Reign of Gaming

Okay. Just loaded up the new splash screen.

Vi is not undersexualised.  Her boobs are bouncing right in front of my face.

Trololololo

Many supports are actually kill lanes...

Leona. Blitzcrank. Taric. Lulu. Zyra (somewhat).

What wag said, more or less.

The beefiness part is debatable though.  If the game ends early and your team doesn't get much global gold, you will be one of the squishiest.  If the game lasts enough time for you to get items like aegis or locket (which you should if noone else does) and shurelyia's, you are usually the 2nd-3rd beefiest on your team.

What I think most people miss though, is that most supports have horrible escape mechanisms if they get caught.  ADCs quite often have a dash or a jump.  Good mids, tops, and jungles usually have good ways to get away too.  Shen has shields, taunts, dashes, and his ult.  Shaco has stealth and boxes, Amumu can bandage toss over a wall. Morgana has bindings, a shield, her ult, and usually Zhonya's.

Meanwhile, Taric only has a single stun.  Soraka has a silence.  Sona has a weakish slow, and an Ult that she shouldn't be wasting. Blitzcrank has a grab.  The only supports that are actually good at running away are probably Zyra and Janna.

People don't tend to value escape mechanisms at much on supports though.  They just usually aren't needed, because if the support dies in the teamfight, it's okay as long as they got their ult off, whereas your ADC really needs to survive that fight so he can clean up.

Quote from aTomic»

Yes, but you're not getting that 100 HP for free.

This.  A crystalline flask gives you more HP during laning phase than a sightstone.

Quote from aTomic »

I think the conclusion I'm coming to from this thread is that it might be useful to do this..

I think the conclusion I'm coming to from this thread is that I'm now afraid to let anyone but myself play supports because they will do something stupid like start with no items.

Quote from Kantuti»

Is it just me who always plays Nidalee against these two , and should they overdo the bush camping, simply hammer them with spears until they cry their eyes out?

Maybe.  Not many people do Nidalee Support.  It might work.  I don't do it often because:

1)I don't have much practice with it and most people will get confused anyway and assume I'm top/trollpicking.

2)I focus more on playing a support that works with my teamcomp than what counters/gets countered.  Most often, someone like Sona or Zyra.  With someone like Sona, I can still win my lane usually (at 1700 ELO, anyway).  It just requires a bit different strategy.

3)Sometimes you pick support before they do. That way, you can't counterpick.

Quote from EYEtriforc3 »

If you wanna go high in soloQ and not be an ass at the same time i think the optimal way is to learn 3 of each possition, or three champs for top mid and jungle or something similar.

Personally im going with 3mids,3tops,3jungle,2 support

I always say that i pref mid/top tho so in the majority of games i get to play that but incase i dont i got backups witch im decent with.

And also very good to have a couple of junglers/support incase people dont wanna swap and your first pick, its hard to get swaps going in my low 1400ish elo... :/

11 champs in total, not that hard to learn, if your like maining 2 champs, dunno how many matches a dude needs to know a champ 100% ? :D

Sadly, you can boil it down to even less.  Many roles have "safe picks" that work with nearly any team comp you see in solo-queue and are hard to counter.

Need an ADC? Play Ezreal every game (Versatile and super-strong).

Need a Support? Play Sona/Zyra every game. (Versatile/Hard to counterpick)

Need a Jungle? Play Lee-Sin. (Versatile and super-strong)

Need a Top? Play Shen (Or some flavor of the month like pre-nerf Rengar).  Unfortunately, Shen is banned so much, that this is becoming difficult.

Currently I think mid requires the most diversity of picks.  Part of this is how much Season 3 has been shaking things up.  Part of this is just due to Champion design.  So you might have to learn a few champions here. 3 or so, just to cover the AD caster/Lategame AP carry/midgame roamer meta.

Also, it helps to play 1-2 matches with every champion, just to get a better feel for how they work when you fight them.

Quote from Dj0z »

Quote from trulygenericname »

Personally, I tend to start flask, biscuit, 3 wards, 2 pots, 1-minute ward.  I can give vision to my jungler, my mid, my bot, whoever.  And then I try to get sightstone as soon as I can afford it.  If I end up with 700g after my first back, i pick it up.  If not, I don't.

I'd like some details about this:

Your start setup gives you around 500HP & 120 mana of regeneration, do you feel like you need all of it every game? Is your supporting playstyle agressive?

The wards you mention gives you up to 10 minutes of warding a single spot, for 225g. Is it usually enough/too much for your needs?

When can you use those to give vision to jungler/mid, and where, given that midlane is nearly as far from bot lane as the base is?

How do you feel about lowering your gold worth, as defined in this recent RoG article?

1) I don't need all of it every game, but you never know when there's going to be a 4-man jungle fight at the 3 minute mark.

I do support aggressively.  That is how you win the game.  And lots of healing helps.

2)The three wards is usually enough to tide me over until a sightstone, but not always.  Against a Blitzcrank/Leona, I may vary my warding tendencies.

3)At around the 1:50 minute mark, after I am done leashing/protecting jungle, I will usually drop a ward that gives vision of the enemy leaving their jungle on the bottom river.  As I come down to my lane, I will throw down another ward that gives vision from the other exit in the bottom river (Example: Wraiths exit & tribush).  My lane is given 100% coverage against ganks through the jungle, extra vision is given to mid, our jungler now knows where theirs is, and top knows that if he doesn't see the jungler bot, he needs to be careful of ganks.

4) I'm not lowering my gold worth.  I still get more gold than I did in season 2. And harassing with pickpocket gives me gold.  And getting assists in laning phase gives me gold.  And giving my teammates an advantage allows us to win more fights, giving me more gold.  And since we won those fights, we can take an early inhibitor or dragon, which gives me more gold.  How many wards did I lose from not getting an early sightstone? Two? (That is all you can put out at a time, and you still won't be staying in lane long without potions/regen).

That is 150g.  Assuming 7000-8000 gold per game, that is a drop in the bucket.

If the enemy team is paying attention at all, they can use this to either get off a super-easy gank, or they can punish your adc by zoning him.

This is essentially the same thing as rushing a philo stone in season 2 by starting regrowth pendant.  It is a bad idea.

Personally, I tend to start flask, biscuit, 3 wards, 2 pots, 1-minute ward.  I can give vision to my jungler, my mid, my bot, whoever.  And then I try to get sightstone as soon as I can afford it.  If I end up with 700g after my first back, i pick it up.  If not, I don't.