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Wards are consumable items that are used by selecting them and clicking the ground. When deployed, they are invisible, and they passively perform some function. There are 2 types of ward: observer and sentry. Observer wards last longer twice as long as sentry wards and provide vision in a wide radius. Sentry wards disable invisibility on any enemy unit or object near them.
Filling the jungle with observer wards in the first minutes of the game serves 3 purposes.
1) Spot runes as they spawn.
2) Track enemy movements in the jungle and river, making it easier to perform ganks and to avoid them.
3) If you place a ward close enough to a jungle camp, it stops creeps from spawning in that camp. This is important because if a camp is close enough to lane, its creeps can be pulled into the lane so they start fighting lane minions. Such a camp is usually called a "pull camp." Radiant has 1 pull camp, dire has 3.
Sentry wards are used to reveal observer wards so they can be destroyed.
Generally, teams place observer wards in the enemy's team's jungle, so the enemy team can't use it as a gank path and can't farm or pull as many of the creep camps. Sentry wards, then, are usually place in the team's own jungle. They have to be placed rather precisely. If you mess up the placement, they'll either miss the enemy's observer wards, or block your own creep camps.
In each chapter I try to order the spots by importance. The farther down the list you go, the more situational the ward.
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1) Medium pull camp, standard
Blocks the main pull camp, gives you vision of the lane and 2 jungle paths.
Fairly precise. A little further back and you don't block the camp. A little further forward and you lose a lot of vision.
2) Medium pull camp, alternate
Blocks the main pull camp. Easier to place and harder to deward than the standard, but gives you much less vision.
Fairly precise. Drift a little bit right and you don't block the camp.
3) Leftmost large camp
Blocks the large camp and gives you vision of every possible ganking route.
Not very precise. Too far right and you miss the camp, too far left and you get much less vision - but there's plenty of room for error here. It's hard to screw this one up.
4) Leftmost large camp, alternate
Blocks the large camp. Easier to place, but less vision, and the walk from here to the medium pull camp tends to be quite dangerous.
Not very precise. Just don't go to the lone tree to the left.
5) Rune hill
Provides vision of the top rune and a lot of pathways, but doesn't block any camp.
Not precise. Anywhere on the hill will do.
6) Small camp
Blocks the small camp and provides a lot of vision.
Extremely precise, vertically. A pixel higher and you don't block the camp, a pixel lower and you don't get any vision to the right. You have plenty of horizontal wiggle room though.
7) Ancients
Blocks the ancient camp. Vision isn't worth much. Only useful if there is an ancient stacking hero on the enemy team (tinker, beastmaster, luna, dragon knight, sven)
Not very precise. This is about as far back as you can put the ward, but you can go as far forward as you want since you don't need the vision.
8) Defensive ward
Gives you vision of the bottom rune and any ganks coming from mid lane, and doesn't block any of your own camps.
Extremely precise. It goes on a very narrow cliff right behind the trees that border your large camp, as far right as you can possibly manage. Move a little left and you miss the rune. Place it on the low ground and you lose vision of a lot of paths.
9) Defensive ward 2
Gives you vision of the bottom rune and most ganks coming from bot lane, and doesn't block any of your own camps.
A little precise. You have a lot of room but don't go too far down or you'll miss the rune.
1) Magic bush
The standard early game ward spot. It blocks 2 camps at once: The medium pull camp and the large camp. It also gives lots of vision. It can be dewarded, but it's tricky for radiant to place the sentry without blocking one of their own camps.
Extremely precise. It needs to go in the exact right spot: A small white bush next to the large camp. Without the ward, the bush looks like this:
2) Medium pull camp, alternate 1
Blocks the medium camp and gives vision of areas which none of the other standard wards cover. If used in conjunction with ward 1 or ward 4, it gives you full vision of jungle paths. Tricky to counter with a sentry without blocking the camp again, since the block detection for this camp is huge.
Not very precise. This is about as far away from the camp as you can put the ward, but you have plenty of room to move forward or to the side. Lots of players put this ward right in the camp, smack up against the trees at the back, though this is poor for vision.
3) Medium pull camp, alternate 2
Blocks the medium camp, but gives very little vision. Safer to place than the above two, Tough to deward unless radiant can destroy some trees. If some radiant heroes are showing up to chase you out of the jungle before you can get to the magic bush, place this ward and bail.
Somewhat precise. Just put it right up against the trees and you're fine.
4) Rune cliffSame as radiant #8. Gives you vision of the bottom rune and a lot of pathways, but doesn't block any camp.
A little precise. You have a lot of room but don't go too far down or you'll miss the rune.
5) Small camp
Just close enough to the camp to block it. Just far enough out to reach river, so the enemy mid laner can't sneak past.
Fairly precise, you can't really move forward or back. There's room to drift left though.
6) Ancients
Blocks the ancient camp while also giving vision of the top rune.
Extremely precise. Put it right in between the lightpost and the pile of bones to the left of it. Go left towards the bones, or a pixel downwards, and you miss the rune. Go right and you miss the camp.
7) Ancient alternate
Sees the rune but doesn't block the camp. Use this if you want to bait the enemy team into stacking the ancients so you can gank the stacker and steal the camp, or if you need rune vision and you're not comfortable placing ward #6.
Not precise, place it anywhere in that vicinity
8) Magic crack
Blocks the large camp and gives vision of the river and bottom rune. Only useful against 3 heroes: chen, enchantress and doom bringer.
Extremely precise. Go a little right or upwards and you don't block the camp. Go a little downwards and you miss the rune.
To place the ward, click on the upper half of the second crack on the ground. This one:
9) Mountain
Gives you vision of the mountain and the large camp near it, so you can gank cliff based junglers like furion, batrider and dark seer.
Place it anywhere on the raised area with the eye.
10) River eye
Gives you vision of a bunch of the river, including the rune. No jungle vision. Kind of a **** spot early on, only use it if radiant was really on the ball turtling up their jungle before creeps spawn and you can't get in.
1) Above magic bush
Dewards the magic bush and the magic crack. Doesn't block anything.
Very precise. Go left and you block the big camp. Go right and you block the medium camp. Go up and you miss the bush. Place the sentry on the lower right edge of the brown patch of ground, and don't go any higher up than I did.
2) Below the pull camp
Dewards alternate #1, no matter how far forward or how far back the observer ward is.
Fairly precise. Move a mittle bit forward and you block the camp, move a little bit back and you may miss observer wards which are placed in the camp, right against the trees.
3) South of the runehttp://i.imgur.com/BtO74rD.jpg
Dewards the rune cliff and alternate #2, though you need to cut or burn down trees for the latter.
Not too precise. You can't move left or you block the uppermost medium camp, but you can move in any other direction.
4) Small camp
Dewards the small camp. Not much to say here. Stay on the high ground and don't go too far right.
5) Low ground near rune
Gets the magic crack and the cliff to the left (only radiant is likely to use the latter spot early on, but in the lategame it's pretty decent for dire)
Not too precise, just don't place it uphill or you risk blocking camps.
6) Ancients
Dewards ancients without blocking them. Like dire observer #7 but it's a sentry.
7) Mountain
Not much to say here, you won't be using this unless you're a cliff jungler.
8) River eye
This spot is only really important for rosh control, so unless ursa is in the game you generally won't bother with this. You need an observer ward or a flying unit to provide vision uphill.
1) Pull camp
Hits all possible ward spots, including the gay ones people hide in trees. You will have to destroy the treeline to get at the lower right spot.
Very precise. Move towards the camp and you block it, move away and you miss all the alternate spots. Get really close to the light gray areas, but place the ward itself on a dark gray patch.
2) Leftmost large camp
Hits all possible ward spots for the right side of this camp.
Pretty precise, but easy. Just put it right against the top edge of that tree. Move from there and you'll block a camp.
3) Leftmost large camp, alternate
Hits all possible ward spots for the left side of this camp. To judge which side the ward is on, you have to pay attention to how the radiant warder moves. If they never walked near the fireplace, then place this sentry.
Again, just hug the top of the lone tree.
4) Rune hill
Deward the rune and open up a gank path. You need an observer ward or a flying unit to provide vision uphill.
5) Small camp
Covers the entire small camp.
Very precise. Move towards the camp and you block it, move away and you might miss a ward buried against the treeline. Like with #1, approach the light gray ground very closely but put the ward just shy of it.
6) Ancients
Dewards ancients.
Exact same caveats as #1 and #5.
If you only have 2 wards, here's some ideas to use them.
For radiant:
1 + 5 or 4 + 5: Blocks one pull, gives rune vision, and covers all gank paths. The most common combo there is.
2 + 3: Blocks both of the big pull camps and prevents ganks, but misses the rune. The small camp can sometimes be pulled, but it's really hard and most supports can't do it. If the small camp contains an all melee camp (kobolds), pulling it is flat out impossble. When offlaning, I usually use this combo.
1 + 6 or 4 + 6: Blocks the easiest camps to farm. Good for screwing over a jungle carry like lycan, naix or doom.
8 + 9: Turtle wards. If you have a jungle carry of your own, you may want to protect them with these instead of using the wards to help top. Gives you vision of the bottom rune.
For dire:
1 + 2: Full vision of the jungle + 2 wards blocking the pull camp, but misses the rune. If the radiant support buys sentries, this gives them a little less time to pull, since he'll destroy one of your wards, think he's cleared the pull camp, then learn it's still blocked a minute later.
2 + 4: Covers all gank paths and sees the rune. If radiant has no jungler, this is probably the best.
1 + 5: ****s over jungle carries.
4 + 8: ****s over enchantress and chen. They can't gank, their farm goes to **** because they don't have the large camp in the middle of the jungle, and because you didn't block the pull camp, they won't think to try to deward the magic bush ward, which means they will miss the magic crack. You also get rune vision.
The radiant pull camp and the leftmost dire camp both have huge detection radiuses for things blocking them - bigger than the invis detection of a sentry ward. That means there's no one sentry placement that is guaranteed to clear these camps out, and you need to pay attention to where the enemy support went in order to guess where the observer ward is.
If you're on radiant, and a dire support runs all the way to the magic bush, he put a ward there, and therefore probably didn't bother with any of the alternate spots. So, deward the bush. If he walked into your jungle but stopped shy of the bush, he used an alternate spot, so put a sentry near where he turned around.
If you're on dire, the enemy support may walk from his tower and back out again, in which case you sentry the left side of the camp. Or, he may come from secret shop up the stairs near the fireplace, and hit your medium pull camp while he's at it. If he does that, senty the right side of the large camp.
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