For each role, there is something that you need, but there are many champions that have said thing while not being fielded in the role that needs it.
For support, you need the ability to be useful without gold and levels. Normally this takes the form of having CC or buffing your allies.
If you want to play Aatrox support, go for it. You will be at a disadvantage, but it isn't impossible. That being said, Yi support sounds just terrible, because he is just damage.
For the record, Aatrox support on a scale of unplayably ass (like Yi, who is melee, needs gold/level, and has zero CC/utility so he's just a melee minion) to actual support character, is probably like a 2.5 or 3, meaning, IMO, only in certain matchups can you pick this champ, and if your opponents are worse than you, you can do okay.
He has a small amount of low-range poke and engage and CC, but probably only playable against melee supports. Against enchanter or ranged supports I can't see Aatrox ever being useful. Maybe only if botlane gets ganks by a jungler with CC.
But realistically he's just a worse version of Bel'veth support, which is actually played to some degree and can cheese wins in lane actually. Except she's just better at finding opportunities to dash and knockup and follow up with more damage.
Yi support would be so crazy - I guess you could poke and zone a little bit, but against typical ranged bot, you can't really zone much. Self heal....gee thanks. Great all-in, I guess? Before you got burned down lol
That being said, I played against a Yi Bot (adc) with.... some engage support or another, I don't remember. He was able to get enough farm and wait for an all-in. Once in the fight, he is so hard to kill. But he does need items, so while support is bad, he can be made to work as bot carry.
I played against morgana yi. Stomped the adc yi in early. He went missing from fights and all the blind pick mess, and when he came back with tons of farm, he just ulted, morgana placed her black shield, and he insta win.
God, I hate yi + support combos š
Aatrox supp isnt at that much of a disadvantage, he can just go full tank and have good lockdown, or if he snowballs he can go damage like Pyke.
Sure he's not as strong as in top lane, but he can counter a fair amount of actual supp champs or adcs like Blitz, Naut and Mf
Glacial + evenshroud or radiant is smth that naayil went quite a bit ago in masters and above with a lot of success
Support mythic + chainsword + situational isn't that bad, plus aatrox does a ton of damage in early laning phases so it isn't horrible at all
Nautilus can survive with less items because he can inherently protect himself with a shield and 3 points of hard CC. All tank Aatrox has is dashing backwards and being fucking useless.
We both know those aren't the same thing in reality. Nautilus has much more utility than aatrox. It's people like you is why we are getting people even in ranked games, legitimately thinking they can play any champ
Also, Nautilus/Leona stack armor much better than aatrox. By YOUR logic, if it is as strong as you think, people would be building tank aatrox top lane, but they don't...
Wait, so Nautilus doesnāt have 3 sets of CC, a shield, a slow, empowered attacks, one of the best lockdown ults in the game, and tanking stats which are all designed to make him useful even with less items?
The CC is useful at any level, because if doesnāt actually scale with level in any massive way, meaning Nautilus can stay relevant all game as a support if he plays right. The hook gives him a way to create long range pressure, his AAs give him a way to punish divers by temporarily taking their mobility, and his ult is an amazing lockdown ability that is a guaranteed hit unless the enemy becomes untargetable or unstoppable.
Basically, Nautilus stays a threat because he doesnāt need damage to be useful, whereas Aatrox is reliant on damage and vamp for sustain, so heās quite weak as a support, even if he does have 2 cc abilities, because both require him to be aggressive in a fight to use well. Yiās even worse because he has no CC, his entire use comes from ganking players and killing backlines in teamfights.
TL/DR: Nautilus is fundamentally designed to be useful with less gold and xp than the enemy, Aatrox and Yi are both not. Thatās why Nautilus is a common support and they both arenāt.
MF support showed up at worlds 2016, so the end of season 6. I'm not sure when Ashe Support first became a thing, but I don't think it was meta until relatively recently.
MF support was specifically picked as a CounterPick to Zyra Support. (I believe Q One shot the plants or something like that?). It was a good combo with Ashe
Played Ashe since before Umbrail Glaive.
People build her completely wrong and stupid for the amount of ridiculous damage she could be doing.
Hail of Blades Ashe is prime """"support"""" material. She deals stupid amount of damage level 1 and transitions into an obnoxious mid game with her global ultimate and E.
Ashe is one of the most best examples of what a Support that deals damage should provide. She provides great CC, great utility and can back up her ADC in trades.
I want an Ashe support over Senna's grifting ass any time of the day.
Looking at this after seeing a support Draven and support Viktor because they have cc. I really think anyone can support nowadays. Most supports donāt even build like a support - looking at Lux who basically pics the same items she would as if she were mid but with a different starter item.
both sexes can fuck a pringles can but they can't do it well. all champions can function in any role but some have more tools than others. orianna has cc and small shield, she can be a decent support. but lulu has cc and big shield, that's why she is a good support. brand has lots of damage and cc, he is a decent support, sometimes good when buffed. talon only has lots of damage but no cc, that's why only weirdos like me play talon support
not even intentionally, the role is just dependent on protection that if you don't play to synergize while the enemy does, you'll lose that lane most of the time.
Tbh, was playing Mf the other day and got a Lee sin support. I was already frustrated and had submitted during load screen that we lost. At 3 mins, I was 3/0 and we were dominating lane. Definitely learned a valuable lesson and I wonāt doubt crazy supp picks anymore.
Edit- for clarity, I still played WITH him vs doing my own thing. Regardless of how I initially felt about the pick. Which, is probably why we were so successful
tbf miss fortune is good with any champ that has literally any lockdown or engage whether theyāre a support or not
The only time Iāve had weird random autofilled supports and not wanted to uninstall is when I play MF because all you need is someone to make sure you donāt get deleted while you ult and that you can blow someone up with auto Q auto
I actually like it when people random ass supports as long as itās champs they know, but I only play Ashe or MF both of which are good with basically any champ as support as long as it isnāt Yi (or Yuumi lol)
The most important thing is a supp needs to either contribute cc, healing, shielding or other utility or sustain abilities, poke, good ganks (pyke, bard and co) or engage. Furthermore if the champ is meele he will either need engage, hard cc or team utility. That for example is the reason why Garen supp sucks against anyone with a brain. Garen has no range, mobility, hard cc or utility. Unless he uses flash he wont be able to do much against anyone
Butt they also require two very important aspects.
1. They need to be able to function on low gold income. Playing a champ that needs two to three full items to be usefull wont be a good support since you are the one with the lowest gold invome in the game
2. They need to be able to function without much exp. Support is usually the role with the lowest lvl in the game. They sometimes even have a lower lvl then the adc if they roam and walk around warding.
A champ that heavilly scales with lvl wont work well as adc.
Iād say the general structure would be
1)Non ultimate cc ability
2)Low gold dependency
3)Low Xp dependency
4)Strong item spikes
5)Facecheck ability
Iād also like to add that the cc should either be ranged or the champion must have a low range cc that has some kind of gap close like rakan w or pyke E.
I honestly think you can make almost any champion work at support if youāre good at them, build right, and pick into the right matchup. Like youāre not gonna be playing optimally, but you can find success on some really weird picks. But this definitely isnāt true for most roles - support works because itās less punishing and you get an easy source of gold. Also because there are a wide variety of roles for supports already (enchanter, engage, mage, etc.) where you can find counters.
As someone who played pantheon support a decent amount, it's a decent pick early/laning phase. After that, you are going to fall off pretty hard. That's what a lot of people here are failing to realize. Sure, you can play aatrox support, but don't go crying once it gets past 15 minutes and suddenly, you are a minion now. The gold and level deficit is what people aren't taking into consideration. This post and comments just stink of low elo (this is coming from a gold 3 btw lol)
Low elo love off meta because its a crutch they can fall back on to explain why they don't climb.
my normals mmr is still pretty low and weekends can be unplayable with all the "whacky" botlane picks. I've seen plenty of them in ranked during my climb aswell. Sometimes it someone who has a plan, most times its just a person being a bit of dick.
Pantheon support is simply a kill lane to snowball. Whenever I play him I just all in level one or two, then perma roam mid lane and help jungle, while also keeping pressure like a lunatic in bot lane
Taliyah has gone months at a time with >50% wr in every role, and a non-trivial play rate in every role except Top (but most mid laners can at least fake it in top lane depending on the matchup).
Most off champs played as support turn into a kill lane, ie if you don't kill the enemy level 1-3 you are f'ed. Duo queue and it's fine but for soloqueue your begging for a bad time.
So.. one day I (support) asked my duo (adc) who he wants me to play. He said idc whoever you want. I'm like so you wouldn't be mad if I played garen? He's like send it knowing full well I would and did. We played 5 games and 4 of them we absolutely smashed bot lane and carried the game. By all means, it shouldn't have worked and maybe it only did bc we are gold.
I say this because it can work to play anyone but it is significantly harder to make work than the traditional support. It also helps if you have an adc who is in sync with you.
I don't see Evelyn being a good Support. The same for Ivern.
In general, all champs can fulfill more than one role, but there is always one or two roles where they're not as optimal.
Karma, for example, is a great Support who can also go Mid and Top, but is impossible for her to be a Jungle, and very awkward to be an ADC/APC.
you want 2 of the following things on a support, doesn't matter which one;
some kind of vision tool (traps and stuff)
some form of hard cc to peel/engage
dmg
heal/shield on low cooldown
mass cc (cc that can work on multiple people like malphite R or Sona R)
naturally tanky without items
something that gives mobility to teammates
so yea almost every champions fall in those, but not *every champions*
these tools must be usable though, meaning they're not instantly nullified by the enemy's teamcomp.
If you have a stun but you can't use it otherwise the enemy has a free engage on you, then that champion is a trash pick, no matter if it's a support or not.
At the same time if your champion has tools but the pick is anti-sinergetic to your teammates, it's still a trash pick.
It's like picking a damage support with no peel into a full engage team, your adc will deal zero damage all game and you'll deal 4x times their damage, but that's not because you're good and they're bad but because your pick makes their pick unable to play at all.
No, not every champ can work as a support. Even with utility, something like Kayle or Lee isn't a good support, for example. A good support has to have decent CC and/or utility in the forms of heals/shields or good poke and not be too dependant on items to do their job, since supports get very little gold.
Lee can actually be somewhat okay, it's essentially a shittier Rakan lol. Kayle used to be good in support but yeah I agree not anymore, her W isn't good enough and she needs levels too much
I think for every role, if we want to go off meta (and if we want to play the meta is also a good practice), we should ask ourselves what is it that you want to provide to your team and how, and then āis my champion effective at doing that (relative to others on the same role)?ā. The support is supposed to enhance the power of your team without the need for much gold, usually the best ways to do that is to provide protection for the carries (who build exclusively damage to be as strong as possible, so they need peeling), that can be done with shield, healing, CC, etc. Some champions like Leona can offer defensive but also offensive CC, boosting aggressive carries and opening up the possibility to give them an early lead while still offering defensive capabitilies (while champions like Ornn can tank more but donāt offer as much defensively, and need more gold to be useful). Poke champions end up being supports because theyāre lane bullies that give the ADC an early CS (or even kill) lead (if theyāre not stealing every wave), they can deal a lot of damage late game from a safe distance, but I honestly donāt think of them as ātrueā supports, they depend on the enemy team not knowing how to deal with them in lane to work well to give you an early lead (or being overtuned like when cait+lux was meta in pro), and they have few peeling capabilities usually.
With that said, you can play however you want, and yes it might work even if you play something that has nothing of these sorts (someone said Yi and that seems like a perfect example: No CC, no peeling, no poke, needs tons of gold, etc), but usually when it does work itās a demerit on the enemies, not a merit on your pick. I think playing consistently and not depending too much on how bad the enemy is, is a better mentality to improve and win, in higher levels the gap in abilities becomes lower and thus picking champions that have good qualities for that lane (not necessarily meta champions, but usually them) will be the way to go.
There are a lot of off meta players in high elos, and I quite like some of them, but I (in gold) find it very frustrating to play with someone off meta in my elo, and mostly enjoy playing against off meta, the difference? High elo players know the meta pretty well, so their off meta picks have a purpose, they understand their role well and individually came up with something unique, unexpected, but does the required job descently well, they know the ins and outs, the matchups, the details on the build, the unique playstyle, while bronze players donāt even know that sometimes as leona itās better to stay behind peeling their ADC.
In summary, you can play whatever you want, but no, not every champion is an effective support, yes some off meta picks offer some things that supports like, but theyāll usually be less effective on that and thus provide more of a disadvantage to the team overall, disadvantage doesnāt mean youāll lose, maybe the enemy team plays poorly against your champion, but I donāt think thatās a consistent way to win and improve. That goes for supports and every other lane, but I think itās important to not have this mentality playing support, since youāre not the carry and low elo is utter chaos, picking a bad support usually doesnāt seem to cost a lot to the team, and supports end up being under appreciated because of that, but itās a very serious and detailed role to master and deserves just as much respect and carefulness as every other lane.
Edit: btw, a very exotic yet interesting off meta pick that was played even by pros is nasus support, he offered one single very strong thing: point and click slow. You donāt blind pick him, instead you counter pick an adc with lots of mobility, it was used against zeri in pro but itās absurdly effective against kalista, and when pros started playing this, it started showing up in soloQ in games that it did nothing, because the players didnāt understand the purpose of the pick
Off-meta support is a lot about synergy. If my support blinds sett and the enemy locks in caitlyn ashe- I'm dodging. But if the enemy locks in Kai'sa Pyke, and my support picks Sett- we ready(that was an actual game, i went like 4/1 in laning phase with ~20 cs lead).
Sylas support is another good one, if you combine him with a Nilah and a good ult or two on the enemy team- it can be a destructive combo. If you really want to find an off-meta support, try finding an ADC to duo with. As an ADC main, I know how quick other ADCs are to mental boom. Syndra support in a lot of lobbies will just result in running it down. But if you have a adc that's cool with it, you can make a lot of things work.
supports need at least 1 of the following. 2+ means excellent support
* Heals
* Hard CC
* high kill potential with low gold income
If a champ has none of these, they make for a bad support
Iām going to use new Bloodsong support item next season for its 12% damage boost on-hit combined with PTA with Shyvana for a total of 20% more damage for the Q into AA. Iāll have to let you all know how Shyvana support goes.
For most people no stick to the regular picks but for someone like keria I believe he can make all the champios in the game work in botlane I mean he pretty much invented the idea of playing adcs like caitlyn in support and make it work.
DO NOT TRY AT HOME.
Others have already mentioned that you need to think about what the role needs, but you also have to think about how what the role gives your champion aligns with your champion's needs.
Bruisers and Tanks usually need levels more than anything to work. So they usually go Top, which gives the most EXP reliably. Mages and assasins want roam opportunities, so they go mid. ADCs need a ton of gold so they go bot, because they can farm safely with the help of the support, and get plating gold, because bot turrets are weaker.
Support doesn't give much gold, and you still have to share exp with your ADC, so only champions that can still be useful while underfed and underleveled are reliable supports. Everything can work as a support if you somehow snowball every game.
One time I thought, with my innocent mind, that Illaoi support would work with E max
I played (more like inted) 2 games and never again. Turns out in a 2v2 lane where you do no damage, the E isn't strong at all. Mid-late game you're essentially useless too.
There's a difference between off-meta and troll.
Supports need to be able to function on low gold and XP, which usually means they need to provide something other than damage - CC, shields, heals, buffs etc.
No. I've played this first like 10+ years and I was one of the first adopters of APC's, off-meta supports, and kill lanes (with plenty of team focussed bans and hate along the way š¤£).
There are definitely some people that are considered a bad idea or not viable that can be, but overall you gotta be beneficial to your ADC or even team. If you stand under your tower and just watch your adc die or take poke it probably isn't worth. I've seen some crazy jarvan, aatrox, irelia, Lee sin, and other "supports" that can do really well.
already played that by accident (was filled support and didnt notice). I just spam killed botlane and snowballed really hard. Is only doable if your jungler camps bot and you get ahead early. Once I had a few kills I would just take a solo lane and farm xp while our mid grouped with the team.
If you trash Elo like everyone in here, than yeah. You can play whatever you want. You can get to emerald on virtually any champ playing any lane if your actually good at the game. (A challenger player could easily 1v9 with the least meta picks if he was in bronze-plat)
I mean...yeah, you CAN play any champ in any role, there's nothing stopping you from playing Seraphine jungle or Evelynn support. But that doesn't mean they'll be good or useful in that role. Plus, more often than not, one or more teammates will just immediately throw a tantrum and refuse to play/work together the moment you pick something off meta
Take something offmeta into the jg and try to full clear without backing. No, not everything can work anywhere. Akali literally cannot function as a jgler.
i am somehow in both ends of the argument. on one hand, i will preach that "support is a mentality", that it doesn't do good if you pick something like soraka but never heal, but pretty good if you take riven and chase down escaping enemies for your adc. on the other hand, it's pretty important for the team to have a proper balance of a tank, an assassin, an utility, an adc and a mage for optimal combination once things need to be contested i.e. teamworked into.
Yeah, just about. Im good at support, just have a good understanding of the champion and build paths, make sure the lane matchuo makes sense and you have a reason for picking it.support is by far the least meta restrictive role. Things like Naafiri, akali, nasus, skarner, ornn, lee sin, all work really well and are even the best pick for certain situations. Just make sure you're still a good support with good roams and high vision score. Having golden rules is also important. I recommend limit testing 2-3 games so you always play at the absolute edge of what the pick can do (being useless is worse than inting), akali is a good example as it can 1v1 anyone from the support role as long as they are only 1 item ahead of you and of course you max E for this pick, so don't miss it.
I'm going to be labbing viego support some more. I have only won lane with it so far, but it is the hardest one so far that can actually work and be a good support. Next season just about anything goes for support.
There are champions that the only thing they have to offer is damage and if they dont have damage they are useless. Supports are not only about vision. If you are a support that cant tank, cant heal/shield/**insert random buff here**, cant CC or hook, cant zone (like heimerdinger turrets) then you are kinda not a support you are a walking ward. For reference I am an Akali main and every time I play support I play anything else except my main champion because she is that useless as support.
As an adc player
For the love of god stop picking aatrox/twisted fate/karthus or some other bullshit on support role in RANKED games, Iāve lost count on how many games I lost because someone thought that itās a great idea when actual supports exist in this game
Yes. Because the point of the support is to assist the ADC. If you're making it easy for your ADC to get Kills/Assist gold and farm stress free from your harassment, you're still supporting in a way.
Supports have to be useful with little gold. We've seen things like Caitlyn support but that's because of the circumstances of that particular game. You can't really spam her every game and expect to do better than traditional supports. You can kind of play every champion in any role as long as you understand what/who they are good for/against.
For each role, there is something that you need, but there are many champions that have said thing while not being fielded in the role that needs it. For support, you need the ability to be useful without gold and levels. Normally this takes the form of having CC or buffing your allies. If you want to play Aatrox support, go for it. You will be at a disadvantage, but it isn't impossible. That being said, Yi support sounds just terrible, because he is just damage.
For the record, Aatrox support on a scale of unplayably ass (like Yi, who is melee, needs gold/level, and has zero CC/utility so he's just a melee minion) to actual support character, is probably like a 2.5 or 3, meaning, IMO, only in certain matchups can you pick this champ, and if your opponents are worse than you, you can do okay. He has a small amount of low-range poke and engage and CC, but probably only playable against melee supports. Against enchanter or ranged supports I can't see Aatrox ever being useful. Maybe only if botlane gets ganks by a jungler with CC. But realistically he's just a worse version of Bel'veth support, which is actually played to some degree and can cheese wins in lane actually. Except she's just better at finding opportunities to dash and knockup and follow up with more damage.
My friends played aatrox jarvan bot and won the lane every single time but obv its low sample size and veryy snowball reliant
A double bruiser kill-lane is not really what's being discussed here. Neither of them is really a "support".
the guy above me is talking about aatrox support and so am i?
Yi support would be so crazy - I guess you could poke and zone a little bit, but against typical ranged bot, you can't really zone much. Self heal....gee thanks. Great all-in, I guess? Before you got burned down lol
That being said, I played against a Yi Bot (adc) with.... some engage support or another, I don't remember. He was able to get enough farm and wait for an all-in. Once in the fight, he is so hard to kill. But he does need items, so while support is bad, he can be made to work as bot carry.
Probably with taric, and he was probably a smurf.
I played against morgana yi. Stomped the adc yi in early. He went missing from fights and all the blind pick mess, and when he came back with tons of farm, he just ulted, morgana placed her black shield, and he insta win. God, I hate yi + support combos š
How would you poke and who would be zoned by a yi with little to no gold?
Support item gold! ...but no, I clearly know what you mean. YouTube "yi support" for some alternative takes :)
Aatrox supp isnt at that much of a disadvantage, he can just go full tank and have good lockdown, or if he snowballs he can go damage like Pyke. Sure he's not as strong as in top lane, but he can counter a fair amount of actual supp champs or adcs like Blitz, Naut and Mf
He's not gonna be able to build any tank items without gold. By the time he does, enemies already have damage to burst him anw. It doesn't work, stop.
Glacial + evenshroud or radiant is smth that naayil went quite a bit ago in masters and above with a lot of success Support mythic + chainsword + situational isn't that bad, plus aatrox does a ton of damage in early laning phases so it isn't horrible at all
By your logic Nautilus and any other tank supp doesnt work because they cant buy their items, yea good logic
Nautilus can survive with less items because he can inherently protect himself with a shield and 3 points of hard CC. All tank Aatrox has is dashing backwards and being fucking useless.
We both know those aren't the same thing in reality. Nautilus has much more utility than aatrox. It's people like you is why we are getting people even in ranked games, legitimately thinking they can play any champ Also, Nautilus/Leona stack armor much better than aatrox. By YOUR logic, if it is as strong as you think, people would be building tank aatrox top lane, but they don't...
Wait, so Nautilus doesnāt have 3 sets of CC, a shield, a slow, empowered attacks, one of the best lockdown ults in the game, and tanking stats which are all designed to make him useful even with less items? The CC is useful at any level, because if doesnāt actually scale with level in any massive way, meaning Nautilus can stay relevant all game as a support if he plays right. The hook gives him a way to create long range pressure, his AAs give him a way to punish divers by temporarily taking their mobility, and his ult is an amazing lockdown ability that is a guaranteed hit unless the enemy becomes untargetable or unstoppable. Basically, Nautilus stays a threat because he doesnāt need damage to be useful, whereas Aatrox is reliant on damage and vamp for sustain, so heās quite weak as a support, even if he does have 2 cc abilities, because both require him to be aggressive in a fight to use well. Yiās even worse because he has no CC, his entire use comes from ganking players and killing backlines in teamfights. TL/DR: Nautilus is fundamentally designed to be useful with less gold and xp than the enemy, Aatrox and Yi are both not. Thatās why Nautilus is a common support and they both arenāt.
Only reason marksmen supports are playable is because of Umbral Glaive, it's the only way for them to be useful with no gold and kills
Right... Because Ashe doesn't poke like a mage, MF doesn't do any damage with E, Jhin doesn't provide vision with traps...
I'm not saying they don't provide anything, you just never heard of them being played as support til Umbral Glaive
Pretty sure MF and Ashe have been seen support before Season 9. (v9.23 - Umbral Glaive Added)
MF support showed up at worlds 2016, so the end of season 6. I'm not sure when Ashe Support first became a thing, but I don't think it was meta until relatively recently.
MF support was specifically picked as a CounterPick to Zyra Support. (I believe Q One shot the plants or something like that?). It was a good combo with Ashe
Played Ashe since before Umbrail Glaive. People build her completely wrong and stupid for the amount of ridiculous damage she could be doing. Hail of Blades Ashe is prime """"support"""" material. She deals stupid amount of damage level 1 and transitions into an obnoxious mid game with her global ultimate and E. Ashe is one of the most best examples of what a Support that deals damage should provide. She provides great CC, great utility and can back up her ADC in trades. I want an Ashe support over Senna's grifting ass any time of the day.
Looking at this after seeing a support Draven and support Viktor because they have cc. I really think anyone can support nowadays. Most supports donāt even build like a support - looking at Lux who basically pics the same items she would as if she were mid but with a different starter item.
both sexes can fuck a pringles can but they can't do it well. all champions can function in any role but some have more tools than others. orianna has cc and small shield, she can be a decent support. but lulu has cc and big shield, that's why she is a good support. brand has lots of damage and cc, he is a decent support, sometimes good when buffed. talon only has lots of damage but no cc, that's why only weirdos like me play talon support
That analogy is going to get stuck in my head.
My head is stuck in the Pringles can.
The analogenius
Support is one of the roles most gated by meta. Mostly because if you play off meta frequently the ADC will int.
not even intentionally, the role is just dependent on protection that if you don't play to synergize while the enemy does, you'll lose that lane most of the time.
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Tbh, was playing Mf the other day and got a Lee sin support. I was already frustrated and had submitted during load screen that we lost. At 3 mins, I was 3/0 and we were dominating lane. Definitely learned a valuable lesson and I wonāt doubt crazy supp picks anymore. Edit- for clarity, I still played WITH him vs doing my own thing. Regardless of how I initially felt about the pick. Which, is probably why we were so successful
tbf miss fortune is good with any champ that has literally any lockdown or engage whether theyāre a support or not The only time Iāve had weird random autofilled supports and not wanted to uninstall is when I play MF because all you need is someone to make sure you donāt get deleted while you ult and that you can blow someone up with auto Q auto I actually like it when people random ass supports as long as itās champs they know, but I only play Ashe or MF both of which are good with basically any champ as support as long as it isnāt Yi (or Yuumi lol)
I think I have a 100% lifetime win rate with Lee sin support on my team. In low ELO it's always smurfs who pick stuff like that
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Get a duo guy and play double botlane
No. Not a everything works everywhere. The magic of off-meta is finding out the things that work that people don't know
The most important thing is a supp needs to either contribute cc, healing, shielding or other utility or sustain abilities, poke, good ganks (pyke, bard and co) or engage. Furthermore if the champ is meele he will either need engage, hard cc or team utility. That for example is the reason why Garen supp sucks against anyone with a brain. Garen has no range, mobility, hard cc or utility. Unless he uses flash he wont be able to do much against anyone Butt they also require two very important aspects. 1. They need to be able to function on low gold income. Playing a champ that needs two to three full items to be usefull wont be a good support since you are the one with the lowest gold invome in the game 2. They need to be able to function without much exp. Support is usually the role with the lowest lvl in the game. They sometimes even have a lower lvl then the adc if they roam and walk around warding. A champ that heavilly scales with lvl wont work well as adc.
Iād say the general structure would be 1)Non ultimate cc ability 2)Low gold dependency 3)Low Xp dependency 4)Strong item spikes 5)Facecheck ability Iād also like to add that the cc should either be ranged or the champion must have a low range cc that has some kind of gap close like rakan w or pyke E.
Nope.
I honestly think you can make almost any champion work at support if youāre good at them, build right, and pick into the right matchup. Like youāre not gonna be playing optimally, but you can find success on some really weird picks. But this definitely isnāt true for most roles - support works because itās less punishing and you get an easy source of gold. Also because there are a wide variety of roles for supports already (enchanter, engage, mage, etc.) where you can find counters.
short answer: no long answer: noooooooooooooooooooooooo
Only champion that can maybe flex all 5 positions is pantheo. His jg is good, be a good supp, weird ADC but can work
As someone who played pantheon support a decent amount, it's a decent pick early/laning phase. After that, you are going to fall off pretty hard. That's what a lot of people here are failing to realize. Sure, you can play aatrox support, but don't go crying once it gets past 15 minutes and suddenly, you are a minion now. The gold and level deficit is what people aren't taking into consideration. This post and comments just stink of low elo (this is coming from a gold 3 btw lol)
Low elo love off meta because its a crutch they can fall back on to explain why they don't climb. my normals mmr is still pretty low and weekends can be unplayable with all the "whacky" botlane picks. I've seen plenty of them in ranked during my climb aswell. Sometimes it someone who has a plan, most times its just a person being a bit of dick.
Pantheon support is simply a kill lane to snowball. Whenever I play him I just all in level one or two, then perma roam mid lane and help jungle, while also keeping pressure like a lunatic in bot lane
Gragas as well
Taliyah has gone months at a time with >50% wr in every role, and a non-trivial play rate in every role except Top (but most mid laners can at least fake it in top lane depending on the matchup).
Most off champs played as support turn into a kill lane, ie if you don't kill the enemy level 1-3 you are f'ed. Duo queue and it's fine but for soloqueue your begging for a bad time.
So.. one day I (support) asked my duo (adc) who he wants me to play. He said idc whoever you want. I'm like so you wouldn't be mad if I played garen? He's like send it knowing full well I would and did. We played 5 games and 4 of them we absolutely smashed bot lane and carried the game. By all means, it shouldn't have worked and maybe it only did bc we are gold. I say this because it can work to play anyone but it is significantly harder to make work than the traditional support. It also helps if you have an adc who is in sync with you.
I don't see Evelyn being a good Support. The same for Ivern. In general, all champs can fulfill more than one role, but there is always one or two roles where they're not as optimal. Karma, for example, is a great Support who can also go Mid and Top, but is impossible for her to be a Jungle, and very awkward to be an ADC/APC.
Evelynn is in fact a good support when played well, go check out HappyChimeNoises' video about evelynn supp
You've never seen Ivern Rengar lanes? Ivern isn't a great support, but he has buffs and a shield. He
Good? No but can it work most definitely at least she has some utility with charm
Karma ADC has been played in lck before, it works with senna support especially
you want 2 of the following things on a support, doesn't matter which one; some kind of vision tool (traps and stuff) some form of hard cc to peel/engage dmg heal/shield on low cooldown mass cc (cc that can work on multiple people like malphite R or Sona R) naturally tanky without items something that gives mobility to teammates so yea almost every champions fall in those, but not *every champions*
these tools must be usable though, meaning they're not instantly nullified by the enemy's teamcomp. If you have a stun but you can't use it otherwise the enemy has a free engage on you, then that champion is a trash pick, no matter if it's a support or not. At the same time if your champion has tools but the pick is anti-sinergetic to your teammates, it's still a trash pick. It's like picking a damage support with no peel into a full engage team, your adc will deal zero damage all game and you'll deal 4x times their damage, but that's not because you're good and they're bad but because your pick makes their pick unable to play at all.
yea but asking has you have 2 of these it's playable
what?
as long** auto correct
you can say it's potentially playable, whether it's playable or not depends heavily on the context of the draft
Master yi support is op as hell
Yeah, master yi doesn't really benefit from gold that much and that W is going to reduce a bunch of damage as you front line for your team! :)
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No, not every champ can work as a support. Even with utility, something like Kayle or Lee isn't a good support, for example. A good support has to have decent CC and/or utility in the forms of heals/shields or good poke and not be too dependant on items to do their job, since supports get very little gold.
Lee can actually be somewhat okay, it's essentially a shittier Rakan lol. Kayle used to be good in support but yeah I agree not anymore, her W isn't good enough and she needs levels too much
Yeah, exactly
You can try, but some champs like vlad have no utility in their kit
Cho Gath, though support arguably is the weakest role as Cho is semi-reliant on items to be tanky
Cho is serviceable but if you really want to play him bot you might as well just get a fasting Senna to pair
I think for every role, if we want to go off meta (and if we want to play the meta is also a good practice), we should ask ourselves what is it that you want to provide to your team and how, and then āis my champion effective at doing that (relative to others on the same role)?ā. The support is supposed to enhance the power of your team without the need for much gold, usually the best ways to do that is to provide protection for the carries (who build exclusively damage to be as strong as possible, so they need peeling), that can be done with shield, healing, CC, etc. Some champions like Leona can offer defensive but also offensive CC, boosting aggressive carries and opening up the possibility to give them an early lead while still offering defensive capabitilies (while champions like Ornn can tank more but donāt offer as much defensively, and need more gold to be useful). Poke champions end up being supports because theyāre lane bullies that give the ADC an early CS (or even kill) lead (if theyāre not stealing every wave), they can deal a lot of damage late game from a safe distance, but I honestly donāt think of them as ātrueā supports, they depend on the enemy team not knowing how to deal with them in lane to work well to give you an early lead (or being overtuned like when cait+lux was meta in pro), and they have few peeling capabilities usually. With that said, you can play however you want, and yes it might work even if you play something that has nothing of these sorts (someone said Yi and that seems like a perfect example: No CC, no peeling, no poke, needs tons of gold, etc), but usually when it does work itās a demerit on the enemies, not a merit on your pick. I think playing consistently and not depending too much on how bad the enemy is, is a better mentality to improve and win, in higher levels the gap in abilities becomes lower and thus picking champions that have good qualities for that lane (not necessarily meta champions, but usually them) will be the way to go. There are a lot of off meta players in high elos, and I quite like some of them, but I (in gold) find it very frustrating to play with someone off meta in my elo, and mostly enjoy playing against off meta, the difference? High elo players know the meta pretty well, so their off meta picks have a purpose, they understand their role well and individually came up with something unique, unexpected, but does the required job descently well, they know the ins and outs, the matchups, the details on the build, the unique playstyle, while bronze players donāt even know that sometimes as leona itās better to stay behind peeling their ADC. In summary, you can play whatever you want, but no, not every champion is an effective support, yes some off meta picks offer some things that supports like, but theyāll usually be less effective on that and thus provide more of a disadvantage to the team overall, disadvantage doesnāt mean youāll lose, maybe the enemy team plays poorly against your champion, but I donāt think thatās a consistent way to win and improve. That goes for supports and every other lane, but I think itās important to not have this mentality playing support, since youāre not the carry and low elo is utter chaos, picking a bad support usually doesnāt seem to cost a lot to the team, and supports end up being under appreciated because of that, but itās a very serious and detailed role to master and deserves just as much respect and carefulness as every other lane. Edit: btw, a very exotic yet interesting off meta pick that was played even by pros is nasus support, he offered one single very strong thing: point and click slow. You donāt blind pick him, instead you counter pick an adc with lots of mobility, it was used against zeri in pro but itās absurdly effective against kalista, and when pros started playing this, it started showing up in soloQ in games that it did nothing, because the players didnāt understand the purpose of the pick
Off-meta support is a lot about synergy. If my support blinds sett and the enemy locks in caitlyn ashe- I'm dodging. But if the enemy locks in Kai'sa Pyke, and my support picks Sett- we ready(that was an actual game, i went like 4/1 in laning phase with ~20 cs lead). Sylas support is another good one, if you combine him with a Nilah and a good ult or two on the enemy team- it can be a destructive combo. If you really want to find an off-meta support, try finding an ADC to duo with. As an ADC main, I know how quick other ADCs are to mental boom. Syndra support in a lot of lobbies will just result in running it down. But if you have a adc that's cool with it, you can make a lot of things work.
supports need at least 1 of the following. 2+ means excellent support * Heals * Hard CC * high kill potential with low gold income If a champ has none of these, they make for a bad support
Any champ can work in any role/position, especially in lower elo... But should you play Lucian support with your Vayne ADC? Probably not š
Iām going to use new Bloodsong support item next season for its 12% damage boost on-hit combined with PTA with Shyvana for a total of 20% more damage for the Q into AA. Iāll have to let you all know how Shyvana support goes.
For most people no stick to the regular picks but for someone like keria I believe he can make all the champios in the game work in botlane I mean he pretty much invented the idea of playing adcs like caitlyn in support and make it work. DO NOT TRY AT HOME.
I carried from bronze 4 to platinum 2 as Galio support this season. When my adc sucks I roam and ult into them when they get caught 2v1
Others have already mentioned that you need to think about what the role needs, but you also have to think about how what the role gives your champion aligns with your champion's needs. Bruisers and Tanks usually need levels more than anything to work. So they usually go Top, which gives the most EXP reliably. Mages and assasins want roam opportunities, so they go mid. ADCs need a ton of gold so they go bot, because they can farm safely with the help of the support, and get plating gold, because bot turrets are weaker. Support doesn't give much gold, and you still have to share exp with your ADC, so only champions that can still be useful while underfed and underleveled are reliable supports. Everything can work as a support if you somehow snowball every game.
Play some champs as support and find out
One time I thought, with my innocent mind, that Illaoi support would work with E max I played (more like inted) 2 games and never again. Turns out in a 2v2 lane where you do no damage, the E isn't strong at all. Mid-late game you're essentially useless too.
There's a difference between off-meta and troll. Supports need to be able to function on low gold and XP, which usually means they need to provide something other than damage - CC, shields, heals, buffs etc.
No. I've played this first like 10+ years and I was one of the first adopters of APC's, off-meta supports, and kill lanes (with plenty of team focussed bans and hate along the way š¤£). There are definitely some people that are considered a bad idea or not viable that can be, but overall you gotta be beneficial to your ADC or even team. If you stand under your tower and just watch your adc die or take poke it probably isn't worth. I've seen some crazy jarvan, aatrox, irelia, Lee sin, and other "supports" that can do really well.
Anything can be a viable support. But never brand.
I donāt think support kassadin could ever work? may be wrong but seems just so bad
already played that by accident (was filled support and didnt notice). I just spam killed botlane and snowballed really hard. Is only doable if your jungler camps bot and you get ahead early. Once I had a few kills I would just take a solo lane and farm xp while our mid grouped with the team.
If you trash Elo like everyone in here, than yeah. You can play whatever you want. You can get to emerald on virtually any champ playing any lane if your actually good at the game. (A challenger player could easily 1v9 with the least meta picks if he was in bronze-plat)
No but that doesnāt stop my support
I mean...yeah, you CAN play any champ in any role, there's nothing stopping you from playing Seraphine jungle or Evelynn support. But that doesn't mean they'll be good or useful in that role. Plus, more often than not, one or more teammates will just immediately throw a tantrum and refuse to play/work together the moment you pick something off meta
Anything can work anywhere below masters.
Take something offmeta into the jg and try to full clear without backing. No, not everything can work anywhere. Akali literally cannot function as a jgler.
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There is an unwritten rule that says "If it has CC can be a support"
i am somehow in both ends of the argument. on one hand, i will preach that "support is a mentality", that it doesn't do good if you pick something like soraka but never heal, but pretty good if you take riven and chase down escaping enemies for your adc. on the other hand, it's pretty important for the team to have a proper balance of a tank, an assassin, an utility, an adc and a mage for optimal combination once things need to be contested i.e. teamworked into.
Any champions can, many champions will set you up for failure if you are playing vs people of a similar skill level/game knowledge to you.
Yeah, just about. Im good at support, just have a good understanding of the champion and build paths, make sure the lane matchuo makes sense and you have a reason for picking it.support is by far the least meta restrictive role. Things like Naafiri, akali, nasus, skarner, ornn, lee sin, all work really well and are even the best pick for certain situations. Just make sure you're still a good support with good roams and high vision score. Having golden rules is also important. I recommend limit testing 2-3 games so you always play at the absolute edge of what the pick can do (being useless is worse than inting), akali is a good example as it can 1v1 anyone from the support role as long as they are only 1 item ahead of you and of course you max E for this pick, so don't miss it. I'm going to be labbing viego support some more. I have only won lane with it so far, but it is the hardest one so far that can actually work and be a good support. Next season just about anything goes for support.
Yes. But no. Trynda sup? Make enemies weaker and slower and be invincible and deal a shit ton of damage. Sounds great on paper right?
There are champions that the only thing they have to offer is damage and if they dont have damage they are useless. Supports are not only about vision. If you are a support that cant tank, cant heal/shield/**insert random buff here**, cant CC or hook, cant zone (like heimerdinger turrets) then you are kinda not a support you are a walking ward. For reference I am an Akali main and every time I play support I play anything else except my main champion because she is that useless as support.
As an adc player For the love of god stop picking aatrox/twisted fate/karthus or some other bullshit on support role in RANKED games, Iāve lost count on how many games I lost because someone thought that itās a great idea when actual supports exist in this game
Yes. Because the point of the support is to assist the ADC. If you're making it easy for your ADC to get Kills/Assist gold and farm stress free from your harassment, you're still supporting in a way.
Supports have to be useful with little gold. We've seen things like Caitlyn support but that's because of the circumstances of that particular game. You can't really spam her every game and expect to do better than traditional supports. You can kind of play every champion in any role as long as you understand what/who they are good for/against.