Support maining: I am deathly tired

Lost R··3 votes·322 views

I am tired of being a support main.

I am tired of being second banana to snivelling little shits who bitch and whine that the support didn't pick the champion they wanted, or didn't get them first blood, or didn't build exactly the way lolking or whatever other stat whore website out there said they most frequently build.

I am tired of being the fall guy for every fault the team has.

I am tired of being the only person actually pushing lanes or aiming for objectives in any way, shape or form.

I am tired of being the only utility, durability, crowd control, range, and magic damage on the team.

I am tired of being the only functional pair of eyes.

I am tired of watching the team let the enemy claim every objective on the map and then some while they are busy teamfighting a jungle camp... which the enemy stole.

I am tired of being the only person who can see the enemy's strengths and weaknesses as well as our own, and watch the team play right into their trap.

I am tired of seeing every LCS wannabe wearing the names of LCS champions, claim they're the best (champion name) ever, get clobbered in two minutes, and then active AFK in the fountain while berating me.

I am tired of getting screamed at for not rushing sightstone because my team has absolute zero memory, can only comprehend whatever is right in front of them and will facecheck a bush even if they just saw an extremely fed Annie run into it.

I am tired of the endless waves of four-man reports. Reporting in volume may not work, but eventually one of them might stick.

I am tired of seeing my team composed entirely of all AD melee, single target all or nothing champions, who go on to not deal any damage or score any kills at all.

I am tired of seeing teams refuse to adapt or change in response to the enemy's composition or emerging threats.

I am... simply... TIRED OF IT ALL. I have seen these scenarios play out more times than you could possibly imagine, and I see people fall right into the clearly established traps each and every time, and it's driving me insane. At this point, the minions have more sentience than most of the community. Yet I can't just abandon the support role. No one else knows how to do it, and every time I go non-support, one person or another considers going assassin support, further overspecializing us to the point of and exceeding self-parody. The only way to escape this cycle is to simply stop playing the game wholesale, and as much as I don't want to, every time this happens, I'm pushed more towards that conclusion.

And it happens literally every game now.

5 Comments

JRobin311 votes

As long as you continue to expect other players to act the way you want them to act (the way you think they should act), you will continue to be disappointed.

Disulfiram1 votes

He actually brings up valid points... for example, it's true that vision is completely pointless if the team doesn't use it.

For example I remember a game where the enemy jungler was a Shaco, so I warded the bush behind our red and warned our jungler that I expected an early invasion.

When Shaco passed by my ward I used the "care" ping on him; our jungler proceeded to go to our red anyway and got killed, then flamed the team for not responding. (Because, as you know, Shaco has absolutely no escape and will 100% be killed if 3 people converge on his traps...)

Meanwhile, my ADC was flaming me because I didn't ward our lane. (Right, we know exactly where their mid and jungler are but we still ABSOLUTELY need a river ward RIGHT NOW...)

JRobin312 votes

Hahaha, too true! I don't mean to detract from your valid points, but my point is also valid. You have expectations. Your teammates have expectations. And when expectations (regardless of validity) aren't filled, someone gets a little salty. The only way to not be disappointed is to let go of the expectations. You expected your jungler to respect the Shaco invade. He didn't. Your jungler expected his team to collapse. They didn't. Your ADC expected you to place a ward in the river. You didn't. Some of these actions may be "right" and some of these actions may be "wrong", but as long as players maintain these expectations, they will continue to be disappointed when others fail to meet them. Can you change your teammate's behavior? You told your jungler that Shaco would invade. You placed a ward that spotted the invade. You pinged the invade. Your teammate's behavior did not change and he voiced his upset with you afterward.

The moral of the story is: Attachment leads to suffering.

Disulfiram1 votes

{quoted}

The moral of the story is: Attachment leads to suffering.

Peace is a lie, there is only passion.

(Upvoted your comment, btw)

Albatrosspro1 votes

I was fine when support was a small, undesirable, weird little role. ("What? There's a fifth position?") The skillset you needed was subtle, like learning to tell the difference between fine wines. Then Riot decided to make support sexy. They encouraged players to take tanky, CC-heavy champs into bot and gave them shiny toys to make it less boring. Hundreds of hours of work went away, since what I'd taught myself to do, new players could do just as easily. I still want those hours back.

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