Support

How to Support by Shurikens

Supports are the back bone of every team. In MMORPG’s a healer and a Mage role is to support and kill the enemy. Healer provides maximum help from front liners to make them last longer in the battlefield (like a medic in a battlefield tending a wounded soldier to fight again) and mage is to amplify the damage of your allies and nuking the enemies with your spells.( Like a surrounded soldier using all his strength to live then a Apache Helicopter came to the rescue and firing all the missiles to the enemies)

There are 5 positions in a team of dota 2

http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=366357

1: Hard Carry – This role is the highest priority and must be help/protected at all times. Hard Carries tend to farm a lot because every damage item must be needed to be  effective in team fights.  A Good example is Weaver, you want to know why Weaver is a hard carry.

A.      Weaver is a Hard Carry because he needs all the Dmg items he can get to kill enemy heroes quickly and effectively

B.      Weaver is a mid/late gamer – because at that time is the maximum output of power of a carry hero as long as he farms a lot last hitting creeps and not wasting gold.

C.      Weaver has no killing spells – That is because Weaver MUST rely on Damage items

His spells The Swarm, Shukuchi, Germanite Attack, Time Lapse are no killing spells but to give this hero survivability and Physical damage to the enemy.

D.      Weaver must get all gold and experience as he can get to snow ball

E.       Carry heroes are the Front liners and defenders.

2. Mid Lane Position – This role is the 2^nd best priority to farm and level up quickly. This Position gives the benefits to all other lanes because a mid hero ultimate are much more disables (Mid Heroes are more ganking heroes this examples Pudge, Clockwerk, Beast Master, Invoker, Queen of Pain, Outworld Devourer, etc) this heroes rely much of their ulti’s for ganking and this heroes are quite a lot of mobility. To be a good mid lane position there are 2 Task that you are always commit. Control the Runes and Ganking.

Controlling Runes: Runes are one of the best power ups in the game every Rune are very special in a mid lane Hero also Rune Respawn is always at a 2 minute mark, every 2 minutes the rune respawn.

I will give you some opinions on what is my analysis of runes

A.      Haste – One of the best power up in the game. It can make ganking easy as baking a pie. Every Mid laner have bottles and bottles are also refill by getting a rune. Once you you get a Haste Rune YOU MUST GANK IMMEDIATELY! Because you can chase your enemy until they are dead, Enemies trying to escape the inescapable. These benefits for you and your allies lane.

B.      Double Damage – Another best power up in the game. Just by getting/activating this, it will turn the tides of a team fight just by snapping a finger. Again YOU MUST GANK IMMEDIATELY!

C.      Invisibility – Is a rune can make you invisible. This gives a 50/50% to make a successful gank since you are not on your lane and enemy warded area don’t see you. If you have this rune try to gank the lane as what you see has an advantage to you (enemies are far from their towers, they have no wards, Enemy mid laner is stupid for not calling missing)

D.      Illusion – is another Rune that mostly helps to deceive the enemy mid lane and also makes you a lot of gold. You can deceive your enemy by sending one of your illusions to mid seeing you in mid while the real you is ready to pounce to unexpected enemies. If you feel like ganking is impossible right now just make all your illusions go to mid and take down creeps or harass the enemy so he/she will retreat

E.       Regeneration – is a Rune that gives you full health/ Mana Restoration. Mid heroes sometimes have spammable spells and this will benefit you and not missing the experience and gold by going back to lane rather than going back at the fountain

(Side Note: Ganking is tricky and your supports must have wards on those runes. If you feel that if you gank and outcome is unsuccessful, then go back to your lane so that you won’t miss experience and gold, always ping or call your teammate when you want to  gank)

3. Offlane/Solo Lane Position – the 3^rd farm dependent hero. This hero relies farm for Expensive Support items like force staff, pipe, etc (Solo Lane positions are some times semi-carries or hard carries trying to build dmg items and fast levels. they are always have a escape skill, a good example of solo lane are Bounty Hunter, Weaver, Windrunner, Dark Seer) let’s take dark seer for example. Solo Lane positions are tend to be in the Suicide lane. It is called Suicide Lane because it’s a very dangerous/likely to be gankable Area  if you warded those ambush areas then you are safe, it’s like a hunting ground for enemy gankers

Red Line means you are in Radiant and that is the Suicide Lane

Blue Line means you are in the Dire and that is the Suicide Lane

4. Semi-Support/Support – is the one that helps the hard support from warding, ganking, and other items to help the team. This position sometimes doesn’t need gold but it relies on Spammable spells that have low cool downs. Nukers you might call them because they have the ability to dish out large amount of damage at a short period of time. Examples are Lina,Earth Shaker, Lion, Nyx Assasin this are mostly stunners/Disablers to initiate or harass enemies. They build mostly cheap support items like Urn, Drums, vladamir’s Offering (if you have a ally melee and yes chen can also get vlads), Mekanism.

5. Hard Support(Ward Bitch) – is the lowest position out of all the positions but is the most important in the team and also increases the team’s chances of winning. This Position Disregards gold, DON’T NEED GOLD MUCH/AT ALL. They are the warders and helping clean up the mess of your teams.  Yeah, this position is kind of sad; no recognition, no spotlight or fame(sometimes) but it is the roots of all teams. This position you don’t need gold only experience, because of your fast cool down skills, your slows, stuns that can make enemies feel like crap and enemies that can make them scared and feel threaten.

Since I’m making this guide for Supports Positions I will give you my knowledge and ideas on how to become a better support  J

How not to be a Crappy Support

Being a support is already crappy for me but it feels so good when you help a team mate escape/live long/or sacrifice yourself for the benefit of mankind and taking a blame by calling you “noob you dead, still no items, go suck a sock”. It’s like our Holy Father who sacrifices his life and sins of every human just to forgive us, humans. Try think about that and it will make you feel better. Sometimes dying too often makes you angry or snap but I have no choice, it is the role that I pick. I always love supports in MMORPG, to strategy games, to DotA. Because probably my personality of helping people and it feels good to get praises. Try to think positive or try to calm yourself. Try to always remember if the ally carry kills the enemies easily, rich like a gigolo, and experience like a martial artist then you did a good job. 

Now my rules for a Support Position

1.       DON’T EVER STEAL GOLD/EXPERIENCE TO A CARRY!! EVER!! – We(Supports) don’t need gold because we only buy wards and other consumable items. Try to stay away from the lane or behind the carry where you can’t get any experience. If you want to have gold try to ask the carry to let you kill a creep to buy wards/etc just 2 or 3 kills is enough. If the carry is having a hard time in the lane, try to go with them but again never steal creeps. When in lane Harass Heroes/Deny Ally Creeps is the only thing you do in the lane. If you are not needed in the lane, try to stack neutral creep camps and Creep pull. You can get gold and experience in creep pulling.

A.      How to Creep Stack/Neutral Creep Stack – If you need gold and experience then creep stack! In dota 2 NPC respawn time are always the same creep waves appearing in every 30 seconds/Runes appearing in every 2 minutes mark in neutral creeps they will respawn at the first 30 sec mark after that another 30 second respawning another in 30 second (This only does in the first mark of the 1 minute of the game) after that every 1 minute is now the respawn time of neutral creeps.

At the 52.5 - 53 Second mark you must attack one neutral creep and run away bring the enemy creep chasing you once they stop chasing you the neutral creeps will go back to their area with another home tenant occupying their place (WTF Home Invasion) that is how you creep stack

Neutral Creeps hitting at the 52.5 - 53 Second mark

  Creeps came back having their home being suddenly occupied. Lesson: Always have a Home security system

B.      Creep Pulling - Pulling is just like Stacking in the sense that they are all about timing, to pull creeps all you have to do is attack the neutrals in the XX:16 or XX:46 seconds of the game then run into the lane. Ranged heroes are better at this as they don't need to be so close to the camp they are pulling and wont take as much harass.

Creep Pulling in Radiant

Creep Pulling at Dire

This will help you get some gold and experience while the carry farm in the lane. So you can buy wards or maybe just maybe get a shoe.

C.      Ganking – If you reach level 2 or 4 now. It means it’s time to gank with your support Side kick. Probably at the 2:30 min mark it’s now time to gank. Always get a smoke of deceit if you want to go to other lanes other than that Gank the nearest enemy. Ganking with 2 supports heroes must have excellent synergy one stunner/Disabler or Disabler/Slow skills. So in picking stage you must have 2 supports have complete rhythm. A good example is Shadow Demon/Jakiro or Lesrach/Lina or Crystal Maiden/Venomancer. Those have great synergies and combo’s that dishes out absolute pain in the enemy. This will cause the enemy to get paranoid or goes tower hugging. This will benefit you Assist Gold(not much but it’s better than creep pulling) and Experience

2.       Fcuking Ward, You Cnut! – Sometimes I don’t ward because not enough money, having hard time to get experience and gold, having hard time to roam, and one of my personal favorite Laziness. Warding is a hassle let’s be truthful about this because you have to go all the way to the other side of the lane to ward thus making your gold and experience to stop flowing like a fresh, wet …….. waterfall having a turn off switch. Try not have that kind of attitude, try to think positive “I will ward everytime so that my team mates are safe and praises me with my shoeless hero *Doki Doki* after that finally Carry-Senpai will notice me *blush blush*”

Warding Areas(I’m too lazy to give you all the warding spots and explain them so I’ll just make it brief and simple)

Let’s go at my not favorite subject: Math

·         150 gold = 2 active wards in 1 batch

·         If left not buying the first batch you will get a 2^nd batch thus

·         150 + 150 = 300 gold = 2 + 2 = 4 active wards in 2 batch

·         Every batch will refill at 6 minutes same as the 6 minute duration of a Observer ward

·         Sentry wards cost = 200 Gold 2 active wards in 1 batch

·         Sentry wards have no Cool down so you buy many as you want

At the Start of the match, go for the Neutral Warding

Place one ward here you will see the rune and Enemies spawn camps

Next one is here you will see the rune and the ambush area

As the time progress we have now develop stage 2 warding. Defensive Warding and Offensive Warding. This Happens when one of your tier 1 or enemies tier 1 tower is destroyed( you must buy wards every time when the cool down is finish so that the cool down will not be wasted)

Radiant Defensive Warding

This shows the pathways of the radiant area and also the runes

This one shows the radiant side Ancient creeps pathway and also the runes

Shows the Ambush Zone when trying to defend mid tower

This shows the Radiant Jungle area for Ambushes or enemy farming

Radiant Offensive Warding

Shows Rune, Pathways, and Enemy going to Roshan

Shows the top tier 2 tower and the Dire Jungle area

Shows the pathways of the Dire jungle Area

This ward at above the stair shows the Dire jungle small and medium creep camps

This ward placement shows the basic of the basic. It is the same from Dire offensive/Defensive Warding just make those ward placement picture here opposite.( Radiant Defensive warding into Dire Offensive Warding/Radiant Offensive Warding into Dire Defensive Warding)

3.       USE EVERYTHING! – In a team fight you must be at the back side of it. If you want to use spell go for it. I always do the Hit and Run for it, use spell then run back. Use every spell that you have in your arsenal even if they are in full health. If you are going to die and you know that you’re going to die then use all those spells. Because when you respawn it will probably be cool down finish or half of finish. “Going to die?, then fcuk you, you’re going down with me!” you must always use your skill to nuke the enemy or to protect the enemy. There is a chance that you have survived by running away from the team fight but the fight is still going on then you have 2 options; 1. Retreat or 2. Fight, those the only 2 choices that you need to do. You must read and predict the outcome of that team fight if you think you can dish out another killing/supportive spell then go but if you think if you go back there and you will probably die then retreat. There is no shame on retreating in a losing fight. I probably say sorry at the back of my mind when retreating seeing my allies in a losing fight. We can’t afford another death. When in the retreating mode and you think those if your team mates will get caught try to sacrifice yourself. Go to a different path than to follow the retreating line, buy them some time. Saving a retreating carry for your life is worth it. They will avenge you after all.

That is it for now and thanks for reading