support..

[Trv]

hey
well, if you look at my stats, ive tried carries, i don't see myself taking my psr much higher than 1700 with carries,

right now, all i want to do is be in every team fight, and being really effective through out, just by being there always, i assume this role would be support, or ganker, but the way i see gankers is targeting single players, not being an entire team supporting presence,

so i want to move to trying to support, the only problem is, im not sure how to pub support, i can watch replays of 1900s all day, and copy what they do, but the carries in these 1600 games just arent going to be able to cope with stacked creeps and win early enough for my lack of items to not be game crushing, thats how i see it anyway, please correct me if im wrong.

so, how do you effectively support in pubs? & how do you effectively support in 1817+

what is key to support? i just try and keep 2 wards up, where i feel we need them, get the courier flying & try and be in fights as a supportive presence, what else do i need to do?

[Rordarok]

Make sure the carry gets all the time to farm, meaning you should be focussing on harassing the opponents and stacking some of the neutrals (always stack the pullspot before you pull).

Make sure that if you see 2 groups of five hanging around in the middle lane that you are there. Try disabling their carry as he's pretty much the one that's going to ravage your team, so make sure to kill him first.

Counterwarding is a +, but doing so is increasing your map control so redicilously well that I strongly suggest it.

[Trv]

Make sure the carry gets all the time to farm, meaning you should be focussing on harassing the opponents and stacking some of the neutrals (always stack the pullspot before you pull).

Make sure that if you see 2 groups of five hanging around in the middle lane that you are there. Try disabling their carry as he's pretty much the one that's going to ravage your team, so make sure to kill him first.

Counterwarding is a +, but doing so is increasing your map control so redicilously well that I strongly suggest it.

thank you,
beyond the little things like that, what should my early game, mid game, late game strategy be like?

[Rordarok]

Early game - purely babysitting carry, warding, stacking, harassing lane, if mid/top wants a gank (make sure to always carry a TP) then go do that (you have striders anyway).

Mid game - keep on stacking, warding is VERY important now, counterward too, try getting a few levels yourself.

End game - you're pretty much useless now, just remain stacking a bit and spam ward.

[Trv]

Early game - purely babysitting carry, warding, stacking, harassing lane, if mid/top wants a gank (make sure to always carry a TP) then go do that (you have striders anyway).

Mid game - keep on stacking, warding is VERY important now, counterward too, try getting a few levels yourself.

End game - you're pretty much useless now, just remain stacking a bit and spam ward.
useless?
so what, just disconnect late game? i don't think so, this doesnt seem like a viable strat, surely im more than just wards and creep pulls

[Octavia]

Supports aren't useless late game. It's just a matter of being a lot more cautious as stepping out of lane leads to unhealthy situations. Most supports have strong disables, and late game Shrunken Heads are only going to last 5 seconds which is short enough that you should reliably be able to get your disables off.

[Rordarok]

As you're having no real use anymore than making the carry even more OP and ward. In teamfights your presence is minimal except for your disables ofcourse. The only thing that you have to do is spray all your disables and nukes on the carry before you'll get twoshotted by a critting Madman.

[Trv]

so assuming im not playing 1800 games yet,
where i am getting last hits for myself, or should i be? :S
should i build escape mechs? eg blink/shroud?
ive played a few witch slayer games roaming with shroud, same with tb, and pulled out some really large scores, but thats not really supporting i guess..

how are you meant to get money as support if you let the big guys get the creep kills?

[Ar7style]

so assuming im not playing 1800 games yet,
where i am getting last hits for myself, or should i be? :S
should i build escape mechs? eg blink/shroud?
ive played a few witch slayer games roaming with shroud, same with tb, and pulled out some really large scores, but thats not really supporting i guess..

how are you meant to get money as support if you let the big guys get the creep kills?

No, what you mentioned was not support but ganker ;)

A supports is not supposed to get any lasthits at all (VJ, Glac, Andro, DShaman etc.)

A good support can handle himself with redbooties, mb a strider and if really lucky a bracer or powersupply.

Semi-Supports/Initiators (Behemoth, Magmus etc.) is a bit harder, as they need their portalkeys to be effective, but still need to make sure that they dont steal any farm from their carry. Roaming can get you some gold through kills and assists, but a support will never really sit back and farm.

[TheMethos]

Assists (especially with the new assist gold) should net you enough kills later on when there's more killing. Early game you can pull the creeps to get extra gold. Also, feel free to take the CK that the carry you're babysitting isn't going to get. I.E he pushed back to use a hp pot, or he needed to go eat a tree and just wont make it to kill the archer...

[Trv]

thank you guys
more replies more opinions/insights is the way to go for this thread though i think

[Boolbasor]

http://forums.heroesofnewerth.com/showthread.php?t=181184

[Sauron`]

I think some of the points in this thread are misleading. I will take farm and last hits from the carry if i KNOW he is not going to get them. And it's not wrong to get a few kills as a support.

a well farmed support is EXTREMELY annoying. But I think the main thing is, is not overextending/getting yourself killed. Im not gonna randomly waltz in the jungle to ward if all 5 are missing.

[Shinzuwa]

You get you money as a supporter from towerkills, assissts and creeps if you happen to run past a lane where noone is atm, it's actually your job to snag that gold and xp as you'll be starved of it as is.
Don't however kill neutrals or creeps in a lane where some1else is who needs the farm more.

Something more complicated would be knowing that your carry won't get the ck, and therefore you take it instead of wasting the gold. But this takes alot of experience, and don't neglect your more important duties during the laning phase, such as harassing.

[Geronnymo]

Well, basically:

1. Help your carry on lane by harrasing (effectively, also keep an eye on aggroing creeps, sucks when you pull them away from your carry just when he was about to lasthit em), with pulling and by denying your own creeps (start hitting them at half hp, when you dont get the chance to harras or keeping the lane back at tower is more important at that time).

Stack woods if possible and make it dependant on some factors. For example If you are only 2 on the lane you are WS and your carry is lets say MB, stacking the woods to early can mean free gold for the other team if they have heroes like pebs/bomb who can kill them way easier/earlier then you can.

Try to set up kills for your carry and sacrifice your life for him if needed. You get money at this stage through lasthits that your carry cant get, assists, pulling and for kills again only if you are sure your carry wont get the kill. This money should be invested in flying courier (ASAP), new wards (should be buyed shortly before wards go down so a little bit before the 6min mark, make sure to tell your team that you cant afford if you cant and ask someone else to buy it), counterwards (if needed, I can think of matchups where I would skip them early) and your early game luxury boots. Depending on how well your early game will be be prepared to have at best red marchers or upgraded boots at the 20mins mark and nothing else other then wards/tp/mana battery (Unless you really own them then you can easily have more (but in this case I would also give a damn about my carry and just have fun)).

Ganking/Counterganking is situational so I cant really say much about it. Do it if needed and if you can afford it. If it means your carry cant get any ck coz he gets raped 2v1, only gank if there is action and it will result in saving some life or giving some kills or both. And head back to lane asap.

2. In the midgame your main job is warding, stacking, ganking and participating in teamfights. As a carry/ganker player you are prolly used to be able to do some solo ganks at this time. Forget about that (unless you are like WS and catch a glacius warding in the river). You need your team. Stick with your "gankers" and gank while your carry farms. Keep in mind you are very squishy and your abilities do usually less dmg on average then the others. So stay a bit back, positioning is very important, then basically ran in get your skills off asap (and as smart as possible) and hide while waiting till your cds go off. Obviously there will be situations you can hit and stuff, but generally keep in mind your main job is some quick burst dmg and more important disabling their heroes.

As for teamfights, basically its the same as with ganking. Get your skills off effectively and hope not to get assraped by some nukes (FWIW the lower the psr/mmr bracket you play the more people will target you in teamfights even if you got everything off and are basically useless. But thats a good thing while they waste their skills for you, your carry smashs them to death).

As for warding and counterwarding. One very important thing throughout the entire game for a support player is map awareness. There prolly is no other class who need this as much. Seeing their support player on the minimap, quickly looking at it, seeing he places a ward and knowing where it is and straight counter it is just awesomely funny. Or when your mid hero is about to die and you port in and turn it around and kill him. With that said I cant really tell you much about warding since its very situational. Learn the obvious ward spots (there is a pretty good guide about is somewhere in strategie forum), learn some not so obvious ward spot (either by trying yourself (either in your normal games or be a real nerd and gogo practice mode) or by watching replays from good teams), and try to figure what spots make most sense to ward. As a little hint the stronger the late game potential of your opponents are compared to yours the earlier you want offensive wards. Also dont run alone into dangerous zones just to ward. Get your team to go there and ward on the way.

3. Lategame, pretty much the same as midgame. Depending on how its running you will either still sit on your boots pretty much, or have some items like nomes or tablet. In general keep in mind you are food for ~3/5 of the opponent heroes. And you are nothing without your team so stick around with for most parts.

Kinda run out of things to say, but if you have any question feel free to ask. Also everything I said was reffering to you being the main support aka ward*****. If you have 2 "real" support heroes like glacius and ws in your line-up just one of you will be the ward***** (glacius in this case, usually). That doesnt mean ws dont need to buy wards now, but he should only when glacius doesnt have money and try to get some items like a pk or tablet or we.

[Aviseras]

http://forums.heroesofnewerth.com/showthread.php?t=181184

Baller post.

I want to echo that planting as much vision as possible (SAFELY, DO NOT DIE REPEATEDLY PLANTING AGGRESSIVE WARDS) is always more important than any item at any point in the game.

If you plant 2 wards, but it keeps you from dying just one time due to a gank, you've already made that gold back. This goes double if it's saving your teammates as well.

[FelipeCosta]

...win early enough for my lack of items to not be game crushing, thats how i see it anyway, please correct me if im wrong.

so, how do you effectively support in pubs?
what is key to support? i just try and keep 2 wards up, where i feel we need them, get the courier flying & try and be in fights as a supportive presence, what else do i need to do?

I don't want to address what others have said, so I'll comment on a couple of your questions directly.

- I would say 90% of the time a game is lost isn't because the support lacks items. Most support heroes' abilities scale well without them, and that's part of what makes them good support heroes. Mostly, it will be a lack of teamwork or other players not knowing how to use/build their heroes. Maybe I'm biased since I play support 95% of the time, but that's honestly how I see it. As you mentioned, studying pro support players can only go so far when your team doesn't know how to take advantage of it. You'll just have to get used to losing, honestly. Half of the games you play, you'll want to babysit the best carry but won't be able to because he will only lane with his friend (who also picked a carry) so the game is pretty ****ed from the beginning.

- I think you know how to support if you've spent time watching pro games. You covered what a support does. The biggest thing is understanding you won't have money and that wards NEED to be up. When you're always playing with strangers, you can't rely on them to know what they're doing. You have to keep them alive as best you can and hope for the best. And that means putting up wards so you can tell them they're about to get ganked or that they're about to gank someone that has three teammates right next to them and not to do it.