I'm going to try to make this easy to point out, yet in depth enough so that everyone knows what I'm talking about. Also, I will be posting this on the General Discussion Forums, because things get around quicker there most of the time.

Oracle's Elixir. 400g. Gives you true vision for 5 minutes, or until your champion dies.

Why did this change happen? Ward clearing/Teemo Mushroom hunting/Invisible anything hunting has become a huge pain in the ass this season. New items have brought out many new choices in build paths, which I for one am happy for, let's get that straight.

However, due to lack of insight or maybe just an oversight, wards are extremely overpowered as of now. I never thought I'd say that.

The Sightstone/Ruby Sightstone. We have all ran across this item once or twice in games. It's free wards that are refreshable and interchangeable. As a bot lane support, the faster you get this item, the "normal wards" you need to buy. Which is good, it opens up gold for supports. What's bad about this is what these wards do when they are hunted/killed. They only give a measly 10 gold. With junglers looking to gank more than farm their jungle, these easy and cheap wards force the enemy team to spend extra money on pink wards that'll just be rendered useless due to the Sightstone holder being able to just push wards around it, yet still gain a vision advantage. Or worse, they'll have to spend 400 gold to kill a 10 gold ward that'll never really leave. It'll just get replaced in seconds after the jungler leaves. And if the jungler keeps coming back for that same useless ward, the other team knows he/she is camping one lane, and can gain an advantage of always knowing the enemy roamer is in one spot trying to help one lane. This leads to easy counterjungling, lanes not having help in clutch moments, and eventually loss of game.


However, the problem with Oracles being so weak and the Sightstone being so damn good isn't the only issue.

Teemo.

Noxious Traps.

They are everywhere. And a smart Teemo with a smart team will know that if the enemy goes around killing the traps, they have blown gold on oracles. Which only lasts 5 minutes or until they die. Solution? Go kill the hell out of them. Also, pink wards don't do anything for Noxious Traps unless it's still the laning phase, or objective-getting time like Baron or Dragon. It become harder and harder to keep your jungle/lanes/area of control under control when there are just litters of traps everywhere. And THEY give vision for a few good seconds when stepped on, already provide Teemo and his team with its vision, deal damn heavy damage (Liandry's Torment + Any other AP items), and slow your movement speed.
Hunting these stupid things just becomes too much to handle. Either you spend all your gold clearing an infinite supply of mushrooms or you let teemo have his way and cover the map with them.

Okay, so what does this small wall of text have to do with anything? Oracles Elixir. Could we do something with it so purchasing it feels like it'll have a real impact when needed?

Perhaps make it "True vision for 5 minutes, dying won't remove it, yet still runs your timer out?"

Or lower this cost so it matches the other one from Dominion, make it 250-300 gold so it feels less punishing?

Or with the Sightstone/Ruby Sightstone being the cornerstone of every support build from Alistar to Zyra, can we cheapen the cost of pink wards?

That's all I've got for now, I'm going to bed, hopefully this thread will gain some attention in a few minutes. If you've read all the way to here, thank you for reading, hopefully I have been thorough.

I think riot was trying to push players to use wards & teemo is getting nerfed so this becomes less of an issue... also tanks run over shrooms pretty good to clear.

I still advocate putting a "Oracle Affinity" mastery into the Utility tree. It would give a duration boost just like the Runic Affinity.

Adding to the mastery tree is a good idea. Oracles should be more powerful, but the cost I think makes it impossible to spam, which is completely necessary, along with losing it on death. Defending baron from oracles should be possible by killing the user. This also forces the team to team up to protect the oracles.

With all that said, I think it'd be cool if the increased the range or made it easier to clear wards or made ward clear worth like 40g. If they needs to be in the masteries, so be it

Honestly I agree at this current time the oracle isnt worth its investment, it needed the nerf originally due to the overwelming advantage it could give, but with the appearance of sightstones and decreasse of its duration, the problem it has in the current state of the game other then removing wards isnt cost effective and that it gives an advantage to stealth mechanic champions like never before. as mentioned above teemo is becoming more and more popular, but champions like akali twitch and rengar to name a few abuse of this lack of stealth detection as well.

keep in mind that the battle is often mobile, carrying pink wards can only do so much and you can rarely place it in the middle of a fight or will have time to even think about it. that why oracle was made to be mobile, they etheir need to reduce the price of oracle, or induce another stealth detection mechanic or item ( possible example, bring hextech sweeper into summoner's rift or even give a stealth detection power to clairvoyance with a point in the utility tree)

oracle isnt worth the gold. especially when theres a sightstone which means they'll always have 3 wards with them whenever. after u clear the ward they'll just put another one there. oracle's expiration wont be an issue if there wasnt a sightstone. its either take sightstone out or bring back the old oracle's elixir.

I'm finding it may be more effective in some cases to pink ward key areas and to build Twin Shadows vs. stealth champions.

Any support who isn't using Twin Shadows should look into it. It's great for finding ambushes if you use it while fleeing and it's a fun item in general.

I disagree with this point.

For starters, in the preseason interview Riot made it clear that they wanted to relieve some of the early ganking pressure from the lanes. So actually Riot would like to see junglers ganking a little less. I believe they did accomplish this by increasing the the ROI on the jungle creeps.

Second, assuming you are still in lane phase (before around lvls 8-10), you cannot put wards around the pink successfully. For example, a well placed ward between drag and river bush can create a large enough area of vision that will allow your jungler to slip in.

If anything such a strategy was not prudent when oracles was still overwhelming used. Personally while I find the change refreshing, however, I am inclined to agree with the general theme of your post. Buying an oracles simply to clear for something like baron or dragon isn't cost effective.

Buying an oracle to clear a single spot isnt supposed to be cost effective, oracle are used to clear wards to gain a better map control or counter certains champs. I agree oracle needs a slight buff by increasing it's duration a bit.

I don't even get why they nerfed it in the first place. The ward kills already give you a lot less gold and Oracle's was always a high risk, high reward item.