11 Starter Tips For Carrying as Support

 

Hi, I'm Parthuurnax and although I'm only Silver 3 and support isn't my main role, I have a 62% Winrate in the support positon in Season 3, so i'd like to share some of the basic things that you can learn to shift the lane in your favour.

1.- Armour runes and additional health masteries
I see many silver supports come into the game with little or no bonus armour. This is unbelievably important as it allows you to sustain poke and survive longer in trades/ganks. You wan't to have AT LEAST 30 armour in lane at level 1. 0/9/21 or 0/21/9 masteries assist this, depending on if you're a more passive support or more aggressive.

2.- Lane Sustain
You're going to be taking a lot of harass from the enemy marksman, so you need something to allow you to stay in lane despite this. On support, I always have at least 2 health pots when I return to lane, unless of course I cannot afford them after buying wards.

3.- Warding
Being captain obvious here, but your wards become hugely influential on the outcome of the game. What I want you to note here though, is what I mean when I say that wards are ENTIRELY SITUATIONAL. In lane, you want to have wards on either: Dragon + Tribush + lane bush OR River and lanebush. This depends entirely on the state of your mid/bot lanes. If you're in a strong position, then you may want to save that dragon ward for somewhere else. If you're behind, then the other team has the added incentive of taking an easy uncontested dragon, so you need to ward that objective. When warding, PAY ATTENTION TO ENEMY MAP CONTROL. How many turrets do they have? THE MOMENT THEY TAKE AN INNER TURRET, get a ward in your side of the jungle. This prevents the enemy utilising their newly accessable jungle to further snowball lanes if you try and freeze them.

4.- Don't ever take Nidalee
Nidalee support is the worst champion in the game for support. Unless she takes kills, which begins to put your ADC behind, then her damage drops off horribly after 25 minutes. She is forever squishy and supplies ZERO CC. If you truly hate supporting but want the damage, take LUX. Lux has a shield to win trades with, a snare and a slow, as long as a long range execute.

5.- Pick your support situationally
This is why I went 12-0 on janna before losing a few 4v5 games. I wasn't just good on her, but I picked her when I knew I could utilise her kit to its full potential. Janna has the best disengage potential in the game. Her tornado completely shuts down many ganks and her ult completely negates fiddle ults and kennen ults. This tactic should be applied to all supports. EG: Don't pick a blitzcrank into a tristana because you won't be able to use his hooks or his zoning to it's full potential, in which another support could have done the job better in this situation.

6.- Reactions
A good support can react to enemy engages quickly and can divert the attention of the enemy from their target.

7.- Peeling for your carries
This is potentially the most crucial part of the support role. You're there to die for your carries, but more importantly YOU ARE THERE TO LET THEM GET MAXIMUM DAMAGE OUTPUT FOR AS LONG AS POSSIBLE. The enemy should try and dive or pick off your carries. Pay attention to their movements and get ready to knockup, slow or stun anyone that tries to break your line of defence. The longer you do this in a fight, the more damage the carry is dishing out.

8.- Safety
Far too many mistakes are made on support. You are squishy and are very easy to kill in most situations. When warding, if there is the slightest doubt that you won't be safe, then wait until the doubt is gone. Giving free avoidable kills to the enemy snowballs lanes so so hard.

9.- Prevent XP loss
Another common error is that a support roams way too much. You want to stay in XP range in botlane as long as possible. This means timing your warding when the minion wave is moving and not in combat etc. In far too many games I see supports 3+ levels behind everyone else on your team. At the very most you should only truly be 2 levels behind.

10.- Give CONSTRUCTIVE criticism to your ADC
This is fundamental. It is oh so easy to make your adc go on tilt. If you do all of the above well, then you only need an adc who can last hit to win your lane (sometimes you get adc's who can't farm for shit. In this case, tough luck, it's very hard to win with unskilled adc's who can't do their basic most fundamental job). When your adc is underperforming, let them know what they did wrong and how to avoid it next time. Only say it once and don't throw any insults or anything. You need the synergy in that lane and bitching at eachother completely ruins that.

11.- Zoning
This is the art of making it LOOK like you are about to engage. A good support will do this very effectively and put a lot of false pressure on the enemy duo, therefore pushing them away from farming. This gets easier the further ahead you are, but can make the difference in a won or lost lane.

Hope these tips help. They're not much but I believe that they are fundamental skills needed to win lanes

Guide by:  Parthuurnax