Support Guide

[MattThePanda]

MattThePanda's League of Legends Support Guide

 

I am creating this guide to explain the job of a support along with what certain support champions can do and what AD carries they are best matched with.

 

What is the job of a support?

 

Depending on what part of the game you are in, your responsibilities will change.

 

In the early part of the game, which most call the “laning phaseâ€, your job will be to keep your AD carry (ADC) alive and to help him farm and get kills. A common problem I see is that the most is that unskilled support players don't know the proper times to go on the offensive or on the defensive during the laning phase.

 

The easy solution to this is to learn the cooldowns (cd) of the support champions and their limitations. For instance, if you are laning against a Blitzcrank-Caitlyn lane, if Blitzcrank misses a grab then that is the ideal time to go aggressive on him because his grab at level 1 has a 16 second cool down.

 

Getting kills is good when you can get them safely. However if you fall behind early in the game, then you most likely won't be able to come back later if you attempt to focus on getting kills. Farming can be a hard thing for your ADC to do if he is constantly getting harassed by the enemy team.

 

This is why good ward placement and lane presence is the key to getting an ADC farmed. If all you do is sit behind your ADC it's not going to help him farm at all, he will still take poke from the other team. You need to make yourself a force not to be reckoned with. You need to charge straight at them and make them wet themselves, be a wall of meat(or metal) that they cannot penetrate, make it so that when they see you they say "Oh shit, this is one badass mother fucker. I better leave him alone or I'm gonna get my ass handed to me." If you can accomplish this, you can win the lane.

 

Now onto mid/late game: these phases are all about map and objective control. You will need to communicate with your team. You need to know when your team plans on taking on dragon or baron. Once you know that you are going to do these objectives, you need to place wards around the perimeter so your team will know if the enemy team is coming to contest the objective. Along with warding, to make sure your team gets these objectives you can tell your team to push a lane to force an enemy to clear the lane leaving one less person to try to contest the objective.

 

Champion picks:

 

The reason for this section is to identify how to play as and against certain support champions. I will only have sections for the champions I know how to play and lane against. I will edit this section as I play more games and learn how to play against more champions.

 

Blitzcrank:

 

Playing as a Blitzcrank is very easy to do. Just land those grabs and you already won your lane. all you have to remember is only grab the enemy if your ADC is ready to follow up and get the kill. Don't just shoot out your grabs wildly, that how people get killed. After this you just need to keep up your lane presence and allow your ADC to farm.

 

Playing against Blitzcrank can be very difficult. The ideal champions to play against Blitzcrank are those that have tons of CC (crowd control). For example, if you are Taric and Blitzcrank grabs your Ashe you need to go in there and stun the opposing ADC so the amount of damage done is reduced. The best times to go aggressive against a Blitz is to wait until he misses a grab. This gives you 16 seconds to bully them around and assert your lane dominance.

 

Soraka:

 

Soraka is not one of the more popular supports due to the fact that she has no engage or disengage. All she is good for is farming in your lane. With Soraka going on the aggressive is not a good idea due to her doing no damage, so pick her with a late game champ like Tristana or Vayne to utilize her the best.

 

As mentioned before Soraka has no escape, so aggressive supports counter her very well. A pick like Alistar or Leona will just shut down that lane and give you free kills all day. While this is a good way to play against Soraka, keep in mind she has 2 heals and a silence to keep her ADC alive.

 

Janna:

 

Her early game might not be the best but her team fight AOE CC is amazing. Your objective should be to get your ADC through the laning phase alive without dying. This should be easy due to Janna having so much disengage.

 

Playing against a Janna is pretty easy. Your objective should be to just farm because going aggressive on a Janna is very hard because if you dive on her or her ADC she is just going to ult and knock you back.

 

Taric:

 

Taric is probably one of the support champions you must learn to play. He has a stun, a armor buff, a AD buff, a heal, and armor shred. Taric also is one of the best counters to Blitzcrank. Whenever Blitz or any other aggressive support CC's your AD carry all you have to do is CC their AD carry and its game over.

 

When playing against Taric you have to keep in mind he has so much utility. this makes trading damage in this lane is extremely hard. It is best to just sit back and poke them at a distance while your AD carry gets creep kills. you should only go aggressive on this lane when your jungler is coming in for a gank.

 

Ganks:

 

Getting ganked sucks, but it could suck even more if you don't know how to handle them properly. When getting ganked you need to CC the appropriate champion. Say you are getting ganked by a Maokai, the ideal person to CC would be the AD carry because Moakai does no damage. Be sure to communicate with your team by pinging when getting ganked because they might be able to help.

 

When your jungler is ganking your lane communicate with the team who you want to kill. If you want to kill the enemy AD carry, say so. Lack of communication within the lane can turn a 3v2 into a triple kill for the other team.

 

 

As said before I will be adding to this guide as I don't know all the Matchups to their fullest extent. If you have any questions about supporting or anything you think can be added to the guide, you can ask me in this thread, in teamspeak, or you can pm me on the forums.

Edited November 24, 2012 by MattThePanda

[-O-P-rime]

Tl;dr support guide.

 

buy wards, make sure your adc doesn't die. done.

[LazaHorse]

Blitzcrank:

 

Playing as a Blitzcrank is very easy to do. Just land those grabs and you already won your lane. all you have to remember is only grab the enemy if your ADC is ready to follow up and get the kill. Don't just shoot out your grabs wildly, that how people get killed. After this you just need to keep up your lane presence and allow your ADC to farm.

 

He's not really all that easy to play. Nor is the way you seem to be describing how to play him the most effective way. Yes a hook level 1 is nice, especially in a jungle invade. But once you have all your abilities, it is far more efficient and far less risky to simply hit W, run to the ADC if he is out of position, power fist (E) him, then do dps with your ADC. Once the support/ADC disengages off you, hook to bring them back. This provides longer DPS and more consistent uses of what you mentioned to be a very long CD skill.

 

Soraka:

 

Soraka is not one of the more popular supports due to the fact that she has no engage or disengage. All she is good for is farming in your lane. With Soraka going on the aggressive is not a good idea due to her doing no damage, so pick her with a late game champ like Tristana or Vayne to utilize her the best.

 

Soraka is actually very misunderstood. People forget that her E and Q can be used very effectively to poke in lane, even at lvl 1. Silence with range is a VERY VERY powerful mechanic in this game, one that can provide both harass (E the carry when they try to set up skills; Ezreal and Draven are class examples) and disengage (E the support when they try to engage; Alistar and Leona are classic examples that this use is effective against). Her Q can also put out constant DPS that synergizes well with any AD carry who deals a lot of magic damage in lane (Corki, Varus, Trist). But as you said, she does primarily fit well with champions who have the stats to do well in lane, but just need the sustain to deal with pokes. Examples include Vayne, Ashe (Ashe Soraka is one of my favorite lanes), Ezreal, and Varus.

 

As mentioned before Soraka has no escape, so aggressive supports counter her very well. A pick like Alistar or Leona will just shut down that lane and give you free kills all day. While this is a good way to play against Soraka, keep in mind she has 2 heals and a silence to keep her ADC alive.

 

Actually aggressive supports tend not to do too well against Soraka, because her sustain will allow her ADC to farm while your ADC wastes time trying to poke/harass. Her primary counters are champions with grievous wounds to prevent her burst heals (Tristana, Miss Fortune) and champions that have non-skill crowd control (silence doesn't shut them down as hard; Zyra, Ashe, and Nunu - walk up, ice ball, walk away).