Blog 2-Pack: AD Carry-Support Synergy + Jungle Karma Jukes

Introduction

Welcome back to another edition of A DIFFerent View! For my super duper special Sunday post, I've decided to combine 2 content thingies together because either of them alone did not justify having their own seperate post.  So, without further ado, I present:

1. Ever wondered which supports are better for a particular AD carry?  Look no further, I've designed a nice picture for you!

2. Watch TheBirdOfPrey from the ADV blog get juked by a pretty beast 50 HP jungle Karma for almost a full minute.

Support-Carry Synergy

<pre>Legend:</pre> <pre>Grey = Zero to little synergy.</pre> <pre>Yellow = The support and carry have some synergy with each other.</pre> <pre>Green = This is a very good combination.</pre>

I have consulted pro guides and about a dozen gold-level players to create this graphic, so it should be relatively accurate.  Keep in mind that when you pick a support and a carry for bottom lane, you are not just picking for synergy but also for lane/team counterpicking.  The above graphic only shows part of the picking process.

Explanation for some matchups:

Alistar -As a support with relatively weak sustain compared to other supports, Alistar is strongest as a kill lane.  Because of this, he is given strong synergy with kill carries such as MF, Vayne, and Graves.  Given either the long range or playstyle of Ashe, Caitlyn, and Kog'Maw, he does not have the zoning power necessary to justify giving him lane synergy with these champions.  Champions given yellow squares when partnered with Alistar have them because they have some followup damage to Alistar's combination, but not as strong as champions in green.

Janna - The only champion that Janna does not synergize with is Tristana because of conflicting aggressive/poke playstyles.  All champions with green have some sort of skill or playstyle that is greatly enhanced by the damage given by Janna's shield, while others that have yellow squares are too vulnerable to damage due to their short ranges; they will easily be poked down while Janna's skills are on cooldown.

Leona -  Similar to Alistar, Leona has weak sustain and is only strong as a kill lane.  Because of this, most AD carries are either hit-or-miss with synergy.  Vayne recieves a yellow square because she may not necessarily be able to followup Leona's combo with strong damage, while every green square has strong followup punish damage whenever Leona pulls off a combo in lane.

Nunu - Nunu's Blood Boil allows him to have strong synergy with those champions that rely on aggressive poking and trades, as well as to boost the mobility of those champions with weaker laning phases (Vayne, Ashe).

Sona - Sona's passive auras helps poke-based champions such as Caitlyn and Sivir, as well as providing all-around bonuses in terms of trades.  While she does help the damage of Ezreal, a poke-based champion, his scaling is not that great at early levels without items.  At the same time, she does not provide enough sustain or heavy damage to justify synergy with Tristana and Kog'Maw.

Soraka - As a sustain-only champion, Soraka can only inturrupt trades with her silence and heal her carry.  Because of this, she has weaker synergy with kill champions like Tristana and Ezreal; however, she excels with weak laners (Ashe, Vayne) as well as heavy harassers such as Urgot and Graves.

Taric - Taric is a mana hungry champion that doesn't have the greatest sustain in the world.  His aggressive play leads him to have no synergy with Ashe and Kog'Maw while giving heavy synergy to champions like Miss Fortune and Sivir.

Definitely Not Big Plays

Unfortunately, we only had the replay from Galio's team available for that match.

TL;DR: If this was too long to read, there is probably something wrong with your attention span.

I hope you enjoyed reading my blog post!   Please comment below or on reddit.
 -- VVinrar

<script type="text/javascript" src="http://www.reddit.com/static/button/button3.js"></script>

For more of my work: 
-- Find old posts at reignofgaming.net/blogs/a-different-view/vvinrar.
-- Look out for new posts on Thursdays and Sundays!
-- Find my Item Efficiency Spreadsheet at bit.ly/mathcraft. 

If you have any questions, feedback, suggestions, post requests, or anythign else you'd like to say:
-- Feel free to find me in the "A DIFFerent View" chatroom on the NA server. 
-- Leave a comment on this post. 
-- Contact me at vvinrar@gmail.com

Tags vvinrar
22

Comments

  • pagster01's avatar
    Caster Minion
    • Posts: 17
    #24 pagster01 Posted 7/1/2012 4:14:50 PM

    do you plan on adding blitzcrank and lulu?

    just asking cause' they're 2 of 4 of mine favorite supports

  • PartyMagier's avatar
    Giant Wolf
    • Posts: 204
    #23 PartyMagier Posted 5/29/2012 5:25:03 PM

    wasnt there a longer post a while back? Somethinga 'bout how much a support could heal in a ceratin timeperiod?

  • Kharai's avatar
    Giant Wolf
    • Posts: 220
    #22 Kharai Posted 5/1/2012 4:56:48 PM

    taric corki zero synnergy? what about the double armor shred plus a stun for corki to burst someone with negative armor down stupidly fast?

  • Monadu's avatar
    Cannon minion
    • Posts: 54
    #20 Monadu Posted 4/30/2012 7:13:54 PM

    I would have placed a green square on Taric/Caitlyn combo just because stunning into a trap is a very powerful tool. Granted they both fall off later, Taric can really make Caitlyn land some easy Piltovers and overall help her dominate the lane.

    Better to die in glory than to live and be remembered as a coward.

  • MerryLane's avatar
    Community Pillar
    • Posts: 1,068
    #21 MerryLane Posted 5/1/2012 11:21:56 AM

    They have explained further that Taric was OFC nice with Caitl for this reason, but because Caitl has an awesome range and is already a huge harasser, ennemies stay 99 pct of the time too far from taric for him to get close. This make him being a heal bot sitting in bushes, more than a hard lane, and so doesn't synergises that well with Caitl.

    Ofc this combo might work once a game, or more if you face low players, but if ennemies got the point you won't be much useful, and so you won't make them loose more cs than with caitl alone.
    Which contribute to make caitl and taric fall off even more than what we thought.

  • PocketMarsh's avatar
    Caster Minion
    • Posts: 21
    #14 PocketMarsh Posted 4/30/2012 7:19:01 AM

    Vayne Soraka i feel is one of if not the weakest lane shown here, but you say she excels?

    Personally i just think this comp is asking to be zoned, Vayne does nothing real with the mana and a heal wont stop her from being zoned, even if her health is being replenished, also against a comp like Leona Trist they will be completely annihilated because of the short range on vayne they can combo more often and the healing debuff is too hard of a counter to soraka.

     

    All in all Soraka Vayne has little to no synergy, fails against poke comps and kill comp, against a sustain comp? maybe...

  • VVinrar's avatar
    Lizard Elder
    • Posts: 345
    #15 VVinrar Posted 4/30/2012 11:51:21 AM

    Soraka Vayne is strong as a sustain lane because if Soraka can sustain enough heals for Vayne to equal the cs of her opponent, she effectively wins the lane.  As I noted above, the chart does not include lane counters; if you are against leona/trist it is probably a bad idea to pick either of those champions.

    Follow me:

  • MerryLane's avatar
    Community Pillar
    • Posts: 1,068
    #18 MerryLane Posted 4/30/2012 1:00:15 PM

    I agree with you, Soraka is really nice with Vayne.

    Altough I might have thought Taric was the "best" for Vayne (so green not yellow), because of their double stuns, because of the steroids Taric gives, because his sustain isn't that bad, and mainly because their "zone", altough really short, is way more dangerous than most of other comps. If he doesn't grant "for sure" as much cs than with a Soraka, when they are not countered, the lane becomes really unbearable for the opponents after lvl 6, and way more if the jungler comes into the play.

    But there might be reasons I still don't understand for this.

  • Skildar's avatar
    Melee Minion
    • Posts: 1
    #13 Skildar Posted 4/30/2012 7:02:04 AM

    I thought that janna had a very good synergy with big carries such as caitlyn or graves I don't really get how a nunu-cait is better than a janna-cait :/
    and it's a bummer that you did not include twitch in the graph ^^

    Fuck trees I climb buoys !

  • Sir_Dougles's avatar
    Caster Minion
    • Posts: 21
    #19 Sir_Dougles Posted 4/30/2012 2:52:08 PM

    Although Janna/Cait is strong, the mobility of Cait is complimented by Nunu's blood boil as well as her passive. Combine this with a heavy hitting slow to make her Qs hit and you have some harsh burst.

  • Bugi93's avatar
    Melee Minion
    • Posts: 1
    #12 Bugi93 Posted 4/30/2012 5:16:58 AM

    So, well done, I rly feel like u are right with most of the Synergies. But i also miss Blitzcrank in the list( Lulu also, but u already wrote why she´s not in.). But i feel like a Sivir+Soraka Lane has more than "some synergy". So imo There is not much a Sivir needs. But giving her Infinite Mana and Sustain could destroy every lane.Also I feel like you dont need to have a Stunner with you if you can position good and are OK-ish using Skillshots. That´s my only Point, Sivir+Soraka should be Green that´s it.

    But still very good work, helpls a lot.

  • A2ZOMG's avatar
    Turret
    • Posts: 781
    #10 A2ZOMG Posted 4/30/2012 3:19:05 AM

    Sona + Ezreal is actually a very strong lane, dunno why you listed it as low synergy. They both have pretty strong burst especially at level 6, and Sona is a stronger poke champion than most of the other supports.  Similarly Sona + Tristana also works well as a kill lane simply because the burst damage potential is really high. Those are frankly better lanes than Nunu + Graves. Graves to be frank almost doesn't benefit at all from Nunu earlygame given he's a short-ranged burst champion, and the mobility steroids are almost pointless on him when most of the repositioning he needs comes from his E.

    You're also missing Blitzcrank for some reason, even though he's probably a more commonly played support than Leona.

    Last edited by A2ZOMG on 4/30/2012 3:30:04 AM
  • SecretDragonSpy's avatar
    Melee Minion
    • Posts: 1
    #9 SecretDragonSpy Posted 4/30/2012 2:06:58 AM

    Why do taric and urgot not synergize well? Sustain, CC, armor shred, and gaurenteed urgot lock-on. 

  • Gabezor's avatar
    Melee Minion
    • Posts: 2
    #8 Gabezor Posted 4/30/2012 12:39:49 AM

    I understand the reasoning behind saying cait-ali isn't the strongest, but grey? What about the alistar kill setups that can last even longer with a well-placed cait trap? Just a thought, would like a little more thorough explanation

  • ziptofaf's avatar
    Cannon minion
    • Posts: 50
    #11 ziptofaf Posted 4/30/2012 4:55:21 AM

    That's because Caitlyn is harass champion. Her overall dps is actually quite low compared to most of the other carries, her real strength lies in biggest range of all carries in game. And what does synergize with long rane poke? Ability to spam more skills (Soraka and her mana regen), higher attack speed (Nunu), buff to AD (Janna). You don't get close to enemies as Caitlyn because you won't survive it - just compare Vayne or Graves dps to Cait's. Remember that enemy team has support as well. It's not "trap+Alistar combo+Caitlyn autoattacks = kill" but more like "trap+Alistar combo+Caitlyn autoattacks vs enemy nuke". if you tried to pull something like that versus Graves Leona lane...Leo would just E+Q+R on Cait's face because she got too close. And if Graves survives Alistar's nuke (and he probably will) and would be able to unleash his full combo on Cait...well, i think she may have hard time surviving all that - Cait does like instant 250 damage from Q+autoattack. Graves can instantly use his Q+R, he also has attack speed steroid.

    So no - such a lane is just stupid 90% of the time.  Gameplays of Caitlyn and Alistar contradict themselves. 

    Also known as Forneas.

  • To post a comment, please login or register a new account.