Support Mentor

[quote=The Overmyynd]Well you are partially correct, asking the AD carry who they prefer to work with is a good idea, and you are also correct in that certain characters work very well with certain other characters. Playstyle is also a big deciding factor, however. Is your AD a sit back and win based on CS kind of guy? Or does he like to run kill lanes? And does your team in general want to win by rocking lane phase, or by doing equally well in lane as the other team, but crush them in the teamfight phase? Finding the answer to all of these questions is key to deciding which support to pick. So lets go through some of the champs and answer some of these questions. [[alistar]] This guy is a fearsome presence. He zones people out just by STANDING somewhere. He plays mind games with the best of em during lanephase, and offers alot to a teamfight after, to boot. Decent heal that works on everyone in a vicinity around him (good for throwing off opponent CS AND for helping keep your team alive later on). But What makes him the mindgame master are his two other abilities, his knockup and headbutt. One of the biggest fears for a laner is being out of position, away from your support, away from your turret, and into gank range. Alistar turns that nightmare into a reality. His headbutt throws you a HUGE distance, and if he gets behind an enemy, in between him and his turret, well... its game over. And everyone else in the world KNOWS that. SO they do everything within their power to keep themselves from getting into that position. Thus, alistar can walk somewhere, mind his own business, and zone the enemy team completely out, because they are too afraid of being put out of position so horribly to stay anywhere near him. Trying to jungle gank a lane with an [[alistar]] in it is... tricky, to say the least. [[alistar]]s AD would have to put himself WAY out of position AND be at about half health before its an option. Any other situation, and Alistar will just knock the jungler into his turret so his AD can eat him. [[Janna]] This support is very popular atm. She has a shield (which serves same purpose as heals, just requires a little more skill and great reflexes to STOP the damage from happening instead of fixing it AFTER it happens), a knock up, a slow, and her ult, the Big Push (which is the reason she is so popular right now). [[janna]] is a nice pick for lane phase, assuming the support has good reflexes and can tell when the enemy AD is about to try and harass and shield her partner before the attack lands, but she REALLY shines once lane phase is over and teamfights start. Her ult is such a massive disruption it by itself can break teamfights into pieces, let alone when combined with someone else, like [[gragas]], who can do it AGAIN. Her best partners are [[vayne]] and [[tristana]], again because they both have disruption spells that work very well with the team dynamic [[janna]] would be put in. Your opponents dont matter too much, as long as your team is following the Disruption Teamfight theory, they wont have a chance in the end anyway. As far as defending from junglers, [[janna]] gives a passive 3% boost to speed, which is meh at best, but its something. her skillshots hardly ever land outside of the big, brawling teamfights, so counting on those to defend your ad from ganks isnt the best strategy. Overall just spend cash on wards and keep them up by the tribush AND your river bush to get as much warning as possible. [[taric]] This support has been, and always will be, very popular. His heals heal his target AND himself in the same spell, which makes up for the fact that its not as powerful a heal as [[soraka]]. He is tanky, and gives his ally's a tanky buff as well, which is very powerful in lane phase. He never runs out of mana, thanks to his passive. His stun is non skillshot, which is great for picking out a target amongst a mass of creeps. The stun helps his ganks, stops enemy ganks, and just helps generate a Zone of Danger around himself, especially if he is partnered with a champ that has long distance blink/dash spells, i.e., [[ezreal]] [[corki]] [[tristana]]. They can all jump in and take advantage of an enemy putting themselves out of position after [[taric]] punishes them for it by stunning them. The same concept works, just not as well, for other dash-type ad carries, like [[graves]] and [[vayne]]. However [[graves]] works fantastically well with [[taric]] in a more passive style (the sit back and crank CS type) because he gets armor from his passive AND [[taric]] ability. Graves tank? i think so. Also, [[taric]] stun + [[caitlyn]] [[yordle snap trap]] = funny as hell and one long ass stun. As far as jungles, probably not the best pick against a [[nocturne]] or [[lee sin]] but other than that he is good against most. [[Soraka]] The all around, easy to play, easy to learn, OP Healmaster. Choosing [[soraka]] means your AD will never run out of health or mana. [[ezreal]] can spam his beam attacks without fear of not being able to escape a gank, [[graves]] can be as ballsy as he wants with his [[buckshot]], it just leaves ALOT of wiggle room for your AD to get a bit sloppy. Which is why i do not recommend her if you are running solo q. Your AD will get too brazen and feel like he has the hand of God on him, do stupid shit, then die, and blame you for it, because hey, you only have so many heals at one time. Not too sure what to counter pick for, all i know is, i HATE [[soraka]] [[ezreal]] lane combos. HATE them. Especially if the Ez is on his toes and knows wtf he is doing. So, soraka can either lose the game b/c she lets a tard feel like Jesus and get himself killed, or win the game because she allows Actual Jesus with a Shotgun to go wherever he pleases, get all the creeps, all the golems, all the wraiths, and shit all over everyone. SO, its not the champ you should be picking [[soraka]] to pair with best, its the player. Against junglers, she really falls to [[udyr]] who goes into the *IMA STUN YOU PASSIVELY AND U CANT GET AWAY HUEHUEHUE* stance BEFORE he gets out of the bush and into silence range, but other than that, her silence can work pretty well. These are some of the common picks, and i am familiar with them all. However there are a couple of supports that you will see and scratch your head over. These are very situational, yet if put in the RIGHT situation, will destroy bottom lane. [[maokai]] The tree to end all trees. The peace-seeker, the sapling-flinger, the woody mammoth. THIS guy is a baws, all the way around. (im not biased, i swear...). Maokai has a toolkit that looks mish-mash and jumbled at first, but once you get your head around it, you realize how amazing it actually is. And how lethal. [[sapling toss]] has HUGE range, and is the main reason why mao is a viable support. He basically supports by harassing the hell out of the enemy and making them afraid to come near your minions to get CS. He out ranges any and all abilities the enemy AD and the enemy support might have. And on top of the range of the ability, it HURTS. ALOT. Good [[maokai]] players will learn to time the minion waves and keep track of when they will come next, so when his sapling lands and starts chasing whomever it lands next to, they cant run through a creep wave and escape the second, much more powerful blast. Doing things this way also ensures the player never runs out of mana because he takes his time dealing all that damage. Crazy sustain from [[sap magic]]. His [[twisted advance]] and [[arcane smash]] are GREAT for taking advantage of enemy laners that put themselves out of position, and also for defending against ganks. and 20% reduced damage from [[vengeful maelstrom]] is invaluable in teamfights. He works best with characters, like taric, that have long range blink/hop abilities, such as [[ezreal]] [[corki]] and [[tristana]] altho i have had best luck with ez and trist. He is a very aggressive support. Does not do well against junglers with great gap closers like [[lee sin]] or [[nautilus]]. [[blitzcrank]] THIS guy... oh boy. He only has ONE goal in life, just one. To land his rocket grab from the bush so his perma-partner, [[vayne]], can eat your soul while he has you bounced and silenced. The combination of characters allows for a ridiculous CC time; blitz bounce can't be shortened by Tenacity, and vayne's [[condemn]] impales your ass to the wall (which blitz was kind enough to pull you to, thank you very much). Very durable thanks to his shield, and alot of people are idiots and actually attack him instead of his AD. Very stupid thing to do. Fun little fact, his [[rocket grab]] can't be seen until WAY too late if he launches it from a bush at you. Really only exists as support to run a kill lane (90% of the time with [[vayne]]), isnt useful at ALL with passive characters/players, but when he is used correctly, it takes ALOT of jungle support from your guy to let you survive the lane. Notice i said "survive", not "win". even with LOTS of jungle help, its still not likely you would win a lane against blitz-vayen if they know what they are doing. Just awful to try and lane against. Well i hope this answered your questions. If you have any more, let me know! Hope this helped XD[/quote]

[quote=The Overmyynd]Oh wow... lawl didnt realize what a wall of text that was XD Mah bad...[/quote]