I've mained top lane since I've started playing league but haven't recently found it hard to carry my team from top so I've decided to switch to support. IMO a good support can win games. My question is if I'm maining support who are the good support champions to be good at?
My top 6 supports in order are Thresh, Leona, Nami, Janna, Morgana and Lulu. But each of them has a different style. There are times on when to pick them and when not to pick them
He can get really tanky due to his passive and his kit favors high damage heavy burst champions. He is a kill/sustain style support who is fairly mobile with his hook and can give mobility to an immobile ally through his lantern. Pick him when your ADC thrives on kills yet lacks mobility such as Jinx or Draven. Don't pick him when the enemy has a high mobility and dodgy ADC such as Kalista or Ezreal.
Leona is an aggressive all in tank support who is also a Kill/sustain champion. Leona requires patience, proper positioning and good communication with her ADC. With the help of her ADC a full Leona combo can really lock down a target and take a massive chunk out of their life bar or even out right kill them. Pick Leona with bursty combo based ADCs such as Quinn or Lucian. Do not pick her into champions with disengae abilities such as Vayne or Alistar.
Nami is in my opinion a very safe choice for supporting. She is a much more traditional support champion with her heals and peels. Nami favors a poke/sustain style of play. She thrives in situations where there are frequent trades going on as her heal simultaneously heals her ally (or two) and damages an enemy (or two). Pick her with champions who have 3 auto combos in their kit (Vayne and Varus) or with champions who like to outtrade their opponents like Graves. Do not pick Nami into mobile gap closers such as Leona and Kalista or into anything with a hook ability such as Thresh, Blitzcrank or Nautilus.
Janna is known as the Queen of peels. She has disengage on 3 of her abilities which makes your ADC a very hard target to reach. Janna makes her lane very non-interactive by just thwarting any and all engagement attempt on her ADC. Janna favors a sustain/poke style where her shield not only protects her ADC but empowers them with bonus AD. You want to pick Janna when your ADC is immobile and lacks a disengagement tool such as Ashe or one that likes quick in and out trades such as Graves. Do not pick her into ranged bursty champions such as Sona or Annie or anything with high AOE crowd control such as Zyra.
Morgana used to be a nice mid lane choice but has since been streamlined into being a support champion.Morgana is a poke/sustain champion who is deceptively tanky thanks to her passive. She has decent damage and her dark root locks down a target for a significant amount of time allowing for a nice follow up from her ADC. But what really makes Morgana shine is her black shield. When you pick Morgana you want to pick her against enemies that rely on crowd control to do their job like Blitzcrank or Leona. She shuts down that ratchet right quick. And she goes well with bursty mobile champions such as Ezreal or Tristana. The champions who counter a Morgana are the ones who like to fight from within their minion wave and have abilities that bypass or go through the minion wave such as Sona and Sivir. Sivir also has a spell shield too making Morgana's dark binding irrelevant.
Lastly we have Lulu. Lulu favors a poke/kill style of play where she whiitles people down through the use of her glitter lance and then when her ADC feels ready can empower and neutralize the combatants on a various assortment of buffs and debuffs. Lulu can also use her glitterlance to zone out her enemies by placing pix on various targets to change up the angles her glitter lance comes from. When you pick Lulu you want to pick her with an ADC with some range who will compliment Lulu's poke oriented kit such as Caitlyn or Kog'maw. Her kit also thwarts engagement compositions though not as effective as Janna's disengage. What you shouldn't pick Lulu into is sustain lane supports such as Soraka or Sona who heal up Lulu's poke and dish out some poke of their own.
That's my break down of my main 6 supports. I hope this helps make your choice easier and I can break down more if you like.
The top supports for the current meta, imo is:
She's really well in the support role, and has the potential to carry a game. She's amazing at engaging fights and her cc is great. Also, being that we're currently in the tank meta, a tank build is viable on her if your jungler/top laner refuses to build tank. She's so underrated in the lower elos it's ridiculous. I don't use her shield for shielding. That's what it can be used for, but that shield has a much better property: it gives you BONUS attack damage which can completely turn a fight in the bot lane. Also, she has great kiting abilities and her ult is amazing at zone control and has a really nice heal too. She's great at escaping and almost never dies unless she is out of mana, hard cc'ed, or completely blocked off. A nice plus is, if you shield a teammate and that teammate gets an assist on a kill, you get an assist for that as well. Downside is that she's squishy and if you can't manage to maneuver yourself so that you can dodge skill-shots/ stall out the enemy until a teammate comes and helps, you're kinda f-cked. Thresh has an amazing support kit: he has a nice balance between engage/disengage and support-y abilities. His lantern can make for really sick plays. His passive is great too (bonus armor yo) and his hook has a short stun when it lands.These are probably the top three, (in no particular order). Experiment with different playstyles and find a support that you really enjoy playing.
is high-skill and rewarding. Do not be afraid to play in her build from tank to ap-carry to off-hand ad-crit carry. She is amazingly flexible in any meta.
always has value in that he can bring someone back from the brink of death. If he is focused, that's great! He ults himself and the adc takes advantage of the situation to murder-kill the advancing opponents. If the adc is focused, that's great! Throw out some bombs and stun the enemy adc as your adc is revived to near-full/full health and then destroy them. Unlike Janna, there is not flexibility in his build. Buy ap and cdr every time.
practically unkillable, this champ has a 1-second click-stun, slow, pull, pull-based mobility, and an extreme click-knock-up. Figure out when to take punches and when to dish them out and you will be a formidable opponent to any matchup.
while underplayed in the role, he has the highest success. Like really, he does. Many plays require that skillshot Q to land, but while you get accustomed to that, you can hack away at the lane opponents from a safe distance. Unlike in mid lane, there are always two enemy champions available. This means the ult will effectively bounce exclusively between the two of them, causing maximum devastation. Unlike some supports, Brand can eventually stand on his own and march down a lane secure in the fact that while solo he can nuke anything that approaches him.
last and not-at-all least, this guy is my favorite. Most players discredit Ali due to his moderately long cooldowns, mana costs, and low movement speed. Plus, they believe they cannot deal dmg with him. The truth of the matter is, this big guy brings sustain to you, your adc, AND your minions all at once, can take major hits even without his ult, is UNSTOPPABLE while his ult is in effect allowing turret dives and plays that would otherwise be impossible, and the proper timing of W into Q causes massive damage and CC at once. If you throw even a sliver of ap onto Ali, he will dominate everything in his path. The great thing about building any amount of ap is that it buffs his heal, so, while you may think you are destroying your ability to tank, you are in fact boosting your team's sustain. Alistar is not as easy as you will initially believe. Most people play very few games with him. I am here to tell you that if you play 75+ games with this guy and master the W+Q, you will fall in love with his supple tits.
Oh yeah and just some quick and hidden strengths I found on some of my main supports:
His hook doubles as his escape tool. Hook a jungle monster to bypass walls and toss out lantern so an ally can follow you. The lanern has multiple hidden strengths. It can collect souls from range, it gives vision of a bush and can even be teleported onto in a pinch. His flay can interrupt gap closing abilities.
Leona's passive can be applied to jungle camps to provoke them to attack the closest enemy. It's a very sneaky way to find out if there are enemies hiding in the side bush on red buff or a sneaky way to figure out where an enemy went after they "juked" you. Also Leona's Q acts as an auto attack reset. You can dismantle a freshly placed enemy ward with a quick auto attack, q auto attack combo. Enjoy that extra 30 gold in your pocket.
Sometimes when facing a highly mobile enemy it is better to cast the bubble on yourself or an ally to proc the speed boost on your passive. Nami's ebb and flow will hit any targets in range regardless of whether or not you have vision.
Janna's shield can also be used on towers. Janna's teammates are faster when they run towards her. Try to position yourself in a way where allies are headed towards you so as to increase your ally's speed and ability to escape a hairy situation. And when it is not on cool down Janna's zephyr negates collision with minions so she can flow very smoothly through minion waves.
Morgana's tormented soil while not a very support oriented ability does serve a purpose. Cast it on the back row of caster minions to self heal and zone out enemies. If you buy spell thief's edge Morgana's tormented soil is an easy way to get 15 gold quickly. Morgana's pool lowers enemy magic resistance so if you have a hybrid damage ADC or your AP mid laner is about to engage drop down a pool to soften their defenses.
Use whimsy to get back to lane sooner. Whimsy interrupts channeled abilities such as the ultimate abilities of Katarina, Fiddlesticks, Karthus or Shen. Cast Help Pix! On Shaco or Twitch to nullify their invisibility. Just because you hit a target with both glitterlances doesn't mean they take more damage. All that happens is the slow is strengthened. The bonus health given via wild growth is permanent and does synergize with an ally's spirit visage.
If you want to be able to take a fairly active role in the support play, I'd say Lulu or Zilean. As Zilean, once you get your ult, you have super-sustain. On top of this, you can set up potential AOE stuns, have a speed ally / slow enemy, and have strong poke / area denial. I hear he never gets banned either.
Lulu is good for poking, kinda-sustain, speed, soft-CC, damage-vision, and hard-CC "heal" as an ult. She has good lane-clear too if you need to push a lane hard or hold while your ADC calls back. The reason I like Lulu better is because she simply has more options at one time since her W and E function differently based on on whom you cast them.
THey've also redone Soraka somewhat recently, making her (IMO) a much more active champion. A fast heal mixed with a long-range AOE+selfheal and an ult that heals everybody, with a AOE silence+root?
I'd those three are some good starting points if you want general sustainability plus poke.
I use to main Support particularly Sona and it was pretty much the only thing I ever played. I started playing Sona Mid and I actually ended up carrying a lot of games going like 19-4, 36-1, 23-5, stuff like that and I started to enjoy Carry role more often and currently main ADC right now. So I've had the ability to experience the best of both worlds.
: Extremely tanky, has high base damage for some reason, basically fits in and against any team comps. She counters poke I would say due to her being tanky, and CC doesn't really effect her and I think you would actually want to be CC'ed in teamfights so your Carrys couldn't be.
: He has every single thing an ADC wants a Support to have, I don't think he's better than Leona however simply due to the fact Leona can hit her skillshots almost without trying. A good Thresh main would probably still do more than a good Leona main, but I'm not 100% sure.
: No idea why he isn't played more, the buff to his damage made him able to play a lot more offensively and he's just overall a great champion. Not many fall offs, not many counters, and synergizes well with most if not all ADCs.
: Personally, I hate when anyone else plays her. They play her safe like Soraka (Who I also hate when others play) when she shouldn't be. Her ability to poke with her shield and take relatively no damage back is awesome, and putting her shield on the ADC will mean he/she auto wins trades due to it at max rank giving 50 more AD, this on top of Ardent Censer I believe allows your ADC to get 70 or 80 more AD + 15% more attack speed.
: He's overpowered, but also not. If you hit your grab, the enemy ADC is dead and there's no way around it. His damage is stupid and everything but his W has CC (actually it technically does because it Slows him after he activates it.). However if you can't land a grab or two in lane, he's pretty irrelevant unless you use your knockup and then proceed to grab them as they try to helplessly run away. He's like Thresh except a lot more damage, but much less utility and I don't know why, but everything but Ult passive scales 100% off his AP and AD I think.
: She's really underrated and personally I play her extremely offensive with her auto attacks, Q and E harrass, she's pretty nasty to fight because she can just heal her ADC back up in a few seconds and also restores a ton of health too. There's no support scarier than a Soraka with Athene's and Will of the Ancients.
Since everyone has posted the standard supports. I do love playing Thresh. Here are a few I enjoy that are considered non - meta or at least uncommon and I've had success with. I know you like tanky champs, but not all supports are tanky. Learning at least one of these might be worth considering.
- Very tanky, has poke with Q, and amazing CC. I build him like I would Leona/ Thresh
- Not tanky, but has plenty of slow and a wall to stop melee's from getting to you and/ or the adc. P.s. No one likes her passive. I start Spell Thief's, rush Sightstone and then tear. You don't need a lot of AP to be effective.
- Also, not tanky like the others. You can build her tanky -ish. Where she shines is the point and click tether that stuns, and you'll be like Oprah giving everyone a shield with R + E.
Not tanky. Her Q and E are her bread a butter. Unlike Karma's shield that is a damage soaking shield, hers is a spell shield that will stop the next ability that hit's the shielded target. Her Q at max rank is like a 3 stun (maybe a root). Her R is amazing. Charge in press R and hit Zhonya's is pretty strong.
I've mained support for quite awhile and have found that in s5 the not so typical champs are the best supps pick heavy tanks and people that can be really aggro early on like 
or 
or even someone like and breaking the meta seems to be wining many games lately so i also want to suggest 
and 
oh and especially 
these are my fav meta breaking supps ( no not messing with you) if you can handle the mechanics of these champs and your team doesnt hate you for meta breaking then you'll succeed as a support
is really underrated. It's hard to lose lane with this champion once you learn how to play him.
is my favorite poke/damage support. Does really well if you pick up a Liandrys later too.
are freelo until gold, and they're still super good past that point except you can't just make really stupid plays and get away with it anymore.
: My favorite support. She can heal up her ADC so quickly at the expense of her own health. But if you land her Q you can heal back up. People love to complain about how hard it is to land her Q, but it really isn't. The trick is to place it somewhat behind them, making the closest way to dodge moving forward towards you and your ADC. Because you wouldn't want to get caught out like that, they end up walking back into it or not moving. It's also super easy if the enemy ADC is a Draven because you can just aim for where his ax will land. Her ult is amazing because it removes Grievous Wounds and heals everyone on the team. Sometimes, I'll watch Mid or Top if they're in a fight and ult to give my Top or Mid a boost and help them win. It's really fun.
My main champion. Takes a bit to learn, but worth it. In lane you basically press E, and if your ADC isn't dumb, he will win just about every trade. People like to say Janna is passive, but I beg to differ. She has a ton of hard CC and both Engage and Disengage, depending on how you use it.
If you've played top, I suggest some of the more tanky supports. , for example. or Also works.
...Ironically, they're all also engage supports, so that's something else to consider. Some supports are good at getting their adc kills, some are good at sustaining their ADC, and others like to do direct damage to the enemy for a bit of aggression. If you play a support, know which kind you're playing.
Good luck!
MAOKAI FOR THE WIN BB
Some people will say "Annie Thresh Alistar OP" or maybe even Janna, but I very much enjoy maining Nami. Far less chance of her getting picked or banned away from you too.
Master Thresh. You will carry.
Other good choices: 
(A good Nami or Janna can do awesome things)
I enjoy playing Janna, Lulu, Nami, and Zyra. Supports that I often see do well are Thresh, Braum, and Alistar, although I don't like playing melee. If you can play a mix of those I think you'll do pretty well.
taric leo janna all simple to play but when you get good they are a bitch to play against. also taric is freelo in low elo
Awesome. I already own thresh so I'm gonna start with him and pick up Leona afterwards. I'm used to playing tanks from playing top lane so I think playing tanks as a support will be the easiest transition.
