Thoughts of a support main of 8 years experience.
[Introduction to who I am] Hello, my username is Iivaitte and I've been a support main or healer in other games for a while now. I've been a support main in league since season 1 and joined ranked in season 3 for casual play. Back in the early days of online games I started as a mage/wizard that would focus on damage with crowd control effects, pet management was big to me. This is what started getting me interested in support/healer role in other games. ** [What I see in bot lane in the past]** Often I try my best to understand the needs of my adc, I know without him I probably could pick up damage and ignore him however I understand how POWERFUL it is to have utility in this type of game. So I opt for things like CC and movement speed along with occasional heals and shields. In season 1-3 a lot of adcs had a hard time grasping some very basic concepts, If it wasn't healing to them it doesn't do anything. As a Zilean Main in these seasons, they looked at my ult as my only useful ability, my slow and speed were nothing. The concept of kiting was largely unknown and damage from a non-carry role made no sense to them. I avoided ranked because of this, I mostly opted to play with my friends and a few players I found in normals. I just didn't want to be in that environment, back then supports relied on their adcs a lot more than they do now.
[What I see in bot lane today] Nowadays ADCs understand some more advanced concepts like kiting and farming and supports have a lot more tools to help them stay relevant and have their independence. These days there are still some concepts adcs don't understand but it has more to do with the elo I'm playing in rather than anything else. I have the tools to carry a game if I have to and adcs are a lot more forgiving. Its actually common for the entire team to shift blame on the adc rather than the support if blame is to be had. Though its not entirely rare for support to still get blame.
[My Thoughts on ADCs and Supports] There is a question adcs and supports ask themselves at the start of every match. "What is this person going to do" Unfortunately we have not developed telepathy though I'm sure riot is working on it. To answer this question myself I like to play adc occasionally to understand the needs of my adcs and I highly suggest adcs do this as well. Some play offensively because they have the damage, some play passively because their strong suit is farming. Changing your stance between offense and defense as needed is often a sign of a good adc. As for supports, unless you can deal most of the damage yourself its generally not a good idea to engage unless your adc shows some kind of sign they want to engage, this is sometimes expressed as an extended poke, a small enemy wave compared to yours or pinging. A large part of success with bot lane I believe is entirely your ability to read your lane partner. Its a two way relationship. If an adc pings [Enemy Champion] it is often a good idea to ping back [ ! ] to tell them you don't have the mana, cd or damage to follow up.
[My thoughts on general league of legends play] At my elo I notice a lot of people flash into under turrets and fight in full minion waves. Please spread the word not to do this. I can only tank so much of a turret and a death for a kill is often not worth the effort, especially early game. purely from a gold standpoint 1 kill = 15 cs from the last time I did the math. That's just over a wave and a half. they will re-spawn faster than they would have taken by backing and a full wave of minions do 150~ damage per second. (I did the math) This will kill any level 3 in approximately in 7 seconds at full health without any champion intervention.
Thank you if you have taken the time to read this. I understand some people may disagree with me, feel free to discuss below your thoughts.
