Every ADC main should learn how to play Support

JavelinJoe·Jun 5, 2017·136 votes·5,679 views

Knowing how and what your duo is going to be looking for is pretty important. Especially if in solo queue. Plus you then get to have both the knowledge and experience of how and in what way's to best help each other. Trust me, it really helps your ADC game, as well as offer you a good option for when you are auto-filled. Since both are in the bottom lane, and both are duos for each other, your laning knowledge is fairly similar and easily applicable to each role.

118 Comments

Morgan le FeyJun 6, 201734 votes

I totally agree.

On the flip side, though, as a support main, I recommend that supports learn to ADC too. There's a lot to be understood about the dynamic and pressures of trying to farm and lane vs. 2 at the same time, and I know it makes me more sympathetic towards the ADC that just. Won't. Watch. River. >.>

JavelinJoeJun 6, 20171 votes

I agree, both should know each other's role.

the ADC that just. Won't. Watch. River

Lol, I feel the same way when the support will not buy a Sightstone, "saying that if I want one so bad, I should just buy one myself". Seriously, play ADC and buy a Sightstone, then tell me how good of an idea that was after you die repeatedly from having no damage/crit, no attack speed, no lifesteal, and just +150 health. I get that it is more fun to build damage, but come on. We both benefit from the support having the Sightstone.

3TWarriorJun 6, 20171 votes

I had this problem before as a support but found it more productive to focus on items that would allow both players to survive in addition to working towards a sight stone, but if the lane phase ends, not much can be done with it unless you are Lee Sin or another ward-hop capable champion

though most of all, tank supports I found to benefit more from sight stone simply by the hp involved whereas mage playstyle supports are better by keeping vision in the only likely gank location from River

It varies by situation( such as if the opposing midlaner is an assassin, extra wards are essential) but most of all by play style and the champions involved

for instance, a sight stone will never hurt soraka simply because her only crowd control is delayed and situational, but if you are say Sona or brand or zyra or blitzcrank or other supports with aggressive crowd control (which is a large majority), playing to your champion's strengths tends to work better but varies by the opposing team composition(such as the rule of never going without vision against stealth/camoflage champions)

frankly put, I think the only reason sightstone is still popular is because of its necessity in certain situations as well as its former ability to light up the map. Even more frankly put, if someone messes up (any of 3 players): it's not the ward's fault XD

Morgan le FeyJun 6, 20171 votes

Tank supports do tend to benefit from SS more than others, but everyone - especially squishy supports - likes a little extra HP.

That said, SS is incredibly useful outside of lane. It's arguably a bigger deal after laning phase than during, imo. Baron fight? You can set up total control over the enemy jungle, clear out any wards in and around baron pit, and give vision on half the river all by yourself in just ten or fifteen seconds. You can constantly set up flanking vision while with your team, and you can light up jungles on a regular basis. The ability to drop 5 wards without waiting for recharge is absurdly powerful. SS is one of the stronger items in the game from a utility perspective.

Jax the StampedeJun 6, 20172 votes

ability to drop 3 wards* -----there is a max limit of on the field wards per person

Morgan le FeyJun 7, 20171 votes

Yes, but you can totally delete your own wards if you need to put new ones down. Sometimes you're putting down long-term vision where you expect the wards to last all 3 mintues, but a lot of the time in teamfight/grouping situations especially you only need vision for a few moments, and then the ward isn't very helpful compared to where you might need vision somewhere else. For instance, the entire enemy team vanished, no one has blue trinkets up, and you need to make sure your team isn't facechecking into a trap in that bush in the middle of river while you go check baron. After that, though, that ward isn't necessarily all that worthwhile, depending on the situation. I've also started carrying around 2-3 red wards for the same reason. It's costly if you have to do it all the time, though worth it on some supports if you're well-organized, but it's a great way of making sure you have your vision where you need it, when you need it.

Incidentally, I said 5 wards because I was including 1 control ward in there, but technically it's 7 wards if you count 3 control wards. If you want to be really stupid, you could get up to 9 if you kept the standard trinket, but that's a terrible idea and there's no reason to do it, esp. with Sweeper showing where people are standing anyways.

sta supraJun 6, 20172 votes

Completely agree! for a long time i would just do whatever during lanning phase because you don't have to cs. sure i would punish if they made mistakes but i wouldn't pressure that hard. after some time i played adc and HOLY COW did my play style change, when you have to deal with an enemy adc harassing you AND try to get every cs it can be a real challenge so when i play support started to be a lot more aggressive to help my adc farm and make it harder for the enemy adc. This is just one example of how learning other roles can help you improve as a player, i think this works for all roles besides just adc and support (if you try top lane for example you get an idea of how it helps to keep the bush closest to the enemy tower warded for easy tp's).

R1NGW0LFJun 7, 20171 votes

I actually used to be an ADC main but then i just kept getting longer and longer wit times so i tried support and that was that.......i wont be going back if i don't have to

LupusFidusJun 7, 20171 votes

One of my biggest problems with supports, I know this is kind of stupid, is when a support doesn't help hit cs under tower and essentially the adc loses a lot more cs than they should. As long as they know how to hit cs and ward its all good if we suck. Its just one of my pet peeves lol.

Morgan le FeyJun 7, 20171 votes

I can't speak to your elo, but at my bronze elo, I have to worry about ADCs raging at me if I trying to help. "Report support trying to steal CS". I like to help, but I really only can with people I know. :/

Old Dirty SnuJun 7, 20171 votes

Or go to ward river and your adc dis...

WiegrafOfValorJun 5, 201712 votes

They wouldn't last 15 minutes. Their ego makes them incapable of playing support.

SwiftKitten88Jun 6, 20179 votes

{quoted}

They wouldn't last 15 minutes. Their ego makes them incapable of playing support.

oh how i wish this wasn't true...

3TWarriorJun 6, 20172 votes

there are good and there are bad but it's when you meet the really good players that things are fun

Morgan le FeyJun 6, 20175 votes

I know it's popular to jump on the wagon with other support mains and bash on our ADCs, but don't lose hope in them. If even a handful do it, it'd make life so much better. I believe in them! I mean, granted, they'll die a lot, but that's how you learn. Thankfully, not every ADC main is That One Vayne. It just feels like it sometimes. :P

SinlaireJun 6, 201712 votes

Annie Lux Malzahar Veigar

It's "support" right?

3TWarriorJun 6, 20172 votes

you are FIFTY PERCENT CORRECT GAMER, the answer is "Support Mage"

Ah O Yeah HarderJun 6, 20178 votes

Ashe MissFortune Pantheon JarvanIV Illaoi Fiddlesticks

Im "supporting" right?

6SfoolJun 6, 20173 votes

JarvanIV is great, and is pretty well-rounded. The rest are really just weird.

VoidStaresBackJun 6, 20172 votes

Illaoi support used to be a cheese thing in low ELO back when her vessel ability lasted for 50 seconds, 'cause it allowed you to harass the enemy laners for so long.

Morgan le FeyJun 6, 20172 votes

j4 support is amazing. I don't know why it gets a bad rap. I guess people try to build him like a fighter instead of a tank? But seriously, his E-Q does more or less the same thing as Alistar's, his W has an AoE slow + a shield that makes up for low stats due to support gold, his E gives and AoE AS boost for your ADC, and his Q shreds armor. Additionally, most bot lanes have at least one person who has no dash, so his ulti is great for at minimum forcing flashes. Often it just straight-up gives your ADC a kill with little to no real risk. In riskier lanes, when heavily pressured, his Q is great for snagging Relic Shield charges. His damage is pretty front-loaded due to his passive, so it does a great job helping the ADC trade + drop the foe's HP in combat without risking stealing the kill. And now with the HP scaling on his W... he makes quite a decent tank support.

KnoyleJun 6, 20178 votes

Not every ADC is a Vayne stereotype you know. Being an ADC isn't exactly the easy life either.

LupusFidusJun 7, 20171 votes

I only play Twitch for adc. I don't like playing adc's because I honeslty think its hard. Only reason i like twitch is becuase he says sneaky sneaky and then fucks poeple over. But this was like 3 years ago just after the rework.

deadlychuckJun 5, 201711 votes

This isn't emphasized enough by riot. Even with the support role changing substantially, just knowing the supports as champions, makes it much easier to play around them. Personally i feel, there shouldn't even so much be an ADC and Support, role. They should just make it "bot lane" in the role selection, and you should be proficient at both when picking it.

I haven't really played support a ton since about season 3 or 4, before they started trying to make the role appeal to a more aggressive demographic. I much preferred the passive support as a force multiplayer play style. Though, my duo, who plays a lot of paragon, is a carry main in that game, and I made it a point to retain a lot of my experience as a support main. So when we play, I'm ADC and he's Support. We know exactly what the other is going to do and when the other should be cutting our loses instead of getting greedy.

DeathBurstJun 6, 20172 votes

They should just make it "bot lane" in the role selection, and you should be proficient at both when picking it.

I see your point, but that would still be a terrible idea. For starters, Support shouldn't be tied to Bot lane. Yes, it's the current meta, but the only "hard" requirement for Support is that you must not collect gold. "Double Jungle" or "Roaming" Support must remain a possibility, even if it's not the focus of the current meta. It's also important to emphasize that the Support (like every other position) works for the whole team, and the team's Victory, and that they aren't just "the ADC bitch".

So no, pretty please, don't just merge "Support" and "Bot" in a single position, that will make bad things for the game.

ThefrostyvikingJun 6, 20178 votes

And every support should learn how to play ADC too :(

I play both roles and i have suffered from bad supports plenty of times as i have from bad ADC.

P.S

Sona is the best support.

RouxfulJun 6, 20173 votes

Sona best champ

SanDeityJun 6, 20174 votes

So for 1 Supports should also play ADC, and everyone should play Jungle and Jungle should play every role. Just saying it's better to know how things work but then you can also say you should know how to play every single champion because knowing what they do makes it much easier to play against them. Is this something everyone wants to do before they play ranked? There is no way Riot can make this happen and while I agree ADC mains are the most fun to deal with, that is what you are doing when you pick support. The role is to help feed a carry, make sure they don't die, and just baby them. If they treat you like garbage report and move on. Maybe queue with someone so they don't yell at you the entire game. The thing that separates the good players from the bad is all of this stuff. You can not force anyone to do anything ever. All you can do is reinforce the correct things and realize that sometimes you are wrong. While the support needs a sightstone maybe they need a different item to help in lane before they back. There are just so many things you can't really say "This needs to happen" because it won't and it can't. Back to the original point, ADC mains that know how to play support and know what is supposed to happen are better than the ones that don't and thus they move up in rank. On top of that yelling at people never convinces them as much as polite suggestions do. Good luck in finding happy ADC's.

GelmousJun 6, 20174 votes

no thanks, i play video games to have fun, support is the most boring role i ever played

Yordle XayahJun 6, 20178 votes

Thresh Say that again...

GelmousJun 6, 20174 votes

then explain to me why support is the least picked role ? if everyone can just pick thresh.

it's true support is the most boring role it's right infront of your face the minority plays support because it's not fun, no matter how many times you down vote this it won't change that fact

LauchmelderJun 6, 20178 votes

Your opinion is not a fact, doesn't matter how often you throw a tantrum over it.

I used to enjoy supporting, one of my friends still does.

GelmousJun 6, 20172 votes

i don't think you know the difference between an opinion and a fact, you're in denial.

LauchmelderJun 6, 20176 votes

Pardon me, considering this response I take that you are a middleschool dropout?

Yordle XayahJun 6, 20175 votes

Cause people (you included) don't know how to play the fun champions and think Support means "Janna Shields"

[slayer-pantheon-popcorn]

Just Blame JennyJun 7, 20174 votes

I genuinely love support, because it's more macro than micro-oriented. I'm not interested in doing huge damagezzzz. I'm interested in controlling the map, and providing utility to my team in fights. Support plays into that naturally.

It's not for nothing that the other role I play regularly is jungle, which has a similar niche.

Also, speaking as a Janna main, she gets an unfairly bad rap. The difference between a good Janna and a bad Janna is huge. A good Janna doesn't have to play completely passively, or act as purely a shield bot. She can make plays perfectly fine, thank you. A good Janna will not only completely shut your team down, but offer up kills for her own team on a platter.

DarkRitualJun 6, 20177 votes

Bard Rakan are also hella funsies.

cardomajig24Jun 6, 20173 votes

If we're gonna be serious, everyone should play each role at least once. Too many times is there a jungler that plays jungle simply because he can't last hit properly, or a mid/top laner that plays top lane purely to farm and act lazy til late. Or an ADC because "I wanna do damage" without knowing what you sacrifice to deal that damage. But who cares when you can be hardstuck Wood 5-Silver 5 amirite?

58697132DEL1Jun 6, 20173 votes

I did this! I mained a lotta ADCs starting out, picked up support to "see how it was on the other side" so to speak. Pretty easy role if you and the marksmen synergize and communicate!

I hope they do that thing where they rename support. Cause it's not always about the carry. I've had carrys love that i nail skillshots to secure kills (for real) or dont mind a steal of a CS or two for an item. If it wasn't thought of as a "slave/master" relationship I bet more people would duo up and play it.

Tobias BracknerJun 6, 20173 votes

I agree and would say everyone needs to know how to play every lane (mostly for people who want to play Ranked)

Nightshade RoseJun 6, 20173 votes

Same goes for Supports learning to play marksmen.

Friendly RamJun 7, 20172 votes

i'm a support main trying to figure out adc. last hitting is really different between all the adcs.

JavelinJoeJun 7, 20172 votes

Yeah it is. Best way to practice is to go into practice mode, lock level 1 (don't give yourself health or mana regen or 100% CDR) while leaving on tower aggro and minion spawning (you can disable tower destruction if you want to) and make sure you have no masteries, runes, or items. Then practice last hitting. Getting around 70-80% of the minions in say 5-10 minutes will make you great at last hitting with items, runes, and masteries.

Friendly RamJun 7, 20171 votes

I'll try that. Thanks. Keep on forgetting practice mode is a thing.

Ah O Yeah HarderJun 6, 20171 votes

And every top lane main should learn jungle. (My jungler is afk farming, ganks 0 times, gg better jungler wins)

JorenciceJun 6, 20171 votes

Lol I'll never understand why top lane dies to the jungler so often.

Maybe it's because im a support main and I know how to ward and I also don't tunnel vision. But ive never been caught out by the enemy jungler.

Course I also play top lane karthus and usually just free farm.

Kirius DarkJun 6, 20175 votes

because top has the longest distance from their turret for safety, unlike mid. and don't have someone else to help ward or bail them out of trouble, unlike bot

JorenciceJun 6, 20171 votes

But there is also only 2 entrances to top lane unless your (red)? And then there's 3.

Where as mid has 7.

I don't count attacking straight through your turret because if the jungler is so fed he can walk through your turret then you've already lost the game.

Kirius DarkJun 6, 20173 votes

yeah and more entrance also mean more exits for the laner getting ganked just to walk out. have you never seen a gank coming from the bottom river just to have a midlaner walk out top river?

DurzakaJun 7, 20171 votes

As a support, you can afford to spend more on warding (especially with a sight stone, and pinks). Top lane has to be more careful with their spending on wards, as too much spending will put them behind in items and basically cost them the lane if the enemy capitalizes on it.