Ranked as a support

dragon1xx·Jul 6, 2016·5 votes·693 views

Where is my game changing potential? As a support player, I feel like I have no impact on late game, especially against a team where we have the odds stacked against us. You can see here where I played Braum, and I did everything I could, and I still couldn't deal with the fed Quinn, who snowballed other lanes out of control. I feel like support is the unwanted role because it has no game changing potential and can't make enough of an impact to games. Maybe that's why support isn't popular..... I engage, peel well, but I get quickly destroyed by fed enemies. We were wrecking Kog'maw early, late game he 100-0 my ADC. I play support by choice, but I'm starting to think I should start playing other lanes.

TL;DR how can I make an impact as support in ranked.

11 Comments

UmioJul 6, 20162 votes

Your approach as a support may need adjustment Do you have any games recorded?

Never assume that just because you have an ADC in your game that they are ACTUALLY the carry of the specific match you are in- You can generally tell within the first 5-10 minutes of the game who the strong players on your team are.

Invest in those players. Period. Dont focus on keeping your ADC if they ARENT CARRYING.

If you have a smart jungler, they will do the same thing

If my ADC is trash - I take their farm - You can support much better if you have ARMOR/MR to take hits off from your carry - play high CC supporting champs - get the items you need to survive [ which is NOT sightstone ] - and STAY OUT OF THE JUNGLE

Help get the towers of the people that are strong on your team so that THEY can roam.

There are 3 reasons to be in the jungle 1.Dragon 2.RiftHarold 3.Baron

Only when their jungler/carry are dead

Regarding these, do not put so much value on them your team sacrifices towers for them.

I always prioritize towers over dragons - if your team can be taking 2 towers vs getting 1 dragon - take the towers.

Complete dragons when you have an advantage

I forgot to mention the most important thing AVOID TEAMFIGHTS

Only do this to save your own towers

HackProofJul 6, 20161 votes

{quoted}

Your approach as a support may need adjustment Do you have any games recorded?

Never assume that just because you have an ADC in your game that they are ACTUALLY the carry of the specific match you are in- You can generally tell within the first 5-10 minutes of the game who the strong players on your team are.

Invest in those players. Period. Dont focus on keeping your ADC if they ARENT CARRYING.

If you have a smart jungler, they will do the same thing

If my ADC is trash - I take their farm - You can support much better if you have ARMOR/MR to take hits off from your carry - play high CC supporting champs - get the items you need to survive [ which is NOT sightstone ] - and STAY OUT OF THE JUNGLE

Help get the towers of the people that are strong on your team so that THEY can roam.

There are 3 reasons to be in the jungle 1.Dragon 2.RiftHarold 3.Baron

Only when their jungler/carry are dead

Regarding these, do not put so much value on them your team sacrifices towers for them.

I always prioritize towers over dragons - if your team can be taking 2 towers vs getting 1 dragon - take the towers.

Complete dragons when you have an advantage

I forgot to mention the most important thing AVOID TEAMFIGHTS

Only do this to save your own towers

The HELL?

I can't even tell if you're trolling or serious.

If you're serious.... so to win the game, steal the gold income from an ADC who is behind. The role which depends on itemization the most, who cannot, I repeat, would be a player down without damage??

Your influence as a support, to win a game is knowing when to roam. I can't tell you how many times in Gold + Plat games, my support leaves lane for no reason. Making me the ADC lose CS and get engaged on.

Peeling the ADC, the most consistent source of damage will win you games. End of story, the better peeler in team fights will always win.

UmioJul 6, 20161 votes

{quoted}

Peeling the ADC, the most consistent source of damage will win you games. End of story, the better peeler in team fights will always win.

First off, your elo gameplay DOES NOT apply to lower elo.

I would expect that someone playing at your rank [ not bronze ] does know when to engage and when not to. So no, I wouldnt take farm from someone at your elo or you or MOST ADCs

I am ALSO not referencing EVERY match that I play

if I take farm - it is based on MY evaluation of the skill of the adc I am matched with and if they are FEEDING

If my adc is 0/3 - Im still 0/0/0 you are damn right im going to take that farm

Farm is ONLY good in the hands of someone that knows what do to with it - if you are constantly in the fountain because you do not know how to stay alive - that money is better invested into mine [ even as a support ] so I can continue to stay alive and keep my tower up as long as possible

Just because you do pick AD[ supposed to]Carry -doesnt mean you are or have the skill to

HackProofJul 6, 20161 votes

{quoted}

First off, your elo gameplay DOES NOT apply to lower elo.

I would expect that someone playing at your rank [ not bronze ] does know when to engage and when not to. So no, I wouldnt take farm from someone at your elo or you or MOST ADCs

I am ALSO not referencing EVERY match that I play

if I take farm - it is based on MY evaluation of the skill of the adc I am matched with and if they are FEEDING

If my adc is 0/3 - Im still 0/0/0 you are damn right im going to take that farm

Farm is ONLY good in the hands of someone that knows what do to with it - if you are constantly in the fountain because you do not know how to stay alive - that money is better invested into mine [ even as a support ] so I can continue to stay alive and keep my tower up as long as possible

Just because you do pick AD[ supposed to]Carry -doesnt mean you are or have the skill to

Listen even a bronze lord can auto nonstop and keep attacking. If you keep him alive, you'll win.

Supports are good because of what they bring to the table without itemization. The complete opposite of what ADCS are. Look at Zyra, why is she so good at support but a mediocre mid laner? Its because of her base stats and kit. Even without items she can do a lot of damage. You can't say that about any adc. Not one.

You telling him to go a support with high dps and cc? Brand/lux/morg does a crap ton without taking cs out of the hands of the adc.

Your way of thinking isn't just flawed, its sheer stupidity. This game is a team game, if OP is having problems in bronze, one can assume hes not high elo and just trolling. So even if he does get ahead by stealing cs, do you think the support will carry the game?

So no, you're wrong. He needs to better himself by helping the team. Not taking from the team to better himself so he can carry. That's not what a SUPPORT does. THATS THE COMPLETE OPPOSITE OF WHAT SUPPORT MEANS.

dragon1xxJul 6, 20161 votes

{quoted}

Your approach as a support may need adjustment Do you have any games recorded?

Never assume that just because you have an ADC in your game that they are ACTUALLY the carry of the specific match you are in- You can generally tell within the first 5-10 minutes of the game who the strong players on your team are.

Invest in those players. Period. Dont focus on keeping your ADC if they ARENT CARRYING.

If you have a smart jungler, they will do the same thing

If my ADC is trash - I take their farm - You can support much better if you have ARMOR/MR to take hits off from your carry - play high CC supporting champs - get the items you need to survive [ which is NOT sightstone ] - and STAY OUT OF THE JUNGLE

Help get the towers of the people that are strong on your team so that THEY can roam.

There are 3 reasons to be in the jungle 1.Dragon 2.RiftHarold 3.Baron

Only when their jungler/carry are dead

Regarding these, do not put so much value on them your team sacrifices towers for them.

I always prioritize towers over dragons - if your team can be taking 2 towers vs getting 1 dragon - take the towers.

Complete dragons when you have an advantage

I forgot to mention the most important thing AVOID TEAMFIGHTS

Only do this to save your own towers

A replay from replay.gg that I have. It is my Braum game.

Too TonJul 6, 20161 votes

Yup, I've resigned to the fate of you need to carry your lane early and as the game goes longer all you do is peel for carries. In your own way you "carry" by keeping the real damage carries alive.

Mysticman89Jul 6, 20161 votes

Prevent enemies from getting fed in the first place through superior warding/peel, and/or get your carries fed with your engages and picks via superior vision and/or be a (safe) distraction/splitpusher, depending on the game and support choice.

I've cruised from placing silver to low plat playing almost exclusively Janna sup as a solo player, and theres been plenty of games where people have thanked me for the carry, and times where people raged at me for boosting others (despite me being solo).

Just because you (probably) don't do much damage doesn't mean you can't carry games, you just have to play on a more strategic level.

Johr DinhJul 6, 20161 votes

The only game changing thing I can do is vision (which can be basically useless if no one else does it) or type my great macro knowledge into chat (which I can die doing, is usually disregarded in low elo, and even seen as toxic even when being typed in a polite unbiased manner)

Yes we have CC, but usually it's wasted at low elo, or people do the incorrect thing. (hey perfect team fight and support went in and CC'd.....lets run away at full health i'm scared lol)

I definitely love playing the vision game, having a companion, etc, and I like the range of stuff I can play, but man do I basically hope for a good dice roll most of the time if I wanna climb this way.

UmioJul 6, 20161 votes

So I just watched that butchery of a ranked match with you as braum vs the quinn carry from top lane.

As soon as I saw the enemy team comp I my first reaction was ARMOR

As as support a HIGH Armor Item with CDR should have been your first item

As braum you already have mobility with your leap Sighstone isnt required if you keep a vision in your tribush right out of the gate, then you only need to worry about having a ward in front of dragon

That provides ample vision without buying sightstone

**************************FrozenHeart or Guantlet

especially since everylane & jungler are AD based

You should have recommended akali build tank about of the gate as well - she just kept building damage for some reason and kept trying to fight . . . .

Your ADC was twitch

He deals true damage so you could have invested in TP and had map mobility as Exhaust isnt required - he also has great range on his ult too.
Nobody had TP on your team [ another reason you should have taken it ]

If you EVER have a quinn in your game - you need MAP MOBILITY PERIOD

Your team was also needlessy in the jungle to often.

If you do not have vision on a lane - thats a big problem - The means an enemy wave is approaching which is a huge disadvantage because if there is nothing currently going on in your match and someone on your team isnt clearing that wave - when something does happen that you need to contest like a baron - you have to sacrifice that wave pushing further/losing a tower/ inhib because it wasnt already done.

You and twitch rocked your lane - but you didnt build based on the team comp - you built the 2 same first items that supports always build BoM and SS - so when Yas and Quinn were already fed, it was to late for you to stand up to them because you had no armor to protect yourself.

ShieldbroJul 6, 20161 votes

If I play solo I'm stuck in some division or even dropping a few, best duo with adc but if you really wanna solo play something like zyra that can get kills and farm, though don't forget that team needs tanks. Zyra is a 2 edged sword though, if your team sucks you will feed because you can't escape, at least that's how it is for me and on the good teams I even carry as a supp while actually supporting and not that bs full ap or troll sups(assasins). This sounds noobish but it works for me, in late game I sell my sightstone, frost quinn and this is how it looks : protobelt, rylai, liandry's torment, banner of command, zhonya,lucidity boots. My logic is that there is no need to ward jungle anymore as everyone is full build,you either def,attack inhibs or baron/dragon which have long spawning times and it works really well coz I can defend solo the nexus and win the teamfights.

VictoriousBardJul 6, 20161 votes

The amount of wards you're placing is quite low for a support, on average. For example, my average number of wards placed per game as a support is almost twice yours. I was told a while back that a support should have placed an average of one ward per minute, at least, and having an actual goal I could set for myself helped me out (though I don't always meet said goal).

This site is a way to track that, if you're interested.