Sidelane Support Electrician

[[LSex]Niqhtmare]

Hello,

So I was thinking, in competetive games pro teams often suicide their Electricians leaving them with 100 or so gpm at 15 minutes, which is often similar to the sidelane supports. Electricians shield is one of the best farming mechanisms in the game so he can easily recover. Would it at all be viable to have an Electrician babysit a range carry such as Silhouette or Flint Beastwood? If Electrician goes for a 1-4-4-1 skillbuild at level 10 (Grip shield shield absorption shield purge shield absorption absorption absorption) he can harass nicely with an iron buckler some manapots some stats and some regen as first items. I'm not saying that Electrician should be played as a hard support, but as a secondary support, much like you would play Magmus and Hammerstorm except he will eventually pick up some farm.

So what do you all think about this?
Envisionise

[[ySPL]Enjaa]

yes.

[[0GPM]`Haunter]

But a secondary support is secondary to a primary support. If your secondary support is sacrificing all the farm to babysit a carry then whats the primary support doing? If there's not a primary support who is going to counterward/ward?

It -can- work. It's no where near optimal. It will work fine if you're just looking to do it; it's not the most retarded thing in the world. There's no real reason to pick it over a more typical strategy because it has no real perks in a serious game.

If you're gonna have a primary support, it should be in the lane where the other person can use the free farm. If you're using electrician as primary support then he won't be farming to recover even if he has the ability to because part of the primary supports job is to be useful throughout the game without taking farm AND be able to ward. Primary supports don't -recover-, it's part of their qualification to never get much farm. 150 gpm-200 gpm is pretty amazing on a hard support in a nonstop game. You do not need electricians farm potential to get there and if you do more then you're just taking farm from the other 4 heroes.

Also, people throw electrician in suicide lane not because they want him to get 100 gpm but because he's one of the few heroes that don't get absolutely destroyed and become deadweight in that lane. You don't send pharoahs and stuff suicide lane because you want him to have no farm. It's because they do fine without farm and just need to soak up some exp. These types of heroes don't need farm and are relatively safe 1v2/3.

[[LSex]Niqhtmare]

But a secondary support is secondary to a primary support. If your secondary support is sacrificing all the farm to babysit a carry then whats the primary support doing? If there's not a primary support who is going to counterward/ward?

It -can- work. It's no where near optimal. It will work fine if you're just looking to do it; it's not the most retarded thing in the world. There's no real reason to pick it over a more typical strategy because it has no real perks in a serious game.

If you're gonna have a primary support, it should be in the lane where the other person can use the free farm. If you're using electrician as primary support then he won't be farming to recover even if he has the ability to because part of the primary supports job is to be useful throughout the game without taking farm AND be able to ward. Primary supports don't -recover-, it's part of their qualification to never get much farm. 150 gpm-200 gpm is pretty amazing on a hard support in a nonstop game. You do not need electricians farm potential to get there and if you do more then you're just taking farm from the other 4 heroes.

Also, people throw electrician in suicide lane not because they want him to get 100 gpm but because he's one of the few heroes that don't get absolutely destroyed and become deadweight in that lane. You don't send pharoahs and stuff suicide lane because you want him to have no farm. It's because they do fine without farm and just need to soak up some exp. These types of heroes don't need farm and are relatively safe 1v2/3.

That is exactly what I mean - to use him as a secondary support when already have a primary support doing all the warding and counterwarding, while Electrician uses his shield to harass the enemies in lane to let your ranged carry farm. My point is that using a hero such as Electrician as a secondary support instead of a hero like Hammerstorm is that Electrician has great recoverpotential unlike Hammerstorm. Ranged carries such as Flint Beastwood don't have very much use for the jungle, so when the opponents in the shortlane eventually leave to roam, your rangecarry can farm the lane while the Electrician can catch up in the jungle. This would lead to having more farm on the team than having two heroes with absolutely no freefarm. Electrician also has a great stun/disable like both Mag and Hammer and he is way better at harassing than they are, though both of their stuns are aoe.

[[0GPM]`Haunter]

Secondary supports don't babysit carries because you have a primary support which is better fitted. Where would the primary support go then? Top? Mid? Jungle? The only lane that fits a super hard support is the babysitting role in lane. If you have a primary support then theres no point in getting a secondary support to babysit because then the primary support would have no where to go.

Also magmus, hammerstorms and stuff babysitting carries are much more common in trilanes. In which case, you have both supports babysitting in the first place. A magmus that supports a valk or something will generally end up playing as hard support anyways and probably won't see a portal key UNLESS there is a jungling ophelia/ tempest chipping in heavily for counterwards.

[[LSex]Niqhtmare]

Unless you run a junlge strategy you are going to have two heroes not taking farm in lane. It doesn't have to be a carry going with Electrician, it might aswell be a ganker/semicarry like MoA or Valkyrie while your ward***** support is babysitting a Moraxus or whatever,

[PrestonLee]

This doesn't work (well) because Electrician desperately needs levels to function well past being an early game gripper on his team. He also needs a decent amount of farm (not too much, but still a decent amount for survivability) to not become a hindrance to his team as the game goes on. In comparison heroes like Hammerstorm and Magmus pretty much need nothing but a Portal key to operate at optimal efficiency throughout the game thanks to their AoE stuns and ultimates, and heroes like Parasite/Ophelia/Tempest can level/gain farm through jungle while keeping up the pressure as a sidelane support.

You mention something about Electrician rebounding better than Hammerstorm, but I believe that's simply not true.. Hammerstorm can do extremely well throughout the entire game even without any farm whereas while Electrician has a strong early game will simply fall off later game without the proper farm/snowball. Electrician will inevitably need to take some farm from himself, which could be allocated toward a carry on your team instead when picking a different hero for more overall efficiency (again Mag, Hammer, Parasite, or some other roamer etc. makes this possible and is more efficient).

It does work fine in pubstomps though, as Electrician can support 'decently' in a kill lane early on and then rebound later through snowball farm and semicarry decently well.

I'm not saying support Elec isn't viable, it's quite viable.. but it's just there are more efficient heroes to get the same or better effect. and a semicarry/solo Electrician is much better anyway if you can fit it into your lineup, because he makes so much more use out of the levels and can snowball much more easily.

[[TaX]Vo1taire]

If you try to babysit a ranged hero as a melee hero,
you're gonna have a bad time.

[Spankle]

Elec sidelane is fine even if he's not the focus of the farm. However, I wouldn't call him a semi support in that situation. If you put him short lane with say a Forsaken Archer or Sil your job should be to go for some early kills if you can get them and then roam around and gank. I would rather call him a sidelane ganker in this situation rather than a side lane support. Similar to a VJ/Slither/Gaunt.

[Lariatoooo]

If you try to babysit a ranged hero as a melee hero,
you're gonna have a bad time.

Try behemoth, or accursed, or magmus eventually