League of Legends Support Guide – How to play Support?

The support role is probably one of the most versatile roles in League of Legends. Primarily intended to support the ADC on the bottom line during the laning phase, as a Supporter you have the free choice between a variety of playstyles and champions. You can choose classic tank engage champions and help your ADC get kills with massive kill pressure or play the exact opposite with Disengage Enchanters and keep your ADC alive so that it can farm up. Picking mages to deal damage is also possible on the support role.

You can also choose to roam a lot during the laning phase and thus massively increase the pressure on the map. Or you can stay with your ADC as Lulu, for example, and protect it from all all-ins. On no other role is the variance of how you can play it so high with the support role.

Take a look at our Support Guide linked above on YouTube if you want to know how to climb as a Supporter!

As a supporter, you decide 80% of the time whether your team wins the Botlane or the opponent. The choice of champion is important here. Because some supporters make other supporters almost useless. This means you either have to pick the right Supporter or, if you had to pick first and are countered, make it clear to your ADC that you have to play the lane very passively and preferably not push.

Very few ADCs can engage themselves, such as Ashe or Varus from level 6, which means that you decide when and how to fight. If you choose a bad Engage, it is usually your fault if a fight is lost!

Overall, as a Supporter you have a lot of responsibility, especially in the early game. Because with your vision setup you can protect against ganks or protect the ADC with your calls (preferably with pings!). In extreme cases, you decide whether your team has three fed members (ADC, jungle, support) or the opponent. This also indirectly determines which team is more successful in securing the dragons!

A central task of the supporter is always to provide sufficient vision/visibility and at the same time take this away from the opponent. Knowledge is power and if you know where your opponent is, you can clearly use this to your advantage as a team.

To do this, it is crucial to upgrade your support item and buy pink wards so that you can find and destroy (clear) enemy wards. But you have to be careful, because very often you are relatively alone as a support and can easily be caught if you are not careful!

Every ADC already knows exactly what to expect when their support logs in a champion like Bard, for example. Champions like this are very mobile and very well suited to leaving the bot lane early and often to help the jungler or mid laner and thus create pressure on the map.

This playstyle works best if you play with an ADC that has a good escape, such as Tristana or Ezreal. However, if you play your Jinx against Leona and Tristana alone in lane as Bard, then you don’t have to be surprised that she either gets 0 farm or is permanently killed ;-).

If you want to know more about how to play Support, check out our Support Guide on YouTube!