Suggestions for support mains

ozzzz666·11/10/2018, 4:49:28 PM·1 votes·1,185 views

Does anyone have any suggestions about ways for support players to climb? I get that duoing sometimes helps, but as someone who really enjoys playing support, I feel like there has to be some tips and tricks to try to deal with feeding laners, bad junglers, etc. I feel like I am a really solid support, and people tell me so all the time. My champion pool is pretty deep, I play Rakan, Braum, Brand, Lux, Soraka, but I mostly spam Braum and Rakan.

I almost always have the highest vision score in the game and usually stay over 50% Kill participation.

I can't seem to climb, though. Any tips about how to be more effective from the support role?

6 Comments

Marshbouy11/10/2018, 5:00:50 PM2 votes

deep wards that will show you where the jungler is/is heading. By enemy blue buff/wolves for blue side and by enemy red/raptors for red side. these kinds of wards will give allies ample warning that a jungler is on their way.

roams to help out allies.

Look at your minimap constantly as to know what is going on in other areas of the game. enemy mid MIA? Play safe. Enemy jungle spotted at top lane? Pressure the enemy bot a bit more or go for a deep ward. Etc. etc.

punishing enemy ADC for trying to CS (ranged only for the most part). When they go up to auto attack CS, they are forced to either take the CS or take the hit. They usually cannot retaliate easily (if you did it right) because they will be stuck in the AA animation.

Making sure that wards are going to be useful for something, not just being shat out for the purpose of having a big ward score (I struggle with this a lot). For example, I often find myself throwing wards down in areas that don't actively help me. I put wards in the bush by the brambleback wall (facing the river) or in the tribush when these wouldn't help me as much as one in the river.

AlienPrimate11/10/2018, 5:03:34 PM2 votes

A big thing about being support is you don't have to CS. Use the concentration that you would normally put towards CSing to instead constantly be looking at the map. Track the enemy jungler and ping everywhere they go and which direction they are moving when you see them. Ping other lanes MIA. Ping danger multiple times to your mid and top if you know a gank is coming. I play top a fair bit too and often get killed when my middle laner pings missing a single time. I go back through the chat and see they pinged it, but I was engrossed in fighting and never even saw the ping. 4 danger pings is a bit more telling than one simple missing ping.

If you can save your teammates a few times through pings, they are much more likely to listen to your shot calls later in the game. This is where carrying as a support comes in. People like to follow a leader as evidenced by all the sheep in this game who copy their favorite streamer's builds and the flavor of the month. Put yourself out there as a leader early in the game and your team will listen to you when you tell your top laner with teleport to go split bottom while the rest of you take baron.

Eleshakai11/10/2018, 5:09:55 PM2 votes

Play champions with some form of active agency. I like Zyra and Leona, currently, but Brand, Lux, Pyke, Rakan, Thresh, Morgana, Alistar are all good examples too.

Keep good awareness of the lane entrances for gank evasion, and just abuse the heck out of your enemies when you get the chance in line, and translate that elsewhere.

The deeper your vision is the better it is, because it gives you more information, but always remember you're likely the easiest member on your team to kill so be SAFE when going for that vision. If the enemy ganks top and your opposing laners both back, that's a great time to get a vision roam in.

ozzzz66611/10/2018, 5:00:22 PM1 votes

Video resources or anything you could suggest would be helpful. I want to improve and climb next season. Surely some higher elo support mains have some strategies and suggestions?

Warmanreaper11/10/2018, 7:42:28 PM1 votes

Play hyper carry supports and force your laner to kill them instead of your laner being noob and all in-ing without the pressure..

Thresh Leona Sona Pyke etc... you already have good picks, try to play around the meta a bit more to secure bot lane Btw thresh is the best support in the game rn, if you're good at thresh you basically can guarantee a free bot lane win

Jarring11/10/2018, 10:56:06 PM1 votes

don't ever blame your team. it's self-sabotaging.

from my experience in playing all of the different mobas, especially DotA Allstars, Heroes of Newerth, DotA 2, and League of Legends, support has been about choosing the battles. Wards are only as good as they are at helping you choose your battles. You can have vision of the entire map, but still fail to use the advantage correctly. I feel like you need to be able to know when to fight. Either to initiate or to cover flanks, supports need to control fights, rather than just be a baby-sitter or initiator that just empties one role of IQ and then done. Sometimes you might need to hold onto something like a summoner spell, active, or skill for a specific fight or a specific champion on your flanks. It depends on the game, the champion, and the fight. I don't think anyone could give you any one piece of advice that would help you climb. I don't think just watching videos would help you either. You just have to play and think about what you're doing.