Climbing ranked as a support main..

YAY STUFF·4/18/2015, 3:05:47 PM·1 votes·9,012 views

I was wondering if anyone had any suggestions/personal insight on how to climb in ranked without playing a carry position.

It has been super difficult getting out of the lower elos depending on other players to carry the game. Whether they get bullied out of lane or there isn't enough jungle pressure, whatever.

I try and remind myself to do a few fundamental things; ward, peel, roam if available.

Anything would help. Champ preferences, runes/masteries, play style.. thanks.

6 Comments

Janna Propaganda4/20/2015, 11:28:52 PM2 votes

I wish I knew the answer to this question. My suspicion is that it is extremely difficult to "climb" very high playing primarily the support role. My experience, limited compared to most around here, is as follows:

I only play Janna
I am very good with Janna [not the worlds best but certainly competent after 400+ games]
When I play normal games with random players I have a win rate around 60-65% [Assuming 5v5]
When I play normal games with mostly randoms but 1 known decent player my win rate is [I'm guessing] closer to 75-80% [smaller sample]
When I play ranked Solo Queue my win rate is trending towards 50% [averages about 4.5 v 5]

In my case, Solo Queue appears to produce a nearly random result. About half of the games my team has a strong carry resulting in significant synergy. The other half of the games are often a complete mess. Janna appears to not work for Solo Queue at the lowest levels since you need to win 67% of your games to "climb". My feeling is that If you want to climb, you need to be able to carry your team. So how do you do that?

Do not play Janna
Realize that at the lowest levels many people just do not care [Maybe true in higher levels but I have no experience]
Never play Janna
If you do play Janna... make sure to politely inform your teammates how your Ultimate works.
Always... I repeat... Always play hyper aggressively.
Pick a champ that, unlike Janna, can do something useful. Floating over minions and shielding turrets is fun but it will not carry
Give up on the idea of "climbing" and just focus on being the best you can be in each moment of every game
If you go with (7)... I suggest you only play Janna
After 1,000 games as Janna support, you should then go "way off meta" and play Janna Mid / Jungle. You can do it. You can carry with Janna
Never, ever, NEVER let them know the real you.

I hope this is helpful.

Janna

Nucleophilic atk4/18/2015, 3:06:44 PM1 votes

No matter what position you play, yoloQ at lower elos is about who gets less trolls playing first time champs.

Kasara4/18/2015, 3:20:45 PM1 votes

As someone who is a support main, when you are in bronze/silver and even lower gold elo, it seems impossible to trust others to carry. My duo partner and I have been trying a strategy in normals, and it seems to be working. I enjoyed playing Leona, Nami, Janna... but the adc could never commit to my stuns, bubbles, tornadoes... anyways, Leona is great if you are with a duo who goes a carry position. Other than that, I suggest trying supports such as Karma, Vel'koz, Lux, Morg, or Annie.

Something I almost always do on support after I get sightstone is to rush Morello. Sounds silly on a support, but when you get it, it really does make a difference in teamfights. If you want the sustain, RoA is great to build too. Zhonyas is great to build as well. However, if your team is against a high AP team or ADC team, locket or frozen heart may be essential.

Hex the FenFen4/18/2015, 4:23:24 PM1 votes

Pray that your team is smart enough to ban Blitzcrank lol, no but in all seriousness climbing ranks as a support main can be one of the most infuriating things ever. I have fallen in love with Zyra support. She has great poke and some good CC and does pretty well in solo queue. She takes some skill but def a good pick to choose. Even if they choose blitz on the enemy team, just use your plants to block them hooks lol

ArmoredDragon228/22/2015, 4:28:12 AM1 votes

my experience climbing from going to placements and getting landed in b4 then climbing to s3 is that you have to mute everyone that isn't in your lane and only unmute to ask for gank or make a play other then that use pings people rage for every little thing and you can never win against a rager so just hit mute. ok moving on from that, PLAY MALPHITE i can't stres this enough malphite is such and underrated supp in bronze/silver elo but it works and most of the time people wont know what to counterpick with so they will end up picking thresh, malph>thresh so just play passive till level 6 and then ram them with unstoppable force(ping before you go in). getting camped? fine, stay under tower and have your adc passive farm and you poke(whatever you do keep their jungler in you lane) that frees up your jg to either counter jungle or gank other lanes, if you have a yasuo, just force teamfights every time. you get a great ult off with yasuo to combo and bam they lose. ward the whole river and your tri bush, you are now ungankable. protect your adc at all cost even if that means dying, waste flash for that cait ult, if the blitz hook looks like it will land on your adc take it for them, 5 man gank? make them chase you and split up from your adc. You have to be open to change, if your teammates just happen to be unmuted and ask you to do something, just try it, it might just work. Never get the mindset of "i know what i am doing i dont need your help" because the day you think you know everything is the day you fail to learn anything"

but the most important tip is to remember you cant win every game so if you are losing dont let it get to you, just have fun and you should be fine, it is a game afterall and it was made for entertainment and every game is a learning experience, the more you play the more you learn.

TheIronRevenant4/4/2016, 9:28:38 PM1 votes

Lost a game as Soraka because we had a nunu adc who did like nothing, at end of game he was lvl 14/ everyone else was 17/18. I kept telling my team to build grevious wounds to counter enemy mundo, no one did, we lost a teamfight cause nunu ulted in plain sight then got cc. And people wonder why no one wants to support in low elos