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Playing Support in Bronze

JMoneyPro··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 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.

  1. 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.
  1. 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.
  1. 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.
  • Blitzcrank - 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.
  • Annie Ahri Brand Fiddlesticks Lissandra Lux 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 Fiddlesticks Lissandra Morgana ) will want a item 3157 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.

  • JarvanIV - 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.

  1. 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!

JMoneyPro1 votes

{quoted}

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.

  1. 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.

  1. 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.

  1. 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.
  • Blitzcrank - 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.
  • Annie Ahri Brand Fiddlesticks Lissandra Lux 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 Fiddlesticks Lissandra Morgana ) will want a item 3157 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.

  • JarvanIV - 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.

  1. 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!

Thank you so much! This was extremely helpful. I am going to try to unlock J4 when I get more AP and try out this strategy. I've been repeatedly unsuccessful in the support role (lost 2 series games yesterday playing support in both, and one was a 4v5...), so it's probably more my lack of skill than champion selection anyway. Thanks again!

rth21 votes

So keep in mind, there are lots of mistakes in this video. It's in gold elo I think. Either gold or plat. There are lots of mistakes but it is an example of how you can play J4 support. The thing to remember is that we still got to the point where they could not fight us 2v2. Also, I could have snowballed that lane really hard if I had played a little better. The biggest examples are a few times early game while the enemy is running, I Q them, then about 1-2 seconds later my flag comes up. If I had held my Q for 1-2 seconds, I could have used my CC combo and secured a few kills. Also on the first gank, if I had seen it coming, I could have just CC'ed the enemy instead of jumping out, securing more kills. Oh well, you live and learn. If I had secured a few of those early kills by playing better, I could have snowballed that lane ultra hard.

So here is the VOD

http://www.twitch.tv/hiimdreams/c/4540577

bad arcade kitty2 votes

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

JMoneyPro1 votes

{quoted}

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

I would do this, but I feel like that is the ultimate signifier of bronze. I see a lot of "XXXXXXX or feed!" in my elo, and I'd say 9 times out of 10 that attitude translates to an unskilled player. In other words, usually those players feed regardless of whether you give them their role or not.

MrPerson101 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.

IcyPepper1 votes

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

The support has to babysit early game, but generally start to roam eventually. There's no rule that says the adc must be by the support's side 24/7.

Fyzzex1 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.

wizdro1 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.

  1. 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.

  2. 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.

  3. 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.

  4. 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!

t0ad51 votes

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

rescued1 votes

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

JMoneyPro1 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! :)

Angry Monster1 votes

So i am going to say their is no way to carry as a traditional support in the sense of deciding the game your self. Lulu, sona, and other traditional mage supports are by nature tied to other players (to raise your allies).

Their are other routes to support though. One is the tank support. In the late game you become a tank and initiator. Problem with this if people do not want to work with you (everyone split pushing). I once to get my team to understand that i was a team fight support dived the enemy 3v5 till the the other 2 team mates realized that a leo does not split push/run around.

The last option is the carry support. This is where you take a carry into the straved roll and try to roll every ounce of gold into damage (after sight stone). Here the goal is to get every kill you can. Like the plat ashe player did. I would advise high base damage mids that have range(easier to snowball) . Annie, victor, velkoz are some great champs to support with. Annie has an AA as long ashe, victor has some of the longest poke and velkoz has huge base values. The best part of these 3 they all have CC allowing you do to some peel.

These types of off mages do really well when you have a heavy AD comp. While the enemy focus AR cause your only the support you get to do insane amount of damage cause they never itemized against it. IF they build MR just to fend off some of your damage your helping your team. Win either way.

A good support can help lead through vision. Reactionary vision is what a lot of people do when they are not good at the role. Make sure you are warding where your team is going to want to go. Stay way from only putting vision behind or to the side. Learn to read when it is safe to deep ward so your team knows where the enemy is or is not. Vision is not always about seeing people. If you can ward the enemy lowed jungle effectively and do not see anyone, you know something up somewhere else.

Only Play Darius1 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.

TEFAlpha91 votes

Play Thresh Find yourself maining support ?? Profit

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