Are wards a waste of money? (In Soloqueue)

I've had really good plays with Ymir, he's my main right now.
The games all were fun, I never fed, I was always 4-5-6-7-8/0-1/something. I was full built around 30 minutes, I tricked my enemies, I had great setups, I even got complemented by allis and enemies alike, one guy even said "Wow Ymir, you do all the work."

Then I saw a Guan Yu buy a ward, and I thought to myself, "Hey, I'm a utility tank, right? I'll do my lanepartner a big favor if I buy wards, I should do that more often!"

And from then on, everything went to ****.

Every game I buy wards, I spent around 1000-1500 gold for wards alltogether (edit; I don't have to mention I'm the only one buying them, do I?), I ward at the upper and the lower exit points of my sidelane, at the crossway into the jungle so people can see further into it and we see where enemies are going. I ward Fire Giant, I ward Gold Fury.

Nobody I ever played with the last 5 or 6 games or so ever reacted correctly to any kind of minimap movement. NOBODY.

I even went so far to tell Arachne to please be so kind and set an egg where I usually place wards, because that saves at least *some* gold. She didn't even respond. To anything anybody ever said, btw, not just me.

Also, I think wards don't help much when my aphrodite pushes the lane under the enemy tower, I stay as far back as I can so the link doesnt break, and when a Loki ults her under the tower she goes "ymir you left me to die you so noob"


My question is, are wards a waste of money when playing alone?
I had great fun until I started buying them.

Rant below this line.

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I just can't stand it anymore. I'm going to become a troll. I'm going to troll every single game I play today. I will not buy wards, I will wall in the wrong space at the wrong moment, and when an ally comes to gank (IF EVER) I will be mysteriously out of mana or all my cooldowns will be up. What are actives? I heard Meditation is really good, right? I saw it on Youtube and that guy totally owned. Ymir should totally buy atk dmg btw so I can use my passive better.

Yes. You've finally turned insane.

But in all honesty, no one ever places wards in casual. Which sucks,except when me and ElGrizz play together we always buy wards. So yeah, going with a partner into the game is better than going into the game in casual with people that sometimes won't listen or know what's a ward. One time my friend got so mad after being told to buy wards, he got like as much as he could and just layed them in a circle around the person that told him to.

it is no waste of money but it isn't as important as in ranked or pre-made

Well there are a few things to note before I answer your question.
Before the patch where they nerfed the ambient gold and buffed the price of wards to 75 as well as allowing you to only carry 3 at a time a single tank used to be able to keep his side of the jungle constantly warded without having to ask anyone for help. However after that patch it has become IMPOSSIBLE to solo ward even your side of the map without you falling behind in items.

Another thing is that if you are playing in normal q chances are you are playing with casual player who don't really invest time into learning things like map awareness so in most cases putting down wards doesn't really help however if you go for ranked you really should get some wards not because it will surely help your team but just because it's expected of you but I wouldn't invest too much into wards if your lane partner is unwilling to chip in.

Bottom line if you are playing in solo q normals warding is not mandatory and if you ever decide to ward you should do so sparingly and in ranked while it's expected of you as a tank to ward if your partner doesn't chip in again ward just do it sparingly and never get wards over another rank of an item.



Hope this helps you.

I have to agree with levask, but I think you should at least ward the fg and the gf for yourself and than you can ping the map and give some voice commands if they are there ;)

Well, I usually play as Arachne, so I never need to buy wards! I just set up eggs around the jungle and FG/GF and I'm good! What's that? They can be destroyed? Doesn't matter, if they disappear, I know you're there anyways!

...

Okay, fine, serious answer: They aren't really important in casual queue, except maybe to ward the Fire Giant and Gold Fury so as to prevent your enemies from taking them unnoticed (although if most of your team is already dead, there's really little you can do). In a ranked game or premade, however, it's a different story: your team should (hopefully) understand map awareness and the importance of warding to track enemy movements. Typically, a tank or support role is expected to buy wards, as these roles don't require as much gold to be efficient as damage-oriented roles. Ymir doesn't need gold to stun and wall better, but Xbalanque needs gold to kill faster.

I think they're extremely important, but not to win the game, more to learn how to play upper level tank.

I play a lot of Ymir; when I first started playing in August he was the first one I learned and he's still easily 40% of my games. So I know where you're coming from; it's frustrating to play with teammates, especially carries, that don't take full advantage of laning with one of the top three support tank gods in the game. I cannot count how many games I've had where I present kills on a golden platter and teammates still can't take them. But I still buy wards and girdle and heavenly agility and do all the other uber support tank things because at the end of the day, at high levels that's what good players do, and I want to be a good player.

I don't believe everyone should play the game to emulate highly ranked players, some of us will just never be a Zapman or a Lawbster. However, even in pubs, learning how to play without that gold, how to support bad teammates and try to make up for them with a build still designed to support will be invaluable when you queue with teammates that have functioning eyes and some vague sense of strategy. Especially if you plan on playing high level ranked, if you can build the way that is necessary to support at that level, and can still compensate for kids that don't know how to utilize that, you'll only end up better

tl;dr yes, buying wards is worth it because you learn to build like you'd have to at a high level

1000 gold in wards? at 75 gold a pop, that's like 13 wards per game. That's a LOT of wards.

Usually, I buy 4 to 6 wards as a support role per game. I'm not super concerned about them early game, but I ward objectives mid-game, and gank-lanes late game. You also don't want to be spending time roaming from side to side just to place and re-place wards. You lose a lot of experience time by not killing creeps.

Mid game, throw up a couple of wards around FG and/or GF depending on where you are in the game. Late game if you are behind, place wards defensively to prevent ganks. Late game if you are ahead, place wards proactively to look for gank opportunities.

I don't think in a casual game you need more than 10 wards per game. That's just an insane amount of gold and time that isn't necessary.