Ward of Revelation

[Spazzdude]

To put it simply, I do not understand why there is a 90 second cooldown at the beginning of the game for the initial purchase of rev wards. This creates the inability to counter wards of sight as well as a hero or two early in the lane phase. One could say this is the precise reason for the wait time but I fail to see just how this is the case.

Way back in patch 2.1.4 teams were introduced to the free courier. I bring this up because many individuals tell me this is the reason rev wards are locked out for the first 90 seconds. Claiming that this added 200 free gold to a team's starting amount, which is true. The supports no longer had to split the cost of 400 for a courier & wings. Back then the supports usually coughed up 600 gold between themselves for their team; 200 for courier, 200 for wings, & 200 for a stack of 2 wards seeing as you could not buy them individually at the time.

So now with a spare 200 gold a decision had to be made. Either buy another stack of wards of sight [again, this was before a team was limited to 2 at match start] or buy a set of rev wards to counter your opponents sight. The latter option often secured your teams mid would win the rune battle as well as keeping enemy sight to a minimum so your mid can roam freely upon grabbing said runes. Which teams did to great effect. Countering your opponents wards that early in the game really hurt their team because it asked the supports, who because of buying courier, wings, wards, had almost no stat items and generic regen to live off of in their lanes. It asked them possibly take creep kills out of their lanemate's mouth to scrap up 200 gold to get sight back up.

Now later in patch 2.2.4, we were introduced to both the the ward cooldown and maximum in stock in the shop. This made it so a team is allowed 2 wards of sight for the first 2 minutes & 30 seconds of the match and no rev wards for the first 90 seconds of the match. This succeeded in making wards of sight which were [and still are] the single most powerful item in the game even better. You could no longer counter any wards placed in your team's jungle to prevent pulling until after 90 seconds, which is 2 neutral spawns. It also allowed the enemy team to block 2 neutral spawns if they feel hindering a jungle hero is more potent than early rune sight.

While one can argue the this only block 2 possible creep spawns for 90 seconds, I still do not see an effective reason for that 90 second void. If a team decides to buy early rev wards they are effectively making that sacrifice. They are paying the gold for the wards of revelation to remove an an enemy teams sight. They are paying to keep their jungle spawning to allow their jungle hero to keep up or get an early essential item.

This also went a long way to helping mid heroes who didn't necessarily need help. A couple of examples: You now have to wait 90 seconds to counter a ward of sight that Devourer has placed on your hill mid to land hooks. It allows Tremble a certain level of dominance in mid while on his mound. Not every hero can stand on his mound and go toe to toe with him inside it to maintain sight. If that's the case, he gets to have his way with the first 4 creep waves.

You could say the enemy team is sacrificing a wards by placing it mid instead of at rune, creep block, etc, but the battle mid often determines the direction of a game. Even so, why am I not given the option to sacrifice 100 gold to remove that advantage? The 90 second timer seems unnecessary and I do not see a reason why wards of revelation cannot have the same conditions as wards of sight do, starting off with 2 of 4 and having a cooldown of 2 minutes and 30 seconds.

[[TECH]YawningAngel]

Approved.

[[USA]HairyPanis]

You've made the 90 second window that wards can be uncountered imbalanced, when really it just evolves the game in a different way.

Think about it: the rune spawns at 2:00 and mid has no real way to gank side lanes without a rune before ~5:00 (when they hit level 6). If anything, wards give mid an easier time and safer farm because roamers have a hard time getting around good warding.

Not many heroes (scout, tremble, keeper) can go invisible early in the laning phase. Scout is not really an issue and keeper jungles. Tremble needs to be balanced around the new ward restriction (which he obviously hasn't). You hit the nail on the head on this point really, but it's rather insignificant to the whole picture.

Furthermore, teams must now make a choice between giving vision of the river/lane OR warding jungle camps. Now rev wards don't appear on the scene until 90 seconds, that's a whole 2 creep stacks that are guaranteed to be blocked by the sight ward. That can be devastating to a predator or legionnaire if you block the easy camp (usually they stack it at :55 to get instant level 2) or ease the pressure off the hard lanes by warding the creep pull for the first 90 seconds.

Just my 5c

[GregerMoek]

Scout has ways to counter wards from min -1.

This change to wards was needed because warding early on was not really possible with the amounts of gold supports get as a consequence from courier change and assist gold change. Another thing that also had effect on how warding was done was that you can now buy wards one by one instead of two by two only. Making it less of a sacrifice so to say if you only want one ward/one counterward.

Basically before the 2by2ward change you had to sacrifice 400g on wards if you wanted both rev and sight wards, afterwards you could just by one of each or two of one type and one of the other and other flexible alternatives that just made things like having regen or minor stats in your supports easier early on.

Now you actually have a decision of where to place your wards and they won't be useless early on unless the enemy has a clever Scout.
Before it was so easy to remove wards early on and through the whole game, if you notice somehting is warded you could just buy one rev ward where you think it matters most and shrug it off very easily.


Multiple subtle things made this change needed, on a larger scale it is a consequence of all the added economical power to supports.

Another thing was that it favoured turtle-lanes too much, because what other lane than a turtle lane can benefit from knowing that no wards are nearby to see how potentially vulnerable your precious carry is? This is perhaps not the most obvious thing, but it had an effect on this too, perhaps not a big one but a small one.

[[StrN]Ynuuyasha]

i didnt like the ward changes,but the 0 stock for the rev wards from the very beginning was what really got me.
i know courier is free now (another change i dislike) but before buying the courier was part of what made the difference from the very beginning of the game between an organized team and a 4 carries-1 initiator fail-team. as a support player i even had to buy wards and courier to let the rest of the team go ahead while i support them from the very beginning.

ever since this change was made, u cant no longer counter and give that 'another smart move' that your team needs to get advantage against the other team. i won many games by countering those wards just coz i simply knew that the sacrifice was worth for my mid laning teammate. therefore making such an investment to take them down was something that the other team can also do if they want to win.

now ever since rev wards come this late u cant stack and pull til min 3 unless you are scout. this makes the game way more boring and was a bad change in my opinion.

u already took the 0:00 min rune (thats ok imo) and also give a free courier to a team that may not deserve it if they dont intend to play-to-win.

now i even enjoy playing dota 2 over hon just coz (imo) the bad ward change you made.
i like to play mainly as a support and stacking and countering wards its part of what a support hero is supposed to do in order to let the rest of the team get the advantage that they need.

bad move S2. I'm dissapointed

[[StrN]Ynuuyasha]

oh ya. makes some changes. unless to let us buy ONE REV ward from the very beginning. that would make us make a decision if we want either counter the pulling spot or countering the ward at the river. and i'd love this game again

[Anakha]

Really? That would be the tipping point to make you love this game again? REALLY?

[[MGUS]Mocca]

Really? That would be the tipping point to make you love this game again? REALLY?

Sometimes a tiny change can be the straw that break's the camels back, u know?

[Anakha]

Sometimes, it only requires the deletion of Ra. Or Valk. Anyways, I digress.

Mostly comes down to free courier inspiring this necessity of not having rev wards immediately available.

[[AnaI]Lillekrolle]

I agree that the buying of one rev ward would fix alot of things. You can even missplace your counterward if they have warded correctly. I.E miss the spot at river and you can miss the one at the jungle, where they can ward behind the treeline or more up towards the lane. If you place the counterward in the middle of the camp to get vision over both, it will still block your own camp, so there is desitions to be made there to. Not only "place rev ward, gg u counterd it."

[Anakha]

It's called a flying courier. Most teams have one at the start of the game since wards are bought in singles and you get a free ground courier to start with.

[[IaF]Skyve]

I agree that the buying of one rev ward would fix alot of things. You can even missplace your counterward if they have warded correctly. I.E miss the spot at river and you can miss the one at the jungle, where they can ward behind the treeline or more up towards the lane. If you place the counterward in the middle of the camp to get vision over both, it will still block your own camp, so there is desitions to be made there to. Not only "place rev ward, gg u counterd it."

You can't miss the spot they warded in. The best thing they can do is force you to block the camp for 3 minutes, but even that shouldn't happen.

[LeftFoot]

I agree with this post. I don't really have much to add to what has already been said but i think the best outcome would be exactly how it is, except there is 1 rev ward in stock at beginning. The 90 sec (after 0:00) before more restock would still be in.

[[VGG]Glibber`]

You can't miss the spot they warded in. The best thing they can do is force you to block the camp for 3 minutes, but even that shouldn't happen.

This.



And really, the ward changes were good for the game. I already called it back then that a few heros got indirectly buffed (most notably tremble) by the change, but still the changes were good. With the introduction of the free courier + single wards it was pretty mindless to counterward the pull. No tactics or brains involved.

Also, with the change in metagame (and the ward stacks), teams have different options to use their wards.

All for the good of the game.


Edit:
You really want back to having a jungler or 2nd support abuse the crap out of the pull from start? I'd rather not.

[[SSBC]Balls`n`Nuts]

As i recall the problems with buying 4(2rev, 2normal) wards from start was the fact that you could block both medium camps and small camp in jungle and still have a rune ward. if you then staked one if the big camps typically the one near lane you made it impossible for anyone but parasite to do efficient jungling.
Also a senseless battle of warding and counter warding was engaged, wards didn't last more than 30 secs and really it was a downside to both teams supporters. loosing "senseless" gold seeming they bot have 2 wards to counter. Delaying it takes the heat out of it at least.
Also heroes like scout, engineer, tremble and EW got more viable supposedly because they could either not get countered or they could counter a ward.
Therefore I suggest leaving it as it is. However i would like to see a CD on eye as it complete obsoletes counter-wards.
At least Currier should not be able to fly around with it.

[[EHOP]Epidemilk]

Scout has ways to counter wards from min -1.

Maybe they meant to give him the tiniest bit of competitive value :X

[Ogrim]

Sometimes, it only requires the deletion of Ra. Or Valk. Anyways, I digress.

Mostly comes down to free courier inspiring this necessity of not having rev wards immediately available.

Its also about not completely ward blocking the enemy jungle and allowing comp players to use jungling heroes in comp play.

[Anakha]

uh....wanna think about what you just said a little more, perhaps? :/

[[VGG]Glibber`]

Why are you guys acting like an oph, para or keeper and the likes couldn't buy rev wards themselves.. or jungle in the other jungle? (not every jungler is suited for going the enemies' jungle but still)
Or just counterward the pull (and maybe another camp) and spam pull from start? Etc.


I wouldn't mind tremble getting adjusted to this. But please leave the wards as they are.

[[TECH]Gorb]

Archived.