the Support Help Thread

First off, sorry for spamming new-player forum threads.

Second... I made this mot just for me, but for other rising support players in DotA. They should read this, then walk away with superficial knowledge on the subject. I'll start off:

I've realized that certain supports are really good at a certain aspect, while falling off on the others. The only exception I can see among the good supports is Jakiro, who seems to be a jack-of-all-trades, while also having a pretty big teamfight presence.

One more prompt: How can you tell if you're doing well as a support? I kept thinking I sucked my latest game, but then at the end, the other team was saying that if it wasn't for me, they would have won (their team wasn't a troll; in all other situations, they were dispositionally optimal), and that surprised me.

I'll stop ranting now, so you guys can stop typing.

Sticky if you think it will REALLY help.

Well if you were jakiro that game, i would instantly believe them. If you play a good jakiro, you can be the silent mvp, since he can be amazing in teamfights.

It's tricky to know how well you're doing as a support from a "stats" point of view - you may have a lot of deaths for example, but if you were dying saving your team mates then you might actually be playing very well.

As a more general rule though, I feel most happy with low kills, low deaths and LOTS of assists :).

Basically it's more to do with your general play - have you warded properly? Does your team have an upgraded courier early on? Are you setting up kills for your team? Are you in the right positions to help allies and defend towers? The other biggy is if you have a good team fight power - have you managed to land it well when required? It can also be a funny one, but NOT farming can also be a big contribution. Sure you take some if nobody else is there, but it's amazing how much greedy team mates can hinder a carry.

Jakiro is an interesting support, good setups, mana pool and health. Liquid Fire is criminally underrated. However, he does control like a blimp, there are better slows and stuns out there and his ultimate is difficult to get the most out of without allied disable.

Nyx Assassin is a pretty good Support, he's has less Teamfight powa than Jakiro, but he's a better Initiator/Ganker, and doesn't fall off Late Game as much as Jakiro

Is the Carry you're laning with getting plenty of space to get CS? Clearly, you're harrassing the opponents out of your lane then lurking in the jungle, only to emerge if they come back for more harrass.

Is there always vision of Ganks and Runes (and Roshan)? You must be placing Observer Wards on the map where they're most needed, making sure you don't lose vision of the most strategic points (and possible de-warding with Sentry Wards .

Whenever a Teamfight is going on, or a Tower is being Pushed, are you there? Then you're always where you're most needed.

Are there plenty of Sentry Wards and Dust of Appearance when there are Invis Heroes on the other Team? Then you're making sure that your Team can avoid Ganks and secure kills even when there's Invis to deal with

There's plenty of things you have to do as a Support, and you can learn a lot by playing Carries, Mids and Offlaners, but so long as you have these basics down (and definitely anything Sando suggests), you can easily say you're a great Support even if you don't have that all important K/D/A to brag about 8)