need help - how can i play support good ?

Hi, i've been playing for 2-3 months now.... so, i finished with seeing all the heroes and understand what they do - learnd a thing or 2 on the way

i would like some tips on how to play support good ,
and on the way, as support , am i suppose to take last hits on creeps ?

thank you all for helping :)

hi there and welcome to dotafire

no, u are not supposed to take last hits as a support ---> at least not constantly
if u need 100 or 200 gold more to finish one item or buy the next set of wards, then go for it ...but at least let your carry know.

there are many things a support is supposed to do.

1. providing the courier and upgrading asap (within the first five minutes would be advisable)
2. constant warding --> as soon as ur mid-laner has his bottle, it will greatly help with dominating his lane or set up frequent ganks, since he has rune control (always have at least 1 runespot warded ---> runes spawn every 2 minutes (0:00; 2:00, 4:00 and so on) and when its not in the one spot u have vision on, it has to be in the other.
3. buying items your whole team can profit from. An early Mekansm allows your team to push towers and engage early teamfights since they have much more sustain and can drag out fights longer. Drums of Endurance and Pipe of Insight are also great support items, though the later one is rather situational.
4. ALWAYS carry a Town Portal Scroll --> if one of your teammates is getting towerdived, u can instantly provide backup and go for counterkills or at least makes the enemy give up on their pursuit.
5. Do anything that u can to give your lanepartner as much freefarm as he can get --> constantly harassing opponents, keeping them at their toes with aggressive positioning and punishing those who are out of position themselfs can provide said freefarm.
6. This is more of an advanced gameplay, but try to counterward with Sentry Wards --> if u see some1 walking past a ward yours always check his inventory ---> if he had wards with him, when u saw him, and you get vision of him again later and his wards are gone, u may be able to assume were he put his wards.

this definitely isnt all there is to supports, but i hope, that it helps anyway

thx for the advice, got the basic idea here, now the only problem is to do it right and not die :P

Talking about hard support don't focus on buying team items like Mekansm or Pipe of Insight, instead focus on Observer Ward and Sentry Ward, Smoke of Deceit, Dust of Appearance and later Gem of True Sight. When playing solo pubs you will usually have to buy both couriers, so you won't have money for other items.
Starting items will be like Observer Ward, Animal Courier, salve, tango and clarity, then you have to be careful to not take much harass.

When playing soft support you should buy courier at start of game and focus on making team items mentioned above, cause soft support have more money than hard support.

As both supports you have to ensure that your carry have safe farm, deny, pull creeps to keep lane near tower when needed, harass opponent and roam if you have free time. As hard support buy wards when off cooldown and ward most important spots (runes, offensive and defensive), deward runes, smoke when ganking. And most important always carry Town Portal Scroll.

I can summarize the support role in four easy steps for you:

1. Ward! Wards win games: a common support only needs a pair of Boots of Speed, a Magic Wand and a third item like Mekansm, Arcane Boots or Urn of Shadows which are usually bought in 15 minutes (~20-25 if going for a Mekansm or something like it).

2. Never take last hits, even if you need just 100 gold for a pair of Observer Wards: only do so if your carry is forced out of the lane or isn't there.

3. Always pull the creep camp if you're in the safe lane: remember to stack it first, so that your creep wave will be denied completely. You should get almost all your last hits and experience from creep pulls.

4. Take as less experience as possible: normally (I talk about mid-high matchmaking games though, but I would've really liked to have a support like this in my lower bracket games) you should pull the creep wave and assist your carry, stay in lane only if he's being costantly hit by ranged attacks or harassing spells (or if you are going to gank your lane, obviously). But, if you need a bit of experience to reach your next level you are allowed to stay in lane.


And of course, don't forget to buy an Animal Courier and turn it into a Flying Courier as soon as possible. If you want to know more, try to watch some competitive games.

I'm guessing you mean how to play Dual-Lane Support in Pubs, which I find is kind of a mish-mash of Hard and Semi-Support combined. Since I've played Support in Pubs a lot for a while (too long... T-T), this is how I find you should try to play to be effective.


To start off with, pick a Ranged Support with a good Auto-Attack, a Stun and a Long Range Skill, and fast Movement Speed like Leshrac or Windrunner. This way you'll find it easier to Harass while staying in a good position.


When you start the match, make sure your team has a Courier and Observer Wards, then just buy Tangos, Claritys and Iron Branches to keep you going. Early on, you'll want to keep buying Wards, upgrade to a Flying Courier and when you have some spare Gold, get your Magic Stick and Boots of Speed.

After that it gets a bit situational, Dust of Appearance and Sentry Wards if you need to counter Invis Heroes like Riki, Mekansm, Arcane Boots and Eul's Scepter, etc. are all good if you get farmed from Kill Assists and/or Jungling.


In your Lane, you should be helping your Carry by letting them get as many Last Hits as possible. If they don't know how to Last Hit properly and just stand there Auto-Attacking the Creeps, then try to time your attacks so that the Creeps' HP are just low enough that the Carry will end up getting the Last Hit (this happens WAY too often T-T).

Otherwise, try to chase your opponents out of the lane using your Auto-Attack. Remember not to get too close to the Creeps while attacking, or you'll draw Aggro from them, but feel free to try and trick your opponents into making this mistake ;) Only use your Abilities to Harass if you have plenty of Mana to spare as you need to be able to use your Abilities to secure a kill for your team, or stop an Ally from dying (Mana Management 101).

If you see an opportunity to get a kill on a different lane, have a TP scroll on you to get back to your Carry instantly and feel that your Carry DEFINITELY won't die while you're away, then you should go help your allies get some kills.

If you have nothing better to do though, just Stack and Pull the Jungle Creeps for farm 8)


If you need just a few last hits (about 5 max) to complete an item, then let your team know, e.g. "need 5lh 4 Mek" as they will be better off for you getting important items, like Mekanism or Arcane Boots.

You can also feel free to take as many last hits as you want if you are the only one in that lane and there is nowhere else you need to be...

e.g. you just assisted a gank on Keeper of the Light on mid, so Pudge is going to gank the hard lane with Windrunner and Spirit Breaker, Anti-Mage is free farming the safe lane quite easily with no harassment, but the enemy Templar Assassin is pushing mid, because the tower is on low HP.

..in this case, you can farm and push the creeps as much as you want. You can also farm the safe lane if Anti-Mage Blinked in and got fed himself to the enemy, since no one else will be farming that lane.


Hope this all helps ;)

You are dead wrong take all last hits each and every single on of the last hits that the carry DOESNT TAKE what this is that you take the ones that the dire/radiant creeps would have taken unless you took em for example when his attack is on cd or when his trying to lasthit another creep get as many denies as possible theres simply no point in wasting em.

Over to creep pulling DONT STACK! Theres 2 medium spawns on the radiant to pull from and 1 medium 1 hard to pull from on dire side, safelane that is and yes it requires a set of tangoos! dont pull it if your tower is getting pushed.

Also if you rush meka its a very good item but mid/late game about the time you will get it its fairly useless.

Wards should be placed accordingly to what you want to see and NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! You DONT allways just want to see the rune. But theres lots of guides to show you good spots and theres also a thing called the brain you can use it and think like this...." Hmmm.... What do i want to see? ganks/runes/spawns/ lane? Where will this ward give me the most vision?"
http://www.team-dignitas.net/articles/blogs/DotA/1092/Dota-2-Ultimate-Guide-to-Warding/

****ing joke that only carry fa**ots posted so far...

The advice mentioned in previous posts gives you a good idea. But the above post is right saying you should take some money if you need it or if your lane partner isnt there or is simply not going to get the last hit (because they are harassing or getting other last hits etc) Trust me you will need the money too keep up, your not the carry and wont have plentiful money late game and will often be lower level.
I play support and only support and the only small tip I can give you (on top of what has been mentioned without actually going into specific characters) is think about your carry and think about your team. Literally stop every couple of minutes and say "what are we lacking now and what is threatening my team mates" if you cant see/are getting ganked/losing rune control > ward. If they have invis heroes coming online soon purchase dust for ganks or sentrys for lane (later in the game purchase gem for someone). If you look at team items they may be lacking some healing or auras which you can work on like drums, meka or pipe (granted not hard support but still support-ish items) or would like armor pen for rosh or heavy heroes you could build a medallion to help them with that damage.
Use your pots on carry or important heroes etc.

Being a good support is all about reading the game.
Its about being preventative and maximizing your teams up-time. Even if you have to sacrifice your own time/life to make that happen. Just pretend you are everyone on your team. Get in their head and ask often: what do I (by I i mean team/carry) need and what is our strengths, weaknesses opportunities and threats.
Good luck. Hope I was of some help!

You are obviously playing in the lower bracket, or trolling. I usually play in trilanes, and these four steps apply to competitive games too; if you are that kind of support that always stays in lane sapping experience from his partner and preferring denying over free exp for the carry (which is still better than stealing last-hits though), then you might want to watch some professional games to learn something.

Also, everyone with a brain knows that you don't have to pull when your lane is getting pushed; about the double stacking, you either do that or, if you don't have time, use that Tango and pull the hard camp to the medium one as soon as your creeps kill the neutral ones. But that's pretty difficult for a player that has never played support and it's not fundamental: if the second pull goes wrong, then the lane gets pushed and you prevent your carry from getting creeps.

Plus, a 30 minute Mekansm is still decent because your team's supports will always be low on STR and back in levels: it's way more cost-effective than its components without the recipe, so finish it as soon as possible if you already have a Buckler or Headdress.

Being a support is the hardest role because it is fluid during a game.

Carries have one job - farm

Then you have semi carries/gankers
Farm until ulti/core is up. Go kill heroes/towers.
Finally as a support you get to
Buy and upgrade Courier
Ward
Counter Ward
Buy team items (arcane, mek, drums, duat and smoke)
Initiate and disable in team fights and not die.
And much more dependant on the game/hero.
Its funny, the less gold you get the more you have to do.

For what you should be doing, you need to look at your hero (in a team game you end up with a farm priority)
Heroes like dark seer, wind r4nner and clockwerk - semi support (no.3 spot) these guys need a few core items to start. After that it's team items like mek, pipe etc
No.5 spot - hard support (bane, cm, aa)
These guys can run on nothing except for some very cheap gear. I run bane with nothing more then a soul ring most games after that its wards, smoke and dust along with whatever else the team needs.

The biggest thing as a support (that's so hard in pub games) is communication. Get a headset if you can. Use your keyboard worse case. Asking a carry where he wants his wards is easy. Checking who is building arcane boots is much better then having 2. It also means when you need 1 last hit because your wards are about to expire you can ask your carry. Typing "I'm pulling the lane" isn't hard but it could save your carries life. Telling your carries rosh is up, that you've stacked ancients and you've got smoke will take you from being the guy who occasionally drops Ward and bought the Courier to a major asset to your team. I've had countless guys in pubs tell me how easy the game was because they didn't have to do anything but farm.