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Fill = Support, or What I've learned by default maining support.

Vesuvias·4/14/2016, 8:49:57 PM·3 votes·1,215 views

There is an issue with the queue at the moment, but that isn't what I am mainly here to talk about.

To get it out of the way, an issue with the queue at the moment is that it doesn't matter what you select as your main, you are nearly guaranteed to get support if you select fill as the second position. If you select fill as the first position, you will almost certainly get support.

I selected fill as the main role and after I noticed a trend I started counting. By the 12th time (after I began to count) I had selected it, I had gotten support 11 times, but the twelfth time I got top. Before the game started someone didn't lock in and so I was sent back to queue where I again got support. Last night, after 24/25 times being matched as a support I actually made it in game as an ADC. Something isn't right about that.

After playing 30-40 of my last 35-40 matches as support, I feel that I have learned a few things about support, and why that role is persistently at the bottom of the desired positions to play.

It can be boring. As a support you are expected to, if all goes OK, sit there and let your partner farm. In a public queue, especially solo, you really can't reliably do much more than that. If you initiate and your partner isn't reactive enough then you can get killed, or worse they can be killed. If you have good synergy in a public game you could randomly do well, but most of the time your ADC didn't select ADC as their primary position either and if they lag at all then you are more than likely often going to just get killed or get them killed. So, unfortunately your role is actually to be reactive instead of proactive. You are supposed to wait until there is an opening and then just hope to god that your lane partner is ready to react to that opening with you. Even if you are a healer, you are still limited to reacting to the other teams attempts to get an opening. It makes the first 20 minutes of a game a lethargic round of cat and mouse.

There are very few reliably consistently loved supports. I haven't just been playing as support, I have been playing against them too. Common supports that every ADC is cool with include: Taric, Alistar, Soraka, Sona, Leona. (More on blitz and thresh in a minute) Of those, the ones that really seem to be preferred are Sona, Taric, Alistar. These really have not changed much, and the key point to all of them is healing, a reactive skill that you have to be on top of as they might be the primary benefit your ADC considers, but it is definitely the one that they will notice the most if you are not consistently doing it. Again, this is simply reactive. The skills that make these champions "preferred" are their stuns/knock-ups. Even if you have a Malphite playing support, your ADC doesn't really love you until you are level 6. The only supports people seem to love before level 6 are the healers, and of the healing capable you are left with Sona, Taric, and Alistar being the favorites because they have crowd control and healing. The only time another support seems to be popular is when they are in desperate need of a nerf, but the consistently preferred supports are those three. There are supports who are played more often, but those three are the ones that any ADC would love to have in lane with them.

Get to the kitchen and make me a sandwich, a.k.a know your role. As a support you are not supposed to kill anything. Ever. You see that minion in lane? Don't touch it. You see that champion that you can kill? Unless every single member of your team is no where near that easily kill-able champion or they are literally unable to land a shot, a support is not to kill an enemy champion. Ever. Most of your team views that a support with more than 5 kills is a bad thing, and your assists are only considered by the community to be a half kill. There is no praise or reward for your assists in a game. No one will ever say, "Man, your 25+ assists are why we won the game." If you and your partner dive, your ADC dies, and you get the kill instead of him, after they match people will just say you got clean up kills. Your job is to be passive and react to what your partner needs, and only initiate if the opportunity arises. If you have a CS score by minute 10 over 10, your ADC is probably mad at you. Being told to stay in the kitchen and make your ADC a sandwich isn't fun. Looking at some statistics, your highest win rate supports average less than 3 kills, less than 6 deaths, less than 15 assists and less than 25 cs. In a 30 minute game you get to kill less than one thing a minute. (Including creeps) A "good" support has a 0.5 KD unless you include assists as half, and then they have ~1.6. Just a reminder though, no one really cares or praises you about your assists, so your KD is 0.5.

The CC supports rely on your ADC too much It is virtually impossibly to play a CC support well unless your ADC is not only familiar with the champion they are playing, but you and they must also also have a decent internet connection. Not too long ago, riot released "Ping, Winrate, and Vayne Probs" which was a study of how ping effects a players win rate. Support was a full median rank 20 points below that of jungle's. The role most necessary to have a good internet connection was ADC. In short, because this post is already long, if your ADC cannot capitalize on you getting a pull with Blitzcrank or Thresh, or a stun with Taric, or a knock up with Nami, then it doesn't matter how well you play your support role because you won't make enough of a trade to offset the damage the two of them can do to you. If you are a CC support and playing against a healer you are better off not even trying to poke. If you are playing with some one you do not know, then this situation can be risky at best, and at worst you are simply gambling every time you try to make a pull or land a poke because you are not sure if your partner can capitalize on the move or position their champion to keep the other team's bot from diving on you.

Everyone has wards, but it is still your job to ward. If you are not there for a fight involving more than 2 people, everyone hates you. If you are not warding jungle where none of your team is, everyone hates you. If you get killed while trying to ward, everyone hates you. Despite everyone having wards, you are the only one responsible for warding.

TL;DR In queue, fill = support. Support is not a fun role to play because it requires you to be passive and reactive, not proactive. A successful support requires the ADC to have a good connection and for them to be ready and able to react. Only your can prevent jungle fires. Warding

11 Comments

Into The Aether4/15/2016, 2:59:55 PM3 votes

Long post, Had to trim.

{quoted}

There is an issue with the queue at the moment, but that isn't what I am mainly here to talk about.

To get it out of the way, an issue with the queue at the moment is that it doesn't matter what you select as your main, you are nearly guaranteed to get support if you select fill as the second position. If you select fill as the first position, you will almost certainly get support.

Yeah, most of us who popped fill got a lot of support.

I selected fill as the main role and after I noticed a trend I started counting. By the 12th time (after I began to count) I had selected it, I had gotten support 11 times, but the twelfth time I got top. Before the game started someone didn't lock in and so I was sent back to queue where I again got support. Last night, after 24/25 times being matched as a support I actually made it in game as an ADC. Something isn't right about that.

After playing 30-40 of my last 35-40 matches as support, I feel that I have learned a few things about support, and why that role is persistently at the bottom of the desired positions to play.

It can be boring. As a support you are expected to, if all goes OK, sit there and let your partner farm. In a public queue, especially solo, you really can't reliably do much more...

There is a different mentality to supporting in games in general, which is part of why it's picked up less often. You augment other people, so in some way you're always acting by reference.

Being reactive's pretty critical for a lot of supports. Some of them it's damn near all they do, Janna being probably the best example. But support's one of the classes on the block for the initiator role, and is typically one of the better roles to start a pick or an advantageous skirmish. You do rely more on people following up, but being on a carry waiting for teammates to catch you something feels pretty reactive sometimes too. The fact that you're a lower priority target also creates an unusual sort of "safety" to fish for a play any time a more threatening teammate is nearby, as well.

There are very few reliably consistently loved supports. I haven't just been playing as support, I have been playing against them too. Common supports that every ADC is cool with include: Taric, Alistar, Soraka, Sona, Leona. (More on blitz and thresh in a minute) Of those, the ones that really seem to be preferred are Sona, Taric, Alistar. ......There are supports who are played more often, but those three are the ones that any ADC would love to have in lane with them.

I typically prefer a CC support when I ADC. Janna and Thresh top the play list for support lately, and are the ones I play most. Alistar's sort of in the same engage/disengage paradigm with Thresh. When I play against a Sona, I don't care about the heal so much as the poke, and the cheesy level 1 stacked power chord to start the lane. Soraka's a bit obnoxious due to making it a dead lane just by standing behind the ADC. Overall support champions tend to start the game strong, and scale less well with items, so its pretty core to the concept that they have CC or other utility.

Get to the kitchen and make me a sandwich, a.k.a know your role. As a support you are not supposed to kill anything. Ever. You see that minion in lane? Don't touch it. You see that champion that you can kill? Unless every single member of your team is no where near that easily kill-able champion or they are literally unable to land a shot, a support is not to kill an enemy champion....Looking at some statistics, your highest win rate supports average less than 3 kills, less than 6 deaths, less than 15 assists and less than 25 cs...

As an ADC, unless I'm Draven, I don't really care if I'm 0/0/4 and the support is 4/0/0. We're winning. If I'm Draven, I'm probably a bit pissed. If I'm 0/1/4 on Draven, I may be very pissed. If I'm 1/0/3, everything's fine again. It's optimal for the kills to go to someone who scales better with gold, but always make sure the kill is secured, always make sure the kill isn't a trade if you can, saving your teammate by killing the enemy faster. Donating the kill properly is icing on the cake.

As a support, the majority of the time people don't gripe if I get kills. The highest winrate support has been a disengage support recently, and disengage/shields don't show up in measured statistics well.

As for the CS thing, if you're not a Targon's support, and don't explicitly know how to manage the wave in a given situation, you generally shouldn't be touching the wave when the ADC is there. Wave management is important to the lane, and the support is usually worse at it once the ADC has any AD. Even if the ADC is bad at it, they'll do even more poorly with random assistance they don't expect. Ideally you should know how to manage in certain situations, especially pushing for the level 2 edge.

When the ADC's not there it's ideal either to freeze the wave for them if you can, both giving them more farm and exp, and creating a favorable position in lane. Take anything that it's certain they won't be able to get for yourself.

You don't usually get told that your assists are the winning factor, sure, but I generally don't get compliments for good performances in other roles either.

The CC supports rely on your ADC too much It is virtually impossibly to play a CC support well unless your ADC is not only familiar with the champion they are playing, but you and they must also also have a decent internet connection.....

If you're a CC support with a lousy ADC, getting that ADC's worthless ass through laning phase at a score better than 0/7/0's a pretty good priority for the first portion of the game. That may put you entirely on the backfoot, but "losing well" and disengaging is good too. Later on, you can latch on to literally any other member of your team that's worth a damn and help them do useful things, while periodically setting a ward net for the worthless ADC to farm with/watch for when you have to rescue them from themselves.

On the ADC side of things, when supports don't understand that you'll lose the 2on2 engage, and keep looking for the engage anyway, it can be pretty infuriating. Or if you can't meaningfully apply enough pressure that the ADC can get to the wave, or don't contribute to trades safely. The support's usually more important to trades early on, so even if the ADC fails, the support should be carrying them a bit. When I trade well but it's basically 1on2 and my support sits, I don't like that much either.

Everyone has wards, but it is still your job to ward. If you are not there for a fight involving more than 2 people, everyone hates you. If you are not warding jungle where none of your team is, everyone hates you. If you get killed while trying to ward, everyone hates you. Despite everyone having wards, you are the only one responsible for warding.

I legitimately hate the yellow trinket nerf. I liked the level 9 mini sightstone on my ADC. Though when I support, I don't mind being the main warder, mostly because I don't trust other members of the team to do it well. I mostly just hope they put them somewhere.

Warding jungle areas mostly depends on where your team should be going, which can in fact mean warding a spot where no one is, so that you can set up to attack a nearby objective.

TL;DR In queue, fill = support. Support is not a fun role to play because it requires you to be passive and reactive, not proactive. A successful support requires the ADC to have a good connection and for them to be ready and able to react. Only your can prevent jungle fires. Warding

I like supporting some of the time. I make stuff happen. But turning engagements on an enemy isn't exactly weak/non-involved, either.

Lovely Pants4/15/2016, 3:30:12 PM2 votes

Well, I think you've outlined the general perspective of why people don't like to play support. I have some degrees of difference in my opinion on some of these points from what I feel is the reality of the situation, and personally I think the landscape changes depending on where you are in the game.

Some of these points ring mostly true, and I'll go ahead and address these with some caveats of my own.

-Only a few supports teammates like you to play

Kind of. If anything I think supports have a slightly wider champion pool of picks that people will not complain about you picking than most lanes. ADCs still have like 5 champions only that teammates are going to be particularly happy about seeing. You mostly just can't play any mage support aside from Morganna and do poorly without your teammates taking any notice.

A more relevant concern about the role, I think, is that in all but the most coordinated team games the kinds of supports that are easiest and least stressful to play are those which most effectively erase teammate mistakes like poor positioning and bad engagements. (I say that's a concern, but I know that a lot of traditionalist support players complain about the possibility of high base mages and playmaking supports taking their jobs and other players complain about the snowballyness of bottom lane when these kinds of supports can function more effectively, so it's not exactly clear what is actually wanted in this space.)

-No praise or reward

If you're not Soraka or Blitzcrank, usually not. Actually your praise even then comes more frequently in the form of pure vitriol from the enemy team for playing those champions. More generally, it's only the huge carries and kill streaks that tend to be praised across any lane, and there simply aren't many of those available to the support role. Personally I feel more gratified in the rare occasions where I've actually been complimented as a Bard or Janna by someone who has an understanding of what I've actually been doing, but I truly understand how this is a big problem for general feelings of gratification from the support role.

-Supports are reactive rather than proactive

Moving on from the first point, being reactive is the least stressful way to play the role.

The thing about being active in the duo lane is it can be difficult to view the incremental gains you get from micromanaging the enemy's ability to farm as impactful. Currently I also feel like there's so much sustain in the duo lane that it's hard to notice anything more than flat-out lane shutdowns. It's difficult to setup for your jungler when you have about a five-second interval after winning a trade before the enemy lane is back up to full. Bot lane is already a risky prospect to tackle for a jungler with everything that could go wrong with two extra players in the equation, and thus you often aren't getting any action until somebody's team pops a double teleport and smashes in one side of the lane or the other.

All this said, however, I think there's just a different skill set involved with being proactive as a support player. At least any support player worth their salts will climb fast through bronze and low-silver with any champion if they can be intelligently aggressive, but once players become a little more mechanically savvy, you have to very quickly raise your leadership skills compared to other roles. You need to be able to tell your carries where you intend to follow-up, where you intend to retreat, when you aren't capable of lending pressure, etc. Into the mid game a support player needs to know how to roam and rotate, apply map pressure, prioritize what allies to help. It's the role where you need to express your strategic skills much earlier in your growth than most other players.

stealthfox944/15/2016, 3:31:09 PM2 votes

wall of text

Arakadia4/15/2016, 11:42:47 PM2 votes

In queue, fill = support. Support is not a fun role to play because it requires you to be passive and reactive, not proactive. A successful support requires the ADC to have a good connection and for them to be ready and able to react.

I agree 10000%, especially that supports are reactive ratehr then proactive.

Vesuvias4/16/2016, 9:02:13 AM1 votes

I have started to only select fill in match making now because I have found the most on-META support that completely breaks the META because of item purchases. I don't think many people know about it, but I plan to exploit it until they either change it or they address this support issue.

On top of that I think I may just start updating this thread with ways to break this support malaise until Riot actually address the issue in this thread or until they solve the support issues of Fill = support, or support being so unattractive.

Vesuvias4/21/2016, 8:45:38 PM1 votes

Because of the Taric rework Fill was not an automatic support... For a single day.