Hey there! This tutorial will teach you from scratch how to play support in League of Legends. It’s meant for beginners but advanced players can have a peek and learn from it as well.
What is SUPPORT in League of Legends
Support in League of Legends it’s a role. It’s a role that a player is choosing and it can be played with a variety of champions and it’s played bottom side. Think of this role like a role of an assistant.
When it comes to playing support you must have the appropriate mindset. That is supporting your ADC and the whole team.
Protecting your ADC in the early phase is crucial for good match development.
Shielding when in need, aiding your jungler, warding for your middle and bottom lane, and even assisting the top lane if yours is in a good wave position is just a minor part of your role as a support.
Your entire role is the role of a helper, but this doesn’t mean you are less important than some might think. Actually, the support has the power to carry the entire team to victory.
Remember: performing a support role is all about having the appropriate mindset; constantly keep in mind that you are the team’s helper.
Mastering the Game: How to Play Support and Understand Types of Support in League of Legends
There are 3 main support types in League of Legends:
- Tank support
- Buffer support
- Damage support
Each has their strengths and weaknesses.
Playing Thresh, Alistar, Ahri, and Shaco as Support Champions
Thresh and Alistar stand as the quintessential tank supports in League of Legends, renowned for their crowd control prowess and resilience. Thresh’s signature hook and lantern abilities can set the stage for team fights and rescue allies in peril, while Alistar’s pulverize and headbutt abilities serve as excellent tools for disrupting enemy formations.
On the flip side, Ahri and Shaco represent unconventional yet intriguing choices for the support role. Ahri’s charm ability can create opportunities for kills, and her elusive nature makes her a slippery target. Shaco’s jack-in-the-boxes offer vision and crowd control, and his deceptive clone can sow confusion among enemies. Each of these champions can make a substantial contribution to vision control, a fundamental aspect of the support role.
Tank Support
Tank support is not doing great damage but it dies very hard. People in your team will surely love this type of support, especially the ADCs. It gives them a sense of security and you will often be asked to pick this type of support in champion selection. This is why I`ve made you a list of newbie-friendly tank supports. They are easy to play and very powerful:
- Nautilius
- Tahm
- Sion
- Leona
- Malphite
- Alistar
Buffer Support
Empowering and protecting its allies are the buffer’s support characteristics. They are a popular pick and for a good reason. Their skills frequently lead to strong engagement chances, and they shine brightest when they stick with the team.
Below you have a list of simple to play yet powerful buffer supports:
- Lulu
- Yuumi
- Zilean
- Janna
- Soraka
- Sona
Damage Support
Damage support it’s defined by a large amount of damage it can do in a short period of time. It does a lot of damage but it dies very fast. And it’s represented by a champion that does AP damage.
This type of support it’s not preferred by the ADCs in the lower ranks on the ladder. This is because they believe they are ” unprotected,” which is not the case.
They have deadly damage burst and it can be put to use for intimidating and harassing the opponents. Beneath I`ve made for you a list of straightforward and dominant damage supports:
- Lux
- Ziggs
- Vel’Koz
- Swain
- Zyra
- Brand
Remember: each support type has its strengths and weaknesses.
Stepping Outside the Rift: Support Roles in Other Games
While we primarily focus on the dynamics of League of Legends here, it’s intriguing to consider how the role of support plays out in other popular multiplayer games.
Dota 2, for instance, shares similarities with LoL in terms of the support role, with warding, crowd control, and carry protection being key tasks. However, Dota 2 introduces unique elements such as ‘stacking’ neutral creeps, adding an extra layer of complexity to the support role.
Overwatch, a first-person shooter, offers a different perspective on the support role. Here, supports are primarily healers, tasked with boosting their team’s damage and providing utility in various ways. The fast-paced nature of Overwatch demands quick reflexes and excellent situational awareness from its support players.
How to Play Support Effectively: The Importance of Warding as Support
League of Legends it’s a game played with incomplete information, as we have visibility only around our champions, minions, buildings, and wards.
We can’t see the enemies all the time and we don’t know exactly their next move. This is when wards are coming in handy. They provide vision around them for approximately two minutes.
The Main Feature of Support Role
If you want excel on how to play support you need to master warding.
As support, you will always have an item that grants you the placement of three wards at the same time anywhere you want, and they replenish always if you get back to base.
This feature will be used to protect your team from sudden attacks and lead to powerful engagement chances.
Warding in the First 14 Minutes (Laning Phase)
As the team’s helper, you have to keep your eyes wide open from the first minute. At any cost, you must protect your team, especially the ADC. To achieve exactly that, you must be sure to give visibility on the map right from the start if the situation demands it.
So, let’s talk about common early situations and how you should react as support.
Common situations happening the first 2 minutes and how to ward as support
A match can start various ways but below you’ll be presented with the most frequent ones and how you should ward as support depending on your current position.
- Your team is invading the enemy jungle
Your team decides to rush into the enemy jungle to score a kill or two and to delay the enemy jungler’s progress. Assume the worst-case scenario, that the enemy team is invading your jungle, and place a defensive ward on either red or blue buff depending on your team’s invading route.
To be clear, if you are on the blue team, place one in one of the blue circles and one of the red ones if you are playing for the red team.
The reason you want to set up defensive wards like this is because the worst-case scenario is that the enemy team is also invading you via another route, and it’s critical to know what they’re doing.
- The enemy team is invading your jungle
If you notice or have a feeling that the enemy team is going to invade, make sure to put a defensive ward in one of the blue circled areas if you are the blue team support, and red ones if you play as the red team support.
What happens in the first two minutes of the game echoes throughout the game, so it’s critical for your team to have visibility if a skirmish is about to occur. It allows your team to not miss their skills and warns them about the invasion, giving them enough time to position and react correctly.
- The bottom enemies are missing under minute 1:40
The enemy team is not invading you and your team decides to play a standard opening but the two bottom enemies are missing. To be safe from dying, follow the path drawn in the image below if you are playing on the blue team after you helped your jungler, and keep your ward:
And, like this if you are playing on the red team:
Best Standard Warding Location for Bottom Lane up Until Minute 8
The image under displays the best standard warding placement for the bottom lane up to minute 8:
You can safely say it’s the best warding spot up until minute 8 because it gives you a lot of vision and a lot of time to react if you spot enemies coming towards you.
It would be wise to take turns warding with your ADC, to have visibility in this area.
Warding on first base recall
On another note, a very good warding practice as support on laning phase is to ward in the orange location shown in the image below with a control ward.
And it is a good habit because, having a ward here early, will protect not only your lane but the middle and jungle lane as well. making your ward super valuable
The first support that gets first base recall, it’s the first one to influence the middle, jungle, and bottom lane play with confidence.
Warding as Support if You Are Behind
In League of Legends, it’s not worth dying to place wards for your team, and if you are already behind with kills, farm, level, and plates bottom lane you definitely don’t want to make your situation worse.
So, place some defensive wards as described in the image below in one of the blue circled areas if you play for the blue team and in the red circled areas if you are the red team support:
And remember, if you feel that you can’t place the defensive wards in these locations don’t risk doing it.
Warding as Support if You Are Ahead
When ahead, you should always try to deep ward the enemy jungle. And always try to do it when you know there is not a significant threat, for example when both enemies were killed bottom, or/and if you spot the enemy jungler TOP side, etc.
The image below teaches you some cool offensive warding spots for both blue and red support:
Warding between minutes 14 and 22 (Middle Phase)
In the middle phase, things start to move faster and because of that, the warding is also changing.
IMPORTANT:
Your main goal as support when warding in the middle game phase is to secure visibility or vision in the next area where the fight might happen around 60 seconds before. If you can’t, try to get it done as soon as possible.
Your secondary main goal as support when warding in the middle game phase is to ward in a manner in which your team can complement your warded area with more wards.
Middle Phase Support Warding the Next Team-Fighting Area
And now, let’s say you play the blue support and you just come out of the base with your wards replenished.
You want to stop for a second, analyze the map, analyze your ally’s position, enemy’s position, the active objectives on the map, and take the best guess on where you think the next fight will happen.
For this situation let’s say you are guessing that this is the next skirmish area:
The best warding spots for this area are marked by the blue circles in the next screenshot:
Support Warding the First Two Towers for Each Lane
Watch the video below to learn how to ward the areas around the first two towers for each lane, blue and red side during mid-phase.
You are the blue support and your team is preparing to fight the enemy team for the dragon kill. We need to secure vision for this important fight and the blue circles in image below shows you exactly the warding locations:
And like this if you are playing the red team support:
Let’s say the baron needs to be warded and you are the red support. Having visibility on the river is very important during this phase.
And, placing wards in this manner will allow your teammates to complement the area with more wards. The red circles in the image under shows you the warding spots before baron:
And similarly, if you are the blue team support:
Warding after minute 22 (Late Phase)
And now, for the late phase, the way you are going to ward is going to be changed again because the events are going to happen a lot faster than the middle phase.
IMPORTANT:
Your main goal as support when warding in the late game phase is to constantly think about where you should put the next ward, when is the right time to do it, and destroy as much as you can enemy wards with your sweeping lens or control wards. And, always ward the next fighting location or objective with at least 60 seconds before. In this phase it becomes mandatory.
Your secondary main goal as support when warding in the late game phase is to ward as deep as you can.
Warding during the late phase is so important because players are getting close to full build and there is no room for mistakes as anyone can get killed in less than 2 seconds.
Below, we’ll have examples on how to ward during the late phase that will teach you how to think before placing a ward.
Support Warding the Third Towers for Each Lane and Side
Check out the video below to discover how to effectively ward the areas surrounding the remaining towers for each lane, both on the blue and red side during the late phase of the game.
For the late phase, warding the dragon is a bit different than the middle phase. You and your team must be able spot the enemies a lot faster during this phase. In the image below you are blue team support and the blue circles are the best warding spots for this phase:
And if you are the red support ward like this:
During the late phase, warding the baron must be done similarly to how we did it for the dragon. You must make sure you warded the area around baron at least 60 seconds before the fight because things move a lot faster since everyone is getting close to their maximum power with items and levels.
The image below describes you how to ward the baron area as the blue team support:
And this image describes how to ward the baron during late phase if you are the red support:
There are 2 reasons its best to ward deeper in this phase:
- You’ll spot the enemies coming from base to fight your team in case you started to damage the dragon.
- If the enemy team started to fight the dragon, your team can spot and kill the enemy that comes to reinforce the dragon kill, and it will die easily because he is not with his team.
Warding deeper in this phase is your best bet but only if your team is winning or the teams are tied.
You don’t want to attempt to ward deep if your team is losing because you will certainly die.
Warding Over the Wall As Support
A cool think you need to master as support is warding over the wall. Which is a mechanic that allows your character to place wards easier and further than your warding range.
Frequent Warding Over the Wall Locations
That being said I’ve made a list of frequent warding over the wall locations for you to have as starter pack. Check the images below.
Remember: as a support you are bound to help your team as much as you can and giving them visibility on the map is crucial. Also keep in mind that it’s never worth dying to place a ward.
Trading as a Key Skill: Enhancing Your 'How to Play Support' Strategy
Trading it’s a very important laning phase mechanic. You want to aid your ADC as much as possible when it comes to trading. Everytime you got the chance to do damage do so, and never take damage without damaging the enemies back.
Tips on How to “Trade” Health Points in League of Legends as Support
- As Support, when the enemy champion/s are near walls, hit them with a long-range skill shot that is nearly impossible to dodge.
- Always stay close to your ADC when attempting to trade. You can die in less than 5 seconds if you aren’t paying attention to this matter in the laning phase.
- Punish the enemy ADC if he has just used his attack to kill a monster, as he will be unable to attack you, and back up fast.
- Always be ready to attack the same enemy as your ADC chooses to engage. It’s always best to focus on one enemy.
- After any type of attack, always try to hide in the bushes. The enemies will be unable to retaliate because you have vanished into them. You are revealing yourself if you attack while in the bush. As a result, when attacking, make sure to step out of the bush.
Remember: always stay close to your ADC and make his laning phase easier by giving the best trades possible.
Understanding Positioning: A Key Component in 'How to Play Support' in League
Positioning is one of the important things that must be detailed in the How to Play Support guide. Knowing how to position yourself as support is crucial for you and the team. Especially in the laning phase. Positioning as support is dependent on what type of support you are playing.
Support Positioning During Laning Phase
The golden rule for positioning in laning phase as support is simple: always be in a parallel position with your ADC and close to it.
To make things easier, let’s consider these invisible parallel lines for the laning phase positioning:
These 7 lines are just to give you a picture of how you should think in terms of positioning. You can imagine as many parallel lines as you want. The idea here is just to give you an example of a positioning mindset.
Tank Support Positioning During Laning Phase
If you play tanky support, the way you want to position during the laning phase is always try to be the first to touch the next invisible line towards the enemy. This means, you always must be somehow in front of your ADC and always close to him. If you cannot position yourself in front a bit, then you should rely on the golden rule to stay close and parallel to your ADC.
The image below exemplifies how you should position yourself as tanky support:
Buffer Support Positioning During Laning Phase
For a buffer support type, you want to stay close to your ADC as much as possible and in line with him. The reason for that is that you want to make sure you are always in range to instantly give your buff to him and at the same time you don’t want to be too close to the opponents to take free damage. The illustration below shows how you should position yourself:
Damage Support Positioning During Laning Phase
Damage support is going to be positioning himself in range to hit the enemies with his abilities. He will always be moving back and forth depending on his skills cooldowns and it will of course always be close to his ADC.
Damage support positioning is similar to buffer support. The only difference is that the damage support will always be forced to cross for a brief moment at the next invisible line to deal damage and then get back to be in line with his ADC. The image below will give you a visual representation:
Support Positioning During Middle and Late Phase
During the middle and late phases, your job as support is to be present in the best position in time.
To achieve that you must:
- ward in such a manner that it will allow you to get back in time to any team fight that might happen
- calculate your deaths
- know approximately how much a fight can last to aid in another fight in another place
- sense how much time it will take to clear wards
- understand when it’s best to recall to buy items and replenish
Tank Support Positioning During Middle and Late Phase
As a tank support, during the middle and late phase, your main goal is to protect the carries and if they are dead or not present, you need to be as useful as you can possible be.
Accomplishing that is done through positioning. The image below gives you an example of a very good position:
Buffer Support Positioning During Middle and Late Phase
On middle and late phase, one of the buffer support’s crucial role is to empower the team with various buffs and heals, and slowing, shackling, stunning, damaging, transforming the enemies.
All of this is accomplished by using proper positioning. It is critical to position oneself well and on time to win the match.
Damage Support Positioning During Middle and Late Phase
The damage support’s role throughout the middle and late phase is to aid his team by damaging or peeling the enemies. You are making your team very happy when you are handing in kills.
The damage support will always seek to safely position himself in a manner that allows him to deal damage.
Remember: positioning is crucial, being in the right position at the right time will significantly help your team in winning.
Expert Tips to Remember to Help You Learn How to Play Support
- As a support, you’re not just tied to the bottom lane. When the opportunity arises, roam to other lanes to provide assistance. This can lead to unexpected kills and can give your team a significant advantage.
- Sometimes, you’ll need to sacrifice yourself for the greater good. If it means your carry can get away and survive, it’s usually worth it.
- Never underestimate the power of a well-placed ward. It can provide crucial information about the enemy’s movements and can prevent deadly ambushes. Always strive to maintain good vision control around key areas of the map.
- In laning phase damage the weaker enemy that has no Health Points regeneration and no shield regeneration.
- Help your ADC to push the lane if he requests it.
- Stay to last hit minions and take the experience to level up if your ADC died or recalled if you are pushed.
- When recalling as support try to do it near a turret because mobs will die to it or your ADC and you take the experience.
- Use sweeping lens after enemies are retreating.
- Before going in base, try to ward, you’ll have replenished your wards at home.
- Help your jungler with the red buff if you play on the blue side and the blue buff if you are playing on the red side.
- In laning phase, place your ward after you destroyed the control ward because you might get attacked and get your vulnerable one destroyed.
- Place your wards where the next fight gonna happen or you think where it’s going to happen.
- When laning phase, try to ward the bush towards the enemy bottom tower before recalling because when you come back it will help you a lot with where might your opponents might hide.
- If you are losing in late phase, plant wards around your base, so you and your team know the enemy’s team attack angle.
- Don’t forget you can change from default wards to the sweeping lens when needed.
- If possible, don’t allow a powerful enemy to recall. The more you keep it busy the less he will be dangerous to your team.
- When recalling in the laning phase, don’t forget that you can also ward for other lanes.
- During laning phase, make sure to ward when no creeps are on the bottom lane. You don’t want to miss out on the experience.
- Keep an eye on the bottom enemy’s Health and Mana bars when the game just started. It’s not a rule but usually, it indicates that they aided their jungler and this information can help you be on your guard in case the enemy jungler decides to gank you in minute 2.
- Your primary duty as a support is to protect your carries. Use your abilities to keep enemies away from your team’s damage dealers. This can turn the tide of a fight in your team’s favor.
- Always communicate with your team. Let them know when you’re going to ward, when you’re going to roam, and when you’re going to engage. Good communication can lead to better coordination and more successful plays.
- Understand your role in team fights. Are you a tanky support who needs to initiate fights? Or are you a healing support who needs to stay back and keep your team alive? Knowing your role can make a big difference in team fights.
- Understand your role in team fights. Are you a tanky support who needs to initiate fights? Or are you a healing support who needs to stay back and keep your team alive? Knowing your role can make a big difference in team fights.
- Lastly, always stay positive. Support can be a thankless job, but it’s also one of the most important roles in the game. Keep your spirits up and continue doing your best to help your team.
Remember: these tips are meant to help you understand how to play support but they can be too much if you are going to try to execute them all at once. Take it easy and try to apply them all slowly in time.
Community Insights on Playing Support
In the spirit of the vibrant League of Legends community, there’s a wealth of knowledge and discussion to be found on various platforms, with Reddit being a standout. For instance, the subreddit r/summonerschool is a goldmine of tips and strategies shared by seasoned players. It’s like a virtual classroom where you can learn from others’ experiences and challenges of playing support in different game scenarios.
One thread that caught my attention was How to Play Support Against a Mage Support, where players delve into:
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Scanner Level 1: One user suggests taking a scanner at level 1 to delete the opponent’s lane ward.
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Roaming: Another strategy mentioned is to pick a champion that can roam effectively. The idea is to sit between mid and bot lane and win both simultaneously because mages are vulnerable to flanks and can’t risk getting caught out in the river.
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Mind Games: One user highlights the importance of mind games, such as baiting out skillshots. This involves walking up to feint an attack, causing the enemy to throw out a skillshot that you can then dodge.
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Pressure: There’s a discussion about the importance of supports walking up and pressuring the enemy to alleviate pressure for the ADC. This strategy is described as a good defense through offense.
Don’t hesitate to dive into these discussions or even start your own. After all, sharing experiences and learning from others is what makes the gaming community so special.
