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Moving up in Ranked As A Support---Tips & Observations (Bronze 3-->Silver 1)

Quacker2··7 votes·4,384 views

Hi everyone! Quacker here to talk about some ranked. I am a support main at heart who has gone this far going almost exclusively Janna Support. I am here to claim my personal tips that will help you win games and come out on top (especially on the support point of view). NOTE: I AM BY NO MEANS AMAZING AT THIS GAME! I JUST WANT TO TRY AND HELP OTHERS LOWER THAN ME AND GET FEEDBACK FROM THOSE ABOVE ME!

When I first started ranked, I was told of the horrors of "ELO Hell" and such and I would say it doesn't exist, but there are definitely gaps in the league system where it becomes hard to advance. Anyway, almost everyone I talk to asks what's the major difference between bronze and silver. Well, they are NOT too much different...people just have slightly better map awareness and mechanics. In my experience, the hardest placement was going up from silver 3. Bronze 3-1 I got through fairly quickly, Silver 5-4 I came through almost the same way, but Silver 3 took me some time. I personally think that Silver 3 is the "turning point" in the Silver divisions where a skill gap can be found (if anywhere). I recently got through it after months of games, went on a hot streak throughout Silver 2, and am about halfway up to Silver 1. I will admit though that going through game after game was hard for me with little reward coming through. So now some tips on what you can do:

  1. KEEP A POSITIVE ATTITUDE! This is a really big one. The old saying "Attitude is everything" is truer than true. Unfortunately, you are not going to win every game. It happens. Deal with it. But if you look at the positives of the game, everyone will benefit from it. When we win a successful bot lane 2v2 I say "Keep Up the Great Work" or "Nice Follow up". People do better when they feel good about themselves. Or if all goes wrong in a 3v2 gank we died from I might say "We lost that one...but you are still up in CS just wait til' late game".

  2. DON'T RELY ON YOUR TEAM FOR EVERYTHING One of the best things I've heard a friend say about laning is this: "Play each lane as if you will never get a gank". In other words, if you lose, don't blame it on everyone else. Those last two 2v2's losses that you were in put you at fault. If you are ganked, you should have looked at the map more carefully/warded more. It is a team game, but your individual effort is needed too.

  3. PLAY YOUR BEST CHAMPION OVER "THE META" We (supports) have all been in champ select and had someone rage "**** sona!! why aren't you using thresh or Leona gg" or "Morgana counters braum soo hard". Well the truth is, a matchup is defined by your skill with a champ...not who the champ is. If I pick Sona as my first pick, 9/10 times the enemy support goes Leona or Blitz or Thresh, etc. Is this matchup easy? Not always. But I am a lot of times a lot better as Sona than the Leona is as Leona. If you outplay "this unfavorable matchup" and position well, you can just as easily zone them as they can zone you. A well-experienced but passive Soraka that can time Infuse on Blitz combos properly is much more valuable than a Blitz that can't land half his grabs...despite Soraka being "out of favor" since she has limited CC. Play to your strengths...it's ranked afterall.

  4. USE YOUR ACTIVES! AND USE SUMMONER SPELLS PROPERLY This problem is more intended with bronze players, but I still see silvers make these mistakes a lot. If you have an active item---use it! An unused Talis of Ascension is a waste of a slot. You could have saved your whole team with one speed boost! Honestly, if you are forgetful about actives...skip them. Better than being wasted. There are alternatives. Zeke's Herald and Morcellicon (or however you spell it) have good support stats and strong auras/passive effects. Also summoner spells---use them for the full effect. There are countless times when I am being chased by the enemy bot lane and they exhaust the low health support that is fleeing (me). It may weaken my ability to run or fight back, but it also gives MY ADC free reign. I may die in the process, but my ADC gets a double kill shortly after. Why? I use exhaust on THEIR ADC as the fight is going on. But you also need to analyze a situation in order to see if summoners are worth being used in a skirmish. We have all been that poor bot lane that is tower-dived 4v2. We are clearly dead with no escape routes. If I burn flash, that ignite will still kill me. And because of it, my next screw up can't be avoided for 3 minutes. If you are clearly dead..don't blow the summoners you may need it later. It can be the same in reverse though. If we have the enemy support locked down under our team that already burnt flash; is it really meaningful to ignite them or exhaust them? NO SAVE IT!

  5. LEARN TO READ THE OPPONENT One of the biggest threats I any lane is that of a gank. You may never get one in return but there are ways to avoid them. Here are my clues that almost spell-out GANK: *The enemy support suddenly pinks their lane bush or trinkets it out of nowhere. The jungler is on the way and the support is getting ready for it. *The enemy ADC is slowly letting you push to their turret. It makes it easy to gank if you have less options for escaping. It also opens up top-teleport ganks. *A 2v2 commences randomly. When a "fallen behind" enemy support thresh flash-Q's your adc; that Thresh wants you to go all-in and fight them to keep your eyes off the map so Jarvan IV can sneak in that bush for a secured kill. Alternatively, an ultimate going off like Tidal Wave out of nowhere can indicate future gank.

THERE ARE MORE TIPS THAT I MAY GIVE AT A LATER TIME! IF YOU WANNA DISCUSS OR ADD YOUR OWN, FEEL FREE!

6 Comments

RiotPhreak2 votes

One of the biggest difficulties of a support is knowing how/when to ward. There's a really careful mix to think about:

  1. Can I ward this safely? Are my lanes pushed up? Is there a Lee Sin in that brush, and can I get away if he is? Am I completely far away from my teammates? The answer to these questions are really important. If you die and say "I was warding" that isn't an excuse. You should only ward when it's safe to do so. This means you don't always get optimal wards.
  2. Who needs the vision? Especially in lower ranks, players don't ward very often. Heading up and warding that small brush next to Dragon will help your mid-laner survive ganks from an enemy jungler. If you don't die (Rule #1), you can really help your team out.
  3. Is this ward even useful? Your number of wards are limited. Keep track of buff timers and objective respawns. Taking the time to ward Dragon when it's still down for 4 minutes is useless. Warding the enemy Blue Buff and Wight camp against Amumu at 13 minutes isn't very useful; he won't be at either camp for a while.
  4. Keep a pink ward up at all times. Encourage your teammates to do so as well. Even if they place it in a super defensive position that will basically never be walked through, it's still going to watch if there ever is an invade. The best thing about a defensive ward is that if it does die, it's incredibly useful because it's watching a super aggressive play from your opponents.

There's more, but those are at least somewhat helpful :)

Quacker21 votes

I agree with this advice whole heartedly. I am also guilty of some of those mistakes when I think about it. Thanks for the tips. Im gonna post another one tomorrow probably :)

Chilly Willies1 votes

Thank you for the tips; I'm doing my placement matches as Leona support main :) and while I need to learn more supports, that was helpful. Thank you :)

Whitewail1 votes

I find that supports has the most flexibility in their builds as their kits offer more effects(cc, shield, heal...) over damage and they are not farm dependent. Check how individual enemy champions are doing and building and build against them. Don't assume everyone play and build conventionally.

Be selfless. For example, Banshee's Veil may be great against a strong AP comp. Building Aegis of the Legion will offer more MR to your team and eventually a shield active when upgraded.

Management of actives is important with as support can end up with a lot of actives. I am a leftie and I've changed my key binds many times to optimize actives the best that I can.

As far as warding, with max gold masteries you can start with a GP5 and 2 green wards. Along with trinket ward, that plenty of vision to start for lower level play as you can sacrifice pots if you don't expect to go against mechanically superb/superior opponents.

SlashXVI1 votes

The most useful things have already been said and I am pretty certain, if you can do all of those things you will be pretty sought after as a support (at least I would like to lane with you), I am just gonna add a few things:

  1. Keep an eye on the map: seems easy enough right? Everyone should do that, but more often than not (esspecially in the lower leagues, but that does not mean you don't find this phenomenon in higher ones) your laners are gonna be cought up in what they are doing right now and just focusing their attention on the task at hand (last-hitting minions, dodging that morgana q, not getting hooked by blitzcrank, punishing nasus for getting q stacks, ...) and over that forget to look at their map. As a support player you have less things to watch out for, since you do not have to last-hit. This makes looking at the map a lot easier and here is what you can do: If you see their jungler somewhere on the map, ping him! Either with just a normal ping or even the "danger" one. This helps to alert your teammates and can potentially prevents them dying. Even if the jungler just walked through your ward towards botlane, just ping him, sometimes adcs do not pay attention to those minor things (I do not exclude myself here... definitly not)
  2. Make safe plays over flashy ones: I hava been (am sometimes still am) guilty of this myself, but sometimes the safe option is what wins lanes and even if it does not making safer plays helps you to get out if something goes wrong. If you have to flash and land a full distance thresh hook, follow it up and then ult, that is a very risky play, because not only do you burn your escape, you force your adc to follow it up using his perhaps only gap-closing ability which puts you in a bad spot if their jungler were to show up right now (or they just are stronger, or you take too much tower damage, or some crucial skills misses or ...). As a support your focus should be to help your adc gain his ful potential, not to kill your enemy (I am not saying don't kill them, but focus on what gets your adc ahead, instead of what sets theirs back)
Quacker21 votes

Quacker is back with another tip for supports...this time for team fights.

  1. PUT ALL YOUR EFFORT INTO DOING WHATS BEST FOR THE TEAM IN A TEAMFIGHT.

This probably sounds confusing, but its important all the same. Unlike most other positions like adc or top, the role of a support can vary greatly in a teamfight depending on your champion, who is a threat on the enemy team, and whose life is most important on your own team. I will try and break down what I mean a bit more thoroughly...

**Support champions vary greatly in playstyle and this effects what your job will be. The way I see it, there are two main roles that supports perform in fights....they either play as a peeler OR they play as an initiator. A lot of supports though, like lulu thresh and nami can do a combination of these roles. Anyway, the peelersupport is going to do all they can to keep your enemy divers off your vital teammates. As a Janna main, I fill this role frequently. You need to use your cc andsummoners like exhaust on the biggest threats on the enemy team. For a real life scenario..pretend that you (as janna) are protecting your caitlyn against a diving jarvan and zed. As the fight starts, the jarvan immediately flash-ults on top of your caitlyn. Unfortunately, your caitlyn used her net previously and is out of options when she is in the crater. Zed followsup on jarvan respectively by ulting caitlyn. Your main job as the janna is to mitigate as much damage as possible. So (ideally) the first thing you would do is shield the cait. As soon as the zed reappears next to caitlyn via his ultimate, exhaust him!! You want to time your monsoon in a way so that both jarvan and zed have no gap closers left to reattach to caitlyn. Its easier said than done and when flashes are put into play..it makes the timing even harder. Use the howling gale on any last attempts to hit the caitlyn (ideally on both divers but this isnt always feasible. Always have an eye on who the biggest threat is and keep them off your carry.) Hopefully, your own team has gotten the enemy carries killed and your team will clean up the divers. As long as you stall out any assinations...your way forward is clear.

On the oppisite side of the spectrum is leona..a heavy cc initiating support (most of the time). Your job is arguably more difficult than the peeling janna though. With your ultimate, aa stun, and bind-gap-closer; you are in a dilema. Do you use your skills to initiate head-on on the enemy carries? Or do you use your cc to keep divers off your carries? Ive seen many leona-teams lose the fight (despite her amazing presence) because they make the wrong choice. Your decision needs to be based on the answer to the question: "will my team deal more damage by killing them immediately or prolonging my own carries' lives?" If the big threat on the enemy team is a lucian with a lulu support..I may choose to defend my own carry since diving a lulu is EXTREMELY difficult and my time may be used better elsewhere. On the converse, a soraka miss fortune lane would be much easier to dove due to the nature of their skill sets. If the enemy threat is a fed talon I may want to save my carry. If its a fed katarina... I would interrupt her death lotus and then go all in on her or her fellow carry. The variables go on but the premise is the same...stay where your team needs you!

Its also noteworthy that timing on a support can be everything on the outcome of tefights. Lets take a good support example..soraka. many people claim shes useless in teamfights but its very untrue depending on the skill and timing of the player. As soraka support, you have 3 main abilities that require critical timing to be successful: astral blessing, infuse, and wish. Lets pretend that you are protecting your ashe against the wrath of katarina and zed. Because the ashe used crystal arrow to initiate the fight..its unavailble to keep her safe. When they dive, you must use abilities accordingly. You need to infuse the katarina as soon as the death lotus starts to interupt it, and astral blessing the ashe when zed ults

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