Hello all! My name is Jovy and I've been an ardent support player since 2012. Warding was tough to figure it out, but nowadays I feel super confident in my ability to ward effectively. I wanted to share this knowledge so I made this guide!

This guide should be helpful for people who are just starting out with playing support, or veteran support players whose vision scores always seem lower than their enemies'. I used to be like that, but nowadays it's very rare that the enemy support outdoes me, and when they do, I tip my hat to them!


If you want your vision score to look like that, then read on! I'll do my best to impart whatever knowledge I have on warding, and hopefully you'll be able to learn a thing or two and head into your next game ready to light it up!
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This isn't a philosophical question, but rather an explanation for newer players! Warding refers to the action of placing wards on Summoner's Rift. There are many things that make this, which seems like a simple act, actually very hard to master. Firstly, you are limited in how many wards you can carry. Secondly, you are limited in how many wards you may have active on the Rift at any given time. Thirdly, the enemies hate you and don't want you to ward, or de-ward, and you're often a very vulenrable target. Fourthly, the enemy will destroy your wards with Lenses, Control Wards, and Scryer's Blooms. Ideally, this guide can help you make the right decisions about where and when to place or replace wards, and how to be as safe ans stealthy as possible while placing and removing wards!

Most of the map is covered by the so-called fog-of-war. Your team's base is always visible, as are the lanes (so long as there are turrets) and there is a small radius of light surrounding your champion and all of their allies. The rest of the map is dark and you need tools to expel that darkness.

Wards are the main tool for acquiring vision on the map. They aren't the only ones, but they are the tools that last the longest and that you'll have the highest abundance of. Most notably, other things that grant vision are abilities, like Miss Fortune's Make it Rain, Ashe's Hawkshot, or even Teemo's .shrooms. These are no doubt useful, but they don't rival wards.

This begs the question... what is so bad about oppressive, omnipresent darkness? Why do we need to have vision control to begin with? Well, as mentioned, there are only a couple of locations that are always lit up. You can't play the game only staying in your base, of course, so you'll need to venture outside and face what may come. If you have no wards, you will constantly be surrounded by darkness. You won't know where your enemies are, so any action you try to take will possibly be met with a swarm of enemies. You won't be able to predict or deflect ganks, you won't be able to safely move through your jungle, let alone the enemys's, and you won't be able to roam, or take turrets - nothing. Doing literally of those things without any vision is risky at best, fatal at worst.

In more concrete terms, here are some things vision helps you with and how:

Warding the enemy jungle provides you with very useful information. If you see the enemy jungler fighting the Krugs, you know that they are top-side (if they're red team) and that they won't be able to come bot lane for a long while. This means it's a good time to initiate a fight, request a gank, or just do Dragon.

Similarly, if you've got a ward on the enemy red team's Blue Buff, one in the river, and one in the Tri-bush, and there's still no sign of that enemy Elise, it probably means she is either in the base, or somewhere top-side. This, again, means that you are safe to do some crazy stuff bot-side. It also means that you could warn your top laner or mid laner that they may be in trouble soon.

Place wards around the darkness surrounding the Dragon and Baron Nashor to anticipate any attempt the enemy might make to steal or contest the objective.

If you've got a ward in the middle of the bot-side river, and you spot the enemy Lee Sin walking down towards bot lane, you have the extremely valuable information that you are about to get ganked. Clocking this, you can ping "danger" and have both yourself and your ADC move back, and live to fight another day.

Particularly important in the bot lane, keeping the lane brush warded allows you and your ADC to remain vigilant of any attempt made by the enemy Thresh to throw out his Death Sentence. You'll be able to spot aggressive movement, wind-up abilities (like Bone Skewer) and more.

Warding is very much primarily the support's job. In the early game, solo laners and junglers will have to rely on themselves for any vision at all, since supports are stuck bot lane. Ideally, allies will continue to contribute some to vision control as the game trudges along, buying a few Control Wards, or, at the very least, assisting you with de-warding and scouting into dangerous areas. Junglers will typically acquire Oracle Lens and purchase Control Wards to clear their jungle or rid key objectives like the Dragon or Baron of wards.

There are technically five types of sight in League of Legends, but only three are of particular interest to us - Standard Sight, True Sight, and Obscured Vision.

Standard Sight is just what you'd expect. It is the type of sight that Stealth Wards - wards from your trinket or support starting item - emit. It creates a radius of vision that penetrates the fog-of-war. The light coming off wards that grant Standard Light can be disabled by Control Wards.

True Sight is a type of sight that is able to see stealthed units - including Stealth Wards. Control Wards and the Oracle Lens trinket emit true sight. Placing a Control Ward in an area where there is a Stealth Ward wil reveal it, and disable it, preventing it from revealing anything to the enemies. True Sight also allows you to see most stealthed traps, like Teemo's shrooms, or Shaco's boxes. Finally, True Sight allows you to see camoflauged enemies.

Obscured Vision reveals just the silhouette of something that is near you in the fog-of-war, or something or someone that is stealthed. They can reveal the silhouette of an enemy champion, a ward that is in a bush, or a trap. The trinket Oracle Lens emits this type of sight. This trinket is effective against enemies such as Akali, Wukong, and Shaco.

There are a few different things in League which grant wards.

Trinkets are free items you buy at the start of your game, and can switch between at any point. There are three trinkets: Stealth Ward, Farsight Alteration, and Oracle Lens. 👁 Stealth Ward Most champions will start with this trinket. It stores up to two charges of Totem Wards, which you can place anywhere on the map to reveal the area around the ward. It lasts for 90-120 seconds, and a new charge will be ready every 240-120 seconds. Both of these scale with champion levels, so the Stealth Ward is more effective later on in the game. Totem Wards can only be revealed by True Sight, and they have three hit points. 👁 Farsight Alteration This ward has a range of 4000 units, making it a great scouting tool. Once placed, this ward remains indefnitely, unlike Totem or Stealth Wards, the Farsight Ward is visible and has only one hit point. Usually, this trinket is just used to scout, so the fact that it will be removed shortly is not of great concern. It may alert you to the fact that the enemy team is doing Baron, or that the enemy jungler is running towads the bot lane. 👁 Oracle Lens Activating this trinket releases a Sweeper Drone that escorts you for the next 10 seconds, which grants Obscured Vision of enemy units within its 750 range. This is your most effective de-warding tool, though it can also be used for revealing camoflauged enemies or checking bushes before one walks into them.

These items are the upgrades to support starting items. Once you upgrade the respective starting item, you will gain the above items for free. Targon's Buckler and Runesteel Spaulders are, generally speaking, reserved for melee supports and give you a quest to last hit minions. The Frostfang and Harrowing Crescent are for ranged supports, and give you a quest to damage enemies and turrets. In both pairs, the difference is in the stats the items give; Targon's and Frostfang are for AP supports, and Runesteel and Crescent for ADs. 👁 Targon's Buckler An upgrade to Relic Shield. This AP item's quest grants you a charge you can consume to execute a minion below 50% of their maximum health. This is a bit tricky, as you don't want to mess up your ADC's minion wave. Aim to execute minions when they're as low as possible so you don't inadventertnly push the wave. Think ahead and ensure you always have a charge ready when a cannon wave is coming up. Communicate with your ADC so you can ensure that you are always the one last-hitting cannon minions, thereby maximizing the amount of gold you earn and quickening your Targon's Buckler upgrade. 👁 Runesteel Spaulders An upgrade to Steel Shoulderguards. This item's quest is identical to Relic Shield's, but it offers stats more complementary to AD-based melee supports. Most supports have ability power scalings so usually Relic Shield is the preferable purchase. Pyke though, for example, scales with AD and therefore would buy this starting item instead. 👁 Frostfang An upgrade to Spellthief's Edge. This AP item's quest grants you with a charge you can consume by using damaging abilities and attacks against champions and turrets, when an allied champion is nearby. Consuming a charge grants you 20 gold. It awards aggressive play and is best utilised by ranged, poke-heavy supports. 👁 Harrowing Crescent An upgrade to Spectral Sickle This item's quest is identical to Spellthief's, but offers stats that complement an AD-based support instead. Most supports have abilities which scale off ability power and prefer Spellthief's, but Senna, for example, would purchase the Sickle instead. limitations While these items are your primary source of wards, they are not infinite. There is a stipulation that you can only have 3 Ward charges at a time, which are refilled when you visit your base. You can also only have 3 active Wards on the map at any given time. You can further upgrade each of these items by contionuing to progress your support quests. When the final upgrades are complete, you will be able to hold 4 Ward charges at a time, though the active Ward limit does not increase.

Trinkets are free items you buy at the start of your game, and can switch between at any point. There are three trinkets: Stealth Ward, Farsight Alteration, and Oracle Lens. 👁 Control Ward Control wards are very valuable because they last forever and they don’t count towards your three-wards-at-a-time limit. They only cost 75 gold and, believe it or not, professional supports buy two on every recall. It sounds like a lot of money, but you will need these wards to combat enemy vision, take objectives safely, avoid ganks and save lives. Think of it this way – if you could avoid your death and the death of your ADC for a measly 75 gold, would you spend it? Many supports do not buy a sixth item so that they can, instead, keep a slot free to keep buying control wards late into the game. This is especially beneficial if the enemy support doesn’t do the same thing; and they often do not, outside of professional play. 👁 Watchful Wardstone x 👁 Vigilant Wardstone x

I will differentiate between General Wards and Situational Wards in this guide.

General wards are not placed at any specific time. You don't expect anything is going to happen around the river soon, per se, but a general ward ensures that you will notice if something DOES happen. General wards cover larger spaces, like the River, and give you vision of typical ganking paths and objectives.

A situational ward isn't like that. You place these hot and fast when you need wards in a specific area at a specific time. For example, a fight is brewing the top lane jungle. You need wards in the brush there or the pathways around there - and general wards no longer matter. Who cares if the Dragon pit is warded - the fight will be HERE, so they won't be doing Dragon for sure. It is far more important to have wards ready for the situation that you need them for than for them to guard faraway bits of the map that are currently irrelevant for you.
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"bla bla bla warding, let me see some maps" ok fine, here you go.


Situational Wards - When doing Baron

When you are doing Baron you want to have wards that will give away the enemy team if they try to come near Baron. As a member of blue team, the enemy will usually come from behind the Baron pit since that's where their base is. I've placed 6 wards on this map, which obviously you can't, but hopefully someone on your team will help you out or ultimately they won't be necessary. These wards are effective as there is no direction from which the enemy can come near Baron without alerting you.

As red team it's a little harder to ward or do Baron safely because it is sort of facing the enemy team's base. But on the plus side you can easily ward over-the-wall behind Baron to make sure they aren't doing it. This ward spot is also useful when your team is behind and you can't safely ward on the outside of the pit. When doing it, you want to ward out their entire top side jungle, on their Blue buff and the brush near the entrance to the river especially. .

Situational Wards - When doing Dragon

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As blue team you will have the option of over-the-wall warding Dragon, like how red can do so with Baron. Helpful for the same reasons as above; makes it easier to keep it safely warded without having to go into the river. When doing Dragon, you want a lot of deep wards into the bot side jungle as that's usually where they'll be coming from. Also be sure to ward over the wall near the enemy tri-brush, as there will be a blast plant there which they can abuse. If you placing a control ward, it's better to place it a bit further from the pit so that it can catch more wards, as they will rarely go far into the pit to ward it (since it's safer not to).

On red team you will be facing the Dragon pit which makes it safer for you to ward it. When doing it, place wards directly behind the pit as there is a blast plant there with which they could jump into the pit. If you use a control ward, put it closer to the pit to make sure you can clear or disable wards that are inside; ones they might have placed over the wall. If their bot lane tower is still there, it's necessary to ward the tri brush as well. .

Situational Wards - Sieging

Sieging AKA going after turrets. When you and your team try to take turrets, you will need to expect resistance. Sometimes you'll just siege under the turret against a couple enemies who are next to said turret. But usually they will attempt to flank you from the sides and try to kill you for your attempt. These wards will prevent that. The map shows warding spots when you are attempting to get red team's inner turrets (yellow dots). The light blue dots are wards to place when you are sieging the inner mid turret, and the dark blue spots are for the respective side lanes. When sieging top lane there are only three entrances from which the enemy could appear. The tri brush, Krugs bush and River. .

Mid lane, the most important locations will be the side lane bushes. This will prevent their top/bot lanes from coming mid, as well as of course the jungler who can come from anywhere. Wards around jungle entrances to mid lane are also important since the jungler could appear from there too.

In bot lane you will want to ward the enemy blue buff to prevent the jungler from surprising you, and river for the mid laner. The mid laner could come from your tri-brush as well. You will want to ward the enemy tri-brush as well, because it's possible for them to attempt to blast-plant over the wall and flank you from behind.

When sieging the second turret the enemy is almost certainly in their base, so you shouldn't usually expect flanking unless it's from the side. If both teams are somewhat even in strength, or the enemy team has a very strong member or strong engage, the enemy might decide to risk it and flank you. Just in case of that, you should place these wards around the turret. .

Bot Lane Wards


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A common mistake supports, and other roles, make is never refreshing their wards. This is particularly true for Control Wards - often placed in one, isolated, location and left there forever since they are never killed by the enemy. But it also happens with regular Sightstone wards.

Wards last 3 minutes, but that doesn't mean that a particular ward needs to stay where it is for 3 minutes or up until an enemy kills it. You might have wards bot lane, sitting there and still alive, with 1 and a half minute until they expire. But that doesn't mean they should stay there. When you only have 3 wards at your disposal, you'll need to make decisions as to whether or not you need wards there or whether them sitting there for another minute will be a waste.

If you've taken the bottom lane turret, and have rotated mid or top lane for example, you don't need to keep your wards down bot lane anymore. They are useless. So; refresh them. Place new wards mid lane and wherever you think trouble might occur.

It's very important to upgrade your Eye item so that your ward-carrying capacity increases. That way, refreshing wards is just a smidgen easier. You will also need to recall whenever you're entirely empty of wards; just in case a need for them arises.

These maps can be useful as some sort of loose guideline for where to place wards. But they can also loosely tell you where the enemy wards might be hiding.

When you're thinking about de-warding, you have to think like the enemy. "Were I the enemy, where would I ward?". Keep an eye out for where the enemy has been. If they were recently in your jungle, it is likely now riddled with wards and needs to be cleared. If you were recently on their territory, they have probably warded around that area too.

To clear enemy vision, make frequent use of Oracle Lens, Scryer Blooms and Control Wards.

When you activate a Lens, move quickly so that you can discover as many wards as possible. Allow your allies to, or tell them to, assist you in killing wards so that you move more efficiently. Although you may possibly lose out on like 15 gold, you need to remove wards very quickly so that you can keep moving to find more while your Lens is still activated.

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And that concludes my guide! Thank you for your attention & good luck pumping up those vision scores.