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I could use some advice as a Support main...

SmilesNSunshine·1/15/2016, 12:45:24 PM·4 votes·1,752 views

It's really confusing to me, how best to MAIN support. I gravitated toward it gradually because a lot of the champions I like to play heal or are mages and can naturally fit easily into that role. I'm trying to learn tank but I'm not AS good at it as I'd like to be. Staying in the back feels better to me overall. But I feel like I'm sabotaging myself by trying to learn too many champions. How many do I need to know to be a well rounded support?

Do I HAVE to play Thresh, Blitz, Janna?

Right now I main Sona and play Soraka, Leona and Lux well enough. I used to main Lux but she's gravitating over to mid lane for me now that I have her down a little better. I own a decent pool of support champions but I worry it's not diverse enough. I do OWN Thresh and Nautilus, but I don't play them much. I also own Janna, Lulu, Annie, Morgana, Karma, Zyra, Taric, Syndra, Orianna, Braum, Nami, Nunu, Shen, and Poppy.

I can play all of them "decently" but Sona, Soraka and Lux are my strongest. I'm not used to building/playing tanky, though I do really enjoy Leo and Braum. My biggest problem is I like to bounce around from champ to champ, I'm not the type of person to spam a champion over and over til I'm level 5, and then 100K and...etc. I get bored, I change it up. But then I worry I'm not as good at individual champions as I am at knowing the role (warding, protecting the carry, objectives, etc).

Can anyone offer me any thoughts?

18 Comments

YossarianSensei1/15/2016, 1:39:53 PM4 votes

I mainly play ADC and when I try hard climb the supports I really like are Zyra/ Karma/ Leona/ Blitz/ Alistar /Nautilus.

Thresh/Janna are vastly overrated, they have 'outplay' potential but it's equally easy to shyt on their faces. IMO it's much better to have a Support who's a significant threat just by themselves; there's no point putting all your eggs in 1 basket so to speak when Zyra support can pump out like twice the ADC's dmg early/mid game.

Sona Ping1/15/2016, 4:40:01 PM4 votes

Just to get this out of the way....

{quoted}

How many do I need to know to be a well rounded support?

The general advice is "three champions for each role", so you are fine there. NOTE: There is nothing special about knowing three champions. There may be reasons for picking three, over say, for example, two, but the number should not be given weight in consideration as it is ultimately arbitrary.

The main point I would like you to pay attention to is this.

{quoted} But I feel like I'm sabotaging myself by trying to learn too many champions.

You are not. You can only be served by it and have your performance improved by playing more champions. By playing different champions, you will gain knowledge about the game both quicker and better. By playing different champions, you will learn what they do, how they perform, what their strengths are, how they play in lane, and so forth. Even if you will never play, say, Braum in a serious game, playing as Braum will still help you even when you are playing as Soraka because you will better know the capabilities of the Braum that you are playing against.

hmc10101/15/2016, 2:35:13 PM3 votes

Whoa! Fancy meeting you here! lol I actually came here to complain about the removal of teambuilder. I hope you don't mind if I leave this here real quick....

BringBackTeambuilder

Anyways, as you know, I main support too. So, being mechanically good with a champ sometimes won't save you. I main Lux really hard, I've even jungled her in pvp for kicks. (I went 13/1/17 lmfao) People tell me that I'm pretty good with her mechanically, but I've still had bad supp games with her. My first time Nami, however.. I was actually 5-8 minutes late into the game cuz my roof started leaking (yeah :/ ), but I still did really well.

I know you play with your husband a lot, and you probably support him a lot too, right? The way I practice support is by supporting strangers. Some of them are really good ADCs and some of them are really bad lol. Reading people and being able to react to them quickly is really important.

Also, I don't know about you, but I see a lot of supports like Lulu, Morg, etc NEVER autoattack. A few tiny autoattacks can make a huge difference. It can scare their ADC back so your ADC can beat their ADC in farm, it can make them take a tiny bit of damge, and proc your spellthiefs (if you have one), and using autoattacks to proc spellthiefs will save you mana for other stuff. Also, you'll be rich $$$ :D

I hope that was helpful :)

CaptDux1/15/2016, 1:27:03 PM3 votes

Honestly I would try and "master" three champs for support then have the rest so you know how to play them. this way if you have a definitive three person squad you can choose from but also know other champs that can be fun to play as well.

10Tickler1/15/2016, 1:12:16 PM3 votes

The Champions in support are honestly more situational than any other role. Is your team composed of a lot of poke, designed to siege down towers lategame and whittle your enemy's base away? Then you'll Want to snag Blitz, Lulu, Lux, Morgana, Sona, Nidalee or Karma.

Is your team built to heavily engage on a teamfight, grouping hard and punishing mistakes and splitpushes? Then you want someone with Hard Engage, Leona, Thresh, Malphite, Kayle or Maokai all work well.

Do you have a Squishy ADC and/or a midlane assassin who's going to build only Damage and no tankiness whatsoever? Then you need Peel. Thresh again, Leona again, Janna and Sona all fill that role quite nicely.

Bard is a for-fun pick, who works well when his team can cooperate and utilize the slighter mistakes in judgment that the enemy team makes.

Your best bet, honestly though, is to find the Champions that you do well with, and learn to adapt your builds to what they need to be. Is going Full AP on Sona or Karma AMAZING? Yes, but if your Carry and Mid aren't good at making wise decisions, then you're going to want to get that Locket or Mikael's for the Actives.

And remember kids: THERE ARE NEVER TOO MANY WARDS

SmilesNSunshine1/15/2016, 2:54:43 PM1 votes

I got a lot of great advice:) I have an idea of how I want to go forward with my support game now, thanks everyone:)

phiblet1/15/2016, 4:25:04 PM1 votes

So, can I get some suggestions for making my champion support pool larger? I play Leona Leona and Nautilus nautilus, and can crush ALMOST any lane when I play support with those two. I can probably still play Blitzcrank blitzcrank but I haven't played him in months, after several bad games where it was mostly my fault for pulling the Nasus into my team :P. I've tried Thresh Thresh, but I can't seem to get his hook timing down, which is because (i'm assuming) i've played so much of Nautilus and Leona. I've tried Sona sona, it was meh. I wouldn't play her in ranked. I've playedSoraka Soraka, and could probably pull her out in ranked, if we don't need a tank. I can't play Morgana Morgana, but I can play Lux Lux decently well. Don't even talk to me about Janna Janna :P. One game was enough to convince me she wasn't for me. I haven't tried Zyra Zyra, just because I haven't taken the time for it. So, any suggestions for champs I might like? I'm in bronze if that helps :P

Kaioko1/15/2016, 4:29:59 PM1 votes

I'm not a support main so take this with a grain of salt but I would recommend learning Lulu and Nami. Reasons being that if being in the back and supporting your team that way is what you're comfortable with you should stick with it until you become a good player at it. It's best to be the best at certain roles than being average at all of them.

Secondly, Lulu and Nami are in my opinion some of the best back lane supports currently available other than perhaps soraka which you already play (but will have to deal with her being banned). Nami trades her poking potential for decent heals while keeping her amazing CC on the other hand Lulu has some of the most disgusting poke I've ever seen and her CC is also amazing especially if you've got an assassin going after your ADC (COUGH RENGAR, ZED, YASUO, TALON, LEE) basically people with current high play rates.

Fanny Forecast1/15/2016, 4:34:10 PM1 votes

Janna is one that is kind of essential to at least KNOW. You dont have to like her or play her much, just know how to play her decently when she's needed. Other than that, your pool is pretty diverse as is. I PLAY Thresh, but I don't enjoy him for more than 1 or 2 games at a time. Despite being a play-making supp, he feels stale af.

I main Janna, Nami, Zyra, Soraka, and am an ex-Karma main. I do play others, but those are my top picks.

Amelie1/15/2016, 4:40:06 PM1 votes

No, you don't HAVE to play Thresh/Blitz/Janna. It's generally good to have a support with 3 different strengths: 1 for tank, 1 for peel, and 1 for poke/damage. This is so you can adjust to your (or enemy) team composition. That said, I think you have all your bases covered. Don't worry about expanding your pool too much until you get really good at a few supports and the support role in general.

Also, try picking up Frost Queen Claim with your mage supports, rather than the sighstone upgrade. You offer way more catching potential, vision control, and it makes it stupid-easy to land your skillshots.

TallyZrg1/15/2016, 10:27:35 PM1 votes

My advice as a support main is that you don't have to be confined to any particular champion or set of champions. You should play what you like to play and then excel at those champions by mastering them (putting in upwards of 40 hours on a champion and knowing everything about them on an instinctual level).

I would also advise that you play as many champions as possible, in different roles because you'll know the strengths and weaknesses of those champions better and know best how to play against them. Knowledge, any knowledge is very beneficial and you should not be picky about where it comes from. People in different professions use knowledge from abstract sources to better their profession, you can do the same too! (even though this is a game, it still applies when trying to improve)

I also recommend focusing on the fundamentals of support that you can bring to any champion.

  • Knowing, when and where to ward
  • Knowing build paths
  • Watching what the other team / your team is building
  • Keeping track of power spikes
  • Keeping track of ability cool downs
  • and most importantly, doing your best not to die
    • If you do die, being able to analyze what happened so that you don't fall for the same trick twice (takes some practice and being able to put pride aside in order to take a step back)

Hope this helps! Feel free to ask any questions if you anything doesn't make sense above.

Lovely Pants1/15/2016, 2:06:52 PM1 votes

Mate, I often find myself performing terribly with so-called OP champions no matter what anyone says about them. Don't force yourself to play the strongest picks. Find the ones that suit your playstyle and attitude towards the game and you'll typically perform better.

I'm maybe not the best person to talk to about sticking to a champion, seeing as how I actually have not played a single champion in a rift game more than once since the mastery system was put into place. (I haven't played anything but ARAMs for a long time. Computer issues I just recently solved.) I can only really commit to a session of play something like an average of once every 2-3 days, and this is when I'm not busy, so you might think it's better for me to play one champion exclusively. However, I want to experience more of the game for the time I can put in it.

General rules be damned. Having fun is your first priority both on its own merits and how it affects your ability to grow as a player.

As a long-term commitment, I think it's fine to scatter-shot champions within the same role to start off with. It's part of the experience you need to play the game with a deeper level of knowledge. There are certain mechanical skills that translate well between champions, and flexibility in strategy is intensely important to a support player.

That said, in the past when I do make the dive to join ranked I will crack down on a smaller pool of reliable champions. I think you can strike a balance on this. Focus on having at least one reliable champion when you have the need for a support-type you don't typically play and feel free to be more diverse in a playstyle you're more comfortable with.

1st Movement1/15/2016, 2:23:35 PM1 votes

Try alistar he's all round good for being passive and for being aggro best of both worlds plus he's a tank

Spaceman5pff1/15/2016, 2:37:20 PM1 votes

Honestly, of the three champions you asked if you had to learn, the only one I would say is mandatory in the slightest is Thresh. Thresh is just so good at anything you want in a support:

  • Range: Brings good laning and safer ward clearing *Damage: While he falls off quickly, his flay passive and his box do pretty solid damage for a support *Peel: Between the Box and Flay, Thresh has some of the best peel in the game, not many champions make a better wall for your carries
  • Engage: Between his Death Sentence and his Flay, Thresh has decently reliable engage
  • Pick Potential: Death Sentence puts Thresh up in the leagues of Morgana and Blitzcrank for setting up picks
  • Safety: Thresh's Dark Passage can get allies out of some pretty sticky situations, Help avoid facechecking brushes, and if you bluff a few times with lantern tosses you can make your lane enemies not believe it when you actually lantern in lee sin for a gank.

BUT, most importantly of all:

  • Versatility: Thresh can be picked whenever, alongside whoever, vs whatever. He can build any of the 3 support items effectively, as his range lets his abuse spelltheif passive on autos, his mix of offense and defense lets him make good use of talisman, and his defensive capabilities synergize well with having an extra shield for your team from face of the mountain. Thresh has some matchups he can win pretty hard, but almost none that he loses hard.

Think of Thresh as a support that can position like Nami, Sona or Soraka, but then bring the CC of a tank to the field. He is easily in my 3 favorite champions in the game, alongside Rengar and Kha'Zix

Xenomancers1/15/2016, 2:50:54 PM1 votes

Support has a very wide pool of viable champions. It's on of the easiest positions to main a single champion though. typically supports are not banned at a high rate and the position is the least contested. you can get away with only playing 2-3 supports for sure.