Boards›Tips & Tricks

Attacking Minions as Support: How and When?

EndlessSorcerer·1/4/2015, 3:09:50 AM·1 votes·8,177 views

I've been playing bottom lane as support and ADC some recently after a long stretch of top lane and jungle games and I'm trying to readjust to the playstyle required in bottom lane. One issue I've noticed is the support autoattacking the minion wave to help push for an early level 2 or to shove the minion wave under tower quicker. The support helping push the wave isn't an issue in itself, but a lot of ADC players have trouble last-hitting when the support is helping to push the wave. While I typically stop helping if I notice my ADC is missing too many minions or I'll politely ask my support to stop helping to push the wave since I am having trouble last-hitting when they do, I was wondering if anyone could offer advice on how to handle the situation properly.

How should a support help push the minion wave and prepare minions for their ADC without making them miss CS?

How should an ADC last-hit when a support is helping them push?

Any advice or observations would be welcome.

9 Comments

ValyrianBlade1/4/2015, 4:07:38 AM3 votes

I think there have been some good answers here, to add my own:

Damage the caster minions. They're farther back so they don't take minion aggro as early and thus won't die without the adc noticing. They also do more damage than melee minions, so getting them low enough for the adc to last hit will allow him to last hit them before the melee minions and push a larger minion wave.
Make sure the adc knows you're pushing the wave. As an adc, if I'm pushing it's obvious, I'm using skills to waveclear and either the enemy bot Lane is absent or ice pinged the tower or something. As a support, you can ping the tower too, the adc should ping caution back if he doesn't agree.
When the adc is absent from Lane: A) last hit as late as possible. It doesn't change the waves pushing power at all, and you'll get cs instead of no one getting it. I've had teammates rage at me for last hitting a wave while they're gone, but if they still tell you to stop after you explain that you're only doing last hits and not hurting his cs, then that just means they're a bad player and your team is probably better off with you having the gold anyways. I've never seen a remotely decent adc complain about a support last hitting while they're absent.
B) if the wave is pushing against you, freeze it outside of your tower. If you can just tank it, great. If not, 'push' the wave to freeze it. Either way it will save more cs for your adc than he would have gotten had you let it go to tower. In this case even okay adcs may not understand this though, so try to explain what you're doing if you can.
If you have skillshots that can push a wave while harassing the enemy, do so. Your adc won't notice you pushing the wave as they think you're just harassing - so if you want the wave pushed but have an adc who won't cooperate, This can work out well.

In general, as an adc main (ish), I can honestly say that I'll consistently hit well over 90% cs if you don't touch them at all, and keep the enemy from harassing me. I've hit 100% cs over the first 10 minutes of the game before, and can do this while consistently auto attacking (so pushing, not just doing last hits), but I often miss a lot of cs when the support starts helping if they're touching any minions that are also being targeted by my minions. I think it's because I immediately evaluate which minion would naturally be the next to get killed by my minion wave and focus down that minion until the last hit - so if you hit another minion and cause it to die before the one I'm focused on I'll miss it. Thus, I actually strongly prefer my supports to just focus on harass if the enemy is present, and to go roam and probably ward around Dragon if we've forced them to back (and if the jungler is nearby, I want the support and jungle to start Dragon while I push to turret then join them unless they can't comfortably clear it without me going immediately). As an adc I also have very different build requirements than the support, if I'm at 1450 gold and you're at 935 (let's say you accidentally stole a champion kill or needed to secure one I couldn't), I'd probably want you to back for sightstone + pink + health pot while I push the wave to close in on a BF sword.

redniwediS1/4/2015, 3:47:41 AM2 votes

There's only four situations where I would suggest attacking minions as a support.

You have a charge of Relic Shield, Targon's Brace, or Face of the Mountain.
You know your ADC.
Your ADC is attempting to hard push the lane, and tells you so.
You are an amazing badass of a support who doesn't need lists and gets your ADC all the CS.

InarisElysium1/4/2015, 3:44:58 AM1 votes

I usually don't ADC unless I have the support with me on skype, so i can't really say so much about it from an ADC's POV, but I do Support Lulu regularly when i play alone. I usually don't help in pushing the wave unless its to secure a tower, help set up a kill, or to push the wave out from under our tower if the ADC is having trouble last hitting under tower. The only time i've ever helped an ADC last hit was when i was supporting a new player and i was coaching them in last hitting, otherwise i usually don't bother.

When i first started supporting, I did used to help push the wave and try not to take any creeps, but most of the ADCs i supported would bitch about it and claim that i've stolen creeps when i hadn't, so I've stopped.

This is just from my experience supporting since this past summer and since august/september with Lulu .

BeatzBoyFTW1/4/2015, 3:17:56 AM1 votes

Never ever touch the minions as a support, except if you purchased a Relic Shield.

Just leave the last-hitting to your own ADC. Sometimes your ADC would either wanna freeze a lane by just waiting for minions to get to 1 HP and kills it, or just pushes a lane nevertheless by continuously hitting the minions til each of them are dead. Your job is just to make sure no danger comes in his way.

ChexMex1/4/2015, 3:57:51 AM1 votes

You attack minions very often as support. There are some AD's that REQUIRE level 2 advantage to even survive or do well in lane.

You attack the backline to help push and rush for most ad's.

You attack once if your adc doesnt have enough ad to kill cs under tower 1 shot from tower and 1 auto

You attack minions if they back and you need to push

You have relic charges

Leti the Yeti1/4/2015, 3:22:13 AM1 votes

if the minion is full hp, no harm done from hitting it just hit every minion like once lol

Sirin Gioro1/4/2015, 5:05:07 AM1 votes

Lol Satimmy95... w/e

I main support, I only auto/last hit the minions when

Me and ADC need to rush for level 2
I want RELIC $HIELD $$$$$$$$$$$
My ADC won't get that CS anyways
My ADC has gone to B

after hitting level 2 (first) you are free to leave them minions to your ADC to kill. don't do that too much or else your adc will rage quit and ask everyone to report you btw your teammates don't really care when you take some CS mid-late game, I do that all the time.