowballs, and all you can think is ‘Why this, oh gods of League? Why have you forsaken me?’

To which the League gods look down and say ‘OMG SUPPORT NO WARDS.’

Of course, every support knows to ward. What you might not know is how to get the most bang for your buck; how to time your trinkets, manage your sightstone, and deal with enemy vision.

Here are a few simple tips to up your warding game in the lane phase, and keep you and your ADC safe.

Trinket Warding

Yellow trinket – Warding Totem, is great. Gone are the days of needing to start a sight ward just to fend off those early game ganks. Unfortunately, that sucker has a cooldown, and it’s significant enough that you won’t be able to keep the river warded 100% of the time, let alone keep an eye on every possible approach. As such, it’s important to consider your blind spots and ration your trinket carefully. Opposing jungler just show in top lane? Hold onto your trinket for another thirty seconds. Enemy Katarina level 6 and MIA? You might want to toss it down. Don’t be afraid to nudge your ADC to use their trinket, too. If they’re not using it, then it’s endangering both of you.

Ideally, you want your trinket in the small brush right in the mouth of the river. That’s enough to give you advance warning on the most common ganking path as well as certain angles of attack through the tri-brush. When you don’t have vision, you should always be playing more conservatively.

Remember; if you use your trinket in the first minute or so of the game to help scout or watch for invades, it will be off cooldown in time for you to use it in lane. Don’t be shy about placing it down early!

Pictured: The river when you don't ward it. Image courtesy of http://mjg.deviantart.com

The Sightstone

Sightstone is an essential item on support. I’ll say it again – Sightstone is essential.

Yes, you can buy green wards, yes, upgraded yellow trinket is great in a pinch, but you can’t upgrade yellow trinket until level 9, and it only holds two charges. The 800 gold purchase Sightstone breaks even at 11 wards placed (and that’s before factoring in that it gives you health), and I certainly hope that you’re placing more than 11 wards in a single game.

Of course, circumstantially there are other possible purchases you might want to be investing in early, but that mobility boots rush is a topic for another day. For our purposes? Sightstone is a priority buy. It refills, it’s relatively inexpensive, and it doesn’t have a cooldown like trinket wards do. It will remain useful for the entire game.

Important side note; remember to swap your yellow trinket for the red sweeping trinket when you buy sightstone. More on this later.

In any case, you have your new shiny sightstone – well that means you’re all set, right? You can ward river, tribrush, dragon, heck, even the lane brush!

Bzzt! Wrong! For one thing that’s four wards, and you can only have three down at once. For another, and perhaps one of the most important things to bear in mind about your sightstone, is that you only have four charges per back. Sure, for a short while, you’re going to have unparalleled vision control. In three minute’s time, however, you’re going to be back to where you started, with only one ward and too many places to put it.

The important thing is to keep in mind the biggest areas of threat. If the enemy jungler is Udyr or Shyvana, for example, you’re going to want vision on dragon to make sure they don’t solo it. Roaming midlaner and you’re pushing up past the middle of lane a lot? Make sure tribrush is warded. Same for the lane brush if the enemy team is rocking a Blitzcrank or the jungler is good at lane ganking. Remember, your ADC should still have their trinket too, and that’s a big help at this stage of the game.

Remember, your sightstone refreshes every time you recall, but you need to keep in mind that if you have three wards out already, you’re going to ‘overwrite’ your own wards. Under certain circumstances, such as progressing your vision deeper into the enemy jungle, this is fine, but the majority of the time, you don’t want to be replacing wards before they’ve timed out. On the other hand, if you have no charges and you haven’t backed yet, you’re going to be vulnerable once your wards start expiring. If at all possible, try not to be out for too long with no charges left in your sightstone. A good strategy is, if you know you’re about to recall, to place your wards down and only then B – this is one scenario where it’s okay to replace your own wards, you’re effectively extending their lifespan!

Red Trinket

Red trinket – Sweeping Lens, is almost as essential as sightstone, and upgrading it at level nine is something I try to do as soon as possible. Why? Because other than well-placed pinks and the jungler’s raptor buff, this is the only way you can weed out enemy vision. As soon as you have sightstone, you want to be swapping your yellow trinket for a red one. This is because there is a cooldown between trading one trinket for another and being able to use the new trinket. In my experience, while keeping hold of your yellow trinket might help a little with vision control, it sets you much too far back in being able to kill enemy wards.

In lane, the role of red trinket is simple; annoy the heck out of the opposing support. If you see them drop a green ward, once you’re sure it’s reasonably safe, sweep it out and kill it. They might replace it immediately, but you’re forcing them to ration their own sightstone or trinkets more strictly, and that helps your team gank your lane. It’s also useful to have red trinket available if you manage to force the enemy bot lane back, as if your jungler is in position, that lets you sweep dragon pit and possibly take a drake.

While it’s okay to guess where wards might be and use sweeper, try not to do this too much. Red trinket does have a decent cooldown, and it’s always annoying when you use it only for the other support to place a ward down right after your sweeper times out. Red trinket only covers a relatively small area – sometimes it can’t even see all parts of one brush, so prior to upgrading to Oracle’s Lens, if you’re making a guess as to where wards are, it had better be a good one.

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Remember; keep in mind your windows of vulnerability when you have trinket, prioritise the biggest threat areas when you have sightstone, and most importantly, keep one eye on your wards! Having wards down is pointless if you don’t look at them!

Happy warding, supports!

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