why do i even support main in soloq

The Bard Dog·May 22, 2015·7 votes·1,059 views

it's just asking for a torrent of abuse, and massive influx of idiots.

if i tell you 5 times to focus their hard carries, and you don't listen, eventually im gonna put it in caps to make sure you see it. telling me to chill out is fucking stupid. im not harassing you, im not raging at you. im telling you what you need to do to WIN. and then the second i do that everyone wants to get all personal and call eachother names...

no. i just want you to do your fucking job. thats it. i do my job, which is to cc the squishies and carries. the LEAST you could do is focus the carries i cc.

but no if i get annoyed at my team for passing up golden opportunities, i get labelled as a tryhard or a rager.

just.do.your.fucking.job.

24 Comments

AyRe CoNteMpTMay 22, 20158 votes

well, just imagine being a gay jewish, physically handicapped black man in texas, then be happy you dont play jungle.

Slamurai JackMay 22, 20156 votes

If you really want to climb, you need to recognize just how bad the "Focus the Carries Noobs" Mentality and is how it will lose you teamfights against any decent team comp, especially in the tank meta we are currently in. The optimal teamfight strategy is to try and isolate enemy front laners and seperate them from their team so they have no follow up, at which point you can focus them down easily with your low CD spells. Once their front line is dealt with, you can then move forward as a team and run over their now defenseless carries. Trying to run past enemy tanks like Maokai, Nautilus, Gragas, or Sion will just get you CC'ed and kited to death while your carries are now completely exposed since their protectors are too busy trying to dive that Kalista/Lucian/Vayne/Whoever. If their carries were to move way too far forward to where your team can completely collapse on them, then go ahead and just destroy that guy. But landing big cc on the enemy adc doesn't mean shit when there's still 2-3 tanks standing in between your damage dealers and the guy you just stunned.

The idea that diving the enemy carries is the ideal teamfight strategy is the most pervasive and incorrect idea that the League community has about teamfighting. Yes, if you can start a teamfight by initiating on their adc and killing them instantly, that is a good strategy. Trying to dive past tons of CC and beef to try and get their carry is not a good strategy and is more likely than not to get you all killed, especially if you manage to get yourself stuck in the middle of their team and your team can't follow up. Just hit the tanks until the enemy carries expose themselves, especially if its a short range carry like Lucian, Vayne, Kalista, or Cassiopeia. There is literally no need to dive them when you can just force them to walk up into range of you first.

Excellent visual example by The General. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQzB0HDstLY

chipndip1May 22, 20151 votes

This needs to be upvoted. I'm in a position where people constantly tell me to focus their carries, but there's many times where the safest person I can hit just isn't that carry. I know I'm not perfect, and I know I mess up, but sometimes hitting the adc or the apc just IS NOT the best answer for me as an adc. I try to pay attention to logistics, and people want to shove black n' white answers down my mental processes. It's frustrating because I honestly think there's a time and place for it, and if I'm not getting proper cover to fight with, I don't think I should risk my ass diving for the enemy carries when it's probably gonna get us killed.

sbsp13668May 22, 20152 votes

If you know how to play carry roles better than the carries you get in solo queue, then maybe you should start playing those roles.

Part of playing support, in my opinion, includes controlling your team's morale because you have the most time to type anything (as you don't need to last hit as much). If you typed a tip to your teammates once or twice in chat already, then repeating it in caps is not necessary. It doesn't matter how frustrated you are or if you really believe typing in caps will make your teammates "listen" better to improve their play. You have noticed that after repeating tips in caps you get a negative reaction from all your teammates; all you have done is hurt your team's morale, which hurts their play even more. So, by repeating things in caps and tanking your team's morale, you have only secured your team's defeat.

KagemythMay 24, 20151 votes

{quoted}

If you know how to play carry roles better than the carries you get in solo queue, then maybe you should start playing those roles.

Part of playing support, in my opinion, includes controlling your team's morale because you have the most time to type anything (as you don't need to last hit as much). If you typed a tip to your teammates once or twice in chat already, then repeating it in caps is not necessary. It doesn't matter how frustrated you are or if you really believe typing in caps will make your teammates "listen" better to improve their play. You have noticed that after repeating tips in caps you get a negative reaction from all your teammates; all you have done is hurt your team's morale, which hurts their play even more. So, by repeating things in caps and tanking your team's morale, you have only secured your team's defeat.

i was gonna type something similar

BrothaMay 22, 20152 votes

whoa you angry little support main, chill out.

What you need to do is stop that solo que support life and find yourself a good old fashioned duo. No, not with a filthy adc main that expects you to make the LC$ big plays he can take credit for, no you need yourself a nice beefy toplane/jungler duo. Here is why:

Support: You're a CC machine which provides the most vision across the map.

Top Lane: There are only two types of top laners. Split push monsters and tanky teamfighters. Some are capable of both, but here is where the synergy lies

Split Push hypothetical: Your duo toplaner plans to split top while you're preparing for drake, you and he both set up pink wards in key location so he does not get collapsed upon. You then can safely return to drake area to ward/deward the area allowing for the split pusher to tp down if needed.

Tanky hypothetical: You just landed a 3 man stun on both enemy carries and their support, your duo (being a competant player) now throws his balls to the wall and chain CC's them and begins blowing them up, even your derpy adc and mid laner will be able to burst down that tank their focusing, considering if both of you landed your CC the enemy carries will be in too much danger to join the fight. BAM won teamfight.

Jungler: Split pusher, carry, or tanky teamfighter

Pros

Expect lots of ganks considering he can at least rely on you to follow up Higher chance of snowballing You and He can plan early drakes safely

RenailleMay 24, 20152 votes

{quoted}

it's just asking for a torrent of abuse, and massive influx of idiots.

if i tell you 5 times to focus their hard carries

Yes, how genius. Lets all dive into their front line and get cc'd by their tanks .

Der LindwurmMay 22, 20151 votes

{quoted}

if i tell you 5 times to focus their hard carries, and you don't listen, eventually im gonna put it in caps to make sure you see it. telling me to chill out is fucking stupid. im not harassing you, im not raging at you. im telling you what you need to do to WIN. and then the second i do that everyone wants to get all personal and call eachother names...

I don't even want to know what happens in ranked when the ward you placed picks up the enemy midlaner coming in behind you at least 10 seconds before she'll actually get there, you ping, you ping again, you run for the river but your ADC still doesn't understand that means he should run too, keeps trying to go ham on the enemy support and ADC, and dies.

Colgate GatorMay 22, 20151 votes

Yeah, it's hard, I used to main support, mainly to let the rest of my team get what they were best at, but things just wouldn't progress, so I had to get a bit more agressive about picking top/jungle to make the LP gain happen.

DoFrMay 22, 20151 votes

played jungle with 4 premade team

man do i regret that

hey, i'll do my job, but i can't do my job at all 3 lanes, and still manage to farm and keep up in lane

everyone was losing, a Fiora losing to Jayce, a Zed losing to a Fizz that have been afk for like 2 mins, and got the zed 2 levels ahead, a bot lane that cannot play safe

it doesn't matter if you're right, it doesn't matter how well you do, it also doesn't matter if you helped or not, you're the jungler of a premade, it's always your Fault

just soloq things.

chipndip1May 22, 20151 votes

I can play a pocket support, but I'd honestly rather adc and have my fate more in my control. I can still play a pocket support, though.

Anywho, focusing the carries isn't the only thing required. You need a good environment to do this in, which some people fail to realize. If there's not a proper environment to attack the carries, then diving for it is just gonna get everyone killed.

For CarthageMay 23, 20151 votes

Learn Vel support.

All the qualifications of a support with all the atrocious damage of a mid while also requiring basically nothing to scale into lategame because true damage knows no defenses.

The Bard DogMay 24, 20151 votes

im good at vel supp. climbed to s1 playing only velkoz support and top. i just... ive played him way too much lol

For CarthageMay 24, 20151 votes

It's the most self-reliable support. Not much else out there to do. I suppose you can Annie, but Annie support still loses out on a lot while Vel's basically a bunch of base damage with a true damage steroid.

3TWarriorMay 24, 20151 votes

you forgot chogath. He's fun to play and while he's not out of mana, he's the primary source of damage for the carry to focus the enemy while they're low. Chogath with quinn would burst any enemy in seconds most likely

For CarthageMay 24, 20151 votes

The downside being that Quinn does mediocre in botlane usually and Cho would lose all of his midgame might to being too poor to buy much. If Leona were in botlane against them, she'd just counter-engage.

EndlessSorcererMay 24, 20151 votes

Have you considered trying Taric support? You aren't that great early game but you can easily sustain your ADC during laning phase and punish any attempted engages by the enemy team. Late game you can become a secondary bruiser and fight pretty much anyone on the enemy team on equal terms. You have good damage and durability late-game while providing a massive amount of utility (auras, shields, slows, heals, stuns, armor reduction, etc) to your team.

If it helps, my normal build ends up something like this: item 3117 item 3401 item 2045 item 3025 item 3190 item 3143

Masteries: 0/17/13 or 9/21/0 Runes: Flat armor marks and quints, scaling armor seals, flat or scaling MR glyphs

Just make sure to take advantage of your passive by autoattacking between spellcasts when possible. With 30-40% CDR, you can severely reduce your cooldowns and just keep casting. This is good for killing anyone diving on your ADC or dueling most bruisers (after a few items, Taric can solo a lot of champions).

ABlueQuakerMay 24, 20151 votes

Don't upgrade past Targon's and sell it for a better 6th item. Not to mention it lets you get your Locket a LOT faster.

Frozen Heart > Iceborn Gauntlet.

Upgrade to Ruby Sightstone AFTER you finish your 6th item.

Get a last item like Thornmail or Righteous Glory or even Mikael's.

Just generally something that will shut down one or more enemy carries. I personally prefer Thornmail because you can completely zone out Physical Damage Dealers with minimal risk. You're basically a 2nd/3rd tank for your team except you sacrifice a bit of tankiness for team utility (sightstone instead of something like sunfire or cinderhulk, mobis instead of mercs, and locket instead of spirit visage).

EndlessSorcererMay 24, 20151 votes

Eh, the build wasn't exactly in order since that tends to change from game to game. Just figured I would post a typical final build for the sake of brevity.

I typically don't upgrade Targon's Shield to Face of the Mountain until I've finished Iceborn Gauntlet and Aegis of the Legion. The shield is nice, but I mostly get it for the gold generation and sustaining my ally early.

I view Frozen Heart vs Iceborn Gauntlet as personal preference on Taric, personally. While Frozen Heart offers a bit more armor, CDR, and the attack speed slow, Iceborn Gauntlet offers a slow field (for peeling) and Spellblade. Considering Taric's passive, he can constantly proc Spellblade by rotating his abilities to output a lot of damage. This lets him kill anyone trying to get at his carries and 1v1 a lot of champions in the game.

I don't typically get Thornmail on Taric support unless they have a lot of autoattackers. The enemy champions don't want to be focusing me anyways and I'm usually peeling for my carries instead of diving theirs. I know that it's great for dueling or zoning autoattackers (I get it on most tanks and Taric top lane), but I prefer Randuin's Omen for the strong slow it offers and general survivability.

Mikael's is a good support item, but I'm not a fan of it personally. I find that my ally is typically dead inside the duration of the CC or I take too long to cast it. Righteous Glory is strong for engage and I've tried it, but I still prefer Randuin's Omen.

I never finish Ruby Sightstone until my last item is finished or I desperately need the immediate health boost and can't afford/fit anything else. Just not really worthwhile to upgrade beforehand.

I view Taric less as a second tank and more as a second bruiser. You don't really have the CC (Nautilus, Leona, Maokai) to play purely as a tank, but you provide a lot of auras and DPS (due to Spellblade and your passive). I typically like acting as a bodyguard for my carries, debuffing and killing anyone who attempts to harm them while protecting them.

Thank you for the advice though. Always good to see another Taric player.

ABlueQuakerMay 24, 20151 votes

You really do my damage and provide more CC with more Armor and more CDR. Provided you continue to Auto-Attack between Spell Casts you should be able to outdamage your build with a full Armor-Tank build, as well as get that stun off a LOT more often while staying alive much longer.

EDIT: But I'm not going to start an argument over personal preferences. I mean, I think Challenging Smite Cinderhulk Taric Top is OP or at least really strong, and that gets me a lot of negative attention when I try to make that claim on the forums.

EndlessSorcererMay 24, 20151 votes

God, Taric top is fun. I love running it against AD casters and some bruisers. No one expects you to outright murder them around level 5 or 6 and they can't really do anything to you once you've finished your Iceborn Gauntlet.

DrNovaMay 23, 20151 votes

Thats why I only Karma main, 99.9% of the time.

My solid poke usually prevents them from thinking about engaging unless my ADC is exceptionally bad. And I have the damage and utility to get kills and help everyone all game. Get sightstone, build full AP with some HP thrown in. You rely less on your adc.

Your waveclear sucks though

FooDangMay 24, 20151 votes

Carries can only focus what they can hit...

ABlueQuakerMay 24, 20151 votes

I've gone from Plat V to Plat II playing predominately Nautilus Support. Sitting on a ~60% Win Rate with Nautilus and a ~55% Win Rate in Ranked overall.

I have no idea what you're going on about.