Who is this Syndra person? Can she support?

CitadelOfIce·Dec 19, 2015·2 votes·914 views

I've been looking for a new champion to learn that can go in multiple places and I found Syndra. I'm not scared of high skill caps only ones that require your team to understand the champion I'm playing.

So my question to you is how hard is Syndra to learn and can she support with out having to be a kill lane.

16 Comments

BeldairDec 19, 20152 votes

I play Syndra support and she does good there and in mid lane.

What i do with her is start with my W to fling minions at them, then get Q for the orbs, then E.

She just takes getting used to and knowing how to use her orbs.

CindikleDec 19, 20152 votes

She works fine there.

Start Q. W is strong as a first spell but you want your stun at level 2.

Max E first. The reason for this is that Q's mana cost goes up with level. E does not. This helps her as she requires two spells to stun. What you max 2nd is up to you. W has more slow, Q has more damage.

FQC, Sorc boots, Void Staff are your first 3 items. After that you can pick up what you want. This is, of course, after you finish sightstone.

Deathcap for damage
Ludens for poke
Rylias for CC
Liandry's for synergy with Rylais
Athene/Morello for CDR(CDR scaling runes is also acceptable)
Banner of Command for MR aura+ decent stats
Hourglass

I'd say since you're support, always consider Ryalis. Follow up with Liandry vs health stackers or the team isn't building much MR. Otherwise Hourglass. Ludens is OK, but it's an item you want to get early for that 100 base damage power spike. It's not as amazing later in the game when you're more likely to get it. Deathcap is good too if you are not running into too much trouble with the enemy catching you, will overall provide you with the most damage after Void Staff.

Main problem you will face is mana sustain. As stated above, it takes her two spells to CC. Q's damage early on isn't all to impressive early either. So you can expect to need more mana to do good damage.

The next one is hard engage on you. With an easy to use knockback/stun combo you can easily defend your ADC. But you are the easier target. If they figure this out you may have a hard time.

Things you'll want to learn

QE combo. This is your bread and butter as a support. It's mostly a thing of ranges and timing you need to learn. It's a fairly fast projectile so it's not too hard to land once you get the hang of it. And it's hard for the enemy to dodge for the same reason.
When to R. Syndra's a high skill champ for the sole reason you require good positioning. Learning her basics isn't hard. But there's a lot of little things you have to keep track of outside of just cooldowns. Trying to R too soon will get you caught out and die. It's damage is high. Actually scaling harder on magic pen than AP.
RE combo. More orbs for R is great. But you always get 3. This can turn into a quick AoE stun if you time it right and can easily turn a teamfight to your side. Remember you're not there for the damage.
Orb stacking. This is overall, put down 2 Q's. Pick up the first Q with W. Then Q, W, E, R the enemy. This hits them with 6 orbs if you timed it right. Deals W's damage and stuns them at the same time. Getting this down will give you higher burst than most assassins. Killing them before the stun even ends. Keeping this in mind. Once you have the mana sustain try to always keep at least 1 Q down when near enemies.
Mana management. Stated above. But you have to get used to this on her. Most of her power is form comboing her spells.
Q/W+AA. Her Q and W have no cast time. Meaning you can move while using them without stopping. Much like Vel'Koz W. This means you can double tap your harass in lane. While most have to cast a spell to harass back you can do both then move. Her AA animation is good too.
Landing your Q's. The radius isn't that large and it's not hard to dodge it. It's not too hard to get used to it. But once you do you overall can combo it with every attack you have. Landing a W followed by a Q at the same time does a good chuck of damage to make people fear you when you are holding something with W. Your Q cooldown is something you'll want to almost feel when it's up.
Lane control with W. If your lane is pushing and you don't want it to. Pick up a minion and put it closer to your tower. You can do this on an even lane too. Just grab one early(although this is risky moving to their half) and throw it back to your side. Giving your side a larger safety net as you don't have to over extend as much to harass and setup possible ganks.

Sightless66Dec 19, 20151 votes

Realistically, she's playable as a support, but she'll technically always be inferior to other supports you could be playing. You will be handicapping yourself a bit, and you'll meet a ton of people who will be very grumpy about having to lane alongside a Syndra support (many people will think that it isn't viable), but it's perfectly possible to pull it off.

For difficulty, she's roughly mid-level difficulty. Nothing too terrible or complex, but you will likely need a bit of time to get into good habits with her.

NekusenDec 19, 20151 votes

Syndra can't support as she has nothing in her kit doesn't have that much utility, supports should usually have around 3 of these at least:

Crowd Control (slows, stuns, roots, airborne)
Heals
Shields
Speed boost
Ways to mitigate damage to teammates.
Tank

Which 2+ roles are you looking to fill ?

These are some general examples, the meta is a bit more flexible now with the jungle changes.

Tahm Kench can support, top and sometime jungle

Quinn and Vayne can adc, top and sometimes jungle

ChoGath / Mundo / Ekko / Jax / Sion can top and jungle

Fizz can mid and jungle

Lux can support and mid

Volibear can top, support and jungle

Nautilus can support and jungle

BeldairDec 19, 20151 votes

W- Slows.

E- Stuns if hit by orb.

Look more closely at her kit. I know she can do good in support because i've done fairly well with her.

NekusenDec 19, 20151 votes

{quoted}

W- Slows.

E- Stuns if hit by orb.

Look more closely at her kit. I know she can do good in support because i've done fairly well with her.

i know her kit, it's 1 of 3 points.

sure, you can play shaco support if you want, it's a free world, but supports are supposed to bring utility to the team, not pure damage.

BeldairDec 19, 20151 votes

And yet we see Teemo support, Brand support, Anivia support, and Annie support.

NekusenDec 19, 20151 votes

{quoted}

And yet we see Teemo support, Brand support, Anivia support, and Annie support.

i've seen heimerdinger jungle as well, it doesn't mean its a good idea.

that kind of "support" is circumstantial. you can use those when you have:

AD mid
enough utility from the rest of the team

but in any case, they seem to forget awfully often to buy things like: item 3222 item 3050 item 3504 item 3190 , etc.

again, you can do whatever you want, i think what he is asking is if it is a good idea or not.

BeldairDec 19, 20152 votes

Syndra support has worked out quite well for me. Then again, I've done Gragas, Maokai, Anivia, Sejuani, and Galio supports as well.

CindikleDec 19, 20152 votes

That's the current meta of supports.

There are also poke supports that have a hard time right now. Which is why Sona's in such a bad spot even though she has 4 of your 6 point list. She's mainly a poke support with benefits. (Which is why most will build an early Lichbane on her).

Syndra has good early game harass and strong CC. I'm not saying she's a great support. But she does in fact work. It's just that tankier supports scale better with less gold. Helps even less that AP itemization got worse with the season.

For a while last season Vel'Koz was a thing as support. His CC is less reliable than Syndra's, but his damage is higher. Even being possible to be 1st or 2nd on damage. Annie is also another example.

Supports used to go Sustain>Poke>Tank>Sustain. But when supports got a gold income, gold scaling became important. Tanks always scale harder with gold, but get less overall. Sustain is still good but niche. This change also allowed junglers to be less tanky and more offense/gank. Tank supports bring more to the game than the other two rolls. Only way I see Riot fixing it is reverting the support scaling changes and making items better for them. As long as they share an item set with AP builders things wont really change.

SH AzykanDec 19, 20151 votes

In the Support Role I would say she is outclassed by Annie in most cases. She is slightly safer ranged but your main purpose is still to get off multiman stuns, which is a little trickier with syndra. Granted Syndra is very likely more capable of bullying certain lane matchups than Annie is and if used right can actually offer okay peel.

She takes a few games to get used to using her E for stuns (Q+E instant casts) and to get comfortable with ball timing to maximize your ults damage (6 spheres is totally doable (3 out + 3 base on ult))

BeldairDec 19, 20151 votes

Ah, the cursed Annie support. Rivaled only by the Teemo support, Morgana support, and Lux support.

SapiasDec 19, 20151 votes

Yes, Syndra works in support. I am a Syndra main, and I play her frequently in mid and support (I used to play her jungle a lot too, but season 6 changes hit that too hard), and its a matter of being able to hit your q-e combo. depending on how you play her, she can be devastating in support and mid. True, there are better options, but Syndra is one of those choices you pick when you're mainly out there to have fun. my suggestion is to start q, then e, then w, then max q, then w or e is up to you. Get frost queen's and harass with your q, but don't run out of mana. Also, I suggest playing with her q on quick cast. Thats about it! If you decide to get her, have fun!

BeldairDec 19, 20152 votes

I like to do W first so i can fling minions at them for quick harass and a slow.

Penguin EclipseDec 19, 20151 votes

She can support. No she's not good at support and I wouldn't recommend it.

QuephaDec 19, 20151 votes

If she's support she's definitely a kill lane I would say medium difficulty. You need to cast-move quite a bit with her low cooldown Q, her QE combo takes some practice aiming, and there are some funky tricks with W and Q to maximize her ult damage.

Once you've practiced those three things her play patterns are pretty simple to understand, her difficulty is just in learning the execution.