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The problem with support

S H A Y C 0·11/28/2016, 8:57:50 PM·34 votes·2,123 views

Support is wildly unpopular. Not breaking news to be sure.

  1. Woefully underappreciated

  2. Completely misunderstood

  3. And doesnt belong in "solo Queue"

I will address all three.

  1. There isnt anything i can say here thats news. ADC's flame the crap out of them and refuse to believe that anything may actually be their fualt. Any time something good happens the "good job EZ / luci" meme is made clear, and the support goes un-noticed. The game itself glorifies the person who last hit enemies in a row, and never the guys and gals that did all the work to make that happen. Again no surprise, just another cog in the wheel.

  2. Its largely misunderstood. Many supports don't understand what they are supposed to be doing, which is compounded by everyone who doesnt play having a completely different view AND being even "wronger" (its not a word, but it conveys the sentiment SO well). Lastly there is this misconception that supports can't "carry" unless they play "carry supports" or "second mid laner" and build damage...its not true. Support roles can carry, and they can Hard carry if done correctly. But the caveat to that brings us to point 3.

  3. They dont belong in a solo Q environment. Traditional supports can't "Solo Carry" if their team mates are shitting the bed. The entire idea behind their kit and their build is they "help out" or "support" the other members of their team. They are a supplemental resource. A tool to be used to create a winning condition or change a losing one. They are a crucial cornerstone in any team fight or pre team fight maneuvers (picks, vision control, enemy movement tracking, shot calling)

but if its all up to the sightstone utility item support...they wont kill them all and shit all over the enemy base. They cant, they dont have the items and often they dont have the scaling...we all know they dont have the income.

Here is our biggest issue we will have to overcome.

Support role is a shitty thing to have in a world where you go in alone. There is much more RNG involved than there already is. Once your team shits the bed, there is little hope for the support to "make it to late game" or "carry this one on their own" It can be done sure...it is however the most difficult from an underfed, under leveled position ( and we're comparing that to the rest of the team that has already shit the bed and fallen behind)

This is why people dont want to play it..it has the least amount of control over the outcome of the match. They CAN carry, They CAN hard carry, but they have the undisputed LEAST potential to SOLO carry.

TL;DR Even marine corp snipers have a support(spotter)...but when things go pear shaped, most people want to be the guy with the big ass rifle.

Edit: I think i am going to play nothing but support these last days in the preseason to gather some data..im going to try to solo carry, with traditional cc non damage supports (thresh, alistar, etc..) and relatively standard itemization. Im not going to steal any kills, but i wont stop attacking until they die. I will make a point to note how i am treated by other players and the relative sucess or failure of the experiment and i will post the data.

_night 1: only one support match played...believe it or not my whole team got auto-filled in the second match????? So we all swapped around to make the best of it.

Alistar 1-11-9 with draven adc. Draven only plays vayne..vayne was picked he didnt dodge...tried to play draven like vayne and became lost mid game and wondered around till we surrendered. I dont even know if this counts but ill log it anyway._

63 Comments

Mecha MaIphite11/28/2016, 9:19:23 PM10 votes

I have never experienced any of this whole "My ADC flames me" rhetoric that I've been hearing for so long. Of course I get flamed, but not any more often than when I play top, and usually not for no reason. Even just looking at bot lane, I find as many supports blaming their ADCs as the other way around.

The only problem I have with support, and this has been said many times before, is that doesn't feel rewarding. Wasting money on a mandatory item because you're the only one who can afford to feels bad, buying items on a lower salary feels lame, and setting up a kill rather than taking it feels boring. And really, I can't think of any solution to this.

Saevum11/28/2016, 11:26:25 PM4 votes

The kind of thread i was looking for.

Upvoted.

CarameI Frappe11/29/2016, 7:26:59 PM3 votes

I feel you ....... as a Support Main, I can do all the work but the person who deals the most damage tends to get recognized instead. I remember one game I went as Support Poppy and R'd an enemy Vi out of Baron's pit so she couldn't smite the game changing monster as our jungler Maokai stole it. Did I or our jungler get congratulated or given praise? ... No, it went to the hyper carry Vayne that ulted and killed some people in pit despite everyone else on our team joined the fight to help. Our job is unappreciative, we get crapped on when things don't go their way, and worst of all you're expected to die. Sure i'm willing to die if it means saving you and helping our team achieve an objective, but when you make a bad call and i'm expected to die despite you're going to die regardless- it frustrates me to no end.

Riot at the moment is trying to get people interested in playing Support by giving us free Supports on the roaster ... but that isn't solving anything. You have to look into the game itself and see what makes people refuse to go as Support. I do recall the biggest mistake Riot made was when they removed the mastery of leveling up faster when you're with someone since Supports have less income / experience / lack of kills since we simply set kills up for our carries. I do admit, certain items now are wonderful on Supports but otherwise it's still not solving the overall issue and I don't think it'll be solved anytime soon.

Swaid11/29/2016, 8:31:34 AM3 votes

Yes, I agree that the game can feel quite out of your hands as a support, but what I hate more is I HAVE TO BUY THIS THING!

item 2049

Being able to have variety to build other items would make the role so much more entertaining, but instead I have to use the little gold I can muster to buy this thing. Usually I get like item 2303, item 2302, or item 2301 so its not just some inefficient item taking up a slot, but I still hate that I HAVE to build this fucker.

ModKnightsKemplar11/29/2016, 6:54:41 PM2 votes

This. As a solo player, supports have less impact on the outcome of a game.

Lots of people don't like the wording of that, but it's solidly true once you get past semantics issues and look at the root problem. You can't solo carry as support. And that is why people don't want to play it.

ChaddyFantome11/28/2016, 9:21:47 PM2 votes

Have been saying this since day one Well said, TC.

Leo102411/28/2016, 9:17:46 PM1 votes

it's pronounced shaco not shayco

but i agree with everything here, very well put [slayer-pantheon-thumbs]

khorney11/29/2016, 8:45:32 PM1 votes

techinally your wrong, supps exist because of statistics the same reason a jungler exist. let me explain further and youll answer your own ? with me asking you this why wouldnt you duo top and bot ?

doiminat0r360011/29/2016, 2:15:50 AM1 votes

Support roles can carry, and they can Hard carry if done correctly. and Traditional supports can't "Solo Carry"

Do not co align.

If a support is able to hard carry, they aren't playing either a true support champion (ie. Janna Soraka Nami ) but are rather playing a mid lane mage that is just in the bot lane (ie. Lux Karma Morgana Anivia ) If a support is able to hard carry as one of the first 3, either the enemy team is really bad compared to your team, or your team is really bad to not be able to kill the enemy team.

ForgivenSoul11/29/2016, 3:24:14 AM1 votes

there is far less flaming from ADC's to support then when i became a support main. i remember getting flamed over accidentally taking one CS trying to path

DemoGuide11/29/2016, 10:02:13 AM1 votes

Forcedbuy Sighstone. I really hate that everyone thinks support is forced to buy sighstone as very first item. I sometimes get it at 20+ minutes, sometimes dont buy at all. I value core options for a champion i play more that wards.

Hinu Hyuga11/29/2016, 5:52:53 PM1 votes

I support main for one reason. To push my team ahead. Not for the fame of carrying, not for the carrying. To me supporting my team makes me feel good. I know that if I can get my adc ahead the game will go a lot smoother. When I can be a 0/0/20 support and I know that I did my job and gave my all to help my carry out. It gives ma good feeling. I also receive plenty of praise for landing god hooks, or just helping out.

The thing is. You have to go in with a mentality of I'm not going carrying, I'm going to help where and when I can, and how can I push my adc, jungle, top, or mid lane ahead in the game. Supporting is all a certain mentality, and it's loads of fun when you have your mind set to it.

Kitty Pix11/29/2016, 7:38:30 PM1 votes

And if you do end up starting to carry, you get flamed by the entire team every time you "take" a kill even though you were JUST as much there as everyone else, AND if you get the money from that kill you can actually be IN-LINE with the farm income that everyone else has. Sure assists give you money, and assists count just the same as kills when it comes to the grading system, but everyone knows that the income levels (as well as opportunities for experience) for supports just isn't there and that makes me sad because I look at the ending screen and both teams will have three items and the supp has an item and a half.