Supports: Bot Lane's Real Heros (Part 2)

If you haven't read Part 1 of my Support guide, you're missing out on some wonderful words, perfunctory punctuation, and a bunch of information regarding the Support's role in the laning phase.

But the laning phase has ended, Summoners. And it's time to find out just what the heck your underfarmed Support is supposed to do against bloodthirsty enemies hellbent for your Alistar's leather.

The End of an Era

So when exactly does the laning phase end? That's easily enough to answer: it ends when one team says it does. That's really the long and short of it; there's no set timer, no one defining moment. As soon as one team stops laning and starts grouping up for objectives, the laning phase has ended.

Most often, however, a dead tower is the catalyst for the mid-game to begin. Some champions want to roam for kills after killing their tower; others lose their tower and with it the safety to farm, leaving them more time to group up. Other games, you may find the laning phase lasting forever, with both teams at a virtual stand-still waiting for someone to make a mistake. But one way or another, you'll find yourself done with laning.

Part 2: The Rest of the Game

Here's your new to-do list, superstar Supporter:

- Provide map control
- Protect your teammates
- Coordinate your team
- Win teamfights

It's much smaller than the last one. Even though your area of responsibility covers the whole map now, much of the complexity of laning drops off. Now that the other champions have had a chance to farm, your nigh-itemless self has less of a direct impact on the game; Sona's not poking hard anymore, Soraka's only healing one of five champions, and you're rather fragile. So your role changes to that of a leader, providing map control and CC for your team.

Provide Map Control

As the laning phase ends, so too should your focus on the bottom lane. Baron and Dragon need to be warded, and the better your vision of the enemy team's movements, the easier it is for everyone to avoid unnecessary deaths. Warding the enemy buffs can allow your team to steal them--and if you've ever played Anivia or Orianna, you know just how painful a stolen Blue buff can be.

The flip side of map control is denying sight to your enemies. Pink wards work fine at Baron and Dragon: not only are they high-traffic areas for wards (meaning you're almost guaranteed to kill a ward with it), but you guarantee that the enemy has no vision of important locations. But an Oracle's Elixir is necessary when it comes to clearing the map of enemy wards.

Going on sweeps of your jungle keeps your team safe from invasions while draining the enemy team's gold as they desperately try to retain some map control. And you should never group your team in a brush hoping to jump the enemy team without an Oracle--if you're unwittingly standing on a ward, they'll have plenty of time to prepare a perfect initiation.

And before this section is done, I'd like to talk about Clarivoyance. With the buff to Heal, a lot of supports have been skipping it lately. It's understandable: solo queue is influenced heavily by success in the laning phase, and having a heal in bot lane (either on the support, or on the carry with the support taking an offensive summoner spell) can turn fights in your favour much more directly than Clairvoyance. But the difference between a team with Clairvoyance and a team without it can be huge.

CV allows you to safely ward by making sure you're not running into a trap. It lets you keep track of the enemy jungler's path so you can predict his ganks. It lets you know immediately if the enemy is at Baron or Dragon (or waiting in a brush near them for you to wander in). Always remember what you're giving up by not taking Clarivoyance, and weigh it against the strength of the Heal / Exhaust you're considering instead.

Protect Your Teammates

The one characteristic that different supports share is this: they all have abilities that are strong even without items. Janna has 3 forms of CC, none of which gets significantly more effective with farm. Alistar has a knockback and a knockup. Leona and Nautilus are walking crowd control. And Sona has a game-changing ult. (Sorry Soraka, you're there for sustain) In the laning phase, you used these abilities to protect your carry or set up kills. That hasn't changed.

When you're not warding, clearing wards, or afk eating pizza, you should be near somebody that your team does not want to die. Sometimes that means going through the jungle with your AD carry so she can farm a big wave of creeps. Sometimes that means standing around mid to deter the enemy from diving someone. And sometimes that means sacrificing yourself to save someone (standard "don't die for nothing" caveats apply)

Coordinate Your Team (Warning: contains opinion. Do not blindly accept anything written here [or anywhere, really] but instead treat it as one person's opinion. I'd rather you disagree with me for a well-thought-out reason than agree with me out of intellectual laziness)

There are two people on a team that are ideal for coordinating it: the Jungler, and the Support. The jungler has been all over the map all game; he's got a good idea of how strong each lane is, and he's got a good view of the big picture because he can watch the map while autoattacking creeps. The support, while stuck in bot lane for most of the game so far, has been keeping an eye on other lanes, tracking map objectives, and possibly tracking the enemy jungler all game. Everyone else is too tunnel-visioned to be a reliable decision-maker. Now, that's a much bolder statement than I usually make, so I want to discuss it further.

When deciding when to fight, you have to weigh the pros and cons in your mind. You have to judge which team is stronger (via farm, kills, team composition, player skill, and dragon/towers, as well as the outcomes of past fights). So why can't your top, mid, or AD carry properly decide? Because they're biased by the experiences they've had in lane.

An AD Carry that's had a difficult time in lane will generally shy from a fight, even if his team is stronger. He erroneously conflates his lack of success with his team's overall disadvantage--"I'm underfarmed, so there's no way we can win a fight. We should just let them take dragon while I farm these creeps." Similarly, a solo top who has dominated his lane wants to fight to press his advantage, as he feels unbeatable after his successes. Your team's damage dealers will choose to fight or not based on their personal results, because getting kills makes you overconfident, and dying discourages you. Even junglers can mistake their own personal results for a team-wide advantage or disadvantage.

Supports, however, have to rely on others. They understand exactly how weak they are, and have nothing to prove in a fight. When they get kills, they know it's not because they're stronger than their opponent (barring epic 1v1 support duels), and when they die they know it was an error of judgement, not weakness on their part. Having said all that, not every player is a good leader. Some people make really dumb decisions, and all of them will play support at some point. And if there's one person on your team who is clearly better than the rest, by all means follow her lead. But when you're deciding whether to fight, you should value the opinion of the 0-cs, 0-kill Support higher than that of the 5/0 carry that feels completely invincible.

Win Teamfights

This is related to the last section, as deciding when to fight is an integral part of winning them. Should you have Ashe arrow someone right now, or wait 10 seconds for your creep wave to catch up? Should you Flash + Pulverize on Alistar while they're slightly out of position, or get your AP carry Blue buff first to increase your odds of success? But it's more than just that.

Winning fights means calling a focus target, or kill order. Typing something as simple as "Trist->Nocturne, I'll silence Kat" gives your team something to focus on. Instead of four people attacking whoever they think is the biggest threat, you have four people focusing their fire on a single target to give you a fast numbers advantage.

Winning fights means chaining crowd control. Your spells are used mostly for their effects, not their damage. And they're powerful effects, unless you're using them at the wrong time. A Taric stun on an already-stunned target is useless. A Janna knockup on a taunted carry is useless. Instead, use your crowd control as other CC wears off to extend the amount of time the enemy is disabled. Well executed, you can secure a kill on a target who has had no chance to fight back or flash away.

Winning fights means saving your teammates. Know why every Alistar and Janna take Flash? Because sometimes you need to be somewhere else, right now. A Janna Flash + Ult can completely reset a fight, or knock 4 people away while leaving 1 enemy in the middle of your team. Shurelia's Reverie and Locket of the Iron Solari give you ways to keep teammates alive via repositioning and shielding. A Soraka silence can stop a Leblanc in her tracks before she can nuke your carry.

And please, try to stop your team from chasing. Spending 60 seconds trying to kill a 100-HP Riven gives their whole team time to respawn. Kill Baron, or an Inhibitor, or something.

Never Give Up, Never Surrender

Finally, a piece of advice from me to you. You lose 100% of the games you surrender. If things look grim, be a positive influence on your team and hope the enemy makes a mistake. It's the only thing that can actually work; raging gives you immediate satisfaction while almost guaranteeing your team will fall apart in a sadomasochistic mess of egos.

My personal motto: Winners can surrender; losers need the practice.

Well, you made it through two articles on Supports. Good for you! And hey, I made it through two articles on Supports, too. That's some nice teamwork we've got, eh? Now go take the newfound knowledge you've gained, and use it to win some games. Er, unless we get matched up on opposite teams; then you can go ahead and disregard everything written here and meet me in my fountain for pie and sodas.