Diigiscuss: Sightstone

Season three introduced a number of new items for summoners to play around with; an attempt to make builds more diverse and customizable to ones play style. Some items are staples in some current builds, others you almost never see, and even more I think are open for debate on whether or not they’re even worth it to purchase them. One item, in particular, however, is always thrown up for discussion.

Sightstone costs 700 gold, gives you 100 extra health, and a passive that lets you leave the fountain with five charges attached to it, these charges being the number of wards you have held, BUT you may only place two down at a time. If a third is placed, the oldest ward you placed will vanish and be replaced with a new one in the new spot. Sightstone can be then upgraded to the Ruby Sightstone, via a Ruby Crystal.

Ruby Sightstone gives you 300 health, the ability to place three wards, rather than two, and builds out of the Sightstone and a Ruby Crystal, costing 1300 gold total. I read this and was completely taken away. I was super excited that the support role was getting some love. This item was going to be an instant buy.

Then Sightstone came out, and I absolutely hated the item. The math would say to rush Sightstone before Philo. Placing a ward down every time you can saves you about 8.3~ gold per ten whereas, the Philo stone, grants you five gold per every ten seconds. So I would rush it. Building the Sightstone first, then moving into Philo, and then going from there. The free wards in lane were, and are even, still great but honestly, as a support, 700 gold is a huge chunk of money.

You have to place nine wards before the item starts paying for itself, and if you’re placing two wards every chance you can, it takes 14 minutes to pay off the item. Philo, takes 23 minutes to fully pay itself off, but you are also gaining the health and mana regen from its passive helping you stay in lane longer.

Another reason I’ve found Sightstone to be pretty mediocre compared to my original thoughts is due to some players trapping themselves in the mindset that you constantly have two to three wards on you at a time and not picking up extras. This isn’t the items fault per say, but I do find support players falling victim more often than not in this situation. Key points seem to almost get warded less and the over all map awareness falls. Of course, this wouldn’t be an issue if everyone is warding, though at lower elos and most normal games, this isn’t the case.

Let’s look at the flip side, however. Let’s say you are picking up the extra wards and warding what needs to be warded. Ideally, you have a pink on dragon, a pink on Baron, jungle entrances covered, and your buffs secure. That’s three item spots you’re taking up between the Sightstone, the normal sight wards, and then the extra pink wards. That is half of your inventory space. Plus, the Philo and the boots you probably own at this point. This leaves you with one spot for an item you can build for the team till you place the remaining wards.

I felt horrible that I didn’t like Sightstone. I really tried, but when it came down to it, I would just ignore it flat out, and rush into an early Aegis of the Legion, buying the wards flat out. It wasn’t till I started noticing that some of the professional players seeming to shrug off the item as well, that I not only felt a bit better, but then more curious. I thought I was completely in the wrong and here I am following suit with Curse’s Cody "Elementz" Sigfusson, Millenium’s Haïdar "Haydal" Mezidi, and Gambit’s Edward Abgarian. I noticed, Elementz not picking up the stone till late, Edward seemingly never picked up the item, and Haydal flat out said he doesn’t find the item to be all that great.

I got a hold of Edward on Facebook, wanting to know the reason behind him rarely picking up the item and what his feelings on Sightstone were. Do you rush the stone like the math says? Edward informed me the only time he rushes a Sightstone is if he loses his lane. If he’s winning his lane, he gets more useful items for him and the team. Taking items like Kindlegem, an early Locket, and even a Dorans Shield, anything with health regen, defense, and damage for harassing.

As far as warding goes, buy the wards outright. If you don’t have a ward, or one fizzles out don’t panic. It’s fine. If the jungler ganks you, and doesn’t pick up a kill, you gain more than you lose. While he’s wasting his time down bottom, the other lanes take advantage of this. This is another reason you need to build more tanky, according to Edward. He also very rarely takes the item in solo queue. His argument was the Ruby Sightstone costs, 1300 gold and with that, he could build three Ruby Crystals and be more useful.

All in all, however, I’ll bring up my past argument of comfort vs meta. I think whether or not you want to buy the Sightstone, when you buy the stone, and if you even do at all, comes down to what you feel comfortable with. After trying to like Sightstone for months it just never clicked. I still hate it and I still would rather buy the wards outright. That’s what I’m going to stick to. Do you guys buy Sightstone? Rush it? Bother with it? I want to know your reasons and feelings on why.