I usually end up playing support in ranked games. My go to champs are taric and soraka. As of now I am at 1000 elo. I do my job as support pretty well. I buy lots of wards, provide many heals, allow the adc to get all cs and kills, and stun or silence appropriately. My question is...

How can I further improve my game play as support in ranked games?

I am just looking to get better. Any tips or helpful hints would be appreciated.

Thanks!

Well besides buying a steady supply of wards one of the things you should pay attention to is this. Make every ward count, every ward should have a purpose. Never waste a ward.

Getting pink wards and trying to clear the enemy wards makes a big difference, though you need a balance of pinks and greens to avoid spending too much when you know yours won't have vision of theirs.

That leads to zoning. You may be doing this as part of harass, but it wins the lane absolutely. You need enough presence that they are afraid, but once you have it, sit in their bush. People are terrified of ambushes, even when they might still win the engagement, so they will generally sit back and wait for a gank, all the while giving up their cs. They need to know you are there, and not know exactly where you are, but generally level or just behind their minions is a good balance of threat and safety.

Support should also control initiation most of the time, though soraka has almost no ability here. If you engage and they focus you, your carry can light them up. Drop the exhaust you should have on the carry when he comes in, particularly if he commits and targets your carry.

Help them escape as best you can. This one's pretty obvious and you're probably already doing it, but timing your taric stuns, heals, silences, or buffs to keep your carry alive is your job. Most carries are very damage heavy, with little survivability.

Aura items. I understand the temptation to build damage, and occasionally build mejai's or something when we're steamrolling, but supports who build straight damage usually lose their team the game. My lux or janna won't ever melt the enemy team, but even with those squishies I am all but immortal (almost all aura items have crazy hp), and buff my team like a constant baron. Soul shroud is very underrated.

A good support should get demolished if they try to fight alone, even when fed. Don't be alone, or run at the first sign of danger. Even tanks and initiators are there to blow enemy cooldowns, soak damage, then get out.

Course the world championships seem to be shaking our current meta all up

Thanks for all of the advice!

I am currently starting out with a faerie charm, 2 green, and 1 pink ward for my support build.

I really love the idea of counter warding to destroy an enemy's vision. However pink wards can get expensive so I want to try getting oracle's elixir sooner. How soon is too soon for a support to get oracle's elixir?

Its actually better if your jungle gets an oracles. Early game, your jungle will be wandering a lot more often to kill wards and your jungle is generally tanky. However, if you want an oracles, buy it if your team is significantly ahead. If you buy it when you're behind, chances are, you'll die and will have lost 400g for very little gain. It also depends upon which support champions you prefer. Tankier supports can get away with the oracles earlier because they're less likely to die for it. An oracles is a giant target arrow saying come kill me.


Here's a shameless plug for my website, which is a work in progress: http://lol-s-ports.blogspot.com/
And a guide I made for supports awhile ago. Some info is outdated but its still alright. http://na.leagueoflegends.com/board/....php?t=1863659

My support build tends to shift based on if I'm playing a tanky support or not. But, I still generally go health pots + faerie charm + 3 green wards.

Pink wards can be useful if you have an aggressive jungler and you're going to get early ganks OR if you're playing someone like Leona or Blitz and you want to hide in the brush and counter their ward. In general, I tend to actually save pink wards to counter their wards in river or if they've warded my tribush and I know my jungler is coming that way.

A lot of it really depends upon the champions you have and your playstyle and the playstyle of your team.

My first suggestion is to learn Nunu and Janna in addition to Taric and Soraka that you already play. There are team comps that benefit heavily from a Nunu or Janna that don't benefit as much from Taric and Soraka.

Once you know more champions, you'll be able to pick a support that gels well with the rest of the team, not just for bot lane synergy. For example, Janna is great when you have a fast jungler like Lee Sin or Olaf because her passive helps them get around the jungle faster and her shield works super well on them if you're helping a jungle gank. Nunu is awesome if you have someone like Jax top lane or Rengar in the jungle.

Roaming a bit and helping mid lane with wards is a great way to expand your influence beyond just bot lane. If their bot lane went back and your ADC is safe farming, you can roam up to mid to help a jungle gank, or just help a fight. A Taric stun+heal or a Janna slow+shield can make a 1v1 mid lane trade turn into a kill or a big advantage for your mid.

You can put wards in the enemy jungle on bottom right half of the map. Warding enemy buff is a good way to set up a steal later. You can also help your jungler gank the enemy jungler in their own jungle.

Get oracles. At our elo, junglers very rarely get oracles. If you have oracles you can deny enemy vision if they were smart enough to get wards. Often this causes them to stop buying wards until your oracles is destroyed. In my experience people sometimes forget to start buying wards again, especially if your team got ahead a little.

The last thing is to help your ADC last hit at tower when enemy lane is pushing you to tower. That means hitting enemy minions so that it only takes one hit or two to finish them off. You push back, but do this without getting cs. Taric Shatter and Soraka Q are great for this.

I've found that a lot of the time regrowth pendant and one green ward are sufficient vision for the beginning and they help you get your philo stone faster. Soraka and Sona work better with faerie charm start and the others work better with regrowth pendant start.

I usually wait until I have both of my gp10 before getting oracles, but if I see that the enemy is aggressive with their pink wards and is countering me often, I will get it sooner. It is also important to watch whether enemy is warding and where. If they aren't warding (happens in at least 40% of games at my elo) then you don't need oracles. If they are always warding just one place like the river or river bush, then it's sometimes easier to just be aware of the one ward and get aura items before oracles. If your team is pushing hard on the lane, then you don't need to bother counterwarding. If they are pushing hard, you can usually save some ward money. Since I usually start with only one green, I wait for at least two minion waves before dropping my ward just to see how the lane is moving and where it is best to place it.

Based on a quick look at your profile, there are a couple of more things you could do.

GP10 quints or MS quints are great on supports. In general, offensive stats are less valuable than defensive ones on supports. I like armor yellows and armor reds on Taric and Nunu and Sona, and I use armor reds and mana regen yellows on Soraka and Janna.

I always use MR blues because they are really good later in the game when you don't want to be bursted down too fast by enemy AP.

Thank you for all of the continued advice. I have gotten a lot better at the support role, I have updated my runes and masteries. However I am still looking to improve.

I would love to hear any more advice about how I can be a better support.

Thanks!

I've always had a knack for support and I'm really enjoying season 3. I main as Sona but I can also play Leona, Lulu, Malphite, and Blitzcrank.

I usually go with the faerie charm, pots, 2 green and one pink ward. I rush philo, then sightstone, boots of speed, ruby sightstone, upgrade my boots, and go for Mikael's Crucible. From here it depends on how good we're doing and what my partner needs. I usually keep either 2 extra green wards or one green and one pink with me at all times just in case I use my sightstone charges (I don't like using more than 3 and killing a ward early).

I don't buy oracles anymore now that it's only 5 minutes. I would much rather spend the gold on vision wards because for 25 gold less you get 9 minutes of true vision compared to the 5 from oracles. I get that oracles is good for roaming but most teams don't ward river or buff enough to warrant it.

Any suggestions or comments? If you think I'm doing everything wrong please let me know!! I want to get even better