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I Want To Be A Better Support But I Don't Know How

ErebusOfDarkness·10/26/2014, 1:25:18 AM·1 votes·965 views

I have just gotten back into playing LoL after a long hiatus. I started playing about a year and a half ago but only played for a couple weeks and would stop playing for months only to come back for a couple weeks. This time I am here to stay due to the lack of fun games to play. While playing LoL I have taken a liking to the support role. My favorite and pretty much only support champion I play is Thresh since his kit is amazing. The problem that I am is that sometimes I play games were I dominate in lane and play like a pro. I even get called Mini Madlife and people think I'm in Plat 5 when I am really unranked. But other times I even up going 0/7/9 and we lose the match. I don't know if this is due to the enemy bot laners or that my ADC isn't good. I have noticed that I lose the majority of my matches where my ADC is a late game champ such as Twitch. I don't know if I'm good at the game but get paired up with bad teammates, or when I do well its because my teammates carry me.

Can anyone give me tips to figure out what is causing my loses and wins? I want to get better at LoL and eventually play in ranked matches but I don't know what is holding me back. If it helps this is my LoL King profile

9 Comments

ValyrianBlade10/26/2014, 1:59:53 AM4 votes

As a support, you need to have presence in Lane. The type of presence varies by adc. Your presence for caitlyn, lucien, draven, or any other Lane bully will be to help initiate on the other ad, to win trades, and to zone them out of cs and maybe even xp. Your presence for vayne, twitch, or any adc with a weaker laning phase should be to protect them during laning phase. You still want to land hooks to set up a trade, but for example may not want to fly in behind one if your adc can't follow it up with much. You definitely still want to zone, the threat of your hook should either reduce their cs or prevent them from harassing your adc when he tries to cs.

Otherwise, bot Lane is largely partner dependent. It's easy to blame things on your adc. Start looking at cs rates of your adcs and see if they're higher when you win Lane than when you lose (ideally look at the same time and before any deaths so the comparison is equal). You should also always make a point of determining whether you'll play aggressive or passive with the adc before the game starts so you're on the same page. Also keep vision control in mind, help your jungle gank your Lane via hooks and lanterns, and prevent their ganks with lanterns as well.

Amelie10/26/2014, 4:23:31 AM4 votes

You have mostly wins in your profile. The 0/7/9 game with Thresh was where you had a Frozen Heart against a heavy AP team. The enemy Corki is NOT aspd reliant. He does more mixed damage and relies on skills (with heavy AP dmg early on) and isn't affected by that item very much. Neither was the rest of the enemy team. You were better off building a magic resist item, more health, or even Aegis/Locket.

You will need to change your build according to the enemy. Frozen Heart was a good choice in 90%+ of your Lolking matches because of the enemy composition, though, because they had one or more AD champions that were aspd reliant.

StOrmysLIVE10/26/2014, 8:31:13 AM1 votes

I'm going to make a guess that your biggest issue as thresh is that you play the same way no matter who your adc is, or who the other two in lane is, possibly fully committing to engages when you shouldnt, or fully committing to engages when you are behind.

You have to learn to understand which trades will have you come out on top (hooking all the way or not), and when to level up W for a bigger shield vs e for a higher dmg flay.

thats 4 things for you to work on.

ErebusOfDarkness10/26/2014, 2:31:32 PM1 votes

Thanks for replying! I have realized that I do not greatly change my play style from match to match. So when my play style does match I destroy and we win and when it doesn't, I do poorly. So my next question is how do I know when the main focus of my build should be MR or armor? Also what would be some great armor items and some great MR items?

iluvalar10/27/2014, 4:55:58 AM1 votes

You always need armor. Maybe less for tresh but still... this is because towers, minions and monsters are all AD. So you can build blindly a slot of armor no matter what. Then you need do consider the champions in front of you and the one who is most likely to snowball. At this point you're already level 12 or so.. so you can figure out if the ryze top will carry or not and decide if you go armor or mr during the game.

Remember you need around 100 armor and mr for each slices of 750hp after the first one. If you end your build with 100 armor (thormail) and 1500 hp (base average) you're good. But as soon as you try to get more armor or mr you'll find out that building health can become more cost efficient.

GildedCreed10/27/2014, 5:23:02 AM1 votes

Break the meta. Don't conform yourself to what all the guides tell you to build. You don't need to always build Mobility boots for Roaming Thresh (or any roaming support for that matter). If you're up against a heave CC team (like a leona supp with amumu jungle) you can go for Merc Treads (even if you've got tenacity items, it still helps with MR itemization, which LoL lacks quite a lot of).

ErebusOfDarkness10/27/2014, 10:45:41 PM1 votes

Would anyone care to add me to in-game so when we can play unranked together and you can observe me? I feel like having someone in my game who can point on my mistakes the second I make them would really help improve my gameplay.

ZenithEevee10/27/2014, 11:05:40 PM1 votes

Do you ward? If so, grab item 2049 or item 2045

Are you dying a lot? Grab Health, or MR/Armor

Are you hard pressed for mana? item 3003 or item 3028

Are you hard pressed for Gold? item 3069 (Note: This also heals you)

Are your allies always in need of MS? ^ That thing up there, and any boot with Captain on it.