League of Legends (Old)

[xRECKONERx]

Support is a terrible role to learn the game with and also all of the good supports are 6300.

[BROseidon]

Question is there a thing in higher elo's of who gets sweeped ward's gold? (just out of curiosity)

And i should really buy thresh.

It's 15 gold.

It really doesn't matter.

[JasonWazza]

Question is there a thing in higher elo's of who gets sweeped ward's gold? (just out of curiosity)

And i should really buy thresh.

It's 15 gold.

It really doesn't matter.

I figured as much, but i actually had an ADC bitch to me that i took the ward i swept and didn't let him last hit it, and was curious if that was a thing in higher elos.

[Staeg]

If there's no pressure/cs to take in the meanwhile/lane pushing to do, adc gets it, simple

[Saki]

It's funny cause i'd listen to just about anyone in this thread beside you if they wanted a solid understanding of the game. I would classify you as a consistent shit poster.

Right back at you.
"support is the easiest role to play" my ass

Oh I see, you're just salty cause you can't play a real role.

Saki plays a lot of Quinn top from what I remember.

Quinn ADC.
I only pick Quinn into mid/top if I see the enemy laners picked first and am confident that my Quinn pick won't ruin our teamcomp.
e.g) enemy picks mid Yi/Yasuo, or something like top Tryndamere/Yasuo

You should only ever pick Quinn into a lane you know you can deny and win easily. Picking Quinn into something that CAN kill you then proceed to snowball and win is pretty damn stupid.

2 things:

He's a support main so rank is pretty much irrelevant

I can pass him whenever I want, I choose to duo with low silver people instead because I'm trying to help them raise up. Plat doesn't mean anything to be honest. You don't get an extra skin, and you're not actually good, cause if you were you'd be diamond.

Who's salty now?

which is a niche/cheese pick that doesn't actually require any skill at all. It's like a better teemo. Ward up and pick it against a melee, you should never lose.

Quinn can't reliably hold ground against a bruiser past mid-game.
They are tankier, and generally hurt Quinn more than Quinn can hurt them at that point.
Kindly shut the fuck up about Quinn in general.

Her playstyle relies on you being able to use your kit to win lane then use ultimate to roam around, get kills, end up 3k gold ahead of everyone and destroy people in teamfights with that extra 3k gold.
Or just keep picking off people with birdform burst to gain objective control.

She's pretty much an assassin with her ult up that can also somewhat hold her ground in fights without it.

Playing Quinn requires a different mindset than most other champions.
A mindset that I put beyond your ability to grasp.

I haven't looked at saki's stats for a whole year, last i checked he was a support main. I believe he got to plat playing support but to be honest idk. Support skill doesn't scale with mmr until the higher ranks. I've played with exactly 1 impressive support player, and he hates solo queue, but if he started playing it again he could probably get himself diamond easy peasy(zito). Even our resident diamond supporto brandi is kinda unimpressive( at least last time i played with her which I want to say was well over a year ago). It really wasn't anything special.

I call 'fill' in ranked. I've done it since I've started solo queue.
I called myself a "support main" because in solo queue, generally "fill"="support"

but I can play any role at my level and do my own share.

I tend to shy away from conventional "strong" picks or fotm picks but that's not representative of skill, unlike the common bronze-silver sentiment that everyone who plays Urgot is super bad and everyone who playes Amumu must be god.

The main reason I dislike you and Zephyr posting is that you two love making tierlists and you really shouldn't be.
"XXX is a good ADC, XXX is not. XXX is a good item. Because XXX said so and XXX gets played in LCS."
What champions are good and what champions aren't isn't relevant to the skill level of possibly everyone in this thread.
Yet you two in particular make these objective, egotistical, and ultimately horseshit tierlists that I find extremely disturbing whenever I see one.

Really, in this game, the only thing that really matters is playing the champion that you play best.
It may be a champion that you adore, or just find that you have a certain affinity for.
But seriously, play what you play best and not what other people tell you is the best.

I am probably going to take the jump and get dragged into this world. I've been debating it for a while, and sort of like supporting, and my "pre-investment" into the game was grabbing Nami, Morganna, Soraka, Annie while they were on sale. So while you all at the top yell back and forth, what's the best way for me to get STARTED learning support?

Play with a

good

ADC.

Pre-30 there is no concept of 'support' though.

Supports generally lack in the department of direct combat stats/skills, so you and your adc may be matched up against a lane of two bruisers, like Jinx-Nami vs Jarvan IV-Xin Zhao. And it's very likely that the J4 and Xin will end up dominating that lane pre-30.

Because runes/masteries affect the potential of J4/Xin less than Jinx/Nami, and generally people do not know how to kite/disengage/poke effectively before 30.



I highly recommend starting this game with something other than support, then switching to playing support once you have enough champions, runes, masteries, and ADC friends.

The early levels as a support are really really hard.
I know this because I set out playing League with only Janna and Soraka.
Then I picked up Yi, Tryn, and the old Evelynn (this was 2009) and had much better experience.
I switched back to playing support after I hit level 20 when I bought t3 runes and a couple more champions and have played Leona ever since.

[Maestro]

I started writing this right after this post, I'll quote it so this introduction makes sense.

Cabd, I'd honestly advise that you don't start with learning support. First things first is learning champion mechanics, and supports tend to follow different (and less mechanically intensive) rules than the others.

A friend who I consider a good player and teacher in League specifically told me the same thing that quadz just said: he recommended I learn a very point-and-click champion, either a Mage or a Marksman, to start off. Thresh and Nocturne both looked incredibly appealing to me as champions so I wanted to eventually work up to them.

Cabd, as a Support last-hitting is only something you should worry about in the sense that you

SHOULDN'T

be doing it whenever your lane partner is around. Your partner (the Attack Damage Carry, or ADC) should get the vast majority of creep score (or CS) because they need the vast majority of the Gold. Support itemization paths are both considerably cheaper than ADC or other carry buildpaths, and Support paths also almost always include some kind of passive Gold generation item. But last-hitting is one the most basic skills you

NEED

to master in League if you do eventually want to play other non-Support champions with any skill. It's a more specific take on what quadz said and it responds to something you already mentioned knowing about so I thought I'd also chime in since I've lived that starting off thing more recently than anybody except probably Iece.

I'll refrain from mentioning Junglers since that doesn't seem to be something you're heavily interested in and since I personally don't know them as a whole well enough to make recommendations, but here are two lists for you to look off of for picking champions in non-Support positions to learn.

Some of the champions in each position I

WOULD NOT RECOMMEND

to a starting player:

Top - Jax, Nasus, Singed
Mid - LeBlanc, Orianna, Syndra
Bot - Draven, Jinx, Twitch

Spoiler: Top

Jax

is one of those champions that is almost always banned in Draft picks and especially in Ranked nowadays, I've not even thought it worth it to use him until something happens to him as a champion but he's fun to pick up outside of learning champion basics.

Nasus

is a catch-22 and is completely reliant on farming stacks to increase damage on his Q. Only once you're good at last-hitting should you try him - the results will be hilariously funny if you get him to work right. And by hilariously funny I mean you'll pwn people who can't stop you farming.

Singed

teaches

horrible

positioning because of his main skill (he can leave a poison trail behind him that slowly kills enemy champs who don't know better) and he's generally reliant, IMO, on other people fucking up rather than him being really viable as a champion.

Spoiler: Mid

LeBlanc

is generally accepted to be an amazing Mid, but she got some heavy nerfs recently and besides all that, she is one of the most mechanically complex simply in terms of how and when to cast and use spells.

Orianna

is kindof similar, IMO, and I've played her more than LeBlanc, but all of her skills also revolve around being aware of the placement of her "Ball", an orb she carries around and through which she casts all of her spells. It's just one more thing for somebody new to wrap their head around and I would avoid it if possible.

Syndra's

the same way, but she has multiple orbs to keep track of and I haven't played her at all but Klaz has bemoaned her difficulties to me on several occasions, if memory serves.

Spoiler: Bot

Draven's

schtick relies on being skillful when catching the axes that "bounce" off his Q. Again, just something else to worry about when you could be playing something simpler? Give him a pass until you've got the basics down, however appealing he might seem.

Jinx

is... admittedly... my favorite AD Carry, but it's not elitism that inspires me to put here on the "Do Not" list: this thread had an argument recently about her mobility and since then I've realized playing other AD Carries seems incredibly easier or safer to me, and I'm sure the main reason is her lack of mobility. I'd highly recommend playing another AD Carry that allows you to stay mobile with an escape spell; Jinx is more about focusing forward to kills or objectives in order to proc her MS-boost passive and escape on the fly afterwards.

Twitch

is a rather complex, combo-y champ, IMO, and his skills rely mainly on his E, which blows all the stacks of his "Deadly Venom" passive to deal sometimes massive amounts of damage. He has a slightly different buildpath than most AD Carries, since he relies on Attack Speed (AS) to dump on those stacks of Deadly Venom, and in general I wouldn't recommend him until you want a different (but fun!) flavor from an ADC.

Some of the champions in each position I

WOULD RECOMMEND

to a starting player:

Top - Darius, Garen, Malphite, Ryze, Tryndamere
Mid - Karthus, Morgana, Malzahar, Xerath, Ziggs
Bot - Ashe, Ezreal, Caitlyn, Vayne, Tristana

If you read all that and maybe even what's below, thanks! Just did it to help out a fellow newbie. I'm sure the more experienced blokes will have at least one or two issues with what I've said but they can provide feedback too - this's for you Cabd. Good luck and be sure to request me and Klaz on the NA server; our IGNs are in the OP.

---

From the link above, for when you do start playing support, just keep in mind:

Passive Gold Generation Items

Spoiler: Ancient Coin start

Often abbreviated simply "Coin", the Ancient Coin and the things it builds into are the most passive Gold generation and the simplest to work with. If you don't want to get into more complicated shit when you start Supporting, start here. The Ancient Coin items all offer basic Health and Mana regen while in-lane, and eventually they give some cooldown reduction (CDR) higher up the buildpath, but they're more to help

YOU

, not your lane partner. If you want something that does that better, try one of the other 2 item lines.

Ancient Coin ---> Nomad's Medallion ---> Talisman of the Ascension

Once you've built Talisman, the item line gets a nice fancy active ability you can use to help yourself, your lane, or a whole team if you use it right: it boosts MS for any allies within range, so you can use it to chase or escape. Really this line isn't about Offense or Defense - I think of it like the Utility Gold generation item, especially because of the final item's active ability.

Spoiler: Spellthief's Edge start

Not an item I pick up often, the Spellthief's Edge line is more oriented towards Mage-like Supports. The champions who'll pick up this item are usually ones you could semi-viably take to Mid as a solo Mage. Most of your example Supports (Nami, Morgana, Annie) would probably use this, if I'm not mistaken. This is what I consider the Offense item line because it gives better Mana regen to supply a Support who's constantly "poking" the enemy for damage. It also has a passive that buffs your damage against enemy champions 3 times every 30 seconds, but that passive disables for a bit if you last-hit a minion, hence its unique use on a

Support

Mage.

Spellthief's Edge ---> Frostfang ---> Frost Queen's Claim

Like the Talisman, the FQC also gets a fancy active ability once you build it: again fitting into its identity as an Offense Support item, the FQC's active fires a spear of ice for a good poke against an enemy that will slow them considerably, allowing you to initiate on an enemy champion in lane or prevent one from chasing you down.

Spoiler: Relic Shield start

The final basic line of Support Gold generation items, the Relic Shield line is (as you might expect) the Defense item you want to pick on any Support that builds into a kind of Tank. These Supports (just to name a few of the popular ones) are Braum, Leona, Taric, Alistar, and sometimes Thresh. Because it provides no inherent passive Gold generation per second, the "Spoils of War" passive is its main feature: as a melee Support you get bonus damage to "execute" minions, and while you receive the Gold from this CS so too does the nearest allied champion if you have a charge of Spoils of War. The same allied champion will also get healed if you do this. It's for Defense, and requires a little more management, because you do want to limit your CSing based on how many charges of Spoils you have (they recharge rather slowly and you can have a maximum of 2 / 3 / 4 based on which item you have). Note that while I say this is good on Thresh (Thresh builds off-Tank more often than not nowadays) he doesn't get the "execute" passive since he's ranged, rather than melee. His CS can still proc Spoils of War though, don't worry.

Relic Shield ---> Targon's Brace ---> Face of the Mountain

FotM's fancy active is a shield that protects an allied champion (or you) for 10% of

your

maximum Health (making it beneficial to have some pure Health in this build), but after 4 seconds the shield also explodes to deal a ton of damage based on the damage output of the champion you shielded, making it more useful to shield somebody that's getting in the fight and building damage rather than yourself.

[Saki]

Someone mains support = everyone is more likely to get the role they want since it's a less popular role.

Someone who mains suppport != a half-assed and terribad support that isn't angry about being forced to play support.

Contrary to popular belief, though, support is a much more popular role than it was back in S3.

[Saki]

Been playing some very basic bot games and getting a hang for morg's toolkit. Black shield is literally the best thing ever. And dark bindings feel fun like crazy.

Being immune to magic is fun.
Being able to root someone for 3 seconds is hilarious (and overpowered).

I really think that you shouldn't start out with support. If you're dead-set on supporting, you could pick up a couple champions that have a support-ive playstyle. Like Lux/Morgana/Orianna mid or Amumu/Sejuani/Zac/Rammus/anything with relatively hard CC in the jungle or anywhere. Position really doesn't matter pre-30.

[mykonian]

Support is a terrible role to learn the game with and also all of the good supports are 6300.

That's such a challenge to name all the functional supports that aren't expensive. Beyond morg already, who's an in meta pick and plenty powerful as support, there are sona and janna who are still doing pretty well in winrates and have never really been gone.

Of the "good supports", leona and thresh, only leona is doing well. Apparently the shield nerf on thresh was big? 46% winrate weekly.

[Cabd]

Wil probably listen to you lot and toy with morganna mids and other such mids.

[Cabd]

Good luck and be sure to request me and Klaz on the NA server; our IGNs are in the OP.

^This is a lie.

[JasonWazza]

Support is a terrible role to learn the game with and also all of the good supports are 6300.

That's such a challenge to name all the functional supports that aren't expensive. Beyond morg already, who's an in meta pick and plenty powerful as support, there are sona and janna who are still doing pretty well in winrates and have never really been gone.

Of the "good supports", leona and thresh, only leona is doing well. Apparently the shield nerf on thresh was big? 46% winrate weekly.

Of the two changes i would have thought it was the Ultimate nerf that would have hit him hardest.

[Saki]

Apparently the shield nerf on thresh was big? 46% winrate weekly.

Thresh is a popular champion, and the more popular a champion is, the lower their winrate.
Because everyone and their mother plays Thresh, the amount of bad Threshes overwhelm the amount of good ones.

Last time I checked, Fiora's been sitting above 53% winrate for the past few months and noone has really caught on to the Fiora hype.
She's really easy to single-handedly carry solo queue games with.

[Maestro]

Then the OP is hilariously outdated. Did you really read my whole post? Aw.
I'm "Maestrust" and Klazam is "Klazam" on NA. Lemme know what you thought!

PEDIT: The Shield nerf is more annoying than anything, really. You don't pick him for his Hook or Shield, I heard somebody say once, you pick him for the Lantern Train.

CHOO CHOO

.

[Cabd]

It pretty much affirmed the general advice i'm getting here which is to practice actual laneing before trying support. But with nicer words and more fancyful spoilers!

[Cabd]

Wait... did you just ask ~me~ if I read an entire post?!?

[Maestro]

lol truuuuuuuuuu

[Saki]

It pretty much affirmed the general advice i'm getting here which is to practice actual laneing before trying support. But with nicer words and more fancyful spoilers!

Don't play support at level 5 unless you want to be frustrated as Janna and sell all your items for zerkers and IE-PD because you saw your team going back in to die after you've saved them and get 2+ reports on you for trolling

[hiplop]

Only problem with fiora is you really got to pick her after other players. If the other player picks malphite or someone similar, you literally cannot do anything in lane.

[Saki]

Dropping this here:Change your champion select music!

[mykonian]

Singed teaches horrible positioning because of his main skill (he can leave a poison trail behind him that slowly kills enemy champs who don't know better) and he's generally reliant, IMO, on other people fucking up rather than him being really viable as a champion.

of course you realise this means war.

[JasonWazza]

Only problem with fiora is you really got to pick her after other players. If the other player picks malphite or someone similar, you literally cannot do anything in lane.

Or if they pick anyone with CC/innate tankiness.

[xRECKONERx]

Support is a terrible role to learn the game with and also all of the good supports are 6300.

That's such a challenge to name all the functional supports that aren't expensive. Beyond morg already, who's an in meta pick and plenty powerful as support, there are sona and janna who are still doing pretty well in winrates and have never really been gone.

Of the "good supports", leona and thresh, only leona is doing well. Apparently the shield nerf on thresh was big? 46% winrate weekly.

Well, specifically, the more popular/most meta supports right now are:

Thresh
Morgana
Leona
Braum
Lulu
Nami

Other than Morgana, they're all 6300, aren't they? Picks like Soraka, Janna, and Sona are good for learning the support role, but I don't think they're great in comparison to the six I just listed. To be fair, I haven't played either since their tweaks in 4.13, so maybe they're better now?

I agree with whoever said to pick up a pretty straightforward point-and-click champion to start with... I'd recommend a tanky/bruisery top laner since there's more room for error, or a marksman/ADC to teach you the basics of last hitting. Mid lane mages are fun, but mid lane also has a lot of expectations around it to be highly mobile around the map, and learning when to roam and rotate is not something you should be doing at the start.

If you're just playing, I think honestly the best marksmen to learn would be Ashe and Caitlyn. Ashe will teach you how to kite/orbwalk well, and her kit is really intuitive and simple (passive gold gain, passive slow on a toggle, cone damage spell, and big global ultimate). Similarly, Caitlyn makes sense because her kit is about as straightforward as they come (line shot damage, trap, escape, snipe) and she has the best range for a marksman, meaning you can safely learn to last hit and poke.

If you're playing top lane, there are plenty of options available to you. Garen is the most tried and true tank to learn -- stand in bush, spin at things, win. Teemo is actually really easy to play, too, and counters a lot of the popular top laners. And someone said Darius... I agree, very basic and easy to pick up and understand, but he's on the expensive side.

[Anatole Kuragin]

Can we stop saying "salty" like this? It sounds just a stupid as when "edgy sperglord" became a thing.

[mykonian]

Well, specifically, the more popular/most meta supports right now are:

Thresh
Morgana
Leona
Braum
Lulu
Nami

Doesn't necessarily mean they are the strongest or the likeliest to help you win the game. Of that list, only morg, leona and nami do well (though obviously lulu's lolking stats are contaminated). As if you could only win games as support by buying a 6300 champ.