Trying to get better at support.

Trying to get better at support.

played AP support

there's your first problem. While Support Annie is considered 'a thing' (I personally don't consider Annie a support) AP mage supports do not embrace the meaning of the role. Traditional supports don't need to be ahead to be useful, a Janna or Soraka or Nami can easily play from behind. You don't even main midlane so it's not like you're comfortable with Annie mid and you're trying to take her down botlane as a support, you're playing an unfamiliar role to you in a nonmeta position played in yet another role you're unfamiliar with. Not only that but nobody plays Annie Supp anymore because it's outclassed by so many things.

If you want to learn how to play support go Janna, Thresh, Leona, Nami, etc. You pick a tank support when your team needs hard initiation, lacks a tank, or when you're one of the first picks on your team. You go a more AP based support when you end up with 2 tanks on team before you, or you have an all AD damage team, you go a traditional supp when you need peel/heals but you already have enough bruiser/tank.

But tank supps are normally the safest picks if you're first/second pick because they don't get countered as easily and they ensure your team has hard engage/tank.

Annie versus Caitlyn/Nami would be a bit rough if you and your ADC don't have great synergy in trades. Caitlyn/Nami is actually a pretty tough lane comp in general.

If I had to play Annie support against that I would help my ADC have lane pressure by assisting him on creep damage (for minion wave advantage and exp advantage). Let him last hit though. If Caitlyn plays correctly she'll have the ability to outshove your ADC 1v1 with her Q and range. Bot lane it is ideal to go for early pressure IMO. You have extra wards and tools to react to ganks as a 2v2 lane. You will want the pressure because you are outranged. You do not want to be in a situation with Caitlyn able to easily punish your side's attempt to last hit.

Against Caitlyn + Nami don't go for small trades. You will most likely lose because they have sustain and disengage. Your only hope is if you're able to land a very good stun and your ADC follows up correctly (and if he has good early damage...) You should be running ignite on support Annie especially versus a sustain lane.

Be aware if they pushed harder, so much harder than your side you can wait near turret and your farm will come to you. Unfortunately Caitlyn is pretty good at harassing your AD under tower, but hopefully she'll make a mistake and you can stun her in a bad position.

I think your best bet as Annie versus that duo is to not risk too much til 6 then go for the kills. Once your 6 you're more powerful than Nami in a short fight. Trade with Caitlyn when you have to protect your AD because she has much less potions than Nami.

I dare say try with a high burst ADC versus

ADCs with good early burst/dps/maybe follow up CC:

Start targons and use the targon procs to help get lane pressure. It's ok if they hit you as Blitz a little. You should be tanky and have a few potions. If you can hook Caitlyn at all or either of them into your minions that's good.

support Annie. It seems that whenever I fall behind even a little, I become totally useless to the team

annie isnt a high utility support of course if she falls behind, she wont be as useful

utility infinitely scales regardless of what items you got whereas damage requires items

Thanks alot guys. I always run ignite on support Annie. Its really hard to go in against a cait+disengage support lane, short range on Q always gets me and its hard to find ADCs that communicate well in solo queue. I'm trying to get good at Nautilus and Thresh (I understand Naut more) and its been going well in normals. Hopefully once I get good at lower risk hook champs, I'll get good at Blitz.

Im not as high rank as you (ended last season in Silver 3) but I will say that from my experience, a lot of lower elo players underestimate and don't take proper advantage of getting level 2 first in bot lane.

I only recently started pushing this point myself and its been a huge boon in my games, usually resulting in an early kill if your lane partner knows how to play it. Its easier to manage with certain comps (level 2 thresh/jinx is a nightmare for the other side) but even if you cant land a kill you can usually drop them low enough to force them away from the minions and deny them exp/farm.

Its also worth noting that, at least in my experience, in some cases its best to pick a support that might not be ideal in lane, but can provide your team/adc with what they need during team fights. I don't think picking an Annie support is such a great idea if the other team has an Irelia top and Rengar jungle because you wont be able to provide the peel/protection your adc needs to survive the dive/damage.

Going for kills isn't always necessary in bot lane, so long as your adc can still farm.

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congrats on deciding to improve your support game. Since you are actively seeking help with this you may have realized it is actually a difficult role to perform correctly. It gets the least gold, deals the least dmg, BUT is often the role that decides the out come of the game, game flow, map control, initiations, peeling, saving teammates (sometimes sacrificing yourself to do it) calling plays... you are basically in the captains seat. The prob with this is people are stupid ad don't realize yo are the only one in the position to keep 100% map awareness 100% of the time. For some reason the dmg monkey next to you doesn't often realize you know the enemy jung is coming because you have his timing based on when he showed top and how their buff would have just been finished, and his mid is pushing so he can't gank there. It really is the hardest most important job but solo queue has demonized it since you have people who only look at dmg to determine value with no reguard to how they were able to stay safe, get dragons, steal buffs, get picks, back out of a fight safely, or any of the other many things the sup did to make his team win. So yea solo queue being filled with idiots has made support an under appreciated job. Part of that reason is because Americans have a very hero based perspective; we care about the individual over the group which you can tell easy enough by our movies, art, business models, and even our politics. This is also why asian teams tend to do better than all the rest is because they're culture is more group/team oriented, so their games tend to be 5 strong people working together vs. 3 strong people trying to solo carry.

Anyway I main top and am loving the new jung but am a deadly support (who can still boast that I've never lost a game where my teammates have listened to me) so if you want I can help you learn. I won't be on till later but you can add me and I'll help you out when I get on tonight :-)

I think damage supports are so underrated. Sure ideally you have a high mobility ADC that you help to snowball and he can 1vs5 in late game. My experience from bronze to gold is that you dont get that most games. As Vel'Koz is my main I play it both mid and support quite often. The only problem with this is that supports getting kills is still considered somewhat of a sacrilege and some ADCs still rage quit games when ahead 40-10 because they have less kills then the support.

Even when im not the support I love seeing a good Lux or Annie there. A lot of the times those supports will be doing major damage in teamfights while the Threshes and Leonas rely on one perfect engage and then flail about doing almost no damage.