Support is the role that gets the least resources, it is also in general the lowest intensity role in terms of skill expressions like mechanics and carry responsibilities. This doesn’t however mean that it is less impactful than other roles.
Supports can be the primary engage, be a late game carry through enchanters, peel for their carries and so on. Supports will also be involved in most objectives and are the primary vision controller. Supports are also good at impacting other lanes and helping the Jungler. Therefore, what the support role lacks in mechanics and resources it has to make up in game knowledge and brains.
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Table of Contents
Key Takeaways for Support Role Guide:
- Bot lane control is instrumental in the early game
- Supports can influence the rest of the map by roaming, but need to make sure that their ADC don’t suffer too much from it
- It is important to ward with intention and know what vision control you need
- As Supports tend to not be as mechanically demanding, one can make sure to do extra things for the team like watching the minimap or tracking cooldowns
- It is important to take your ADC into account in your plays
Bot Control = Dragon Control
Bot lane heavily dictates the control of the dragon river and subsequently the dragon pit. With control of bot lane — you have access to warding deeper up the river, roaming to mid, and aiding your Jungler. Therefore control is one of the key factors that play into the bot lane. This is handled more extensively in the ADC guide.
Though it is worth noting that the support matchup dictates a lot of how the lane goes, having counter-pick as support is very powerful.
Roaming, Not Abandoning Your ADC
On resets, wave crashes, or ADC recalls you have some time where you can roam. You can then join your Jungler going for a gank, counter gank, cover a lane, help a push in, join for a dive, or just set up vision where it is needed. You also want to move for objectives like the Herald and Dragon.
What matters most is recognizing what opportunities there are and how much it will cost your ADC. When roaming, it is important to note the lane state. For example, is the wave in a state where your ADC can get some farm safely solo? Or will they die or lose a lot of farm and experience from you roaming?
Warding and Vision Control
Warding and vision control are one of the prime duties of a Support joint with the Jungler.
One has to make sure that it is safe while clearing and setting vision — as it does not matter that you have vision if you then are 4 vs 5. Certain characters can face-check easier than others, but the easiest is waiting for a teammate to go with you. This is also why it helps to aid the other lanes to unlock them to then aid you.
What sort of vision control one wants depends on the potential plays and win conditions of the teams. This takes a lot of game knowledge — but it’s important to try to be thoughtful in how you ward.
For example, when playing against flankers you want to clear out wards on the flanks and put down your own. Against pick comps you want deep vision so they can’t surprise you from out of the fog of war. What type of vision you want also comes down to more minute details about what champions you are facing and what they do.
In mid-to-late game you will be one of the weakest on the map so it is important to have an idea where the enemy is, especially when warding.
Looking at the Minimap
Since you don’t need to focus as much in the lane due to lack of last hitting, it is a good idea to pay extra attention to the minimap. Track your opponent’s Jungler, know where yours is and play accordingly.
It is also your greatest tool to know what roams you can go for and who might need your help. Minimap presence also helps you track where the enemy has vision.
Additionally, there are a lot of extra things you can do for your team, like tracking cooldowns of summoners and ultimates and keeping a tab on enemy items. Remember not to overextend yourself, one person can only do so much!
Understanding Wavestates
A part of maximizing trades, roams, and ganks is understanding wave states. Depending on the support you play you may not have much say in how the wave is managed, but you can see when you are in danger, when your ADC has a safe wave for you to roam, or what your opponent’s intentions are.
In a lot of lanes, it helps a lot if the support knows how to manipulate the waves as well. When to push, when to trim and so on.
Duo Partnership
An important part of the bot lane is the partnership of the two roles — certain combinations are greater than the sum of their parts and some are worse due to dis-synergy.
Aggressive ADCs like Kalista and Kai’sa benefit from Supports that can aggressively engage and all-in like Rell and Nautilus. If you instead combine them with characters like Yuumi or Janna, life can be very difficult for them. What characters you play or how strong they are matters much less compared to how you match up 2vs2, which is what makes the bot lane complex.
Trading: Think About Your ADC
If you both can pile on the ADC it is usually the best, but the worst is splitting your damage between the two enemies. To make sure to both the same target you need to have a sense of where your ADC can reach and attack without taking too much damage. ADCs having to auto-attack in the middle of a wave will make them take a lot of minion damage.
Playing for your Carry
As a Support you are like a butler for the ADC — if you can give them advantages at some cost of your own it is usually worth it. It can be to delay the recall of the opposing ADC, help your ADC to get a good recall off, die to save your ADC, or give them a kill.
Though this depends of course on what support you play — enchanters and certain lane control supports can do a lot more with resources than tanks. So your playstyle will switch a bit depending on what you play. Though overall it is important to be able to operate on low resources which is helped by the low cost of support items.
Some enchanters scale so well and spike so strongly and early on one item that it’s not even bad that they take kills from their ADCs. Therefore, spending a lot of money on vision wards as an enchanter is problematic as it delays your first item a lot which is very important.
