I know the guide is ugly, but the information is far more in depth then the guides of other people;) It is under construction,I will make it better soon

Hi I am RonaldNL from the Netherlands and my main role is support. Some people think it is the role which is the least fun to play and has the least impact. This guide hopefully proves you wrong! This is not a guide on what specific items to buy, what spots to ward, or which runes to take. Nor is it a guide for total noobs. I assume you know what a support does what the lanes are, what the terminology is and who the champs are. It's an more in depth guide with the ideas you need to take into account when you play a support lane. I like the idea of the golden tip. If there are two golden tips in this whole guide that will win you the game 1/10 games, it's worth it for me.

This is my beta version
Please share you secrets/comments/remarks on the guide.

Ward,
Don't die
Take the support role serious, don't troll
Your adc does most of the damage, not you
If you don't know where to go, go with your adc
Auto attacks are OP
Numbers advantage wins you the game


While this seems obvious, its very easy to ward
It's also pretty easy not to die
For the most noob supports I see, it is the only thing needed to make the enemy not snowball really hard and let your adc farm till the level he can handle himself.

If you stand in the bush at the start of the game they will always use the trinket
If you walk back from leashing the red don't walk through the tribush, if they gank you you are dead.
If you are late in game don't facecheck a brush to get vision of whether or not an enemy is invading. It will only make the enemy invade better by killing you or make you flash.
Ward the bush the enemies are in when chasing, your adc can do some extra auto attacks if he can see them, often resulting in a kill.
Ward the bottom side of midlane, it will help the midlaner
Give a good pull to the jungler, you won't lose any cs
Get first till lvl 2. If you make it here first you have a huge advantage and can often do whatever you like with the level advantage, you will win the trade. Just push the minion wave slightly to get this.
Shield your adc/yourself from minion hits and turret hits. I rarely see people do this while it's very easy and they can often even break the shield.
Read a guide from the support champ you play to learn the tricks of this champion.
Also read the skill description. I have played some champions 50 times and then discovered there was a feature of the champ i didn't know like the slow of sona.
Make sure your enemy does not know what you do. Recall where they can't see you, ward where they can't see you. If you walk into a brush walk into it from the backside making them think you recalled.
Cover at lvl 1 so you can see invades coming in
Do not ever do this if you get in game late. You will just die if they invade making their invade more successful.
Recall together, if you recall 1 at a time the other one can't do anything because he gets zoned. If they push the wave to the tower you can stay to get some cs.
Lvl2 and lvl6 are the biggest milestones. First one to get there should try to get a kill or a good trade if possible.
Don't waste a good trade. If you get some damage done and they have to recall, farm and kill their turret. Don't dive and get killed yourself. Often this is not worth it.
Check your enemies summoners and tell your adc they still have heal/barrier/flash/shield/taunt when they are low. Otherwise your adc might be baited into an ugly situation.
Trinket wards can't see the end of the bush, place them in the middle.
Endgame don't die warding, it will lose you the game. Ask your team to help you warding.
Tell your jungle where the enemy wards are.
Tell your jungle what the dragon timer is while you walk back towards your lane, you have nothing better to do anyway.
Check enemy items at lvl 1.
Check enemy runes+mastery pages in the loading screen at lolnexus.com
If they are really squishy, recommend ganking them.
If you ping for jungler help tell them why you want the help
Chain cc, don't spam it.
Tell your adc that the enemy is lvl 6

You can poke all day, just ignore the damn creeps:P
Ward wars are epic.
The pink ward war is even more epic.
Zone control.
2vs2 has most action.
Baiting people all day.
1vs2 people as support is hilarious.
Early game really strong.
Winning is better then losing, being a good support boosts your winrate!

Picking support to help your team
Have you ever felt like you are always winning your lane and playing well, but still you are not winning games? Blame your team! It is probably their fault. But it still sucks to lose So what can we do about that? You help your team.

Most of the time in champion select there are two guys who main mid, if you are lucky 1 who mains adc and everyone can play top or jungle if possible. At highest 1 in every 10 games someone shouts: "please I want to play support". They are probably premade and suck anyway. Conclusion: If you want to take the role thats left you want to pick support.

What is the advantage? Everyone plays much better on their main role. If they are silver 3 they can probably play their main at the silver 1 level, some other roles around silver 3 and support and their worst role which they never play at silver 5 lvl. If you are unlucky and you go mid you let 4 other guys in your team at a level way below their main level. Remember you are put against a team which is roughly as good. If your team does not go afk, does not flame, has a decent teamcomp, wards, and everyone plays at their best level the chances are very likely to win. Already if you cant play well in the role thats left you must have a winrate higher then 55% because everyone else will play their game on the highest level possible. So if you main support you boost your teammates performance, without having to carry the game yourself.

Teamcomp

I think in soloqueue at least 1 in 5 games is already lost in champion select. Besides the facts mentioned above, you often find yourself with a wrong teamcomp. These are the main fails and the way you can counter them as support:

Full AD
You got the most horrible teamcomp ever, only ad champs and your towers and minions also deal physical damage. If the enemy builds armor you are screwed.
(top ad or no damage, jungle ad or no damage, mid ad and adc botlane.
(counter) Go heavy ap support, zyra, annie, syndra, are strong support to play which can easily deal a really high amount of damage. (I think nidalee/ needs to much farm and is to much a snowball champ to do this). If your enemies don't build any magic resistance you can transform your support into another carry by instakilling targets or dealing very high amounts of damage, while still being able to protect your allies.
If you really think you are pro you can just go for winning as fast as possible so they can't build armor. Then take karma or some support you can really carry hard with early game.

No tank,
Happens very often. You can have 4 great carries on your team, but if you don't have any tanks on your lineup they will die very fast and will not deal that much damage. Better go tank yourself (also recommended for any other role). Since your allies are very likely to deal a high amount of damage, build no damage at all. Support damage scales very badly and your investment to stay 1 second more alive will boost your allies damage more then if you would have build damage yourself. Recommended champions:
Leona, Thresh, Braum, Blitz, Shen or any other tank you feel can support.
A tanky Janna or Lulu can be very anoying and suprisingly tanky. It might take the enemy longer to kill them then a Leona who gets focussed.

Your team has no initiation/ disengage:
(counter) Leona, Sona, Annie is great for engage
Thresh, Morgana, Blitzcrank very good for target picking, which might be a good alternative for hard engage.
Janna, Zyra great disengage. (Pokecomps often need good disengage since they do not want a straight 5vs5 fight)

Heavy dive champs, but they probably can't stay alive:
If your team has dive champs like Khazix, Katarina, Diana, they need to stay alive to do a little damage.
Zilean, Lulu, Orianna.

Poke only, no teamfight potential.
So the rest of your team is bad in teamfighting? Don't take a support that is great in teamfights to compensate. Having a Leona engage with the ulti will be totally useless.
Take a pick champ like blitz thresh morgana who could pick a target and make your team push the advantage of 4vs5
Or go for more poke or waveclear, what is better then 1 nidalee spear? 5 nidalee spears! Clear more waves, poke harder, get tower down, and enemies won't be able to stop you if you are ahead. options: Nidalee, Karma, Lulu, Nunu, Ap trollsupports like syndra

Or last option go for disengage. If you have a pokecomp they will get wrecked by a single bruiser jumping in. Make sure you team can just disengage and maybe kill him while he is chasing. Janna and Zyra

Or you could go sona, as gambit would say, Sona is so alround she fits into any teamcomp.


End game oriented team.
Your teammates have great champions, but they are really endgame focussed. Do not take a support that can be weak early, or a carry support, or a support that can countersnowball. Take a strong lane support. This could be pretty much any support, since if you are good with them you probably are strong in lane. But a Leona, Blitz, Alistar or poke only support like Nidalee/Syndra could be very ugly. If they fall a little bit behind they are totally useless and your adc will feel like playing without a support.
Sorakka, Sona, Karma, Thresh Would be good supports to help a weak early laner.
Ofcourse the best thing is to laneswap, probably 4-1-0 is the best since you evade the weak laning phase.

Early game teamcomp
What to do if your team picks early game champions like Renekton, Lee Sin, and you opponents have champions that scale great like Vayne, Kogmaw, Poppy, Jax, Feral Flare Junglers, Nasus? Snowball supports can be good here. The AP trolls can be really great. Get some kills early to snowball really hard and win the game before they can do anything. If you don't snowball you lose anyway. Do you snowball harder on Leona then Karma? Pick Leona. Since they have the endgame their laning is probably less strong. Whatever you do, don't die! If you die against a Vayne in lane, you turn an easy lane into a lost game.

I would recommend being support if you are a teamplayer. You shouldn't mind giving away kills, buying wards, not being the strongest in your team, having bad stats, doing no damage and all the other stuff selfish people don't like.

You need to be able to work with other players, the jungle and your adc, if you like to play a more solo oriented game go play something else. If you like to work together , your benefit will be the greatest botlane.

If you are really horrible at farming, but feel like your gameplay overal is good, go support.

If you are a pro at zoning, be support.

If you are more smart instead of mechanically pro, go support

If you are not that good in 1vs1, go support

If you always die cause a jungler ganks you, go support,
most supports can always buy lots of wards and have very good disengage. I see a lot of people saying the won their lane, but the jungler just killed them 5 times. You will still lose the game. This won't happen to you as support.

If you are a allround player that doesn't excel in anything in particular, go support

When don't you go support
If you are really good at outplaying people 1vs1, don't be support. Go hard carry!
If you are crazy good at farming, go a farm epic champ, not support, you waste your talent.
If you are way better in other roles, do not go support.

Check your winrates after you played some games, they tell a good story whether you should keep on playing or get another role.

Consult this guide, patch 4,7 updated the last time I checked:
http://www.mobafire.com/league-of-legends/build/dans-guide-to-bot-lane-matchups-patch-4-7-braum-362571

Choose a "meta" Support
Every one of them is just as good
Find one that fits your playstyle

If you want to start as a support your probably want a main champion. And you want me to tell you what it is. If I would have to name one it's Thresh. He is the most allround support. But it is not that easy. League of Legends is the most balanced game I ever played. There is no good support or bad support. There is something like a meta, for example a while ago pro players would only play Thresh, Annie and Leona. But you are not pro. Basically every champion is equally good. Your skill level with them is way more important. I once got a ten game winstreak with zilean, the lowest winrate support at the time. The champions in League of Legends just have different roles. So you DO want a champion that is accepted as a main support:
Thresh
Morgana
Leona
Blitzcrank
Janna
Sona
Zyra
Lulu
Braum
Annie
Sorakka
Karma
Taric
Nami
Zilean
Nidalee

Alistar is in my opinion not good enough, only against Leona or Blitz or any other melee champs. You never want to main Alistar cause a good ranged champ will own you. Unless ofcourse your results are just very good with it.

But I wanna play this or this champ and it's not on the list but I think it's viable! Well trollsupports are fun, but I think the supports I mention do the same thing but better. You will probably win a few games really hard, but keep being stuck with a low win-rate overall.

To pick a champion just try out a few of the above mentioned. It does not matter which one, they all got their strengths. If you turn out to be pretty good on them, play them. Just try to play a few normal games or ranked games with them till you think you have mastered a reasonably level with them. If you then win everything, stay with them. If you lose while you think you are playing mechanically good, maybe another champ is better for you. Try to find the support who supports your play style. To name a number of play style and supports who are good in it:

Safe lane:
Sona Sorakka Thresh Karma Morgana Lulu
Really aggresive:
Karma, Zilean, Lulu, Annie and all the trollsupports
Skillshot reliant:
Blitz, Thresh, Morgana, Nami
Tanking:
Thresh Leona Blitz Alistar Braum
Very squishy,
Sona, Zyra, Zilean, Annie Nami
Setting up for ganks
Janna Leona
Hard engage:
Leona, Sona, Annie,
Disengaging
Janna , Zyra , Karma, Lulu
Snowballer:
Blitz, AP trolls, Zilean,
Allround supports (they have a little bit of everything):
Sona, Janna, Thresh, Morgana, Karma, Lulu, Nami, Taric
Heal:
Nami Sona Sorakka Taric Alistar
Shield:
Lulu Morgana Janna Karma Thresh
Melee
Blitz Leona Braum Alistar Taric
Ranged
The rest
Long ranged supports
Zilean, Annie, Karma, Lulu

For example I love to be able to do nothing all game, and then just setting up a gank and winning my lane, so Janna is my favorite, you can just flash and spamm skills, no way they are going to get away.

The other thing I can't do is play melee champs. So I don't play Leona, who would otherwise fit the playstyle with setting up ganks just fine. It is still a very strong champion though.

Please leave a comment with your favorite trollsupport

A troll-support is a champion who is not accepted as a support in the general community. But the thing is it should work well! If it doesn't work I don't count it as a trollsupport. The list of working troll supports:

Syndra Ashe Leblanc Tristana Lux Kayle Lissandra Poppy Nidalee Veigar Brand Vel'koz Yorick Dr. Mundo Shen Ahri Lee SinHeimerdinger

There are some strategies to use which can win you the lane in case the skill levels are equal. In all other cases, just outplay them.

Outplay them
Outsustain them
Numbers advantage
Push hard
Picks
Don't push and wait for ganks (Best Strategy)
Zone
Pokergame
Focus the adc unless you can instakill the support

Outplay them,
If you can outplay them, you probably don't need to read this guide. There are 1000 tiny things that helps you outplay them, but the main thing is you just have to be better.

Many people don't have armor or magic resistance runes, don't have tank or support masteries or take the wrong items at the start. You can change these for yourself to be able to sustain some damage and not burn through your mana really fast. Often you can just trade with the enemy till the point where they don't have mana and hp and win the lane after. This is especially easy with champs like Nidalee who rely on mana. Just stay alive till they are out of mana and you can win. If you wanna use this strategy tell you adc to not spend all his mana. After they run out of either mana or health you can snowball the lane. Caitlyns are notorious for wasting their mana. Playing against them don't worry if they push really hard, by the time they have 10 cs advantage they can't do anything cause they are out of mana, they either have to recall losing their advantage or stay and lose even more.

Numbers advantage
It's a two vs two lane with minions on both sides and a jungler on both sides (maybe even a roaming midlaner and a tp top). If you have either of these extra you are probably going to win the trade.Different examples exist where you can lose or win with the man advantage:

If a Leona or a support tries to zone you and their adc doesn't come with her, attack her with your adc till their adc shows up. As soon as the adc comes stop focussing the support. You can often kill the support or adc if you can 1vs2 them or at least get half their hp. They can't do anything back cause every second they attack you you do double damage back since you have numbers advantage.

If one of the enemies recall seperately you should try to kill the other. They can't win 1vs2 unless they are crazy fed.

Minions can deal more damage then a player. If you fight in a minion wave you are likely to die, its basically a 2vs3. Most people know this, but a very common mistake is to try to chase after a won trade. By chasing you walk into the minion wave. The minion wave will attack you till you get behind your own minions again, often losing you the trade you won till you started chasing. In early levels really don't chase after a won trade.

If you stay close to your turret and behind your minionwave it's very unlikely for the enemies to have a man advantage, the turret is your extra man and the minion wave is another extra man. So your enemy is in a potential disadvantage, just wait for the disadvantage to become real and exploit it.

Push hard.
Denying your enemy adc cs by letting their tower kill the creeps can be a way to slowly win the lane. Just push hard. You might wanna wait a little till you have a double minion wave which can collapse on the turret for extra turret damage. Don't forget to get a perfect cs score cause if they farm harder you will 100% lose the lane. If you do this there is little chance of killing them and the chances are very high that you get ganked and killed. So you have to win the lane by taking a tower or out farming them very fast. Caitlyn and Sivir are the champs for this strategy. Also an ap+sorakka botlane can do this.

Picks.
Often the first one who puts down the crowd control on the right target wins the fight. If you can get some good picks this can win you the lane. Go for the adc and don't forget about creeps and junglers. Man advantage is important if you get a pick. Your cc only last for a very short time so you need to win the trade in these few seconds.

Don't push and wait for ganks,
This is the best strategy. The gains from pushing are very small. The gains from a kill are very large. After a kill you can get some free farm, maybe kill the tower, and you get the kill and assistmoney. By not pushing you deny the enemy the chance to kill you and get these advantages. The chances for yourself greatly increase, because it's much easyer to gank your lane if you are pushed against a turret. Just wait for the jungler to come (and they will!) and you win the lane after that. So every time you wanna use that Janna tornado, zilean bomb, sona Q or any other skill that kills minions, DONT KILL THE MINION IT LOSES YOU THE GAME! An underrated aspect of this is getting attacked by minions. If the enemy minions attack you instead of your creeps, your creeps will kill them first and start pushing the lane.

Zoning
If you win your lane, you can start zoning the enemy. Zoning means you deny the enemy to come close. This way they can't farm or damage you. Every time they do go in you punish them by doing more damage to them then they did to you. After a while they don't want to come close because they just lose more then they gain. Often noobs will be zoned though they can still win the trade. Try to poke them a few times and see if you get damage back. If they don't do damage on you zone them. Burning potions early makes it look like you didn't get damage. Enemies will be zoned though they are not even behind easily. Vision control can help greatly in zoning. If they can't see you in the bush and you can they will get out of your way. Bait them into warding the other brush and zone them from the brush you wanted. Building a support with high sustain means you can zone easily cause any trade you do with your enemy will cause them to lose damage while you will just regain that lost hp. On the other side if you just poke them really hard they will also be zoned. Last way to zone if with a champ that can instakill them Leona or Blitz. Make them believe that if they come close you will EAT THEM ALIVE!

The pokergame
Try to read your enemies minds and let them read your mind in the wrong way. Try to make them think you are strong by healing and burning pots early so they think they cant win trades. Try to make them think you always go in very stupidly, so that they believe they can kill you when you go in. If your jungler comes in you can easily bait them for a kill cause they think you are just a ******. While going in kinda stupid you can still damamage them and maybe you don't even get damage yourself. If they do punish you ofcourse stop the strategy. Another mindreading game is to look whether enemies change behaviour. If they suddenly go more forward or backwards its probably because you are about to get ganked. Just run when they suddenly change behaviour. Missing that one lasthit is worth it.

Focus the adc unless you can kill the support without either of you being killed. The adc does so much more damage and can often kill you both if you commit to hard onto the support. If you poke, focus the adc. If you fight, focus the adc. If you are going to die both, try to kill the adc in retun. If you die, give the kill to the jungler or support. No matter how hard they win the lane. If the enemy adc is not fed you haven't lost anything yet.

Your main job as support and you can find guides on this everywhere with nice maps to tell you the positions. I'll tell you the main idea.

Warding makes sure you can go anywhere safely without dying.
Warding gives you vision of the enemy so you can trap them unexpectedly
Warding makes sure you can react on enemy movement and capitalize on number advantage/disadvantage
Warding NEVER COSTS MONEY, every ward is worth it unless you really screw up. 1 more objective gained or denied from your enemy, pays for the wards you buy all game.

You can buy 4 wards, 3 green and 1 pink. Besides that you can buy a upgraded sweeper trinket for full vision control. Try to buy 1 ward + trinket ward at start of the game. 2 wards next recall (if possible a pink). Three wards every time after and get a pinkward. As soon as you buy 3 wards you have to swap your trinket for a sweeper since it wont add any value. Upgrade the Sweeper only if you plan on getting zone control for a baron or dragon. You should do this fairly soon, but not in the laning phase. Get the blue trinket if you are losing and it's unsafe to ward.

Where to ward?

You wanna ward in zones. With zoning I mean placing the wards in a way that enemies can't run through them and come from behind unexpectedly. If you do this you can play more aggresive very safe. If the enemy jungler can't jump you only need two wards to make sure he can't get into your bottom side jungle. Have these warded. If he can jump you might wanna get some extra wards to make sure he doesn't jump into your face. Long range junglers like Nocturne Fiddle and Zac often come through the lane or from the tribush (the bush above your tower in botlane) You want to ward this against them. Keep the warding on the spaces you like to play in.

Are you winning? Ward the enemy jungle in zones. This makes sure you know it when they walk into it so you can kill them or push objectives anywhere else.

Are you counterjungling or trying to get a buf from the enemy, ward it
Do you have a spare ward, ward a little deeper in enemy jungle.

Are you losing? Ward your own jungle instead of warding deeper. Enemies will just pass your wardline and you can't punish them for doing so. If you were winning you could just walk to them and kill them but this doesn't work now.

If its equal you want to ward around the river level.

For more advanced warding patterns you need to find another guide

Just remember to ward in zones and ask your allies to help with warding.

Denying vision means preventing enemies from warding and destroying their wards. Denying vision is very important for baits. And baits win games. Often my enemy support dies 5 times a game from checking a bush trying to ward it. If you can clear the vision the enemy loses all the advantages of warding:

Warding makes sure you can go anywhere safely without dying.
Warding gives you vision of the enemy so you can trap them unexpectedly
Warding makes sure you can react on enemy movement and capitalize on number advantage/disadvantage
Denying also costs your enemy time and money.

Pinkwards, sweepers and auto attacks can be used to deny vision.

Always buy a pinkward and drop it in a spot where it is useful but can remain for a large amount of time. Crossroads just behind the river are great if you are not losing. The river is great when you are winning. If you are losing you probably don't wanna buy pinkwards.

Sweep places where you know your enemy just dropped a ward. Otherwise just check the common places. You will learn where these are. Sweep for wards if you jungler tries to gank or if you wanna set a trap. Also sweep the baron and dragon pit if you try to take it to prevent enemies from stealing or killing your team.

Communication is the best way to win your lane. It increaes your winrate more then having better skills. What to do and what not to do?

Get skype, premades botlane with skype is insta win.

Mute button OP
Everyone gets mad sometimes when playing League. I really find it hugely helpful to just mute someone who starts being annoying. After 5 minutes you have forgotten how annoying they were and can play normal again. If you don't do this you will probably die typing.

Don't say to much.
People are not good with feedback. Most of them are not able to integrate feedback into their play pattern for the same match. If you want to give some tips say like max two things. For example , They have a strong lane, it might be better just let them push, try to farm and stay alive. This is one play style and they will understand. If you say ten things they will probably not do a single one of them.

Don't say anything after they just died. Unless its positive

Don't ever flame.
Period.

Stay positive
Everyone likes having a positive guy in the team. The guy who says ahh such bad luck he got away, well good try anyway:) is much better then. OMFGG WHY DIDNT YOU KILL HIM. People will play MUCH better if you are positive. Your winrate can increase easily 10% by controlling your en your teammates angermanagement.

If you want to report them don't say it. Mute them and do it afterwards. Just saying you mute them might already turn them into a big green angry monster. Don't say it.

Then what are good topics to talk about:
Whether to push or not,
That your adc should focus on killing creeps and ignore poking, because you are not able to poke them to dead anyway.
That your adc should use his trinket.
That your adc should focus towers instead of minions/ champions
That your adc needs armor penetration, they all have armor
That your adc can better stay behind minions
That your adc doesn't need to use his skills to farm minions, better save his mana to escape or get the kill.
That he should not focus the support

What are not good topics:
Anything they can't change very easily.

If you are premade get skype.

Playing will a premade puts your whole party in a disadvantage because your enemies will be selected with a slightly higher MMR. But this can be very much worth it if you play together very well. A good premade will win every botlane.

Flexibility
But be carefull cause you have two roles that are fixed. If you happen to be in a party with one guy who mains support and one who mains adc, you have noone who is able to play toplane or midlane. This happens a lot with premades and can be ugly.

Natural synergy.
You can just by chance play very well together. If you are in solo queue and you have an adc that plays very well and matches your play style, invite them as a friend and go duo. If you have this synergy you are just lucky.

Train together.
Premades are almost always useless. You really need to play together for a lot of matches to get advantages of knowing each others play style. So go play a lot of matches. Use the same champion combinations so you learn faster.

You main support, they don't. If you want to carry your team, get normal lanes. Unless you really know what you are doing in soloqueue and your team members know what they do aswell, don't laneswap.

Basic rules for laneswapping, do it when you think your duolane or solo laner is at a really big disadvantage in straight up lanes (1vs1, 2vs2), which would disapear after one of them gains a few levels.

This is probably the worst thing that can happen to you as support. Your adc is very likely to fail. So what are you going to do?

Tip 1: Your normal way of playing. They might have never played adc with someone who mains support. Most of the time they have a ****py support and playing adc with a support that is not good is a living hell. Playing adc with a good support however is pretty easy. The support does all your dirty work. The chances are very high that they will play decently with you.

Tip 2: All in champs are deadly. If your adc doesn't know what he is doing, you don't want to go all in without him helping you. If you have an Alistar or Leona, you could just suicide all game.

Tip 3: Poke only supports don't work great. Often adcs that are not that good poke less. Or if they poke they miss all farm. You don't want either of these. If you are poking alone it probably won't do anything.

Tip 4: They are probably better so don't go for 2vs2 fights.

So whats left:

Option 1: Push Push Push. If you adc is caitlyn of sivir they can just push like crazy and deny the enemies some farm. There is very little to do against this strategy except ganking and it's the most easy thing to do as adc. If you ward well and have a support with good disengage this can work very well. If the enemy has a strong gank oriented jungler this can be horrible.

Option 2: Do not push at all. Let them push, just farm as much as you can, do not trade to much, stay as healthy as possible. You can't be ganked and you won't die. So the worst thing that could happen is you lose some cs. But your jungle can gank. And even noob adcs can auto attack the enemies in a chase. Very easy to do as ADC and the chances you lose very hard are very small. Good supports for this strategy are champs that can keep your adc alive and can set up ganks. The Yellow support items are great for this strategy. They keep you alive and the active if great for setting up ganks.

What not to do 1
Take a snowball support. This are often the champs with very little utility besides poke. If you think my adc is bad so ill carry myself,this won't work. Snowball champs only work if you are planning to win your lane really hard. With a noob adc this is not going to happen. So don't go for the funny Syndra pick.

What not to do 2
Flame at your adc. Most of the time they are not as noob as you think and just died by accident. This can happen to the best. If you start flaming they will 80% of the time go and ruin the game really hard. If you say they just should stay safe and farm, because the other lanes are doing pretty well anyway, they can probably survive and let the rest of the team carry.

What not to do 3
Go play worse yourself because you think its lost anyway. If you do this it is lost.

I think counterpicking is very important.
If I go top or midlane I just couterpick and at least not lose very hard, often winning my lane. In the botlane there is no real counterpicking. Every lane can handle every matchup, as long as you are better. Otherwise you can always farm passive and wait for ganks. I would not recommend to focus on counterpicking. Just learn how to play against the champs who should counter you.

Try to find out for yourself what champ you find very annoying to play against and let the captain ban this. Melee support champions have a chance of getting counterpicked. Blitz Alistar and Leona can be totally useless if you counter them. But still this is very hard to do and if you have skills you can avoid this.

Your power as support is not in your damage, but in your baits. Some ways to bait your enemies:

ADC is low, but you can heal/shield them forever
You have a tower, where you can hold them under forever
You have a minion wave, which will kill the enemies
Your jungler is comming
You still got all your escape skills.
Its a teamfight

If you can bait the enemy to burn everything they have just to get a kill onto someone, but instead you can make them survive, then the enemies are very vulnerable. Also in teamfights if they need everything to kill the slipery janna/lulu or the tanky leona/thresh. Your team will probably 4vs5 them cause they don't have any skills left.

Everyone forgets these, but they are really OP
Just some tips:
-Use them
-For a lot of supports the spellrange is smaller then auto attack, so if you use a spell use an auto attack too
-If they chase your adc, you can often kill them just by auto attacking
-Spellthiefs edge make your auto attacks a weapon
- 1 auto attack changes a execute into a kill

In lane try to poke with your auto attacks, for most supports its their most important poke skill. You might think you can't outtrade an adc if you basic attack each other. But you have higher regen, so can heal back up faster. Also they have to worry about csing. They often don't even auto attack back. If you wait till your own creep is low and auto attack them when they have to auto attack the creep they will either miss the creep or miss the chance to retaliate. It sounds very logical but noone ever does it. Make sure you don't get to much minion agro while auto attacking as this will deal a lot of damage and push the wave.

If you want to auto attack the enemy adc you don't want to walk into the range of the support. Try to be at the other side of the adc as the enemy support. That way they can never attack you together.

You have three lines of gold income items.
Get them.

Green: Relic shield, Targons Embrace and Face of the Mountain
-get this if you are melee,
-use it on the large creep for extra goldincome,
-ping if you are going to use it
-inform your allies you have it
-wait till creeps are low, don't push

Yellow, Ancient coin, Nomad's Medaillon and Talisman of Ascension
-If you want sustain and are not mana dependent
-The health regen is pretty high, with this you can recharge after trades so make sure you just trade if you are full hp you will regen anyway.
- Best active of the three series, but the stats are not so impressive beside it
-Best item in a losing lane.

Blue: Spellthief's edge, Frostfang, Frostqueens claim
Nice poke, good on poke champions
Don't forget to use the auto attacks
Don't trade for the extra gold on hit, just trade for damage
You don't wanna die just for some extra gold
Don't forget to use the active, it's really nice
I would recommend this over the yellow series on ranged champs after the nerfs, unless you wanna play really safe and don't poke at all.

Sightstone: Get this unless you go for a carry build. It's extremely gold efficient and motivates you to do your main job, warding.

Im not going to talk about which items to get on which supports, there are a lot of guides on this already. Just focus on support items or tank items, not damage. Unless your team is full ad or the chances are very high that you will snowball it's never a good idea to build a lot of damage.

Don't do the same thing every game. You can pick a Nidalee and trow spears and win one game. But the next game they buy MR and you are suddenly useless. So adjust your main style.

If you win, play aggresive
If you can't win trades or enemy is fed, play passive
Adjust your warding to where you need it
Get some Armor or Magic resistance if you can't survive without buying it.

Find another guide for this:)

Only thing I want to say is that having tier three runes who do contribute (so no lifesteal, attackspeed, or anything useless) and having masteries reasonably well is pretty much enough. I often have enemies who do not have armor or magic resist runes. They just die whenever they get caught. Just having a reasonable runepage and masteries like those you find in any high rates build will be enough. Get armor, magic resist, health, movement speed if you don't know what to take.

Teamfights

What to do:

1. Protect your Superfed guy no matter who it is
2. Kill/stun/slow the superfed guy from the enemy if you can contribute
3. Protect your ADC if they can't stay alive without you
4. Run with half the enemy team after you while your team is winning the fight.

Often you have a support with some initiation, but still don't want to be the initiator. If you are on the edge of the enemy team with Sona or Annie, chances are very likely you die. If you dive in with thresh, they can auto attack you to dead before your team arrives. Make sure that your allies have your back if you initiate. If you can instakill the squishies or stun the whole team with your team close, go in ofcourse.

More of an adc tactic, but you can use it with relic shield or teach it to your adc

If you freeze the wave you only need 1 enemy creep more to push the wave,
if you are last hitting only and the creepwave builds up to a giant creepwave you might lose the whole thing to a turret. So don't keep the difference between enemy creeps and your creeps to large. Enemies can also punish you cause you have to focus the giant minionwave, while they can just attack you.

Bodyblock an enemy minion and keep it alive till your minion wave arives instead of letting the turret kill it. If the turret kills it the wave will reset till mid point. If you wait your creeps will have to kill it and the enemy creeps will walk towards you, keeping the lane pushed. Shielding yourself or adc from minion damage is very usefull

The trick with freezing is when to start attacking the minions. If you want enemies to push, attack them as late as possible. Though i didn't measure it, you can kill a creep with Lucian when they still could have taken 4 basic attacks from your minions. And if these creeps attack at the same time you could wait till your minions basic attacks are midair to kill the creeps. If you do this you make sure your minions don't attack other creeps and push in the meantime. While the creep you attack does some extra damage pushing the wave towards your tower.

Try to make a champ like Varus, Caitlyn, Janna, Zilean push the waves with their skill while they try to poke you.Often these skills even do less damage if they first hit minions. Still always try to dodge them.

After a kill you want to help your adc push the wave to the enemy turrets. Attack the creeps with high hp so you don't make the adc lose cs. If you do not do this the wave might reach the tower when the enemy is back enabling them to farm the giant creepwave.

A great support will recognize lots of situations where the ADC is going to lose the cs for certain. Farm it. Don't push the wave. But get the farm it is worth a lot of gold.For example if the wave is under the turret. Sometimes your adc just doesn't attack the minion your tower is attacking while you can take it. Sometimes your adc needs an extra bit of damage so he can kill it. Help him with this. But most of the times don't if he is doing fine, he will only lose his rhythm.

What is important is to farm experience. Stay close to minions when they die. Don't go warding if there is a giant creepwave crashing on your turret. You need the exp. First to lvl 6 wins the fight.

In the midgame/endgame never farm alone as support. It is not worth it.

Killsteal does exist. But its only in very rare situations. The only moment a killsteal is not a kill secure is:
when you are fighting vs 1 enemy, the enemy has blown every possible escape, there is no way the team mates can help him(Thresh lantern, shen/nocturne ult). The chances are 100% that he doesn't get away, Your adc doesn't have to flash or blow his ult to get the kill,

If any one these variables are not true you should always just get the kill.
Also the assist money is worth more then your adc getting the kill. If you don't get the assist just kill them to get the assist. you get 1,5x more money for them kill. WORTH.

If you are not good in estimating when your adc can finish it or not just kill him. Every kill is worth around 150 for adc+ 300 for you + free creeps +chance on free tower + easy recall time. If you estimate it wrong once every six times, don't ever hesitate. Get the kill.

Money items, sightstones, they offer little in the start but are great if you can buy them early. If you don't rush them you really have to make up for the extra gold your other item costs to break even. Not often your extra damage item is able to make up for the fact that you have to buy 3 wards every time. So try to invest into these items as soon as possible. If you get sightstone 1 recall sooner your save 3x 75gold= 225gold. Thats a lot, almost a kill worth of money or a full creepwave.

I never wrote a guide, so don't blame me for things looking bad. I just found no real in depth support guide so I decided to write down some important stuff. Use it for the reasons you like and if you don't like it just say so. If you know another good support guide please tell me.