The Benefits of Warding

Although warding is generally neglected at most levels, its effect on the outcome of the game is profound. Whether it's to prevent the enemy from being able to make plays, or allowing your team to make plays, warding has a major role in Smite. I'm going to split up this topic into three categories: Warding, Counterwarding, and Deep Warding.

 

Warding

It doesn't matter what lane you're in or if you're the jungler. If you are ahead, you should put some gold into wards. If you're behind, you should put some gold into wards. Yup, wards are always important.

As a laner, you'll want to ward at the jungle path intersections closest to your enemies tower if you're playing aggressively and pushing your lane. The point is to be able to play your matchup without being unknowingly ganked by the enemy jungler or enemy laners that are roaming.

If you're behind, you'll want to ward your opponent's likely jungle paths for roaming. Why? You'll likely be staying close to your tower clearing waves while your opponent has the freedom to roam and gank other lanes. The best thing you can do is make sure you know where your opponent is going, so you can warn your teammates of incoming ganks or even intercept them while they're roaming.

Also, you'll want to ward jungle objectives (Gold Fury, Fire Giant) so that the enemy team doesn't get an advantage for free. If you have vision on an objective and they try to take it, you can alert your team and contest the objective. In the best case, you'll be able to surprise the enemies, have an advantageous fight, and even take the objective.

Yellow = Defensive Wards
Green = Objective Wards
Red = Aggressive/ Tier 1 Wards
Purple = Deep Wards/ Tier 2 Wards

Items for Warding:

Ward, 75 gold (lasts for 3 minutes)

Sentry Ward, 75 gold (lasts for 90 seconds)

Eye of Providence, 250 gold (not worth it compared to other actives)

 

Counterwarding

While you can use any of the 3 ward items for regular warding, you can only use Sentry Wards for counterwarding. Sentry Wards let you see any other ward in their vision range. Why are they important? There are a couple different scenarios that come to mind:

- You saw your lane opponent go off into the jungle to ward and you have a good idea where he warded. Go place that Sentry Ward so that your jungler can gank the lane without the enemy lane knowing.

- You're a jungler and notice the lanes you're trying to gank are always backing off when you're on your way. There's most likely a ward placed in your gank path. If you need to make plays by ganking that lane, throw down a Sentry Ward.

- You've got that special feeling. That feeling that your enemies will go for the Gold Fury or the Fire Giant soon. It's time to consider throwing down a Sentry Ward to make sure your team is the one with vision on the objective.

(Sentry Ward and regular Ward)

 

Deep Warding

This is a strategy you'll employ when your team is making moves towards destroying tier 2 towers, or if you're crushing your opponent, be it midlane, long lane, solo lane, or even jungle. When you're putting pressure on the map and forcing your opponents to move around, warding far inside their jungle (at their buffs for example) will give you and your team the ability to make big plays.

You'll be able to steal buffs, kill enemies that are rotating to defend other lanes, and spot enemies setting up ganks.

 

Conclusion

Warding will help you not die to ganks. You'll have enough time to react as long as you are keeping an eye out with your ward-granted x-ray vision. You'll be able to kill the enemy in the jungle much easier. You will have much better objective control and you will have more control over the game in general.

 

Thanks for reading! The ward locations on the minimap shown above are locations that I've found work well for me. You may like a different ward setup for different scenarios. As long as you're warding, everything is good! Feel free to leave a comment down below and follow me on twitter @TenaciousDzNutz.