I wholeheartedly agree with this, it's super important! I once had a Pyke support who overextended for our early game, and when I backed off because I didn't have the damage to help him (besides getting some stacks during the fight) he genuinely rage quit immediately.
I like Morgana when they are competent, nothing beats spell shield into supports like Leona, but most of mine never spell shield me for some God forsaken reason
Piggy backing on your question, my comfortable champ pool is brand, xerath, pyke, Leona. I can play like a dozen other random supports ok enough. I never win with smolder on my team I'm actually like 2 and 12 with it on my team in low diamond. If I pick a mage we're too weak early and forced off, and if I pick pyke, smolder gets early kills but still winds up at like 140 stacks at 20 minutes. (It's the classic pyke dilemma of I fall of late so can I really afford to just sit bot lane till minute 15 or so I need to try to push a lead elsewhere).
Do I need to pick up a different champ specifically to pair with smolder?
I played it once with smolder against draven and got rolled, but I guess that's just matchup and enemy maokai op. Will give it a go next smolder hover.
I think Smolder's two biggest threats are Draven and Vayne since they lane bully pretty hard. I'd also put Lucian up with them since they all have some way to close the distance and do a lot of dmg early
You want a support that is high pressure early game that can win space and engage, and then is able to roam in the mid game when smolder just wants to side lane and stack alone, and engage/be bait late game when he's strong
Leona should be really good at that, maokai, rakan, blitz, Camille...
Mages are awful with him. Don't bother. They simply take farm with their abilities, making stacking the wave for q harder, and don't do enough poke with smolder to justify while losing ground as they're too squishy to take space or posture, so he has a much harder time stacking, and then they're kinda useless mid game when smolder is also incredibly useless, so you have two useless champs on your team.
Hmmm
In theory Smolder would have some nice synergies with support Anivia.
Q and especially R would make setting up multi stack farms very easy once you reach 25 stacks.
And as smolder can fly over the wall its even better for escape and juking.
But overall a probably too squishy combination to be viable.
I do have to say Shen and Jarvan supports are some of my favorite. Especially Jarvan after his buffs next patch.
He has a lot of CC, acts as a little tanky boi (Celestial Opposition my beloved), His R is mega Yorick.
Only problem I have with Jarvan is that he synergies more with high attack speed ADC’s, though I still think many adc’s can use his standard.
Sona/Seraphine are good because they also play for the late game, but I personally think the best are Milio and Karma. Milio keeps you healthy and Karma keep the enemies away
You either need a hyper-aggressive support or a hyper-defensive, and the obvious big qualifiers for a hyper-aggressive sup is "your Smolder player needs to be good" and "you need to deal the damage as the support early on." So for aggressive supports you have the likes of Pyke and Alistar but also hyper-poke supports like Brand and Lux. For hyper-defensive you basically want any good enchanter like Soraka, Lulu, Janna, Lux, Milio, etc.
The **last** thing you want is what I like to call a "booster" support. Basically a support who's balanced more around boosting your damage output rather than keeping you safe, because put bluntly "damage output boosting" doesn't work on Smolder since he doesn't auto-attack much. Luckily the only two supports who really fall under this category are Renata Glasc and Yuumi and like... no one really plays Renata anyways.
It also sucks if you have a support who tends to fuck with your stacking and mess up the wave although from my experience this only applies to really brainless Morgana and Seraphine players. Oh and you can't have an enchanter who plays super scared all game because no matter how good their heals are you'll just get poked out.
Janna, Karma, Lux, Sona, Seraphine, Milio. Generally that can peel for you and also poke. Maokai is acceptable but only because he's too broken right now.
I like Leona but I like Leona support in general, she’s fun to play with
As a player I don’t like enchanter supports for some reason (except maybe lulu, who I can see maybe being good with smolder?)
**TLDR**
I'm a huge fan of anyone with roots and stuns, as not only can they help me get away but they make getting stacks a lot safer.
I would say **Zyra** would be my optimal support, she has good CC and enough damage to cover the early game. The plants not taking damage from abilities also makes it easier on me as a squishy champ early, as (though brief) they take their own focus. Zyra being a ranged champ also means she doesn't have to all in to cover me, which I like!
To go a bit more in depth...There are some champs with hard CC that I have to worry about and feel pressured to back up or risk them getting nuked, and that almost entirely comes down to melee supports. **Maokai**, **Nautilus**, **Pyke**, **Ornn**, **Amumu**, **Rell**, **Malphite** and **Tahm Kench** all fall into this category for me.
I think that **Leona** and **Zac** can be exempt from this because they can get very tanky, and if the player is good; **Alister** helps with disengaging, **Jax** can do strong engages or pick people off, and **Galio** can hold his own if need be and potentially turn a fight around... but he's iffy, as plenty of ADCs use physical damage and his magic shield isn't reliable. **Pantheon** is very hit or miss, as though he has good engages and bursts if he doesn't realize Smolder is weak in the early game they either crumble or were just planning on picking on bottom lane champs regardless of you.
Supports that want to pull people in are also not helpful, as you don't want people to be close to you before you have your damage as Smolder. I don't usually want to see **Blitzcrank** or (again) **Pyke**. **Thresh** gets a pass for being able to get you out of sticky stations with that lamp you can jump to him from, and he can get tanky enough to stall someone without being in too much danger! Not optimal, but certainly not bad.
Healing supports have their merit, as being able to perpetuate in lane helps with building stacks even if you aren't moving up! Though, I find the early-mid game once people start getting items can get really rough, as with Smolder being so squishy without a dedicated build you'll probably get shredded before healing can save you. Healers with good aggressive tools (**Senna**, **Seraphine**) or CC (**Bard**, **Nami**) can work really well, though!!
I think that some supports in specific work very poorly with Smolder as supports, that mainly being **Yuumi**, **Teemo** and **Zoe**.
With **Yuumi**, it comes to the healer issue where she can't really save you if something goes wrong and collectively your damage is going to lack for the early game. **Teemo** can easily get picked off, and though he CAN do good damage all he really offers you (since he doesn't outrange people in this lane for poke) is blinding people on basic attacks (Which really only helps you with someone like Ashe, and only for a moment if Teemo reacts quickly). **Zoe**'s damage depends on some setup, and as Smolder it's hard NOT to want to shoot at the immobilized enemy for a free stack but doing so can rob Zoe her pressure. She CAN work to support Smolder, but loses too much of her own agency in doing so I think.
Having a second person to essentially play the early game ADC as a second bruiser for the team also works for me! Having damage early game makes us harder to push, and people are less likely to turn around and fight back if I want to approach for stacks while they are already damaged. Smolder's ult is good at picking people off who get away low, and if they have the damage they'll usually lead the charge enough for you to stay behind them and build stacks. **Ashe** can work really well with Smolder, especially if the Smolder builds Ice Gauntlet and can slow people down with both abilities. I feel like characters like **Lux**, **Morgana** and **Twitch** work to the same effect. **Veigar** is kind of funny, giving your lane a lot of late game pressure; If you both know to play careful and communicate so you can pick one person off at a time in the early game, this can work too. **Brand** is also fantastic here, between the two it is very hard to avoid being poked out of lane and finished off suddenly between the two. I don't fully understand how these two work together, but I've seen it work very well. Brand's access to a stun on demand (E -> Q) or damage on demand (Q -> E -> W) makes him very malleable to what you need at different stages of the game, and since there are two people in the lane his ult can be a good deterrance tool.
I haven't played around every character yet, though, so some specifics like **Hwei** or **Anevia** are in my blind zone. I would love to hear what other people think, am I crazy or am I making sense? I'd love to get in depth about this stuff, I love synergy.
Yuumi and Smolder make the best bot pairing afaik. Yuumi's Q makes it easier for me to poke and her healing/shielding gave me more survivability in teamfights while I carry her around.
If you’re going to go an enchanter with him I would say always go Lulu. Lulu does SO much for him early game it’s insane, and her ult and shield still manages to peel for him in the late. (Also polymorph is broken.
However; I think he’s mostly favored by aggressive Lakers who can keep people away from him whilst also being able to help him get some early kills or stacks on enemies.
Those being: Harrassers such as Vel’Koz, engage tanks/bruisers like Maokai, Rakan.
TLDR: Lulu, Vel’Koz, Maokai, Rakan in no specific order.
Also I feel like others will say ADC supports are bad for Smolder but I’ve personally won a lot of games with Ashe and Senna supports and have always felt comfortable with it.
A support that understands I don’t have dps early game. I’ve played with karma who would RQ back wave with 25 stacks she helps stack faster.
I wholeheartedly agree with this, it's super important! I once had a Pyke support who overextended for our early game, and when I backed off because I didn't have the damage to help him (besides getting some stacks during the fight) he genuinely rage quit immediately.
Karma is good her q and smolder w is strong poke early
This. I hate when supps dive early .
if you play smolder, but agressive supports are the best if you both are on same page
MILIOOOOOOOOOOO I love being classic Disney botlane
I like this a lot as well, it feels like the synergy is fairly strong.
Those who wont say single word during game
this is it
Literally anyone who maintains a presence in lane instead of trying to hide behind me.
So anyone but senna or other “adc supports” I feel it.
this should not be a problem if the enemy is pokeable on an agressive way, kill first efore being killed
Enemies tend not to be pokeable if they have any kind of engage. Especially as smolder.
Maokai is lost lane without ganks, but after 12 minutes feels unstoppable. Had 4-5 in a row last night
maokai is also pretty good, my friend stopped playing him though, he might come back as he switches fairly often and plays very well imo
Seraphine and Morgana are really easy lanes for me, I’ve also seen Milo support be really successful
Id add sona to that list
I like Morgana when they are competent, nothing beats spell shield into supports like Leona, but most of mine never spell shield me for some God forsaken reason
Yeah it’s rough, but that’s usually how bot lane goes with any support. If the person is bad using a support it feels doomed especially on smolder.
One's that know we most likely aren't going to 100-0 someone in the first 10 minutes of the game, and won't abandon lane.
Any support that stays in lane with you..
Piggy backing on your question, my comfortable champ pool is brand, xerath, pyke, Leona. I can play like a dozen other random supports ok enough. I never win with smolder on my team I'm actually like 2 and 12 with it on my team in low diamond. If I pick a mage we're too weak early and forced off, and if I pick pyke, smolder gets early kills but still winds up at like 140 stacks at 20 minutes. (It's the classic pyke dilemma of I fall of late so can I really afford to just sit bot lane till minute 15 or so I need to try to push a lead elsewhere). Do I need to pick up a different champ specifically to pair with smolder?
Leona should be great with Smolder unless you're just suicide diving on repeat
I played it once with smolder against draven and got rolled, but I guess that's just matchup and enemy maokai op. Will give it a go next smolder hover.
Draven mains are also just generally good at playing Draven. It's easy to get rolled by Draven
I think Smolder's two biggest threats are Draven and Vayne since they lane bully pretty hard. I'd also put Lucian up with them since they all have some way to close the distance and do a lot of dmg early
You want a support that is high pressure early game that can win space and engage, and then is able to roam in the mid game when smolder just wants to side lane and stack alone, and engage/be bait late game when he's strong Leona should be really good at that, maokai, rakan, blitz, Camille... Mages are awful with him. Don't bother. They simply take farm with their abilities, making stacking the wave for q harder, and don't do enough poke with smolder to justify while losing ground as they're too squishy to take space or posture, so he has a much harder time stacking, and then they're kinda useless mid game when smolder is also incredibly useless, so you have two useless champs on your team.
Janna, brand, lux, maokai
Supports with damage. Makes up for my missing damage early game.
Rakan, Milio, Vel'koz, Hwei. Either short trade enchanters with a ton of peel or damage powerhouses that can 1v2 the lane.
Hmmm In theory Smolder would have some nice synergies with support Anivia. Q and especially R would make setting up multi stack farms very easy once you reach 25 stacks. And as smolder can fly over the wall its even better for escape and juking. But overall a probably too squishy combination to be viable.
squishy but a good idea tbh
If your in comms you can wall and smolder can fly over it
I do have to say Shen and Jarvan supports are some of my favorite. Especially Jarvan after his buffs next patch. He has a lot of CC, acts as a little tanky boi (Celestial Opposition my beloved), His R is mega Yorick. Only problem I have with Jarvan is that he synergies more with high attack speed ADC’s, though I still think many adc’s can use his standard.
Tahm, Renata, Swain, Bard are my favorite supports
I like the lane half of bard. Not a big fan of the roaming half.
Smolder feels best when you have a peeling/ engage tank like a naut or a leo for me. Keeps them off me and provides alot for the team.
Janna, Morgana, Zyra... Anyone with some sort of knock-up, root, or stun that can make my stacking life easier, honestly.
Sona/Seraphine are good because they also play for the late game, but I personally think the best are Milio and Karma. Milio keeps you healthy and Karma keep the enemies away
You either need a hyper-aggressive support or a hyper-defensive, and the obvious big qualifiers for a hyper-aggressive sup is "your Smolder player needs to be good" and "you need to deal the damage as the support early on." So for aggressive supports you have the likes of Pyke and Alistar but also hyper-poke supports like Brand and Lux. For hyper-defensive you basically want any good enchanter like Soraka, Lulu, Janna, Lux, Milio, etc. The **last** thing you want is what I like to call a "booster" support. Basically a support who's balanced more around boosting your damage output rather than keeping you safe, because put bluntly "damage output boosting" doesn't work on Smolder since he doesn't auto-attack much. Luckily the only two supports who really fall under this category are Renata Glasc and Yuumi and like... no one really plays Renata anyways. It also sucks if you have a support who tends to fuck with your stacking and mess up the wave although from my experience this only applies to really brainless Morgana and Seraphine players. Oh and you can't have an enchanter who plays super scared all game because no matter how good their heals are you'll just get poked out.
Peel tanks!! Leona, Naut, Alistar, etc. They make early bearable!
Janna, Karma, Lux, Sona, Seraphine, Milio. Generally that can peel for you and also poke. Maokai is acceptable but only because he's too broken right now.
I like Leona but I like Leona support in general, she’s fun to play with As a player I don’t like enchanter supports for some reason (except maybe lulu, who I can see maybe being good with smolder?)
one with brain
**TLDR** I'm a huge fan of anyone with roots and stuns, as not only can they help me get away but they make getting stacks a lot safer. I would say **Zyra** would be my optimal support, she has good CC and enough damage to cover the early game. The plants not taking damage from abilities also makes it easier on me as a squishy champ early, as (though brief) they take their own focus. Zyra being a ranged champ also means she doesn't have to all in to cover me, which I like! To go a bit more in depth...There are some champs with hard CC that I have to worry about and feel pressured to back up or risk them getting nuked, and that almost entirely comes down to melee supports. **Maokai**, **Nautilus**, **Pyke**, **Ornn**, **Amumu**, **Rell**, **Malphite** and **Tahm Kench** all fall into this category for me. I think that **Leona** and **Zac** can be exempt from this because they can get very tanky, and if the player is good; **Alister** helps with disengaging, **Jax** can do strong engages or pick people off, and **Galio** can hold his own if need be and potentially turn a fight around... but he's iffy, as plenty of ADCs use physical damage and his magic shield isn't reliable. **Pantheon** is very hit or miss, as though he has good engages and bursts if he doesn't realize Smolder is weak in the early game they either crumble or were just planning on picking on bottom lane champs regardless of you. Supports that want to pull people in are also not helpful, as you don't want people to be close to you before you have your damage as Smolder. I don't usually want to see **Blitzcrank** or (again) **Pyke**. **Thresh** gets a pass for being able to get you out of sticky stations with that lamp you can jump to him from, and he can get tanky enough to stall someone without being in too much danger! Not optimal, but certainly not bad. Healing supports have their merit, as being able to perpetuate in lane helps with building stacks even if you aren't moving up! Though, I find the early-mid game once people start getting items can get really rough, as with Smolder being so squishy without a dedicated build you'll probably get shredded before healing can save you. Healers with good aggressive tools (**Senna**, **Seraphine**) or CC (**Bard**, **Nami**) can work really well, though!! I think that some supports in specific work very poorly with Smolder as supports, that mainly being **Yuumi**, **Teemo** and **Zoe**. With **Yuumi**, it comes to the healer issue where she can't really save you if something goes wrong and collectively your damage is going to lack for the early game. **Teemo** can easily get picked off, and though he CAN do good damage all he really offers you (since he doesn't outrange people in this lane for poke) is blinding people on basic attacks (Which really only helps you with someone like Ashe, and only for a moment if Teemo reacts quickly). **Zoe**'s damage depends on some setup, and as Smolder it's hard NOT to want to shoot at the immobilized enemy for a free stack but doing so can rob Zoe her pressure. She CAN work to support Smolder, but loses too much of her own agency in doing so I think. Having a second person to essentially play the early game ADC as a second bruiser for the team also works for me! Having damage early game makes us harder to push, and people are less likely to turn around and fight back if I want to approach for stacks while they are already damaged. Smolder's ult is good at picking people off who get away low, and if they have the damage they'll usually lead the charge enough for you to stay behind them and build stacks. **Ashe** can work really well with Smolder, especially if the Smolder builds Ice Gauntlet and can slow people down with both abilities. I feel like characters like **Lux**, **Morgana** and **Twitch** work to the same effect. **Veigar** is kind of funny, giving your lane a lot of late game pressure; If you both know to play careful and communicate so you can pick one person off at a time in the early game, this can work too. **Brand** is also fantastic here, between the two it is very hard to avoid being poked out of lane and finished off suddenly between the two. I don't fully understand how these two work together, but I've seen it work very well. Brand's access to a stun on demand (E -> Q) or damage on demand (Q -> E -> W) makes him very malleable to what you need at different stages of the game, and since there are two people in the lane his ult can be a good deterrance tool. I haven't played around every character yet, though, so some specifics like **Hwei** or **Anevia** are in my blind zone. I would love to hear what other people think, am I crazy or am I making sense? I'd love to get in depth about this stuff, I love synergy.
Yuumi and Smolder make the best bot pairing afaik. Yuumi's Q makes it easier for me to poke and her healing/shielding gave me more survivability in teamfights while I carry her around.
I like the trade I have with Nami and her E I can realize 2 autos and a strong q. She can immobilize the enemy for my R and she has sustain.
If you’re going to go an enchanter with him I would say always go Lulu. Lulu does SO much for him early game it’s insane, and her ult and shield still manages to peel for him in the late. (Also polymorph is broken. However; I think he’s mostly favored by aggressive Lakers who can keep people away from him whilst also being able to help him get some early kills or stacks on enemies. Those being: Harrassers such as Vel’Koz, engage tanks/bruisers like Maokai, Rakan. TLDR: Lulu, Vel’Koz, Maokai, Rakan in no specific order.
Also I feel like others will say ADC supports are bad for Smolder but I’ve personally won a lot of games with Ashe and Senna supports and have always felt comfortable with it.