Help the AD help you: how to excel at the support role

Have you ever thought, man support is such a boring role, why do I have to be stuck with this role or even why did I agree to this role, I cant carry with this! Well if you believe this to be true there could be a good possibility that you might not be using all the resources available while playing the support role. Many of the pros that play this game believe that bot lane is one of the most impactful lanes that can determine who the victor is.

Having a farmed AD carry and turning him into a huge factor for the opposising team to go against is a huge deal and what better role than the support to make sure this happens? Now that being said there is a number of things that you can do as a support player and it all starts at champion select. Communicating with your AD carry and choosing a support that synergizes well with the AD carries pick. There are many great combinations for bot lane that synergize well as ill show below with a brief reasoning.

Good combinations for bot lane

Janna and Ashe are great together for many reasons. This combination has some of the greatest kiting and peeling potential out of I would say almost all of the bot lanes. They provide the team with a substantial amount of crowd control (CC), initiation and counter initiation. The early lane combination of Janna shield with Ashe crit can be proven to effectively "chunk" the opposing AD and leaving you in a better situation then them.

       

Blitzcrank is a support that can be played successfully with many different AD champions but excels for those with the most burst. These combinations are fairly simple: hook, punch and kill. Blitzcrank has good late game peeling for the AD carry and is also a good support when behind or ahead. One good grip can turn a game around or secure the victory.

               

      

Like blitzcrank, nunu can be played with alot of different AD carries. Nunu really excels with the use of his blood boil on AD carries that have problems with early or mid game or ADs that have on hit effects such as varus, vayne and kog'maw. It also helps caitlyn reach her head shot passive quicker. His ice blast skill also helps with kiting and again really helps champions that have a disadvantage early game by slowing the opposing AD carries attack speed and lowering the amount of harass taken.

                

Leona, much like blitzcrank, is used mostly for kill lanes. She pairs up beautifully with ADs who have a ton of burst. Leona provides a tanky front line for the carry to get his damage off and an unmatched amount of CC. Later in the game leona is an excelent iniate and can also peel extremely well for the AD.

             

Sona combinations rely mostly on the poke game. Sona has very high burst with her early game Hymm of Valor (Q), this with the poke of caitlyn, ezreal or even graves can lead to very devistating trades for the opposing bot lane. Sona also provides the team later on with huge area of effect (AOE) crowd control which combos well with ezreal and graves aoe burst. Last but not least sona also brings sustain with her Aria of Preserverance (W) for when you take bad trades or when the team is trying to siege a turret.

            

      

Soraka can truly be played with almost every AD carry, however she shines with AD carries that have low cooldown and highly spammable moves such as corki, graves, ezreal, and urgot. The reason behind that is because of soraka's infuse ability (E). It costs no mana for her so it gives the AD carry an infinite amount of poke. Soraka has a good amount of sustain with her heal and at level six she gains a global heal which can help the team turn fights around or even just turn fights around in your own lane.

            

Lulu is a great support for poke compositions, she really works well with AD carries that can poke from far away with either their abilities or auto attacks. She makes it extremely hard for opposing ADs to poke because of her reliable crown control with her Whimsy ability (W) and after reaching level six deters alot of all in combinations. Her ultimate Wild Growth can really be a huge factor in who wins or loses a fight, it turn turn fights around or can help iniate fights and ensure the victory.

               

              

Taric is an extremely good support and is one of the best all rounders out there. Taric can be used to ensure an AD carry with skill shots will land them for poke, he can go all in with his good amount of burst if the lane feels confident in a kill and he has decent sustain for both him and his AD carry. Late game he is good at catching players out of position as well as providing a front line for the carries.

Now these are mostly the conventional combinations that see the most play, I believe that alistar while being a good support can be more useful in the jungle personally. After getting the combination wanted from you and your AD carry it comes down to the actual game play.

Presence

Let your presence be known! Alot of supports tend to sit back behind the AD carry and use their abilities only when needed. You can do so much more then that! Showing presence in lane does many things, it makes it to where the opposing AD doesnt feel comfortable harassing your AD carry because he sees that you are there to back him up. This also ties into bush control, there are times where maybe their bot lane got first blood from a level one fight or they have a stronger combination and are confident in their zoning abilities.

The support should show presence in the bush and if you are pushed out of the bush make sure you drop a ward in it. This allows your AD carry to farm more safely and see when their support walks up to harass or make a play. Dropping a ward in their bush early on also helps you control your bush against aggressive bot lanes, if you see him walking towards your bush just give him a few pokes with an ability and a auto attack. This ward is very good against lane ganks from the jungler as well.

Harass/Counter Harass

There are many combinations out there that rely on the support to iniate with a stun, hook or slow effect. This being said if you are that support that can make the big plays make sure you attempt those plays as often as possible with the proper vision and knowledge of where the jungler is. This can snowball your lane and help your teams morale a bunch. If you are not the support for big plays make sure that you ward the bushes properly and try to avoid getting iniated on as much as you can.

When they miss their iniate make sure you counter harass them as much as possible since they can no longer iniate on you properly. This is very effective because if they miss too many iniates they will be low on health from taking so much counter harass allowing you to take control of the lane and possibly zone them.

Harassing when your AD carry harasses is also a huge plus if you both harass at the same time and are in sync with each other it makes a world of difference. As a support you must watch your positioning when you try to harass at the opposing bot lane because in one second they can both switch to you and blow you up depending on their composition. Try to poke the AD carry more then the support, focusing the support is not what you want most of the time but alot of it can be situational and as I say any harass is better then no harass.

Itemization/Warding

The way to itemize properly is to communicate with your team and to look at the enemy teams champions and items as well. For example, If you have a AD heavy team it would probably not be a bad idea to pick up something like zekes herald. Communicate with your jungle and top lane to see who wants to purchase items like Aegis of legion and Shurelyas Reverie. As a support you can start with many different items depending on what the opposing team is and what your team needs.

If going against a kill lane bottem its not such a bad idea to start boots and two wards and that also works playing as the kill lane support. If its more of a passive bot lane on both sides you can go with the standard charm and four wards, or even six wards if you want to help your jungler counter jungle or help him against counter junglers. Gold per items are usually the way to go with supports.

However, there can be times when it is more beneficial to rush items like tier two boots or getting shurelyas before your second Gold per item. Buying wards is essential to victory as the support you will be buying the most wards in the game, your teammates should most definitely help you, however when you are not playing with a premade fives team there are going to be times where no one else will buy wards. Vision is one of the most important things in this game. Good vision over the map allows you to obtain and control buffs such as blue buff, red buff, baron, and dragon. It will also tell you when lanes are getting ganked or when the opposing team is grouping for objectives.

If it comes down to finishing an item or buying wards you should communicate with your team and ask them to buy some wards. If they simply do not help or say no it is more beneficial for you to purchase more wards and finish the item later most of the time. Later on in the game it is also extremely beneficial to your entire team if you were to buy an oracle, helping clear the vision that your opposing team has can work wonders for baiting and or sneaking objectives. Oracles can often be bought by the jungler as well, so that too ties into communicating with the team.

Conclusion

Having a support with great game play skills and knowledge on how to play the role can truly make or break the game. Next time you think about how boring the support role is just remember, it is what you make it. I hope after reading this guide it has opened, or even reopened your eyes to how important and impactful this role can be to the game. It is your job to carry your AD so that when all is said and done he can carry you!