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Your support is not your mother, they are your LANING PARTNER

Trashball·5/31/2017, 9:39:19 PM·10 votes·693 views

So far as I can tell supports exist for two reasons:

we have 3 lanes, 1 jungle, and 5 laners per team
adc's require the full minion gold of a lane, but are (usually) vulnerable without a partner

As a support, literally the extent of your actual responsibility is not taking farm from the adc, and making it harder for the enemy team to kill them (I'm not gonna get into sightstone, that's irrelevant to the point I want to make). Playing a character who is skilled at getting the carry fed is one way to contribute to the team, but it is not the ONLY way to play support.

So, if I pick a mage that can help keep you alive, you should have no complaints. I'm not your sidekick, I'm your partner. The cs is all yours, I'm not disputing that, but if I can take kills and give value to the team by snowballing and providing damage WHILE ALSO PERFORMING MY BASIC DUTIES AS A SUPPORT, then I will and you have no moral high ground to get haughty with me.

For example, if I play Vel'koz support, I have a powerful multitarget slow on my q, and an aoe knockback on my e so I can generally keep you alive unless you do something stupid. Unless you failed to notice what I picked in champ select, you should KNOW that I'm not playing lulu or tahm kench, and if you flash into their minion wave, then you will die, and it is YOUR fault. In addition, any kills in the lane are fair game for EITHER OF US. If I can make use of the kills and profit the team in taking them, there is no reason for me not to, and just because you are promised all the minions in the lane does not mean that I can't farm champions. And it CERTAINLY doesn't mean I should need to bend over backwards to force feed you kills that I can more easily secure myself, nor that I should refrain from attacking low health targets at all with more fear for stealing kills than letting them escape.

Tl;dr: any champion is a fine support if they can reasonably keep the adc out of trouble, and you have no business getting angry at supports who do more than baby sit their adc

9 Comments

þaby ghost6/1/2017, 1:30:02 AM7 votes

Right, and as my Vel'Koz support what are you going to do when a fed lee sin comes to gank? Body block and feed more so I can be tower dived? I am a support MAIN and from time to time I play adc. Today I had a brand support who took kills, never came back to lane after level 8, and didn't land one snare. It's quite frustrating.

There are designated support champs for a reason. Nami has heals, Braum has a shield, etc. To me what makes a support are actually applicable buffs or abilities that help the adc become more powerful, like Lulu's W, not things that do damage for the adc, like a Brand. I always keep my adc safe, unless they are an actual ape and just walk up to the enemy turret and try to 1 v 2.

In a way, we are mothers, and as you said to the whole team. However it is true our primary dedication is to bot lane and our adc. I always try to give kills to my adc, especially first blood, unless I truly believe only I am able to reach a kill. A fed Taric is not worth two control wards, but a fed vayne is. Yes, sometimes supports end up with kills its inevitable, but the adc should have as many as possible when the situation is controlled. They are the adc, because they have the damage.

What pisses me off about these mid lane supports is that they don't actually offer anything like i mentioned before to the adc, they just poke in lane, contributing to the heavy snowball meta. I can be the best Nami ever, land all my bubbles exhaust the right people, whatever, but one brand ult and none of that matters. I am totally for trying off meta things for fun, and sometimes it works, but it leaves no place for actual supports in gameplay.

I understand some people get autofilled, but I really can't stand behind a "Brand support main" seriously. It's akin to the Vayne top phase we had. [slayer-jinx-unamused]

Buildermann 135/31/2017, 10:16:37 PM3 votes

I hate it when my ADC flames me for not keeping them alive when I was behind them and they gave no warning that they were going in. Likewise when I "ks". Most of the time ks is an accident, but no matter what I say I get flamed. I like support and the champs that come with it, but half the time I get a person who doesn't care about the one that's trying to help them do what they need to do.

Fuh Queue5/31/2017, 9:51:14 PM2 votes

When I play support, I consider my ADC to be incompetent until they prove me wrong. Since I'm mostly a Brand player, I can handle most of the lane pressure myself so they can farm freely.

I look at it like this, if I just got a stun off on the adc or support, and my W is about to explode, my adc should react immediately to secure a kill. I'll rarely ever stop attacking to "let my adc get it".

Mind you I'm not anywhere close to high elo and I'm still learning the game every day. I guess that's just how I play bot lane.

DemainaNyx6/1/2017, 9:33:20 AM2 votes

While I'm not arguing your choice of playing support, I believe the reason the support is bot lane is cause top laners and mid laners scale with levels better than gold, whereas ADCs scale better with gold. Therefore, having a low level ADC and support and higher level solo mid and top laners was the decision that the pro players made to make the most of the gold/exp on the map.

An good ADC is basically a ticking time bomb, that can solo carry a game if they play perfectly. That is the reason that pro players will funnel farm/kills onto an ADC, cause that means they get to their item powerspike faster.

Is it bad that the support got a kill? No.
Is it better for the ADC to get the kill instead of the support? Yes.

In an ideal world where your ADC is not an ape, the ADC should be able to solo carry the game. So, protecting the person who can solo carry the game is generally a better idea then just doing more damage. In most other games outside of MOBA's, the support role is important and a comp with a support will do better in raids or fights vs a comp without a support.

That being said, some of us aren't giving amazing ADCs that can 1v5. So I believe that putting a little power in your hands isn't a bad idea. However, you should still be doing your best to help your ADC or whoever gets fed that game. I play Brand support a lot due to too many all AD comps. Even then, I tend to buy Eye, Sorc boots or Tabi, Rylia's, maybe Liandry's, then go Locket and Redemption. Reason being is Rylia's syngerizes with his kit amazing, but it also gives me a slow, meaning I can peel with every ability now and not be solely reliant on hitting a stun. As Zyra and Vel'Koz, I rush Rylia's for the same reason.

After Rylia's though, I look at our team and determine my next item based on who's doing well and what the enemy team has. If someone is doing well, I'll probably use Redemption or Locket, depending on if it's AD or AP damage. If everyone is behind, I might rush more AP damage, but that's only if I've been doing well so far or if I'm the only AP on the team.

Additionally, I don't try to take kills. If I get a stun and the target literally can't escape, I'll leave it for my ADC. If there's a chance they'll flash or escape, then I'll just make sure we get the kill period, regardless of who gets it.

I'm also willing to flash to facetank something for a good ADC or to set up a kill for an ADC or to catch someone out of position. Doesn't matter if I'm a squishy Zyra that dies from the engage, if my team wins, then I'm fine with trading my life for that. which a lot of AP supports aren't willing to do from my experience as an ADC.

I mean, you are obviously free to play how you want to play, but your post comes off as, "If I build full AP but attempt to keep the ADC alive, that's good enough." That's probably not what you intended, but that's how it sounded to me.

ChaddyFantome6/1/2017, 6:04:32 PM1 votes

i tip my hat to you, TC.