Can a Support Carry?

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waterdude468's picture
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Can a Support Carry?

Support? Carry? These two words arn't often seen next to each other and I used to believe that support was a near useless role thats only role was to play the first 20 mins well and then just sit back and hope your team doesn't throw. It is generally seen as the role that nobody wants to play. At the time it was at the start of season 3 when I mained top when the supporty top tank meta was in full swing (Shen, mundo, mao'kai). When I hit level 30 about half way through season 3 and started to pick up ranked play I began to get frustrated with how Shen was always banned and how I could never really get top. Due to this I was placed in bronze 3. So after that I started to play with Dennis and he played top so I thought "What the hell? I suck at top anyway so I should just start playing support so I get my prefered role 95% of the time".

So just a couple months before the season end I dropped top completely and started playing Sona. She really didn't fit with my play style and on top of that I was still learning support. Unsurprisingly I ended the season in bronze 3 with a 41% win rate. I dedicated preseason to learning support more and unlocking all the support champions, I dedicated an hour a day to watching guides and general league tutorials.

At the start of the season it didn't pay off, I got placed in Bronze 3 again and thought it was all for nothing. It all changed when I picked up thresh, this guy was a monster in bronze. Was never banned and could start and break off fights was ease. I spammed Thresh in Bronze like a mad man and found he really suited my playstyle, I climbed out of bronze in a month with about 40-50 thresh games. When I hit Silver I thought I was good...I was dead wrong. If I couldnt get thresh I was screwed, I couldn't play anyone else to the level I had gotten with thresh.

I decided to hit the normals and get and learn as many supports as possible. It took me almost the entire season but here I am, I can play every support to a good level and carry with ease.

When you get down to it support is a very pivital role, you almost act like team leader with all the CC and buffs you can supply to your team. You don't have to focus on CS or Gank paths so you spend 50% of your time looking at the minimap and pinging to direct your team. Lets not forget about warding, you can prevent so many throws and secure buffs and gold for your team just with your 800G sight stone plus a 100G vision ward thrown in to counter the enemy's vision. Your biggest enemy is the fog of war and with wards you can combat that threat extremely easily.

I climbed from silver 4 to silver 1 in one month. So next time when you are last pick remember, you are playing the most integral part in you're soloq game and it's in your hands to get bot fed, ward objectives and brushes and to lock down their team. "A team often loses a game because of their worst player, rather than win it because of their best player. " If you can make that worst player stronger you are making your whole team stronger,

Your CC is your sword and shield, you're wards are your eyes and you're pings are the winds directing your team.

And just a closer what are you guys opinions on support? Experiences?

Tl;dr: Unlike what people tend to think, Support is a very reliable role to carry from. Getting your carry fed, providing your team with vision and directions and protecting your fed players, are just a couple of the ways a support can carry a game.


You're going to carry that weight.

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I just realised how long this

I just realised how long this post had gotten

Sorry for anyone who read it all the way through Sad


You're going to carry that weight.

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1 word! Morgana!  

1 word! Morgana!
 



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Used to be an absolute must

Used to be an absolute must ban, her black shield counters nearly every hard carry support and her binding is 3 seconds at max rank. After nerfs to her black shield she is harder to play effectivly with black shield the cooldown is now longer than most supports hard CC. If you bait out the shield you can really go agressive easily. She still remains top tier but takes a lot more of a passive lane phase and passive lanes don't work too well in this meta.


You're going to carry that weight.

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waterdude468 wrote:

waterdude468 wrote:

Used to be an absolute must ban, her black shield counters nearly every hard carry support and her binding is 3 seconds at max rank. After nerfs to her black shield she is harder to play effectivly with black shield the cooldown is now longer than most supports hard CC. If you bait out the shield you can really go agressive easily. She still remains top tier but takes a lot more of a passive lane phase and passive lanes don't work too well in this meta.

If you use her as a support, she is a beast!



Audio is love, audio is life.

Courage isn't the absence of fear, It's doing what must be done despite the fear.

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As I said, still an extremely

As I said, still an extremely viable support pick. But not the tier 1 she used to be.

Hell if anybody has questions about support feel free to ask me.


You're going to carry that weight.

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shacko suport viabell

shacko suport viabell


Schwarzflug

А ну чики брики и в дамки!

 

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Actually there was a Diamond

Actually there was a Diamond 5 support Shaco main on reddit who did an AMA a couple months ago. He talked about his weak lane phase but very good pick potential when it gets to mid game.


You're going to carry that weight.

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I did read all of it and no

I did read all of it and no need to appologize dude, Its a well made post and above all inspiring. The not giving up mentality got you where you are now, and thats great! Keep this up and you will find yourself in gold or further eventually.

 

For the support = carry topic: Most people indeed regard this as a least wanted role, but i find my support to be the most vital part in the team every time. Top just does what he wants not thinking about anything but his direct enemy, ADC is basicly the same only more risky and more rewarding, Mid laner is kind of the same as ADC only focussed on quicker damage dealing (DPS focussed) rather than sustained damage. Jungle and Support are the hardest roles to fulfill. A jungler needs to be quick on its feet and versatile throughout the match, looking in lanes to make sure he can help where needed and when he does, making sure the laner gets the kill so that this boosts his economy and laning phase, a vital mistake a lot of junglers make. Then the support, I think the hardest as you need to think further than your own lane/direct enemy. Because you need to make sure everyone has vision in every bush and every fricking corner it takes you a lot of effort to 'leave your partner' to ward and be back before something goes wrong. They might not deal a direct impact to the game, but the unseen passive impact they deal is invaluable. Its the same with a lot of things, the ones behind the scenes do a ton of work, but never get any (or only a minor amount of) recongniton for it. And its the moment that they do get recognition for it that makes these roles worth it. So with this: Bradley, thank you so so so impossibly massively much for being the guy that everyone is able to rely on. I would not have wanted a different support on that bottom lane making way for our big plays.


"If you go in empty, you'll come out full" - Exhibition, 2015
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Aqua if you can teach me how

Aqua if you can teach me how to support i can take it over because I think/know you are getting sick of everytime support. So if you can teach me i will play support more often and you cn play top again or mid. But thank you so much for all the times you are support if you weren't support so much we would have lost way more.


'Exxi?'
'Yes?'
'No' Big Grin

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@Red

@Red

Let me tell you, I am far from sick of support. There is no need for you to take over from me but I can give you a couple pointers on how to better your support play if you want.

@Exxi

Thank you for the kind words but there really is no need for them. I must be a saidst or something as I enjoy playing the support role but I may of unstated the other roles importance. I would say jungle is probably the support for the entire team in the early game, if top or mid is behind the junglers job is to gank and get them an advantage. Junglers also have to pay attension to the map and provide vision for the team so I draw a lot of parallels between the two roles and I have immence respect for good junglers. The other roles are important too but the supports job is to buff them so I find this very rewarding but at the same time it puts a lot of presure on you. It's a thankless role, as many times as I get a compliment on my supporting skillings in ranked there are 2 times when I've been flamed but you know what? We still won those games that I get flamed in because even if I wasn't performing 100% I was making an indirect impact via warding and pings.


You're going to carry that weight.