Support

Support

My first real main role in this game and boy, I did it well. People tend to think that support champions are passive in lane, but they couldn't be wrong, playing support is the most aggressive role in the game. If you sit in the bush and heal your ally every once in a while you're wasting their time and yours. Don't be a bad support.

Runes for Support champions are kind of standard but can vary, flat armor Marks, gp10 or mp5 seals, flat magic resist or mp5 glyphs and gp10 or flat hp quintessences. Since they take no creep score, stacking up all of that GP10 from the getgo is a great strategy.

Their mastery pages are typically 0/9/21, where they can benefit greatly from reduced summoner spell cooldown to help keep track of junglers with clairvoyance.

Boots range from defensive to ionian boots. Their typical starting purchase is faerie charm, up to 5 sight wards or any combination of vision wards, sight wards and health/mana potions you feel fit. That faerie charm has significance because it builds into your first big buy, Philosopher's Stone. After that, Heart of Gold is a great secondary GP10 pick, and the other gp10s aren't very worth it. Build toward Aegis of the Legion while still warding, once you have Aegis it's a good time to upgrade your boots and pick up an Oracle's Elixir.

Playing a good support champion will keep an enemy zoned away from their creep score with constant threat, don't overextend too far unless you're Janna because she can escape any situation. Just do your best to make an enemy miss CS by hurting them when they go in for it. Otherwise control bushes and bodyblock incoming ganks to prevent your carry from dying.

* Janna
Dmg: **
CC : ***
Utl: ***
Dif: *
Pot: ***

Core: Philosopher's Stone, Heart of Gold, Aegis of the Legion, Oracle's Elixir.

Personal Opinions: She is my favorite of all supports because I didn't lose a single match from my summoner level 10 to 20 grind whenever I played her. Support breaks the game at low levels and Janna offers a lot to her team. She should take Clairvoyance and Heal if the allied carry isn't taking heal or Clairvoyance and Flash otherwise. She doesn't die with the latter. Ever.

Skill Advice: Her passive is the same as two tier 3 movement speed quints, it doesn't seem like a lot but it means the difference between early level escapes and secures. Her kit is based on enemy control, she gives shields that greatly increase Attack Damage (priority) her nuke is powerful and slows down opponents while passively increasing her speed while it's off cooldown (second priority) and she has a quick to launch knock up spell (very low priority after rank 1). Then most importantly, her ultimate is a huge knockback (takes a lot of getting used to) that acts as a Heal over Time effect as long as allies stay within the area and she doesn't move.

Countered by: Harass, she doesn't have an easy time out sustaining the enemy laners because she has no direct heal. Her shields are also often wasted by enemies backing off or carries not jumping in.

* Karma
Dmg: ***
CC : ***
Utl: ***
Dif: ***
Pot: ***

Core: Kage's Lucky Pick, Philosopher's Stone, Aegis of the Legion, Oracle's.

Personal Opinions: She's just about the only champion that has three stars in every stat because honestly, she's one of the most amazing supports in the game. She has high potential as a solo top and mid, but I find she works best with a partner.

Skill Advice: Her passive is one of the many "deceptively strong" features of the game, much like with Olaf, the more you hurt her, the more she hurts you back. She can nuke and heal with her cone, she can nuke and shield with her barrier and she can assure kills by speeding up allies or slowing down enemies with her tether. The only potential flaw with Karma is that she needs to effectively use her mantra charges or else she's of little to no help.

Countered by: Knowledgable lane opponents. In a duo lane it's not often that you attack the support unless the carry is gone or their sustain is stronger. Karma relies heavily on being damaged and staying at a safety zone, so if she can't reach that danger/safety zone, all she has is a speed controlling tether, which is still god damned awesome.

* Nunu
Dmg: ***
CC : **
Utl: ***
Dif: *
Pot: ***

Core: Philosopher Stone, Heart of Gold, Aegis of the Legion, Oracle's Elixir.

Personal Opinions: He offers no sustain to laning partners, but he does offer a massive slow debuff as well as move speed and attack speed buff to himself and allies. He has great self sustain potential, it's just unfortunate that he loses most of his damage output by level 11 if he doesn't build into AP instead of GP10. He should be considered as a kill lane, but that attack speed buff given to allies is massive none the less.

Skill Advice: Level bloodboil with priority above glacial burst then finally max consume. Having consume early game is important for self sustain as well as an additional smite on map objectives such as Dragon. Nunu's powerful trait is that he can tank Dragon at level 6 if you win a squabble in bottom lane and potentially duo it without assistance from a jungler or mid.

Counters: Massive amounts of poke to his carry is about it. He can keep himself in lane almost indefinitely and take control of a situation with movement speed buffs or debuffs. Since he can't offer sustain to his carry he needs to be in the front lines almost suicidal to keep enemies off of them.

* Sona
Dmg: **
CC : ***
Utl: ***
Dif: *
Pot: ***

Core: Heart of Gold, Philosopher's Stone, Aegis of the Legion, Oracle's Elixir.

Personal Opinions: By far the best support in the game. She's incredibly powerful in the laning phase with just one or two points in her Q. I prefer to have Sona support above Alistar support above Taric support above anything else when I play Ranged AD carries. Her AD/AP aura is amazing and pushes her far ahead of other supports with her sheer zone control.

Skill Advice: Take Q at level 1, get all three passive charges before you leave the platform and try to pick a level 1 fight. You'll deal almost 50% of the enemy's health with power cord alone. Until level 9, stay behind enemy minions as best you can and try to push away the enemy carry, not the support. If you zone the carry then you'll win early game.

Counters: Allied carries that don't back her up, she's a highly offensive carry that provides amazing zone control, if the carry doesn't help to outzone the enemy carry then her usefulness dwindles by level 9 and she'll be forced out of lane to roam to help other lanes while ward clearing.

* Soraka, banana thrower extraordinaire.
Dmg: **
CC : **
Utl: ***
Dif: *
Pot: **

Core: Heart of Gold, Philosopher's Stone, Aegis of the Legion, Oracle's Elixir.

Personal Opinions: She is a great starter support champion, but her power pales in comparison to other supports. Since you'll most likely be sending a support to a duo lane, she can provide mana to her support or silence enemies and zone them out with her Q, but she doesn't add hard CC or auras that others provide.

Because of her Ultimate being a heal and having a heal that gives massive armor, she does work effectively as the only champion with heal in a team composition as a summoner spell. Beyond that, Clairvoyance or Flash should be chosen based on player preference. Exhaust also works if your team is ignite happy.

Skill Advice: Take a point in Starcall for harass by level 3, as well as Infuse, then focus on leveling Astral Blessing and Infuse together. If you level Astral Blessing first, your infuse will still not give you enough mana to cast it every cooldown, and if you level infuse first you'll be wasting skill ranks if you don't harass well. If your carry is full on health, use your astral blessing on minions that are in last hit range to screw up the enemy laners. Q is a powerful harass mechanic but it falls off in usefulness by level 9 since Starcall is a low priority.

Counters: Miss Fortune is a fairly good counter to Soraka support because of the healing cut she applies with her basic attacks when she activates it. This highly destroys Soraka's usefulness and makes her prioritize Infuse, which she'll be using to zone instead of keeping her carry mana capped.

* Taric, fruitier than cocoa puffs.
Dmg: **
CC : **
Utl: ***
Dif: **
Pot: ***

Core: Heart of Gold, Philosopher's Stone, Aegis of the Legion, Oracle's Elixir.

Personal Opinions: He's a very tanky support that offers a lot to a lane and group composition in late game. He has a passive Armor aura that he can shatter to deal AoE damage and reduce enemy Armor, he has a stun that deals more damage the closer he is, his heal has it's cooldown reduced with each attack, he restores mana for every strike he makes and his ultimate is a massive AD buff to all allies following AoE damage.

Skill Advice: Because he's designed as a front line support that scales better with hitting enemies, make sure you hit the enemies sparingly and typically only the ones at full health. The better option is to hit enemy carries instead, of course. Save your shatter and your ultimate for when you catch a foe with your carry at the ready.

Counters: Miss Fortune is another good counter to Taric since she can deal ample amounts of magic damage as well as physical damage. Champions such as Kog'Maw and Vayne also don't have many problems against Taric. If you can out sustain Taric then he'll lose almost all usefulness and will have to roam with oracle's a lot sooner.