Toribash
Wards are easy for me. I can cover that pretty well. I won't cover stuff like ward positions, because they're usually self-evident, but the more complex aspects of warding.

One, you need wards at all points of the game. Just a ruby sightstone as support isn't enough unless your team contributes as well. So always have a slot open for more wards as a support.

Two, use the wards wisely, and use the right one for the right job. I've seen some pretty stupid wards get put down, particularly in the first few minutes of a game. Not that the position was necessarily a bad one, but you have to realize when a ward is worth putting down. An early pink is smart if you want sight control, but you need to know if your jungler plans on early ganks to justify it, and that the enemy can't counter pink it. You want vision, but you want to deny enemy vision. Every ward down both gives you vision, but also informs the enemy on where you have vision if they already have vision. They can usually guess where you have vision as well based on how long you're gone from lane, and which direction you walk in, even if they don't have vision. Because of this, wildly warding without anticipating enemy actions can result in your team falling behind overall in gold by 100 each ward (the cost of the ward + the reward for destroying it). If you lose 2 greens to a pink, you've already given 85 gold advantage to the enemy (cost of the wards + reward for destruction - cost of pink), excluding the benefits of denied vision. Stagger your wards and try to get by with less when possible. Nothing makes me happier as a support when the enemy support puts all their wards down too soon. Then I can just pink a strategic location and make a giant hole in their coverage, or just tell people to wait 3 minutes until the wards run out and they start running blind.

Three, know when wasting wards is smart. I don't mean wasting it like making a penis on the screen with green wards, but basically warding out every conceivable position of entrance to an area. Usually, you do this to secure major objectives like baron and dragon, or when you're doing an aggressive invade with no knowledge of enemy positions. You place the wards in every bush before you enter them to avoid a face check, and to possibly get sight of somebody before they see you and allow a pick to occur. Those are pretty much the only times you do it, and the sightstones are perfect for this. Those wards are more disposable than regular wards, as they are a permanent investment. Basically, by the end of the game, if you haven't placed upwards of 20 wards with a ruby sightstone, you haven't gotten it's full worth (1500 gold total value of ruby sightstone, which is 20*75). So feel free to use them for sweeping the enemy jungle safely.

Lastly, be original with the wards. Not all wards need to be in specific locations, and you often will be counterwarded specifically to counter the most commonly used ward locations. While you should use those spots when you can, because they're usually cost effective ward spots as they cover multiple entrances, you should have back up ward places in mind. As an example, I was playing a game where the enemy was pink warding our tri every time, and their jungler was ganking from behind us everytime. Since I couldn't ward tri, and mid refused to ward his entrance to bot jungle, I had to get creative. So I basically took a guess as to the most likely route the enemy jungle would take (aka, the shortest one). So I warded just out of tri's ranges, but just short of seeing past the red bush. That way, I would get vision of the enemy jungle if they came through mid safely, and beat a hasty retreat when he started coming. It worked like a charm, and we managed to organize a counter gank off of it when they tried to dive us.


Tl;dr, treat it like a chess game. How in chess you use pieces to control the board by threatening squares, you use wards to control the map by revealing enemy action, and sometimes denying the enemy info on your own actions.

Enemy action is much less effective when you can plan against it. Games in league are almost always settled by effective ambushes and picks. Very rarely does a game end because of a head-on collision between teams. Somebody always gets the upper hand through an ambush. It may not be the final teamfight, and it may not be with first blood, but the defining moment is almost always brought about by either a lack or an abundance of ward coverage.

And don't feel bad if it doesn't come easily. It took me a couple accounts and a couple years before I was comfortable with warding.


Edit: almost forgot, wards can also be hella good bait or distractions if the enemy has an oracles. Some players will follow the ward trail into an easy gank, and sometimes you can distract them by repeatedly placing a ward in a location so they think you want vision, so they pounce on it for the gold and vision deny while, unbeknownst to them, your team is taking baron. They think they just made a quick 120 gold from a desperate support, but when they see the purple ring appear around you, they realize they've been duped. And it's humiliating as hell.
Last edited by Oracle; Jul 26, 2013 at 09:44 AM.
nyan :3
Youtube Channel i sometimes post videos of other games
someone knows the moment when U do all the game good but u lose because of your team?

spoil


actually i was at 1 deads, but at the end i got caught by an ignite, and i was a half sec to late with my heal. after that dead i accepted the surrender.
kennen and shyvana had both around 8-9deaths. eve was hella fed and ahri got some feed from somewhere too...
Parrot | Tabby | Nike | [Midnight] | Foxy | Deridor | Joel

Helping admins since 2013 (Can't ya'll leave this alone?)
Reta's Bitch, Property of Kriegery, Bribed by Bird, Tinerr 4 President.
Awaken, awaken, awaken, awaken. Take the land, that must be taken. Awaken, awaken, awaken, awaken. Devour worlds, smite forsaken
Indeed I know, my last game I was 7/0/1 as Mundo before everything started going to shit.
The Vayne fed the Varus, the Thresh wanted to duo top with me instead of a jungler and so the enemy got free buffs. Twas fun, til things got ridiculous, 2 aces and 1 of them was a penta for the enemy, ended 7/5/3.

Meh, I wish some one here was on EU W :l
Originally Posted by souldevilj View Post
Meh, I wish some one here was on EU W :l


actually i am on EUW...
Parrot | Tabby | Nike | [Midnight] | Foxy | Deridor | Joel

Helping admins since 2013 (Can't ya'll leave this alone?)
Reta's Bitch, Property of Kriegery, Bribed by Bird, Tinerr 4 President.
Awaken, awaken, awaken, awaken. Take the land, that must be taken. Awaken, awaken, awaken, awaken. Devour worlds, smite forsaken
Same here. You're just never online :P We have a whole bunch of people on EUW.
<&Erth> fagm <&Erth> duck <&Erth> *fuck
Fagm duck fuck everyone.

Originally Posted by BlubKill View Post
i have the feeling countering at all is a thing which doesnt matter in normals yoo..

currently my mmr is like platin 2. countering doesnt matter at all in soloq everywhere it seems. ofc there are some matchups you wont win with personal skill like pf idk taric vs gp but besides that its rlly meaningless which champ you play if you are comfortable with it. counters dont rlly exist imo
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Originally Posted by Oracle View Post
Tl;dr, treat it like a chess game. How in chess you use pieces to control the board by threatening squares, you use wards to control the map by revealing enemy action, and sometimes denying the enemy info on your own actions.

wanna play chess?
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Originally Posted by BlubKill View Post
someone knows the moment when U do all the game good but u lose because of your team?

spoil


actually i was at 1 deads, but at the end i got caught by an ignite, and i was a half sec to late with my heal. after that dead i accepted the surrender.
kennen and shyvana had both around 8-9deaths. eve was hella fed and ahri got some feed from somewhere too...

1 assist. 9 kill involvements in 30 minutes as well as only 10k gold n 30 minutes. you died early two times judging from your short death timers and therefore might not be able to apply any pressure on the map. its always also you losing if your team loses remember that. ofc you dont control the guy getting 0-10 in the toplane but if you dont get 10-0 yourself youre not to blame anyone but yourself
Last edited by pinheads; Jul 26, 2013 at 04:03 PM. Reason: <24 hour edit/bump
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Originally Posted by pinheads View Post

1 assist. 9 kill involvements in 30 minutes as well as only 10k gold n 30 minutes. you died early two times judging from your short death timers and therefore might not be able to apply any pressure on the map. its always also you losing if your team loses remember that. ofc you dont control the guy getting 0-10 in the toplane but if you dont get 10-0 yourself youre not to blame anyone but yourself

uhm i couldnt really farm, first because my lasthitting with nida is pure crap also because i had to roam kind of a bit to help our jungler. so i couldnt earn that much more gold.
also as i explained i died once at the end and we directly surrendered while my death timer was running. so that doesnt count.
yes i went 0/1 against ahri in lane at the beginning.

Originally Posted by cocacobra View Post
You're and ap nidalee in a ranked game. Ap nidalee is terrible, the only thing she has is spears. You can't get close in a team fight because you're the squishiest thing since sliced bread and that means you need to stay in human form where your burst in non-existent. Also I'm sure that ahri out farmed the crap out of you and probably roamed a bit and got some kills, while you sat in middle lane farming.

actually she´s not terrible i were able to turn some games just by poking spears into the enemy´s. for that its enough if i hit the ap and ad carry once with a good spear so they are both at 50%. alone this can decide the whole teamfight. she´s not a bad pick.
uhm she lasthittet better at the beginning but when i got cougar form ive got lasthit lead. i didnt had the feeling that she were roaming much. atleast not more than me.
Parrot | Tabby | Nike | [Midnight] | Foxy | Deridor | Joel

Helping admins since 2013 (Can't ya'll leave this alone?)
Reta's Bitch, Property of Kriegery, Bribed by Bird, Tinerr 4 President.
Awaken, awaken, awaken, awaken. Take the land, that must be taken. Awaken, awaken, awaken, awaken. Devour worlds, smite forsaken
You guys need to add SoulSkrix so I finally have some Toribash pals to play LoL with!!!
I didn't know you guys were on EU

I'm logging in and playing a few matches now anyway
AP nidalee has to fit in the comp. And the only comp she's really effective for is the siege and poke comp, or a comp centered around pushing the enemy past their turret and trying bait them into defending it for free damage, then diving when they take out a key player or when they get the enemy low enough, and disengage when the enemy tries to force a fight.

Looking at your team, it looks more like an all in comp. So you're sort of the 5th wheel in that comp. Unless your spears were absolutely spot on every time, you're the weak point in the composition, because 3 out of your 5 members want to dive in, while ez is playing the adc juke game with anybody who dives him. Your only spot in that would be to assist ez with anybody who dives him in cougar form, or to dive in after the other 3, again in cougar form. (hint hint, it means a lichbane would have been better than an archangels or voidstaff)

Conversely, your team also can't afford to wait on just you to wage attrition because the enemy team has a very strong all in comp as well, but they have the advantage of being able to force a disengage with janna. Plus their wave clear is better than yours, so you can't effectively siege them either.

So really, it was a bad pick to choose nidalee. Somebody with more utility like orianna, or with more brawling potential like diana or ryze, would have been a better pick for your team comp. If it had to have poke, Jayce would have probably been your best bet as a mix between brawler and poke, Kha as an acceptable alternative. It was essentially a 5v4 if the enemy engaged you, and they had a very strong initiation, so I would anticipate a loss for your team, unless you managed to roflstomp in laning phase.
nyan :3
Youtube Channel i sometimes post videos of other games