Playing a legitimate support is harder than I gave it credit for

Fuh Queue·6/30/2017, 12:27:11 PM·94 votes·7,806 views

Hey everyone.

So yesterday I was playing on my alternative account for a while when I got slapped with autofill. Normally I play mage supports and do the typical sightstone -> full AP as a Brand main. However I ran into the issue of only having 2 supports on this account: Nami and Braum.

I locked Nami and quickly looked into the builds I should be running before the game started. I was actually surprised. I'm obviously not good at league so when I reached mid game with 5 active items to manage and the sole responsibility for protecting my adc, I found it difficult. Eventually we won the game and I managed a 3/4/29 game.

The thing is that I've always built damage items and relied only on my skills and focused on the enemy team. Changing the view into peeling and supporting was alot more challenging than I thought it would be. The gameplay was interactive and it felt rewarding.

154 Comments

KoKoboto6/30/2017, 2:08:46 PM42 votes

Support has the highest skill floor out of all positions if you ask me, maybe it's kinda equal to the jungler. Autofill supports are SO obvious.

RiotRiot TreblMuffin7/1/2017, 12:47:28 AM29 votes

ONE OF US. ONE OF US.

Welcome friend.

Deep Terror Nami6/30/2017, 12:29:29 PM10 votes
The Bad Touch7/1/2017, 4:07:57 AM6 votes

The hardest part about playing support.. is realizing you really have no impact.. accepting that fact and praying for LP if the coin flip works out.

Dataless6/30/2017, 2:14:09 PM6 votes

Now try playing Bard and landing good ults/stuns. ;-)

Thilmer7/1/2017, 10:48:38 AM5 votes

To be fair, every role in this game looks easy... but then you play it and discover it is not.

Stars Shaper7/1/2017, 11:16:55 AM3 votes

I usually try to keep 3 items with active effects max unless I see the real need to build more.

My main issue is that I'm not used to move my fingers quickly to them numbers and I can mess things up really easily.

FilDaFunk6/30/2017, 4:01:18 PM3 votes

ONE OF US! ONE OF US! ONE OF US!

I Love Thresh6/30/2017, 11:57:04 PM3 votes

I main support, but it's definitely the least demanding role, and I'm not sure why people on the boards are circlejerking about it having a high skillcap.

crzymdscntst7/1/2017, 4:00:33 AM3 votes

Support is hard because:

"NO NO TOWARDS ME! LET ME HEAL YOU TO SAVE YOU!" ~every Soraka ever

Fefnil7/1/2017, 11:44:01 AM3 votes

Mmh... is that surprising? You transition from a kind of support who has to care only about the enemies (sure, you can do a bit of peel, but not really in a focused way) to a support who has to care about the enemies AND the allies. It's pretty obvious what's harder. And if you take into account all the actives that come from support item, Redemption, Mikael's and whatever else, you notice that you are playing a champion that has to care about both enemies and allies and has 4 ulties.

JinxGoesBoom7/1/2017, 9:19:52 PM2 votes

As a support main for approximately 4 seasons now, I would like to agree with you, but I feel compelled to point out that it's less "more difficult" and more "different". Having mained support, and specifically Thresh since his release, I find it very impressive when people can play other roles well. The positioning involved in Carry roles, the knowledge of when and how to gank in the Jungle, knowing when to group and when to split as Top, etc. Support is a rather different role than most others, it's true, but IMO, that's all it is: a different playstyle, not necessarily a harder one.

...that being said, I can't play anything else to save my life any more :(

BakedLotion7/1/2017, 2:12:09 AM1 votes

item 2049 item 3107 item 3190 item 3117 item 3504 + luxury item

Support champions don't really have any other build path