Hey,

Very new to LoL, so flame away if this is a criminally stupid question.

I'm very keen to learn to support effectively, (its kind of my thing in team based games) and currently something I'm struggling with on the strategy side rather than the mechanics side is when is a decent time to port back and buy?

Basically, from a beginners perspective what would be a set of golden rules of when its OK/Not OK to port back.

At the minute I definitely WILL port back if any/all of-

Enemy team has obviously all ported back themselves
Less than 10-15% health and no healing items, and the enemy team is strong
Completely out of wards
Have enough cash to buy either of my GP/10 items straight up

I definitely WONT port back if -

My ADC is low on health and the enemy team is looking aggressive vs him
Any of my wards are on a timer of less than 20 seconds
We are aggressively pushing a tower and near to killing it.


The won'ts override the wills (i.e. if a wont condition is true, then I will stay there even if 1 or more wills are).

How reasonable are the above set of conditions as a guideline?

Obv there will be exceptions as you get better at the game and know when breaking the rules is OK.

Those are pretty good conditions if I say so.

I play both ADC and Support and the best time really to port is when both of you have pushed the lane into the tower. This minimizes the exp. and gold lost from porting and denies your opponent a good amount of exp. and gold.

If the enemy team has all ported back themselves, it's generally a good idea to port back yourself, yes. You wouldn't, though, if your AD carry does and you don't need to (full health and mana, but low gold) in which case you can farm. Also, it's sometimes an oppurtunity to gank mid (but not always).

Porting back at low health is generally a good idea if you're afraid they can kill you. However, if you can heal this is generally not necessary. And it's usually easy enough to stay hidden or safe. (I assume you play a champion that can't heal though.)

If you need to port back when your wards are almost gone, simply put another one before you go. You may not get the chance to go back later.

The best time to push a tower is when your lane is fed and you need to help another lane. Don't push if you're underfed.

And while you didn't mention it, bein low on mana with no way to restore it is a pretty darn good reason to go back too.

I tend to go back when we've pushed up to their lane, especially after killing one of them but not the other, and the one there (or even if it's both of them) is playing very safe (and I don't want to turret dive). Basically, if I have nothing to do OR if I'm out of mana OR if I need to buy wards are the main reasons I go back (and "having nothing to do" could be because one of the enemy went back or is dead).

As a support main, I port back in laning when:

1) My carry ports back. I could stay, but if the enemy team chooses to fight me while my carry is gone, I'm in trouble.

2) I have enough gold for a philo stone and I believe my carry can handle themselves without me for a bit.

3) I'm out of wards and I feel that I need more -now- rather than waiting for my carry to decide they have enough cash to base with.

4) I for some reason have taken far too much damage and am out of potions.

5) When my opponents have gone to shop. Staying means they'll come back with an item advantage over me. I'll encourage my partner to recall for the same reason.

Thanks guys for the responses.

Seems like I'm not massively off base thus far.

I'm learning on Nunu, so yes health is more of a problem for me than mana.

This is really helpful. I've only played support a couple of times and this clears things up quite a bit!

You also need to judge your carry player. If he can't wipe his own butt for the 5 seconds it takes you to run up the river and plop a ward, he's probably going to do something really stupid if you leave him alone against enemies in lane. Other carries can hold the lane for the 20 seconds it takes for you to go back, no problem, since they'll know to pull the lane back a bit and play safe.

Give some thought to the neutral camps as well. For example, at 7 minutes (ish), the jungler is likely to be heading to the Ancient Golem to claim or hand off the blue buff.

So if you are blue, this is probably an unlucky time to abandon your carry - that two on one can very quickly turn into a three on one. On the purple side, it's safer, since it is your jungler that is near by.

(Of course, if your jungler has ganking ambitions, you'll need to consider rescheduling).

There are similar considerations around dragon, once the enemy team is strong enough. You back, your carry gets jumped, and even if the position is safe enough that he escapes, your team has no counter attack at dragon. So you need to be giving half a thought to whether top lane and mid are still marked up, or not.