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Having a hyperaggressive adc as support

Spiffy McBang·8/6/2016, 6:28:49 PM·1 votes·495 views

I'm working through my ranked provisionals, all as support Sona. Went 1-1 in the first two, which went decently, then lost the next three. The first one, my adc was just faceplanting into everything, so whatever. The next two, my adcs were also being aggressive, but there was clearly more of a logic to it. Thing is, I have no idea what that logic was, and they kept getting murdered. Our lane fed hard both games and we got crushed. More specifically:

  1. Vayne picks a fight at level 1. I've never seen that. I thought she was just poking until she didn't run away. I think we could have won if I realized what was going on in time, but I didn't. Next time around, though, we're hugging our tower, and Vayne just keeps running in despite getting repeatedly plugged by both of the opponents. I'm trying my best to heal and poke with Q while not getting pulled far enough out to get run down once Vayne inevitably gets murdered, which works, but now Draven's 3-0 and the snowball has started.

  2. Playing with Kog'maw. Something similar happens, although Kog's a little more careful. Problem is, we're getting pushed, and they (Lucian/Lulu) open up on him after they hit 2 and we're still at 1. He moves some but mostly tries to fight. I have no heal, though, so even though we get them both low we can't finish it up. He doesn't rage, but he asks if I used exhaust (I didn't), and says we could have won if I had. I honestly forgot about exhaust reducing damage, but even if we had finished Lucian with it, Lulu would have gotten him unless she got scared and took off. After that he kept picking fights that I'm sure he thought we could win with exhaust, but which to me were incredibly risky with it and suicidal without it. We ended up feeding the hell out of them and got stomped.

I've read that at lower ranks players tend to be mindlessly aggressive. I don't doubt it, and I actually like being somewhat aggressive with Sona. I use Frostfang/Eye of the Watcher, so I need those chances to poke away. Should I expect this, at least with some champs if not at this level entirely? I may need to consider Eye of the Oasis instead if that's the case, since part of the trainwreck in these instances is that I make zero gold and wind up worse than useless (e.g. getting killed by AOE focused on someone else due to having no chance to build survivability gear).

5 Comments

Guyy Fieri8/6/2016, 6:46:44 PM2 votes

Don't alter which support item you are going for based on that. Sona still wants the Frostfang item.

However, you may want to consider some different picks, while is good at being aggressive in lane, she isn't the best at helping her ADC be aggressive. I usually play champs like Jhin or Ezreal when I see Sona as my support and I just stand back and farm while my Sona pokes.

Champs like Karma, Janna, Tahm Kench, Braum and Alistar who have good disengage in lane are good with aggressive supports and then your job in lane phase is to just make sure that your ADCs aggression is done safely.

Further, always just be aware. While it may not be the right move on some cases for your ADC to go aggro (like your Vayne) it can catch the enemy off guard sometimes and if you follow with your ADC it can really turn the tides of those engages.

Swiftstrike48/6/2016, 7:57:43 PM2 votes

Support is my secondary but I am a Sona and Leona main.

I am in higher elo so MOST players recognize the powerspikes of the adc they are playing and rarely go in when they know they haven't spiked.

So most hypercarries need time to scale and the only aggressive one that can have success early are Jinx and Twitch.

If you are playing with lower scaling ones like Vayne KogMaw and Tristana then you should simply tell them early "let's just farm" at the beginning of the game.

Any GOOD vayne player basically knows not to go in early, but when I play norms with Sona and I get a Silver or Bronze Vayne, they don't know that.

I literally let them die. I stay in lane until 6 and then I just leave it and help the other lanes. Once they know you do not have their back they will play safer.

You should view the bot lane like this as Sona:

If the opposing ADC gets 2 kills laning is over. You cannot contest them. Just farm and try to catch up. Do not try to hold the tower when it gets low, you will get dove. Sona doesn't do enough damage if she gets behind in early levels.

Start putting your points into your heal if you die early.

You should tell the ADC if they are a lower scaling champion that you are not going to go aggro early.

If your ADC is overly aggressive try to simply zone with Sona. You can do this pretty easily, but you WILL draw the jungler. Zoning and poking the ADC or enemy support will keep them away from the wave and your ADC will likely CS if the enemy laners are far away from them.

Don't go in if the enemy has minion advantage.

Max Q first if you are even or ahead and max W if you are behind.

Positioning is REALLY important pre 6. You have no escape and you cannot afford to die early because you completely fall off in early laning (which is when you are really strong).

When you are in low Elo, you should never sacrifice your life when the ADC does really dumb stuff as Sona. You need to learn all the spikes of the ADCs and figure out when you should follow up with a poke.

I think it is reasonable to go ALL-In with a Lucian early. If you both die you play passive and they probably won't be aggressive after that. Don't do this with non early game champions though.

I hope this helps. You need to understand that dying early with Sona should be avoided completely. Your life in the early game is A LOT more important than the ADCs because you scale so poorly if you are behind AND you are squishy AND you don't farm.

Early deaths with Sona means you become an easy target to die again later.

Swiftstrike48/7/2016, 6:47:58 AM2 votes

Glad I could help. If you play Sona like "if i get touched I die" then you will probably improve a lot.

I actually had to pick up Leona because Sona has been getting banned so often. I had to practice her a lot in normals and I only recently started bring her into ranked.

I like her kit because it is also simple like Sona's for the most part.

If Sona is all about positioning, Leona is all about decision-making.

If you stink at making decisions, I would advise avoiding her.

She has no true escape. Once she is in, she is IN. Typically, you blow all your CC on an engage and then you bounce to avoid death while your cooldowns reset and your team does damage.

I actually try to be highly mobile with Leona so item 3742 item 3117 and 3 movement speed quints. Mobility helps when landing CC and it helps you get out if shit hits the fan.

Leona always needs health, so almost all the items you build should have both resistances and health. The only item I sometimes build that doesn't have health is item 3050 because I think it is a really good item for her and your ADC situationalIy.

Due to the nature of Leona's kit, I feel like Leona's death count (more so than other supports) accurately reflects the state of a particular game. If your team is doing well, you probably have few deaths, if your team is doing OK, you probably have more than the average support but not too many, and if your team is doing poorly you are going to have a high death count.

Leona is a vangaurd or diver tank, and because of this she often soaks up a bulk of the damage from the enemy. Your job is to keep the enemy CC'd while a teammate bursts the opponent down. However, once the enemy realizes that he cannot kill the carry killing him, he is very likely to turn on you. And since you lack escapes and ways to pull the enemy off you...you can die before you teammates kill the opponent.

This is why health is critical to her kit since her W is resistance boost so that you can get out of engages relatively unscathed.

I do feel like when Leona is behind it is more noticeable than other supports, because it just means she will blow her kit for an engage and likely die before it is up. Yes, you use your skills, but you are in the heart of the fight typically and aggroing all the enemies you can so your team can deal damage.

Leona is just a simpler, but less safe version Braum and Alistar. I still prefer her though over either of those supports by a large margin. She is pretty fun to play and find the other two relatively boring and a little less simple to play.

nami tf8/6/2016, 7:25:00 PM1 votes

Leona Nautilus

the best supports for all aggressive adcs