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I switched to maining support two weeks ago. Best decision I ever made

Jesus our Exodus·9/24/2017, 2:23:30 PM·9 votes·961 views

I am by no means a perfect support main. I've been maining it for 2 weeks now. Been playing mostly Janna, Lulu, Sona, Karma and a bit Soraka. Is it just me, or it vastly easier to climb using the support role than any other role?

I've been thinking about why that is, and I've come to a hypothesis: Support is the easiest to climb with, not because it has the highest carry potential, but because it has the highest throwing potential.

Think about it. Support is most people's least favorite role. Everyone gets autofilled into it, and hate every moment of the game. However, it's also the role that is the hardest to understand what you're supposed to be doing. Let me try to illustrate:

https://imgur.com/n6W648f

The box in green is the part of the playerbase that is carrying with their role. The part in red is the part of the playerbase that contributes to a harder game for the rest of the team, AKA throwing.

So, if an average player were to play in the ADC role, they would have a higher chance of carrying than in the support role, because the support role is harder to learn. With that I mean it's harder to learn how to carry. It's easy as a support to just sit back and heal and shield, or throw down some CC and expect your team to follow up. However, it's harder to learn good shotcalling, warding correctly and at the right time, and knowing when to sacrifice yourself for a teammate and when to let them go. These are skills that come with tons of practice.

So, my point is that if you let someone else play support, they have a higher chance of throwing the game than to carry the game, statistically speaking. However, if you are the support and can lift your skill level to the green box, then your team will overall stand a better chance of winning than if you were an ADC for instance, even if the carry potential is higher in other roles.

My hypothesis is, in mathematical terms:

Throwing potential > Carry potential

in terms of importance. With that I mean that the difference between plugging in the weaknesses of your team is noticeably more valuable for win % than to get a bit of extra carry potential.

20 Comments

Jesus our Exodus9/24/2017, 2:36:03 PM2 votes

The point of this thread isn't whether some supports are great now. It's the fact that everyone keeps putting AD carry, midlane or jungle as the main carry roles, because they "impact" the game more. However, what they don't take into consideration is that leaving support to someone who have absolutely no interest in supporting, or are just bad at the role, can be vastly more damaging than to get a few extra kills because you're the jungler and not an average player.

Blue Mystified9/25/2017, 2:34:26 AM2 votes

this is actually really interesting. It explains a lot. I main support and I jumped instantly out of silver IV straight to II so far. starting to flounder around II but i haven't played much. You bring up a lot of valid points. I usually feel 100x better when I support knowing i have a lot more control over how bot lane goes considering they're a game changer. No matter how fed you get mid you can't always carry a super weighed down bot lane. and a good support can make any okay-carry a super-carry.

xelaker9/24/2017, 2:49:12 PM1 votes

ugh booooooring supports

Winterwings9/24/2017, 6:22:59 PM1 votes

You could call me the living proof of your hypothesis... Sure i've played support since season 1... but i've only been able to hit D5 this year with supports. I dont consider myself a "L337 Skill3d" player or anything, in fact im only able to play ADC, and other carry roles to about a High Silver, Low Gold level. But the amount of game knowledge i gained over the 7 years playing is put to use whenever i play supports, despite my lacking mechanics.

Mysticman899/24/2017, 6:34:35 PM1 votes

I tend to think of it more in that a good support, even when behind, can enable someone else to carry (who might be good but not good enough to solo carry), and it's much easier to 2v8 than 1v9.

If you're a god and you're on a traditional carry role, you might still get camped and left in a position where you can't do your job effectively and can't really carry. If you're a support on the other hand, even if you're camped to oblivion, you can still effectively do your job since most conventional supports have all the tools they need at the kit level, and don't really need gold/xp to do their job. This means when you emerge from the dumpster fire that might be a heavily camped bot lane, you can still go buddy up with the mid/top/jg who might actually be in a better position to carry.

SirTeemoMushroom9/24/2017, 8:09:45 PM1 votes

it's not about climbing easy .. it's about having fun at the end of the day ..... hahahahaaahah sikeeee well done mate !

Floupi9/25/2017, 2:37:55 PM1 votes

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UnboundHades9/24/2017, 2:26:37 PM1 votes

well when your playing broken champs it isnt hard to climb minus the karma

DeathBurst9/25/2017, 6:00:29 PM1 votes

Yeah, the mathematic formulation is awkward, but I get what you mean, and I kinda agree.

I play both Top and Support, and I reached Gold with both, and what you have to do with each role to get to a similar MMR is very different. My biggest problem with Support though, is the amount of time you have to spend convincing your team to listen to you. You can have the best calls in the world, if they don't listen to you, it's still easier to have a higher win % by playing Top and solo carrying. And sometimes, even the dumbass ADC that you carried in laning phase by their pants won't even realize it and flame you when you try to shot-call. That's infuriating. I have dozens of anecdotes with similar situation, where the game should be an easy win, I know what to do to make it so, and my team just refuses to listen.

Juggernaut6289/24/2017, 2:29:54 PM1 votes

Actually, I've found that in the elo where I am, high gold low plat, people tend to get autofilled into jungle, not support.