Tips and Tricks to Be a Good Support

Tips and Tricks for Being a Better Support

In this guide we will be discussing Tips and Tricks for support players. This guide will hopefully benefit you and your team when playing and improve your individual play by giving you an edge with a few things you may or may not know.

Learning Where to Place Your Wards

For most supports warding is a must do and one of the most crucial parts of being a good support player. Learning to ward is simple at first but to achieve high level play, one must learn where and when you should ward. Vision is one of the most powerful things in the world of Dota 2 knowing where your opponents are can be reason enough to win games. The most common spots and effective to ward are here in this map, though knowing where to place wards will often depends on the game. Learning to adjust comes with experience.

Timing Your Wards

Ward timing is something that is often overlooked by many players but helps to maximise ward usage and is something everyone should consider adding to their gameplay as a support. If a player buys wards in the pre-game and places those at 0 seconds in game time then the next wards they’ll have to place are at 6 minutes.

If a player continues this schedule they will be placing wards at 0, 6, 12, 18, 24, 30, 36, 42, 48, 54 and 60 minutes into the game. Keeping this in mind, you can plan ahead and save 200 gold for the next set of wards. Not only does this allows you to plan your economy but also gives you an indication of when your opponents could be warding.

It’s a good idea to be checking the rune at the 0 minute mark because this allows you to take this rune or give it to an ally and place your first ward. Another benefit of having a ward so early into the game is it may give you vision of when an enemy support wards that rune.

It’s not necessary to wait on the 6 minute mark to place another ward. It’s a good idea to place another ward down if the current wards have very little time remaining. This is especially relevant for mid heroes that will begin to gank at around level 6, a hero that can abuse your lack of vision or a Night Stalker.

Learning To Counter Ward

Learning how to spot opponents' wards is important. If you are leaving your lane to gank mid and you see the mid back up and be more careful then this could be a reason to counter ward that area. You should take note of the timings listed above. If you’re ganking just before 6 minutes counter warding may be a waste of your time. In this circumstance buying a smoke of deceit could be a good idea. Not only will this give you an element of surprise it sends a message to your enemies telling them their wards may not be keeping them safe at all.

Buying a gem is also something that can be considered for counter warding, the only issue with this is if you die you lose 700 gold and you give your opponents the chance to counter your wards. Gem should be bought for counter warding with the idea of pushing your advantage by controlling the map. By not allowing your enemies to see you on the map you can strike fear in their hearts and force them to turtle in their base.

Reliable Gold

Reliable gold is gold gained from Hero Kills, Assists and Towers going down. The reason it’s called reliable is because when you die you cannot lose the gold. Unreliable gold comes from creep kills and passive income. Supports depended so much on reliable gold to purchase items. Though it's usually enough to purchase Teleport scrolls, wards and smoke every few minutes. Do not forget to spam your skill or hit enemies so you at least you get reliable assist. Some heroes are better at this than others but always try to get assists whenever you can, try not to last hit kill though.

If you’re having issues getting assists buying an Urn of Shadows for a support is a great idea; it’s one of the most over looked items in the game. Players should consider buying this item over braces as it offers manna regeneration, Strength for Hit Points and charges that heal and damage. This is a great item for getting reliable gold too because of the long range usage can supply reliable gold when other abilities may fall short.

Lane Supporting

In most cases the aim of supporting in lane is to free up as much movement as possible for your laning partner to allow them to farm. This is done in many ways; the best way of dealing with opponents is to harass them as soon as they come in range of the creeps experience and attack range, this forces them to feel apprehensive about approaching the creeps. This is much harder to do with melee heroes than ranged, as range can constantly be in harassment range and force the opponent back away from the creeps. When harassing an opponent in lane it’s important to keep in mind that creeps will agro on a player if they attack an opponent within 400 range of the nearest creep.

Another way to harass your opponent away from the creeps and give your laning partner total free farm is to abuse the treeline in the lanes. This only works when playing against a solo lane here. By hiding behind the trees in lane until your opponent has arrived in lane you can cut around behind them and harass them away from the creep wave, as most support can stand against solo lane heroes at level 1 this allows your carry to farm and control the lane as they wish.

Buy a TP

Aside from wards TPs should be your best friend, they give you access half of the map in the early game and can be used to save heroes and get kills. It’s a viable to do so many things that can help the team out its almost bad manners not to carry a TP.

If you’re ever faces off with an opponent with a stun, try to make them use the stun then as soon as possible teleport yourself out of there. Try not to use your TP before they stun you otherwise you’ll end up wasting 135 gold.

Buying Before You Die

The idea of buying items right before you die is simple; by buying the items in a situation of impending doom you can avoid losing cash. Putting items in the quick buy area is a great idea; it’s convenient and can save you from losing gold in a sticky situation. Having wards or the components to a Mekanism that you can access quickly before dying can pay off hugely.

Watching Your Replays

Although it’s a pain to watch yourself die and make mistakes in a game you just lost you can learn a lot from doing this. When you were out of position, when you missed Pudge coming to gank even though he was in ward vision, not playing carefully when you know someone is missing. Learning to analyse plays through watching you and others is key to improving in any role of Dota 2. This will improve you as a player by allowing you to understand why things went wrong and how to adjust the way you’re playing to the game at hand.

The thing to remember about playing a support role is no matter if you’re making mistakes, playing support is always beneficial to your team. And playing badly is one of the best ways to improve your game. Now you’ve read these tips and tricks get out there and start playing Dota and win the game for your team.

-Mitchell ‘Sexy Owl’ Abrahams