I've recently run into trouble (I feel at least) when jungling with say Amumu (mostly) and Shen/Rammus.

Namely, as a jungler I feel obliged to set wards quite diligently.

As a tank, I feel obliged to get as 'tanky' as possible.

The two seem to clash with each other, especially when games go bad in solo queue.

You lose a few towers early, and you desperately need to ward up your jungle/dragon, but it eats into your item builds pretty badly.

What I find usually happens is it either snowballs in one direction. If you can't convince your team to buy wards, you get eaten in the jungle. If you buy them, you initiate on the team, and they melt you.

So I guess my question is, at what point do you say enough is enough and stop buying wards?

It has me strongly favouring non-tank junglers at the moment, or just choosing to lane, because unless your team does exceptionally well, the game is always a struggle.

Any ideas?

Your team should be warding as much as you, especially if there's a support champ.

Also, gold/5 items, like HoG, on tanks = much less money problems. Same w/ Sunfire due to increased farming potential.

If you REALLY need gold though, just take over a solo lane when someone moves away.

There is NEVER a point where you stop buying wards. There are only 6 key areas a jungler needs to keep track of anyways, 4 if you don't want to gank them at their buffs. Two of those spots are also conditional.

The first dragon ward is YOUR responsability every single time.

Why? Because you as a jungle should know how fast the OTHER jungle is going through his route.

On the same token EVERYONE is responsible for the OWN BUSH warding during the first 5-10 mins of the game. Bottom lane, top and mid lane. Still this doesn't mean that the jungler can't help with a bush ward... or that mid can't go down and place a dragon ward. You are there to win, if warding is necessary to win someone has to do it. If noone else wants to do it... guess what it is your job to do it (It is somewhat common for me to buy 10 wards or more in a game)

After laning phase is over EVERYONE is responsible for warding, EVERY SINGLE PLAYER. The maps needs at the very very very least 4 wards (baron/dragon/river ramps) ... usually more. Personally If I go back to base with 75-375 gold and I can't buy anything else I just buy 1-5 wards. It doesn't matter if I'm playing support, carry, mage or tank. I still buy whatever wards I can afford if I have space (with chogath I run out of space fast because of the way I build him.