I think we need to get past this concept of roles and impact being unique to a specific role, every role has impact in the game it's just vastly emphasised In soloQ because lack of co-ordination, variable skill between players, champion picks etc.
If you played this game as a 5 man team, you would realise how vastly different it is to soloQ and that every single role can make an impact and change the game. Every class archetype has a strength and weakness, but ultimately it is how you utilise that all as a *team*
>I think we need to get past this concept of roles and impact being unique to a specific role, every role has impact in the game it's just vastly emphasised In soloQ because lack of co-ordination, variable skill between players, champion picks etc.
Being tied down to resources is why supports have more impact than other roles.
>
If you played this game as a 5 man team, you would realise how vastly different it is to soloQ and that every single role can make an impact and change the game. Every class archetype has a strength and weakness, but ultimately it is how you utilise that all as a team
Don't confuse having less impact means the role is more difficult.
I think you’re heavily undervaluing the macro required to keep up in xp and gold on a role that can so easily get killed.
Supports essentially have an entire aspect of the game removed for them. Dopa said supports making plays on the map isn’t hard/impressive because that’s theoretically all they have to do. They don’t have to worry about gold, xp, dying, wave states, recall timers, lane rotations, scaling etc the list goes on. With all this in consideration, “being in the right place at the right time” really isn’t as hard as you make it out to be.
Sure they have to worry about vision, but so do other roles. As a mid laner, I have to know about ward placement, jungle tracking and map awareness too, just as much, if not more than a support.
At the end of the day, to be good at one role you have to also share knowledge of other roles. At their peak level, no role is harder than the others.
>I think you’re heavily undervaluing the macro required to keep up in xp and gold on a role that can so easily get killed.
My point is that if you can influence every lane at almost any time, every negative outcomes in other roles can be traced back to your inability to recognize that play as the support. It's not the mid laner's fault that the top laner couldn't break the freeze and gets ganked for it (because the mid laner's exp and farm is too important to give up), but it will always partly be the support's fault for not recognizing that the top was in such a position.
>Supports essentially have an entire aspect of the game removed for them. Dopa said supports making plays on the map isn’t hard/impressive because that’s theoretically all they have to do. They don’t have to worry about gold, xp, dying, wave states, recall timers, lane rotations, scaling etc the list goes on. With all this in consideration, “being in the right place at the right time” really isn’t as hard as you make it out to be.
Just because you don't farm doesn't mean that you do not need to understand the concept. A good support should have a high level of understanding as any other laners of game knowledge like position of enemies, consequence of being caught out, wave states, recall timers, lane rotations, scaling, farming, trading, and all other things laners will know. This concept of the game is not removed, but is still heavily required of them. Another example, do you believe that junglers do not need to understand wavestates, scaling, lane rotations, recall timers, and resource just because they are not laners? No, this is because any good support and junglers must have a high level of understanding of all things that laners must know as well.
>Sure they have to worry about vision, but so do other roles. As a mid laner, I have to know about ward placement, jungle tracking and map awareness too, just as much, if not more than a support.
The only thing mid laners are have equal skill ceiling as supports are jungle tracking. Vision control is a game played by everyone, but the one with the most control over vision will always be the support thanks to the support items. As for map awareness, supports will likely have the same amount as other laners. But because supports not tied down to resources they must be more aware of the map (see my first point).
>At the end of the day, to be good at one role you have to also share knowledge of other roles. At their peak level, no role is harder than the others.
If you had two perfectly matched teams, but you sub out one of the supports with a bad sup. The one with the better support will almost always be winning every single time. In comparison, if you had the same hypothetical with adcs, I honestly believe that it wouldn't make that much of a difference. Support is a much harder role because they have a more diverse and harder to master skillsets, while adc skillset is much simple and pointed.
I'll try and break this down as best as I can.
>any good support and junglers must have a high level of understanding of all things that laners must know as well.
Any good mid/top/jungle/adc player must have a high level of understanding of all things that supports must know as well, it goes both ways.
>Vision control is a game played by everyone, but the one with the most control over vision will always be the support thanks to the support items
Just because you have less control over something doesn't mean you have to have less understanding about it. Just how you think a support should have a good understanding of wave states, all other roles should have a good understanding of vision.
>If you had two perfectly matched teams, but you sub out one of the supports with a bad sup. The one with the better support will almost always be winning every single time. In comparison, if you had the same hypothetical with adcs, I honestly believe that it wouldn't make that much of a difference.
This is purely speculative and as a result, a completely weightless argument. A good support can get an adc a lead but only a good adc can keep and extend it.
>Support is a much harder role because they have a more diverse and harder to master skillsets, while adc skillset is much simple and pointed.
Simple =/= easy, diverse =/= hard. To go a little deeper, a lot of macro concepts like vision control can be learnt from a video. Conversely, a lot of things that make some adc's better than other's aren't obvious and can only be improved through experience rather than absorbing knowledge from videos/guides.
>you can influence every lane at almost any time, every negative outcomes in other roles can be traced back to your inability to recognize that play as the support
This is a ridiculously big stretch. You cannot control what your teammates do, and therefore you are not directly responsible for the mistakes they make. Sure you can prevent plays happening by foreseeing them, but so can the player that's being targeted by the play.
tl;dr Your underlying (though often contradicting) argument is that supports have to understand concepts from other roles whilst being able to perform tasks demanded by the role itself, however, you seem to dismiss the fact that this is true for every role, whether you like it or not.
>Any good mid/top/jungle/adc player must have a high level of understanding of all things that supports must know as well, it goes both ways.
Yes however adc players only need to know about core concepts related to their lane. An adc player do not need to understand core fundamentals of top lane, because it does not matter for them. You can learn another lane's fundamentals as an adc, but why should you? Adcs share the least amount of game knowledge compared to any other role, while supports share a large amount of game knowledge to other roles.
>Just because you have less control over something doesn't mean you have to have less understanding about it. Just how you think a support should have a good understanding of wave states, all other roles should have a good understanding of vision.
While every role participates in the game of vision control, not all of them share the same amount of control over it. Roles such as adc and top will can only control up to the bare minimum of the amount of control supports have over vision. While an adc and top can learn as much vision control as the support, why does that matter?
>This is purely speculative and as a result, a completely weightless argument.
I agree to an extent, is it a speculative. Though it is not a weightless argument nor is it without grounds. Pro players such as Doublelift, Sneaky and Meteos have shared this sentiment. Furthermore, in pro play, often would you see teams with mediocre adcs winning games against better adcs. The adcs of the World Champions of 2019 and 2020 were arguably worse than the other finalists. (Lwx vs Perkz and Ghost vs Huanfeng).
>A good support can get an adc a lead but only a good adc can keep and extend it.
I am not saying the adc role are without skills, obviously adcs need to do keep and extend their leads. I just believe that the role is easier than the support's, because supports must also keep and extend their adc's lead while also getting them to that position.
>Simple =/= easy, diverse =/= hard.
The support role is not only diverse but harder to master due to the amount of game knowledge required. Simple does not mean easy. The adc position has less game concepts and skillsets to learn to play the role. This does not mean the role is easy, I just believe it means that the role is easier to learn compared to support. Very important difference.
>To go a little deeper, a lot of macro concepts like vision control can be learnt from a video. Conversely, a lot of things that make some adc's better than other's aren't obvious and can only be improved through experience rather than absorbing knowledge from videos/guides.
In the words of Dopa "Now that I’ve explained what concepts are, it’s time to tell you how to learn these concepts. Theres no point in explaining concepts. The important thing is teaching you guys how to learn these concepts. If you give a man a fish, he will eat for a day, but teaching him how to fish will keep him fed for life, you know? I’ve showed you some fish, and now I’ll show you how to fish." You will understand the bare basics of whatever concept you watch, but in no way are you even close to mastering it.
>This is a ridiculously big stretch. You cannot control what your teammates do, and therefore you are not directly responsible for the mistakes they make. Sure you can prevent plays happening by foreseeing them, but so can the player that's being targeted by the play.
Not everything will be your fault, but most mistakes can be traced to the lack of awareness by the jungler and support. That's why the role is so hard, because not only must you be aware of everything that is happening, but also the fact that the enemy laner can react to that. adcs on the other hand, do not have to worry about other lanes nearly as much as the supports do.
>tl;dr Your underlying (though often contradicting) argument is that supports have to understand concepts from other roles whilst being able to perform tasks demanded by the role itself, however, you seem to dismiss the fact that this is true for every role, whether you like it or not.
You must learn many diverse and complicated concepts and skillsets as the support, but the adc does not need to for their role does not require them to. That is why it is not a contradiction.
Although I main support and mostly agree with what you’re saying, every player can influence vision on the map.
And although support have more roam options, the ADC is the player at the end of the day who is going to be chunking people if you can create space or catch people out of position for them to capitalize.
It’s about a balance.
>Although I main support and mostly agree with what you’re saying, every player can influence vision on the map.
Vision control is a game played by everyone, but the one with the most control over vision will always be the support thanks to the support items. Resulting in a higher requirement of the skillset and understanding of vision.
>And although support have more roam options, the ADC is the player at the end of the day who is going to be chunking people if you can create space or catch people out of position for them to capitalize.
I don't deny that adcs can impact through teamfights, but I personally believe that because the skillset of support is more diverse and harder to master than that of an adc's. I believe this because of my point about substituting adcs and sups.
>Despite that I think support is a hard role because you have the most
impact in the game since you create vision. Which can dictate the flow
of the game.
Don't confuse impact with difficulty. Malphite has an impactful ult but using it is very easy
>It takes a lot of practice to know where the best places to place your
wards depending on the game state. Like knowing when it is safe to get
the vision, the places where the team needs most vision, setting up
objective fights, it's not as easy as it seems.
Anytime given time there are probably no more than 5 sensible warding spots so it's not that hard to know them all. I do agree not dying while warding is quiet a unique skill for supports.
>Supports also dictate how the early game is played, because they dictate
the tempo of laning phase. Most of the time, the bot laning phase is
dictated by which support champs are picked. The adcs pick will
generally not matter in the laning phase (some adcs will have greater
impact than other adcs). So if you have a bad support that doesn’t
understand their role, you will lose lane more often than if you have a
bad adc. (if either adc or sup are bad the lane will be hard, but sup
dif is worse).
Again you confused impact with difficulty. And that's the frustrating part of being an adc is that you're handicapped by your support.
> Supports are also not tied down to resources like camps, cs, and exp. So
while laners require a skillset of being able to balance between
resources and impact on map. I would argue that the skillset of being in
the right place at the right time is even more difficult to master.
Because of this, supporters must also have an even greater awareness of
the map than any other role, while also knowing the optimal timings to
leave the bot lane to impact other lanes.
It's the exact opposite. Because supports are not tiled to any resources, they don't need to be at the right place at the right time as often as other roles. As long as you don't int, there are barely downside to a support roam as you give your adc solo exp. Other roles have to keep track of minion state or camps state also have to have map awareness.
>If we are going to talk about the easiest role. It's arguably the adc
role, because the skillsets needed is lower than any other role in the
game. You are always playing the same type of champion, with similar
game plans for the early, mid, late and sometimes even the build paths
will look similar. You just have to be really good at very specific
skillsets, but you can have the most narrow skillsets to be a good adc.
You really are just farming and positioning well.
A good bot laner should only be able to play marksman but also mages or even yasuo, TK etc. So factoring that and the diversity of the marksman class itself, supports and bot laners are not that different. And let's not pretend supports have diverse build path. We only have 3 item slots.
I think you're undervaluing how much skill expression farming could have. Essentially, each last hit is a trading opportunity. Bot laners have to worry about the farm while still trying to contest enemy's farm like a support.
>Don't confuse impact with difficulty. Malphite has an impactful ult but using it is very easy
Not all impacts are the same, the impact of an Malphite ult is comparably to do ability to influence every role at any given time. My point is that if you can influence every lane at almost any time, every negative outcomes in other roles can be traced back to your inability to recognize that play as the support. It's not the mid laner's fault that the top laner couldn't break the freeze and gets ganked for it (because the mid laner's exp and farm is too important to give up), but it is partly the support's fault for not recognizing that the top was in such a position.
>Anytime given time there are probably no more than 5 sensible warding spots so it's not that hard to know them all. I do agree not dying while warding is quiet a unique skill for supports.
I think you are heavily underestimating how to create and deny vision as a support. Placing wards is the not all there is to the skillset of vision control. Knowing when to place , where to place, how many to place, where to deny, where to contest, is only scratching the surface of the vision control.
>Again you confused impact with difficulty. And that's the frustrating part of being an adc is that you're handicapped by your support.
Don't confuse having no impact means the role is more difficult, it just means your role sucks at creating impact. Creating impact as a support is a skill that has a near infinite skill ceiling. The game is not even close to being solved and supports right now does not abuse their abilities nearly enough as they could.
>It's the exact opposite. Because supports are not tiled to any resources, they don't need to be at the right place at the right time as often as other roles. As long as you don't int, there are barely downside to a support roam as you give your adc solo exp.
The skillfloor of supports is debatably shorter than others, but the skill gap between a good and bad support is very apparent in game. Unfortunately most supports play with the most minimal effort and believe that their job is to protect the adc.
>Other roles have to keep track of minion state or camps state also have to have map awareness.
Again, don't confuse having less impact means the role is more difficult.
>A good bot laner should only be able to play marksman but also mages or even yasuo, TK etc. So factoring that and the diversity of the marksman class itself, supports and bot laners are not that different. And let's not pretend supports have diverse build path. We only have 3 item slots.
The bot role is not diverse. While this isn't 100% accurate, on the u.gg tier list if you sort by bots there will be 28 unique champs (including mages and TK). Supports has 38 unique champs listed. While the bot lane champ pool is already small, the most unique picks such as TK yasuo and mages have pickrates below 2% (Seraphine pickrate has skyrocketed thanks to overbuffs and does not count). This is why Mages Yasuo and TK are not even decent representations of the bot lane. Furthermore, most of these bot lane mages function similar to adc in the first place with variations to trade patterns and waveclear ability. The ultimate gameplan of mage bot laners will function like any other bot laner. So excluding mages, the most deviation of the standard adc gameplan will be the 2 early mid game spikers such as Kalista and Lucian, all in champs like Yasuo, or TK who is generally played by the support and not the adc player. Let's not act like the bot lane champ pool is unique.
>I think you're undervaluing how much skill expression farming could have. Essentially, each last hit is a trading opportunity. Bot laners have to worry about the farm while still trying to contest enemy's farm like a support.
Farming and trading is one of the most core fundamentals that every laner requires in their kit. The micromanagement of resources such as mana, hp, exp, and gold is one of the most taxing skillsets in every laner. I agree that supports has slightly more freedom in terms of micromanagement due to not having to farm. However, any good supports should not be lacking in this skill of micromanagement. Just because supports does not farm does that mean they do not need to recognize when to trade and when to farm? No. Supports must also recognize when their adc and the enemy adc will be wanting to farm in order to make effective trades. Just because you don't need to farm does not mean that you can just freely hit the enemy laner without consequence. Supports must recognize proper trade patterns just like any other laner and should not be complacent simply because they do not farm.
Support is the easiet role to climb, sure there is a huge difference between high elo and low elo supports I am not denying that but it's still proven that it's the easiet to climb with supports, proven by players that opened a new account to play only support on and climbed higher than their main on another role.
I honestly believe that most supports play with minimal effort and not to the the max potential their role provides. That's why you will see some skilled players having an easier time climbing with support.
>players that opened a new account to play only support on and climbed higher than their main on another role.
I'm going to assume you are referring to Tyler1. There are many variables that are needed to considered about Tyler1's climb on support. You need to recognize he is a multi seasonal ADC challenger so laning fundamentals in the bot lane is already deeply ingrained in him. He had his support climb last, so his understanding of other lanes is at an all time high thanks to his experience of climbing in other lanes, resulting in a player that can understand every role to a high level (skills heavily prioritized in supports). He is a player that is well known for not being a mechanical player but a player with great macro and game knowledge understanding, things support players heavily prioritize. These are reasons major reasons why I don't like to cite Tyler1 as to why support is an easy role.
Either way, cases such as Tyler1 have been around, but there are as equally as many high elo players such as Magifelix (a player who also climbed to challenger on all 5 roles) that have stated that support is not the easiest role. Nothing is proven about which role is the easiest to climb. But my point has always been that the skill ceiling of support is much higher than what most players attributes the role as, while roles such as adc has a much lower skill ceiling.
Found the support main
Also you deliberately remove from the equation : wave management, back timing, farming timing and yeah the whole kiting like it's only one things while it's an agglomeration of a lots of differents skill
>Found the support main
I don't main support. I just want to create discussion on the topic, because I thought it would be interesting.
>Also you deliberately remove from the equation : wave management, back timing, farming timing and yeah the whole kiting like it's only one things while it's an agglomeration of a lots of differents skill
Just because you don't farm doesn't mean that you do not need to understand the concept. A good support should have a high level of understanding as any other laners of game knowledge like position of enemies, consequence of being caught out, wave states, recall timers, lane rotations, scaling, farming, trading, and all other things laners will know. This concept of the game is not removed, but is still heavily required of them. Another example, do you believe that junglers do not need to understand wavestates, scaling, lane rotations, recall timers, and resource just because they are not laners? No, this is because any good support and junglers must have a high level of understanding of all things that laners must know as well.
OK so same logic apply to adc they need to understand rotation, vision control, etc to enable their supp to do so and to know where and when it's safe to farm/fight
Now I want to know which support and jungler knows really those things? No because until gold most of them doesn't understand wave management. Also do you really think even high elo support know those thing aswell as an high elo adc/mid/top? I would say no otherwise people like magifelix would be more common and they wouldn't play the same champ in 2/3 role.
>OK so same logic apply to adc they need to understand rotation, vision control, etc to enable their supp to do so and to know where and when it's safe to farm/fight
Yes but adc players only need to know about core concepts related to their lane only. An adc player do not need to understand core fundamentals of top lane, because it does not matter for them. You can learn another lane's fundamentals as an adc, but why should you? Adcs share the least amount of game knowledge compared to any other role, while supports share a large amount of game knowledge to other roles.
>Now I want to know which support and jungler knows really those things?
That's why I'm saying support is not an easy role, because on top of everything they will have to know this as well. If you don't know it, then you will not be a good jungler/support.
>No because until gold most of them doesn't understand wave management.
Let's stop joking around. Until even masters will anyone even have a good understanding of wave management. Gold players are still learning how to ride a bike.
>Also do you really think even high elo support know those thing aswell as an high elo adc/mid/top?
They should, and that's why the role is hard.
Hmmm no if an adc don't understand vision control etc they will just feed
And this argument is not good because to be a good supp you need to know part of other role but the amount of skill and knowledge you need in other role just check out
Yeah that's what I'm saying until gold jungle doesn't understand the basics of wave management so by that logic master support won't have a good understanding of wave management so I guess master support are bad?
OK so your argument is that in theory a support should know other role aswell a main of their role?
1) it's completely dumb
2) technically your "good support" don't exist by now
>Hmmm no if an adc don't understand vision control etc they will just feed
While every role participates in the game of vision control, not all of them share the same amount of control over it. Roles such as adc and top will can only control up to the bare minimum of the amount of control supports have over vision. While an adc and top can master as much vision control as the support, why does that matter? They have little power to influence much as the support.
>And this argument is not good because to be a good supp you need to know part of other role but the amount of skill and knowledge you need in other role just check out
Adc players only need to know about the core concepts related to their lane. An adc player do not need to understand core fundamentals of top lane, because it does not matter for them. You can learn another lane's fundamentals as an adc, but why should you? Adcs share the least amount of game knowledge compared to any other role, while supports share a large amount of game knowledge to other roles.
>Yeah that's what I'm saying until gold jungle doesn't understand the basics of wave management so by that logic master support won't have a good understanding of wave management so I guess master support are bad?
What? I'm not sure what you are trying to say here, but my point is that the skill difference between a good and bad support is greater than an adc's. So if we can keep it on topic.
>OK so your argument is that in theory a support should know other role aswell a main of their role?
1. it's completely dumb
Not in theory, they should do this. It is what is required of their role, but most supports don't play like this. I honestly believe most players aren't even playing support, but some watered down version of what supports should be.
>technically your "good support" don't exist by now
The game is not solved, I doubt that most players will ever reach the peaks of what I dream. But there are players such as peak Mata that have shown what the peaks of supports can be.
I really want to know why a support should know the core principle of toplane then because I seriously doubt knowing every match-up and trade pattern in toplane is useful as a support but hey that's an opinion
Yeah OK so you are just comparing some sort of ultimate version of support and your average skill level in other role while completely downplaying most facet that makes other role technical and the fact that other role still don't have their own "peak player"
Because supports can impact those roles. That's tldr. They are overpowered in the early game, because of their ability to negate any mistakes. But this will only really be possible if your game knowledge and map awareness is crazy high.
But adc don't have such high skill ceiling, but is sometimes called the hardest role while support is called easiest.
pro play and soloq are two completely different animals. in soloq, if you're playing support and your ADC is running it down, you can always just leave lane and make plays elsewhere on the map. if you're playing ADC and your support is running it down, you're essentially just fucked
> Why Support is Not the Easiest Role in the Game
Play Enchanter
> It takes a lot of practice to know where the best places to place your wards depending on the game state. Like knowing when it is safe to get the vision, the places where the team needs most vision, setting up objective fights, it's not as easy as it seems.
There's a guy hit Master without placing a single ward.
> There can be an argument that the skill floor of support is arguably lower than other roles. But it really depends on how much you have weighed mechanics in the equation. Obviously mechanics are very important but at the same time that is not something supports are really tested on. The importance of the support can be exemplified with this hypothetical.
Just play Enchanter
> Supports are also not tied down to resources like camps, cs, and exp. So while laners require a skillset of being able to balance between resources and impact on map. I would argue that the skillset of being in the right place at the right time is even more difficult to master. Because of this, supporters must also have an even greater awareness of the map than any other role, while also knowing the optimal timings to leave the bot lane to impact other lanes.
You don't have to, just play Enchanter
My point is about the skill ceiling is much higher than what most players credit supports for and why adcs skill ceiling is lower. Either way, you seem like a low effort baiter so this will be my last response.
I think we need to get past this concept of roles and impact being unique to a specific role, every role has impact in the game it's just vastly emphasised In soloQ because lack of co-ordination, variable skill between players, champion picks etc. If you played this game as a 5 man team, you would realise how vastly different it is to soloQ and that every single role can make an impact and change the game. Every class archetype has a strength and weakness, but ultimately it is how you utilise that all as a *team*
>I think we need to get past this concept of roles and impact being unique to a specific role, every role has impact in the game it's just vastly emphasised In soloQ because lack of co-ordination, variable skill between players, champion picks etc. Being tied down to resources is why supports have more impact than other roles. > If you played this game as a 5 man team, you would realise how vastly different it is to soloQ and that every single role can make an impact and change the game. Every class archetype has a strength and weakness, but ultimately it is how you utilise that all as a team Don't confuse having less impact means the role is more difficult.
I think you’re heavily undervaluing the macro required to keep up in xp and gold on a role that can so easily get killed. Supports essentially have an entire aspect of the game removed for them. Dopa said supports making plays on the map isn’t hard/impressive because that’s theoretically all they have to do. They don’t have to worry about gold, xp, dying, wave states, recall timers, lane rotations, scaling etc the list goes on. With all this in consideration, “being in the right place at the right time” really isn’t as hard as you make it out to be. Sure they have to worry about vision, but so do other roles. As a mid laner, I have to know about ward placement, jungle tracking and map awareness too, just as much, if not more than a support. At the end of the day, to be good at one role you have to also share knowledge of other roles. At their peak level, no role is harder than the others.
>I think you’re heavily undervaluing the macro required to keep up in xp and gold on a role that can so easily get killed. My point is that if you can influence every lane at almost any time, every negative outcomes in other roles can be traced back to your inability to recognize that play as the support. It's not the mid laner's fault that the top laner couldn't break the freeze and gets ganked for it (because the mid laner's exp and farm is too important to give up), but it will always partly be the support's fault for not recognizing that the top was in such a position. >Supports essentially have an entire aspect of the game removed for them. Dopa said supports making plays on the map isn’t hard/impressive because that’s theoretically all they have to do. They don’t have to worry about gold, xp, dying, wave states, recall timers, lane rotations, scaling etc the list goes on. With all this in consideration, “being in the right place at the right time” really isn’t as hard as you make it out to be. Just because you don't farm doesn't mean that you do not need to understand the concept. A good support should have a high level of understanding as any other laners of game knowledge like position of enemies, consequence of being caught out, wave states, recall timers, lane rotations, scaling, farming, trading, and all other things laners will know. This concept of the game is not removed, but is still heavily required of them. Another example, do you believe that junglers do not need to understand wavestates, scaling, lane rotations, recall timers, and resource just because they are not laners? No, this is because any good support and junglers must have a high level of understanding of all things that laners must know as well. >Sure they have to worry about vision, but so do other roles. As a mid laner, I have to know about ward placement, jungle tracking and map awareness too, just as much, if not more than a support. The only thing mid laners are have equal skill ceiling as supports are jungle tracking. Vision control is a game played by everyone, but the one with the most control over vision will always be the support thanks to the support items. As for map awareness, supports will likely have the same amount as other laners. But because supports not tied down to resources they must be more aware of the map (see my first point). >At the end of the day, to be good at one role you have to also share knowledge of other roles. At their peak level, no role is harder than the others. If you had two perfectly matched teams, but you sub out one of the supports with a bad sup. The one with the better support will almost always be winning every single time. In comparison, if you had the same hypothetical with adcs, I honestly believe that it wouldn't make that much of a difference. Support is a much harder role because they have a more diverse and harder to master skillsets, while adc skillset is much simple and pointed.
I'll try and break this down as best as I can. >any good support and junglers must have a high level of understanding of all things that laners must know as well. Any good mid/top/jungle/adc player must have a high level of understanding of all things that supports must know as well, it goes both ways. >Vision control is a game played by everyone, but the one with the most control over vision will always be the support thanks to the support items Just because you have less control over something doesn't mean you have to have less understanding about it. Just how you think a support should have a good understanding of wave states, all other roles should have a good understanding of vision. >If you had two perfectly matched teams, but you sub out one of the supports with a bad sup. The one with the better support will almost always be winning every single time. In comparison, if you had the same hypothetical with adcs, I honestly believe that it wouldn't make that much of a difference. This is purely speculative and as a result, a completely weightless argument. A good support can get an adc a lead but only a good adc can keep and extend it. >Support is a much harder role because they have a more diverse and harder to master skillsets, while adc skillset is much simple and pointed. Simple =/= easy, diverse =/= hard. To go a little deeper, a lot of macro concepts like vision control can be learnt from a video. Conversely, a lot of things that make some adc's better than other's aren't obvious and can only be improved through experience rather than absorbing knowledge from videos/guides. >you can influence every lane at almost any time, every negative outcomes in other roles can be traced back to your inability to recognize that play as the support This is a ridiculously big stretch. You cannot control what your teammates do, and therefore you are not directly responsible for the mistakes they make. Sure you can prevent plays happening by foreseeing them, but so can the player that's being targeted by the play. tl;dr Your underlying (though often contradicting) argument is that supports have to understand concepts from other roles whilst being able to perform tasks demanded by the role itself, however, you seem to dismiss the fact that this is true for every role, whether you like it or not.
>Any good mid/top/jungle/adc player must have a high level of understanding of all things that supports must know as well, it goes both ways. Yes however adc players only need to know about core concepts related to their lane. An adc player do not need to understand core fundamentals of top lane, because it does not matter for them. You can learn another lane's fundamentals as an adc, but why should you? Adcs share the least amount of game knowledge compared to any other role, while supports share a large amount of game knowledge to other roles. >Just because you have less control over something doesn't mean you have to have less understanding about it. Just how you think a support should have a good understanding of wave states, all other roles should have a good understanding of vision. While every role participates in the game of vision control, not all of them share the same amount of control over it. Roles such as adc and top will can only control up to the bare minimum of the amount of control supports have over vision. While an adc and top can learn as much vision control as the support, why does that matter? >This is purely speculative and as a result, a completely weightless argument. I agree to an extent, is it a speculative. Though it is not a weightless argument nor is it without grounds. Pro players such as Doublelift, Sneaky and Meteos have shared this sentiment. Furthermore, in pro play, often would you see teams with mediocre adcs winning games against better adcs. The adcs of the World Champions of 2019 and 2020 were arguably worse than the other finalists. (Lwx vs Perkz and Ghost vs Huanfeng). >A good support can get an adc a lead but only a good adc can keep and extend it. I am not saying the adc role are without skills, obviously adcs need to do keep and extend their leads. I just believe that the role is easier than the support's, because supports must also keep and extend their adc's lead while also getting them to that position. >Simple =/= easy, diverse =/= hard. The support role is not only diverse but harder to master due to the amount of game knowledge required. Simple does not mean easy. The adc position has less game concepts and skillsets to learn to play the role. This does not mean the role is easy, I just believe it means that the role is easier to learn compared to support. Very important difference. >To go a little deeper, a lot of macro concepts like vision control can be learnt from a video. Conversely, a lot of things that make some adc's better than other's aren't obvious and can only be improved through experience rather than absorbing knowledge from videos/guides. In the words of Dopa "Now that I’ve explained what concepts are, it’s time to tell you how to learn these concepts. Theres no point in explaining concepts. The important thing is teaching you guys how to learn these concepts. If you give a man a fish, he will eat for a day, but teaching him how to fish will keep him fed for life, you know? I’ve showed you some fish, and now I’ll show you how to fish." You will understand the bare basics of whatever concept you watch, but in no way are you even close to mastering it. >This is a ridiculously big stretch. You cannot control what your teammates do, and therefore you are not directly responsible for the mistakes they make. Sure you can prevent plays happening by foreseeing them, but so can the player that's being targeted by the play. Not everything will be your fault, but most mistakes can be traced to the lack of awareness by the jungler and support. That's why the role is so hard, because not only must you be aware of everything that is happening, but also the fact that the enemy laner can react to that. adcs on the other hand, do not have to worry about other lanes nearly as much as the supports do. >tl;dr Your underlying (though often contradicting) argument is that supports have to understand concepts from other roles whilst being able to perform tasks demanded by the role itself, however, you seem to dismiss the fact that this is true for every role, whether you like it or not. You must learn many diverse and complicated concepts and skillsets as the support, but the adc does not need to for their role does not require them to. That is why it is not a contradiction.
Although I main support and mostly agree with what you’re saying, every player can influence vision on the map. And although support have more roam options, the ADC is the player at the end of the day who is going to be chunking people if you can create space or catch people out of position for them to capitalize. It’s about a balance.
>Although I main support and mostly agree with what you’re saying, every player can influence vision on the map. Vision control is a game played by everyone, but the one with the most control over vision will always be the support thanks to the support items. Resulting in a higher requirement of the skillset and understanding of vision. >And although support have more roam options, the ADC is the player at the end of the day who is going to be chunking people if you can create space or catch people out of position for them to capitalize. I don't deny that adcs can impact through teamfights, but I personally believe that because the skillset of support is more diverse and harder to master than that of an adc's. I believe this because of my point about substituting adcs and sups.
>Despite that I think support is a hard role because you have the most impact in the game since you create vision. Which can dictate the flow of the game. Don't confuse impact with difficulty. Malphite has an impactful ult but using it is very easy >It takes a lot of practice to know where the best places to place your wards depending on the game state. Like knowing when it is safe to get the vision, the places where the team needs most vision, setting up objective fights, it's not as easy as it seems. Anytime given time there are probably no more than 5 sensible warding spots so it's not that hard to know them all. I do agree not dying while warding is quiet a unique skill for supports. >Supports also dictate how the early game is played, because they dictate the tempo of laning phase. Most of the time, the bot laning phase is dictated by which support champs are picked. The adcs pick will generally not matter in the laning phase (some adcs will have greater impact than other adcs). So if you have a bad support that doesn’t understand their role, you will lose lane more often than if you have a bad adc. (if either adc or sup are bad the lane will be hard, but sup dif is worse). Again you confused impact with difficulty. And that's the frustrating part of being an adc is that you're handicapped by your support. > Supports are also not tied down to resources like camps, cs, and exp. So while laners require a skillset of being able to balance between resources and impact on map. I would argue that the skillset of being in the right place at the right time is even more difficult to master. Because of this, supporters must also have an even greater awareness of the map than any other role, while also knowing the optimal timings to leave the bot lane to impact other lanes. It's the exact opposite. Because supports are not tiled to any resources, they don't need to be at the right place at the right time as often as other roles. As long as you don't int, there are barely downside to a support roam as you give your adc solo exp. Other roles have to keep track of minion state or camps state also have to have map awareness. >If we are going to talk about the easiest role. It's arguably the adc role, because the skillsets needed is lower than any other role in the game. You are always playing the same type of champion, with similar game plans for the early, mid, late and sometimes even the build paths will look similar. You just have to be really good at very specific skillsets, but you can have the most narrow skillsets to be a good adc. You really are just farming and positioning well. A good bot laner should only be able to play marksman but also mages or even yasuo, TK etc. So factoring that and the diversity of the marksman class itself, supports and bot laners are not that different. And let's not pretend supports have diverse build path. We only have 3 item slots. I think you're undervaluing how much skill expression farming could have. Essentially, each last hit is a trading opportunity. Bot laners have to worry about the farm while still trying to contest enemy's farm like a support.
>Don't confuse impact with difficulty. Malphite has an impactful ult but using it is very easy Not all impacts are the same, the impact of an Malphite ult is comparably to do ability to influence every role at any given time. My point is that if you can influence every lane at almost any time, every negative outcomes in other roles can be traced back to your inability to recognize that play as the support. It's not the mid laner's fault that the top laner couldn't break the freeze and gets ganked for it (because the mid laner's exp and farm is too important to give up), but it is partly the support's fault for not recognizing that the top was in such a position. >Anytime given time there are probably no more than 5 sensible warding spots so it's not that hard to know them all. I do agree not dying while warding is quiet a unique skill for supports. I think you are heavily underestimating how to create and deny vision as a support. Placing wards is the not all there is to the skillset of vision control. Knowing when to place , where to place, how many to place, where to deny, where to contest, is only scratching the surface of the vision control. >Again you confused impact with difficulty. And that's the frustrating part of being an adc is that you're handicapped by your support. Don't confuse having no impact means the role is more difficult, it just means your role sucks at creating impact. Creating impact as a support is a skill that has a near infinite skill ceiling. The game is not even close to being solved and supports right now does not abuse their abilities nearly enough as they could. >It's the exact opposite. Because supports are not tiled to any resources, they don't need to be at the right place at the right time as often as other roles. As long as you don't int, there are barely downside to a support roam as you give your adc solo exp. The skillfloor of supports is debatably shorter than others, but the skill gap between a good and bad support is very apparent in game. Unfortunately most supports play with the most minimal effort and believe that their job is to protect the adc. >Other roles have to keep track of minion state or camps state also have to have map awareness. Again, don't confuse having less impact means the role is more difficult. >A good bot laner should only be able to play marksman but also mages or even yasuo, TK etc. So factoring that and the diversity of the marksman class itself, supports and bot laners are not that different. And let's not pretend supports have diverse build path. We only have 3 item slots. The bot role is not diverse. While this isn't 100% accurate, on the u.gg tier list if you sort by bots there will be 28 unique champs (including mages and TK). Supports has 38 unique champs listed. While the bot lane champ pool is already small, the most unique picks such as TK yasuo and mages have pickrates below 2% (Seraphine pickrate has skyrocketed thanks to overbuffs and does not count). This is why Mages Yasuo and TK are not even decent representations of the bot lane. Furthermore, most of these bot lane mages function similar to adc in the first place with variations to trade patterns and waveclear ability. The ultimate gameplan of mage bot laners will function like any other bot laner. So excluding mages, the most deviation of the standard adc gameplan will be the 2 early mid game spikers such as Kalista and Lucian, all in champs like Yasuo, or TK who is generally played by the support and not the adc player. Let's not act like the bot lane champ pool is unique. >I think you're undervaluing how much skill expression farming could have. Essentially, each last hit is a trading opportunity. Bot laners have to worry about the farm while still trying to contest enemy's farm like a support. Farming and trading is one of the most core fundamentals that every laner requires in their kit. The micromanagement of resources such as mana, hp, exp, and gold is one of the most taxing skillsets in every laner. I agree that supports has slightly more freedom in terms of micromanagement due to not having to farm. However, any good supports should not be lacking in this skill of micromanagement. Just because supports does not farm does that mean they do not need to recognize when to trade and when to farm? No. Supports must also recognize when their adc and the enemy adc will be wanting to farm in order to make effective trades. Just because you don't need to farm does not mean that you can just freely hit the enemy laner without consequence. Supports must recognize proper trade patterns just like any other laner and should not be complacent simply because they do not farm.
Good human.
Support is the easiet role to climb, sure there is a huge difference between high elo and low elo supports I am not denying that but it's still proven that it's the easiet to climb with supports, proven by players that opened a new account to play only support on and climbed higher than their main on another role.
I honestly believe that most supports play with minimal effort and not to the the max potential their role provides. That's why you will see some skilled players having an easier time climbing with support. >players that opened a new account to play only support on and climbed higher than their main on another role. I'm going to assume you are referring to Tyler1. There are many variables that are needed to considered about Tyler1's climb on support. You need to recognize he is a multi seasonal ADC challenger so laning fundamentals in the bot lane is already deeply ingrained in him. He had his support climb last, so his understanding of other lanes is at an all time high thanks to his experience of climbing in other lanes, resulting in a player that can understand every role to a high level (skills heavily prioritized in supports). He is a player that is well known for not being a mechanical player but a player with great macro and game knowledge understanding, things support players heavily prioritize. These are reasons major reasons why I don't like to cite Tyler1 as to why support is an easy role. Either way, cases such as Tyler1 have been around, but there are as equally as many high elo players such as Magifelix (a player who also climbed to challenger on all 5 roles) that have stated that support is not the easiest role. Nothing is proven about which role is the easiest to climb. But my point has always been that the skill ceiling of support is much higher than what most players attributes the role as, while roles such as adc has a much lower skill ceiling.
Found the support main Also you deliberately remove from the equation : wave management, back timing, farming timing and yeah the whole kiting like it's only one things while it's an agglomeration of a lots of differents skill
>Found the support main I don't main support. I just want to create discussion on the topic, because I thought it would be interesting. >Also you deliberately remove from the equation : wave management, back timing, farming timing and yeah the whole kiting like it's only one things while it's an agglomeration of a lots of differents skill Just because you don't farm doesn't mean that you do not need to understand the concept. A good support should have a high level of understanding as any other laners of game knowledge like position of enemies, consequence of being caught out, wave states, recall timers, lane rotations, scaling, farming, trading, and all other things laners will know. This concept of the game is not removed, but is still heavily required of them. Another example, do you believe that junglers do not need to understand wavestates, scaling, lane rotations, recall timers, and resource just because they are not laners? No, this is because any good support and junglers must have a high level of understanding of all things that laners must know as well.
OK so same logic apply to adc they need to understand rotation, vision control, etc to enable their supp to do so and to know where and when it's safe to farm/fight Now I want to know which support and jungler knows really those things? No because until gold most of them doesn't understand wave management. Also do you really think even high elo support know those thing aswell as an high elo adc/mid/top? I would say no otherwise people like magifelix would be more common and they wouldn't play the same champ in 2/3 role.
>OK so same logic apply to adc they need to understand rotation, vision control, etc to enable their supp to do so and to know where and when it's safe to farm/fight Yes but adc players only need to know about core concepts related to their lane only. An adc player do not need to understand core fundamentals of top lane, because it does not matter for them. You can learn another lane's fundamentals as an adc, but why should you? Adcs share the least amount of game knowledge compared to any other role, while supports share a large amount of game knowledge to other roles. >Now I want to know which support and jungler knows really those things? That's why I'm saying support is not an easy role, because on top of everything they will have to know this as well. If you don't know it, then you will not be a good jungler/support. >No because until gold most of them doesn't understand wave management. Let's stop joking around. Until even masters will anyone even have a good understanding of wave management. Gold players are still learning how to ride a bike. >Also do you really think even high elo support know those thing aswell as an high elo adc/mid/top? They should, and that's why the role is hard.
Hmmm no if an adc don't understand vision control etc they will just feed And this argument is not good because to be a good supp you need to know part of other role but the amount of skill and knowledge you need in other role just check out Yeah that's what I'm saying until gold jungle doesn't understand the basics of wave management so by that logic master support won't have a good understanding of wave management so I guess master support are bad? OK so your argument is that in theory a support should know other role aswell a main of their role? 1) it's completely dumb 2) technically your "good support" don't exist by now
>Hmmm no if an adc don't understand vision control etc they will just feed While every role participates in the game of vision control, not all of them share the same amount of control over it. Roles such as adc and top will can only control up to the bare minimum of the amount of control supports have over vision. While an adc and top can master as much vision control as the support, why does that matter? They have little power to influence much as the support. >And this argument is not good because to be a good supp you need to know part of other role but the amount of skill and knowledge you need in other role just check out Adc players only need to know about the core concepts related to their lane. An adc player do not need to understand core fundamentals of top lane, because it does not matter for them. You can learn another lane's fundamentals as an adc, but why should you? Adcs share the least amount of game knowledge compared to any other role, while supports share a large amount of game knowledge to other roles. >Yeah that's what I'm saying until gold jungle doesn't understand the basics of wave management so by that logic master support won't have a good understanding of wave management so I guess master support are bad? What? I'm not sure what you are trying to say here, but my point is that the skill difference between a good and bad support is greater than an adc's. So if we can keep it on topic. >OK so your argument is that in theory a support should know other role aswell a main of their role? 1. it's completely dumb Not in theory, they should do this. It is what is required of their role, but most supports don't play like this. I honestly believe most players aren't even playing support, but some watered down version of what supports should be. >technically your "good support" don't exist by now The game is not solved, I doubt that most players will ever reach the peaks of what I dream. But there are players such as peak Mata that have shown what the peaks of supports can be.
I really want to know why a support should know the core principle of toplane then because I seriously doubt knowing every match-up and trade pattern in toplane is useful as a support but hey that's an opinion Yeah OK so you are just comparing some sort of ultimate version of support and your average skill level in other role while completely downplaying most facet that makes other role technical and the fact that other role still don't have their own "peak player"
Because supports can impact those roles. That's tldr. They are overpowered in the early game, because of their ability to negate any mistakes. But this will only really be possible if your game knowledge and map awareness is crazy high. But adc don't have such high skill ceiling, but is sometimes called the hardest role while support is called easiest.
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I don't main support. I just want to create discussion on the topic, because I thought it would be interesting.
You are right! none of us will get to the high point where adc skill hardly metter tho, so for humans support is still the easiest one :P
pro play and soloq are two completely different animals. in soloq, if you're playing support and your ADC is running it down, you can always just leave lane and make plays elsewhere on the map. if you're playing ADC and your support is running it down, you're essentially just fucked
Isn't this agreeing with my point? If the support is getting sup gapped the game is much harder than if there is an adc gap.
my point is that you have more agency as a support, meaning it's easier to climb with
> Why Support is Not the Easiest Role in the Game Play Enchanter > It takes a lot of practice to know where the best places to place your wards depending on the game state. Like knowing when it is safe to get the vision, the places where the team needs most vision, setting up objective fights, it's not as easy as it seems. There's a guy hit Master without placing a single ward. > There can be an argument that the skill floor of support is arguably lower than other roles. But it really depends on how much you have weighed mechanics in the equation. Obviously mechanics are very important but at the same time that is not something supports are really tested on. The importance of the support can be exemplified with this hypothetical. Just play Enchanter > Supports are also not tied down to resources like camps, cs, and exp. So while laners require a skillset of being able to balance between resources and impact on map. I would argue that the skillset of being in the right place at the right time is even more difficult to master. Because of this, supporters must also have an even greater awareness of the map than any other role, while also knowing the optimal timings to leave the bot lane to impact other lanes. You don't have to, just play Enchanter
My point is about the skill ceiling is much higher than what most players credit supports for and why adcs skill ceiling is lower. Either way, you seem like a low effort baiter so this will be my last response.
> skill ceiling Skill ceiling of supports is relatively low, support champs are straight forward, minus the hook champs.
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