As many support mains will tell you, they feel very pigeonholed with their builds. Sightstone is a great item–don’t get me wrong. It gives a support everything they need to do their job properly. They get free wards and some survivability that only gets more cost efficient as the game goes on. With the limited income that supports have, if an item they build doesn’t directly help them win the vision war against the enemy team, the purchase of that item is very hard to justify.
With this thought process in mind, myself and a few more support-oriented members of Cloth5 have scribbled down some notes on how we think Riot can help out the support role (and maybe some aspects of the jungle role) by increasing their gold income without detracting from the amount of vision they are able to put on the map for their team. This is where the new variety of colorful and situational Sightstones come in.
New Item : Sight Rock
Cost: 450
+80 HP
Unique Passive: Ghost Ward – (2 charges, 1 down at a time)
Unique Passive: Gain 5% of all gold that allies earn within 1500 range
The first, and probably most drastic change to support itemization would be a smaller version of the Sightstone, a “Sight Rock” if you will, that would be a viable or at least an item to consider to start with as a support player. By providing both HP and vision at a cost that makes it prohibitive for non-dedicated supports to buy, think of the item as the “Doran’s” start for support. What really would make this item attractive to a support player though would be the passive. As we know, Gp5 is a solid stat and many supports will pick up one, maybe two, GP5 item(s) nearly every game. There used to be the good old reliable in Heart of Gold as well, an item that helped supports immensely by providing some extra chunkiness early game if they opted for it over the Philosopher’s Stone in Season 2. While the Sightstone obviously has similar tankiness available for support players, by hard rushing the item you give up the gold flow you would gain from building the Gp5 items first.
By redesigning Sightstone to have a smaller part, and putting this new gold income passive onto it (which scales through the game) will help a support player’s income. With the amount of gold earned from the item being directly related to how well your lane is doing, the option to build this item early can help a support who wants to play a more aggressive game by providing the HP to do it and an incentive to make sure Dragon is controlled, towers are destroyed, and enemies are killed.
“Blue” Sightstone Rework:
Cost : Sight Rock + 500g
Same Stats (180 hp)
Unique Passive: Ghost Ward – (3 charges, 2 down at a time)
Unique Passive: (Needs name, maybe Dividend??) Gain 10% of all gold that allies earn within 1500 range
Part of the reason that I feel Sightstone and all of its variants need a boost in terms of economy is the normal “blue” Sightstone. A very inefficient gold-wise item for nearly the first 15 minutes of having it (assuming you are warding with it frequently) many supports still find themselves opting to go Philosopher’s Stone first and just manually buy wards because it is the more economic choice. By introducing this 10% shared income passive on Sightstone, there is now a choice that support players need to make: do they opt for the more consistent and secure Philosopher’s stone income, or do they go for a slightly more aggressive build in the new iteration of Sightstone? The idea isn’t to replace Gp5 with the new passive, but to make having an early Sightstone a more attractive choice for support players, particularly ones who emphasize early aggression and want to control Dragon or take a tower.
Ruby Sightstone Rework:
Cost: Sightstone + Ruby Crystal + 125
300 HP
Unique Passive: Ghost Ward – (5 charges, 3 down at a time)
Unique Passive: Gain 10% of all gold that allies earn within xxx range (1000-1500)
Aside from gaining the new Gold generation passive, Ruby Sightstone itself remains unchanged due to the fact that it is a solid item that fits the role of support perfectly, giving them additional vision and survivability that is a cost effective item for them but will not encourage solo laners to abuse it. There’s no doubt that the new gold generation passive may help junglers as well, but some junglers already build Sightstone and it doesn’t seem like that abusive of a mechanic.
All of these changes to the base sightstones are just the beginning however. Here are some concepts for a more “endgame” sightstone that lets a support’s power continue to grow even into the 35+ minute lategame scenarios.
New Item: Emerald Sightstone (version 1)
Cost: Ruby Sightstone (1550) + Philosopher’s Stone (700) + 850g = 3100
400 HP
15 HP Regen
10 Mana Regen
Unique Active: Ghost Ward (7 charges, 4 down)
Unique Active: Awareness: Your wards have 2 additional HP
Unique Passive: Gain 10% of all gold that allies earn within xx range (1000-1500)
New Item:Emerald Sightstone (version 2)
Cost: Ruby Sightstone (1550) + Philosopher’s Stone (700) + 850g = 3100
400 HP
15 HP Regen
10 Mana Regen
Unique Active: Ghost Ward (7 charges, 4 down)
Unique Passive: Your wards last an additional 45 seconds
Unique Passive: Gain 10% of all gold that allies earn within xx range (1000-1500)
The first idea is a simple one: basically a “super” sightstone that simply is an enhanced Ruby Sightstone. More HP, more wards and a focus on making your green wards stronger in someway, either making them more resistant to being destroyed or making them last longer, keeping dangerous areas warded just a little bit longer than most people are used to. Additionally, the strategic value of having 4 wards from a Sightstone vs the typical 3 is another strongly attractive factor to this Emerald Sightstone, providing a strong vision advantage once the item is bought.
New Item: Topaz Sightstone
Ruby Sightstone (1550) + Chainmail (720) + Kindlegem (850) = 3120
550 HP
40 Armor
10% Cooldown Reduction
Unique Active : Ghost Ward: 5 wards, 3 down
Unique Passive: Gain 10% of all gold that allies earn within xx range (1000-1500)
Unique Passive: Reduces damage taken from basic attacks by 10%
A sightstone for the tanky utility jungler or a tanky support such as Leona or maybe the currently extinct pair of Taric and Alistar. While the wards that you carry getting no buffs from ruby sightstone, the investment here is in personal durability for the support or even jungler. For this sightstone to be attractive to purchase from either tanky supports or tanky junglers, it needs health, resistances and CDR to allow those champions to live through the damage of the enemy team maybe long enough to get a second rotation of their spells off. A Leona who can get an extra E-Q in a teamfight or a Jarvan who can throw an extra E-Q out might be the difference between between a win and lost teamfight. However, currently, supports can very rarely get their hands on something like a Randuin’s, so having a defensive growth to the sightstone allows them to beef up for prolonged team battles.
New Item: Amethyst Sightstone
Ruby Sightstone (1550) + Kage’s Lucky Pick (765) + Fiendish Codex (820) = 3135
360 hp
60 AP
10% CDR
Unique Passive: Eyes of Pain: 15 Magic Pen
Unique Active : Ghost Ward: 5 wards, 3 down
Unique passive: Gain 10% of all gold that allies earn within xx range (1000-1500)
For the defensive option of Topaz for supports such as Leona, we have the offensive version for supports such as Zyra and the new fad support Annie. By adding CDR and the “Eyes of Pain” passive, an option for a support to become a secondary AP mage on the team becomes a little more feasible. Giving another build path to Kage’s is also a boon for AP supports, not that Twin shadows is a bad item by any means, but variability in a build path is always a buff. Even then, your friendly neighborhood mid laner might build an early pick and codex during laning phase and then pick up an Amethyst sightstone for the late game, which helps to alleviate ward pressure off the support in exchange for a small amount of personal power, given that this item is basically a Liandry’s without the burn and some CDR thrown on.
New Item: Rose Quartz Sightstone
Ruby Sightstone (1550) + Philosopher’s Stone (700)+ 850g = 3100
400 hp
10 HP Regen
15 Mana Regen
Unique Passive: Gain 10% of all gold that allies earn within xx range (1000-1500)
Unique Passive: Your wards are granted truesight for the first 10 seconds of their duration.
Unique Active: 5 ward charges, 3 down
Probably the most game changing sightstone, the Rose Quartz Sightstone places wards that are pink wards for the first 10 seconds before becoming green wards for the rest of their duration. After toying around with a sweeper styled item for Summoner’s Rift or even an item that granted a champion truesight for X amount of seconds, a sightstone that drops limited duration pink wards seemed like the most feasible solution. As a counter to certain stealth champions or the amount of wards put out by an Emerald Sightstone, the Rose Quartz Sightstone is a powerful offensive minded sightstone for supports who simply need to see what they need to CC, such as Lulu or Nami. While not a direct replacement for oracles nor a hard counter to the Emerald Sightstone’s ability to put more wards down, the Rose Quartz sightstone allows supports to be alleviated of dedicating an inventory slot to pink wards in the late game.
The new sightstones are a good step towards maybe allowing supports to itemize differently every game after picking up their core item. Instead of attempting to replace the sightstone or make it a nerfed item, the idea is to make the sightstone a core that you make the rest of your build around, like an AP mage’s Deathcap or a Marksman’s Infinity Edge, both of which are built on a large majority of those classes of champions. Those two items, along with the Sightstone and it’s reworks, are simply items that make those champions do their job in the most optimal way, in addition with complementing or scaling with the rest of their items. This what this Sightstone rework aims to do, make a powerful item that scales with the champion through the game in order to help them do their job the best that they can.
