Here's what you need to know about Warding | Dota 2 Guide

Hello friends and welcome to my Dota 2 guide on warding part one this is going to cover a lot of Concepts that haven't changed throughout the patches it explains why we do certain things why we're going to use different kinds of wards the part 2 video will cover different warding spots like the best place to use here and there uh for the given patch and that's one I'll update as the game changes but this one is covering a lot of fundamentals that everyone should know beginners to experience players and like I said it doesn't really change so hopefully once you know this it'll be good for quite a while let's start with some warding mechanics observers provide 1600 ground Vision that means things like trees obscure the vision you can see downhill but not uphill this does not apply when you place it on top of a cliff because this is the highest elevation in the game and so now you can see over trees up and down different cliffs centuries on the other hand do not provide vision they provide true sight in a 900 radius at this time and when you put it down it allows you to see invisible enemy units and wards that means if you don't have vision of this area you won't actually see them we have Vision because of this Observer but if we kill it you'll see that just because I have true sight of the area doesn't mean I can actually see those because I don't have Vision there so true sight but no vision Vision but no true sight I say that but the sentries actually do provide flying vision for 12 seconds when they are placed this allows you to check on top of cliffs like so and deward the enemy things that might be up there sentries or observers but if you don't make use of this Vision after a while you'll see that nothing is there and so that if we do have an enemy come and place another Sentry we actually can't see it until we come by with something else to provide vision such as a spell like Crystal maidens Crystal Nova you place your own Observer you place another Sentry maybe you have your a courier fly over you use items to get on this Cliff there's a whole whole bunch but the first 12 seconds is what allows you to do this this is why if you do come by and find the enemy has a Sentry here you should click their Sentry and check down here you can even ping it for the exact time they last 420 seconds so if you see that their ward has 408 seconds left or less that means they no longer have Vision on this area which means you can place a sneaky Observer and they won't know unless they come back and check this area again in terms of the economy observers are free but they give gold and XP when they are killed so the gold goes to whoever provides the true site this is my Sentry so whether I kill it or an ally kills it I get the gold the XP goes to whoever is in the area so when I kill it the base amount is 100 and it goes up by four every minute XP is 50 goes up by six every minute you don't really need to know those values just know that you get a reward for de-warding not just the fact that you're taking away their Vision but you get a little bit of money back for yourself which helps to pay for these sentries which cost 50 gold but don't give anything when killed no gold no XP so in terms of value they both play their part but you want your observers to survive more so than the sentries Because The Observers they provide the actual like Vision like we're seeing now and you don't want the enemy getting that gold nxp plus there is a difference in the stock and restock times for these uh observers first century so the Observer you can see has a maximum of a four stock and they these restock every 135 seconds the sentries have a Max of 10. and they restock every 70 seconds so there's essentially a one to two ratio just about that you have more sentries they don't give anything away when you lose them and there is not such a pain to like lose centuries whereas if you lose observers you're going to quickly have less and less Vision we're going to get into that more in a little bit although the Sentry does provide High Ground Vision sometimes you don't want to do that I'll talk about this more in the next video but if you place it on the low ground and you have like a spell or a courier to check High Ground this allows you to cover more ground with your Sentry to look for observers that might be around here whereas putting a Sentry on The High Ground you are checking the cliff and that's great but some of these areas are just not very common for observers and so it's kind of wasted that's why the low ground is a little better if you can do it but sometimes you already have it down you want to check this Cliff you don't have a query nearby you don't have spells that check High Ground something you can do is just walk close to the edge of the cliff it's a little bit of a bug I don't know I don't feel like it's intended but you can sometimes see observers along the edge of the cliff and sometimes a little inside it like this but depending on the cliff placement you'll notice there are certain edges that you can't really get close to so for example on this Cliff it's this bottom side so you won't be able to see sentries and observers that are over there so be a little careful about this trick don't use it and think oh there's definitely nothing there you can only see parts of it but sometimes you get lucky sometimes people are putting their observers near the edge one way or the other and you can get it and if you get one you know they probably don't have two observers on the same Cliff so if you do get lucky you can kill it and save yourself an observer or Sentry or Courier trip all of that but if you don't get it you may still need to do one of those typical methods to make sure there's nothing on that Cliff killing an enemy Observer or Sentry Only Takes Two Hits but to kill your own takes six and the first five attacks will do one tenth of the health and the last attack will completely kill it this is not that important depending on your rank but the higher up you go there's a couple applications for this so for one if you know an observer is likely to die but you still need to place it for whatever reason you can attack it four times to set it up and now for either team It Takes Two Hits to kill that way if we do get pushed off from this location and I don't want them to get the free money nxp I can attack it twice and get away whereas if I don't do this I have to sit here and attack it six times and that takes time that takes probably like four extra seconds if you're a slow support without a lot of attack speed so you can kind of prep it when you have time and then leave a more useful application of this that you'll probably run into is when denying the spawn boxes from the Enemy at the start of the laning stage but I might actually want this Camp so rather than have to sit here and attack it for a lot of uh time I can get it down to [Music] um sixth tenths Health left and now it's only two hits for me to kill that saves me time when I want to kill this later but I don't want to spend like an extra four seconds here killing it I want to get back to the laning stage as long as you leave it at six tenths Health it still takes two attacks for the enemy so you're not really like making it faster for them whereas if you do get it down to half Health then it is just one hit for the enemy and then you know you are saving them time here's a summary of those mechanics plus a couple bonus ones they're pretty straightforward so just feel free to read this on your own time you don't need to really memorize these exact values but I would recommend knowing that these sentries provide vision for 12 seconds that's a useful one and then the bolded points here are probably the most important Concepts to know to know when you're going to use different types of wards there's a couple questions you should ask yourself one what type of vision do you need there is superior Vision which isn't really obstructed so for example Cliff spots or maybe in the the Middle Lane where there's really not much blocking the vision and so you see a wide area this is obviously very useful because you're seeing all sorts of things going on compare that to a sub-optimal ward which is something like this one and when we're not standing there you'll notice okay it's kind of like blocked by different trees by like the cliff sometimes this one doesn't see as much that sounds funny like well why wouldn't I just want like this great vision you know well it kind of comes down to the next question which is how long do you need an observer to survive so Wards like this are great but there's only a few Cliff spots in the game there's only a few spots like this that aren't really obstructed they're great vision but because of their limited spots it's easy to check these so they tend to die a lot sooner than others and they don't last their full duration obviously not true all the time but as a general rule they will typically be found more often than the sub-optimal spots which pretty much cover the rest of the map which are not the cliff spots in the Middle Lane and we'll get into more of these in the next video but because you could put it here you could put it here you could put it like here here here right these are all sorts of different spots and it's not guaranteed that the enemy will check every single one so those observers are more likely to survive now how do you know which of those are you going to use well it comes down to the context so I describe Superior Vision Wards as Do or Die Wards so for example a Roshan fight is coming up I know it's about to happen I need to see what is happening I need to know exactly where Oracle is positioning so my team can kill him I need to know where the Enigma with black hole is coming in from the side so we can avoid that or I want to see them grouped so our Magnus can catch everyone seeing exactly what is going on is critical in those moments and it will decide a lot of the game because people are about to be killed one way or the other either we're gonna die in a team fight or they're gonna die in a team fight so this vision is very critical and I am willing to fight over it or completely avoid the fight because we are going to get wrecked so this is like life and death situation be ready to fight for them these kind of like sub-optimal spots are much better for scouting so I don't need to know exactly where sniper is standing killing this camp and now this camp and now this Camp I just need to know that he's up here and that's enough information for us to smoke come up here and when we get here we'll find him from there we'll jump him and we'll kill him I don't need to know that he's like right here versus right here once I come stand up here and I'm like there he is void Spirit go get him so scouting is enough or for example a scouting Ward down here I don't need to know that the enemy is here versus here I just need to know that three people walked through this area and they're rapidly approaching my carry and I need to tell my carry hey please get out I don't need to know that he's here versus here versus here versus here I just know where they're going and that is enough the fourth concept I want you to know is the idea of how easy is it to place a given Observer or to de-ward an area what is that opportunity How likely is it to happen because Observer and sentries are limited but mainly observers here sometimes you're only going to be carrying one maybe two observers and depending what you need you can count employees or whatever wherever but a defensive Ward like this one for example this is really easy to place as a support because we're on our own half of the map there's probably teammates nearby uh we can just like walk through our own like tower map very safely place this we can do this whenever whether we feel safe or not because the enemy team is all up or not this is easy to do compare that to a deep Ward I'm a slow support they are likely to have their own defensive Vision if they see me slowly walking into their part of the map and anyone happens to be here they're just gonna kill me and this is where a lot of support end up dying well I need to get Vision in that area and they just go at any point and they die no you can't do it that easily you kind of have to wait for an opportunity so for example a team fight breaks out mid and it works out you happen to kill three or four of them they're half of the map is very empty now because all the hero are dead it's very safe for you to now walk into the enemy's half of the map and place an observer so you don't always want to just immediately place your observers you want to kind of be holding one or two waiting for these opportunities that you don't know exactly when they're gonna happen sometimes you can orchestrate it like oh we're gonna smoke in there that's a little easier but sometimes you're just waiting for certain things to happen when they finally happen this is our chance to now come to the enemy's house on the map and we want to place an observer that is going to survive because it's not easy to get in this part of the map you don't want to just put something like on the cliff and then leave this area unless you do it doesn't work warding it's complicated because sometimes like oh we're gonna fight for Roshan soon then this Ward's fine right but let's say it's like oh we do that and now we're gonna go play on the bottom half of the map well now the enemy is going to come through here they're going to check the most common areas toward which is like in this area in this area and like boom they're going to kill your Observer and it's going to be sad rather instead of that what you want to do is come through here and probably with a couple centuries you have make sure they don't have defensive Vision right d-word their stuff so they don't see where you're about to place your Observer you kill off an observer here you come check here okay they don't have anything here and now they know I'm in the area but they don't know where I'm gonna place my Observer and I'm gonna put it somewhere weird I'm gonna put it like back here and they're gonna come through after we leave and they're gonna like oh let's check this Cliff right and they're going to come here and oh we better check this cliff and they didn't get it and they're going to be like well I know there's something here I saw Crystal Maiden come in but we didn't see where she placed it and she put in a weird spot and now they're gonna have to spend like five different centuries like is it here no is it here oh I finally found it right four centuries later you made them spend so much money and guess what a lot of supports they don't spend that much money and so your Observer is going to survive and it's going to last for the full six minutes and it's going to give you that scouting information you need to be able to make plays from there let's take these four Concepts and move into a new one which is the flow of vision and it might seem a little abstract right now I'm going to show you some mini map examples though in a bit and I hope it ties it all together so observers have a six minute duration and a 135 second restock uh that's the main thing to focus on right now what this means is that you'll get something like two to three observers on the map at any given moment so you'll place your first one 135 seconds the next one comes in you place that one 135 seconds you place the next one sometimes it's different because you hold your Observer for a bit and all that but this is like let's just go with this generic example so two to three and then while you're waiting for the restock of the fourth Observer the first one's going to die but that's okay because shortly after you place the next one then that second one dies and then you repeat right so this is the flow that at any given moment you have two to three observers and the two existing observers provide the vision to allow you to place the third Observer safely if this flow is disrupted that's where you start having some issues so for example you play your first three the the first one dies you go and place your fourth one but the enemy spots you and they de-ward it this is going to create a gap where instead of two to three observers you're only going to have one to two because that second one you place is going to die and you're still waiting for the next one to restock and then it's going to come in but then the last one's going to die and because this one was killed immediately you don't have two right now and you still have to make sure your next couple observers survive to get back into that flow of vision and start having two to three observers at any given moment the worst case would be several D Wards in a row so your first one dies by chance they get this one well we saw okay we just need a couple to survive now but then they de-ward the next one and this is going to create a moment where you have no observers at all on the map which makes the game very difficult to play and it's going to take some time before you finally get back into this flow again of two to three so the worst case scenario is that you lose all Vision or only have one Observer and that makes it difficult so as a support player I want you to know when you see this happening when you start losing observers you have to be very careful how you are placing your next observers so that you can make sure this one survives and it's going to help you place the next one which is going to help you place the next one if you place a very common Observer spot and you don't take the time to Dewar it along the way they are going to kill that one and keep you in this cycle of darkness and your team is going to lose a lot of control you have to buy like a ton of sentries D Ward along the way and make sure like they don't have Vision here they don't have Vision here they don't have Vision here so now I know I can safely place my Observer and you cannot put it on a cliff that is going to be instantly checked by the enemy as soon as they come in unless you have to like it's a Roshan fight like I said warning's complicated sometimes you do have to do this but if you can choose it cannot go in a common spot it must go somewhere where it's going to survive so you can start re-establishing this flow of having two to three observers at any given moment so in this mini-map you can see we have a deep scouting Ward and it's in a less common spot not on one of these Cliffs so that it's more likely to survive and we can see people jungling we can go gank them or we see them coming up to defend top and we can get out I only have one Observer alive right now though so if I want to place any defensive Wards it's probably not too hard right I just like respawn go through the map somewhere like that it's probably not too hard to place any of those and if I want to de-ward these areas still have all our Towers it's probably not that difficult if I want to move to the enemy's half of the map though that's going to be a little more difficult but this first Observer is going to help me so when I see a couple people here and I see some people in the lanes then I know I can move into here by having this first Observer it helps me place my next Observer whether that's going to be a defensive one oh I see them in here so I know they're not in my jungle waiting to kill me or hey I know they're all up here so I know I can actually sneak my way in here maybe check this Cliff first and then place a deep Observer somewhere here so that when this one dies I still have another deep Observer on this side now here you see we have a defensive Ward alive but no deep Vision so now I have to wait for an opportunity to place a deep Ward whereas this on the last map we had an observer up here and that let me know like oh there's people up there so now I can sneak into this bottom jungle I don't have Vision in either of those so I'm gonna need my team to help me push in I'm gonna need to wait for an opportunity to wipe them or I'm gonna need to see them all pushing into my tower here and now I'm gonna like quickly run in here and try to place another deep Ward but until I have one of those opportunities I can't just blindly walk in here or I might die so if I need to place an observer I will but otherwise I might hold an observer right now waiting for one of those opportunities to come into their half in the map and it did happen later on in the game so now you see I have placed this deep Ward and it's in a scouting location it's not on a cliff and this will then help me place the next Observer So eventually this Observer is going to die and at any given moment I can place another defensive Observer or if I want hopefully before both of these die I will use the information I have from this defensive location and this deeper scouting location and I can find an opportunity to place one in their top jungle again and then when that one when this bottom jungle war dies this vision from the top jungle will help me Place one in the bottom jungle here is a Do or Die Ward that I'm talking about so we're sieging this tier two and I do not want us to lose a fight here so so I'm going to place his Observer now after we take this Tower and we probably make our way back up to Roche this will probably be killed off pretty quickly it's a very common Clifford spot but it guarantees that we get this Tower safely or we get out safely without being wiped here and as you enter the late game it's very important to make sure you're very careful on these fights now if I'm feeling very strong then maybe I don't need to use this Observer I can put one a little lower down or a little to the side that is more likely to survive um but at this case my feeling was oh we better win this fight better be careful put this Observer I'm ready to fight around it I'm ready to protect it or we're going to get out alive for it it is very critical and that's why it's Superior Vision that may only be a short time now maybe it lasts a long time that'd be great but that's not what I'm going to plan for if I wanted it to survive a long time I need to move it somewhere else the last major idea I want you to know is that it's usually not great to have heavily overlapping Vision like this now I know this is for observers so usually you won't have this many but sometimes you do this isn't really necessary though unless this is all that matters like the bottom racks are down and all you care about is Roche and these two sets of Barracks left you can kind of do this but it's also like not great it's much better to have something like this which is to split up your vision and it pretty much tells you the same thing obviously with a little less detail but let's say you see their enemy carry walk through here he's not gonna just stand here so you're going to see a couple things you're going to see either him walk through here in which case guess what he probably just went from here to here figured that out two he might walk up through here and then he flashes in the lane there you go again he probably locked up like this he's not gonna walk up here and then walk back here that'd be really weird so if he walks up here and I don't see him show up here or here I know he probably went down here somewhere which means he's now going to go in this way or in this way yes it's not perfect that we don't have Vision here to see everything he does but you typically won't have the resources for that to have that many observers scouting every single thing so it's better to spread it out and see some of this happening and you can try to figure out the rest and once I know he's walking in this direction I then get to choose like are we trying to kill him then let's head over here ish or if we're avoiding him then you know what I don't want to go here-ish but hey I know he's probably not top so actually we can come up here because if he was coming top I would have seen him walk through this second Observer over here but since I didn't see that he's somewhere over here moving in this way maybe he's moving into our jungle maybe he's moving into Roshan um there's a lot of like different things you can extrapolate or interpolate when you spread out your vision and you'll notice we're covering quite a large area from here to here whereas if we only had two observers next to each other you could have something like this which yeah provides a lot more detail on like yeah you went from here to here and I know exactly where he is and sometimes you'll want this when you're playing this area and fighting in this area but it does only cover this part of the map which means I don't really know where everyone else is and doing other things that's why it's usually better to spread your vision out and you don't need to know exactly where people are but you just need that general idea this hero is Top This hero is somewhere bottom hey no one is showing that's a little suspicious that might be a smoke your Wards dictate what the team will do to an extent I know Pub games but if you guess at what your team wants to do play aggressive play defensive play around Roshan right I know it's not easy but take a guess at what they want to do and then you need to enable that with your vision and that will be the best part of the map to play because you've established a vision there now without in mind even if you want to do something full committing into it is usually not the best it's much better to spread out the vision so for example we're being defensive three defensive Wards along your river is actually not very good it's far better to have two defensive Wards and one on the enemy's half of the map because this will let you know when they're smoking into you which would have otherwise gone unnoticed because you can't see into the enemy's jungle but if you have one deep Ward you can either literally see them smoke because that's where they're going to do it on their half of the map or you're not going to see anyone in that Ward and that's weird that you don't see anyone in that Ward anyone in the lanes any one of your two defensive wards that means they probably smoked in that last part of the map that you can't see and now you know to be cautious so you can only kind of make that guess if you have this spread of vision if you put it all in one spot all defensive all aggressive you're going to miss some of this so spread it out that will give you the most information um buy your observers and sentries in a one to two ratio roughly uh this is obviously going to depend on the game but it's a very common mistake to only buy observers and not a lot of sentries you want to remove the enemy's vision and to make sure your own vision is going to stay up uh because like I said it's going to dictate how the game is going to go which although you can't fully control things will just more likely go in your favor if you have better Vision than the enemy because they're not going to see that your team scattered into the four wins all jungle on their own in the different parts of the map so they won't know to go kill whoever and in the same way your team will see that they're kind of scattered up so you have a chance to go do that and they don't do it okay maybe the next time they do it we still see it right eventually it kind of goes in your favor so it's really important to play this Vision game it will help you out a lot and it's hard to see I know but reading the map and all that we'll get into that in more videos in the future my final piece of advice would be to keep in mind that there's always going to be an exception to something I said in this video warding is very open ended and Depends a lot on the context of the game so I gave you some generic rules and I hope this video was a great framework to start making these decisions but if you use that and you decide actually I think I want this Observer even though I said like probably not that's okay give it a go try it out that's going to help you grow as a player and understand warding better but it might also just be right for the game even though it's generally not the best that just happens in a game as unique as DOTA so don't cookie cutter follow all the same basic wording it always evolves depending on the game that is it thank you for watching if you do want some cookie cutter spots though that'll be the next video keep an eye out for

Channel: ZQuixotix

Views: 28,387

Keywords: Quixotix, ZQuixotix, Zach, ZQuix, Warding, Observer, Sentry, Ward

Id: 0VBHpS1utoU

Length: 25min 10sec (1510 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 10 2023