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Playing Support in Bronze

JMoneyPro·3/9/2015, 10:15:01 PM·2 votes·4,715 views

Hello- I am slowly but surely climbing out of Bronze, but I noticed the weakest spot in my game is undeniably when I get last pick and have to support. Now, we all know the majority of bronze players refuse to support, either locking in mid or trolling if they are last pick and get "stuck" with this role. I don't believe in this philosophy though, so when I have to support I actually do the role. I am a decent Lulu, however, I am not great. The problem is, I am unsure of how I can have enough of an impact on the game when I have to support. It seems as though every game I support I lose simply because 1) I am not the best at the role and 2) my adc is (if this is possible) even worse at the role than I am. As an adc main, I understand the mechanics of bot lane enough to know what I need to do to improve my game, so my question focuses on the second point. Is there a way to carry games as support if you are matched with an unskilled adc (ex. instalock twitch with tele and ignite, die to graves 6 times by 10 minutes, doesn't understand freezing the wave at tower since I have a pull and he can avoid the annie stun)?

Just to reiterate, the intent of this post is not to complain. "DURRRRR I IZ BRONZE BECAUSE UNSKILLED TEAMS BUT I CHALLENGER DURRRR". That's not what this post is. I am just wondering how I can make my support win percentage higher, specifically mitigating the damage of an adc who is unfamiliar with the role (since very few bronze players main adc, I find most players at my elo will only take adc when confronted with a choice between adc or support; hence, most adcs are not great). After all, if I really deserve to be higher than I am, I should be able to carry games no matter what role I play. Thanks for all the insight! :)

15 Comments

rth23/11/2015, 5:07:34 PM3 votes

Finding a support that can carry bronze at the skill level of a bronze (but rising) player.

The case of Ashe : The player choosing Ashe, if Platinum, was probably banking on a few things with this choice :

Bronze bots will not be coordinated, so she can kite them down
She is more knowledgeable, so will be able to get ahead
Once she is ahead she can use Ashe strong kiting kit to stay ahead, snowball, and do the carrying
To carry she plans to do consistent damage while kiting the enemy team

So that is a very brief thing of what Ashe wanted to do. Outplay bot lane, snowball, and kite hard.

The plan you need is how to carry from support.

Play champions you know and are comfortable on.

Do not let your team force you onto champions you are not used to as you won't (generally) play them very well.
Do not let your team force you into a certain style (like a tank) just because you are last pick and they think they need it.
You will be able to better assess trades, damage, and kill potential on champions you know.
You will more easily transition out of the laning play style.
You will have an idea what to build.

Why to not play Thresh (if you want to carry).

Thresh is all about his versatility. He can hook, lantern, shield, flay (knock back / slow) and his wall slows. He can be amazing at setting up kills, ganks, making roaming plays, and abusing his utility. However, to abuse utility you need to have team follow up. If you land a hook on the enemy ADC, toss a lantern, fly in flaying the ADC, boxing him in with your ult, and your jungler is taking Krugs and your ADC is farming that last caster wave, it doesn't matter. You are dead. You are feeding. They did not do that by not following up on your play, you did it by over-committing. Thresh can be a great support, but he is just very team reliant. Which is an issue if you are trying to be the carry.

You do not want to play a champion that either relies fully on his team or must over-commit to make action happen.

Some options

Off-Supports in bot lane really don't need a lot. You generally want :

Some form of CC so that you can help your lane mate, or secure a kill / great trade on the enemy.
The ability to scale well into the game (either through items or some other usefulness (ex. great in a pick comp) ).
Can still provide what standard supports provide ( you should still get a sightstone, probably want a gold item / don't steal all the cs).
You want to be effective regardless of your adc. This means that if they focus your ADC, you can heavily profit off of this in retribution damage.

- A decent option, as far as "standard" supports go. This is because one well landed hook can win entire lanes, fights, objectives, and games. If it is 50 minutes in and you thread the enemy team, pulling their ADC/APC, and they get 1 shot before they can do anything you most likely just won the game. The main downside is that while you can build AP/AD and do decent damage, you are still pretty reliant on your team to bring the damage. However, you don't have to put yourself at very much risk, and teams are pretty decent at focusing whoever Blitz grabs. Just make sure to grab the right people.

etc... - Mages. Many mages fit into the support role decently and remain effective even with a support starting build. The important thing to note is that all of these champions have some form of harder CC, Scale decently, and can win teamfights without getting into too much danger (Some champs like ) will want a before going in too hard.
CC allows you to get picks / catches. This also allows you to secure kills / protect team members.
The ability to deal good damage without committing too hard surrounds lots of these champs. Remember, you need to stay alive to do damage. Learn your damage/kill potential and how to kite around fights.

- this is one I like a lot.
Has the flag/drag knock-up combo.
Mobility to escape ganks, jump on the enemy if they go on your ADC, can gank other lanes hard at level 6 if desired, has a slow
If he gets ahead in lane, he can build to nuke. Allowing you to poke the enemy a few times with q, then go all in with your ult. A snowballed J4 can destroy a bot lane.
If you are behind you can build a more traditional tanky build that will still allow you do remain relevant.
Melee so last hitting with targon's is really easy and allows you to psuedo farm.

A few things to keep in mind.

If you are picking a damaging support with the hope of carrying, you need to be good at evaluating trades and situations. Ex. That annie / graves you mention earlier stun your adc and jump forward. If you are J4, flag and drag (e + q) the both of them, and take out that ADC. They just spent their burst on your ADC and you are a relevant damage threat.
You should not do this in general, but especially if you are going to carry do not sacrifice yourself for another player (unless you believe that player will carry). You are the carry. You need to be alive to carry.
Learn how to play the vision game. You should be doing this in any role.
Learn how to teamfight / kite teamfights.

There are more options available as well! Hope this is helpful!

bad arcade kitty3/15/2015, 10:33:35 PM2 votes

turn caps lock type 'me not support' do it 3 times works like a charm

wizdro3/10/2015, 2:25:22 AM1 votes

Grats on the grind. You'll get all kinds of advice here, I'll try and give you the most general and useful. I'm that guy that mains support but learns other roles because of precisely the opposite issue you have.

Don't feel obligated to play champions you don't main or otherwise aren't comfortable with. This is a huge issue because you'll find people screaming at you to play this or that champion or "follow the meta." Just play what you know best that is capable of fulfilling that role. If that means LeBlanc support, so be it.
Communicate with your teammate, and in the least offensive way possible. This can feel like walking on eggshells but more often than not it can really help. Be honest but helpful. This includes things like "I think we need to wait for a gank, I don't think we'll win this 2v2" or "maybe last hit right now, I think we can zone them" if they are mindlessly shoving.
Be your team's coach. That doesn't mean shouting orders. More like ward, ward, ward and provide map awareness for your team that they might not be picking up on. Notice a lane enemy MIA and it wasn't pinged? Ping it for them. See someone deep in a 1v1 and you are roaming and can be there in a couple seconds to help? Ping you are incoming. Saw the enemy jungler pass by a ward you placed in river? Ping it to let your JG/Mid know. As busy as it can be, support doesn't focus constantly on last-hitting like ADC so you should have some time here and there to re-assess the map situation. Once a team learns you trust you, you can start making larger calls.
Pay attention to your match history. You can't base performance on a handful of games, but if you see consistent results over dozens of games, that is a general indicator that something needs to change. It doesn't mean you are "bad," just that you might be fighting an uphill battle with your current mindset/meta/teammates. Feel open to change things up (but not in a troll-ish kinda way).

Best of luck summoner!

t0ad53/10/2015, 2:43:48 AM1 votes

Leona and blitz would be good to pick up. Maybe zyra.
You pretty much have to hand it to them.

rescued3/10/2015, 3:21:32 AM1 votes

Hey , I main support and in Bronze as well. If you like, we can duo together. :) Add me in game!

MrPerson103/9/2015, 10:18:05 PM1 votes

Try picking a support like Thresh that can easily set up an amazing gank for mid-lane in a giant wombocombo with your midlaner and jungle, and roam more often.

Sticking by your ADC's side isn't always ideal.

Only Play Darius3/10/2015, 10:45:28 AM1 votes

Sona never seems to have a problem getting the team to rally alongside her, at least not that I have witnessed.

But she keeps getting nerfed so maybe she isn't the best option.

TEFAlpha93/11/2015, 1:49:05 PM1 votes

Play Thresh Find yourself maining support ?? Profit

JMoneyPro3/10/2015, 9:41:33 AM1 votes

Thanks for all the helpful comments! I guess what I was wondering, is if there is a way to consistently snowball the lane singlehandedly with support. The example I was thinking of happened when a platinum smurf was on my team. He picked Ashe "support", so of course he got flamed for it, but then he magically ended up 23-1 or something like that. I realize that isn't necessarily realistic now, since I am a Bronze player, not platinum, but I wish there was a way to get a large lead independent of your team members, which I can do rather consistently with Vayne, for example.

A couple of the responses suggested Leona and Blitzcrank. However, if my team does no damage, doesn't follow up with engages, or won't freeze the wave under tower (for Blitzcrank, for example), then there's not much I can do. Trying to explain things works sometimes, but I find not very often, as most of the people at my elo don't understand why they would want to freeze the lane or what freezing even is. As Vayne, as soon as I start out 5-0 or better, I know that I can carry the game no matter how hard the other lanes are feeding (this is within reason, obviously [tonight i lost one game like that where the enemy team had a Leblanc who was 9-0 at 10 minutes, but this isn't a regular occurrence most of the time). I find playing support difficult because "carrying" relies on your team to deal damage and make smart decisions if they're ahead, which no amount of pinging can achieve.

Anyway, any other help is appreciated, as my main strategy for now is avoiding the role entirely and going Lulu if all else fails. Thanks everyone! :)

Fyzzex3/9/2015, 10:25:48 PM1 votes

In your position i would pick more carry oriented supports such as Annie. Lulu is a good support but is at the mercy of her team to do damage if she isn't a solo lane. Another good pick would be Blitzcrank, his grab can be lane changing and can even build ap if he snags a few early kills. A change to your gameplay and mindset however would probably be the best for carrying. As an ADC main you are focused on one thing, scaling and csing,(a little biased but generally all adc mains have a higher priority on their own farm instead of their team's needs). However as a support if you lose lane you can't sit back and farm, you have to be proactive. Ward for other lanes, try and set up picks, deny vision to the enemy, basically you be a second farmless jungler. You have to be the one covering for 2 players while your ADC sits bot and farms until he's relevant. If he continues to die then its his fault for not playing passive enough and you are doing your job.