A "What support?" Thread

[quote=ShenMasterFlash]So, let me preface this post by saying most of you are gonna read this and say DUH!! But, I'm a really low ELO player but I really wanna climb out. But most games it just seems like one lane falls completely apart for one team, and whichever team benefits from that lane just wins the game - pretty standard. Well recently I was playing in a game like that, and our top was down 4 kills in the first 10 (TEN!) minutes, no ganks or anything, and our bot was competitive, but no real winner, and I was kinda getting beat mid as ahri. However, we had a support Janna who was one of the best supports I've ever seen really, and she literally pretty much kept the ENTIRE map warded. It was pretty remarkkable. We hardly ever got caught out of position, and slowly but surely we clawed our way back in and ended up winning. So, I have to say, I am FINALLY seeing the light of WARD WARD WARD. I honestly don't think you can ever buy too many wards now. It helps when I think "it's 3 minions - that's it". But anyway, when I am asked to play support, I am bummed because I think "well if our carries arent good, thats it", and basically I just ask them what support they want and play them, but I'm no master. I am now realizing kinda what an art supporting is, and how high the skillcap is. I take the time to learn the intricacies of a few champs in every other role, so I relaly need to learn ONE support that I can really just play near their potential. So sorry for the long post, but I just wanted your thoughts on what support fits into almost every team, or what support you would pick that can really determine the outcome of a game. And any other tips on how to really play support well would be wawesome! Thanks![/quote]

[quote=Luther3000][[Sona]] is the strongest support right now imo, but you can't really go wrong with [[Soraka]] either. [[janna]] is strong, but somewhat harder to play than those two. I suggest you go 0/9/21 masteries, Magic Pen or Armour reds, Armour yellows, MR/lvl blues and Gold per 10 quints. Start with [[Faerie Charm]], [[Sight Ward]]s and [[Health Potion]]s, then go [[Philosopher's Stone]], [[boots of speed]], [[Heart of Gold]], either [[Ionian boots of Lucidity]] or [[Mercury's Treads]] depending on enemy team, [[Aegis of the Legion]], [[Shurelya's]]. After that build something out of these: [[Soul Shroud]], [[Will of the Ancients]], [[Stark's Fervor]]. Make sure to constantly keep your lane warded, and later in the game ward everywhere you can, especially around dragon and baron and the routes leading toward them. Also buy [[Oracle's Elixir]] at some point depending on how much the enemy is warding and if they have stealth champions and keep clearing enemy wards. For Sona in particular start with Q and cast it three times in the fountain to charge a power chord, then try to hit the enemy AD in lane as soon as possible with a Q + Power Chord autoattack, which hurts like hell early in the game. Keep harassing as much as you can without putting yourself in too much danger. Generally you should focus on levelling Q since it gets by far the best level up bonuses and strengthens your harass and fighting ability. Put a point or two in W if you start to lose the lane or your heal just isn't doing enough.[/quote]

[quote=Zoki]Depends on your AD carry and what you want to achieve. Do you want endless farm, do you want to get kills from their mistakes,...But yeah I would have to say Sona and Soraka are strongest at the moment, counting healer supports. Non-healer I would have to say Janna.[/quote]

[quote=TheJohn]Sona, Soraka and Janna are the best picks now Sona is the strongest (damage), her Q has a good damage and her passive boosts her damage a lot Soraka is more support, shes there to help. She "heals" HP and MP, her heal gives armor and her passive gives MR Janna is a bit more different. She disable enemies to give her team an advantage[/quote]

[quote=Joobieo#41288][[Sona]] [[soraka]] Two BEST picks. Soraka more supporting champions that use more mana. Sona more for supporting champions that will gain your zone control ( as in you'll poke the opposing team to death ) .[/quote]

[quote=Zoki]Soraka is good on lanes that need a lot of skill spamming to be most effective. Sivir for example, she can endlessly spam her Boomerang and Ricochet. So is Ezreal, poke 24/7.[/quote]

[quote=Dypheus]I recommend Alistair, Alistair is really nice to practice teamfight awareness with. As he encourages you to go in the team fight, and cc major targets, also you won't get punishment when you are out of position due to hes ult. If you master Alistair, you are able to play all other supports with ease.[/quote]

[quote=Kurt_Ottman]I often play [[Janna]], because her skills are remarkable at helping your teammates get away. You play tanky with aura items, so the enemy team won't focus you, and when someone is chasing your teammates, get in between them, spam a quick tornado and slow them with your W. Continue by putting your shield on your fleeing champion. If all else fails, use your ultimate to blow them away and maybe turn the fight in your favor if all your teammate needed was some health. The most important thing you need to know about [[Janna]], is that she is supposed to follow the AD carry around all game, except for a few warding trips. She is good with champions like [[Caitlyn]], who has high AD scaling on her ultimate, and [[Graves]], who has high burst with [[Janna]]'s shield on. It's best to be able to communicate with voices when you're support, because you need to put on shield when your carry wants to get in and do damage. [[Janna]] is really fun to play, and she has a very high skillcap.[/quote]

[quote=TheJohn][quote=Dypheus] I recommend Alistair, Alistair is really nice to practice teamfight awareness with. As he encourages you to go in the team fight, and cc major targets, also you won't get punishment when you are out of position due to hes ult. If you master Alistair, you are able to play all other supports with ease. [/quote] Alistar is a good support, I got him for free+skin from youtube and he's really nice to play He's a disabler, his ult is awesome, but his heal is kinda weak, and the passive is extremely useless. Thats why he's not a top support[/quote]

[quote=Somalie]Guys, keep in mind he is in "really low elo". As I am in the same situation (1450 atm), I give you some tip from my experience, playing often support : You will, on this forum, see "that AD + that supp make a great lane because of xxx". Dont believe it : it can be false, but if it's true, it could apply for goods players only, what you wont face/play with. As you will sometimes lane with a bad AD, and as you will sometimes fail, I strongly recommand you to not go with the aggressive supports, such as Leona or even Alistar. The carry could not follow you as you go offensive, and then you will put good CC, but not enough damage : enemies turn back, hit you and you can't (or very slowly) recover you health. Same of Janna : she's very interesting to play, you feel very useful in teamfights, but your carry will often get stupidly poked (more often than u can shield), then he will be zoned. Because yeah, dumbcarry took a doran's blade, even if he knew he was with a non-healer support. -I repeat, I describe it as it could happen in low elo games, I know it's different higher- A support with heal helps a lot. Sona and Soraka can play defensive if needed or offensive if your carry is ok. Later in the game, you have a speed buff/heal/auras and aoe ult, or nice heal*2 and a strong silence. If u feel that leona/alistar + strong early AD are waiting too much in bush to zone you, ward that. I know you dont have that many wards, 3 or 4 at start, gp10 items to buy etc, but dont let your carry being zoned or worse, caught because he wanted to farm. If the (early) early game goes fine and your jungler seems a good player, ward their blue buff bush around 5.30-6 if their jungler started here. And tell your team about it, if they dont feel doing it, it's ok. Giving your jungler + mid the occasion to counterjungle easily could help you a lot : steal their blue with smite, giving it to your mid or maybe killing someone is a nice step to victory. Sometimes your jungler will be ganking top at this moment, sometimes mid+jungler wont be strong enough to do that, but when it's successful, it was worth the ward :D You can at least time their blue with it. Try some support yorick or lux, they dont like to face any lane but against specific support+ad they can do verywell. Dont try it in ranked at first, you need to be really good with it, as you will be flamed in pre-game chat, play perfectly ingame ;) (training work for everychamp btw) A funny thing to do : let's say you warded in front of drake. They put a pink near and destroy it (always try to know where the support places his wards, by looking him at minimap, CVing, etc). If the pink ward is in the middle of the river, or somehow a little in south/north of the door of dragon area, you can ward from your side of the dragon area (if you're the southwest team). If they pulled the dragon out, you wont see anything, but if they dont, you will have vision, your ward wont be seen by their pink etc. Drake, their blue buff, even your one : time that shit. Write it in chat, even an estimation. Tell your team "drake in 2 min", that can helps them going back, being full life/items for that fight. Map awareness : their jungler is top ? their mid just went back ? their ad or support ? If your jungler and mid are near, go for the drake (not everytime, if too risky dont try). If you go fast enough, enemies wont be able, even with ward (pink that shit), to contest it. That depends of your team composition too, you dont want to be all low life and being beat in a 4v3 situation, too shameful ^^ Same for baron : you killed2 or 3 of them, your team is around lvl 13-16 ? go for it as they probably wont be able to contest it in a 3v5 situation. Again, depends of your team comp (vayne helps a lot for example), number of wriggles (or madred bloodrazor), tankiness of at least 2 people and of course, not having moron ranged letting their "tanks" die because no one go take the aggro. -> Good teams do baron when lvl 11-16, bad teams start thinking about it when lvl 16-18 even if they have the occasion. When your team push, make the back in time. I know they dont ear the ping, the dont writte chat, but try. Pushing a tower, starting the next, getting 3 deaths because enemies went back at full hp happens a lot at this elo. Map awareness again : 2 of them top ? 4 of them bot ? make the lane which is safe to push the other lanes. They dont help you with countergank, they could at least help with a good push. If your team wants to push the second tower of bot or top, ward the correspondant side of their jungle : blue buff brush, brush between red buff and second tower (you dont want to see the buff monster, you want to see road in the jungle). At least. 2 wards in the side of the jungle is better. If your team get behind, dont go ward their jungle : ward key spot of yours and in river. Aura items : chose what bring the most : would be bad to do WotA if you have only 1 AP guy and 3 people who dont care about AP but loves AD/As/defense. Do stark or aegis in this case. Talk about it, double aura item in team are worth it only in some case (double AP with wota, stuff like that). If a teammate started to do Aegis, dont do one, as a support you do it only for the aura part, would be wasted. PS : dont hesitate to push a lane if it can help, even if supports are bad for it. If enemies win the next team fight, that would be a lane they wont push too hard because they will have to wait their minion to progress. But care, dont make the next team fight an auto-lose because you were 10 km aways, pushing a lane xD Have fun reading that[/quote]