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How do I Master Support?

Brydaro·8/12/2014, 3:52:55 AM·4 votes·1,584 views

I am Brydaro, I am a Bronze 3 player. I sometimes play top, but I mainly play support. I enjoy being a roadie; it's a role I've done well my whole life. My issue is most guides out there are for carries, with support only getting conceptual advice. I don't last hit, I don't go balls deep and 1v5 and I don't often get to gank; so my question is how do I practice playing support? What kind of mechanics can I be practicing other than counter warding and brush control? I've deduced that the answer is practice all the other mechanics so I can help make them fluid for others; if that is the answer to the previous question, how do I help assassins? I suck at playing an assassin. It doesn't agree with my brain meats and I don't particularly like playing them. Often their kits are very self-sufficient, so how to I help them besides just using CC?

One final question: The LCS focuses on the mid, top, and jungler. The support is rarely on screen for more than few seconds. Are there any world class supports that stream themselves playing support? Who would you suggest?

13 Comments

Tolinar8/12/2014, 2:49:38 PM4 votes

Let's go over three main topics. Well to start with... Supports tend to fall into 3 broad categories based on their overall strategy.

A Commit support, like Blitzcrank, will try to jump on the enemy lane and cause a major advantage. They take the biggest risks and usually, have the largest potential for failure. The goal is to kill the other team.

Nami A Harass support, like Nami, will poke and grind the enemy, focusing on making efficient trades as frequently as possible. They rely on range and skill mechanics. To take damage without receiving it, is the goal.

Taric A sustain support, like Taric, focuses on breaking up any action the enemy lane takes, countering any committed attacks, and canceling out harassment damage. The goal is to help your marksman farm in peace.

Some supports, like Lulu Lulu, can use some or all, of these strategies freely, at the cost of some ability to do each of them.

Second. There is the issue of developing a single champion versus counterpicking.

In League of Legends, it is basically always to your advantage to practice a champion. I have played hundreds of games with Nami, and I am still discovering quirks about her skill kit, items which fit in special circumstances, and I can adapt to changes to the game smoothly... I can say with confidence that Ardent Censer is nice for the move speed, but otherwise the effect is a little weak for its frequency and I prefer using Twin Shadows for its very handy active.

Counterpicking is of course, when one champ's skillset grants it big advantages over another champion. But to gain that advantage, you must be good at at that skillset. An experienced player might make do, or might not. Morgana Morgana is an effective Harass/Sustain support. She is hard-countered by Karma Karma. This is because Karma's shield can mitigate damage from an ally getting snared and help to dodge skillshots and escape Morgana's ultimate, her Tether can be applied through black shield and will snare if it outlasts it, her Ulted Tether will still regenerate Karma's health even if shielded, and Karma's Q skillshot is a splash attack making it tougher to Black Shield and body-block skillshots for your marksman.

None of this nuance, though, will be apparent to someone playing virtually their first game on Karma. There is no guarantee they will have any advantage at all versus a skilled Morgana player. You also gradually learn ways to fight even counters with enough practice. Like I said, I play a lot of Nami, well... Morgana is a counter to Nami. It is possible to pick a skilled Morgana apart, but not that easy. Her Black Shield means I must wait to deploy tidal wave until it is on cooldown, and always be aware of the risk of a counter-ult engage from a pursuit. You learn where the threats are and have a better chance of handling them.

This might seem very obvious to anyone who has played League a while, but supports in particular feel a need to meet "counterpick" demands. Alistar may very well counter Blitzcrank, but only if you know what you are doing with him. This doesn't alleviate the stress from being ranted at to pick Alistar, if the enemy picks Blitzcrank.

That brings us to the third thing. No position in the entire game is more stressful than support. You will have less resources, and less power, and you will be expected to invest it in things that make the team stronger, so you can do more with it. It will stretch your resources like a rubber band. The modern support can become very well funded with plenty of assists and a gold support item, but no position is more likely to get "skunked" and end up 3-5k behind. Some supports are very able to win 1 on 1 fights, contribute powerfully to team skirmishes, and pressure and claim objectives. But not all of them, and not always.

Going into the support position with your eyes open, knowing you are going to be "playing from behind"... is important. Good luck on the field.

The All Tomato8/12/2014, 3:53:19 PM2 votes

You are wrong. Supports get plenty of attention in the LCS and are highly valued. Watch any pros you see in the LCS (EU and NA). There are a few high-elo non-pro streamers as well. My favorites are: Krepo, Aphromoo, LemonNation, KiWiKiD, Xpecial, TSM Gleeb, and IMPAKT (all on Twitch).

'Mechanics' refers to control of a champion, such as landing skillshots, comboing correctly, stutter-stepping, etc. Use bots to practice things like this and get used to a champion's kit. Guides for specific support champions do exist that give tips and tricks on using their abilities. Check sources like the subreddit Summoner School, guide sites like MOBAFire, and YouTube (Impakt is a great YouTuber to check out).

Assassins definitely do need your CC to get kills. They also lack heavy defense, so things like heals, shields, auras, Thresh lantern, are always a huge help.

You complain about getting conceptual advice, but it sounds like you need it. If you are wanting to learn overarching, role-wide support strategies, start with things like:

zone control (awareness of your own and your enemies' ranges, cooldowns, items, etc.)
trading (how to deal damage while not taking as much back, related to zone control)
map awareness (know when enemies may be roaming down, predict when junglers may gank based on the position of minion waves, buff spawn timers, jungle farming paths, etc.)
warding aggressively (as opposed to counter-warding and warding for safety)
wave manipulation (when to freeze minions, when to push, forcing enemies to fight in large friendly minion waves, etc.)
how to communicate with teammates and 'read' the actions of allies and opponents

I wrote a guide that contains a resource section you might find helpful. Check it out. (2nd to last chapter is resources). I also stream frequently at http://www.twitch.tv/thealltomato. I will be writing a support guide in the coming week or two, so check my MOBAFire profile and / or Twitch.tv channel to see when it's completed.

Thunder Dreamss8/12/2014, 4:56:17 PM2 votes

The single best guide to bot lane (both support and adc) I have read is by HowDoIShot over in GD. Link.

This guide really covers things I only wish everyone in bot lane knew.

Okayish Fish8/12/2014, 11:58:04 AM2 votes

This may sound cheesy but the one thing that I do as a support that really feels like its doing good for the team is keeping the team together.

This means diffusing flamers, boosting downers and maintaning a positive outlook. More often than not you will find the support sets up the team for the unlikely turns of events like 5 man ganks that push the towers of your lane. Supports are not just the healer, blocker or engager for your team but the good supports are the ones that hold faith, rally the team and fight it out for the win.

Also Braum braum is life Braum braum is love Braum

TehNACHO8/12/2014, 5:30:55 AM2 votes

I wrote this for a different thread entirely and now I'm just copying and pasting, so please try to look over anything that doesn't fit with your question. However, this should cover some of the basics:

Depends on the support.

Hard engage champions like Blitzcrank, Thresh, and Leona need to be able to recognize how to create picks for your team. Find the easiest to kill person on the enemy team, catch them out, delete them, then immediately disengage to reset your cool downs for the upcoming 5v4.

Pocket supports with a strong amount of peeling like Sona and Nami may want to try playing the objective game, split pushing with the ADC escaping thanks to the peel, keeping an eye on the Epic Monsters, etc.

Supports with strong auto-attack steroids, wave clearing abilities, or are just plain good at fighting even on their own may even wanna split push entirely on their own. Blitzcrank or Annie fall into this category, for example. The former thanks to his W and E doing damage to towers, a low CD ultimate that wave clears quite well, and his ability to run away makes him a good candidate, whereas Annie can turn around and fight many champions 1v1 if she has the items to do so.

A trick I've learned to help your team subtly is to set up "monster waves". What you do is you find a vacant lane, kill enemy minions until the enemy creep wave has one or two less minions than yours (ex. Your minion wave has 6 minions, you want to kill enemy minions until the enemy creep wave only has 4 or 5 minions), then leave. What this causes is that your creep wave gets the upper hand very slowly. Eventually, because the first minion wave is advancing so slowly, the second will catch up to them and pile on. If timed correctly, you can get some 12-16 minions sieging away a side lane while the rest of your team if pushing mid."

To note, this is post laning phase advice.

ploki1228/12/2014, 3:25:54 PM2 votes

Few begginer tips from a Plat V Support main. As you grow better, somce of those tips will become useless, but when not yet confident about the role, these are really helpful.

Always start with a GP5 item, upgrade it ASAP (If you can get SS first B or imperatively need boots, delay it).
Rush that Sightstone.
Boots level 2 is a nice 3rd buy. You will often want Mobility on the FotM supports, but there are other options.
Pick one guy you like, and stick to him. My 2 main supports are Poppy and Veigar, still have >50% win rate with them in plat because I know my matchups.
Watch this video. Bits of it is outdated, and the presentation isn't the best, but the content is overall great.
The easiest (less mechnically demanding) thing you can do as a support is simply always check the map to know where the jungler is. If you know where the nemy jungler is, you know when you can fight, when you can do dragon, when you need to ward (hint : if you know where all 5 members are, wards are useless).

FantasySniper8/14/2014, 3:35:33 AM1 votes

This guide is probably the best I've seen. There's also this one, which I feel doesn't really hit the mark dead-on, but it's stilll good info.

Peer8/12/2014, 2:44:11 PM1 votes

I find warding and such is an important part of supporting and not really entirely just your job, others should be warding too. As mentioned before me as a support I often find myself diffusing arguments or convincing a troll to stop trolling.

Learn spell CDs, if you know that a Blitz grab takes about 20 seconds then you know he won't be able to grab you for a good while.

Know when to back, a lot of people just recall when they please and end up missing the good exp from a minion wave and in the long run fall drastically behind in levels.

Practice poking, knowing when to poke the enemy adc/support or knowing which to poke is also a big part of the supports job.

Hope I helped, Peer

MrSc0tty8/12/2014, 5:03:35 PM1 votes

Well if you're looking for a support who works well with assassins, look no further than Lulu. It's as simple as: friendly assassin going in? Shield them, then ult them as soon as they gapclose. For most assassins, that knock up is enough time for them to get off a deadly combo. If you want to be sure, throw your Q right before the enemy lands to add extra burst damage. Your W can then be used to get them out safely.

As a support helping assassins, your job is either to help them chase or help them catch. Assassins love the Amulet active, or any speed boosts you have. Beyond that, there never was a Rengar who complained when their allied Thresh hooked an enemy then tossed then a lamp.

Deep Terror Nami8/12/2014, 5:27:23 AM1 votes

When watching LCS, you don't need eyes on the Support to see what he's doing. Keep an eye on what lanes are pushed, where his Jungler is, what his item purchase order is, when he and his ADC B to base, when and where he wards all from looking at the minimap and item board.