Support | Champions' roles in team League of Legends Guide
Last update: 03 February 2017
Invaluable in every team. These champions make others, especially ADC, grow stronger. Through their abilities they often can turn defeat into victory. The best Supports are those with abilities like: stun, slow, silence, positive auras, and healing. Playing as Support requires following some sets of rules.
Protecting ADC and other teammates
This is what a Support is made for. How an ADC handles everything on his lane greatly depends on good support. Each Support should go out of his way to do that job. If needed, he should sacrifice his own life by blocking an enemy projectile, so a fellow ADC could survive and keep developing himself. Time means gold, and for an ADC gold is key to victory. A loss of a Support is much more sufferable than loss of an ADC. The latter would deprive the team of additional source of damage when needed, e.g. when enemies try to capture the Dragon.
Harassing enemies
Thanks to his abilities a Support can be a pain in the backside of enemies on his lane. If a supporting champion has a ranged auto attack or abilities, he can use them to successfully harass enemies.
Keeping good map visibility
A very responsible task. Map visibility can determine, if you can warn your teammate against an incoming danger in time. This can be achieved by putting Wards in key places on the map. An equally important matter is to hinder the opposing team's map visibility by destroying enemy Sight Wards with Pinks (Vision Wards) or an Oracle's Extract.
The best and most popular warding positions
The best places for ordinary Sight Wards. Usually in bushes or in gateways. A proper Ward placement can secure two lanes with just one or two Wards. | |
The best places for Vision Wards. Close to strategic locations (Buffs, Dragon, Baron). Taking control over them is very important. |
Of course, Sight Wards and Vision Wards placement is optional and can be adjusted, if needed. If the opposing team sets a Ward in a given location, you can place there your Pink, and thus deny them their vision. The same is true for strategic locations on the map - if you do not have any Vision Wards, you should still set there a Sight Ward to provide good map visibility. When this is destroyed, you will then know that enemies secured that territory with their own Pink and you should eliminate it.
Supports do not farm
This is because you do not want to weaken a fellow ADC, by taking away his farming opportunity or by last hitting enemies. Each Support should do everything he can to weaken an enemy and let his own ADC get the gold. If your lane partner for some reason is unable to do that, you should deliver the final blow to an enemy, but avoid that in any other circumstances, not to mention doing that on purpose. If any of the two should grow stronger than the other, it is definitely ADC.
Supports should not act like Rambo
Supports are not made to deal damage. This role belongs to other teammates. You will support them by attacking from a distance, not by spearheading an attack.
Typical Supports
At their disposal they have auras, absorption shields, healing, and crowd control abilities. These Supports are really helpful with farming. Some great examples are:
Offensive Supports/Tanks
Their attacks are stronger and their crowd control abilities last longer. Additionally, they can take more damage. Supports of this type usually initiate combat first and often find themselves in the eye of the storm. This group of champions include:
Untypical Supports
These are champions who usually play a different role, however, thanks to their abilities, they can additionally support their team. Although they rarely have positive auras, healing, etc., they can deal some heavy damage instead. Some examples are: