You’re probably familiar with the saying that the match begins in champ select, not Summoner’s Rift. But what if we told you that’s technically not true, and in reality, it actually begins before you’ve even pressed the "Find Match" button?

We're talking about your client settings. Yep, believe it or not, the settings aren’t just there to enhance the graphics and make the Rift look swanky. They can have a major impact on the outcome of your games, especially if you’re a support main; poorly optimized settings can seriously hinder your map awareness, vision control and team communication – all skills vital if you’re hoping to climb as a support.

That’s why today we'll be going over all the key client settings support players should know and use. Rest assured that if you use these settings, you’ll be putting yourself at an advantage in every game you play.

Area Is Warded Ping

A surprising amount of support players don’t make use of the Area Is Warded ping, let alone even know about it. It’s often overlooked as it’s not implemented by default. However, it’s a ping that no support main should be playing without; it enables you to precisely show where the enemy team have vision.

Sure, you can also just type “warded” in chat, and spam ping a normal ping, but you’re putting yourself at a disadvantage by doing this. You’re wasting time by clacking away at your keys, and your teammates might not even notice you’ve typed “warded.” In comparison, the Area Is Warded Ping provides a clear indicator, with its distinct visual and sound, that can’t go unnoticed or be misunderstood. It also lets you warn your teammates of vision at a quicker rate, which will ultimately give them the ability to react to this knowledge faster.

The Area Is Warded Ping can be found under hotkeys, in the communication section. You will need to manually bind it to a key of your choice to access it in game.

Enlarge Minimap

As a support, your job is not only to help your ADC get ahead – you have to control vision, roam, set up ganks, secure objectives and relay life-saving information to your teammates. To be successful at all those things, you need a high level of map awareness, more so than any other role. A quick and effective way to improve your map awareness is by making the minimap larger, something that’s possible in the client settings. To enlarge your minimap, go to your settings, then click interface. Max the minimap's scale all the way.

The larger the minimap, the easier (and quicker) it will be to see where your allies are on the map, as well as spot out enemies. Enlarging the minimap can also help to build good map-checking habits. Since it’s taking up more space on your screen, it’s almost impossible to forget about it. You can’t help but notice it and look at it.

Target Champions Only

Imagine you’re playing Alistar. Suddenly, your ADC gets engaged on and a fight breaks out. You go to Headbutt the opponent, knowing full well it’ll give enough time for your ADC to safely escape. But… it doesn’t exactly go according to plan. Instead of knocking away the enemy, you misclick and knock away a minion. In a mere instant, your ADC is dead, and all you can hear is the sound of missing ping after missing ping, while the enemy botlane spams the good ol’ “Does not compute” Blitzcrank emote.

Luckily, Target Champions Only is a setting that will bring an end to those embarrassing misclicks. It makes it so your abilities and auto-attacks only apply to champions, even if you accidentally click on a minion near them. This setting is a game-changer for support players, since many support champions have abilities where mouse precision is a must, like Lulu's Help Pix or Alistar's Headbutt.

When this setting is activated, you can also poke the enemy botlane with no chance of accidentally auto-attacking minions. You want to stay on your ADC’s good side, and messing up their wave or taking their minions is certainly not the way to stay on their good side.

Target Champions Only is located under the abilities and summoner spells category in your hotkey settings. Once you’ve set it up, make sure to also turn on the option that makes Target Champions Only a toggle. This will let you switch it off if you need to proc Relic Shield, assist with objectives, or help your ADC push out a minion wave.

Normal Cast Warding

If you’re a support main, you’ll be well-acquainted with the frustration (and embarrassment) of attempting to ward a bush, only to miss, and place it just outside the bush. A quick solution to prevent this from ever happening again is to put warding on Normal Cast. 

Normal Cast has heaps of benefits when it comes to warding; it lets you place wards precisely where you want with ease, and it even shows you the vision radius of a ward, information that will help you make better ward placements. To top it all off, Normal Cast also visually indicates to you whether you’re placing your ward inside a bush or not. If the ward is inside the bush, your cursor will turn green.

You can put your warding on Normal Cast in the primary hotkeys. Simply click on your Trinket to change it from Quick Cast to Normal Cast. If it’s set to Normal Cast, it will appear darker (see below).

Of course, there are some scenarios where placing wards with Quick Cast is more optimal – if you’re chasing an enemy and they run through a bush, on Normal Cast you’ll have to stop for a brief moment to ward it. This moment can make the difference between them escaping, or you securing a kill for your team. For this reason, it’s a good idea to eventually swap to Quick Casting once you’re confident with your mechanics and know a ward’s vision range without the indicator.

Other Settings That’ll Make You A Better Support Player

Here are a few more noteworthy settings that’ll give you the edge on your opponent. Almost all of these settings can be found in your interface settings.

Show Chat Timestamps: If this setting is switched on, the chat will show you the time of every message and ping, making it extremely easy to keep track of crucial information like cooldowns. You can even keep track of when enemy wards will expire, since when you use the Area is Warded ping it'll show up in the chat with a timestamp.

Mute Emotes and Disable Emote Bubble Display: While emotes can add entertainment value, you never want emotes switched on when your LP is on the line. As a support, you need exceptional focus, and emotes only serve to distract you and break your concentration.

F Keys/Ally Camera Control: Another way to improve your map awareness is by getting into the habit of using your F keys. It's not widely known about in low elo, but each F key centers your camera on a different ally champion. This feature is exceptionally useful, as you can quickly check out all your teammates' lanes without having to waste valuable seconds moving your mouse to click on their champions in the minimap.

Scale down the HUD: Scaling down your HUD will grant you more area vision, and it’ll help make the minimap stand out even more.

Final Thoughts

Keep in mind that most of these client settings will be difficult to get used to at first, so don’t dive straight into ranked. Stick to using these changes in normal games until you become accustomed to them. While these settings may seem small and insignificant, remember that even the smallest of pebbles can make a ripple in the water – each one will help you get closer to your goal of climbing, and help you become a better support player overall.

Good luck out on the Rift!