At times, it can be extremely difficult to feel like you’re having an impact while playing Support. One of the toughest times to make split decisions quickly and effectively is while playing from a deficit. In today’s guide, I will provide some tips and strategies you can follow to have an impact while playing from behind.
Sometimes it can be pretty tricky to try and remain useful when playing Support in League of Legends. This can be especially true if your team is behind in objectives, gold, or kills. Although it may be difficult to play while behind, as a Support, there are still quite a few things you can do to be impactful. You can focus on warding, communication, playing for bounties or large objectives, and doing your best to stay cool under the pressure.
This is one of the main ways to help your team and have an impact while playing from behind. Even when you’re behind you need to ensure you keep up with vision control and can see if you are getting ganked by the enemy Jungler or Mid Laner. It’s important to be vigilant and try to be aware of the enemy Jungler’s movements and pathing if you can.
During Laning Phase, here are some potential defensive ward locations if you are on Blue Side: Vision Ward in your tri-brush, a regular Stealth Ward in the closest bush in the lane to you, a Stealth Ward in the river by Dragon pit, and if you’re able to roam, you can place a Stealth Ward closer to the mid lane or even in the enemy’s jungle to look out for Jungler’s movements around the Scuttle Crab.
Above I have shown potential places to put Vision and Stealth Wards from Blue Side with the dotted black line showing the point where it may be a little dangerous. If a location can have either a Vision or Stealth, I overlaid both of the small circles.
If you find that your Vision Wards are constantly being destroyed in the tri-brush because the enemy team is pushing you under turret, it might be better to save your Vision Wards and just place a regular Stealth Ward in the location and use Oracle Lens instead.
This is not to say that you can’t place offensive wards closer to the enemy’s side of the river bush or in the enemy jungle. These just hold much more risk and, unless you have backup from your Jungler, it’s not recommended to traverse that far out.
During Laning Phase, here are some potential defensive ward locations if you are on Red Side: a Vision Ward in the river if you are not getting shoved under turret, a Vision Ward in the secondary tri-bush, a regular Stealth Ward in the small side bush off of tri-brush, or in the river where Scuttle Crab gives vision, or even in-lane brush in the one closest to your turret.
Above I have shown potential places to put Vision and Stealth Wards on the Red Side with the dotted black line again showing the point where it may be a little dangerous to cross. Again, if a location can have either a Vision or Stealth, I overlay both of the small circles.
After the Laning Phase, you can branch-off from these typical locations, and focus on warding for objectives and trying to track the enemy team’s movements. During this time, if you are still behind, you can try to ward key locations to try and spot the enemy team as they move between lanes and towards objectives. Depending on what map change occurs according to Dragon Soul, there may be some other locations or bushes that will or will not appear on the map that you can use for warding and gaining vision.
Another important way you can try to have an impact is through effective communication with your teammates. Especially when playing from a deficit, it’s imperative that you pay attention to your teammates communicating whether an enemy has their Summoner Spells and other information, as well as Pings (player-related alerts). During this time when getting caught out can be disastrous, you will want to use vision and communication in tandem to see if the enemy champions are in a specific area or not.
For example, if it is Laning Phase and you can see the enemy Jungler is Top Lane, you can type in chat and ask for help from your own Jungler or even try to make a 2v2 play if you can. It’s important to be constantly communicating in a quick and clear way. You don’t want to overuse Pings, because people might be inclined to not listen if you spam them, but it really depends on the information you’re communicating and paying attention to when other people Ping. For example, effective Pings would be when an enemy champion goes missing, when the enemy Jungler is spotted, when an enemy uses their Summoner Spells, and to communicate when you need assistance or a Dragon will be spawning soon. Another way you can help is to simply shadow someone as they move to put an offensive ward or to help your Jungler with Scuttle control.
One other way you can try to make an impact while playing from behind is through Objective Bounties. Using the other techniques I have mentioned above in tandem with going for Objective Bounties is one way you can try to bridge the gold gap and get team gold for yourself and your carries.
For example, besides organizing your team’s movements and grouping around Dragon, Baron, or whichever structure is up for an Objective Bounty reward for your team, you can also try to gain map control so one of your teammates can split push. This can be especially useful if you know you can’t contest a particular Dragon--maybe your Jungler is dead--and so instead of hoping for a steal, your team can try to split on the opposite side of the map, and you can give back-up to one of your teammates or just set up wards in case the enemy shows up to stop them.
During this deficit, it can also be helpful to try to make plays with vision control and use Oracle Lens to try and group with one or two other teammates to catch one of the enemies’ carries out of position.
One of the most important things you can do is to keep a level head and remain un-tilted. You’ll be able to make better decisions overall if you keep a cool head and try to communicate with your team about how strong your carries are and if you can take fights or not. Continue to ask for help on picks or support your other teammates with vision, extra bodies to push down a low turret, or setting up Dragon/Baron early with vision control.
Incorporating warding, communication, collecting Objective Bounties, and staying calm under pressure, you will have a much larger impact as a Support when you’re playing from behind. As always, good luck and have fun on the Rift!
