The bottom line to supporting: Where and what?

Welcome to the first instalment of “The bottom line to supporting”. Before offering my advice on how to play specific supports effectively, I wanted to give a good introduction into the where’s, what’s, how’s, when’s and most importantly why’s of supporting. By explaining my reasons you are free to use this series as a stepping stone to learn how to customise your own builds, comps and play styles to suit your game.

Firstly I’d like to say, it’s not easy being a support. Even if you’re amazing at your role you will find you are underappreciated and overlooked by the rest of your team. Keep your chin up and remind yourself you’re the cornerstone of the team.

Where is the support?

Sticking to the carry like glue, not split pushing, not trying to solo the enemy; you’re the carry’s lifeline.

In the current Metagame, a support can be found in bot lane paired with the teams ad (attack damage) carry during laning phase to allow them to effectively do their job; farm creeps, get kills and stay alive. It is not uncommon for a tanky, CC (crowd control) heavy support like Alistar or Blitzcrank to buy +5 boots and roam if they find their AD carry is confident, strong and skilled enough to solo the enemy teams duo lane

This means your ad can continue to last hit, get kills and not die without you there. If any of these things are not possible you need to stay in bot lane and keep that carry safe so they can continue to farm and build their damage or they’re going lose out on their late game potential.

Don’t feel pressured to roam as it’s hard to get into a game now where your team doesn’t have a jungler. Most supports will stay in bot lane and let the jungler do the ganking. However at mid-high ELO, if you and your team feel confident enough, it doesn’t hurt to give your other lanes some time and attention to increase your chances of winning the game.

What is a support?

If you’re good; the ad carry’s underappreciated best friend and occasional babysitter.

A support champion will generally have an ability set that is beneficial for keeping your ad carry alive in lane and late game. Like most champions some supports are stronger in early game, a few are good all-rounders, while others have a more beneficial presence in late game.

Although you can argue that any champion could be played as support; champions that have CC, can provide sustain or buff the carry (even non-conventional champions that possess these qualities if played and built correctly) are preferred for supporting for the following reasons.

Your AD carry will be:

Last hitting minions, getting kills, building/dealing damage, not looking at the minimap, not buying wards.

The support will be:

Getting no last hits, getting assists, staring intently at the minimap for incoming ganks, buying wards (and using them!).

This means your gold income is entirely dependent on gold per 5 items and gold per 10 runes as well as assists. You also have to make sure your buying enough wards for the amount of time you expect to be in lane, so it’s important to budget.

If you decide to support with a champion that is reliant solely on damage for its usefulness, you may not be able to afford the damage items needed to keep up your effectiveness in lane. If you find that you can build damage and have plenty of gold I can tell you now you’ll be stealing it from the AD carry who will be struggling to build their infinity edge at 30mins into the game.

If you’re new or playing at a lower ELO you may find that playing a damage champion as support is effective, however if you are laning against defensively skilled champions you may find without the kills one of both of you may start to feel short on cash.

Summary

Start off small. There’s a lot to remember being a support as you have a huge amount of responsibility keeping you and your carry alive in lane and then your whole team in late game. It will take time to get comfortable with the role so focus on one responsibility of support whether it’s warding (always have your lane warded), map awareness (look at your minimap once every 20 seconds at least then note where your team and the enemy team are) or trying not to take kills from the carry. Once you feel confident in one area try adding another responsibility.

Remember: Buy a ward, stop a gank, save a life.