Tanky Supports in Solo-Q?

TheGrumpy1·7/7/2015, 3:25:42 AM·1 votes·660 views

I'm having a blast with Braum and Taric; just started playing them now that I'm learning a bit more about the game as a whole and in particular the various things that supports can do besides sustain.

But the supports I usually played - Lulu / Soraka - were decent at independant actions like healing, CC, or harassing; basically, I could perform well without depending TOO much on my ADC following-up. The tanky-supports aren't like that though :( If I try to bully somebody out of lane as Taric, a lot of my ADC's aren't following up on scenarios where they could easily secure a kill or two. Likewise, with Braum, it's only rarely that I lane with an ADC that knows to build stacks of Braum's passive for the stun.

Does this change once I get into ranked? How do I gauge from champ-select whether or not somebody will engage alongside an aggressive support?

2 Comments

PiRoScOuT7/7/2015, 3:31:16 AM1 votes

normally I would just pick a tanky support, like braum in the team needs it. If the enemy team has a bunch of skill shots/ projectiles then I take him. If Nidalee / Caitlyn are on the other team I take braum. if my team has champions that work well with my better support (nami) then I will take nami. champs like Vayne Caitlyn Lucian and the other team don't have a lot of things that will kill me. In ranked it depends on what league you are in. If you are silver 3 or up it is alright, in Bronze just don't.

oreosauce7/7/2015, 4:13:25 AM1 votes

I've played around 95% of my ranked games as support and I've found that it honestly depends every time. It depends on your ADC themselves. Some choose to play passively but when I start harassing the enemy (I play Nautilus so he does decent early game damage and is fairly tanky with a shield for himself too) they sometimes will stop farming and move quickly to follow up with some damage. Whenever I play ADC, whether or not I play passive, if I see my support going into some deep sh-t without me, I immediately rush to them and dump some damage out. I think the main reason why ADCs don't follow up easily is they are 1. out of range 2. not paying attention or 3. they think you're just doing light poke and not actually going all-in. It's good to communicate with your ADC, such as telling them who you're targeting and telling them when they should expect an engage. (ex: ping whoever you plan to target [should usually be enemy adc], and tell your adc "going to ult at 7:27") Usually, in champ select, you can choose whether you want an engage support or "supporty" support based on the enemy's bot lane (ex: if they choose jinx, who has no escape abilities and a squishy support, you can use a tank support to counter and all-in jinx, such as Leona.)