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How to play support in gold (tips)

PrimeeTimee·11/25/2014, 5:30:03 PM·2 votes·2,495 views

Support tips:

Try not to think too hard about what your team needs going into team fights (tanks, dps, support ect.) but instead try to win your lane with counters and favorable match ups. If you win your lane or pressure bot lane hard then you are forcing their mid/jungle to help a lot and that takes pressure off your other lanes. Assume you are the best person on your team and as such you want to have the most focus on bot lane, after all you know you can handle it.

Counter: You need to know how to play every single adc and ever single support in order to get a favorable match up in the bot lane. What I mean is some supports go better with certain adc's and some supports work better against some adc's and other supports. This comes from 1,000's of games played. Yes that number is thousands. For more information on how to play certain matchups or how to pick against certain bot lane comps just message me in game and we can get on curse voice and I can coach you. I have 2 gold accounts and one plat account.

1.Always rush sight stone vs aggressive jungles (lee sin, shaco, vi, ect) do not rush sight stone against weak early game jungles or if you know by getting some AP you will have an advantage in lane or if you are a passive support lane like raka or janna.

2.Always get an early pink for tribush or river. This will save you countless gold and will likely last a very long time. It also frees up your 3rd ward to keep lane brush warded against ganks or for you to be able to ward the enemy jungle for team vision. Learn where to place wards for optimal vision. This also comes from playing many games and watching streams and videos of players better than you. Their are optimal places to put wards and by doing so you grant vision of key pathways to and from objectives.

3.Adjust your support play based on the skill or aggression of your ADC.

4.Watch the map religiously. If you are just farming in lane keep an eye on the entire map and ping anything that you feel your team should be alerted to.

5.Keep all objectives warded at all times once laning phase ends (dragon, baron and enemy buffs).

6.After you get sight stone make sure to get a red trinket and upgrade it early. Vision wins games.

7.Keep track of enemy wards/trinkets as this will give you information about where wards are or if they have wards available. If they just used their sweeping lens then now is a good time to ward.

8.Once you establish good vision in the bot lane. Keep the enemy under their turret forcing them to ask for help with the pressure. If you can keep them pushed do it. You essentially make the ADC to choose between last hitting or harassing. This is always a good thing and plays into your favor.

9.Don't ask for ganks. You are going to handle the sh*t out of this bot lane. If jungle can pressure other lanes early it will mean a better game for your lane. Afterall you are the better player on the team and you can handle the pressure. If a jungle can gank your lane then that's just a bonus. Play the game and any lane you are in as if your jungle will never be in your lane ...ever. If you are getting ganked over and over again and not dying then you are doing your job and they are wasting their time. If you die over and over it is always your own fault and not the fault of your mid lane or jungle. Hopefully if they are using that many resources focusing on the bot lane then your teammates can make plays else where on the map..."hopefully".

10.Everything that happens is your fault. When you win it is 20% your fault but if you lose it is 100% your fault and their is something you could have or should have done to win that game. Obviously afk and feeding happens and it is not your fault however all those close games that came down to one team fight or that one baron is your fault and you have to learn from those mistakes and be better next time.

  1. I suggest learning morgana, janna, nami and alistar. These will be go to support in this coming season. I am still trying to figure out the new soraka but I see her being a force in the bot lane as well vs the likes of janna, nami, sona, morgana. Try out soraka just make sure you run heath regen quints and heath regen per level yellows. If you don't have any health regen you can easily be forced out of lane. Remember her heal cost a % of her health now so don't spam your heal.

  2. Learn when you need to initiate team fights as supports like alistar, Leona, name, braum ect. and when you need to peel and support your ADC. Knowing what to do when is a big difference between silver and gold support play. If your adc is very fed it is mostly a good idea to save your spells to keep your highest damage dealing teammate alive for as long as possible. However, sometimes if you see an opportunity to pounce make sure you ping and go in. For example you are Leona and you see one of their carries solo farming bot lane and the rest of their team is mid making it a 4v5 in your favor. You better make a play and then push and take as many objectives as possible. Map awareness and play making IQ can change the course of close games or games which you were behind.

  3. Remember that you are in the game to support other players, especially those fed players. If your adc is doing very well in the bot lane and you get ganked it is usually a good idea to make them focus and kill you if you are sure you cannot get away. Keeping your adc alive and staying ahead or even with the enemy adc is usually a good thing even if it cost you a life. The ADC is more valuable and gold/levels on a carry is always more useful than on a support. However, we have all had games where the adc you are supporting is just god awful. Maybe they got forced into the role or maybe they think they are amazing and really over value their ability to play that role. Either way we have all had adc's that you really just cannot support and should not support. In this case if you reach the late game and team fights are where you know you will win or lose the game, sometimes you need to support the fed top laner or APC mid laner. I had a recent game where I just ignored my adc in team fights and focused trying to help kite their bruisers off my fed 10-3 Ahri. With my help she was able to carry us to victory. These are they types of decisions that you will need to make in order to support out of silver and make your way into platinum.

You can take as many or as few of these suggestions as you would like but I assure you these are they types of things I have managed to learn after playing over 2000 games on three different accounts. The only way to truly get better at the game is to play many many games and learn from the multitude of mistake that you will make along the way. If you learn from your mistakes and take every loss as a learning opportunity I promise you will improve your game play and you will improve the play of the random players you get queued with.

Come ask questions and receive feedback. I also encourage individuals to provide constructive criticism of my play as I am always looking for ways to improve. www.twitch.tv/arihm

8 Comments

Quacker211/28/2014, 10:35:34 PM2 votes

I am a Janna main in silver II. I agree with just about every tip he had. But I have a few others if I can add:

  1. Learn to spot a gank before it comes. There are almost always tell tale signs. My brother plays jungler and he says there is nothing more infuriating then enemy laner(s) that don't take the bait. Here are some common signs that I have spotted: a. The enemy support red trinkets a lane brush or pinks it past the 3-4ish min. mark. These usually foretell a lane gank or a top lane teleport gank. Play cautious then! b. The enemy ADC has less emphasis on cs and more on harassment. Usually they want to get you lower on hp to make it easier on the ganker. c. The enemy bot lane initially froze the lane, but is now letting you push too much. d. Any red-flag spells are used randomly. Some examples are a flash-hook, tidal wave, crescendo, solar flare, you get the idea. If that thresh throws lantern behind him and the ADC is present already--RETREAT! There are more signs, feel free to add if you want. The point is, by preventing the gank from succeeding you can waste enemy summoners, and a LOT of the junglers time which he could use farming or ganking elsewhere. 2.If you see the enemy jungler waiting to engage (e.g. in brush) you want to be in range for a kill, but not close to immediate danger (if you were pushing, let them push now). If you make their jungler wait endlessly, you help your jungler immensely where they can counterjungle or gank elsewhere with little retaliation. If more than one person is going to gank your lane, by all means fall back!
  2. One of the best times to engage is when the enemy support goes to ward. If a ward spots the leona heading towards dragon, go in on that vayne!
  3. Conversely, if you need to ward, notify the ADC so they know to play safer or recall til you return.
  4. When cle
  5. In my opinion, one of the most important things a support needs to do is track the enemy's vision. I always have the enemy support tab up. If they had 4 wards to start, head to river, and come back with 2, I know they used 2 wards. Let your team know where they warded and for how long. For example: As janna, my yellow trinket spots the enemy nami's green ward in tri bush. She also has a ward in the river bush. Let your team know the timer and ping the spot for good measure. This action DRASTICALLY improves the success of ganks. Anyway, these wards tend to give the enemy bot lane more security and they play less cautiously. Now is the best time for a lane gank since they won't be on guard as much. FEEL FREE TO ADD TO THIS COMMENT.

Just my two cents.

TeemoHunter133711/25/2014, 5:35:07 PM1 votes

ward cc dont die

Bixits12/3/2014, 6:31:18 PM1 votes

Good post, thanks!

shadowexil1/14/2015, 4:50:30 PM1 votes

Just thought id add in that yes, knowing counters, whats best for your team etc is good. But,if all of the needed roles are already covered [saying if top mid jungle were all dmg and tank was needed] just because a leona counters the enemy support doesn't means you should pick her. Just saying that sometimes skill beats out counters. Nice article regarding gold play with support.