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Is there a reason to play support?

TequilaZombie··5 votes·1,826 views

I mean, other than the game being balanced around the need of a support, is there a reason why I should WANT to play support over any other role?

If I want to be a never dying motherfucker I can play a tank in the JG or Top.

If I want to quickly take someone out I can play Burst mages or Assassins in the Mid Lane or JG.

If I want to melt faces I can play ADC on Bot and sometimes Mid.

If I want to CC people I can play Control Mages or CC Tanks.

If I want to ward a lot and be behind in gold I play support? I have no clue what is supposed to be the appeal of a support on League.

Don't get me wrong. I personally enjoy the support role in most other games. Usually my second run in most RPGs is as a support class (my first being as an Assassin or Melee DPS), but in League I just can't find it fun. Being forced into crappy items with gimmicks actives/passives instead of raw power while also being behind in gold/xp and starting out at a negative 800g because you need item 2045 feels really bad. Specially since with all those drawbacks you still won't be pulling out some amazing stuff as a payoff. If I personally feel the need to have big impact in controling teamfights I can just play control mages like Anivia Lissandra Taliyah or CC tanks like Nautilus Amumu Galio. Hell, I can even play someone like Gnar and be a Anti-Tank DPS Burst Tanky Initiator Assassin and do all the work myself. As it stands, I see no reason at all to play support over other classes with the only reasoning being "Hey, I like to be the guy who helps out others!".

I just think that so many other roles can do the support's job better than the support that playing one feels like being Robin while Batman kicks everyone's asses doing the exactly same as you, but better.

So support players, what makes support an appealing role?

28 Comments

SoundChaosDebug2 votes

I've been asking myself lately if there is even a reason to playing this game still, it fills a multiplayer need but I'll just have to find a new multiplayer game.

TequilaZombie1 votes

I've almost left League a while back during Shaco changes because his play pattern changed quite heavily (also, AD Shaco Mid, which was my favorite way of playing him, was completely killed). However I'm having some fun with Draven and occasionally Twitch.

If you are going to leave, I would sugest you give Paladins a try. I've found it extremely fun. I'm also a cheap motherfucker, so it helps that it's F2P.

midnight oil241 votes

I suggest you go to heroes of the storm. If you can get some friends, the nexus challenge is going to end in about a month, but you can get a bunch of free characters.

SoundChaosDebug1 votes

Thanks but I told myself I wouldn't play any new blizzard games, after they fired the developers of Diablo and Starcraft under false pretenses.

bad arcade kitty2 votes

because it is the easiest role (which still has a great impact, possibly more than top, consider how many games are lost because your bot fed) so if you reached a level where you can't do well in any other role any more you can go support

if anything i rather don't see much reason to play top, it is both hard and you have a less impact than mid/jungle

RogueWill1 votes

You play top if you are mechanically gifted and you don't like mages. That is the gist behind it.

Shuyin1781 votes

I'm a top lane main and nothing you just said is true. Mechanically gifted? Darius DrMundo Illaoi Gnar Garen Nasus Riven totally takes skill to use these

Don't like mages? Chogath Lissandra Kennen Ryze Rumble Swain Vladimir look like AD champions to me

This is just the short list for both things.

AlienPrimate1 votes

I think a poor support on the team has much more impact than a poor ADC. If the support is bad then the adc and support end up feeding because the ADC can't protect themselves. If the ADC is bad then bottom lane just doesn't get any kills or as many kills as they should.

A bad support can actually get a great ADC killed even though they were playing safe. Take for example a Blitz pulling an assassin or fighter right on top of the ADC while their abilities are on cooldown. It doesn't matter how good the ADC is at that point.

JPlayah2 votes

As someone who used to main support, I totally agree with this. If I want to help my team AND have fun, I usually won't play meta supports. The exception is Soraka, because with Warmogs, AP, and CDR, her heal becomes so hilarious for trolling the enemy team because your teammates just won't die.

Other than that, I would rather take an off-meta cc tank or something into bot.

Ashe support is fun. :D

AlienPrimate1 votes

Ashe support with a Morde ADC is really fun. With Ashe slows Morde can actually get close enough to do his thing.

IcyPepper1 votes

Don't you mean Morde AP bruiser or something? I'm not sure he's a classical ADC, even in bot lane.

AlienPrimate1 votes

You know what I meant.

AgeOfTheMage1 votes

i guess at times it's fun, and plus, someones gotta do it. brd can play a great role in teamfights with his ult, same for raka. This may be just me, but sometimes i consider champs like Leona or Nautilus to be a support, you could take them toplane and provide as much cc as you can in bot.

Sir Poodle1 votes

Well, you have a lot of power as a support player, but you sort of have to wield it through others, so if your team isn't competent you're worse than useless.

TequilaZombie1 votes

But what sort of power a support has that other classes don't? CC tanks and control mages can set up plays just as well if not better than supports.

Sir Poodle1 votes

I mostly mean all in one kit, and it's not always setting up plays. But yeah, I feel support needs some love. It's just really awkward because since one jungler is optimal, and last hitting is important, there must be one champion on the team who needs and gets no gold and has no meaningful scaling, ect. I mean, I think it's beyond even one roster update to fix.

Now that I think about it, one way of fixing it might be to alter the givens and make minion gold split between all nearby champions, but that might screw over supports even more. Idk.

I'm aware I haven't really answered "what do they do better" and part of that is because I'm not sure what. I know I have often more and different impact as a Janna than as an Anivia, but I haven't really dissected it and I don't really feel patient enough to do so.

Some easy targets, non-cc utility in general (heals, shields, braum's Unbreakable, movment speed boost, exp boosts.)

bad arcade kitty1 votes

{quoted}

But what sort of power a support has that other classes don't? CC tanks and control mages can set up plays just as well if not better than supports.

supports have the best heals, arguably the best shields

DrugsForRobots1 votes

The vision game and info wars.

I do think everyone should be equally responsible for vision, but I'd personally like to see some support specific items that play with sight and detection in neat and interesting ways. The active from FQC comes to mind as a good example.

"The vision game has the potential to be this awesome war of territorial control, where teams try to claim portions of the map for themselves via these markers of tremendous power, but wards can't satisfy that right now because it's very difficult to be aware of how wards control territory, or which territory is being controlled via wards. The vision game also has the potential to be this spy war-esque fantasy, where teams eke out informational advantages over each other via specialized gadgets in order to enact great victories later on, but the payoff from vision is often difficult to associate directly to wards, let alone to any specific ward." -Willbachbakal, LoL Wiki Mod

IMHO, the issue of warding is core to the issue of being a support. Warding would be a lot more exciting and accessible if wards were overt and explicit about how they controlled an area. I commonly give this example (because I think something like this demonstrates whats possible with wards):

http://media.lolusercontent.com/api/embedly/1/image/resize?url=http%3A%2F%2Fmedia.lolusercontent.com%2Fapi%2Fembedly%2F1%2Fimage%2Fresize%3Furl%3Dhttp%253A%252F%252Fvignette2.wikia.nocookie.net%252Fleagueoflegends%252Fimages%252F7%252F7e%252FLivesByProxy_WardRework_RedSentry.png%252Frevision%252Flatest%253Fcb%253D20160226051903%26key%3Da45e967db0914c7fb472fd4381e6c85b%26width%3D150&key=a45e967db0914c7fb472fd4381e6c85b&width=150 Sentry Ward:

  • True Sight.
  • Indestructible.
  • Vision is limited to a cone that rotates, which the enemies can see.
  • Is visible to enemy champions and can be disabled temporarily.

How such a ward controls territory is obvious, but it can be outplayed. You can get around it by virtue of your own mechanics and timing and tactics. If we had wards that were fallible (less reliable), had some exploitable weakness or blind-spot, then wards could be much more powerful and specific in their effects and possibly even FREE. Such a ward also clearly demonstrates exactly what it does to new players and veterans alike. You'd be hard pressed to find someone who plays video games who wouldn't look at this ward in action and know immediately what it does and that it is something to be avoided.

If Riot wants to make the support role more hospitable to all types of players, maybe they should take another look at vision and apply their philosophy of clarity and counterplay to wards. The vision game and info wars are as much a battle of wits as each teamfight and skirmish is a test of mechanical aptitude and decision making.

Hrd2H1t1 votes

Support is the perfect role for people who want to control the map with vision, roaming, and overall its actually a pretty "team captain" type.

Nameless Voice1 votes

You play support if you want to subtly control events from the shadows, to hide in plain sight and win games for your team without anyone realising exactly what happened or why they won.

SugarRayMoe1 votes

The ONLY reason I play support is because I'm not willing to wait 5 minutes per game. I detest this role, but, I detest even more to wait 5-10 minutes queues to play another role.

I've played the support role in many many many other games. The only one where I dont enjoy it is in this game. It's disgusting, to the point even that I think that they should remove the role completely. This role makes me puke.

Why dont you quit the game? you could say. I'll quit, no doubt, probably after christmas. I havent quited yet because I havent found another game running in my computer with decent fps.

RisenDarkKnight1 votes

Not having to CS or be responsible for pushing out a lane, so you can focus on the fun parts of the game.

For me the fun parts are landing/dodging skillshots, roaming/ganking, and grouping with your team to fight over objectives. IMO I'd rather play blitz or morg and fire Qs from a bush than play Kog'Maw or Jinx and have to dodge them while keeping up my CS and being the target of the whole enemy team in teamfights.

Also about the itemization: I think active items are way more fun than items without an active usually. (yay redemption!)

I also enjoy being able to pick/counterpick a champion that rounds out a teamcomp well or counter the enemy bot lane (IE I can play Zyra if we lack magic damage, Janna if the enemy team has heavy engage, Alistar if we need a tank, Leona if we need engage, etc.).

SugarRayMoe1 votes

BTW, the answer to your question. What they do the best? they are the best champions with no fkng gold in their pockets. You could play any support without a single piece of gold and still perform at 80-90%. Noone else can do that (and if they can, then they are offmeta-supports).

Yes, supports are the best at being pure sh+t. They scale so bad, that it doesnt matter if you dont get a fkng piece of gold.

DefectivDetectiv1 votes

Low queue times, plus Thresh mid doesn't work.

Big Lincoln1 votes

because you want to play support and you enjoy the support playstyle

Shuyin1781 votes

Why would anyone play support : Because who else is going to ward for your bitch ass?

Everyone complains "Why do we have no vision????" Because your bitch ass doesn't know how to use your trinket to watch for a gank.

HCC Faust Lord1 votes

Janna Thresh

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