Welp, as of 6.85 this post is now mostly invalidated, WHAT A SURPRISE. I’ll keep the rest of the post for posterity.

Update - 2015-09-24

Camp Changelog

Now, pretty much the only tricky new ward introduced in Source 2 is right here.

685

Which is actually still pretty good.

ORIGINAL POST - 2015-09-11

If you aren’t aware, the Reborn map has a lot of little teeny tiny terrain differences all across the map. Some areas are wider/skinnier, some trees are different, and some pathable areas are changed. This is a product of Valve recreating the entire map in their tile set editor. For the longest time I assumed that they just farted out the tile version when Reborn first dropped and decided to let the nerds of the world figure out what the differences were in order to achieve Source 1 parity.

For a while, this was the case. The mid lane river gap got shrunk down quite a bit, a few trees got changed, and a few cliffs got tweaked. That was about it. Now, Reborn is officially the main client and the one that professional players have to deal with even though the map is still far from a 1:1 recreation of the Source 1 map.

Thus, I feel confident beginning research on the modifications done to the map. I mean, I had reported what I’m about to discuss on the dev forums way back in June when Reborn first came out. No one said anything and nothing was changed, so it’s only fair to assume that the change is intentional. Right? I mean it’s not like if this post gets to reddit or something that it’ll suddenly get fixed.

Right, Valve?

Blocking the Dire ancients

The Dire ancients are about a bajillion times easier to block in Reborn than they were in Source 1.

Source 1 Dire ancients

The red box represents the spawn box in Source 1. Neither of the wards placed in this image block the camp. Here’s Source 2.

Source 2 Dire ancients

The white box represents the spawn box in Source 2. All of the wards placed in this image block the camp.

What changed?

Let’s go clockwise. So Ward A is obviously amazing for the Radiant. High ground vision, secret shop vision, blocks the ancients, and is miles away from the Rosh-ward-cliff on the southeast corner where most sentries get placed.

Source 2 Ward A

If you look at the Source 1 spawn box, you see that it doesn’t extend nearly as high up as Source 2. That’s why I included Ward B. Ward B looks like it should block the camp in Source 1, but it doesn’t. If I try to place it any more south, the game won’t let me.

Cliff Ward

By the way, that area is pathable now. In Source 1, I’ve seen many players accidentally blink into that little gap and get stuck behind the one tree. You can walk out of that hole now in Source 2.

Ward C is another result of the spawn box being higher. As you can see in the Source 1 image, it’s too north to block the camp. Wards D-F are because there is now a small gap between the back wall of the dire ancients and the trees from the bot lane. In Source 1 the trees are pretty much flush with the back cliff. There are also no more trees at the back of the Dire ancient camp. This means that if Ward F was an observer, you would be able to see into the camp and evade dewards if the enemy places only a sentry on the Rosh-ward cliff and not a sentry+observer.

Ward G is notable because that looks 100% possible in Source 1 and it falls inside the camp spawn box in Source 1.

Source 1 Blocked

I believe this was patched out shortly after the 6.82 map change because players claimed it was too difficult to deward. Well, it’s back now.

Also, shoutout to this dude for calling the 0:00 rune change in the same thread.

Lastly, Ward H is pretty filthy. The sliver of vision that it gives is so small that most people will probably miss it even if they do put a sentry ward in the right place.

Ward H

But wait, there’s more

I’m doing this nice and slow because I’m going to get annoyed if Valve suddenly decides to start changing things after I waste hours researching and writing. I guess it’s my fault for reporting things on the dev forums anyway. Maybe typos are intentional, or maybe Invoker somehow gets a new spell in 6.85 and I’m the dumb one.

In any case, I sure am glad that I was too lazy to update my warding guide to the 6.82 map because everything is ever-so-slightly different in Reborn anyway. I’ll be documenting my findings on this blog and twitter. Here’s a teaser of some more silly stuff in Reborn.

Source 1 Rune Block

This was a somewhat common ward in Source 1. Blocked the Radiant hard camp and gave rune vision. In Source 2, it has a fairly useful sister.

Source 2 Rune Block

That should be fun to deward.