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Being an Effective Support (Braum)

Fyji·2/19/2018, 7:51:03 PM·1 votes·445 views

Even before I got into League I really loved Braum as a character. Loved his cinematics, loved watching him played, loved the potential that his kit had. The idea of being a buff guy that hits things with an indestructible door was very alluring to me.

I leveled until I had accumulated enough blue essence to buy him, played a bit of co-op, and then jumped into pvp for the first time. Brought along a buddy (who was also very new) so I would have a "reliable" adc to protect.

Anyways, out of the nine games I played as him afterwards, I've lost all but one game, where we had some godlike zed that was everywhere at once and made them surrender in the first five minutes. Eventually I discovered the champion mastery system; however, that joy was short-lived, because looking at my ratings in those games showed a solid C to C- Braum every time.

Naturally, as a new player, this leads to a few questions.

How can I be more effective as a support? I've never won a single lane before, never stopped massive damage from killing a teammate, never really been of any value.
How do I lane against ranged champions as Braum? Their effective zones cover the minion line, so I can't CS at all if they're in range.
What is my job?
At what point does the blame shift off of me and onto my ADC?
How do I die less to junglers and ganks? 90% of the time I don't see them, and the other 10% of the time when I actually do, the warning means nothing because they're so incredibly mobile.
When do I move into the jungle or another lane? If a teammate calls dragon or baron in chat, that's different, but oftentimes I'm happily farming bot lane and suddenly the enemy Yi gets a pentakill in mid, and my entire team is hounding me for not being at the teamfight.
How do I use my passive effectively?
Any guidelines for placing wards?
At what point should I recall to buy, seeing as I'm missing tons of experience and gold when I do? Also, as soon as I do recall, suddenly two of our turrets are gone.
What should I focus on to get higher grades and quickly grind out 5 mastery?

If I have any more questions, I'll edit this thread to add them. Any responses or advice are appreciated.

Thanks, Fyji

2 Comments

Itirpon2/19/2018, 8:46:34 PM2 votes

I don't have any Braum-specific experience so take this with a grain of salt, but speaking generally:

Effectiveness: Know what you can and can't do. Braum is all about discouraging the enemy by threatening them with Concussive Blows should they trade, nullifying their ults with Unbreakable, and preventing the enemy's attacks from being effective enough. If you're missing chances to start Concussive on the enemy or waiting till your ADC is already getting beaten up to jump in with protection, then you're not using your kit and your ADC's working without a Support in the most critical moments.

Against ranged: Use your Q to start Concussive on them should they threaten you, and sometimes you just have to back off. As a support, take the shield or coin and let your ADC do the CS'ing. You don't need (much) CS, but your ADC does, so worry more about them being zoned off of the minions than yourself.

Your job: Keep both yourself and your ADC alive. If one of you dies, you'll need Jungle to help you recover and if that fails, you've lost your lane.

Blame: Assigning "blame" is different from identifying and acknowledging fault. A lousy ADC is at fault for under-performance, but blaming doesn't fix it. Save blame for the ADC who doesn't learn from the experience. That aside, as long as you're doing what you can and not trying to do more, you may be faultless. It won't help you win games, though, just keep you from contributing to a loss.

Avoiding ganks: Wards, map, and communication. First, buy Control Wards and place them defensively, such as the bush nearest to your own tower. The cost of 75 feels bad when you're short of buying an item later, but dying nets a few hundred for the enemy, so two Control Wards costs less than giving an easy kill to the opposition and risking them affording an early power spike. Use your trinket and gold item wards generously anywhere you might want to be if you wanted to gank yourself. If the dragon is alive or respawning, get a ward there. If you're near the enemy tower, have a ward in the river. Watch the map to see where the enemy jungler is, and if you don't know, play it safe. Also, know what you're going to do if an ambush appears, and have two plans, one for you with your ADC and one for yourself. (As a Soraka main, my ADC's immediate reaction to an alert ping decides if my strategy is to save myself or sustain my ADC.)

Rotation: Once you've taken the first tower, you can consider rotation if you see somebody who needs your (Braum's) skills. But as a beginner, just try to be with somebody because if you're running around alone wondering where you should be and are not dropping useful wards in the jungle, your team is short a muscular, mustached man.

Passive: Because Braum's combines with allied attacks, you want to put the first stack on an enemy whenever your ADC is able to put three more on if the enemy doesn't back off (hopefully surrendering some CS). If your side can't follow up with more stacks, you're burning Q and giving them a window to poke back safely after the stack falls off.

Recalling: Do you need HP or Mana to survive? If so, you probably need to recall. Did you get their ADC dead or too low to engage and are your minions pushed up beyond the river, and preferably one is a siege (rolling cannon) minion? Recall before you get ganked. It's a judgment call, and a lot matters on which champions are being played and where the junglers are, but the worst case is to get pushed to your tower and killed and lose the tower while dead because they just got funded and you've got nothing.

Grades: Get lucky and be matched against bad players who will let you get some kills, objectives, CS, etc. without dying too many times. :D Seriously, though, pay attention and notice moments when you could've Braumed better by being faster with a W or E'ing an ult, or using your ult to slow an enemy long enough for your ADC to slay them, or try to notice when it's safe and useful to place wards, etc. Work on improving a facet of your role with every game and you'll get to Mastery 5 when it comes. And don't worry about it. Other than the little ribbon it doesn't mean much. It's quite easy to reach Mastery 5 and be lousy with a champion. I've gotten a couple 5's and a 7 and I'm still a Bronze that plays like I'm missing the better 20% of my brain. :)