What do supports do?

The Ecdysiast·Jun 26, 2018·1 votes·732 views

Here's a simple question for the boards to answer. What do supports do for a team? You can break your answer down by the three classes of supports: mage, enchanter, and guardian.

Then, ask yourself, "Why is Pyke failing?"

7 Comments

JamareeJun 26, 20181 votes

I break down supports into two roles, carry supports or support supports. Carry supports are mages that lack the power or tools to be viable in other lanes, but their base damages let them do well as support where they don't have to worry about as high damage who have the power to become the carry if they get ahead, so champions like Brand, Annie, and Vel Koz.

Support supports are the ones that tend to lack damage of their own, but instead provide utility, peel, healing, and/or general team play to help win a game instead of just damage, ie, the Leonas, Braums, Jannas, Lulus, Sorakas, etc.

Pyke fails because he is an assassin support, he lack the damage to be fit in the damage support catergory, he needs solo lane/jungle exp and gold to do that and he can't support support like the others because he lacks the tools to actually protect his allies. He is a win more support rather then a swing lane support.

webstar1995Jun 26, 20181 votes

Pyke is in the Mage category if you want me to choose between those three. Also a little bit of Guardian. Mages are spell casters. Pyke is an AD Mage pretty much. QE auto combo for burst and stun then finish with your R so the ADC gets kill gold. He is really good if used correctly.

GaliöJun 26, 20181 votes

Nowadays? Sit around and collect free gold until they can carry while the bot laner farms and pretends they are important. :p

RouxfulJun 26, 20181 votes

uhhhh what makes you say Pyke is failing? Im pretty sure he is doing pretty well if he fits into your team comp.

Sure he has a slightly low winrate atm but he is getting buffs, is being played 10% of the games (so inexperienced sometimes non-support players), and people are trying to play him with electrocute. If they play him correctly he can be very strong and harass with amazing roaming potential. You can almost always get out of anything.

Building damage is not correct either. Build the tank utility resist stats.

Also, if your point is that pyke does not fit in any of those classes, that is not a valid reason for jumping to the reason he is "failing"

AptestJun 26, 20181 votes

Supports provide the team a core of control that allows the team to force / prevent skirmishes and determine their outcome.

Supports provide the team a core of play making ability that allows the team to make the game happen in its favor.

Supports prepare objectives for conflict and in doing so determine which objective shall be fought over by the team.

pyke is not failing.

RouxfulJun 26, 20181 votes

[{quoted}](name=Uber Deer,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=74cqcpzQ,comment-id=,timestamp=2018-06-26T14:40:28.013+0000)

Here's a simple question for the boards to answer. What do supports do for a team? You can break your answer down by the three classes of supports: mage, enchanter, and guardian.

Then, ask yourself, "Why is Pyke failing?"

Do you care to join the discussion you have created?

Dr IreliaJun 26, 2018

Okay I'm not much of a support player but let me see what I can assume they do,

The mage ( like the notorious Lux )

These supports still have to follow the main goals of a support which is to peel/ward. For example Lux, she can peel with her shield and even cc them as a peel or poke ( Since she's more of a mage, her pokes will be strong ). Not all mage supports have shields but they usually do have poke and cc which can also be used to zone during laning and peel with cc. Every type of support requires to ward ( well so should every role ) so that's not gonna be different. While every type of support can also roam so that'll also be excluded from here.

The Enchanter ( Like Janna )

These supports have a kit that is mostly but not limited to peeling. They will always have heals and shields so they require to build items that increases those effects ( Ardent Censer ) so I guess their main purpose is to peel more than any other type of support. Like Janna, she can peel not only teammates but also turrets. Her shield also gives them increased amount of ad and her ult heals and pushes enemies back. So Enchanters can also affect teamfights in other ways apart from heal/shield like cc but they are not really damage dealers unlike mage supports and they don't tank for most of it or engage, only peel.

The Guardian ( Like Thresh )

These supports are the tanky ones that might not even have the ability to shield/heal with their abilities ( although locket of the solari can shield ). They are mostly for tanking,engaging and maybe shielding. They are often the frontline tanks but they also prioritize peeling due to their heavy cc in their kit. They can engage but also zone as well because their cc can specifically lock one person or many in case of AOE. So what they do is peel with cc ( but some items as well honestly like knight's vow ) , they also engage and can tank for the team.

As for Pyke.. uh I'd say he's the first of his kind as an Assasin support but I guess no one really knows how to make that work as it doesn't seem any different from any other assasins going support apart from the fact that his passive can be useful for a gold bonus. Yeah and sorry for the typos and/or if this was a waste of time for you if my information was nothing but inaccurate.