The support role is a much underestimated role in League of Legends. I personally feel the support role is the most important role on the team. People just assuming playing support is just playing passive and watching someone else last hit and do all of the harass. Playing support may not be the most mechanically intense role. (Last hitting along with combos) but supporting is just as active if not more active as everyone else on the team. This including placing wards, tracking enemy jungle, keeping teammates aware/alive, and providing different item auras to boost your team. With that list you can control and even change the course of a game, and a skilled support can utilize those skills and make a game turn for your teams favor. Supporting might not get the most recognition, but knowing you have some of the most important aspects of a game in your hand is a great feeling to experience.

What Summoner spell should you be using as a support? You have a couple different options to run with your support/AD depending on what kind of comp you are running. Most support default to using and (having the AD carry pick up ). Other combo’s depending on what champion you are playing. Ex. & , & , & , & , Etc.

Sight WardSight WardSight WardSight Ward

OR

Sight WardSight Ward



Sight WardSight Ward – 75 gold; lasts 180 seconds. Places an invisible green ward that gives sight in 1100 range.

Vision Ward – 125 gold; lasts 180 seconds. Places an invisible pink ward that gives true sight (sees invisible units) in 1000 range.

Oracle's Elixir – 400 gold; lasts until death. Places a true sight buff on the consumer that gives true sight in 750 range.

When warding as support the most common spots for wards are going to be covering the entrance to the lanes. Placing the ward at the entrance will give you vision for any incoming ganks. Depending on the enemy jungler will determine when you should place the ward down. If it’s an early aggressive jungle such as Shaco or Lee sin you should consider placing the ward down at the 2 to 3 minute mark. If it’s a standard jungle taking a normal route you should have your ward down around the 4 minute mark. If you are being harassed often consider placing multiple wards down covering the entrance and the tri-brush area of your lane.
Late Game Warding- Understanding the importance of warding throughout the game will give your team wins. Warding your and the enemy jungle instead of just the lane entrances will allow you to see where the enemy team is located and even catch some of them out of position. This will give your team many advantages and will allow you to push for a dragon kill or even a baron.

The objective of late game warding is to have vision on the map where your team can pick up an easy champion kill, and to have vision on where the enemy team is moving. Its simple having vision on the map is always a plus and you should ALWAYS have wards down.

Play Video

*Note these are just common locations for wards, I am not saying you will not put wards in other spots or find other wards either.*

What are you supplying for your team? Auras are very important for your team mid to late game. People really don’t notice what the auras are doing for them, but building the correct auras will help your team win many team fights. Skill orders have been listed above for the champion you are supporting with.

Zeke's Herald

I normally begin the game with two sight wards, one pink, one health pot, and a fairy charm (turning that fairy charm into a philosopher stone once I have enough gold)There is always an advantage to having vision on the map because it helps you prevent ganks and allows your ranged attack damage partner to farm freely without the fear of a gank coming. With your pink ward you should always try and find one of their wards to kill it with. With aggressive bottom comps brush control is very important.

your positioning sets you up to be aggressive or passive. An aggressive position is being close enough to throw out a stun camping the brush zoning the enemy bot lane. Passive play should position you behind your ranged attack damage partner but within range to heal him. The most important part about positioning is to not get caught in a stun or slow setting you up for a possible death.

positioning in team fights: You want to position yourself next to the ranged attack damage or ability power player so that you can give him your armor buff aura and attack damage and ability damage aura to boost his team fighting ability

Depending on the support you are playing also makes a big factor on where you are positioning in a fight. Supports such as Sona and Taric want to be in the middle of your team giving the opportunity to land a stun or ult to snag/engage a fight. (Sona is very important to land your alt, but also not being in ranged to get switched on by the other teams carry.

Using clairvoyance at the very beginning of every game to gain vision of the enemy's fountain. This allows your team to see what items the enemy team is starting the game with and allows your team to possibly get items to counter the other teams. The other use of clairvoyance is for tracking the jungle. Becoming a good user of clairvoyance depends on how well you can predict the enemy jungler every 60 seconds and improving on using clairvoyance gives your team overall a better game.

This is only useful if you decide to pick up CV for your team and drop a different summoner spell.

This is the most important role in the early game, because knowing where the enemy jungle is will allow you to alert the other lane for a possible gank. Tracking can be difficult for some because not all jungles are by the book. I recommend trying out jungle a couple games so you understand the speed of the jungle. Once you CV the starting fountain your next one will be placed at normally the blue camp, this will be around the 1:55 mark. (This can change depending on the jungler.) After that you should understand the speed the jungle is going at. Now you can track the jungler by CV’ing the small golem camps showing the red and golems. Think about where the jungler will be in the next 60 seconds. You can also use your jungler as a reference watching it will give you a general idea of where there jungle will be. Practice makes perfect and understanding how tracking works will greatly help your team.

Again this is only useful if you actually pick up CV, and understand how to use it.

Pros:

heals, Heals, HEALS!
High Armor buff from heal.
Silence interrupt(Ex. WW Ult)
Very Strong Sustain lane
Global ult heal

Cons:

No Escapes
No Potential kill set up
Long Cooldowns
Small base health

Early Game:

You want to play aggressive against soraka down bot? Good Luck. Soraka early lane phase is very difficult to play aggressive against her. With a heal and a strong armor buff with that, Trades against Soraka are never in the enemies favor.

Mid Game:

Soraka's great sustain acts as a double edged sword. Since her sustain is so strong there never is an opportunity to set up a dragon by killing the enemy bot lane. Dragon control is really her only weakness mid game.

Late Game:

Soraka's heals slightly fall off late game but her armor stays strong. Soraka is easily able to keep a tank or carry up with her Armor/heal during a team fight. Plus her global ult overall just helps your team extremely in a fight.

Silencing thy Enemy!

Soraka is more than just a heal bot in team fights. Her silence plays a very important role as well. Her silence can be used in many ways. It is common to silence as early as possible in a fight and especially on champions that have escapes or AoE CCs.

Pros:

Very fast due to her global passive and her passive speed buff from .
One of the highest amount of CC supports.
Very good kiting skills.
As Duo bot at level 6 against Janna, It can be difficult to gank Janna with her ultimate .

Cons:

No sustain
Her ulti can mess up team positioning/Team fights
Harder support to play/Understand.

Early Game:

Janna shield your teammate whenever they are dealing damage via autoattacks or taking damage from predictable incoming damage. The AD bonus from Janns's Shield

Mid Game:

Janna has very good kill set up in lane. Which allows your team to secure bot and also a possible dragon. Janna also being as fast as she is can move up to assist the jungler and midlane.

Late Game:

Janna's late game tends to drop off, but she is not worthless by any means. Shielding normally the AD Carry giving the high AD bonus along with the shield greatly helps your AD from dying and dealing tons of damage. Her monsoon allows a splitting of the enemy team and the healing for yours. Plus her usual CC in her rotations.

Pros:

Very aggressive support
A lot of potential kill set ups
Very tanky along with Ultimate
Great CC

Cons:

Not the greatest lane sustain
Can be greedy
Falls off late game (Still very CC)
AoE Heal scales bad late game

Good Duo
Ali/Vayne, Ali/Trist, Ali/Graves, Ali/EZ

Ali's Combo

Use
Then Use after the animation of Headbutt starts

Simple. Typically, mashing immediately after starts the animation will result in a successful Headbutt + Pulverize combo.