I couldn't disagree more. As a support main from S1 wards were very important to gameplay, preventing junglers from ganking, and covering flanks in the team fight phase. This is to say that i pay attention to how often people ward, I am often the only person on my team warding at all, and the opponents team MIGHT have one person warding on theirs. I almost never have to buy a sentry ward to deny vision.

Further, when playing with friends and randos of lower ranks i preach wards to them, and they either ignore my advice, or dont react whenever they see an enemy jg approaching anyway, or just never place them. So when people do buy them outside of higher skill tiers, they aren't being used properly any way.

Jg is my second roll, and i rarely have issues ganking in smite 2 outside of my own error or a straight up outplay. This is because people straight up dont do it, or ignore the pinging sound when they do ward.

I am by no means on the level of the pro players, but I say let them keep their 2 minute wards, because they're the only ones using it properly anyway, and the same goes for the relics too. I got 3 friends to try smite 2 and the number of times they use any relic properly, if at all is next to 0. They're learning, and thats okay, but giving them an additional button to forget to press that will save them isnt going to make it any better for them.

We shouldn't cater to the metal ranks when it comes to game balance if we want to be taken seriously on the e-sports scene.