The support stigma

Lost R·Oct 7, 2014·26 votes·4,288 views

As a support main, it gets boring playing the same role over and over again. I support main in the first place because it's more convenient to just remove that option, THE most hated option, from what everyone else will have to choose from (barring duo bots). I had to do this starting back in Season three when people would have literally violent physical reactions to even the idea of being the support, and would throw games and go full tilt apeshit over it. I used to do it just so I could POSSIBLY play a normal game. Now I do it out of habit.

Lately, though, I've been trying to play other roles as a chance of pace, but I keep encountering games where people vehemently reject going support. Not sure if it's just me and I keep getting the leftovers from Season three, or if this speaks to a broader narrative and the support stigma is still strong. The support is an important role in the team; one of the most important roles, really. They're basically doing everything the rest of the team isn't or can't; buffing, debuffing, warding, setting up kills, tanking, etc.

However, there is still a strong negativity to the role, and you still have the leftovers of prior seasons who use the support as their personal punching bag and see them only as ward mules and intentional feeders to report should you lose the game, along with a list of other names we will not mention in polite company. How do you walk back from that?

80 Comments

ShadowKnight1224Oct 8, 201412 votes

I'm going to quote Sky Williams here (watch from 1:00 to 1:19):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMhgIwvY5pc

"Every other role is made out to be a superhero. And nobody wants to be the Meg."

The support role is just flat out not valued by people who don't support themselves. You see "pro plays spotlight" and it's 80% focusing on the champion that gets the kills and 20% of people going "all that was possible because the support was there every step of the way..."

If you don't play support, you don't even notice the million little things supports do for you. Why were you able to get Ace in the Hole to lock on the fleeing enemy? Because he ran into a bush that was warded. Why did we take Baron so easily? It wasn't because the jungler smote it good, it was because the support dewarded. You didn't manage to out-duel Zed, you ungrateful ass, your support Exhausted him so he was only dealing 60% of his actual damage. You didn't "outplay" the other ADC, it was the shield/heal from your support that gave you the extra health you needed to actually kill him. Don't mock the enemy jungler for wasting his time in the bush, as if you had outsmarted him, the only reason you can see him is because your support warded it. Don't pat yourself in the back for that doublekill when 90% of the damage they took was from your Zyra/Karma/Zilean dishing out truly disgusting amounts of magic damage and then holding back at the last second so that you can get the kill. Don't say "gg ez" when you kill a diving jungler, the only reason you were able to kill him was because your support stunned him under tower at the right moment.

I think that if Riot made support's contributions more visible in-game, the support role would be a lot less stigmatised. Part of playing a game is realising a power fantasy, and it's quite difficult to do so when the game basically doesn't care about you and takes your efforts for granted.

Mikal PikalNov 12, 20141 votes

Nice post! It does seem like at first, the support does get his due...especially with champs like thresh and annie where the adc can see easily your contributions and will comment "gj" after he gets his first double kill. Warding is another matter that largely goes unacknowledged.

Supports get less and less credit as the game goes on. Your adc is 5/1/1 in lane and you are 0/2/5...your adc is fed and could farm adequately. Your adc proceeds to rip apart the enemy team in team fights and "carry" the game. Now the adc is the star, but it was your work that got him fed in the first place. As a support you need the mental fortitude to accept this...as it was your job and goal to feed the adc so he can carry. Thus, any compliments or praise to the adc is the equivalent or praising the dedicated support. Not everyone can play the support role.

JJI744Oct 7, 201411 votes

<Has not played seriously in a couple of months now. So experiences are out of date.

Support has some issues that tend to make people shy away from playing it, especially in solo-queue.

Even when you and your team are doing very well, you tend to fall behind players not only players on your team, but the enemy team as well. Supports are almost always under-leveled at the end of the match, and even with amazing scores will have less gold than the enemy midlane who fed all match long. It can take a bit of wind out of your sails when you look at your 0/1/17 only to see the 0/9/3 Fizz had more gold than you because he could use E on the caster minions.
Given the typical (or perhaps expected is a better word) support itemization, you will usually end the game with an inventory that feels underwhelming.
Combining 1&2 tends to mean that the support is incredibly squishy. Even compared to glass-cannon ADCs, many supports end up being squishier due to being behind on levels and lacking reasonable sustain. It might be good for the team when the enemy assassin wastes his ulti targeting you in a fight, but your still staring at a grey screen in the time it takes you to blink.
There are still a surprisingly high number of people who think a support should somehow have wards up covering the entire map, save the ADC who walks into melee range of 5 enemy champs, and generally answer the beck and call of anyone else on the team.

(You know how junglers get a lot of guff in the laning phase? That frequently switches to the support once "jungler should be ganking" is no longer a viable excuse)

Lost ROct 7, 20141 votes

1&2: I know that. It's led me to be as opportunistic and exploitative as possible. In a way, having less has forced me to play smarter and better. Some games I've actually rivaled my allies in kills, once even managing to 1v1 a fed Fizz and Zed as a support.

3: Related to the first two, I long since noticed that the enemy tends to focus me first in a teamfight, usually because I'm the tankiest, or the only one with crowd control, or enough utility to outright negate whatever they toss at the team. One of my best strategies is to bank on that happening, and then punish the enemy for that (Flash away right as Lee Sin flies in, dragging him somewhere he really doesn't want to be, throwing Aqua Prison down on myself as Zed ults in, tossing up every shield item/spell I have to force the enemy to focus me for too long, etc.).

The most recent case of this strategy was my last game with Braum. I stayed behind to guard the outer turret as Lucian recalled. Tristana and Soraka came in, and of course I couldn't hold them off for long, especially because I had less than a third of my HP left. I was about to withdraw as I saw Lucian making his approach past the inner turret at this point, so I stood my ground. Right as the turret blew up, Tristana jumped on top of me and threw down her entire salvo with Soraka bringing up the rear. I threw down both shield buffs and Face of the Mountain and Exhaust on Tristana. Right as that happened, Lucian (who I can only guess used his dash and flash followed up by his heal once he was within range to close the gap so quickly) barreled in with his ult, blasting through the remaining enemy minions, shot through to Soraka while I held down Tristana with my passive and ult, vaporizing the former within a few seconds before finishing off Tristana before she could jump away, both of whom were at near full health when that fight began.

4: Unfortunately there's little I can do once I hit my ward limit, and it's astounding how many people outright refuse to ward even with the free trinket given to you at the start of the game.

JJI744Oct 7, 20141 votes

1&2: I know that. It's led me to be as opportunistic and exploitative as possible. In a way, having less has forced me to play smarter and better. Some games I've actually rivaled my allies in kills, once even managing to 1v1 a fed Fizz and Zed as a support. Snip

I'm not referring to any person in particular, just listing what are,IMO, reasons why there is a stigma agaisn't supporting. It can become disheartening to preform well and then realize your behind in gold/lvls and well behind in items to the opposing mid/top/ADC/jungle because they manage to clear a couple of waves before dying for the nth time.

Lost ROct 8, 20142 votes

I know what you meant. I'm saying that as the support (particularly support mages like Nami, Sona or Lulu), the fact that you're not going to have many opportunities to gain gold forces you to be much more opportunistic (Read: poke the crap out of the enemy!) to maximize the amount of gold you'll get.

In regards to the second part, this actually annoys me greatly when it comes to the most common support build, particularly on Thresh or Blitz. The most common build I see on them are Boots of Mobility, Talisman of Ascension, and a Sightstone. These are the first three items they build, which is basically rushing (and investing in) the ability to grab the enemy for free kills. It's an all or nothing build and strategy (which makes Blitz toxic and why he needs a rework. For Thresh it neglects and speaks ill for his other abilities) that I see work only rarely, and usually that's because one person or another gets complacent. It doubly annoys me when said Blitz or Thresh says they're going to tank, and then don't build any tank items until their core build is completed, especially if Thresh isn't collecting souls. It makes them a glass tank that invests too much into making the grab for free kills. I never use that build.

ShadowNinetailsOct 8, 20147 votes

As one of "those players" it really depends on your skill level with the champ. I'm generally pretty good about being a soul glutton with Thresh and I pack more than enough tankiness for him and my other tank supports in my runes and masteries until I can finish those 3 items and start on something like an Omen or a Locket. Of course charging in headfirst into 5 enemies isn't an option, so the way to stay safe with that build is the way you stay safe with any build: think before you act.

Also regardless of whether or not a Blitzcrank Thresh Leona Taric Braum go for tanky items before or after their mobility/utility items, they're almost never going to have enough money to be as tanky as solo lane tanks like Singed Galio Chogath Nasus or even jungle tanks like Nautilus Amumu Rammus Sejuani . Having only one tank on the team is a mistake, having that one tank be the support is an issue.

Lost ROct 8, 20142 votes

I know, right?! Now imagine the support being the only tank, the only one with hard crowd control (stuns, polymorph, knock-ups, snares, suppressions, etc.) (if any crowd control at all), magic damage, and wards. In the absolute worst-case scenario (which comes up too often in the assassin crazy meta today), the support can be handling over ten different jobs.

When we're in the champion select, and I see the top has gone Akali, mid is Zed, Jungle Lee Sin and ADC Lucian, I raise ten levels of hell. Sometimes I feel like it's an overreaction, but then I constantly remind myself that we don't need 4 assassins (I count Lucian as one, since he lacks any crowd control, utility, durability and his thing is to focus one guy), and if things don't go perfect, I know how this game is going to end.

NeroUSOct 8, 20142 votes

It's a bad feeling when you watch champ select and have a sinking feeling.

SolekaOct 8, 201416 votes

I hate getting the following line "Support needs to ward more!" I've already thrown down my 3 wards in the best areas to protect against ganks and to see movement. If you want more vision, DROP A WARD!!!! >:(

Demonsolder21Oct 9, 20142 votes

IKR ITS SO VERY FRUSTRATING

ParinoidPandaOct 9, 20142 votes

Another thing: item 3340 never gets upgraded

SolekaOct 9, 20141 votes

yeah, you only need to drop 5 pink wards for the upgrade to have paid for itself.

ParinoidPandaOct 9, 20141 votes

Or 7 Vision wards, which you can put down one per minute and they last for 3!

imonly4noobcakesOct 15, 20141 votes

Or as support you're the only one warding the map....I always remind these ignorants that I only have 3 wards I can use.

hobomann2Oct 8, 20147 votes

for all those out there who hate the idea of supporting thing of it like this

all the other roles are darth vader's (i know theres only one DV but role with it) but the support is Emperor Palpatine
a silent manipulator,one who does things outside of the battle crafting the scenario to his side's favor;while not a formidable force on his own he doesn't need it,he lets the others do the heavy lifting for him

(well heres my late night ramble for the week)

Lost ROct 8, 20146 votes

That's brilliant. I'll take it a step further, though.

Jungler is Darth Vader ADC is Darth Maul Top lane is Count Dooku Mid lane is General Grievous (not a Sith or Jedi, but whatever. Assassin mids aren't mages, either)

SolekaOct 8, 20144 votes

actually I wish warding gave gold, then buying a ruby sightward wouldn't be so painful. Maybe there could be some nice big support items built from the Sightstone, maybe have others besides the ruby one that can aide your build. An AP one instead of health would be quite helpful.

my other gripe with being support is these little nuggets: ADC dies cause they majorly over extended. Blames me for not healing them, when I unloaded my entire payload of spells into them to keep them alive. (My personal favorite) Major 2v4 battle takes place mid, I peel off bot to help save mid. ADC dies cause they went full into an enemy well after I left and died. 1 guy dies mid, but I manage to turn the team fight and save mid. ADC blames me for leaving, giving me a major tongue lashing because they died.

Yet, I continue to main support. I really like supporting! It's a very thankless job. You get metaphorically crapped on most of the time. People don't know what your doing, or how your helping. They only see that one time when there was 4 enemies behind them and they had a sliver of health, when the support came rushing in to rescue them. I play my heart out, but get verbally raked over the coals by unappreciative teammates. I could prevent so many deaths, yet still get screamed at for feeding, when I have less deaths then my team. At the end of some games I feel tired, worn, and that I've aged 5 years from when I started playing an hour ago.

FunshineBear1980Oct 8, 20144 votes

Support will tip the scales in a close game, however, Support does nothing if you have 1-2 lanes completely fed. Support makes average players better, but bad players are still bad.

That's why I don't like support.

If I get stuck with a team where 3-4 of the players are completely terrible, I'm going to lose, and there's nothing that's going to stop it. However, I can actually win games by playing a carry, even if 2-3 people on my team are really bad.

This has been my experience at least.

FiorinolOct 8, 20143 votes

Pretty much what Funshine said. This season, I have 70 Lulu games, 30 Nami/Leona games. I'm currently in Gold V. Used to be a support main before I reached Silver I. The Lulu nerfs really put a bad taste in my mouth.

I don't feel like support is a very fun role to play, especially at lower divisions. You are always dependent on your ADC early game. Even if your opponent has terrible positioning, if your ADC refuses to help you, you can't do much. It's much more difficult to dominate as a support and they never have a power spike like they do in other MOBAs.

When you come out of the laning phase and top/mid/jungle are fed on the enemy team, you have nothing to counteract that in terms of items, whereas every single other role in the game does. Even if you land your abilities, you do a negligible amount of damage. It's like playing Ahri with no gold.

ValyrianBladeOct 7, 20142 votes

It might be a bad streak or at your mmr? I seem to find that a lot of people default to support if they don't get their preferred role (e.g. first pick and second pick both want mid, second pick goes support). In these cases I think they figure they won't be able to carry outside of their main so they might as well not take a carry role so there's a better chance a teammate can carry? Or they just know how to play support because they choose to do so when no one else wants to and it's an easy secondary role (since people won't complain about you going support since they don't want to be there anyways - it never bothers me when someone playing a role no one else asked for feeds, but it really bothers me when someone chooses the role I asked for and proceeds to feed when I can't carry since my main role is taken).

In general though, I think people are just greedy and want to be the hero to carry the game. It's hardest to do that as a support.

ADC BardOct 7, 20143 votes

that's called picking mid but going bot

Lost ROct 8, 20144 votes

I see that as the primary reason everyone wants to be the assassin (which at this point just makes me sound prejudiced, how often my criticism of assassins comes up). Assassins are all-in damage. They're the ones who will get the kills or die trying. The problem is if that's what's defined as the hero who carries the game, and everyone wants to be the hero, you end up having a team that specializes too much in dealing damage (and in the case of some assassins, it's all focused on one specific, very unfortunate person), and your team will find itself at a distinct disadvantage if you start to fall behind.

I'm not sure what to blame this mentality on, whether it's the only thing that the collective consciousness of the community takes away from the championship tournaments, or because saving someone's life or assisting a kill literally goes unsung in this game. I can't count the number of times the enemy has an ally dead to rights and I swoop in like something out of a Call of Duty campaign, healing them while raining down planetary hellfire on the enemy while he makes his escape. Maybe that's one of the great stigmas about the support. Their efforts go unnoticed by both players and the game. Other players will get killing spree/multikill/shut down notifications, but the people getting 30+ assists per game receive no official announcement or recognition.

ValyrianBladeOct 8, 20148 votes

So true. For some reason igniting someone for a kill or ulting the adc for a kill is considered clutch play, but healing or otherwise changing a 0-1 in to a 3-0 is just a support doing their job.

Fallen SorakaOct 8, 20143 votes

From my experiences, people respect a good support, even if they do not vocalize it. I've been complemented on my supporting ability several times (similarly, insulted for it several times). While most people will not give their opinions of the support, sometimes the good, honest, down-to-Earth ADC (if you manage to be paired with one) will complement you, other times, if you pull their butt out of the first in a clutch play, someone else will complement you. You just have to remember that even if you are not recognized, you are most certainly appreciated.

I've had those games where the ADC and Mid love you for your plays, and give you a nice "<3" every once and a while, and, often times, they consider you their 'hero', for that game. Similarly, I've had those games where the ADC does not have synergy with your play style (both of the support and personal play style), and, regardless of the skill of you or the ADC, the lane goes badly. However, during those games, where they whole team seems to hate you, just one play that saves someone (A game where I pulled our mid out of a 1v4 with 30 HP before he died) and they thank you, and that game, however badly it seems to be going, seems brighter. Just remember, a good support, which I know you are a good one, because you said you main it, is always a vital addition to a team and are well respected, and the people who get paired with them are thankful for a good support, even if they do not express their thanksgiving.

AmazingGoatOct 8, 20143 votes

From what I can tell, the game is completely different at low ELO than high ELO. At higher ELO, playing support can be fun and rewarding, and a support can have a big impact on the game. At lower ELOs, the same is still true... but... some games simply become so frustrating that it makes it feel pointless to play support.

Tanky engage supports such as Leona/Thresh/Blitz/Braum are great when your team is even or ahead, but feel very useless at low ELO if your team is behind.

Squishier conventional supports feel more useful whether ahead or behind, but if my team makes a dumb mistake and gets caught out or has a bad engage and doesn't use my disengage, there is pretty much nothing I can do to prevent the enemy team from pushing objectives. I have played a lot of games where I finish with lots of assists and one or two deaths but lose because the enemy team catches someone out then pushes right through me because I can't do enough damage to discourage them even under tower.

Overall, I enjoy playing support with a competent ADC, but find it miserable with a below average ADC. Laning against Blitz with a bad ADC is particularly unfun. On the flip side, laning against Cait as ADC with a bad support is also unfun, so there are issues on both sides of the duo lane.

NeroUSOct 8, 20143 votes

I used to main Support in low elo. It was a painful experience. Now that I'm a higher elo, it's not as bad but there are still features of the position that make it difficult.

Oh, ADCs will sometimes tell you to leave the lane if they get frustrated (remember, it's their lane) and you will often get flamed if you have difficulty landing your skill shots (but, it's not like you're counting how many CS corki is missing or how many times lucian failed to line up his Q with the enemy adc or support).

NhifuOct 9, 20142 votes

Wtf are you talking about

the player population is so huge, you can have garbage players that were carried into higher ranks

sp441Oct 8, 20142 votes

It's the same principle as kids choosing to be Batman and relegating those who didn't call dibs to be Robin. Everybody wants to be the 16/3/4 Assassin who singlehandedly wipes out entire teams and carries the game, or the Badass Bruiser who eats the damage of an entire team while splitting their carry in half like a badass, or the awesome Marksman who melts fucking everything quicker than you can say "Oh shit". Nobody wants to be the help who babysits a whiny lemming for the first 20 minutes of the game and then is relegated to a Ward dispenser, team initiator that will 9/10 times be left to die by a team with the reaction times of a lethargic snail, get bitched at for not warding Dragon when you were busy trying to save the midlaner from a gank, and ultimately be the wipping boy when things go tits-up.

LegendaryLemurOct 8, 20142 votes

I think one step in the right direction would be renaming 'support' to 'utility'.

"Best supporting actor" is just not as glamorous as "Best actor", but providing utility to your whole team is a positive thing.

CerealBoxOfDoomOct 9, 20142 votes

The biggest issue with picking a support champ is that no matter what you do, if your team sucks and wont do as you say then you are just going to look and feel bad and wont be able to change much about the outcome of the match after a while if you even get a while.

ShadowNinetailsOct 8, 20141 votes

Personally, I think it's a byproduct of streamers and other League groups where people ask, "How do I get out of Bronze?" and the answer always contains "Carry yourself out." so they take that to mean that they have to play 1v5'ing top laners with massive splitpush, midlane assassins, or hyperscaling ADC's or else they'll be forever Bronze. I used to be a top main, but then I took a solo queue to the knee and found that if I didn't support, whoever was forced into it would rage and afk if we were lucky or feed uncontrollably if we weren't, so I started doing it myself. That's also how I started maining jungle. Now I find that I can somewhat reliably get my roles without having to fight teammates for it and have much more control over the flow of the game.

Lost ROct 8, 20143 votes

When I started this season, I ended up in some hell below Bronze V. It seems that being a half-decent support will take you out of Bronze at warp speed. No one on the enemy team was able to handle a competent support (it doesn't help that Braum was also released around this time and people were s#!&ting bricks over him)

imonly4noobcakesOct 15, 20141 votes

To some extent this is true, but you win 2-3 matches in a row, and then the next 2 turn out to have afks or trolls who want to feed for w/e reason. I literally had a troll who had something about being mad in his name, and he lived up to his name he made my team angry and we argued till we lost. Welcome to B5 hell hard to get out of.

AFK PushOct 8, 20141 votes

I think it all depends on what the meta is. It also depends on what you are playing as in draft, ranked, blinds, or team builder. Now people are calling this the "adc" meta, but with the nerfs to BT and now the soon to be tristana and lucian nerfs, that will change the meta.

Currently, from my experience whenever I play draft, and I am last pick it isn't uncommon for me to jungle, support, and the least likely adc. In Teambuilder however, supports and junglers are always rare, and finding adc's can be hard half of the time.

In blinds for some reason, people fight over being the adc, which means I have the choices of support or jungle, because solo lanes are always taken.

So, altogether I think there are less people now than a few months ago that would want to play adc. It is most likely to due with it being one of the hardest roles to get down mechanically, but is most likely the itemization nerfs, and the soon to be trist nad lucy nerfs.

FiorinolOct 8, 20143 votes

I think it all depends on what the meta is. It also depends on what you are playing as in draft, ranked, blinds, or team builder. Now people are calling this the "adc" meta, but with the nerfs to BT and now the soon to be tristana and lucian nerfs, that will change the meta.

Currently, from my experience whenever I play draft, and I am last pick it isn't uncommon for me to jungle, support, and the least likely adc. In Teambuilder however, supports and junglers are always rare, and finding adc's can be hard half of the time.

In blinds for some reason, people fight over being the adc, which means I have the choices of support or jungle, because solo lanes are always taken.

So, altogether I think there are less people now than a few months ago that would want to play adc. It is most likely to due with it being one of the hardest roles to get down mechanically, but is most likely the itemization nerfs, and the soon to be trist nad lucy nerfs.

I disagree. I think support is mechanically difficult because you have to do more with less. Knowing how other roles/champions play is essential since your entire contribution in a teamfight is based on whether you land your spells or not at the right moment on the right champion. With Gnar, I can miss my boomerang and it isn't always the end of the world; I still do damage.

Some of the supports' abilities feel useless in lower elos, Lulu's Wild Growth is one of those abilities.

cshakesOct 8, 20141 votes

Some of the supports' abilities feel useless in lower elos, Lulu's Wild Growth is one of those abilities.

Some supports feel useless in low elos. Over here in Silver-Goldland, if I pick Janna my team has no idea that if I disengage and clutch save them, they shouldn't go back to die. They also have trouble realizing that my shield gives AD. Hell, 90% of the time I can predict who'll win the game by which team's ADC is better at last-hitting.

FiorinolOct 8, 20141 votes

Some of the supports' abilities feel useless in lower elos, Lulu's Wild Growth is one of those abilities.

Some supports feel useless in low elos. Over here in Silver-Goldland, if I pick Janna my team has no idea that if I disengage and clutch save them, they shouldn't go back to die. They also have trouble realizing that my shield gives AD. Hell, 90% of the time I can predict who'll win the game by which team's ADC is better at last-hitting.

This is why you will fare better with supports like Leona, Sona, and Blitzcrank (Not Morgana, she's always banned). Players know what they do. Janna is garbage with teammates who don't understand what she does, and you can't rely on other players in solo-queue to win.

cshakesOct 8, 20142 votes

Yeah, I know. It's just that my Janna is way better than my Leona so I try to kid myself that maybe this time the ADC will know how to last-hit and my Pro Janna Skillz will keep them alive enough that they can AFK a-click into the enemy team and pentakill.

AmazingGoatOct 8, 20141 votes

There are four constant sources of gold on SR - top lane minions, mid lane minions, bottom lane minions, and jungle camps. These sources of gold can support a constant gold stream for four champions. On a five man team, if you want to max out the gold for four of the champions on your team, that doesn't leave much for the fifth champion.

Traditional support champions make good supports because they can be useful without much gold.

There are a couple of big differences between high ELO play and low ELO play however that change the gold dynamics.

At low ELO: (i) a large amount of gold from constant sources goes wasted (players miss tons of CS); and (ii) players on both sides constantly make mistakes that you can take advantage of to gain gold from kills/assists (there are tons of kills early).

The net result is that at lower ELO you don't lose as much gold relatively speaking as compared to a laner by not having the right to kill minions in a lane for the first fifteen minutes of a game. Consequently, you can play pretty much whoever you want at support as long as you are able to generate kills/assists.

The risk, however, is that if you are not that much better or if the enemy bot lane decides to just AFK farm under their tower (if you are playing at low ELO and your ADC understands how to freeze the lane you are probably going to win anyway), you are going to fall behind in gold and won't be a factor on a champion who needs gold but doesn't have any.

tl;dr - If you are better than your opponents you can play anyone with kill pressure bot lane, but you risk them AFK farming under tower if your ADC isn't that good.

NeroUSOct 8, 20142 votes

At challenger level, supports average more gold than other roles...

http://www.elophant.com/league-of-legends/charts/role?region=all&tier=challenger&period=week

Meanwhile, at bronze, supports average less/same gold as other roles...

http://www.elophant.com/league-of-legends/charts/role?region=all&tier=bronze&period=week

AmazingGoatOct 8, 20141 votes

When I look at those charts I see ADC first and support second at every level, although support is much further above the other roles at higher ELOs.

That being said, I would argue that looking at end of game gold is slightly misleading. Support as a role tends to gain you a lot of gold when your team is winning, as many support champions will typically end up assisting on all or almost all of their team's kills. Just because they end the game with a lot of gold, however, doesn't mean they had a lot of gold at the time when the game was still in the balance. My theory would be that supports really gain a lot of gold in the later stages of a game, but don't necessarily have as much in the earlier stages. Just a theory though.

Kuroi86Oct 8, 20141 votes

The support position is still wonky at best. How do you set up support champs to be able to have the damage and survivability to make it through a team fight while building near fully for utility and not for damage or tankiness?

Lost ROct 9, 20142 votes

That depends on the champion. You can get away with building AP with a lot of support mages and in fact are incentivized for this because Riot added ratios to their abilities. You have more AP, you have more heals or shielding, and your natural utility goes up. Taric deals more damage the more armor he has, and by proxy provides more armor to his team and can strip away from the enemy, so he's encouraged to build a pure tank path.

Utility items are pretty limited as it stands, so the supports have to mostly rely on their own abilities to keep themselves and their team alive. If you build boots of mobility, talisman of ascension and ruby sightstone as your first three items, you aren't going to be able to take many punches for your team, which is especially bad if you're the tank, and your utility will mostly hinge on the ability to land one spell.

The idea is to capitalize on what your champion can do best, and investing in giant stat sticks, while it works on the AD carry or assassin or bruiser, doesn't apply evenly to the support. For example, Braum's greatest offensive strength is his passive. The problem is landing those blows in a short enough time. Hopefully you aren't dueling an enemy, but in a teamfight, a second can be the difference between life and death, victory or defeat. A good item to build that will assist with stacking the passive and increasing your tankiness is Wit's End. It gives you the attack speed to stack concussive blows faster, a little bit of magic damage to make you a tiny bit stronger, and magic resist to aid you against mages while stripping away the enemy's defenses. It goes a very long distance for being a commonly overlooked item.

Nami is especially good at bursting if you can land her stun, charging in briefly to lay down Ebb & Flow and Tidecaller's Blessing while they're stunned and running back to safety before they can retaliate, aided by the brief but powerful speed boost from her passive. While the recommended items includes the largest stat stick for mages, the Rabadon's Deathcap (and it is a good investment, since everything she has scales off AP, which means more heals and speed for your allies), an equally good item for her (possibly even better) is Lich Bane. It gives her a large boost in AP, extra mana for her utility abilities, extra movement speed, and of course the Spellblade passive to amplify her bursting power.

Lulu has a passive that boosts her basic attack damage and scales off her level and 15% of her AP. What's more, she can throw this on her allies (always check your allies' stats to see who has the highest attack speed. They'll make the most of Help, Pix!'s secondary ability). This is the primary reason Machinegun Lulu is so popular and memetic. While boosting ability power is a good idea, she won't always be able to give this ability to an ally, but needs to be ready to cast it at a moment's notice. Nashor's Tooth is a fantastic item on her. It gives her enormous cooldown, ability power, and a passive that also scales off of AP. A properly built Lulu can both provide enormous utility to her team while being a surprisingly competent duelist, using Whimsy to disable the enemy champion while she blasts them away with basic attacks, then shielding herself with Pix and healing herself with her ult when things get dicey.

Kuroi86Oct 9, 20141 votes

You hit the nail on the head with your second paragraph. Support items, utility items, are typically very limited in the stats they grant and the passives they give (While incredibly useful.) are of limited help when a team fight breaks out.

The question is, how to boost support items without turning them into items that every other class will want (thus forcing Riot to consider nerfing them.)

Lost ROct 9, 20141 votes

There's that, but I mainly referred to the fact that there are only a handful of utility items to begin with. You have the Crucible, Twin Shadows, the three support items, Randuin's Omen, Aegis/Locket, Frozen Heart, the Censer, the Herald, the Sightstone and that's pretty much it. Most supports will only be able to effectively utilize only a handful of these items (Tanks: Omen/Frozen Heart, Face of the Mountain. Mages: Frost Queen's Calm, Twin Shadows, Crucible), and the Censer is most effective on supports with crowd shield/heals (Soraka, Sona, Thresh).

My point was that support champions mostly have to rely on whatever their kit can do rather than depend on their items to provide that utility for them. Any champion can support in theory (when I started supporting, I was using Galio, and earlier this year I liked to use Volibear), but items don't provide simple things like stuns, and the Crucible has too long a cooldown, even with the appropriate masteries, for the heal to be in any way practical; it's basically a third summoner spell. By default, you're put at a considerable disadvantage as a non-support champion in that role because many non-supports simply lack that type of utility in their kit.

Case in point, a few games ago, I went support Thresh with Vayne against support Lee Sin with Graves. Even though they had early bursting power, it didn't take long before I started stacking on enormous amounts of armor (a personal objective in a game as a tank is to have over 100 armor before level 11), and their ability to jump in and bully us out of the lane suddenly fell flat. On top of that, while I could throw down lots of stuns and slows and provide lots of shielding, Lee Sin simply couldn't keep up with the demands in an all out brawl, and he and Graves were quickly overwhelmed.

Kuroi86Oct 9, 20141 votes

Again correct, the advantage of the support is their utility. The issue imo is having them deal enough damage or be tanky enough to be viable even if the enemy team takes a marksman/assassin or marksman/tank duo to lane. Utility is the supports means of making plays happen, but even then, they need more than simple utility in order to remain relevant, especially in extended team fights.

deathmage390Oct 15, 20141 votes

There's that, but I mainly referred to the fact that there are only a handful of utility items to begin with. You have the Crucible, Twin Shadows, the three support items, Randuin's Omen, Aegis/Locket, Frozen Heart, the Censer, the Herald, the Sightstone and that's pretty much it. Most supports will only be able to effectively utilize only a handful of these items (Tanks: Omen/Frozen Heart, Face of the Mountain. Mages: Frost Queen's Calm, Twin Shadows, Crucible), and the Censer is most effective on supports with crowd shield/heals (Soraka, Sona, Thresh).

My point was that support champions mostly have to rely on whatever their kit can do rather than depend on their items to provide that utility for them. Any champion can support in theory (when I started supporting, I was using Galio, and earlier this year I liked to use Volibear), but items don't provide simple things like stuns, and the Crucible has too long a cooldown, even with the appropriate masteries, for the heal to be in any way practical; it's basically a third summoner spell. By default, you're put at a considerable disadvantage as a non-support champion in that role because many non-supports simply lack that type of utility in their kit.

Case in point, a few games ago, I went support Thresh with Vayne against support Lee Sin with Graves. Even though they had early bursting power, it didn't take long before I started stacking on enormous amounts of armor (a personal objective in a game as a tank is to have over 100 armor before level 11), and their ability to jump in and bully us out of the lane suddenly fell flat. On top of that, while I could throw down lots of stuns and slows and provide lots of shielding, Lee Sin simply couldn't keep up with the demands in an all out brawl, and he and Graves were quickly overwhelmed.

while true that any non-support can go down there part of the problem with the thresh lee matchup was thresh increased armor and cc vs ad damage and only minor slow and ult knockback. he was doomed from the start against that combo.

also in my OPINION that was a kill lane not a "support" lane. many champions who have actual cc can go down to "support" and become realistic champions later, such as annie (who was never classified as a support type, unlike lux or morgana). there are quite a few of those champions, annie(stun passive), fiddlestyx(fear and silence), arhi (charm), anivia(stun, slow, and wall), cho' gath( knockup, silence, tanky), mundo[kinda](heavy poke, tanky), elise(stun, heavy poke), heimerdinger(stun, heavy poke, zone control), jarvarn(kockup, tanky, wall ult), jayce( heavy poke, ms buff, knockback, slow), jinx( heavy slow, snare, AA poke, finisher ult), kennen(manaless, good poke, stuns, aoe stun), kog' maw(% hp dmg poke, slow, vision ult), leblanc used to before Q change, lissandra(slow, snare, CC ult), Malphite(cc ult, slow, tanky), maokai(heavy poke, knockback, snare, aoe dmg redux), nautilus(hook, slow, knockup), panth(tanky, stun), ramus(tanky, taunt, thornmail, speed), ryze(tanky, snare), shen(taunt, tanky, shield), shaco(fear, trap vision, escape), singed(tanky, slow, flip, chase prevent), skarner(tanky, capture, slow), syndra (stun, slow), talon could before silence remove, teemo( trap vision, blind, poke), tristana( slow, poke, knockback), twisted(stun, map vision, slow, poke), urgot(slow, poke, dmg redux, translocate), varus(slow, %hp poke, aoe stun), vel' koz( knockup, slow, heavy poke), vi(armor redux, tanky, knockback, suppression), victor(snare, heavy poke), voli (tanky, flip), xerath( slow, stun, finisher ult, heavy poke), zac(tanky, knockup, slow), ziggs(knock back, slow, heavy poke, finisher ult).

as you can see it is a large list. all of these champions are capable of "supporting" and some work as a straight kill lane as well.

deathmage390Nov 12, 20141 votes

i think there are a few problems with the support part of bot lane right now. but to get into those we will have to realy define what a support is.

the #1 this that i have always hear riot say a support is, is a champion that does well without gold. that meant good bases, generaly med-low scalings, and good cooldowns.

in my opinion a support champions is someone who also can do at least a three of the following

supports the team by Crowd Control
supports the team by Allied buffs
supports the team by heals/shielding
can take hits for the team via tanking

all of the traditional main supports have these(ie not counting lux/morg/ect). the new as i call them psudo-supports at best have 2 and often only 1 (often only CC). also most importantly they for the most part NEED items to do well. a few of the psudo-supports the support secondary's such as lux and morgana tread the line but overall NEED items to do as well as other supports.

now that i have defined support as i see it. here are the problems i see in support lane.

GP5 items: wait before you crucify me. yes gp5 is a great item for character who do not get gold via minions it enables everyone who doesnt get minions to get pretty close (in some cases more) to average team gold. but let me ask you a question: Why does a support need gold? riots #1 point of support class was that they did not need it to be viable. additionaly since the introduction of these 3 new gold items psudo-supports and even kill lanes are more prevalant because they are able to get the gold that they would normaly be getting and that they need.
support items: in general as we have touched upon support items are lacking horridly. because ay item that is great would be taken in other lanes. a number of items are extreemly niche and some are just not usefull in the long run. censor for example is barely ok to be used by a few champions and even then a good portion of champions its worthless on, lets give atack speed to mages woo syndra gets 25% increased attack speed. crucible is an ok item, personaly i would preffer the 10% cdr, 60 ap, and the kill/assist passive on grail. the biggest problem with crucible is its cooldown, the heal is ok but its main function is as an Ally targeted QSS, for a 3 min cd it is extreemly underwhelming. use it in one teamfight and its down for the next one.
Nerfs: overall the support class has been the target of signifigant nerfs. due to the fact that devs (cough morello cough) dont want main supports in any other lane at any time ever (mid/top lulu, mid janna, ect). the reason that supports often able to go to different lanes is due to a great earlygame because their base's are amazing. so they can often turn into bruiser's. lulu with a AA, 3 ROA, and rylias, run the hell away (ik crappy build but im not posting my good one). due to that they have been hit with the nerf hammer overly much.

jaguarondiNov 12, 20141 votes

Had some dude tell me that no one plays support b/c you can't get as many kills. However true it was, this cat was clearly misinformed about the nature of the support role and the overall game dynamic.

Supports rule dude. I personally feel a greater sense of accomplishment by making a flashy support play and turning a losing fight in my teams favor as support than I do getting a kill. Makes me feel like my mechanics are Deity-tier when they really aren't. Go supports.