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Tips on how to be the support your carry hopes for (by an ADC main).

Silverclaw·7/23/2014, 5:48:10 PM·5 votes·532 views

Done with the permission of MrSc0tty (creator of how to be the carry your support hopes for).

Hello there! I'm your ADC. I'm going to guess that we just met in champion select, and we have no idea how each other plays. We're (probably) going to be duking it out 2v2 (except for when we get ganked) for the early game against their ADC/support. We'll probably struggle early but eventually find our way. As an ADC main, I have a few tips for you to be the more numero uno than Mordekaiser.

TIPS

  1. Every support has it's usefulness. That said, playing support Teemo or Nidalee are both extremely niche and quite frankly are bad in most scenarios, as you will be out harassed or out all-in'd. As a support, you have to be able to do both in most cases.

  2. Communicate with me. Tell me how you want to play the lane, and I'll do my best to follow up. After all, I do want to win the lane (and subsequently, the game). If you don't tell me what you want to do, I will probably go in every time you land a hook/bind/other important CC.

  3. For the love of god, build a sightstone. If we're going to be safe from jarvan's ganks, I need you to ward the river. If you ward the river, we'll be safe from most ganks, and we can push up safely.

  4. If you're going back, I'm probably going back with you. I do not feel like being 2v1'd. Plus a lot of supports can help me get into lane faster (karma/lulu speedup, thresh lantern, etc.).

  5. You have control of the lane. I do not. If you have the mana for it, feel free to harass. If you get them low, I can capitalize easier.

  6. Push the wave early - if we get level 2 and they don't, then we can all-in immediately and win the lane right there. Same goes for when we hit level 6.

3 Comments

MrSc0tty7/23/2014, 7:10:04 PM4 votes

Sweet post! A couple id like to throw in for me personally-

-try to strike the balance between harass and mana conservation. An OOM support is almost entirely dead nil in a fight due to how much they rely on combos or high mana cost abilities. A Leona with half a mana bar? Scary as she's mobile, bursty, and tanky. A Leona who has only enough to jump to you OR stun you OR be tanky? Pretty much ignorable. When I support I love to see my opponents going really hard for harass or all ins at all times, I'm happy to let them go oom then jump all over their carry.

-don't underestimate how good support items are. Sure, if you buy AP on Janna, your shield will be bigger. BUT, if you buy Locket instead, you transfer a constant buff to your team, AND again an AOE shield bigger than your usual shield that you'd gain from that Deathcap you were eying. Plus, free tanky stats so you won't die as much-sweet.

-Watch your CDR. When you're above 40% it's a dead stat, and almost all support items have it. Try to hit 40 ASAP but plan ahead to cool it after that-those Ionians you picked up could be Mobility Boots, that Censer could instead be an Abyssal.

MrBuffington7/23/2014, 6:00:46 PM1 votes

Nice! Also general tip for both supports and ADCs: keep each other posted on gold you need for an item, etc. It's helpful to know "hey, I need 100g for BFSword" or (as support with relic shield) "Lemme get this cannon minion for sightstone" or things like that. That way you can time your backs (which is also a good tip. There are a lot more intricacies to this that I don't know, but I think it's generally a good idea to shove a lane before you back, that way you'll lose less minions to tower)

DreadPirateChris7/24/2014, 3:20:41 AM1 votes
  1. Push the wave early - if we get level 2 and they don't, then we can all-in immediately and win the lane right there. Same goes for when we hit level 6.

Almost always you want to push for level 2, and sometimes for level 3... but the rest of the time, please read the ADCs actions. If he's hitting lots of full health minions to prep them and push faster, then help push... but if he's carefully only last hitting and not doing any other minion damage he's signaling that he's trying to freeze the lane (probably because you don't have sightstone and river wards yet and he's (hopefully) used his trinket for brush control. I apologize for the times we forget to use our trinket at all. :o)

We can use chat to mention that we want to freeze of course, but if we miss CS because you're pushing hard while we're taking the time to ask not to push it's going to be aggravating.

That said, I'll often prefer to follow my support's lead on when to push or when not to push -if- the situation is at all sensible, but when the map is completely dark and we're already behind a kill or two in lane, I'm trying to freeze lane and play safe for a reason. I know it's boring as hell to be a support in a play-safe-and-farm-up situation (I play support whenever I can't get ADC so really, I do know!) .. but sometimes that's what you have to do. (Also we're more likely to get a friendly gank off successfully if the wave is pushed towards us, not away from us.)

Aside from level 2/(maybe 3)/6, it's good to help push right after getting a kill or seeing the opponents back, because we'll (usually) want to push the wave into the turret and back ourselves. (Make sure ping out the danger if your ADC starts reflexively doing this and you know that there's a good chance that someone is coming to clean us up in a late counter-gank. Most of the time the ADC has worse map awareness than the support - I know my map awareness is very different depending on which role I'm playing. As a support I'll almost always notice that Katarina disappearing from mid right after or during our botlane fight, but as ADC I almost never will.)