Some Do And Do Not In Dota 2 (Support)

[Tallballz]

Do rotate early. Not only is the trilane your responsibility, but so is mid. General rule of thumb is try to make at least 2 rotations out of your lane before the 10 minute mark. You don’t have to necessarily get 2 kills on mid, but make your presence felt. This applies less to heroes like Lich/warlock who inherently get more shit done in lane, and more to heroes like venge/cm who should be running around killing heroes.

Do take it upon yourself to make as much impact as you can in the first 15 minutes. This is your window to shine, make the most of it. To be honest, it matters very little what you do after that. Obviously this doesn't mean you’re free to feed, but for the most part it’s the sad truth. Your impact falls off significantly after that, so try to give your team the best advantage you can in that first quarter hour. Ask yourself what you've done at 15 min, and if all you can say is “I bought wards courier and pulled creepsâ€, you don’t deserve to win.

Do upgrade the courier ~3 min. This is far more important than even wards. Mids should be bottle crowing at least to some degree, let them. If you’re really close to boots, delaying it 30 seconds couldn’t hurt, maybe even a minute, but it should be flying before 5. Upgrade at 3 vs furions please.

Do buy boots asap. After the courier upgrade, boots is your priority, even before the 5 min obs refresh. This is your primary way of getting kills/not feeding.

Do be efficient. You can generally stack a camp and check the rune while going for a smoke all at the same time… why not? Always play with the clock in mind. A lot of things happen at every :00, try to do at least one of them every minute (stack camp, farm camp so it respawns, runes, blocking enemy camps, etc). Likewise, if you’re at the ancients at :25 to stack, you’re very inefficient. Find something else to do for the next 30 seconds.

Do stick to a core mid-late game. Try not to wander off. Farm near the cores if you need farm. Ward near the cores if you need to ward. They need you, and you need them.

Do farm. You shouldn’t have 10 cs at the end of a 60 minute game with ANY hero. Having force staffs are nice, blink initiation on most supports are incredibly strong. That mek/hood. Lategame sheeps. So do farm. Pace yourself if you have a tendency to forget, something like 1-1.5 cs/min is reasonable. THIS DOESN’T MEAN IGNORE TEAM FIGHTS TO FARM WAVES. Find farm in the “down times†of dots.

Do smoke. People honestly forget this is an item in <4k. It’s a good one too, that’s why there’s such a long cool down on it. Starting items for dual support comps should be obs/courier for one, smoke/sentries for the other. Use the damn smoke, carry around 1 with you. The best smoke windows are really short, so having one on hand is infinitely better than bringing one from base. e.g. taking a tower, backing off, popping the smoke then picking off the greedy that comes farm the lane first. Moreover, 5 man smokes will “usually†fail. If you’re trying to get a pick off, smoking 3 heroes and showing 2 is far more likely to work. Having 5 heroes disappear suddenly sends off red flags even in trench tier.

 

 

 

Don’t try to be the hero. You’re not aui, you’re not kuro, you’re not fy — stop going for big plays with rubick/visage. Hero damage is the name of the game, constantly using your fade bolt/lift instead of being completely absent from a fight trying to steal ravage (and ultimately not even getting it) leads to much better rubick plays. Constant soul assumptions > 4 man chained bird stuns + resummon bird stuns. Focus on dishing out consistent damage/disables instead of highlight reel plays. Staying alive is part of that.

Don’t solo farm a lane past mid-game. Doesn’t matter how pushed in it is, and how juicy that wave looks. Ping it and have one of your cores take it. Exception if they’re dead obviously.

Don’t leech xp for no reason. This is probably one of the most annoying things when playing a carry with low level supports. Your ultimate goal as a “babysitter†is to make the carry feel safe, while taking as little of his xp/gold as possible to make it happen. Moreover, as aforementioned, the mid is also your responsibility. If you’re constantly showing yourself in the safe lane, then that leaves the mid very vulnerable to banks. By disappearing and reappearing constantly you keep the enemy guessing where you are. Combine this with early rotations to make both mid and safe lane feel “babysatâ€, while not having under leveled cores. Your gold/xp comes from killing heroes early, not from creeps. Having a leveled carry makes the lane much less susceptible to mid ganks as well. Some heroes need a few early levels to be effective (cm at level 3 is significantly stronger), or giving the support 2 last hits for that sentry ward to deward the pull is okay too, but minimize it. So if you have to leech, do it early on rather than later in the laning stage.

Don’t focus on denies in lane. It’s not your fucking job. It is of my opinion that no support player should have double digit denies under any circumstance. It’s the carry’s job to hit creeps, it’s your job to hit heroes. It’s much much better to get off 1-2 autos on the offlaner than it is to deny a creep your carry would’ve denied anyway. Yes, I’d rather you get 1 auto attack on the offlaner than a deny. Fuck denies. Exceptions are vs dark seer, but even then I’d rather you zone.

Don’t stay in vision too long. This is sort of a repeat from some of the other shit, but this can’t be stressed enough. Make your presence felt everywhere. The best support play is moving around the map efficiently and getting shit done. Most dota games snowball one way after 15, and it’s usually the side with more early support activity. The ones forcing reactions always have the upper hand. Especially as the game goes, you should pretty much always be off the map, there’s very little reason for you to show yourself in a lane.

Don’t worry about your KDA. If you have dotabuff, check your HD. Unless you’re treant/omni/dazzle or something, hero damage is probably the best way for you to gauge game impact. Some heroes obviously have it easy (zeus, invoker, tinker, ember), but raising your hero damage per game is a good general approach to playing “better†support. tl;dr GET YOUR DAMN SPELLS OFF, THEN STAY ALIVE AND GET OFF MORE OF YOUR SPELLS.

Don’t hesitate. If you’re second guessing yourself whether or not it’s “worth it†to ravage a solo lion, just do it. Is it worth it to use centaur ult to save a 5 pos rubick? Yes. Mirana ult? Definitely. Global silence? Eh. Ultimately, wrong spell usage > no spell usage.

Don’t feed. I know this one sounds retarded, but half your deaths shouldn’t come from you trying to ward/deward. That’s fucking retarded. If you’re dying because you’re being the target of lasso/doom, OK. If it’s a choice between you dying or a core, it should be you. But if there’s a way where neither of you have to die, then neither of you should die. Dying because you were solo farming a lane at 40 minutes is feeding. I don’t care if you’re right next to a tower. Also this means be more aware in team fights, there’s no reason for you to be tunnel visioning for any reason — after you cast your spells, take a moment and reassess how the fight’s going. Look at the minimap, pan around, then re-engage if need be. Why are you on front lines chasing somebody?

Don’t pick useless shit. If you’re playing support, odds are no one’s going to be “fighting†for that role. You should be picking 4th or 5th. There are several kinds of disables instant (hexes, rubick lift, ancient seal)

• 
  aoe stun (ice path, ravage, burrow strike, fissure)
   
  
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  bkb piercing (fiends grip, lasso)
   
  
• 
  aoe silence (cloud, static storm)
   
  
• 
  fucking glimpse (seriously, fuck that spell)
  

Projectile stuns are the worst. Picking a venge doesn’t mean shit when you’re ganking an AM/Storm/Mirana/weaver. Likewise, picking an abaddon/omni is pretty retarded when your team’s full of right clickers. Imo supports should always be some sort of “counterpick†to whatever they have. SD into batriders, Lion into naga, bane into lifestealer, etc. You’re not getting any gold this game, you’re not getting any godlike sprees, the least you could do is win the damn game.

The second factor is laning. If you know the opponent’s gonna dual lane something ridiculous and you’re solo support, then maybe you shouldn’t pick a shit laner like rubick, might want to consider AA or lich. Or better yet don’t pick rubick at all under 4k.

[Tallballz]

Thought this was a good thing I came by, figured for people who wanted to learn a little more of some basic ins and outs of supporting in Dota 2, this would be a good little guideline.

[ArTiC]

Do: Get Gud =D

 

SRY FOR FLAMARINO!

 

But i read over some of these and for beginners it has some valid points and what not.

[Tallballz]

You're The King of Flame, I need to make you an epic signature for the forums w/ a Crown and flames hahaha <3 But yeah I thought this had some really valid points that could help anyone trying to grasp the concept of roles and what not.

[Ryan Bass]

Good stuff +1

[Mein Fuhrer]

"If you’re constantly showing yourself in the safe lane, then that leaves the mid very vulnerable to banks."

 

We couldn't really deal if mids been farming well but then their new hand of midas gets repossessed. jk nice guide tho