Teamfight - Dust or Ward?

Hi!

With the increase of invisible items, and of course map awareness, should I carry sentry ward or dust to teamfights?

Suppose that my team are lacking gold, what is the most efficient to counter-gank or teamfight in general? What is more cost-benefit in those situations?

Is there some hero exceptions for your first opinion? Like ward for slark and dust for riki?

The CD of dust diminish the item?

Thank you!

That's a really hard and interesting question to answer.

I think if you're really lacking gold and inventory space or something so there's no way you can get both, you should prioritize sentries. Because the problem with most invisible heroes is not even the fact that they can escape with invisibility, but that they will gank you. And dust is not the answer for heroes like Slark and Riki, as you won't see them coming unless you're always spamming dust in the air :)

Also sentries will help you gain map control in the sense that they also deward, and you can always keep one on you and use it right in the center of a teamfight to mitigate the "not having dust" problem to an extent. I don't think the CD is the main problem of the dust, although it doesn't help; for me the problem is what I wrote above, with it not preventing gank attemps nor helping with map control.

That said ofc prioritize dust if we're talking of an hero like Templar Assassin, who will be invisible as a form of defense/offense but in the middle of the teamfight and not exactly ganking invisible, so you can use dust since it's less expensive, slows her and helps to make sure you kill her better.

I fear this answer is still very incomplete though, but I tried to be synthetic, a thing with which I have a big problem =/

My short answer would be: generally get sentries if you're a support, get dust if you're in another role.

Obviously this is dependent on what abilities your opponents have - Weaver for example can purge dust very easily once he has his ultimate, as can heroes with Diffusal Blade, or Manta Style.

Supports should have Observer Wards and Sentry Wards for vision control anyway, but you need to really make sure you've always got detection if you're against a team with some form of invisibility. It makes sense, and leaves you with more inventory slots. Plonk one down immediately before/at the start of the fight so you don't get annihilated and leave your team short.

Other roles can grab Dust of Appearance to supplement the work of your support(s) and ensure you're not caught short and miss a kill due to lack of detection. It's easy enough to ditch or use up if you're short of slots.

People who don't carry even dust when against invis heroes/ Shadow Blade users etc are letting themselves and their team down (yeah ok, fine if you're 6-slotted or something, but if you have free slots, you should have some detection, even if you're the carry).

Generally sentries are more "reliable", as they don't have a cooldown, they work continuously, and can't be purged like Dust - they might even let you get an easy pick off on a scouting invis hero before the fight starts.

Dust is more cost efficient, and the opponent can't escape just by leaving the area, and suffers the minor movement slow while invis. You tend to use it try and secure a kill.

Don't forget our friends Necronomicon and Gem of True Sight if you're up against serious invisible opposition.

This is a bit outdated, but you might still find it useful: Guide

I'm going to be succinct here... I don't have much time:

Sentries are defensive (usually)
Dust is offensive (usually)

Sando, I think there's a rule against publishing your own guides on threads, correct me if I'm wrong (I did it once and Xyrus, if I'm not mistaken, erased it and warned me). However, if we can do it like this, I would really like to know, so as to do it when on topic.

Thank you all. I appreciate the replies, and I will analyse it.

My worry these days is because the exploration of the inv mechanic - glimmer cape ):

Sadly my mirana can't play too much in ranked also.

Particulary I don't like to use dust, doesn't seem viable. But I'm changing that opinion.


Again, thank you and sorry for the bad english.

To counter glimmer, use dust. It reduces movement speed as well and it doesn't have a range limit. Now that dust has been buffed to only have a 30 second cooldown, dust is really the item for this. Essentially when there's a glimmer in the enemy team (and there always is), buy dust on your cores as well, not just your supports. You'll need multiple ones since glimmer is low cooldown.

Dust cooldown is no longer a problem since it got reduced from 60 to 30 seconds.

Sentries are meant to prevent heroes from initiating (e.g a Shadow Fiend with Shadow Blade who wants to walk in the middle of your team and ult you). And dust is meant to prevent heroes from escaping.

The rule is that you can't try to market or promote your guide via forum threads (I did this once a long time ago, and was warned appropriately). However that was not my intention here - I'm really not interested in trying to gather upvotes for an old guide, rather I'm providing a link that greatly expands the answer I've given and is directly related to the question that the OP asked - I'd have preferred to link to a guide written by another user instead, if there was one I knew of.

Thanks! So we can after all post our guides on threads, as long as it is on topic and useful.

I don't know other guides specifically about this either, but I did do a section on countering invisible heroes on my CM's guide. In that case I can just post here the same info I gave there, because it's relevant I think.

• Decide consciously on whether you need Sentry Ward, Dust of Appearance or both. If the enemy is permanently invisible ( Riki), you know he is at that area permanently ( Broodmother - watch for the webs) or you want to prevent a gank on you when defending somewhere alone, buy sentries. If you need to pursue an enemy that often uses his abilities to stay alive on the spot ( Sand King or Templar Assassin) or to run away (anyone with a Shadow Blade and other invi heroes), don't pass out on Dust, cause it will be more efficient (you should prefer a visible running enemy to a running visible-only-on-the-sentry-area enemy).
• Because most times you don't really now what is your enemy's style, and he may combine it with other invis on the same team, and also because Dust of Appearance has a use cooldown (30 seconds), I would advise you to purchase both detections, even if it means occupying two slots with the same problem. It will be worth it.
• Spend the entire game with invis detection items on your inventory. Once again, it will be worth it.
• Share your invis detection with your teammates. For instance, if the game begins and you realize the invis foe is pissing out everybody on another lane, you may want to TP there to give a hand and a Sentry Ward. Or just buy the sentries and drop them from your stash or put them on the Courier for your friends to get them.
• Everytime a fight is sure to happen, place a sentry on its hedges or in the center of it. That invisible enemy is going to be around sooner or later.

Yep, I think if you do it in context, appropriately and good conscience it's "ok", but it's still ultimately up the mods to decide where the line is and if you've crossed it.

I certainly don't think it's a problem to do what you've done and take an appropriate snippet from it - there's no need to rewrite something if you've already done something good. The line is maybe if you went "there's a post broadly about offlaners, so I'm going to try and shoehorn my new guide in with spangly colours and big arrows pointed at it" :).

The other option you have is to add links to your guides into your sig - again provided it didn't take up half the screen every time you posted :).