How does a Support climb out of ELO Hell?

Oleandervine·Jul 11, 2016·1 votes·681 views

I'm a support main and I keep having the unfortunate situation of losing a lot of games. I do everything to the best of my abilities - I ward, I peel, I try to counterpick and fulfill the needs of the team in champ select - but I end up being at the complete mercy at the rest of my team, who I need to carry me to victory. Nothing I do seems to help, and I was wondering if any other support mains have any suggestions on how to progress without being ripped kicking and screaming back into the dredges of Bronze.

10 Comments

specter424Jul 11, 20161 votes

Stop playing support

OleandervineJul 11, 20163 votes

{quoted}

Stop playing support

Thanks, but not helping. This is why you have massive queue times. You need support mains, so don't tell us to stop.

Zach SandwhichJul 11, 20161 votes

Reason why I picked up Brand. Just pick a mid mage until your into a higher ELO, and before you say anything about mine, I refuse to play ranked cause 9/10 times someone is going to be toxic so I just try to avoid it. Only completed placements so friends would stop complaining.

NavaruneJul 11, 20161 votes

Just escaped Bronze myself as a support main. There are a couple things that I try to focus on outside the usual "do your damn job" categories like you mentioned:

Don't just stick to your ADC for the whole game, especially if there is a carry on your team that would benefit more from your help. Once the laning phase is over, you are just as free to move about the map as anyone, and choosing who to support at critical moments can turn a game on its head. Being able to read what your opponent's next move is absolutely critical to this point, because that's how you're going to know where you'll be needed most. You will learn this through experience, but you can also watch streams to get the inside track on this. That being said, turret sieges are an ADC's specialty, so making sure they can safely get shots on the tower/inhib is pretty important, not to mention that your ADC may be the carry I referenced above.

Depending on your team comp, sometimes it actually works to play a champion you can carry with yourself. I know that sounds anti-meta and goes against what a support is supposed to do, but the thing that is most important is finding a way to bring your team to victory, in whatever form that takes. Zyra support is still really strong and a prime example of this, but don't think that it has to be a high damage support; I've carried more games as Nautilus support than any other champion. The trick here is knowing your champion pick inside-out, including matchups.

The biggest asset I think whenever you are trying to advance in ranked is patience, particularly for a support main but for anyone in general. You will not win them all, and all games are not necessarily lost just because your team is down 6+ kills at 10 minutes. Patience will teach you how to play from behind and how to take only the fights and contentions that you can win.

Keep your head up, though, mate. It'll come to you if you are persistent and constantly learning.

SlappaDaAssMonJul 11, 20161 votes

Ward, ward, and ward some more. Vision is super important and in low elo (Atleast in my experience) one problem is people don't have very good map awareness and get caught out due to low vision. Also you could try shotcalling more often and help calling when to and no to do objectives(Not sure if you already do or not) cause that can go a long way.

Slack KingJul 11, 20161 votes

{quoted}

I'm a support main and I keep having the unfortunate situation of losing a lot of games. I do everything to the best of my abilities - I ward, I peel, I try to counterpick and fulfill the needs of the team in champ select - but I end up being at the complete mercy at the rest of my team, who I need to carry me to victory. Nothing I do seems to help, and I was wondering if any other support mains have any suggestions on how to progress without being ripped kicking and screaming back into the dredges of Bronze.

You dont, you can be in challenger and still be in elo hell

Mysticman89Jul 11, 20161 votes

You don't hard carry every game as a support, you figure out who on your team is the most competent and focus on helping them hard carry the game. Sometimes everyone is trash and it's unfortunate, and it's statistically likely that the someone is not the adc so you probably need to do whatever you can to get the adc through laning phase, but theres usually someone who you can identify as being actually good relative to the rest of the team.

After that, help the team broadly speaking where you can (as you're the support for the team, not just the adc's pet), but pour your resources into keeping your best player alive/fed. Solo carrying anything as any role is hard, but a competent player with a competent support backing them is going to have a much better chance of being able to essentially duo-carry (even if you're both just random solo queues).

Precisely how you go about that will vary heavily on your style of support. I was placed in silver after placements, and I've almost exclusively queued as a solo support janna, and I'm now cruising through plat (plat 4 atm). For me, basically being there to peel and frustrate the enemy whenever my teammates made questionable decisions so they'd actually get out alive worked wonders. I can't be confident my teammates will follow up, so boo engage supports, and I'm a support not a carry so boo kill supports, but I can be all too confident that my teammates will do dumb things sometimes, and as Janna I have the kit to respond to that sort of thing, and it's served me quite well.

You're going to feel helpless sometimes when theres no one suitable to pour resources into, and other times you'll just kinda be carried no matter what you do, but if you can make the difference in the other games you'll win more than 50% and rise.

TakazakiJul 11, 20161 votes

there is only one good way to win in bronze as support.

either pick a mage and carry by killing bot and mid

or pick thresh alistar blitz and set up everything for your adc. as a support once you feed your carry keeping them alive is only one part of your job. YOU need to start the fights and push that advantage. waiting for them to jump on you leads to turtling and losing a lead

Too TonJul 11, 20161 votes

I say master 2 supports and go with it. I only use braum. If he's banned (shouldn't be) or picked, I am kinda screwed. If I had one extra support I would be fine though

Beached ManateeJul 11, 20161 votes

There are two major ways I've found: Either play a apc as a support such as or Velkoz (Yes, they do have enough damage after item 3092 item 3158 item 2045 ) or play supports who are really good at backing up people whether they're ahead or not, often biding time until they catch up, such as Sona or Zilean . The primer are better at carrying, so if you're team is ahead, great, one more source of damage. When behind, it can feel horrible to lose as them, though, so it's usually more mentally polarizing (Either big ego or North Atlantic salt levels). The latter are more feel good champs. It keeps the team morale up to get revived and turn a team fight from it and helps people to stay less salty if you're good at them. However, these kinds of champs also receive more toxicity whether ahead or not usually because your ult can only save so many people and you have a harder time recovering from bad decisions. Other ways to do well is to play kill lanes/ super off-meta picks, such as Sion or Veigar support (Sion has amazing CC, plus Sion-Kali is super broken because 3x Knockups. Veigar support works very well right now because of stacks aren't lost by maxing e first). The problem with this is you will be assumed a troll by your team and ultimately feel like a 1v9 regardless of how well it works. The last way I've found is to play people who are just horrible to go against, such as Nami or Blitzcrank . These guys always put me on tilt because Nami heals too much and my ADC's can never dodge Blitz hooks (You have a 2 cd dash for a reason, Lucian/Vayne). It puts the enemy on tilt and causes your game to be more likely to become a 4v5 if you're particularly good at them. Personally, I think people who do this are human garbage, but the climb is hellish enough that I can understand why you'd do it.