what do wards do in DotA 2

Observer Wards -- provides vision of the map (breaks the fog of war). Can't see uphill, so elevation is important.

Sentry Wards -- reveals invisible units. Also reveals enemy Observer Wards (because these are normally invisible!). Does NOT provide vision in the fog of war. Elevation has no effect on these.

More info here: dota2.gamepedia.com/Observer_and_Sentry_Wards (there are dedicated pages for both Observer Wards and Sentry Wards.)


Any type of ward can be placed within the spawn box of a neutral camp (Ancients, jungle creeps, etc.) to prevent them from spawning, potentially denying the opportunity to farm extra gold and XP from that camp.

Also, Sentry Wards will reveal units under the cover of Smoke of Deceit, but they will NOT show up on the minimap like normal. Enemy players would have to be specifically looking at the spot where a Sentry Ward has been placed while regular vision is available to see smoked units as they move across the map.

Huge quality of life improvement awhile back -- if you buy both Observer and Sentry Wards, they only take up one item slot. (as someone who mainly plays support THANK GOD.) You can toggle it to swap which one you're going to be placing next.

Any player can pass wards to a friendly teammate. If you buy more than one ward, you have to hold CTRL and left click on the ward stack, then click on the friendly player to pass the ward and NOT place it. (It's kinda confusing at first, practice it in the spawn when the game starts if you want to make sure you pass it and don't accidentally plant a ward in the middle of nowhere by mistake.)

incidentally, if you want to play some time (or are new to the game), I'd be happy to hop in with you and smack some bots around or whatever. the game practically has a learning wall, not so much a learning curve... I distinctly recall grasping elements of it in chunks, feeling completely in the dark for the most part until I hit certain thresholds. (might've taken 100-150 hrs of game time before I actually had a decent handle on what was going on overall.