Wards are useful and generally worthwhile as long as they are giving you some type of information. Whether that information tells you where someone is or where they’re not doesn’t really matter, as both circumstances can help you and your team immensely. With warding being an integral part of Conquest and the fact that wards seem so overpowered in theory, it’s always amazed me that they are seldom seen in Conquest. This mainly applies to the casual game mode, but a common theme amongst people seems to be not to buy wards unless you are either playing support or you are full build. And yet most of the community seems to understand how important warding is.

So the problem isn’t that people don’t know how good warding is. Sometimes they think about buying wards but just not know where to place them, so they decide it’s better for a teammate to buy wards and do it for them. And everyone thinking like this in turn creates a sort of bystander effect where, sure you only need 2-3 people buying wards to cover the map sufficiently, but because everyone thinks that someone else is going to do it, nobody ends up doing it. Besides, each player is limited to two wards at a time now, so 4 players leaving the job up to 1 player (also known as the support) just doesn’t make any sense.

Another reason for this is players simply forgetting to buy them or just tunnel-visioning their items with their thought process being something along the line of “That’s 50 gold I could save for my tier 2 boots!” And if you think like this, I probably won’t be helping you, I mean this article might help refresh you on the concept of warding and maybe help you remember in the long run but if you feel like wards are a waste of money, I’m not going to sit here and try to explain why you’re wrong. Rather I’ll try to help out the people trapped in limbo between “Knows warding is important” and “Doesn’t know what to do with wards”

I’ve taken 3 copies of the Conquest map and given suggestions of where to ward and, before I get into them, I want to be clear that wards can be used at any choke point or intersection in the jungle, at any of the buffs you want to invade or protect, or even in the middle of lanes in some cases. These are merely a few examples and more of a base you can use if you really can’t figure out what to do with your wards.

The Different Types of Wards

I’ve sorted the wards into four categories. Defensive wards for when you are trying to have a more passive lane or playing from behind are blue. These wards are the ones you will want to make sure you have up if their jungler is getting anxious for a gank and keeps going MIA and they are probably the best option if you aren’t confident in the matchup or feel like you’re going to get behind in lane.

For a more offensive option, I added in red wards. These are for when you are trying to be aggressive either in lane or forcing big objectives. You’ll be using these when you are ahead or they have a lot of mobility and you need to figure out their position long before they get close, especially when they have gods with global ults like Thor or Apollo. And finally we have yellow wards, these are just obvious ones that I felt it was necessary to include. These are objective wards, either on the gold fury or fire giant depending on how long the game has been going on and what sort of team you're up against. I won't be covering these very much as they are self-explanatory.

These maps assume you are on the order side but the ward placements can be easily reversed if you find yourself on the chaos side.

The Early Game

So first up we have the early game, I won’t bother with pregame wards, as lately the meta has shifted to reward sustain where you want to stay in lane as long as possible before taking that first back. This means potions are invaluable and the only time you will want to forgo buying wards to save money is when you’re restricted to the 1500 starting gold. After that first back though, you should be picking up one or even two wards. Sentry wards don’t serve a lot of purpose unless you are planning on securing a few ganks for your jungler, so you can still take a few potions back to lane. Before any of your towers fall, warding is really simple. In fact, the only reason to place wards in the first 5 minutes is to detect possible ganks or invades.

If you feel you are susceptible to ganks, you’ll definitely want to make sure this little triangle of wards is up. This prevents anyone from ganking your lane undetected unless they take a very obvious and aggressive path which leaves them open to being collapsed on. There isn’t much else to say about the early game. The wards here are really just quality of life wards, where they aren’t really necessary but they will make laning a lot less stressful for you.

The Mid Game

Warding options really open up in the mid game. For the most part you should be buying a couple wards every time you recall, always making sure you have a few sentry wards up for counter vision.

Defensive wards can be placed in literally any chokepoint inside of your jungle depending on where the action is happening but I've put in a few suggestions just in case you need extra examples. The blue wards closest to the left and right lanes assume the towers are down in those lanes and are used to check for anyone split pushing. Even if you have someone with teleport online, you’re going to need an extra warning against any split pushers as a lot of gods can potentially 100 to 0 a tower in a single minion wave. The blue ward by fire giant there is just precautionary. There isn’t much chance of people going for fire giant in the mid game unless they get a deicide and if they try to sneak it you should be able to tell they are on it without any wards but if you feel you lack the intuition, you can easily throw a ward down there.

Offensive wards in the mid game are going to be focused around taking the gold fury as well as giving some deep vision. If you have a better composition for taking gold fury than the enemy, you should set up both of the red wards in the left jungle to catch out a potential fight or steal before it happens and have a much better chance of securing it. Now on to the gold fury ward, your ADC and your support are going to want to hold on to a sentry as vision of gold fury is going to be highly contested. But notice how I put the dot really deep into the gold fury pit. Obviously, if you put it farther out you’ll get a better view of people crossing down the jungle lane but putting the ward directly inside the gold fury makes it really difficult for the enemy to deny your vision. If one person walks in to counter ward, they will have to take multiple hits from the gold fury just to be able to attack your ward, making them take more time to do so as well as taking more damage.

Late Game

Now finally late game. In this split push heavy meta, you should make sure you have these four blue wards up at all times and have someone always ready to recall because teams will still lose to backdoors even in the SPL. Other than that, you have the objective wards I mentioned, this time in the right jungle, but with basically the same concept as gold fury. Know when the fight is coming, keep an eye on potential steals, etcetera, etcetera. The other red ward is just an example but you will want some deep wards at this stage of the game again just to catch out potential split pushers and get a few picks that help you secure the win.

And then we have the green wards near the top that I felt I should add as another example on how to use wards. This is pretty situational but if you have a solo laner with some good split push potential or anyone for that matter who has taken teleport, the green wards allow for an unexpected backdoor on a phoenix as well as provide some exceptionally deep vision. In the same boat, you may want to put sentries in the opposite end of these wards if you feel the enemy is employing this same tactic.

Conclusion

I talk about split pushing a lot but right now split pushing is really important. A single player can decide the fate of a game against teams that aren’t paying attention or have poor communication. Whether they get a phoenix or get multiple enemies to stop them, it can completely throw a wrench into their plans. Just be cautious as, if they decide to force a fight, you’ll be down a player and will want to disengage in most scenarios. Even letting them have fire giant can work to your favor in some cases. So you’ll always want to make sure your team is on the same page for split pushers, both on your team and against.

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