Boards›Gameplay

Any tips for climbing low elo as support?

Saewin··9 votes·8,812 views

Hey,

So I've been in a complete mess with this game lately. I've been playing since the start of season six, and after a full year of playing I decided to finally try ranked. I won six of my ten placements and was given silver five. I was elated.

However, ranked has been hell for me lately. I've been paired with feeding adc's quite a bit and at first I thought this was the issue. however, I'm worried that maybe it's more than that. I can't just blame feeders on every game I've played. my MMR is completely destroyed (I get 14 LP on a win and lose 22 on a loss, making climbing impossible) and I have a 35% winrate, which honestly is incredibly embarrassing for me. My friends also pick on my attempts to "climb," even more so since I've fallen from Silver 5 to Bronze 1 now.

So, I've been worried about my personal performance and how I can improve my play. I'd like to blame this on someone else but it's just not possible to have an MMR and winrate like this without being personally responsible. I'll link my op.gg summary below. please, if anyone can help give me advice. I don't want to stay trash at this game. I want to learn.

https://na.op.gg/summoner/userName=Saewin

P.S. I hate to ask this, but please upvote this thread. my threads always get buried and I desperately need advice. thanks so much everyone for helping me out. I'll see you guys on the Rift :)

28 Comments

k wìx6 votes

{quoted}

Hey,

So I've been in a complete mess with this game lately. I've been playing since the start of season six, and after a full year of playing I decided to finally try ranked. I won six of my ten placements and was given silver five. I was elated.

Hey There! I main support @ high gold / low plat levels - I'd be happy to give you some advice. I've been playing the game for years - I have a LOT of experience with the game.

However, ranked has been hell for me lately. I've been paired with feeding adc's quite a bit and at first I thought this was the issue. however, I'm worried that maybe it's more than that. I can't just blame feeders on every game I've played. my MMR is completely destroyed (I get 14 LP on a win and lose 22 on a loss, making climbing impossible) and I have a 35% winrate, which honestly is incredibly embarrassing for me. My friends also pick on my attempts to "climb" even more so since I've fallen from Silver 5 to Bronze 1 now.

So, I've been worried about my personal performance and how I can improve my play. I'd like to blame this on someone else but it's just not possible to have an MMR and winrate like this without being personally responsible. I'll link my op.gg summary below. please, if anyone can help give me advice. I don't want to stay trash at this game. I want to learn.

Okay, so you are not really giving me much to go off of here - you simply want to improve your play. Without watch you play - there is a limit on what feedback I can offer and what lessons I can teach, but I can give you some baseline ideas of what you should be looking for to improve your play.

I want to start by saying you should not really focus on if you win or lose a game, because you are only 1 of 10 players that decide the outcome of that match - only 10%. You want to have other goals to focus on to improve your play. Winning or losing should not be important to you. Instead focus on YOUR play, and how YOU performed. When the game ends, and it is a loss - did you play your best? That is what you ask. Every time. Here are some suggestions for things you should be focusing on every match:

  • How many times did you die in the match? You know what my goal is ? Never more than 5 deaths, or I'm the reason we are losing. Take a minute and check out my games. you'll find that this behavior has very much improved how many kills I give away. This is probably the most important thing that separates Silver/Gold players from Platinum players. We are very aware of how impactful dying is, and have learned not to give away a kill easily.

  • Recognize when you are outmatched in general, and curb your offensive plays accordingly. If I know my opponents are better than me, I do not engage them. I play safe, and wait for the game to play out. This could be because of player skill or champion matchups. Know which champions are vulnerable to ganks (Ashe, Blitz, Zyra, Ect ect) and ASK your Jungler for help in these scenarios. Once you secure a kill, the whole game instantly changes for you.

  • Warding is critical. Learn how to do it well. This is something that can't really be taught because it comes from experience and time, the concept of 'popular ward spots' is dangerous, because its predictable. You always want to be GUESSING where the enemies could be, and warding appropriately before anyone stupidly checks a place they shouldn't have been. Vision is confidence. I would tell you to always ward if you think there is immediate danger. Vision is everything. Never let the enemy operate in the dark if you know where they are. Do not be Frugal or try to 'save' your wards.

  • Pick one support and MAIN them. Learn them exclusively. Do not try to pick what is popular or even to counter pick your opponent. It's much easier to learn the rest of the support role when you are not focused on what your champion can or cannot do. Almost every support champion can be played up to platinum level. Learn who is difficult to fight and why. This will give you a deeper understanding of game mechanics. This advice can also apply to the enemy ADC - Learn who is scary, and who is easy to deal with.

  • Support solo queue is difficult because you are forced to generally play with a stranger. The best advice I can give you here is to never let your partner be caught alone in a trade. If your partner is attacking the enemy, and BOTH of them are attacking back, you are LOSING the trade. Never lose the trade. Like, lets say Leona initiates on your ADC - you MUST stop her ADC from blowing yours up, or they instantly win the lane. This could be an Exhaust, a CC effect, or even enough damage to keep the adc away.

If you want more advice, we need to get specific - who do you play, what do you think you are having the most trouble with? ect ect.

Saewin2 votes

This is extremely helpful! Thank you for your feedback :3

sjmiqTmQLb4 votes

play braindead Cc supports such as naut, thresh, alistar, janna

Mig892 votes

I find this to be bad advice because youre taking a gamble every single engage on your adc/team following up lol

o0O Madoka O0o3 votes

Boards isn't usually the best place asking for advice, given more people are here to complain about something. https://www.reddit.com/r/summonerschool/ is a better place with players higher rank than me and more dedicated to teaching other players.

My personal experience climbing from lower gold back to plat last season:

Do not play "Enchanter" class of supports unless the team comb really favors that champ, namely Nami, Sona. Morg depends on how to play her.

This class is more dependent on the performance of your ad carry. Try Mage or Engage supports such as Thresh, Zyra, Brand.

An important trick is to ward/roam enemy jungle&mid when their bot lane is dead/back. Especially go deep into enemy jungle and ward if you notice the enemy jungle is dead somewhere else. That's the single most obvious yet regarding action.

Also, if you find mechanically talented ad carries in your game, but who are pretty dumb in engage/teamfight, add the player, and play in duo with him. Teach the player how to play macroly while you take advantage of the player's mechanics.

Saewin1 votes

these are actually some really helpful tips. thanks for the advice!

robotmaster2 votes

One trick blitz and sona until you reach s1.

Miku Hime sama3 votes

Don't play Sona. She's just a shitty excuse for Nami's shadow. Sona's been the weakest support in this game since patch 4.13, play Nami, Bard, Soraka, Annie, hell even Kayle and Taric perform better than Sona.

Sona has no winning matchups and all 150 other champions in this game are more viable in the support role than her. Do yourself and your teammates a favor. Picking Sona will get you nothing, but verbal abuse and intentional feeding reports.

Sonasaurous3 votes

As a Sona main, I am triggered.

But to be fair, whenever someone takes Sona in ranked, I take Nami and purposefully steal kills on Sona.

Because I am petty.

AWildAPKalista2 votes

There is something poetic about shatting on a player with a champ that is literally just the superior carbon copy of their pick. I salute your style, even though I myself just take the easy way out and grab Zyra, Blitz, Thresh, Leona, Naut, (insert 99% guaranteed Sona counter here.)

It's not our fault Sona is a shit-tier champ. It's Fearless' fault.

Sonasaurous3 votes

Aw, thanks bud :')

I tend to favor the healers and shielders, though after playing Leona in ARAM I was thinking of picking her up.

Dionesus3 votes

What are you talking about lololol? If sona has no winning matches...why does she have the highest winrate in the game? Plz don't give bad advice. Going ap sona support got me outta bronze 2 times. Getting kills on nami is not good for team...getting kills on sona can carry your team. Sona is a late Game monster...nami isn't.

Mig891 votes

Sona isnt a monster at any point. Any champ in the game can get out of bronze, its the player, not that champ at that elo

Death by Glamour2 votes

Play ap supports

Doesn't matter if you are pair3d with a bad carry

Cash Angel2 votes

Hey, when I started ranked I got bronze 3. I was playing with a friend (he was rlly bad but I couldn't tell him) and got demoted....somehow after that match I got incouraged to get out of bronze so I climbed back to bronze 3 and I'm on a 6 win streak so far, SONA SUPPORT OP (just ward use ult properly and poke)

420 grams1 votes

Looking at your ranked match history only, you tend to be on the low side for kill participation. Like around 30% when you should be around 50 depending on how long the game is. You also play lux a lot. She has high mana costs and it's easy to run out of mana with her super early. I absolutely hate when supports just stand there soaking xp or they damage the wave and mess up any zoning strategy I try to set up. If you're going to play a support that has a stun or a hook, make sure you're actively trying to land one.

Saewin1 votes

Lux is probably one of my worst mistakes in ranked. I dominated with her in normals as a support but she just doesn't have the kind of utility that a support needs. It's become more and more apparent to me that I shouldn't play her in ranked, but she's my second most played champion and one of my favorites. so playing Morgana is how I compensate. I've actually come to prefer Morg over Lux as support recently.

Mig891 votes

Morg is good but only in a few matchups in the support role. Shes good against tank supports and anyone with a hook because of it being instant and being able to block that one skill shots. People make the mistake of thinking shes good against mages because of her shield but that shield pops really easily so its not good against damage because of the long CD. Ive went against a lot of morgana supports playing brand/zyra and I absolutely demolish them and at the end theyre left wondering why it didnt work.

Around999People1 votes

I main supp. I play mainly Thresh, Karma, and Vel in support. In season 6 I had a 76% win rate on Vel supp.

I can give you only general tips since I don't really know much about your situation.

  1. Wards. Ward bushes, ward buffs, ward everything you can. But, try to ward where you know the enemy will go, such as a path to flank your team.
  2. If your ADC is about to die and you can save them, do it. Even if you die you'll save your adc and give the enemy less gold. Plus your adc can farm and get even stronger.
  3. Play smart. Don't waste mana on abilities you know you'll miss. A lot of people do it and when the time comes to fight they have no mana.
  4. Kill participation matters. Even if it's 1 basic it can get you 150 gold on that assist. I find myself basic attacking to get that assist so I don't KS. Sometimes ot get it I shoot out an ability and get a kill. While a KS is bad, it's not something that will make the team lose. Often times I like to get that kill or two to get gold and become an unstoppable force between the enemy and the adc.
skyskee0081 votes

Ok well I main support on this ACCOUNT (high gold/low plat) and ADC (mid plat), and I can telll you that for a support the #1 key is map awareness. YOU need to be in charge of knowing where the JG/mid/top tp are and playing accordingly.

This will help you not die to 3 or 4 man ganks. You also have to learn lane matchups - that's something you get from experience (know when you're stronger/they're stronger). Let your ADC focus on laning while you CAN trade some damage but in your elo it's not that necessary.

Also play a little bit of ADC - it will make your understanding of matchups a lot better. Also DONT BE AFRAID TO LOSE, just make sure you LEARN something from every win/loss and you will improve.

Also QUICK TIP: Don't play Morg or Lux support. They're some of the worst supports right now because they just don't provide the same level of utility and often require AP to not fall off into the gutter. I'd reccomend playing Alistar/Naut/Blitz because then YOU control the game, vs being controlled by the enemy. Also if your ADC is an absolute potato, make sure to try and roam a little (especially if enemy bot is too passive to engage in your AD - knowing matchups also plays a big part).

boba drinker 1 votes

To keep this short, I'm a support main as well. I know rare right? Anyways, my best advice to you is to find a duo around your elo. Make sure that player can coordinate well with you and you guys can cooperate well together. Also, you are the playmaker here, not the adc. Whatever you call, make sure your adc can follow and understand what is happening. The adc is simply there to carry out your plan. Good luck, and I would love to know if my feedback helped or not.

EndlessSorcerer1 votes

Kill all of the things. Zyra item 3020 item 2301 item 3151 item 3135

Mig891 votes

Best advice right here^ but build in this order item 2301 item 3020 item 3116 item 3151 then the last two are situational. I run 10%cdr runes with mpen marks and AP quints. Shit took me from bronze 4 to gold 4 in a season. Youll do enough damage early to carry and with getting rylais third (its cheap so i usually get it early) I can peel like a god as well. The bottom line is playing support in low ELO is a crapshoot with your ADC so being able to have damage and CC second is better imo. Not having to rely on an ADC to get kills/lane pressure is more important than pikcing a champ that is amazing at peeling but the monkey youre trying to peel for doesnt understand how to kite/position.

EndlessSorcerer1 votes

Build can depends rather heavily on play-style. While your build offers more utility (making it better for teamfighting and kiting), the one I suggested offers more raw damage (making it better for bursting people down).

If the enemy team has poor vision control, it isn't that difficult to ambush and kill an isolated player. Even if your team is poor, you'll always have an advantage when it is 5v4.

20 Magic Pen (Quints, Marks, Glyphs), Sorcerer Shoes + Haunting Guise allow you to deal true damage against most squishy champions and Void Staff is sufficient to negate whatever MR item they purchase.

However, you appear to have far more experience with her than I do. While I've experimented with her in the past, I've always preferred Enchanters.

Mig891 votes

I miss playing enchanters and tanks in the support role. Its just that I got tilted from playing with too many ADCs in bronze and silver that just didnt know how to work a 2v2 lane. Ever since I hit gold again ive started playing leona again and ive done well. I just like zya because if you ward well, its a skill matchup and with a 60% winrate over 130 games, it just felt good to win like that. Ive had games where im ahead and my last two items are zzrot and banner. Ive played split-push zyra to win some games lol

Dominick Destine1 votes

Janna is pretty feelo right now.

The Fuzzy 0ne1 votes

My first season was Season 5. Last season I climbed from Bronze 5 to Gold 5 and this season Silver 5 to Gold 5 playing support. Let me tell you a little bit more about how:

  1. Tilt My first season I sucked. And though I started out in Silver 5, I quickly lost game after game until Bronze 3. I was so stressed about winning that I was basically perma-tilted. I would try to keep playing through losing streaks making them worse because I wasn't at my best. After the soft rest placed me in Bronze 5 the next season I played every game relatively stress free because there was nowhere to go but up.

    • So my first bit of advice is to not play tilted instead, make sure that you play your best every game without carrying the previous game failures into your next games unless they're lessons learnt.

  2. Feeding I'm not saying you're a feeder. Looking at your history you have quite a few games with barely any deaths. A big point of support is being able to help your ADC or any other player on your team from themselves. You have to do what you can to make their mistakes not matter meaning that they won't get poked down too much, that you will peel, and that you can lantern them out of a bad situation to the best of your of your ability . Sometimes you can't save everyone and that's ok.

  3. Vision Vision is maybe one of the most important aspects of this game ESPECIALLY as support. This means that you should be buying AT LEAST 3 control wards per game, having extras in your inventory for objectives such as herald, baron or drags since sweeper has a cd. This also means that you should be putting out 3 new wards after every back. You should be placing around 30 wards per game, atm you place 12-20 from what I've seen. This also means denying your enemy vision when possible as well. Also, deep ward when possible. It will help with ganks for you and your teammates.

  4. Map Awareness This comes back to number 3 as well. As support, you should always be seeing the mini-map!! Not only for watching out for ganks on bot lane but also for top, jg, and jg timers. Many times, teammates might be too focused on a trade or maybe they're having trouble farming.. whatever the case they won't always be aware of what's happening on the map to look for ganks or where the enemy jg is or a roaming mid laner.

  5. Roaming It's not always possible in a tough lane, but when you can, you should try to be roaming for a gank mid or top to help those lanes out. Low elo players rarely expect that so a ss or boot rush is invaluable to this!

  6. Trades in lane Poking the enemy adc and zoning them from farm is one of the best things you can do for your adc in lane as long as you don't get poked down too hard or die doing so. It makes the enemy adc less focused on your adc and their farm and more on you which lets your adc get more farm and maybe some kills.

Your KP% is fairly consistently at 50% or above so I'm not worried about you too much, and you don't have 10+ deaths per game so I think that you will be fine! There may be more to add to this list, but tbh this is all the things that have helped me climb and grow as a player so I hope it helps :)

P.S. - when I was falling down the ladder in my first season, I gave up ranked cuz of the stress (I too was getting those same win/loss LP ratios). It felt hopeless so I spammed normals. I have to say, it helped immensely because I got to understand the flow of the game better so I knew where best to ward, objective control and when it's important, and helped me choose more of a focused champ pool instead of trying to play everything at support lol. But if I could do it, then you can too :)

amityrosie1 votes

A lot of the times I have feeder teams too. You’d want to blame them but it’s the champ you have to play too. If your team is bad, play someone whose independent like Lux or Brand. Someone who can solo.

More from Gameplay

3 Refunds per season, upvote if you want 3 refunds per season.
Gameplay764 comments
7,167
votes
3 Refunds per season, upvote if you want 3 refunds per season.
Gameplay156 comments
3,510
votes
UPVOTE FOR URF
Gameplay606 comments
2,440
votes
Yes plz.
Gameplay456 comments
1,721
votes
3 Refunds per season, up vote if you want 3 refunds per season.
Gameplay114 comments
1,716
votes
When is ANYONE at riot going to address the awful new player experience?
Gameplay634 comments
1,383
votes

More by Saewin

since everyone else is talking about their division...
Memes & Games56 comments
175
votes
The current emote page meta
Memes & Games52 comments
128
votes
Sona can have her etwahl...
Memes & Games18 comments
112
votes
Why can't nasus jungle?
Memes & Games6 comments
25
votes
I know why Anivia is a blue block in the forum right now
Memes & Games21 comments
22
votes
Your three highest masteries are your waifus. how screwed are you?
Memes & Games146 comments
20
votes