How to harass?

Twlnkle·11/21/2016, 9:31:03 PM·3 votes·911 views

I know their are possible 100+ of how to harass but as a support when trying to harass hit. The enemy end up getting the better of our trade.

Suppose to harrass as a melee support? Example: walking up to the enemy as Leona (i start Q) hit, stun, my Adc is targeting minions. Brief stun ends and Leona gets hit 2 times by AA and at least 1 ability causing me to waist a health biscuit.

Harrass as range? When attempting to AA the enemy, my champion would walk in range, then strike, but by the time i get in range the enemy ADC had already hit his target and is more or less walking away from the AA leaving my champion open to get hit by Caster minions and enemy champions harrass. So in the end, my champion got struck multiple times by Casters/Melee minions and possibly enemy champ.

My question is. How do i go about winning trades and peeling safety for a better time as a support.

10 Comments

Oglaf11/21/2016, 9:33:43 PM1 votes

A lot of it is mind-games as a melee Support.

Sometimes just walking towards the enemy ADC as they go for CS (especially if they are short ranged such as Lucian or Draven) can be enough to make them back off and miss the kill.

Basically you want to try and act as a buffer between your ADC and the enemy - which is why faith in your ADC is much more important to a melee Support because you're going to be wanting to set up situations where your ADC can harass them, but you are in the way of them harassing back. If your ADC can't capitalize on this, the enemy will get clever and just shoot you in the face because they are confident in that there won't be any retaliation for it.

dakota saturn11/21/2016, 9:41:12 PM1 votes

Omfg, a legitimate question, written intelligently on the official forums. No memes, no sarcasm, no trolling or whining.

I'll do my best to answer since I moonlight as support. I only play ranged supports, so take what I say with a grain of salt.

If you harass with abilities you won't draw aggro. As the above poster said, when the enemy is walking up to last hit a minion, that's when you auto. Autoing is really important at low levels, but as you get closer to 6, the risk and reward ratio thins out a lot. Auto's will draw minion aggro, so what you might want to try is backing off as the AA is firing. By level 3+, you want to start setting up your ADC for kill potential, depending on the matchup. My main support is Janna, so even though she is considered a passive support, it's still important to harass to maintain lane control and deny freefarm to the enemy ADC.

PhantomGG11/21/2016, 9:47:37 PM1 votes

The trick with all harrasments and coming out ahead in trades is two things

1-Comparing your minion wave to theirs

Why? So think of minions like a wall/fortress, the moment you pass that wall, you expose yourself to danger, from the enemy bot lane and the enemy minions, because of this, you want to look for those brief oppurtunities when your wave is bigger, not not hard core pushing. This will heavily lessen the damage you take from minion agro.

2-Look for moments when the opponent is to distracted by farming. A very common toplane strat when it's mellee vs mellee, is that a player will wait for his opponent to farm a minion, and the moment his opponent clicks on a minion, that is your chance to click onto your opponent, for since your opponent is locked into the animation to hit the minion, he must now cancel his animation to run away or trade toward you, thus you get in two autos, vs his one or no autos.

This trick can also be used in bot lane.

Gibberwatt11/21/2016, 9:48:28 PM1 votes

(working off the assumption that you are playing as support) My advice would be to watch your own minions. You probably shouldn't be farming much (except for item 3401 ), so you can focus all your energy on watching the other laners, and the minions. If you do this, you can probably predict which of your minions will be the enemy's next target. If you do this, you can start to engage the enemy AS he goes to farm, rather than AFTER he takes the cs. This forces the dude to either use his first auto on the minion (and probably take some damage from you) or use his auto on you (and thus miss that farm). You have thus won the trade, and should leave before the other support/adc gets in your face.

Also, you don't have to engage all the time. I'm not sure what you play, or how, but some champions are designed around all-inning, rather than harass:

Blitzcrank This dude is about all-inning, sure, but he is ready to all-in every time his hook is up Braum This guy doesn't harrass, or all in, unless his adc goes in. He is purely defensive, and is almost an anti-all-in support Soraka This girl is all about harrass. Just slap them with your Q when they go to farm, and then leave. Your autos are literally worthless, don't bother trading with them. Janna See Soraka Leona I haven't really played her, but I think she is like Blitz. However, she requires more skill cause she is the one flying across the map, instead of pulling people to her. If she goes in at the wrong time (aka when the adc is in farmville), she will be punished Alistar See Leona AP supports: I know some people get triggered when they see this, but they are mostly geared towards constant harrass, finalizing in either pushing the enemy out of lane with backing, or an all-in in which the ADC (hopefully) gets the kill. Also, it isn't the champion that a support plays that determines a support, but the mindset. If your mindset is to solo carry the game, you are no support, even if you are playing soraka. If your mindset is to assist your teamates in both killing and not dying, then you are a true support, even if you are playing Illaoi.

Mysticman8911/21/2016, 9:52:00 PM1 votes

As range, you want to try to trade when they're going to last hit, so they have to chose between last hitting or trading back. If they've already done the last hit by the time you get in aa range, then you waited too long to go in. Also, you don't need to trade on every single cs, so if theres a big wave of enemy casters that'll retaliate and lose the trade for you, then you probably don't want to do it.

(Of course, sometimes losing trades don't matter if you're about to back anyway, or if you know your jg is coming in and that extra trade will make the difference, or if you have a source of sustain over them.)

It depends on the matchups too. Sometimes you're just not going to outtrade them, so playing relatively passively is probably the better bet.

This being said though, I find people at lower elo get impatient and do crazy suicidal things (as they think the only way to get a lead is through kills), so playing passively and waiting for people to make a mistake and then punishing it is actually pretty reliable. As you move up more controlled aggressive play can be necessary to stay competitive, but people lack discipline at low-ish elo and will go for blood when they should just be csing.

Swiftstrike411/22/2016, 8:25:02 PM1 votes

If you are ranged you auto when you can. If you are melee you don't really harass as much unless you plan an all-in. But you should walk around and move towards the adc occasionally so that they think you are going to all in him. That way when the jungler rotates they won't suddenly notice you playing aggressively.