A few questions about warding

The rune-wards cower the river, thus rutes to get ganked and those should be fine. If you are very scared put them in your jungle.
Put the first ward at 00:01

Generally, you would want 1 on a rune spot, and the other one on the enemy safe lane pull camp to block neutral spawn. Though the latter isn't really effective in low-mid level pubs because no one there stacks/pulls anyway.

Yep, Warding a Rune spot at around 0:03 will give you vision of the Rune Spawn up until 6:03, meaning you don't have to Ward there again until about 8:03.



Even in low-level games, groups of 5 friends will sometimes roam to 1 lane together to look for an easy First Blood at lvl 1, so no, it isn't a waste to watch out for Ganks at lvl 1.

If you want some other ideas on where to place the other Observer Ward look at your opponents' lineup:

If they have a Lifestealer odds are, he will try to Jungle, so Ward the Small Neutral Camp to shut down his farm, then around 1:00 you can try to Roam and Gank him, since most Jungling Lifestealers will take on a bigger Camp and be on low HP, making them easy to kill even at lvl 2 or 3 (they'll stil be lvl 1 though 83. I love doing this as Bane)

If they have a Pudge, put the Ward on a ledge near the river by your Mid Tower so you can see some of the places he can Meat Hook from. This is invaluable at night for players who aren't very good against Pudge since they can more easily spot and (hopefully) dodge his Hooks.

Not really. If enemy team has a jungler, you can place a ward in jungle. At early levels, neutral creeps deal good amount of damage so junglers are usually low. If you spot them, they are dead.

Big stars for this, for low level pubs-mid level Lifestealer is always in the jungle, he's very slow at jungling, take advantage of the fact hell be getting pounded, ward his easy camps, it shuts him down until he either Dewards or goes into lane and waits the observers out, do this especially if theirs a spirit breaker, for some reason that guy blows people's minds, you place wards and open up map visibility and he's effectively not surprising anymore.

Good to see new players wanting to play support (more then just buying a courier).

If you can, place the first ward on the bot rune at 00:10 seconds. The reason for this is it lets your mid player see where the rune spawns for the first 4 spawns (00:00, 02:00, 04:00, 06:00)

Ideally, be ready to re ward at the 6 minute mark. Ward top and bottom rune to give vision of rosh pit and river (so you can see the other team rotating for ganks, pushes etc) As well as one in their jungle (if safe) to give vision of people solo farming.

A quick tip with warding - early game (so 6 minutes for reward) try and get a gank on either mid or the off lane for you (assuming your top, gank bot) Tell your team you are on the way, counter ward their rune (if they have warded it) and go for it. Means more gold and xp for your entire team. If you fail the gank (ie. they run back to tower) leave straight away. There is nothing worse then people hanging around in a lane too long with nothing happening. Either push the tower or leave.

With Sentry wards, it really depends on the game. If you see other supports in the river, assume they'll ward the runes as well (which will stop your ganks from working). Drop one pretty much in the middle of the river with an obs ward on high ground so you can see. Shoot it (ranged only) and bang - you've just wiped their vision off the map meaning you and your mid can gank like crazy.
If you are playing against invis heroes (rikki, weaver, drow etc) then always try and carry some sentry wards as well as dust. Sentry wards go down when I know we want to team fight at a spot (so mid in the river for example). These wards aren't affected by elevation but don't offer much vision. However, if you drop one, rikki won't be able to sneak up on your team. Dust is if they engage you or try to escape a gank. As soon as they disappear, pop dust and chase with your team.

There are more advanced places to ward (up in their base if pushing tier 3's, easy camps vs life stealer, near their fountain for courier sniping) but a lot of them will come with experience. For the most part think to yourself - Can they sneak up on me or the free farming carry? If the answer is yes, you need to drop wards to stop them (Carries should still have map awareness of incoming ganks)

Good luck