Introduction

Support is the role that takes the least amount of gold in a team, but that doesn’t mean that a support isn’t effective. Every couple games or so, you will play against a support player carrying their team! Imagine that, a champion that deals little to no damage that carries their team. How can this be? Simple. They play to their team’s strengths or hide their weaknesses.

Several people can affirm that champion select is one of the most important parts of the game. It definitely is, considering it determines how you will look to win your game. Many people will also say that you should play your best champion. For all the other roles, yes, I agree that playing your best champion is a great way to have a better chance at winning, but with the support role, you should probably play to what the team needs. There are 2 major factors to what support you should play: what are you good at and what does the team need. Luckily for us, support (for the most part) is not always the most mechanically intensive role to play, so picking to what the team needs could be considered more important that what you are good at. Playing to what you are good at should always be considered however, as long as it isn’t detrimental to the team composition.

In supporting, I’ve always understood that there is a color wheel of supporting options. It helps me to think more about what I need to do and what the team needs for me. The role of support can be narrowed down into 3 different playstyles: heal, poke/initiation, and lockdown. Some supports can even fit into two of these support playstyles. However, each comes with its own benefits and its own counters.

Healer Supports

Healer supports are some of the easiest supports to play, such as Sona and Soraka. Their most important ability is their healing ability, which they can use to heal their adc in the laning phase and help the entire team survive the team fight. Usually they have some form of Crowd Control, whether it's weak or strong, that allows them to peel. Usually healing-based supports have mage-like qualities such as low resistances and a reliability on Ability Power and Mana Regeneration. A prime example of a Healer Support is Soraka, the Star Child.

Soraka has three healing abilities, her Q, Starcall, which deals damage to an opponent and heals Soraka, and her W, Astral Infusion, which allows her to heal her allies by sacrificing some of her own health. Her ultimate, Wish, allows a massive heal on all of her allies and herself. She has one weak CC ability, her E, Equinox, which can silence and, after a period of time, root enemies still in its AOE. The advantage of Soraka is her ability to have extended teamfights and tower dives in your team’s favor, as well as push out the lane slowly in the laning phase. In lower elos, she is a great support to play as not everyone will try to target the support. Her biggest weakness, as with other healer supports, is her squishiness, which can be exploited if played recklessly. Outside of flash, she is a sitting duck. Healer supports will thrive against a comp that has poor coordination or a lack of hard CC (think Malphite’s ultimate as an extreme example), and suffer against a team with good coordination/focus and hard CC.

Poke/Initiation Supports

Poke and initiation supports can feel like some of the most rewarding supports to play, with their kits allowing you to make noticeable plays from the rest of your teammates. Supports considered to be poke and initiation are Morgana, Karma, and Thresh. In all parts of the game, they thrive on making big AND smart plays by disabling down squishy targets with weak/medium Crowd Control and, on very rare occasions, baron and dragon steals. This playstyle, however, is a very tricky one to pull of consistently. Too much aggression and you’ll be feeding the enemy team. Too passive and you’ll watch your base slowly crumble. Here, you need to find a balance between the two.

Personally, Morgana, the Fallen Angel, is one of my favorite initiation and poke supports. Her Q, Dark Binding, is one of her most powerful abilities. It’s a long range skillshot that roots on contact and lasts a few seconds to boot. Her W, Tormented Soil, is an AOE ability which damages units standing on it. Her E, Black Shield, shields an allied champion from Magic Damage and disables any form of CC until the shield is destroyed. Her ultimate, Soul Shackles, is a AOE damaging ability that stuns enemy champions for 1.5 seconds if they remain close enough to Morgana. She has quite a few strengths, such as the ability to pick off a squishy target with her Dark Binding or Soul Shackles, allowing a teammate to dive a squishy target without getting Crowd Controlled easily, or peeling with Tormented Soil. However, her biggest weakness, similar to other Poke and initiation Supports, is her reliance on mana and cooldowns. Sure, she can stop ganks with her Dark Binding or continue movement in safety with her Black shield, but both have long cooldowns and Dark Binding can be dodged easily. Many other kinds of these supports have ways to escape, but usually require some kind of skill shot. There is not really a best way to play initiation/poke supports aside from getting into the zen of the role. It can feel like one of the most rewarding ways to play support.

Lockdown Supports

Whenever I think of playing this kind of support, I hear the words “I came in like a wrecking ball.” Supports that are considered to be lockdown supports are Nautilus, Leona, and Malphite. They can be the reason why the enemy team refuses to teamfight you in a full on 5v5. Their kit revolves around hard crowd control and survivability in a teamfights. If you want to kill one of these champions, late game it should take a long time and by that point you may have already won.

If there is 1 lockdown support I love going for, it's Nautilus, the Titan of the Depths. His entire kit revolves around CC, having 3 abilities plus a passive dedicated to it. His Q, Dredge line, is a skill shot that pulls an enemy it hits closer to Nautilus and Nautilus comes closer to it. His E, Riptide, is a short range AOE slow that deals a small amount of AP damage. His Ultimate, Depth Charge, is a point and click knock up that chases its target until it is knocked up, knocking up other enemies in his path. His passive, Staggering Blow, basically roots an enemy that Nautilus auto attacks for a short few seconds. His W ability, Titan’s Wrath, is basically just a shield with capabilities similar to Sunfire Cape.

His strengths, as well as other lockdown supports, are very pronounced: lockdown, CC, survivability. When he goes in, he goes in hard. Any of these abilities land on a squishy target and you may have just won the teamfight. His weakness, however, should be duly noted. He has no way heal his team mates. If his adc or squishy allies take too many hits, the only thing he can try to do is block as many CC abilities heading for them. When behind, lockdown supports are meant to be something of a sacrificial lamb. Their plays may not be as creative as those of Morgana or Thresh, but their plays can make the biggest impact of the game.

The support life is one of the hardest but is one of the most rewarding. Sure, anyone can carry, but everyone can always do their best to keep that carry alive, to buff and to heal, to allow picks to happen, to change the game with little to no recognition. Nobody really needs recognition, only Elo. Hope this short guide to picking the best support helps!

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