Support NeoGAF

[Boken]

dont worry about how much skill you have - this is for new players

you can do as much or as little as you want

this is the structure i'd like to use - just pick whichever section you want to write on and add the info as a comment, or PM me what you've written. make sure you host+link your images at the relevant parts

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1heX36QaaqTWJOSxxAhhm3QexhCj-tHVl2d8cDJw17ZU/edit?usp=sharing


new players are free to point out which parts of the learning process i've missed, and experienced players feel free to tell me what key parts of the game ive forgotten

 

[Type2]

I'd love to, but the question is am I competent enough to write this stuff?



It's really not as good as it sounds. You can start to really dislike your friends. :/ Let's just say I'm glad that I don't work as a pro gamer.

I can see that, I already have a threes team with my friends and no matter how many times I stress to leave a losing fight or give up a chase when the enemy is mia they still sometimes get caught. Item builds are another thing that urk me ...when a rushed randuins could have shut someone down or we needed a void staff to poke down their front line they get selfish items.



Anyway for the guide I can help with settings and option explanations,mechanics , jungle paths and tips, brush control, general landing stuff and objective explanations. I'm not sure what kind of help boken is looking for and I want to keep this clean and friendly.

 

[PROGRAM_IX]

dont worry about how much skill you have - this is for new players

you can do as much or as little as you want

Have thrown in a couple of comments.

I can see that, I already have a threes team with my friends and no matter how many times I stress to leave a losing fight or give up a chase when the enemy is mia they still sometimes get caught. Item builds are another thing that urk me ...when a rushed randuins could have shut someone down or we needed a void staff to poke down their front line they get selfish items.

Yep. It's very hard to deal with, especially if they make fun of you for a 'tryhard' attitude at times like that.

 

[Type2]

Yep. It's very hard to deal with, especially if they make fun of you for a 'tryhard' attitude at times like that.

I don't get that, of course I'm gonna try hard in ranked 5s. If I just wanted to have fun with my friends I would do an aram,blind or draft normal.
I'm really looking to improve my solo laning but I never get a chance to test myself competitively because I'm often jungle or support in ranked. Usually all the role fighting is about mid and top.

 

[PROGRAM_IX]

I don't get that, of course I'm gonna try hard in ranked 5s. If I just wanted to have fun with my friends I would do an aram,blind or draft normal.
I'm really looking to improve my solo laning but I never get a chance to test myself competitively because I'm often jungle or support in ranked. Usually all the role fighting is about mid and top.

Hah, it's probably because I'm known to be easy to wind up.

 

[Boken]

Have thrown in a couple of comments.



Yep. It's very hard to deal with, especially if they make fun of you for a 'tryhard' attitude at times like that.

thnx and itd be cool if you wrote a section too

 

[le bip]

Does anybody here play Zed? I've been trying to pick him up, but I'm not really sure what order to use my skills when I ult.

I play zed quite a lot. Basically, you want to hit E right after you ulti for two reasons, because you can't miss it, and because by hitting the enemy with both shadows you regenerate some energy, and that's something zed really needs. After the E, you can Q him as soon as possible, again trying to hit with both shadows, or you can wait for him to start running away or to flash and try hitting him from a distance (to prevent him flashing away the double Q, which would reduce your damage output by a lot). Save your W for his escape or for him running away from you. Since he got nerfed, you have to build some cooldown reduction or get the blue buff to be able to cast E two times during the deathmark. One last important thing, don't forget to autoattack him after you have ulted him. You should be able to autoattack him twice, one time during the E cast time, since they go off at the same time, and one right after his health bar goes below 50%, to apply your passive. If he is stationary and you have attack speed you can easily manage to autoattack him three times.


Edit @Boken: I wrote a comment as anonymous, I'll add more if something useful comes up to my mind.

 

[Boken]

thanks for the comments guys

i also need help writing the sections so busy

 

[PROGRAM_IX]

thnx and itd be cool if you wrote a section too

I'll take a look tonight, see what might be doable.

 

[Ken]

sure i help u bloen

 

[bjaelke]

Nip picking up Kevin and hyrqbot from sk.

 

[garath]

Nip picking up Kevin and hyrqbot from sk.

Hyrqbot I can understand.. SK goes through junglers like my kid went through diapers but Kevin?? He's like the best thing the team has going for them.

NiP are going to be serious contenders next season.

 

[Terrutas]

Garena tourney live on twitch. http://www.twitch.tv/garenatw

 

[PhillipCostigan]

NiP continues to bench every single player in existence.

Benching Malunoo for Hyrqbot seems... ill advised to say the least.

 

[Edwardo]

Promoted to Silver I. Gold V feels so close, yet so far.

Edit: Any tips on how to not rage in solo q? Been raging more often now that more's on the line. I try to mentally chat restrict myself, but it doesn't work all the time. Wish there was a way to turn on restricted chat mode for yourself.

You just have to realize that it's going to be human nature for people to have bad games. Raging at your teammates will rarely help. Stay positive!

Statistically, i believe that support mains have a higher chance of making it to upper tiers because there are a serious lack of people willing/know how to play support at lower tiers of ranked. you have to use that to your advantage though - as a support main you should always "beat" the other support - and as a result, usually win the bot lane for your team. you also get free wins when the enemy support is basically trolling because he doesnt want to support

some evidence: team gold gaf is pretty much full of support mains.

How do you become responsible over your adc if they don't play incredibly well? Is it just a matter of warding and having enough map awareness to make laning phase idiot proof, or what?

The only problem with that is I feel uneasy leaving the major damage roles to other teammates. I know that I'm not going to give up at first blood so I'd rather have one of them secured. Also your ability as a support is reliant upon your ADC. If you're the greatest support in the world that won't help if your ADC is completely incompetent and can't even take kills that you feed them up on a silver platter.

However since you're speaking about statistics then you should be getting competent players in the other roles at fair intervals eventually allowing you to rise assuming your own play is good enough.

If the statistics really do support support mains over other roles in terms of how fast they climb the ladder then that's the role to play if that's what you're mainly concerned with.

I keep telling myself that I'm only going to play support. I don't mind doing it, it's just that I don't find it the most fun. However, I do find my team winning more games than losing them when I'm supporting. Say I have a great adc and I can set up kills for him/her, our game will go extremely well. They will even surrender around 20 fairly often.

The problem I run into is that if our adc consistently puts themselves into a bad spot or can't cs, it sets our lane way back. For example, in a game last night I was Janna with Varus adc'ing for us. I'd shield incoming damage and kockup any type of engage on us, but Varus constantly just kept putting himself into bad positions with 1/3 hp where even when I used all of my abilities, I couldnt save him. I play Varus fairly often and have great success with him most of the time, so I tried to explain to him in chat how to cs under tower and when to use his abilities, he wouldn't listen. He was say "ok" or "alright, i'll do that" but he would just keep going out too far and get blown up by Graves and Sona. I'd rather take the role of adc so this type of thing doesnt happen. It's just that when i'm adc and a random is supporting we have a lower chance of dominating our lane than if I am the support and we have a decent enough adc.

That situation doesn't happen all the time, but when it does it is incredibly frustrating. Especially when the rest of the team starts flipping out in chat. I want to carry and I want to support. I just can't carry as a support without a decent team around me.

A lot of this is just the nature of the game, I'm just trying to figure out the best way to improve myself enough to win more games.

 

[bjaelke]

NiP continues to bench every single player in existence.

Benching Malunoo for Hyrqbot seems... ill advised to say the least.

Doesn't say anything about benching him. Could be a double jungle like what EG have.

 

[scy]

I'd shield incoming damage and kockup any type of engage on us, but Varus constantly just kept putting himself into bad positions with 1/3 hp where even when I used all of my abilities, I couldnt save him.

Because it sounds like you were playing it right defensively but not controlling the lane at all. If you're going to outplay their bot lane you need to do both sides of it right: Deal with their aggression and then control their positioning.

 

[dimb]

I like it for getting back to lanes faster to defend especially if towers or inhibs are getting pushed. What boot upgrade do you suggest -- the general movefast one?

And I don't typically get attacked in the jungle per se, I just mean that Sejuani doesn't seem like someone who can hunt the jungle and try to duel a jungler, since she provides the CC and (mostly) depends on teammates to provide the damage -- in my limited experience.

Just don't buy t3 boots unless you really need them. I mentioned homeguard because it seems like something you are consistently buying but it sets you back on gold outside of very rigid situations. Most homeguard purchases should be situational and on the spot for when you need to defend.

Dueling junglers is overrated and often a waste of time.

 

[PhillipCostigan]

Doesn't say anything about benching him. Could be a double jungle like what EG have.

http://www.nip-gaming.se/2013/09/18/nip-announce-roster-changes/

This means that unfortunately Malunoo will be put on the bench

Malunoo will be demoted to Sub as we are also adding Hyrqbot to our main roster

Benching Malunoo was a tough decision

 

[Stone Ocean]

I often only buy Homeguard when I need to get back to a fight ASAP, like during sieges or Baron dances.

 

[Terrutas]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkLgt2aFrdc

Wow.

 

[Blizzard]

I just hate the 383 movespeed Sejuani walk back to jungles and I'm all Gotta Go Fast.

I will try to focus on not using tier 3 boots for a few games though if it seems reasonable, thanks.

 

[bjaelke]

TSM TSM TSM

http://www.nip-gaming.se/2013/09/18/nip-announce-roster-changes/

Oh well. That does seem a bit tough.

 

[Einbroch]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkLgt2aFrdc

Wow.

This is why AD Sion is secret OP in 3s. Lanes are really narrow and jungle creeps are always close.

 

[Edwardo]

Because it sounds like you were playing it right defensively but not controlling the lane at all. If you're going to outplay their bot lane you need to do both sides of it right: Deal with their aggression and then control their positioning.

I've always been more of a defensive player, and it does bite me in the ass sometimes. I'm gonna work on that. Thanks scy.

 

[le bip]

Dueling junglers is overrated and often a waste of time.

Honestly, it's a waste of time if you do it wrong. If you force the enemy jungler back while you can still farm or gank you're winning the jungle matchup.

 

[Q8D3vil]

Dueling junglers is overrated and often a waste of time.

If you have good map awareness and know how to jungle properly then no.

 

[dimb]

Think what you want. Invasion is not very strong right now. Wolves are too deep to steal safely, golems are too far off to be that worthwhile and you can be spotted by waves. That leaves wraiths as the safe steal but the camp isn't worth much, is often cleared, and can be controlled easily. Because of these factors it is rarely worth invading, especially with the intention of dueling. In most situations it is extremely easy to avoid the enemy jungler, so you're just rolling a dice to fall even further behind on levels compared to your laners. Even if you are able to track the enemy jungler and know you could beat them it is better to counter gank than duel them.

 

[Q8D3vil]

Think what you want. Invasion is not very strong right now. Wolves are too deep to steal safely, golems are too far off to be that worthwhile and you can be spotted by waves. That leaves wraiths as the safe steal but the camp isn't worth much, is often cleared, and can be controlled easily. Because of these factors it is rarely worth invading, especially with the intention of dueling. In most situations it is extremely easy to avoid the enemy jungler, so you're just rolling a dice to fall even further behind on levels compared to your laners. Even if you are able to track the enemy jungler and know you could beat them it is better to counter gank than duel them.

I play udyr jungle so i can duel/farm/countergank/gank without getting behind.

 

[Type2]

Just going to chime in on this jungle talk.

Dueling/counter jungling is only effective when:
A) You have an early game team composition
B) Your laners are able to win their lanes without jungler help
C) Your team is coordinated enough to collapse on objectives, ward for picks and communicates well.

Counter ganking on the other hand is always effective and rewarding =]

 

[le bip]

Think what you want. Invasion is not very strong right now. Wolves are too deep to steal safely, golems are too far off to be that worthwhile and you can be spotted by waves. That leaves wraiths as the safe steal but the camp isn't worth much, is often cleared, and can be controlled easily. Because of these factors it is rarely worth invading, especially with the intention of dueling. In most situations it is extremely easy to avoid the enemy jungler, so you're just rolling a dice to fall even further behind on levels compared to your laners. Even if you are able to track the enemy jungler and know you could beat them it is better to counter gank than duel them.

All the variables you listed are the ones that differentiate good counterjungling from bad counterjungling, so overall your comment doesn't make much sense. To elaborate a bit, why would you counterjungle if you can't stick to the enemy jungler? Why would you take his big wolf if you're not sure about his position? Why would you bother taking his big wraith if you're not a fast clearer?
About counterganking, you're saying that if I'm 100% sure I can beat the enemy jungler, I should give up a 1v1 and put myself into a 2v2, adding the variables of my teammate and his teammate to the equation? I'm not convinced by this honestly.

 

[Horse Detective]

Damn, another ranked loss. I'll cut back and do a few normals maybe.

 

[Wolf Akela]

AP Ezreal just doesnt work for me in ARAM. W is either/both too narrow and too slow. Still dislike how he takes foreeeeever to get up running.

 

[dimb]

zzz

To elaborate a bit, why would you counterjungle if you can't stick to the enemy jungler?

It is really easy to get away on most any common jungler right now from an invader. You can just walk to another camp, or if you have smite up hang around on the fringes and smite steal away. Counterjunglers can't chase that deep without being punished.

Why would you take his big wolf if you're not sure about his position? Why would you bother taking his big wraith if you're not a fast clearer?

I'm not sure what these mean. My point was mainly that the opportunities to actually move in and steal are few and far between.

About counterganking, you're saying that if I'm 100% sure I can beat the enemy jungler, I should give up a 1v1 and put myself into a 2v2, adding the variables of my teammate and his teammate to the equation? I'm not convinced by this honestly.

There is nothing to say. You have to trust your teammates at some point. 2v2s have a much higher kill potential if you have the advantage and greatly increased rewards. If you are ahead you create team fight situations through objectives and counter ganks to pull further ahead. Zoning out a jungler and denying them wraiths or something = who cares in most situations.

Invading has more "variables" than anything else. Do you have smite? Does the enemy have smite? Did you walk over a ward? Are the camps even up? Can they just counter invade or take another more important objective? Etc, etc. The easiest way to give up vision is to try and enter the enemy jungle, and it is difficult to have a clear objective that is actually valuable while invading.

 

[jerd]

Playing normals today to learn adc. Literally never played it. Gonna work with draven and graves I think. Any tips?

 

[DeadNames]

Why don't people play sej more? Her ult is so good.

 

[Neol]

Why don't people play sej more? Her ult is so good.

Hardest part about her is the beginning due to her slow early game and slow clear due to low ap ratios and part of her W doing health percentage dmg as well. Extremely susceptible to counter-jungling and doesn't fair well in duels.

However she has fantastic ganks due to her 3 forms of CC and once she gets her items she does really well especially going into late game.

 

[Q8D3vil]

Why don't people play sej more? Her ult is so good.

Because everyone think they are diamondprox when they play lee sin and buy sightstone.

 

[FallingEdge]

I feel like getting promoted relies on either chance at getting someone on your team that can carry everyone, being able to carry everyone on your own, getting a team fully capable with all roles, or facing a team that falls short in more departments.

So essentially luck of the draw if you main support Id love to get promoted by the end of the season but my wins and losses are so random.

Gotta agree with this. All I play decent is support and have supported my way to promo series for plat V.

Lets go team!

 

[Blizzard]

Playing normals today to learn adc. Literally never played it. Gonna work with draven and graves I think. Any tips?

I'm by no means a great ADC, but I think some really general beginner stuff is:

* Even if you don't do anything else, try to focus on killing as many minions as possible. Don't worry as much about killing the enemies, and in fact, try not to be too aggressive unless you're certain it's safe (you have wards in the river and tribush).

* Don't constantly autoattack. If there are too many minions and they're about to get to your tower, hitting a few to bring them to lower health may be fine, but otherwise, if you keep autoattacking everything you may miss minions and you may push out to the enemy tower, which can result in an enemy jungler sneaking up and killing you.

* While you are attacking minions, don't stand still! In between hits, walk back and forth. You can press 'S' to stop attacking minions and if I recall correctly, also stop walking. If you stand still while attacking or waiting to last-hit a minion, certain champions like Varus or Caitlyn can easily land a long-distance ability to hurt you.

 

[DeadNames]

Because everyone think they are diamondprox when they play lee sin and buy sightstone.

I hate Lee sin. Such an obnoxious champ, especially the people that think they can play him.

----

How is Nautilus? I need a new jungler and he seems really strong.

 

[Q8D3vil]

I hate Lee sin. Such an obnoxious champ, especially the people that think they can play him.

----

How is Nautilus? I need a new jungler and he seems really strong.

Very good pick if your team mate can help you get through the early game, his ganks are brutal pre/post 6.
How about Udyr ? he is my favorite jungler right now.

 

[Blizzard]

Why don't people play sej more? Her ult is so good.

I hate Lee sin. Such an obnoxious champ, especially the people that think they can play him.

----

How is Nautilus? I need a new jungler and he seems really strong.

If you like Sejuani, you should be at home with Nautilus. He has a similar slow, pull and ult for CC, and a shield. He can actually probably duel and clear a bit better than Sejuani. I always pick Nautilus when Sejuani is taken or banned, and I build the same items. =P The only difference is that I always take flash instead of ghost for Nautilus (so you can flash over minions to pull), and I like mobility boots for getting in range for pulls and ults faster.

I've gone back to trying smartcast on Sejuani ult, but I screw up the ult a lot. My current gripe is Ahri, since I always seem to miss her point blank as she is about to ult to dodge or something.

 

[garath]

Playing support seriously is very strong in silver/gold because people generally don't want to play it. They are last pick and get stuck with it. Someone who takes the role seriously and plays a strong support vs someone stuck with the role will crap on bot lane. A strong bot lane means more dragons, more ward coverage, earlier oracles, earlier tower, and a strong ad carry. The global gold plus shifting a strong bot lane to other lanes earlier in the game makes it very easy to snowball the whole team. It's one of the most straightforward ways of winning a game and "carrying" yourself to higher elo.

That said, of course there will be games where the adc has his head in a bag and you lose bot lane anyways. Or maybe the opposing support happens to be very good. Or the jungler is feeding, etc etc but you should win more games than you lose.

In the low elos you have a "I need to carry scrub teammates or I'll lose" attitude a lot and in general the support role just isn't played very well because people don't think they can carry from it. And realistically most people are at their elo and they aren't going to be that superior to their lane opponent and the lanes are a toss up. But because of the poor attitude toward the support role, you have a higher chance of being noticeably better than your opponent and therefore win.

 

[Type2]

I hate Lee sin. Such an obnoxious champ, especially the people that think they can play him.

----

How is Nautilus? I need a new jungler and he seems really strong.

If your laners have good dmg all you need to do is walk into lane to burn a flash. Getting Mobos on him is fantastic because he has enough cc to make them a reliable buy. You'll be getting ancient golem for tenacity so you're good there.
Start W>E>Q and begin to max W. He does no damage without his W shield up so don't be caught dead dueling/trying to clean up a kill without it.
Ideally for your ganks you want to come behind them and try and proc your passive along with your E. I like to use the Q(hook) after they burn their escape if possible but feel free to initiate with it when you feel its right.

Hes great once you get past levels 1-4. If youve managed to take all your buffs and farm up you'll have no problem being an unstoppable cc machine mid/late game.
Also make no mistake his early ganks are still good but a stronger duelist can counter gank before you build your stats up.

In a teamfight you can initiate with his ult onto their carry who will help it catch the front line as well if positioned correctly. Alternatively, I like to bully whoever we catch in the front to force them to run back or flash and then follow them with my ult. Usually enemies panic will drag the ult through as many people as possible. Dont forget to peel for your team with your passive procs!!!

Random bit:They took away all his tricky hooks through jungle =[

 

[jerd]

I'm by no means a great ADC, but I think some really general beginner stuff is:

* Even if you don't do anything else, try to focus on killing as many minions as possible. Don't worry as much about killing the enemies, and in fact, try not to be too aggressive unless you're certain it's safe (you have wards in the river and tribush).

* Don't constantly autoattack. If there are too many minions and they're about to get to your tower, hitting a few to bring them to lower health may be fine, but otherwise, if you keep autoattacking everything you may miss minions and you may push out to the enemy tower, which can result in an enemy jungler sneaking up and killing you.

* While you are attacking minions, don't stand still! In between hits, walk back and forth. You can press 'S' to stop attacking minions and if I recall correctly, also stop walking. If you stand still while attacking or waiting to last-hit a minion, certain champions like Varus or Caitlyn can easily land a long-distance ability to hurt you.

Thanks for the tips, sounds like pretty standard laning stuff. I think it went ok. I played Graves against MF. I was able to bully her really bad in lane and zone pretty hard. I felt like I did really well in lane. Late game would have probably gone better if my support hadn't been taking CS and kills the whole time, but since it was just normals I wasn't too worried about it (Though she built AP sona and ended up with almost as much gold as me). My problems were:

1) How do you situationally build on adc? I know there are standard adc items like PD, Blood Thirster, IE, and stuff like that, but how do you decide priority? I understand when to build a LW and when not to, but do you just have to read the enemy team comp/builds to decide what you need most?

2) Team fighting- I really expected it to be the kind of shuck and jive that I'm used to with squishy mid laners, but it seems a lot different. Also, Graves is one of the more durable carries, correct? But I still felt like I was getting blown up (granted they had a fed talon, Kass, and full AD Lee Sin.

3) It felt mechanically boring after the laning phase. I know it shouldn't, but it did. The laning phase was fun because of the back and forth trades and aggression, but everything after that was really stale. Maybe once I learn more about interrupting AA animations to attack faster and make it a more active game it will be better, but I just felt like it should have been more involved instead of shooting closest target and pressing buttons when my cooldowns are up.

 

[tm24]

1) How do you situationally build on adc? I know there are standard adc items like PD, Blood Thirster, IE, and stuff like that, but how do you decide priority? I understand when to build a LW and when not to, but do you just have to read the enemy team comp/builds to decide what you need most?

2) Team fighting- I really expected it to be the kind of shuck and jive that I'm used to with squishy mid laners, but it seems a lot different. Also, Graves is one of the more durable carries, correct? But I still felt like I was getting blown up (granted they had a fed talon, Kass, and full AD Lee Sin.

3) It felt mechanically boring after the laning phase. I know it shouldn't, but it did. The laning phase was fun because of the back and forth trades and aggression, but everything after that was really stale. Maybe once I learn more about interrupting AA animations to attack faster and make it a more active game it will be better, but I just felt like it should have been more involved instead of shooting closest target and pressing buttons when my cooldowns are up.

1) Basically you do your build based on who your champion is. The only items you build based on the enemy team are your defensive items. Are you one of the hard hitting ADCs like Graves, Ashe or Caitlyn? You build the heavy hitting items, like an IE, BT, get some AS and LW. After you finish that core you start building situationaly. Are you getting targeted through CC? GA or QSS into a Mercurial Schimtar. Then there's champs with on hit procs or AS speed steroids. These champs scale late, so you build items that help that. Champs like Varus, Vayne and Kogmaw love Blade and then you can build some AS with LW and then AD afterwards. Tristana can go either way i've seen. Corki, go full ham with TF and AD and some magic pen. Go Corki

2) You're still shucking and jiving as an adc, you just have to hope your team is providing the necessary CC and peel to keep you alive until the opposing problems are taken care of.

 

[Blizzard]

I always maxed E for damage and slow (I forget if it scales) with Nautilus, but W for jungle clears or dueling is probably a better idea. Thanks for the tip.

 

[Type2]

Anyone in silver looking for a duo partner? My first three games since getting back into silver have been awful. Teammates chasing across the rift to get a 1 for 1 and lose objectives, support warding the most dangerous spots all alone and refusal to group for full team fights.
I keep getting these games where every lane needs to be babysat all the time.


Also if gaf happens to do any premades I really need to practice my solo laning. Its been impossible for me to snag it even in normals.

 

[Newt]

Playing normals today to learn adc. Literally never played it. Gonna work with draven and graves I think. Any tips?

Draven specific advice:


1. Maintain two axes in lane at all times, this should be relatively easy.
2. If someone is trying to trade you, axe stand-aside axe to trade back, and you'll pretty much always win. This combo can be followed up with blood rush if they run away, and can usually net a kill.
3. Go for all duels you can possibly get, very few ADCs can out trade you normally.
4. The later the game goes, the more difficult Draven is to play, so try to end games up fast.
5. Spam your bloodrush as much as possible in a fight, it's usually always worth the mana. Same goes for objectives like Baron and Dragon.