1. pick support
2. buy chick
3. buy wards
4. place them around the map
5. stay in lane and dont kill creeps
6. control ur side runes every 2 minutes (helps ur team solo mid)
7. try to double stack and pull as much as possible (if carry capable farming under tower)
8. try to keep map warded as much as possible
9. don't die if u dont have to (much ppls think if they play support they can die 50 times in a single game)
^ Agree on every point except
5. stay in lane << not necessarily if your carry can handle the lane well by himself
and
7. try to double stack as much as possible << Depends
depending on what hero u have ofc u can go and roam but u still need some levels in order to be effective cuz in pubs theres usualy atleast 3or even more farmed heroes so itemless underleveld support is a free meat
Let the carry you are laning with get all the kills, but make sure they don't get away.
Also, items. Items on a support aren't important at all. In a pub game playing a support, chances are you are the only warding, dewarding, detection items, smoke, and cour/up. That's a lot of gold right there, and this is most important. Don't worry about getting real items, you don't need them. Good positioning should make up for items. If you are struggling, pick up a bracer.
Most games I play in pub as hard support, I usually end game with a couple bracers and level 1 boots. Sometimes I even feed, but usually I still win. Good support, or even mediocre supporting, is a huge advantage to your carry.
1. pick support
-if you trust your mates to carry otherwise frustration if you done your job right
2. buy chick (in mm game buy wards, that will usually make someone else buy chick so you will get both, in some special cases can get both at start)
3. buy wards
4. place them around the map
-place them on rune plus lane of the hero you are supporting (if facing brood or gondar sentry is prefered)
5. stay in lane and dont kill creeps
- y only deny, and attack creeps last possible second in case your carry forgets to lashit. And only in cases you facing 2-3 ppl.
-in case you are facing solo guy, dont let him in xp range... do 6. and help ganking.
6. control ur side runes every 2 minutes (helps ur team solo mid)
7. try to double stack and pull as much as possible (if carry capable farming under tower)
-singl pull, double stack, double pull, triple pull whatever, idea is that all creeps you pull away from lane die so you do not push his lane and give enemy xp.
- If your guy cant farm under tower or pushes lane means hes bad carry and you shouldnt support such, but you can fix their failures by double stacking and pulling.
-Otherwise make sure you kill camps, cos whole idea is xp. So you get some gold and xp while not taking carry ones.
-Sometimes it will be blocked, you can chose to counterward, but i prefere camping fast so he doesnt place unless he suicides, counterwarding can be hard if he knows what hes doing and you dont.
-also you must camp him so he doesnt pull creeps away from your lane wiht his hero and messes things up, so yea, control your fucking enemy if he is solo.
8. try to keep map warded as much as possible
-do not overward, do not waste money on bilion on sentries, buy gem insted and dont die if you can afford, you are more usefull when you have few items, dont underestimat escape items like force staff and dagers specialy in mm. In cw you can organise items like mekas and pipe and you stick together. Micro items normally work much better.
9. don't die if u dont have to (much ppls think if they play support they can die 50 times in a single game)
Read above. Even if you master early and dont die there, if you underestimate need for some items , you will die late, unless you perfectly position yourself and are superior then rest of players ingame, but then why do you support ?
"Let the carry you are laning with get all the kills, but make sure they don't get away."
Always try to steal kills, if you have your support hero effective early, you can give much more gold to your carries by making enemy busy, also that way you can be sure enemy wont escape :D if solo, only dont steal if its gonna ruin your second kill, or if you waste ult when not needed.
I once thought same as you, but practice proven my current words correct.
" Also, items. Items on a support aren't important at all. In a pub game playing a support, chances are you are the only warding, dewarding, detection items, smoke, and cour/up. That's a lot of gold right there, and this is most important. Don't worry about getting real items, you don't need them. Good positioning should make up for items. If you are struggling, pick up a bracer. "
I explained this in post above.
yeah cuz having support with some items instead of carry with earlier desolator bkb manta or w/e by the minute 15 is so much worse thats clearly good reason to steal kills
What is gonna happen is enemy who uses my protocol gonna have supports that gonna feed on you and your carry. While their carry freefarms, and overall gains more gold, with you and your carry sucking balls.
Eventually their carry gonna have same items as your carry, and their supports will actually be usefull
so you will play 3vs5 or 4vs5 ... Which cant be good.
Also you would be surprised how many kills missed cos of this thinking. "i wanted to let you get kill", specialy on nub lvl. Carry wont lose much gold, cos assist brings a lot as well. And Support can use that extra few gold, to boost up the game.
Curve of efficiency of supports in early game rises with gold they get. Of course rule of thumb is not to attack carry creeps, but its for different reasons then you think. Still you can get lots of gold from kills/assists, neutrals.
Role of support isnt only to provide your carry farm by leting kills or whatever creeps go, but by making enemy not disturb him by making them busy with ganks pushes and what not, and preventing enemy carries from farming.
Took me lot of years to understand, cu in 5 years.
4 years ago mitch told me this, and i couldnt understand it as good back then, it sounded like this.
"i prefere when my supports get some items and are actually usefull"
1. Watch some pro player support
2. try to do wut he did
3. feed
4. switch to LoL
Jk, do wut they told u, they r better than me
The tips in this thread are all short term remedies to become artificially better at "support." Firstly there are usually a "hard support" who does most things in this thread, such as buy courier/wards but there is also a "soft support" who usually can potentially take farm and looks to create opportunities for their carries. A good example of this is a Sand King who looks to get fast blink dagger. Some other examples are levi, rubick, chen.
I think they key to playing good "soft support" is always being aware of the two closest lanes to you. See if they are having trouble and what you can do to neutralize their disadvantage. Or if they are doing well, what you can do to help them do even better.
None of these are really that set in stone though. For instance if you are say CM on radiant side laning top, and your MID is TA facing a QOP, and TA is having trouble rune controlling, you can always come to the rune every 2 min to help rune control. If your MID is someone like Shadow Fiend, who is really having trouble getting the initial last hits off, then once again, you can move mid, towrads the high ground right above dire mid, and just have DIRE mid play much more passively at the least, and may potentially get a successful gank as well.
Nothing is set in stone, and i was mostly talking about 1 1 2-3 plays where you are the support guy on easylane together with one semi-hard carry vs 1 mb 2 enemy guys on hardlane.
You usually dont do all solo but balance things between yourself and other non carry person on that part of map.
There is different play for each lane, each laneup, each matchup, each game flow. This are just some basic things i mentioned.
Takes lot of YEARS to perfect it all, i play from start and i know there is lot and lots of space to improve.
Dota has lot of combination, and specialy in pubs there are even more variables on how you have to adapt depending on how allies are reacting.
But there are some basics that you must know.
-Do not push lane to enemy. (blocking your wave at easylane, attacking creeps, taking agro from enemy creeps, single pull, do not let enemy mess up your wave by doing some wierd pulls)
This applies past early game to carries as well, balance your fucking lane.
-Do not let enemy leech experiance if the guy is in position to get harrassed to death.
-Do not leave rune on your side unatended, and if you do, do not lose vision of mid guy, last thing you would want is enemy mid guy that lost mid recovering by ganking you. Making 2 lost lanes balanced or won because you were careless for a moment. (Y U NO SAY MISS MID ? :D, moment you say this i can tell you are horrible support player)
-Please do have tp always ... and be aware of fucking happenings on map, its not like you are lashiting.
-im tired i go sleep
u got some rly good tips here but ull need to watch games...to learn and understand better
try watch some tour game mby or find some replays with decent supporters and watch and in same time think logic why he do something and why not
dota need to be in ur mind :P :)
Good. but what I don't see is
1. "Harass" enemy carry/supports as mush as possible without feeding or draining all of your mana
2. Don't steal all of the last hits away from your carry (As a support your not so item dependent)
3. Positioning is Key. If the other team is decently smart they will target you first. Your positioning during a team-fight key.
I'm not seeing these tips, so might as well add them in:
1. Don't block creep/auto-deny too much -if enemy creep gets to your tower, bye bye creep equilibrium.
2. Go for cost effective items (drums, cloak, urn, wand, mek, special mention to GG branch)
3. When trilaning, when carry is setup, roam AS TWO (unless roaming to mid, two is optional)
4. Stay in fog - enemy decision making gets screwed up when you're not visible (which is why always buy wards)
5. communicate properly with other support - fckd up chain stun = fckd up gank and a pissed off team.
6. Box out - once you have the numbers advantage, start to box out
7. learn warding reasons - srsly, if you're on my team and just ward every mountain you find without reason, screw you (even if you just want to ward runespots, there are multitude of spots that can cover the rune + some other reason, ie if you ward bot river mountain when enemy has no reason to rosh, GG)
8. learn when to use chicken - if you interrupt a chicken to deliver your salve, GG
9. report everything, and i mean everything - hero missing at the opposite side of the map? report, and don't just wait for a disaster to happen just so you can blame the guy holding that lane for not reporting.
10. remember the 6th minute - this is the support's magic number, this is when it gets dark, and wards die. If you wanted to gank, gank now. If not, then ward automatically. Also be careful, or you might encounter enemy ganking parties.
11. know how to counter ward - when you don't have vision of a mountain, it is valid to put sentry on the ward site itself. Else, if you have vision, put sentry somewhere between 2-3 ward spots. when unblocking NC, make sure you don't block the camp with the sentry you used to deward it with.
12. When you're dead, die hard - if you know you're dead, try to split off from your group so that enemies waste heroes or time to kill you first.
13. Don't steal, but don't stop attacking - chances are, if you let the carry get the kill, enemy might escape. so just keep attacking, and if you did kill him, buy ward, fc, smoke, or farm for mek. It still helps your carry indirectly
I have more tips, but I can't really put them all here.
what Mad Dog Stock stated is actually half true. Basically, if your carry doesn't plan to rush a midas or a BF, and/or you and the other support roam very well (ie veteran players), then go ahead and steal the kill. Otherwise, kill normally.
1. Don't block creep/auto-deny too much -if enemy creep gets to your tower, bye bye creep equilibrium.
you can always fix this by tanking enemy creeps away from tower till your wave arrives. You can never fix pushing lane, so overdenying may be good. And you can block creeps if you have one guy in front making sure creeps dont hit tower. BUT you normally just let this shit go and camp enemy so he has harder time blocking pulls or pulling your creeps away from lane.
5. communicate properly with other support - fckd up chain stun = fckd up gank and a pissed off team.
But normaly 2 veterans know order without talking, most of things are set in stone, and depends on who is in front of other, and range of spells etc... no communication is needed when you know what you are doing. But for start you should communicate :D
9. report everything, and i mean everything - hero missing at the opposite side of the map? report, and don't just wait for a disaster to happen just so you can blame the guy holding that lane for not reporting.
Report only important things and ping... otherwise noone will bother to read it anymore. Everyone should be map aware, even hard carry that gets supported by 2 guys.
10. remember the 6th minute -
Yea remember it so you dont go in dark... ganking may only work on idjots. Its more easy to gank when enemy has wards, then they feel safer and play more open, you just have to anticipate where they are and avoid them.
11. know how to counter ward
Dont go counterward like idjot and die in process, some wards do not even matter. And some may be used to your advantage cos enemy feels safer.
12. When you're dead, die hard
When you are dead, you are dead :D . But it is up to you to drag enemy away from fight, chose to die to neutrals if its unjukable , or juke him entirely.
Yeah i guess if your carry rushing midas you dont have to steal his kills , there are always exceptions to everything:DDDD
1. let your carry freefarm(wards, chick, harass, don't push lane, don't pull if your carry can lose hp/creeps, gank other lanes, etc)
2. save more important teammates if you can, even if you can die
3. help your mid(rune control, wards, ganks)
4. don't feed, get somehow your items(ghost scepter, blink, force staff)
5. control map, learn when you need wards and where, how to deward, have tp
6. deny farming of enemy
7. don't be greedy for items(wards, dust, smoke, tps, upgraded courier can be more important than your arcane boots or bracers)
8. pick right support for your carry and against enemy(pick bane against bkb carry without illusions, disruptor against weaver or am, sd against strong illusions heroes like am, pl, morph, tiny, etc. Wisp+ck or tiny are really strong, pl+kotl, etc. Wrong pick and your carry can't freefarm or you'll be almost useless)
@Mad Dog Stock you and I both understand each other. It's good to meet a support who really know what he's doing. We're a dying race.
actually, if u want to improve for real, watch pro games, like rly pro, LGD.cn vs iG, LGD.cn vs LGD.int, etc.
there u can improve with every way, but u need to understand wut the caster is talking about, try to pick a caster who u can understand his language, but this need time, and can be considered as a waste of ur precious time
y cos those casters really know what they are talking. +sarcasm+
Also you do not learn boxing by watching pro matches :D And comentator talking :D
^ and also u dont learn boxing from books, STFU pls, i am fed of u all, i meant along with "playing some games", wtf is wrong with dota's community?
"Always try to steal kills, if you have your support hero effective early, you can give much more gold to your carries by making enemy busy, also that way you can be sure enemy wont escape :D if solo, only dont steal if its gonna ruin your second kill, or if you waste ult when not needed.
I once thought same as you, but practice proven my current words correct."
Don't listen to this. Horrible advice. A support doesn't need any gold early to be effective, much better to let the carry get that 4:30 midas or 14 minute battlefury. Early game gold on a carry goes up exponentially, as they get farming items or items to get more kills. If you steal a kill of 300 gold early game, you are probably stealing a total of 1000 gold (+ exp) from him and the benefits he would have had from getting that item a little bit earlier. Early gold on a support on the other hand? What do you need it for again? Oh yea, nothing. You will get enough money in assists to fund wards.
Not stealing kills does not mean you are running a risk of letting them get away, be smart with it and you are still securing the kills.
Notes for a support:
At the start buy a chicken and ob-wards. Either give the wards to the hard lane so they can block the pull or use 1 to protect your carry's farm.
Make sure there is ward coverage throughout the map for the whole game. Cover the river if balanced, the jungle if you have someone in there and they the opposition are being aggressive, or their forest if your team are being aggressive. 2 or 3 at any point is plenty.
If your getting counter warded use your brain and either counter ward them back or place your wards in different places. A quick youtube guide will be golden.
You'll be able to fund wards via assists really. So if you are playing someone like CM roam the map a little. Stats arn't really that important- If you end 2-10-18 with CM and have been a hardcore support bitch you have done your job correctly.
If you die to SAVE your carry (not suicide) that's a GOOD thing.
Forcestaff is VERY useful + cheap
Mech is good not just for the team heal but it provides decent stats for cheap parts.
If you are getting a little farm take a look at the 'Rod of Atos' massively under used but offers a bit more tank/ intel + an awesome single target slow.. A dirty combo with a lot of supports. ORRR farm up a BKB. With CM / WD this can change a teamfight. But this is a luxury item. Support first.
In a team fight positioning is very important. Try not to get caught in the middle. Just bob in and out using your spells.
If you are struggling try tide for a few games. A bit of a tank and if your supporting is sucky you still have a beast ulti ;)
Most valuable post was by Rose, while the most retarded one by Mad Dog Stock. As a support you just do everything in your reach to allow your carries to have an easier game. Just watch some professional replays while having in mind what I told you and you'll know what to imitate.
(this is a massive clusterfuck of ideas, but I think I address a lot of the main points about what a support should be doing).
First and foremost, a LOT depends on the actual heroes in the game. In some cases you can not give 2 shits about your carry because once they reach a certain point they are self sufficient, or can hold their own from the start, in other cases you might be facing a ridiculous mid hero or enemy carry that needs to be shut down, but these are some general points.
1. Winning the lane
Creep equilibrium, can your carry (or whoever is farming the lane) actually get good CS, do you need to harass more, go for a kill, pull, stack? Don't do these randomly, I've seen shit head supports pull all the time, or start attacking their own units the moment they hit <50% HP. Let your carry deal with the wave, if facing an offlane solo hero, get them out of the lane, and let your carry hold the creep equilibrium. If the lane is getting pushed, for whatever reason, pull creeps. If you have a hero that can deal with stacked creeps really well, or maybe someone else on the team (even a support) can deal with stacked neuts, it might be a really good idea to do this.
In a more even lane, help deny where you can, but make sure you are always in a safe position, or if you have an advantage, stay in a offensive position that can punish enemies in the wrong place. In tri-lanes especially, heroes can go down very quickly, so you need to make sure you are the one making the first move, especially if you have a more powerful lane. For example you can imagine a tri-lane with AM + 2 supports isn't that great offensively, however one with a hero like CK is batshit insane.
2. Post-winning the lane (roaming, pressuring mid tower, pressuring enemy tower, removing space for the enemy to farm while creating more space for your carry).
Now if the lane is won, usually your carry will be able to hold their own against a solo offlane with a big gold/exp advantage, and this is the time for you to move around the map and really help out mid with ganks and start pressuring the enemy carry. Depending on your lineup once again, you may prefer to take the safelane t1 before moving around the map, but it really does depend on the lineup once again.
3. Warding.
>Runes. They can change the game by themselves...if your mid hero, or even side lane heroes know that a TA has a double damage/haste or something, you could have just saved your allies ass, and heck, if that's a TA on your team, you could have just got them an easy FB.
>Pull-blocking, extremely good when going in an offensive tri-lane. EXP is low as it is in a tri-lane, its a hell of a lot worse when you are missing out on every second wave, blocking the camp is very easy with either a ward or manually going there, and the benefits are very big.
Later on in the game, its well worth warding in the enemy jungle and the ancient spots (which also look over the runes/river), just to maybe pick off a lone hero, but keep in mind that smoke is in the game.
4. Stay relevant. The difference between you with nothing and you with some decent gear is massive. I see a lot of people that play supports and spend every last coin on wards or something. Don't be like that. If you have played in a team where your supports all have arcane boots 10 minutes into a game, you can really feel the difference when it comes to taking down towers around the map, and there is a big difference when it comes to follow up items like fs/gs/dagger.
Some guys you may want to watch (please note that this may not apply to their pub games, I am talking about the way they play in competitive, and yep you most likely know all of them):
Dotabuff page / Dota academy page (where their competitive games are)
Xiao8 (LGD), I am not so sure what this guy does in the majority of games, but his warding with shadow demon in one of the G-1 league was ridiculous. He placed them in very good spots, but spots that were not obvious to deward, I can't imagine what would have happened without him, it was almost like watching LGD play with maphack.
http://dotabuff.com/players/98887913 / http://dota-academy.com/player/246/
I haven't seen many na'vi games in dota2 to make an accurate comment about, but puppey was a fucking boss with ES back in dota1, you may want to check some of those games out.
Xtinct (orange), this is a little different, but he certainly deserves a mention because of his jungling abilities and well, probably the best chen you will ever see (if that's your thing)
http://dotabuff.com/players/89330493 / http://dota-academy.com/player/22/
Chuan (iG), in my top 5 players ever, this guy is a fucking boss. I've seen him basically 1v5 an iG stack with pudge [ http://dotabuff.com/matches/78729480 ], I don't know how these guy ever loses a game, well worth watching in his pubs, but also check out his Lina games in the G-1 League. He was involved in almost all the team's kills, its all about being in the right position in the right time, and Chuan managed to do that really well.
http://dotabuff.com/players/88553213 / http://dota-academy.com/player/183/
I think the key to being a good support is not dying unless absolutely necessary. You are in a position where gold and XP are much harder to come by. Allowing your lane to be ganked, diving deeply (stupidly), or otherwise poor positioning are out of the question. The only times you should be dying while without a team is if you can assure a trade of yourself for their carry, or prevent the death of your carry.
There's a lot more farm to be had when the enemy lane is -1 hero for your carry than failing to get a kill because you wanted the carry to get the last hit. Better to KS and let the carry get assist gold than nothing at all.
Try to synergize with your carry as well. [To that point, wait out a few picks and try to estimate what lanes you will be up against.] Try to stack strengths or cover weaknesses. Luna is very mean when paired with another naturally high base speed support like Leshrac or Lich. A Spectre and a Necrolyte will survive the apocalypse while whittling their foes' health. Ursa or Juggernaut just needs a way to close the gap to maul most heroes. No matter how good on paper your strategy is, there is a counter, and if you first pick it will be countered if the other team is halfway competent.
Sentries are worth their weight in gold against early suicide stealth heroes like BH if you deny spam.
Since some people do not get it i will try to explain it like this. Like that korokoro nub :D
Role of support : Make your carries farmed, and enemy carries not farmed.
What you think is more important, leaving your carry everything and pasivly sit behind because unable to do anything with your crap economy :D like no boots, no arcane rings etc .
OR
Killing enemy carries, making their supports busy so your carry has freefarm ?
You think it is better to just wait for their gank because you were 2 scared to "steal" few gold from carry to finish your boots/arcane/dust/sentry/smoke/flying ?
"I WAS SECURING FARM SO NICELY FOR MY CARRY , HE HAD SO MUCH GOLD, THEN THEY STARTED GANKING US WITH 3-4 BOTOM, BUHUHUHU, FUCKING RETARDS FROM OTHER LANES"
YOu think you had nothing to do with that ? ... retard :D
" Y U NO CALL MISS" :D
Thank you Yunnie and KoroKoro, you have no idea what the things you've said means to me. :D
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How? any quick and easy tips?