Supports For Different Comps?

The Wet Baguette·2/10/2015, 4:05:57 AM·1 votes·524 views

So I like to play support.

If I were ever asked which position I "main", I would say support.

I've seen very good results from Janna and Karma (Even a spot of Vel'Koz here and there.)

Now the problem comes in when I'm playing with a Vayne. She asks, "Karma, do you have any all ins?"

I say, "Nope, mostly Janna and Karma"

She says something along the lines of "Nub sup no not team comp kys."

So my question is, what does she mean by "all-in?" I know she's referring to Leona/Braum type supports, but what does all in actually mean?

It's not a sustain support, it's not a poke support. Who else is classified under "all in"? And are "All in" supports better than poke or sustains for different comps? If so, which ones?

Thanks

6 Comments

Onegarion2/10/2015, 5:56:45 AM2 votes

All-in supports do just what it sounds like. They go ALL-IN. Essentially when they go they GO. There is no brakes or ways to get out. This is why typically Braum and Leona are some of the bigger all ins. They don't really have an escape out if they screw up. THere are some that fall into "all-in" without following the same. Thresh fits this model. He CAN go all-in, but he doesn't have to. THe thing that gets him labeled here is again once he decides to go there is no coming out until the fights over. "all-in" supports focus on singling out one target and destroying them as fast as possible. Usually they have pretty heavy CC in either displacements or stuns and as you know, are really tanky.

Other Examples: Alistar

Poke Supports are those that again do what it says. Champs that focus on whittling down the enemies HP bars slowly overtime. Champs like Karma , Zyra fit this mold. While they have the utility to back them up they focus on damaging the enemy champs. Usually these champs are very squishy and don't really want to fight you unless they have a huge health advantage.

Other Examples: Velkoz , Lulu

The other big category is Heal supports. Again name tells exactly what they focus on. Here are the champs like Sona , Nami

While these are good broad categories there are actually 3 better categories to describe champs since we are missing disengage, burst, etc kinds of supports. Also these aren't good categories since some champs blend with others.

It sounds like you need a basic understanding of different bot lane comps tho. There are generally 3 different types of bot lane compositions: Sustain, Poke, and KIll. Now most of this (90%) is dictated by the support chosen and really has little to do with the ADC.

I'll start with Kill since those are what you asked first about. These are your All-in champs. The whole goal of this lane is to get a kill. You don't have sustain in most cases and want to harass and trade. Kill lanes also include your burst champs like the Annie supports. These lanes tend to beat Sustain lanes. They will go in a lot and enough that sustain lanes can't stay healthy.

Good ADC's for this lane: Draven , Graves , Varus

Second is sustain lanes. These lanes focus on just staying alive. This lane tends to be weaker early game or just easily out-traded. So this will have your healing supports to make sure that your ADC can stay alive through the laning phase and become stronger. Normally you don't want to fight until have jungler presence or a roam in general. Sustain lanes have an advantage on Poke lanes since they can survive their poke with sustain.

Poke lanes are the last. This lane focus's on always knocking you down so you can't really do anything else to them. This is where the obvious supports go that I listed above. Poke lanes excel over kill lanes since they can stay back and keep the kill lane supports down and make it extremely risky to go in without jungler help.

Jubbinaut2/10/2015, 4:11:09 AM1 votes

All-ins tend to be hard-CC champs, usually tanky, who are often initiators.

Braum and Leona qualify, along with Thresh and Malphite .

Alternatively, burst mages can fit this because of their ability to dump so much damage into a dedicated engagement. In this sense, you can use champs like: Annie , Velkoz , Zyra , and Lux .

EDIT: As a note, I find it amusing that a Vayne wants to comment on it. Vayne is a very powerful duelist, but she's not exactly a team-fight oriented ADC in the same way that (for example) MF and Sivir are.

The Wet Baguette2/10/2015, 4:43:05 AM1 votes

Yeah. She ended up feeding in lane.

We still won though. Top Irelia was more fed than Gragas at thanksgiving.

I've always wanted to try Braum out. But my question about comps still exists. When is it better to pick Braum over Janna or Karma ?

The Wet Baguette2/10/2015, 1:02:45 PM1 votes

That explanation helped a lot. Thank you!

Edit: But... Which category is Janna in? 0-0

My guess would be sustain due to being able to use her shirld to stop damage. But what do I know?

Kiyoish2/10/2015, 1:12:00 PM1 votes

Janna or Sona 90% of time. They can do just about everything, AP to full tank, and overall have no awful matchups.

Leona or Thresh the other 10%. When you need an extra dedicated tank.