User blog comment:Willbachbakal/(Item Concept) Another Look at Vision/@comment-7709681-20140722034221/@comment-1330314-20140722095834

Thanks for the feedback! To answer your points:
 * While my version of Sightstone would make consumable wards obsolete once purchased (and it already does that for supports), the level and cost limitation means that, for a lot of champions, it may actually be in their best interest to stock up momentarily on consumable wards, which are considerably cheaper, than to invest 600 gold into what is essentially 225 gold's worth of vision in the short-term (though obviously a lot more in the long term).
 * Re: the issue of "forcing" players to purchase Sightstone: first off, this is already true of supports, for whom the purchase of Sightstone needs to happen regardless of the situation. Secondly, if there is only one trinket out there, you're not forced to buy anything, since you will always have that trinket with you. Thirdly, by the same rationale, the current advanced trinkets would be mandatory on every player, which is not the case: Sightstone, while extremely powerful, wouldn't be something everyone would want to buy immediately. I do, however, want it to be prominent, if only because the burden of vision should be shared equally among everyone, not just supports, whether they like it or not (and if contributing to vision isn't fun, then there's something wrong with the vision game in the first place).
 * If bringing counterplay to a mechanic makes it unviable, then the problem would lie with the mechanic itself and not the balancing, and would warrant a complete overhaul. I personally don't think a fade mechanic a la TF2 Spy would make stealth anywhere near unviable, and would in fact present more opportunities for skill expression on both sides of stealth combat, while also allowing for more power to be granted to stealth champions if need be (the lack of true sight being, in itself, a significant power boost to them). It's far better to have a system with lots of opportunities for soft-countering through counterplay, than a system that can only be countered by a select few mechanics, all of which are hard counters.
 * The problem with traps as they currently stand isn't just that they're impossible to detect, but also impossible to remove. Unless you have the relevant hard counter item, you are forced to have the trap around until it expires. I also think you're not differentiating between proper, well-placed traps (which are meant to surprise you), and very obvious traps you can either easily predict or have seen being placed. Although champions with invisible traps have a lot of problems right now, which includes their traps, it would be healthier to have stronger traps that can be detected in very specific situations (i.e. you know exactly where the trap is, particularly as the radius I proposed is literally a few steps away from the detonation radius), than weak but near-uncounterable traps.
 * I think the redundancy stems from the current model, not from my proposed changes: why have two different types of wards when you could just as easily accomplish the same thing with just one?
 * I made a more detailed response to your fourth bulletpoint in a post below, but my opinion on this is: the assumption that vision somehow defines the support's main contribution to the team, and that making vision more generally available would make supports obsolete, is simply not true. The main function of the support is to provide utility, and supports are far better at utility than any other role due to their abilities, not simply because of their items. If the power of a support were based entirely on their items, literally any champion could become a support and be as viable as traditional supports (which used to be the case a while ago). However, with the creation of support utility scalings in Season 4, supports finally have a way to scale meaningfully in power, in a way that still allows them to fulfill their goal of providing team utility. This, not the reliance on one obligatory vision item, should be the defining strength of supports, and already is to a large extent.
 * Also, Sightstone isn't the only source of utility that supports have access to: beyond their own abilities, there are heaps of other items (the support item trifecta,, , etc.) that grant significant chunks of utility in addition to actual gameplay. Making one item more desirable on everyone (as it should be, as vision, as opposed to more general utility, is meant to be a team responsibility) is not going to prevent supports from outshining literally every other role when it comes to providing utility.