Everyone should learn to play a few non-damage supports well.

JavelinJoe··3 votes·440 views

Everyone wants games where they are fed and hard carrying. Those are the best, and most enjoyable games to play. But sometimes we need to let others do the "carrying" and take a more defensive/ utility role. Sure every champion that is far ahead and fed will be able to hard carry any game. But not every member needs to be fed to win a game. Simply because, where if a Riven were to not be fed (hard to imagine but it happens) then she is more useless than any non-damage support. This is because of the kits each champion has. Non-damage carry supports are designed to be useful even if 0-20. Carries are not. They are feast or famine.

The point is that, playing non-damage support has one of those unique qualities where even if you are -20 kda, you still are going to have a large impact on the game. So instead of trying to win the hard way by playing only carries, take a few wins as a support. they are much easier to get. You also get to have a far lower queue timer as a perk, and more games = more wins.

If you still are not convinced, let me give you an example. As a Blitzcrank, you have 1 job. Land a Q. Now lets say that for the first 20 minutes you miss every single one. Best part about that kind of situation is that you still are seen as a threat, even though you have done shit to prove you actually are. Back to the example, it is not going well for you. However your team is doing alright, nothing great but nothing bad. And at 21 minutes you are in a team fight and you land your first Q. Well you basically executed that player you grabbed, and your team wins a major team fight because of it. Best part is, that was the first one you landed all game, but for the entire game after that, you will have enemies run in fear at the sight of you because of it.

Champions like Alistar Blitzcrank Thresh Nautilus who have these game changing abilities are will make for some of the easiest games you will ever win. Yeah their Lux is 14-2, but one hook from a 0-7 Blitzcrank into the full team equals a shutdown (and most likely salty) Lux, or at least a blown summoner spell or 2 for her escape, for essentially a small amount of mana and a few short ability CDs as a cost.

10 Comments

Swiftstrike42 votes

Blitzcrank is an exception to the rule though. He is one of the few champions in the game that completely alter how the game is played for the enemy team. I ban blitz when I don't know who to ban because I have seen bad supports and ADCs get wrecked by that champion. Other supports do not play the same way at all, even Thresh has a hook that has a wind up motion AND he has to come to you with the hook. Blitz can sit in a relatively safe place and grab any champion that is out of position and bring them to the team.

Support is my secondary, but I found it much harder to play support tanks in low elo.

Most gold or higher players respond to the actions of the tank. Pretty much unquestioningly there is follow-up. If I play Leona with a silver or lower ADC, guess what: they won't follow up about 50% of the time and farm when I go in. I don't even play that aggressive as Leona but on one of my smurfs I had such a low win rate with her that I had to switch supports (to Brand) because a non-response to picks was very frequent. The other thing players didn't understand was WHEN to go in. So I often has two scenarios with bad adcs: they would passively farm when their was an opportunity for a pick or there was no opportunity for a pick and they would just be straight aggro the whole laning phase.

Decisionmaking and reaction time is just slower among lower ranked players. Mages are just safer in lower elo than dive tanks in the bottom lane. I can safely poke someone down and NOT rely on the adc. Ended up with a 59% win rate with support brand and got to gold even though I wanted to play leona mostly on that account.

It may be my style of play too, I prefer poking than all ins with laning.

JavelinJoe1 votes

Thresh still has his lantern and a ton of cc. The hook is also easier to land since you can flash mid cast to close the gap at the last second.

Resonance x LFT1 votes

I mained Janna for two years. Now, I never play support anymore and I'm actually climbing the ladder by playing top and mid lane. Let's say I got randomed into support, I would just play either Annie Brand Velkoz. Since I'm a solo player, and had felt like random ADC's would just let me down, I need to be capable of carrying the game.

Mecha MaIphite1 votes

I think people are just terrified of getting a bad team. Non-damage supports don't really "carry", they just make their team carry them. People are just a lot more likely to remember that one time they went Alistar and got a terrible team who didn't know how to end a game, than the time when their team was actually good and used their lead properly.

It's a bit of a gamble to play a utility-based support, and while I would prefer to have one on my team rather than a second midlaner, I can understand why people would pick it.

MLDzXnRRR1 votes

Wow, Alistar, Blitz, Thresh and Nautilus are non-damage supports? These guys are not only with super tanky and with high base damage, but they will also do crazy damage, if you actually buy ap or ad items...

Handy Sandy 1 votes

{quoted}

Wow, Alistar, Blitz, Thresh and Nautilus are non-damage supports? These guys are not only with super tanky and with high base damage, but they will also do crazy damage, if you actually buy ap or ad items...

But they aren't damage supports because they can't really burst down enemies since they can get kited pretty easily. Brand Velkoz Annie are damage supports, since they can 100-0 the enemy adc pretty easily without buying any AP/AD items. Alistar, Nautilus, etc. are tank supports that usually buy defensive items. Yea, they can build damage but then they're just going to get 100-0d by the enemy team since they're melee which is why they aren't really known as a damage support.

Lost R1 votes

Anyone can do insane damage, if you build them right. Or if you just play them right. A few days ago, I went 1v1 against Tryndamere as support Janna, and WON.

Handy Sandy 1 votes

If you have at least one good and fed person on your team, you can still help them carry as a support by ccing high priority targets and protecting them and peeling when they need it, make them your new adc/apc when the laning phase ends. Also, to all the supports out there, please don't forget to roam. Support ganks are just as useful as jungler ganks.

ForFoxSakes1 votes

Reasoning is good and all assuming your ADC isnt a potato. Have some thresh games where we need a tank and CC yet when I land hooks and flays the ADC does nothing but keep AAing on creeps to miss CS and be @65 CS 20 mins in. If you're a full tank support with no damage behind you then you'll wish you were a damage support.

Lots of people have those games where they have a full attack speed build ADC who does rapid fire tickle damage as your team is getting 3 shot during trades then finally say "fuck it I'll carry bot lane incase the ADC is useless" during champ select

AkirisReed1 votes

I mained Morgana and Janna, but after several consecutive nerfs i found them less effective and way harder to play. Now I play mostly Zyra and this champ works well for me. 58% winrate out of ~65 games. At the same time I really try to pick some utility champions like Karma Taric even Sona , but with exception of Sona, I fall short. Negative winrates speak for themselves.

I guess it applies to up to low gold since i get enemies from up to gold 3, but when I'm on a carry support, I feel more control over the game. On bot it is me, who decides, which of two gets kill and tower gold. If i see my adc is farming well, trades decently and i feel like he's going to be able to carry me and the rest of my team, I won't hesitate to feed him and make him spike early. If he struggles to cs, eats skillshots and seems shaky, I'll take care of myself. In this case I will take every piece of gold apart from cs and look for opportunities to carry the game.

Now imagine if I was on utility pick stuck with bad laner. What can I do? Not much really. Leave him to his own devices and look for other lanes to help at the best case scenario.

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