Reign of Gaming

Ed Ward often delayed getting Sight Stone at Katowice because whilst winning the lane, the ability to buy Vision Wards to destroy enemy vision grants additional positional advantage and dominance to your lane (who's already winning) and aggravates your opponents situation. Also, remember that Ed Ward (or GoSu Pepper or whatever you want to call him) is a scumbag piece of 5h17 KSsing any possible kill he can, so he naturally gets more money than the average support (at the expenses of his own carry).

If you're fighting a ward fight for lane dominance in lane, just get Vision Wards, but if you keep spending your money on normal Sight Wards over and over and you still skip getting Sight Stone, the more time goes by the more you're basically hammering your own ballz with utmost stupidity.

its actually worth more if you buy sightstone as your 1st item, before your gp5, i win many games where i have compelted sightstone and gp 5 while the enemy sppt only has gp5

That's what I like about S3. There is no build for supports set in stone. You have the option to go sightstone, the option to pick up one, two gp10 items. You can go aegis, but you don't have to. Shurelyas isn't a necessity, locket, mickaels or twin shadows are also valid picks.

There are so many ways to build support right now, I absolutly love it. I experimented with flask start into sightstone (pre flask nerfs), if my lane fell behind I tried going doran shield, I could go philo or turn the beads into an emblem. The choices are endless.

what people don't understand is teams need TWO sightstones instead of one. one falls a bit short in granting map vision. if you insist that the support buy additional wards on top of sightstone, you are asking them to cripple themselves to the point that they will have trouble getting aegis and other support items the team needs.

as a whole, the team benefits more from 2 champions with sightstone than one support with sightstone and multiple gold per 10. to add to the above, sightstone wards only give 10 gold if the enemy kills them.

I typically try to buy SS early, but also grab an early sight or vision ward for Dragon...

A lot of times you'll want 1 ward in river, 1 ward in the nearest brush... That only leaves you with 2 extra wards... 4 wards will still only last you 6min under normal circumstances, which is why having extra wards above and beyond SS is important...

One thing doesnt make sense in the article, at least to me. Why should GP10 be worth themself in a short match but SS not? Assuming you wouldn't upgrade the GP10 soon.

I'll have to throw my hat in that sighstone is the first thing you should buy.  I always go faerie charm, 2 pots, 1 pink, 2 greens, 2hp.  Buy sightstone, buy pink, buy philo, buy emblem, buy boots, finish aegis, and then finish from there.

.02

Theres one thing that I always see that is such a flaw of peoples review of the sightstone, and this article does not remedy this flaw. What I am talking about is that most people assume! that all wards are being placed and then they're done with sightstone until the old wards run out. However this is COMPLETELY and ENTIRELY false logic. This is how people are currently using sightstone INCORRECTLY. So heres my full example.

Dragon is up, your team wants to take it, you go in as the jungler, you ward by their blue, and  you ward the bush behind (the one that wraps around) blue buff. Your team takes dragon down, in 20 seconds, you all B back, you then run up the field, Ward baron, and ward their wraiths. This takes roughly 2 minutes from the time of the first ward (by blue) to the last ward (at wraiths) and you just used 300g in wards.

On top of that you may decide, well screw those wards, I'm going to instead ward their red/blue buff and baron, so  you then lay down more wards. THIS is the true use of a sightstone, to be able to use wards as you please with 0 consequences. Or for junglers that can ward jump who will place a ward somewheres just to jump to it once and then it is of no use. It is a shame that people aren't using this item to its full potential and instead use it as if it were an actual ward, when indeed, it is not. Use wards like a millionaire spends money.

Yes, this is a good post, and I agree. Sightstone doesn't just replace wards, it makes wards more expendable and spammable, and it changes the way people ward. People don't really feel the need to exercise as much discretion with how they ward because the "cost" of wards has already been paid and they know their charges on it won't be an issue before they'd go back anyway.

A similar situation I face a lot is bot lane when the enemy has just pushed up to our tower and now the lane is reseting. Jungler and enemy mid are mia. I'm scared of the lane bush nearer to our tower. Do I drop a ward in it to check if enemies are in there, even though it will be useless very soon after when I'm standing in it? With Sightstone, definitely yes. Without it...I don't know, depends.

In the games I play, extra wards beyond a SightStone/RubySS haven't really helped. I tend to buy regular wards until I complete the item and might have one or two leftover that I hang onto until I need to bring out extra beyond what SS gives, or I've run out but can't back to base yet. It's flexible, but optimal ward coverage being 'as many wards as you can afford' is a thing of the past.

Then again, when playing roles other than support (except AD carry) I grab a SS anyway quite often. Vision is priceless and its Health is fairly good on any laner that needs the extra safety, and combined with the support's warding (or even replacing it if the support is bad) gives luxury vision over optimal.

However, with Ruby Crystal becoming its component I look forward to SS jumping in popularity - it's never been more like the old Heart of Gold, and should start seeing much more frequent use at least on tops and junglers.

The reason sightstone is good isn't because 2 wards every 3 = x gold.  its because you can drop 4 wards between every base.  Sometimes dropping the 3rd ward and "moving" the first ward is worth much more, especially considering its not something you paid for.  I find that using sightstone to effectively push a lane, then taking tower, moving the ward and keep pushing often forces a response.  This will sometimes force them to abandon another tower, either losing another forward tower, or losing a second tower bot lane.  I like sightstone for its ability to take advantage of winning your lane bot, which can be frustrating otherwise.

Not a pro tip, but if you teaching a new person to support, I'll often tell them to rush sigh stone and try to use all the wards between every base, simply to get them to ward more often.  Sightstone encourages you to spam wards as opposed to tactically saving and placing them. 

If you are playing in a fast-paced game where the outcome may be decided before the 20-minute mark

There is no way to predict this outcome at the point in the game (around 10m) where you're supposed to buy this item. Therefore, you buy it.

Also, only a terrible team would start a game with the mindset of a rush all-in strategy where the clock is their enemy. All the other team has to do is turtle and it's automatically gg because they have better gold efficiency.

Not exactly. Teams aiming for a better early-mid game will tend to rush towers and keep them pressured at all times, while gaining the advantage by either shutting down the other team's late game, or just gaining a better advantage themselves .This is considered a fast paced game. It is by no means a terrible strategy, it just differs from the current meta.

The only thing I hate about sightstone is that ppl at my elo tend to buy it, and afterwards they don't buy wards... They only use the ruby sightstone wards