DIG Poome Dives Into the Different Support Playstyles in League of Legends
There are tons of playstyles in League of Legends! Today, DIG’s very own Poome sits with us and helps unpack each of the major playstyles at Support!
League of Legends is truly a game of diversity. There are multiple lanes and playstyles, and the Champions that help define those spaces never share the spotlight with each other, each being unique to themselves. So, when you factor in that League of Legends now has over 150+ Champions, when it comes to introducing new players to the game, the task can be a daunting one. But today we’ve got DIG’s very own LCS Support, Phillipe “Poome” Lavoie-Giguere, here with us to help unpack the various playstyles that are present in his main role!
Playstyle #1 - Hook Champions - Strengths, Weaknesses, and Tips
Usually, in Solo Queue, Hook Champions are some of the most OP Champions you can play. And that’s due to the large diversity of Hook Champions out there. There are teamfight-focused Champions like Nautilus and then more lane-focused Champions like Pyke that can be very oppressive if played well.
Obviously, the strength of these Champions is their defining “Hook”, which can displace enemies by pulling them towards you making them vulnerable to follow-up damage and crowd-control from your team. Hook Champions also typically have a bit of innate resilience as oftentimes they must put themselves in scary positions to fish for their potential plays. Nautilus’ W, for example, can provide him with a significant shield should he miss his hook and enemies look to retaliate. Pyke’s passive allows him to quickly regenerate his health if he remains unseen. Blitzcrank too has an emergency shield that activates if he falls too low on HP.
Additionally, some Hook Champions have great mobility abilities that allow them to better reposition themselves for their plays. When you couple this mobility alongside the often-purchased Mobility Boots, then Hook Champions become excellent roaming threats. These aspects combined makes them great at not only enabling their laning partners in Bot, but also enabling their Mid Laner or Jungler if they’re nearby.
On the flipside, one of the largest weaknesses of Hook Champions is Cooldowns. The reward for hitting a hook is often a blown Flash or even a kill. But, if you miss your hook on these Champions, it presents a large window for your opponents to play aggressively against you. And it means you spent health and mana for a potential play that came up short, which can weaken your presence in lane. However, to improve at Hook Champions you need the experience and recognition to know when you can go for a play and where from. And the only way you can do that is through trial, error, and aggressive play. As a Hook Champion, you shouldn’t be afraid to put yourself forward to fish for that big hook that could change the lane or teamfight. Just do your best to avoid hooking in the enemy’s biggest engage threat.
Playstyle #2 - Tanks - Strengths, Weaknesses, and Tips
The next playstyle can kind of be wrapped synonymously with Hook Champions. They’re the picks like Braum, Leona, and Alistar. The ‘true’ Tanks. These picks, like Hook Champs, are all about their high crowd control and ability to lockdown or peel a target off of your team. But they do it slightly differently from Hook Champions because their CC comes from a combo of abilities rather than just one. They essentially are looking for the same opportunities, just within their own range or within conditions that favor their Champ.
The design of ‘true’ Tanks centers in two different types of Tanking as Poome mentioned, and this design difference serves to define the strengths and weaknesses of each type of Tank. For example, the aggressive Tank paradigm can be exemplified by Champions like Leona and Alistar. These two are all about starting fights for their team and leading the way in before popping defensive abilities that allow them to last in the middle of a fight before they can again chain CC a priority target.
On the flip side, there’s a defensive design space that can be exemplified by Champions like Taric and Braum. Defensive Tanks rely on the enemy team over-extending and entering into your ability range. Once they’ve made this slip up, they’ll find a quick succession of short-range crowd control, sustain, and other defensive tools that allow for Tank’s allies to counter-engage or disengage entirely. Defining abilities of this playstyle are Braum’s Wall, the invulnerability provided by Taric’s ult, or Galio’s high impact taunt which forces opponents to attack him briefly.
So, ultimately, we have Tanks that are all about starting a fight and being in the center, and we have Tanks that are more about playing around a key carry and acting as their defensive shield.
Tips for Tanks are quite similar to Hook Champions, in that, if you play aggressive, you’ll really learn the ins and outs of what you Champion can do and come to understand what range you can play aggressive from. But also, don’t be afraid to change your playstyle mid-game regardless of your Tank. While you might be the team’s engage piece, maybe it’s better for you to use your abilities defensively instead of offensively for the sake of your team, or vice versa. Recognize who you have to play around and play towards enabling them or taking away the biggest threat to them with your CC.
Playstyle #3 - Enchanters - Strengths, Weaknesses, and Tips
Moving on to Enchanters next, Enchanters are the defensive spellcasters of League. They earn their moniker by healing or shielding allies from harm and enabling the offensive or defensive abilities of their allies through direct or indirect buffs. Additionally, like other Supports, Enchanters often come packaged with a defining crowd-control ability that is often used as an excellent source of close-range disruption.
The strengths of Enchanters and their playstyle is that, if you play well and have minimal deaths, you’ll scale and become very strong and very powerful. Champions like Rakan or Taric, who are melee-Enchanters, can just take over a game if they reach their levels without having died or given gold to the enemy. Enchanters, in general, have the ability to entirely shape the way a teamfight plays out as their kits come with a high impact ability that can shut down enemies that are within their range. Opposite of the melee-Enchanters, there are the ranged Enchanters like Janna, Lulu, and Karma. One of their biggest strengths is their ability to play safe thanks to their range, and their abilities can be used to gain early priority over the lane. This allows you to push towards the enemy’s side of the map and creates the opportunity to get down vision around Dragon, into the enemy Jungle, or around Bot so that you can continue to play aggressively in-lane.
When it comes to weaknesses of Enchanters, the most obvious mark against the class is their fragility. The trade-off for all their defensive tools and scaling ability is that they have paper-thin resistances and extremely low health pools. This makes positioning on them extremely important as, especially in Hook Lane matchups, if you step into the wrong area of the lane, you’re likely getting locked down and turning over a kill or Summoner Spells to your opponents. Which, of course, will only serve to enable their priority and aggression in lane.
Additionally, the opposite side of Poome’s priority strength is inaction. If you gain all the priority in lane and you don’t utilize it to secure vision or take control of dragons, you’re wasting your game-winning potential while also putting yourself into extremely vulnerable positions. Enchanters are not only defensively weak as individuals, but they also are often lacking in forms of mobility increases, ever relying on Flash to get them out of bad situations or to avoid crowd-control that would otherwise kill them.
Tips for Enchanters, like we mentioned, involves taking advantage of your priority. Use your priority to better set up your team for their next plays. But also, like Tanks, recognize who your primary carry is and learn to adapt your play in game to center around them. Even as a lower-mobility Enchanter, this might mean that you’re roaming upriver to assist your Jungler or Mid Laner through skirmishes.
Playstyle #4 - Mages - Strengths, Weaknesses, and Tips
Mages are Champions that typically possess some combination of range, ability-based area of effect damage, and crowd control. These traits when used in combination allow them to trap and kill enemies from a distance. Mages, like Tanks, have distinct paradigms that they can be defined by which are Poke, Burst, and DPS. Depending on this paradigm, Mages often play towards neutralizing priority damage threats on the enemy team through their unique approach.
While Mages are typically a class of Champions that call Mid Lane home, a host of Mages are extremely viable Supports either due to their weakness in the matchups in Mid, or thanks to their range and ability to punish the typical Marksmen whom they often aim to feast on in Bot. In truth, they’re the opposite of Enchanters in some ways in that they’re often a ranged ability-casting Champion that focuses on damage and crowd control over the shielding and healing. In their eyes the best peel is a dead threat.
So, this is plainly put the strengths of the Mage. Their damage and ability to lockdown targets. Additionally, as games extend, Mages typically scale extremely well and can often become an additional source of damage that enemies must account for in a teamfight. Additionally, like Enchanters, they’re great at securing priority over a lane by swiftly trimming down Minion waves with their AOE damage.
Their weaknesses are shared with Enchanters though in that they’re often extremely low in terms of mobility and defenses. This is why Champions like Brand, Zyra, Swain, and Xerath found popularity in the Support role since in this split lane they have the ability to play off the pressure of their partner without having to factor fully in for their mobility weakness.
In terms of tips for Mage Support players, focus on punishing your enemies when they move up to last hit. As the enemy ADC steps forward and their attack animation winds up, you’ve got a guaranteed window to poke at them with your primary damage ability, or if it cuts through Minions, even CC them for big damage which can grant you priority in lane. Which, if established, can be used to secure forward vision, dragon, and rotational priority on skirmishes.
Closing Out
So, there you have it! Thanks to Poome for sitting down with me and crafting this informational piece. If you’d like to see more of Poome, you can follow him across the following links!
