General DiscussionPlease Correct My Way Of Playing Support

to play a good support you need to master every other role

the point is to do everything your teammates would like (good wards, rotations, saving them) and everything your enemy hates (ganking, dewarding)

Dont stack before pulling, you will only get 1 or 2 neutral kills on a stacked camp, always pull through and you can get decent xp.

If your against a solo or passive dual offlane you can pull as much as you want after you zone them out. Keep your lane by your tower and you will have no need to place the obs ward in lane that you say you do. Buy both wards at start give one to mid or offlane and place your ward at the safe lane rune spot. If you need an obs ward in lane to save you from people walking down the lane and ganking there is no hope for you.

Look what heros you have on your team, any good camp clearing hero? If so stack camps every minute(if you have a sven start stacking ancients before he gets helm of the dominator so he can clear the camp when he hits 6.

Secure runes for your mid, rotate to rune spot and at least deny if it is contested.

this is not only warding and pulling in laning phase. Your role is babysit your carry....so you have to be very active and try to bully enemy. Your carry must have a free way to farm. Many guys in trash tier stay very passive with support and carry don´t have a space for farming. You need to also heal your carry give him tangos, healing potions, ugprade courier.
Use your brain...you need to know when to pull, gank or babysit.

Even though your just a support, avoid yourself from always dying to make your itemization better towards late game.

@Nami Surely I played carry role and I remind myself him my support should ward...I always want lane ward near towet and river

warding is very important but support also have to get some core items. So sometimes is valuable from the start of the game have only 2 wards and rest of money spent on core items. Better survive ability is very important. If you feed a lot, it will not help you carry at all for obvious reason.

My starting thread is more on laning phase...

Start from mid game I prioritize good observer ward...i like agressive ward in our jungle especially we have advantage or have ganking heroes like slark or sb...warding and dewarding for me is the priority for me..usually supp only have 2 core items but ward is more important than blink or bkb or glimmer cape imo....75 gold can save incoming ganks and prevent loss of gold.

1 ward for offlaner, 1 ward for midder. Sentries on your bracket only vs invi heros.

Stacking small camp is very good cos enemy get no exp when u pull. U know why is Lich such a great support ? Mainly cos of Sacrifice (and ult ofc). U can also kill the camp eg. If u play omni just use purification on your creep.

What differs an average support from a better one is map awerness and game understanding. Most important is to carry tp off colldown. So u dont tp into the lane but buy tp and walk to it. Then u have tp always ready to help eg. midder getting ganked or offlaner, when he has troubles with getting exp.

Also although your carry can be doing good on his own, think twice before leaving him. If he is your main and only carry, i would never leave him alone due to gank attempts.

n1 save item imo is Force Staff

"i like agressive ward in our jungle especially we have advantage or have ganking heroes like slark or sb"

our jungle ?? I think if you have advantage you have to ward enemy jungle. Aggresive warding enemy jungle can be benefit if your team is trying for active ganking. In low tier, team is very often not communicating and farming all day long and support role become very frustrating.
You have to think if your warding giving some sense or not. I saw many useless wards.

Example - aggresive warding in enemy jungle when we are losing or opposite.
you don´t have to place 20 wards per game.

"to play a good support you need to master every other role"

Garbage. To play a good support you need a understanding of the roles but nothing more. You telling me Akke sucks at supports cause he doesn't play other roles? http://www.dotabuff.com/players/41288955

Mentos gets a +1 for being a good boy and not talking garbage.

"Your role is babysit your carry" "Your carry must have a free way to farm"

Garbage. Your role is to identify ways, or the means to ensuring a solid early game. Allowing your carry to free farm is total tripe. Your carry getting farm is just a by-product of the hero and most good carry players need little to no help vs an offlaner in a 1v1 scenario. I am not saying don't be around, but if you sit in your lane trying to get your carry the best farm you will probably end up losing the game. Free farmed carry ≠ won game.

"but support also have to get some core items"

Garbage. It's a nice to have, not a need to have. You have core items http://www.dotabuff.com/matches/2263066856 and still fed a lot. Decide on what it's going to be, if you pick heroes like Lich or Warlock you can have tranquils all game and still be useful. This is where dual supports come into play, one gets items and roams around and makes the braver plays, the other one buys wards and engages only with the help of his team. If you don't have a second support then fill both and just play with caution and grace.

Dying on a support is fine as long as if it's for something, if you die in a team fight after dropping all your shit, well good for you. If you die cause you're wandering around a black map alone looking to put a shitty ward up in a shitty spot then you totally deserve to die and get reported.

"Even though your just a support, avoid yourself from always dying to make your itemization better towards late game."

Quality advice there. How about "Even though you're a carry, get kills, and good items." Way to summarize the perfect world scenario.

Lex gets +1 for the post -1 for using the word "cos" and a further -0.5 for this comment.

"n1 save item imo is Force Staff"

Nah, Glimmer cape all the way. Force just moves them a little bit forward or maybe even the wrong direction or maybe you waste it cause force doesn't disconnect/disengage stuns, and you can't push people out of certain holds anyways. So that brings your total up to -0.5 which is a shame cause your post had some valid points.

havoc we play in 2 hrs

Shit the bed. Can you delay?

Do you need 2h for your bed? 4Head

Stay in the trees

I didn´t wrote free farm dude, but free way to farm....it means that carry should be able to get last hits. If the opponent team have very aggresive heroes you can be sure, that carry will get almost zero farm and must stay back.
Don´t think that carry will always get decent farm, this is bullshit. Carry must get a space to farm. If you are losing T1 and T2 Towers in 15 min it is very hard to farm as carry.

delay didnt work
ill find a standin, its not an important match anyways

I dont know why you insist on the safe lane ward. It is a waste. If you need a ward to see the offlaners you arnt going to gank them because they are right next to their tower and if you get ganked in lane by someone running down the lane you should just delete dota.

If you have a rune ward out and no safe lane ward look around the map, if you see heroes missing but dont see anyone coming through your jungle it means they are probably in lane/trees trying to gank. If you cant do stuff like this you wont be able to rise in rank playing support.

Also just because you have a ward doesnt mean you should immediately place it. I generally always try and keep one in inventory so that if we push I can get a deep jungle ward. If you have a mid ward and a rune ward out, or two rune wards out, the third ward you get should stay in inventory for when you rotate offlane for example. Push behind their tower and drop the ward in lane behind their t1 or t2 so that you can see heroes approaching while you push the tower.

Mekar: +1, this is true

@tripple What league is it I can check if can get away.

@johnyX If you're losing that many towers so early it might be an indication to stomp camping your carry and work on focusing on other things. What you wrote makes no sense, a good carry finds his own space, sitting in lane with the carry doesn't ensure shit, and sitting with your carry is a sure fire way to lose a lot of towers early cause you're immobile.

I honestly dunno why this is even up for discussion, both Meka, and me are high 5K support mainers. Like I say with a lot of things there is no silver bullet to supporting, your job as a support is to know the angles, the plays, be able to assess what your heroes can do, who's up for what etc. the list is endless.

Sometimes all you need to do is ward while you're waiting out the mid game to allow your better late game carries time to farm up. Constantly wanting to make stuff happen is what tends to lose most people games, where you win a couple team fights and then force a risky 3rd one where you all die and feed a massive lead.

Learning to read a game is the best thing you can learn to do as a support.

I understand that Mek, the point is, you only get 2 wards to start and placing safe lane and jungle ward to start is too greedy. Mid/offlane needs one ward and you need a jungle rune ward.

Meka gets a +1 cause the lane ward is useful if you're 4 manning and your carry still needs the safelane + jungle. It helps him see jungle, and head on lane ganks a lot easier.

@mentos I do see your point but honestly the heroes that do the most damage in a game is the supports and the offlaner. Mids and Carries usually will sit still and farm, and the lane ward is to keep tabs on the offlaner to see what he's doing.

EDIT: *most damage, and impact early game

Think as a core,play as support

A support is a core, a support is basically one of the pillars (or two) that hold your team up. Each role plays a different purpose at a different stage.

DA league,a gainst a team we lost once alrdy, VIP

its not taht important, ill find a standin. they are using 2 standins as well.

Badger, when I first started supporting I did place the lane ward every game. Its great because you can see what is going on in lane but realistically, if your facing an aggressive dual lane your wave will be pushed to your tower and before ~6 mins you should never get killed under your tower. If your facing a passive lane you should be pulling to keep wave under your tower, the only situation where I found the lane ward to be good was when I couldnt control the lane equilibrium.

If I am against a solo offlane and I dont have a lane ward I just wait until I see a creep wave come and then pop my head out. Always check other lanes to make sure no one is missing before you do and you will always be safe.

I just dont think you need a lane ward to protect from the 3-5 man gank/pushes because, if you need a lane ward to tell you someone is getting ganked when only 1-2 heros are showing on the map then your probably losing your game anyway :p

i found a standin alrdy

what a good thread, worth to read.

Sometimes its not a lane ward...i put it on a path between small and medium if not wrong...so they couldnt go around us or i can see midlaner coming from behind while farming..it saves my ass a lot of times

My score on supporting is 0.9x fighting pushing somewhere like 0.3 or 0.4...is this score on profile giod to know which role better for you?

What you do in the laning phase really depends on what support you're playing and what carry you're with and also what enemy you're up against.

If you're a dazzle, you should pretty much just babysit, pull and stack. Trying to gank as dazzle probably isn't going to accomplish much. If you're a support Spirit Breaker, you really cant do much to help your carry secure farm. You are better off ganking and charging to help if your carry gets into any trouble.

If you have a carry Anti-mage against a solo melee offlaner then you only need to babysit and zone the offlaner for the first few levels. Once your AM has level 3-5 he should be fine against the offlaner and is unlikely to die in a gank so you can go and stack/gank. If your carry is something like a spectre or the enemy has a strong dual lane then you will probably have to stay and babysit the entire laning phase otherwise your carry is likely to get no farm and probably will get killed.

Ultimatly it comes down to knowing what each carry needs and what each support is capable of.

Also remember you need to get some items. If you don't have brown boots 10-15 minutes into the game then it might be a good idea to prioritize that over wards. Having a support who can't get close enough to do anything in a fight because he's too slow can be more harmful to your team then not having a ward up. You need just enough items to do your job and nothing more.

@Mentos: I think you're not seeing the main purpose of the lane ward here so I'll try and reiterate what Havoc has been trying to tell you.

"to keep tabs on the offlaner to see what he's doing."

This is one of your many jobs as a support and it's one of the main reasons you put down the lane ward. Without the lane ward, you can't see deep enough to know the position of your offlaner and what he's doing especially when it hits night time. You can use this to get a better zoning position, time rotations out and into the lane.

It's main purpose is not "to protect from the 3-5 man gank/pushes" as you have said.

A high ground ward is going to help your mid 10x more than a safe lane ward if you have placed the safe lane rune ward aswell(which is essential).

@Mentos So how do you know when the all time missing enemy support walks in happily and kills your carry?!

Rune wards aren't essential. They are ok, but not essential. As a support, you are supposed to check the runes every 2 minutes anyway so there shouldn't be a problem with calling the kind of rune that spawns.

You also have 2 wards. Mid ward is useful, yes, but not for every match up. You can't be placing the same wards every game and expect it to have the same impact. You have to read the game and learn about which wards would fit better and would allow you to do a better job.

Having a better idea of when to rotate in and out of lane with a ward on the offlaner is more essential than placing a rune ward.

What are you talking about? @Kratos

Jungle rune ward will catch anyone rotating from mid/enemy safe lane. If they TP to their offlane tower and run down your safe lane and gank, you seriously should consider playing a new game. There is no reason you should be in a position to be ganked from people directly in the safe lane. Keep your wave by your tower and stop farming at the river, then your carry wont get ganked by an "enemy support walking up and happily killing your carry".

If the enemy team wants to fight near your tower you should be happy to do it, any half way decent player is going to buy a TP fairly early. If they are trying to gank near a tower realistically those are easy kills.

Lol Pilot I never said place mid ward every game, and I didnt say NEVER place safe lane ward.

I actually said, if its an aggressive offlane and you cannot control your wave(you cannot pull because you will lose tower) the ward is useful, if its not an aggressive offlane you should be able to zone without the ward.

I also said mid/offlane ward. Of course it depends on the game. I didnt say this is where you ALWAYS place wards.

The safe lane ward is for offlanes that you cannot zone and you cannot stand in the jungle because they will gank you. If they are passive all you have to do is take a step out of the jungle for vision once in a while and keep an eye on the other lanes and look for missing heroes.

"when I first started supporting I did place the lane ward every game. Its great because you can see what is going on in lane but realistically, if your facing an aggressive dual lane your wave will be pushed to your tower and before ~6 mins you should never get killed under your tower. If your facing a passive lane you should be pulling to keep wave under your tower, the only situation where I found the lane ward to be good was when I couldnt control the lane equilibrium."

Thats awesome, I havnt seen that site before. TY

I'm going to take your case.. You are going to be a support who puts a "jungle rune ward" and goes to bank and you have a say Sven in lane.. He is naturally not gonna be able to maintain creep quillibrium without a pull.. So the wave is gonna push.. At night this gives an opputunity for the enemy support to gank your carry.. Get my point? That's where a lane ward becomes useful.. And as said earlier you don't need a rune ward.. You are supposed to walk up and take the rune at spawn..

Dude, watch my stream if you want to learn how to play support!

https://www.twitch.tv/benao_noruega

(edit: sorry not support this game)

Now there's one way of advertising your stream :P

Havoc if your game knowledge is so wide and u are never wrong. Tell me why u sit at 5k with 10k games ?

Lol, I read that. Your argument centers about it not being an essential ward in the early game. But even if you can perfectly control the lane's equilibrium, it's still a great ward because of the information that it can give. And in previous posts you keep selling the rune ward as always being better than the safe lane ward which is definitely not true.

"I dont know why you insist on the safe lane ward. It is a waste." that's what you said

Rune ward is for rune vision and watching people rotating through your jungle. Is it easier to gank safe lane with all of your heroes pushing down the lane or with one hero pushing lane and other heroes in jungle waiting to come from behind?

And what are you talking about goes to bank?

I buy 2 wards, give one to mid or offlaner depending on matchups and place ward at safe lane rune spot unless I see it is going to be an aggro offlane. After rune I go to lane and block, after blocking I try and zone a bit until ~00:45 and then go to pull if the lane is looking like it is going to push. If the offlane is aggro they will push lane and I dont need to worry about pulling unless one of them leaves. If the lane is passive and I am able to zone I will roam mid for a gank when my mid hits 6. I dont leave lane if there is still danger to my carry unless enemy team is pushing another tower(and it is actually in danger). But the carry should know if we are going to TP and defend a tower he should probably play very safe and look how many enemies are visible on the map.

Rune ward is to see to their high ground at rune spot, you wanna talk about dangerous? walking up to rune without high ground vision. Its not like heroes like pudge get played right?

Pilot you keep trying to argue that I say never to place the safe lane ward when I actually said that I place it in certain situations. Im saying dont ALWAYS place it.

I was responding to OP who says he ALWAYS places ward in lane. I did the same thing when I started playing support and slowly found myself using it less and less especially with the current meta of solo/passive offlaners being popular.