Welcome back Summoners.

I’m going to talk about Philosopher’s Stone and Sightstone as there has been some discussion regarding what to purchase first as some supports, like Blitzcrank or Leona, benefit from the early health more than the health/mana regen.

For the gold generation discussion i’m going to just talk about BASE gold generation, 16 gold / 10 seconds, so these times will be shorter if you have any other gold generation such as Quints, Masteries or Seals. This is because not everyone takes all of the gold generation options, like Seals, Quints or Masteries. If you pick up any of these gold generation sources, and I personally believe you should have some of them, then it will decrease the amount of time it takes for you to get items.

Let’s look at the items:

Philosopher’s Stone

Builds from Rejuv Bead and Faerie Charm

Cost: 700 gold (340g combine cost)

Stats: 7 Health Regeneration, 9 Mana Regeneration

Passive: Gain 5 additional gold every 10 seconds

Assuming we spend all of our starting gold, including the extra 50 from wealth, it’ll take 7 minutes 12 seconds to earn enough gold to buy philo stone. If you purchase faerie charm or rejuv bead with your initial starting gold, and most people do, then it’ll only take 5 minutes 24 seconds to get philo stone.

The passive will then generate enough gold to buy a ward every 2 minutes and 30 seconds.

Sightstone

Builds from Ruby Crystal

Cost: 950 (475g combine cost)

Stats: 180 health

Passive: Fills up with 4 wards on every back

Active: Can place 2 wards on the Field of Justice at a time.

Assuming we spend all of our starting gold, including the extra 50 from wealth, it’ll take 9 minutes 54 seconds to earn enough gold to buy sightstone.

Sightstone doesn’t generate gold for wards but allows you to get a small number of wards for free so it indirectly ‘generates’ gold by allowing you to spend it elsewhere.

Comparison

Philo Stone is cheaper than Sightstone by 250 gold

Philo Stone provides efficient stats for the gold cost – All gold generated here is ‘profit’

Sightstone doesn’t provide efficient stats for its gold cost – All gold saved on wards has to ‘pay back’ the stats deficit

Philo Stone has a better build path as it builds out of several items and has a lower combine cost

Sightstone comes with wards when you buy it while Philo needs to ‘generate’ the wards over time.

Much of my thoughts about these two items came up around wards but also around purchasing other items from starting one of these two.

Let’s look at the two scenarios:

Scenario 1

You’ve purchased Philo Stone, you’re working towards sightstone.

With Philo stone you now have 21 gold/10 seconds, 16 base + 5 from Philo. If we assume all the gold from Philo Stone goes into wards and all the gold from base goes into purchasing Sightstone then we wait for 9 minutes 54 seconds to pick up Sightstone. In this time we’ll almost be able to afford 4 wards as we get a ward every 2 minutes 30 seconds from Philo stone.

This isn’t a huge amount of wards and if you require any kind of fight around dragon you may have to place down additional wards outside of the usual 2 you might use to defend a lane. Additionally these wards aren’t available to you until you get the gold to purchase them, and go back and buy them, unlike with Sightstone where you have them all available and in your inventory, up to a cap of 4, to use and re-position as you want.

Pros

You can pick up Philo earlier than you can pick up Sightstone

It is easier to buy Philo Stone as you can begin with one of the components and wards

You have more health and mana regen than with Sightstone

You can place more than 2 wards at once, though you could (and probably should) just buy additional wards

Cons

You have less health

Scenario 2

You have purchased Sightstone first and are working towards Philo Stone.

It’ll take 7 minutes and 12 seconds to finish Philo stone using base gold generation alone. Given in the previous scenario we weren’t using our gold to help fund the buying of the Sightstone its only fair that in this scenario we don’t purchase additional wards so the gold remains comparable.

The benefit of this start is actually the ward coverage you’ll have at the start of the game and when you pick up Sightstone. 475 gold, or 525 gold if you start with 2 points in wealth, can buy you a whole load of vision to start the game with. However you might fall into a trap of not having any items until a significant time into the game because of Sightstone’s build path, which is two 475 gold jumps.

This wouldn’t be a problem for the non-supports out there but without early gold generation from minions you could find yourself without wards or without early items, which will further delay your sightstone purchase.

Pros

Early vision is strong

More health allows you to play aggressive

More vision that build 1 once you pick up your first items

Cons

Build path isn’t as smooth

Sightstone is picked up later than Philo Stone is, around 4 minutes later if you only take base gold gen into account

Mana regen is lower, important for supports that have mana problems or spam spells

Conclusion

I think I might need to reassess my builds as I tended to build Philo Stone first on every support. The only real concern I can see with building Sightstone first is the moment after grabbing ruby crystal. 475 gold is a large amount of money for a support and it might leave you behind. Plus you don’t end up with the enhanced gold generation of Philo Stone until much later into the game. However this will be made up for with Quints and Masteries.

For some additional insight into Philo vs Sightstone, check out Lolmath’s episode on it by our very on Trampoline Tales.

I’ve been sick for most of this previous week so i’m only able to get out a shorter post this week, I apologize now for the lack of content.