League Of Legends: Support Overall Review

Supporting in many games is often the most disliked role simply because it isn’t the role where you “deal tons of damage” or where you are “the star of the show.” Even though support isn’t as widely loved as other roles like “ADC” or “Mid,” it is an essential role to have.

1. Types of Supports and Overall Review

The Healer

Probably the most boring of the support types is playing a healer. There’s not much you can do other than heal your ally from time to time, and a slight poke on enemies every so often, but when paired with a good ADC you’ll be on your way to dominating the lane because all you have to do is keep your ADC alive (of course... They’d have to want to be alive as well). During the current state of the game, this role is neither underperforming, or overwhelming. It’s at a pretty good balance between the two depending on what matchup you get.

Healer Support Problems

1. When your ADC is behind you don’t have the damage output to help them claim kills once they are behind unless the enemy team slips up. When you are not behind, the role relies heavily on being able to heal at a moment’s notice.

2. You have VERY high mana costs which can be bad when your ally is behind and getting poked constantly. It usually leads to you having to go back and restore your mana, leaving your ADC to fend for themselves, and you to lose EXP.

(Level 1 mana cost in photo)

3. You will likely be the target of any assassin champions since you are by default squishy, unless you play one of the few exceptions like Taric

The Tank

The tank is the most beneficial of supports during later parts of the game because they are still prominent and a lot more potent as they gain level and reduce the cooldowns of their stuns and taunts. It’s a very enjoyable and well-paced way to play the game as a support especially for those who like to be tanky, as well as annoying for enemy players.

Tank Support Problems

1. If your teammates will not follow you in then you will die, or end up being low health and having to leave them vulnerable for until you return. This role requires a full team effort. Otherwise, your potential is unused.

2. Most tank supports lack range or movement speed. Due to the extra stuns, taunts, slows, and other forms of crowd control you’ll be lacking movement speed and range as a way to balance out the effectiveness of your crowd control.

3. Tanks often have poor dueling (1v1) potential against other champions. You may be able to sustain long enough for an ally to assist you, but you won't be dealing a ton of damage throughout the game with most tanks.

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The Poker

A high-risk, high-reward type of playstyle that can be done with quite a few champions. This playstyle relies heavily on being long-ranged, high damage, and a fast, decisive player. This type of support is a lot of fun to play, but really lacks a late game if your teammates do not decide to try and end the game earlier.

Poke Support Problems

1. You may have high damage early on, but that damage falls off horribly if the enemy team is not severely behind, or have a tank that can just ram through your damage with no issues. For example: as Xerath in the support role, you may deal a lot of damage to the enemy ADC early on, but if you’re just not over the top rolling over the enemy team, their tank can just run straight to you or your ADC if neither of you have enough damage to stop them.

2. Poke supports usually require that you can aim and predict movements of enemies. If you aren’t comfortable with aiming your abilities and landing them then this particular support type is definitely not for you. A lot of the abilities for champions with high range also have a window of escape/dodge as well. Champions like Vayne Lucian could easily just move out of the way.

3. They have very limited crowd control in most situations. You may have the potential to attack from a distance with no punishment (if you can aim of course) but you will also lose defensive properties. Most of these champions like Brand and Vel-Koz only have one stun. If that stun misses during a gank or a team fight it can change the entire outcome.

The Grab

This support type is possibly the most rewarding and most popular type of support being played currently. It has a good balance between crowd control, offensiveness, defensiveness, and overall tankiness. Even when behind this type of support can still manage to turn the tide of most games with a single grab of an enemy champion (although there are instances where grab supports grab an enemy closer to an ally who is about to die). Most of these grab supports are equipped with a shield or some way to sustain after landing the grab.

Grab Support Problems

1. While playing a grab support, you’ll often encounter similar problems as a tank support. When you land a grab if no one else is following up with your play you’ll likely end up taking needless damage. This type of support is heavily reliant on having allies that can deal a decent amount of damage to ensure your abilities aren’t wasted.

2. Sometimes when you’re playing a support that can grab, you may end up grabbing the wrong person. It’s especially detrimental when you grab the enemy team’s tank and put them in a better position. And sometimes grabbing an enemy may not be the best option with a champion like Blitzcrank when a nearby ally is low health.

3. Supports that have grabs often have almost no solo damage. For example: Leona is a great champion with tons of stuns, but she doesn’t deal much damage on her own and her abilities will activate her passive which allows an ally to deal more damage. When you are alone whether it be because your lane partner dies, or you’re just out warding an area, most of the time you can’t defend yourself without an ally to assist you.

2. Problems with the Overall Support Role

Lack of EXP

From playing support so often I tend to see that support usually, if not always, falls behind in experience points. So much that even taking Teleport as a summoner spell still results in you being 1 to 3 levels behind for the majority of the game. You are usually one of the last players to reach level 6. Going out to place wards does not provide you with experience like taking a ward out will. Even taking a ward out doesn’t provide very many experience points. In some games it can be hard to find a balance between having vision on the map, or having more experience points.

High Damage Supports

“Supports” like Brand and Zyra with very high damage output are usually overwhelmingly powerful in lane and even after the lane phase. Simply building something like Liandry’s Torment puts Brand at a spot where he will always deal damage at any point in the game because of his passive ability to burn enemies over time. Players who like to play it safe can play it safe with supports like these while still dealing massive damage over time without having to be up-front.

Pyke

Yes, Pyke gets a category of his own. He has been and still is a problem in the current state of the game. With very low cooldowns for his abilities that all can be offensive and defensive, high damage output spells, and insanely high mobility and sustain, He is very low risk and very high reward with an ultimate that can execute any champion while they are below his ultimate damage threshold that can reach up to 700 easily regardless of barriers. If a target is executed, he continues to have his ultimate for several seconds. After playing Pyke before and after his nerfs, he is still too oppressive and defensive due to his ability to heal, stun, grab, go into stealth, supply allies with 100% assist gold, and slow enemies. This makes Pyke one of the most beneficial supports ever made. His win rate may not be so golden right now, but if you have ever been placed against a really good Pyke, you’ve seen how ridiculous it is to actually catch and kill him or anyone near him.

ADC is a Lacking Role

ADC is very much a lacking role in the current state of the game with all the patches gearing more towards making assassins and tanks more effective. This affects support significantly because you end up supporting a champion that is already pretty lacking in the current meta of the game. Unless your ADC is on par with everyone else or ahead of everyone else, supporting your ADC late game seems to be less effective than supporting your mid laner or someone else. I’ve even found it to be more beneficial to even leave bottom lane in high gold to platinum ranking and just help everyone else when you are losing your lane.

3. Things that are Good in Support Now

Support Items

The items you can use in the current state of the game are pretty well balanced as they are now. Gold income items are a lot more useful than they used to be and now upgrade automatically without having to spend that extra 500 gold to buy your next support item. The most recent changes to gold income items have also helped even out the support role from gaining too much gold and being at an advantage just from getting first blood gold. The active items added into the game and new passives added to certain items over the years have helped supports shine exponentially.

Support’s Overall In-Game Effectiveness

Support is an underappreciated role and has had many changes over the years to help them stay within the meta in terms of effectiveness. All of those changes have made support a very good role in the current meta and a “Must Have” kind of role. A good support can turn the tide of a game with one good team fight. Most supports are pretty well balanced throughout all parts of the game from start to finish.

Healers

Healing supports in this game have been tweaked time and time again, and they have finally reached a point where the healers are a good balance between “not too much” and “not too little.” The pacing of healers is low early on to massive later to match the scaling damage of others. Changes to support items that grant more healing and mana regeneration have definitely helped the healing support role shine.

ELO Climbing with Support

You can now climb the ranked ladder with the role of support with all the changes over the years. It may not be as exciting as playing mid lane or bottom lane, but it can be done. Everything from the items, to the champions can all be efficiently utilized to help you and your current team win games and quickly climb the ranks.

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