For those that prefers to read, you can find the transcript of the video below.
What type of character to play in the support role?
As a support you are not going to have a lot of gold or a lot of experience, so we are looking at character that can still have a good impact on the game while having a lack of farm. This translate into two aspects that we are looking for support characters: great base stats and good utility in their abilities. To give some example, Dekker is a great character for support since each of her ability have a utility aspect that will always be nice even if farm deprived. Photon Disruptor has a slow, Stasis Bomb a stun, Containment Fence is a cage, and Ion Strike has a stun/slow. Narbash is also a great support for the same reason, March is a team speed boost, Song of my people an AOE heal, Thunk a stun, and Crash Bang Boom a slow and knock up. All abilities have utility even without farm. This is also a reason why a character like Sparrow is not good for the support role, only utility she brings is a mediocre slow on Hail of Arrows and without farm all her other abilities are doing nothing. Good support brings great utility for the team even when farm deprived, simple as that.
What to do in the Early Game?
Early game is roughly the first 13 minutes of the game before you complete your crest. What should you do during this period as a support? Well the what is pretty simple, you should help your carry farm more than the enemy carry, that’s it. That being said, how you do that is infinitely more complex and requires a lot of knowledge but let me provide some direction here to help you on your journey of becoming a top support player.
Let’s first state the obvious, don’t take last hit if your carry is around. Also if a kill is guaranteed leave it to your carry, since he will scale much better than you with the gold obtained from it.
Second, keep the wave in a state that will make it easy for your carry to farm. This is closely related to the wave management principle, and it is a very deep topic but here a few rules to get you started. You should try to keep the wave as close to your tower as possible to make it safe for your carry to farm which usually means as a support you should only hard push if you are looking to benefit from an aggression timing, so an early level up transition or because your carry want to crash the wave to go back to base. If it is not one of those scenarios don’t hard push the wave. Especially if wave is neutral, which means both minion waves are not pushing in any direction, don’t push the wave, just last hit until your carry comes back. Because if you push, you essentially stop your carry from getting any CS from the wave while the enemy carry get all the CS, so you put your team behind. Another thing you can do is catch the wave, which consist at getting the aggro of the minions on you before they go under your tower so you can control where the lane is going to fight, it is also very good to do to set up a freeze or to save some farm for your carry when he is walking back from base. There is a lot more to it that will be covered in a future guide specifically dedicated to wave management.
Third, keep the vision up, it is your job to warn the carry of enemy rotation in the lane. Sometimes you don’t even need ward, you don’t have last hit to do so use this free time to look at the mini-map and for instance if mid is missing go check the river, you are yourself a very efficient ward. Moreover, try to be smart about your ward placement, if you want to be aggressive, place your ward aggressively and same thing if you are under pressure, keep cover on the closest access to you. Also be careful of your timing to go ward, even if it is for 3 seconds if you leave your carry at the wrong timing the enemy team can kill him. The best timing is usually when you have a wave advantage or waves are coming back since your carry have no last hit to do so no reason to step up.
And once you do all of that correctly you can start being a nuisance to the enemy carry. I know, I know, we want to fight, and we don’t want to do the boring stuff that is wave management and warding but if you want to become better and win more consistently there is an order to thing. How to be a nuisance? Depends on your character, but if you have an enchanter type of support like Dekker, try to poke the enemy carry every time he steps up to get a last hit. If you play a tank support like Riktor, try to get into his head by threatening to engage him at any time. The goal here is to make it harder for him to last hit. Keep in mind that a good enemy support will do the same thing to your own carry, so sometimes it is better to stop the enemy support from being a nuisance than being a nuisance yourself.
Last, there could be some downtime on your carry “babysitting” in the early game, for instance he needs to recall while you don’t need to yourself and have nothing to do in lane, or your carry is fine farming close to the tower because you setup a nice wave freeze. In those situations, you can look for a rotation usually towards mid to help with river buff control or a gank. But remember, don’t do it if your carry needs you, it’s not worth it.
What to do in the Mid Game?
Your carry got good farm thanks to you, you have your crest and your ultimate, we are ready to enter the mid game. What should you do, well still help your carry get farm but not only. You need to start roaming a bit to impact the map and try to get vision control thanks to your better wards. The reason is you should be able to setup kill potential through your utility and the information you are gathering for your team.
It is also important that your leach experience in any lane you go to not fall too far behind so if you go mid, try to stay until the wave is cleared before you go back to duo, this type of things. You will fall behind, but it is important to not fall too far behind. Ideally as a support you should never have to stay in a lane alone, you should always be on the lookout for getting information for the team or be next to a teammate to setup plays. Of course, that is not always the case, if your teammate fully ignores waves under tower you can go catch them but if your team plays correctly that should not happen.
Last thing that is important for the midgame is to understand what you should do in teamfight. There is no general answer since this will depends on your pick, ally and enemy composition and how the game as been going on but here some starting point. There are two important things to understand, where should I position myself and what is my role. And that depends on your pick which we will divide in two categories, enchanter, and tank support.
If you are playing an enchanter, you usually stand in the backline providing support from that position and your main job is to peel your teammate, which is a fancy way of saying protect your teammate. Be mindful of your crowd control abilities because they can turn the tide of a teamfight. If you are a tank support, you can look for initiation to start the teamfight but as soon as the initiation is finished you should look out to go back to your carries to peel them, as a support you are not strong enough to simply kill the enemy backline by yourself, so it is better to protect your team after the initiation. Teamfights will come with experience but if you really want to get better at them you need to watch their replays and ask yourself “What should I do?” at every point in the teamfight while reviewing it. Remember the 50/50 rule of the Perfect Mindset guide.
What to do in the Late Game?
When it comes to the late game, the role of the support is very similar to what you were doing during the mid game. Visions becomes even more crucial and going back to base just to refresh your wards is completely ok. Really, visions win games in the late game. It is especially important around Fangtooth and Prime objective, both to know if the enemy team is going to do them or to make it easier for your team to do them while seeing if the enemy team is coming to contest or not.
Keep in mind that you are fragile, so it is important to keep leeching experience everywhere you go to go in order to get those precious base stats up by getting your levels. And so you need to be extra careful of not getting picked. Be mindful with your warding, walking alone in a part of the map with no teammate is a risky endeavour, so always be on the lookout when you go for those wards.
Your presence in teamfight is crucial and protecting the right target is your main goal. You have to try to identify in each game who is the person that can carry your team and who are the main threat in the enemy team. And then lookout for any opportunities to protect that carry or setup a kill on that threat.
Conclusion
Support is a bit of an odd role where farm is secondary, and you always play with a farm deficit making any single encounter with an opponent complicated. But it is also a role that have the most impact when it comes to map vision and can dictate teamfights which is very rewarding. To summarize, remember to help your carry get farm, roam efficiently, get vision control, and peel your teammate in teamfight and you will be a perfect support in no time.
Thank you for spending the time on this content and I hope it has provided you clear direction on how to bring your gameplay to the next level. Keep in mind that everyone around you also progress, and so if you want to rank up you need to progress faster than the pack. Following what we have seen in this guide will definitely allow you to do that, because very few play games with an understanding of what they are doing. So go out there and feel free to share your success story in the comments. For me, I will see you in the future with more educational content to help you towards becoming the best at Predecessor.
Mugi out!