Need help with warding.

Hello all. As someone who enjoys playing support, I understand it is my job to buy and place wards. The problem is, I'm still pretty new to the game, and my warding ability seems to be fairly weak. At least, that's the impression I get when people holler at me. So I have a few questions about warding that I'd like answered. I do plan on doing some research on it, but figured I'd ask since I'm already here.

1. What areas should I be warding? Are there certain areas I should be warding at certain points in the game?

2. During the lane phase, should I only ward my lane? Or should I be warding for all lanes? If I'm to ward all lanes, what is the best way to get around? Constantly buying port scrolls doesn't seem too efficient.

3. Is there any point in the game I should stop warding? I'm pretty sure I should always be warding, but I'd like to make sure.

These are all the questions I have. I'd also appreciate any other tips outside the scope of these. Any links to guides would also be great.

One last non-ward question: Is there a viable way to play a support Tusk? I like playing as him, but he doesn't seem to fit my preferred role. I'm starting to think it isn't viable.

I'll answer these questions in order of difficulty.

4. If Alchemist support is viable, Tusk support may be too. He does have stuns and nukes. But in casual pub games, don't play him as a support. If you're underfarmed and underleveled and your principle stun is to roll you into the enemy team, well that's just bad.

3. Never stop warding. The last ward you should place is in front of their fountain so you get vision when you fountain camp the enemy team.

1+2. This all depends on your lanes and their lineup. For example, if they have a solo offlane, you do not need the rune ward on that side. HOWEVER, if the mid is a highly mobile ganker like Pudge, QoP, Puck, etc., then you need to put a ward there when mid hits level 6, to see the entrance to your own jungle and to protect your carry. You should have ward here for the rest of the game. Especially if you're Radiant, this ward is needed to spot Roshan attempts. In the laning phase, you should put a rune ward on your offlane side instead.

There are too many permutations of lanes for me to go through. But basically think logically which lane needs to be defensively warded, plus one rune ward is necessary all the time. Another necessary ward is to block the creep pulls. If you're aggressive trilaning, consider an offensive ward in the lane so you can jump them from the jungle.


After the laning phase, you have to be creative.

Did they stack the ancients? Ward that so either your team can take it or you can gank them.
Are we ahead? Ward their jungle so your carry can farm it, and suffocate enemy team's farm.
Are they counterwarding me? Grab some teammates and counter them back. Or, place your wards on the less popular cliff. (Beside the ancients on dire side, above the secret shop on Radiant side)
Is Roshan up soon? Consider both obs and sentries to see smoke attempts.
Are we slowly seiging their base? Try and sneak an obs inside the base so you get some vision.
Do they have invis heros? Get sentry wards.
Is our tower down? Place a sentry ward in place of the tower.
Did someone on their team buy smoke? Sentry and obs the two jungle entrances from the mid and the rune ramp.

There are some nifty guides on warding that I'm too lazy to search up. They're a bit long to read since warding is rather difficult the higher level of game you play. But they do have maps to show you the best ward spots.

1. You should always ward both runes, especially Roshan one.
During lane phase - on easy lane ward just rune and hold creep lane near your tower.
On dire hard lane (I mean hard lane you are facing when playing dire) you can use 1 ward to have vision on rune and jungle, but if you are facing much ganks I recommend placing wards in both jungle and rune, cause it gives you more vision.
On radiant hard lane ward rune and use second ward to block pull camp or also ward jungle (I'm pretty sure you can do both at 1 time, look at jungle maps in google or guides).
If your middle is facing Pudge, or you have Pudge in team, make sure to place 1 ward on middle to help him hooking/prevent from being hooked (if you place ward on top of radiant stairs leading to ancients, you will have vision of rune and middle).

During mid game keep warding runes to prevent ganks, sometimes it's more than enough.

During late game start moving wards to enemy base (if winning) or to your base (if losing). That mean big hill (radiant side - between mid and hard camp, dire side - between top and hard camp), high grounds (every high ground that can make you die if enemy team attack from that side) and runes.

It's hard to describe on forum, look at maps in guides

2. Your wards should make your team safe and let them know where enemy team is, so it depends on enemies you are playing against. I always try to ward all lanes, at least both runes, cause it can prevent ganks and help your mid laner fill his bottle.
Also during lane phase your work is to make sure your carry is save and have good farm. Always carry a tp scroll, but don't use it just to ward and go back. If you are sure your carry isn't in danger, just go and place what ward, cause it's better for your carry if he gain more xp without you.

3. You should stop warding just after winning or losing game (that joke o.o). Also don't sacrifice yourself to place 1 ward, that means don't try to place wards when you are losing and enemies are running around your base, cause it's just giving free kills. Always make sure that you are safe, you can go with some1 etc.

One last non-ward answer: I was playing with support Tusk today and he was pretty good, he let me farm and become real carry :D I think that every hero can be support, some of them just shouldn't be.

The best ward guide out there is this

As a safe lane support, make sure you ward the rune spot on your side of the map - really your off-laner/off-lane support should be doing pull wards etc. If they don't buy wards at all, try and get over to their side and ward the rune spot before the game starts, do your own "side" on the way across to your lane.

Always keep buying wards, all game. As the game progresses, try to keep both ward spots covered (it lets you see enemies trying to get to your side of the map), but at least keep Roshan warded so you can see any attempts on him, and where the rune has spawned.

In addition, ward defensively (your jungle, high rock) if you're losing, try to ward aggressively (the same on their side). It can also be worth dropping a ward to watch your flanks when pushing or expecting a team fight, or taking on Roshan.

Thanks for the tips, and I plan on giving that link a read, as well.

I don't understand some of the terms used here. What is a hard lane? What are pull wards? What is obs?

When you look at map, bottom is safe lane for radiant and hard lane (sometimes called suicide or solo lane) for dire, same happens on top, it's safe for dire and hard for radiant. I will explain it on bottom lane - creeps usually meet at south-west corner of map, and radiant's have their tower much closer to corner of map than dire's. It make's radiant's farm easier, cause they sit near their tower, and dire usually can't farm, cause they can be easily ganked from jungle and should play passively or defensively.

Now about pull camp - it's camp located close to top or bottom lane, where players can stack creeps and then use them to pull creeps from lane and deny enemy farm and make creep line come closer to their tower. If any unit or ward stand in the camp (any camp in jungle), it prevent's the camp from spawning creeps, thus not allowing enemy team to pull creeps.

Obs mean just observer wards, the cheaper ones used to give vision.

Edit:
Favourite ward spots
I quickly made map with favourite ward spots for you, yellow dots are offensive/defensive wards, blue ones are rune wards and red arrows are pull camps for both sides, that you can block by placing ward inside of them.

you should look into finding mentor. Angleo bangleo plays a mean shadow demon.

Thanks, DzikaPanda, that helps a lot.