When is Support Play Understood?

I ask this because I watched a load of video tutorials and read up about how to play Dota 2 before diving in, and learned how important Support is. I fell in love with Huskar, but because no-one else Supports, I've been playing mainly as Omni or CM in pretty much all of my games. When I support, my team wins a lot. That's awesome.

But!

It's infuriating when other players don't recognize what you're doing. You sacrifice last hits for the guy you're babysitting; abandon exp to go and place wards to help your mid lane; slow down enemies, often deliberately holding back from the killing blow, to allow an ally to get the kill...

All of it adds up to a low Kill count, a low gold count, and an INSANELY high Assist count. And at the end of the match, particularly if my team loses, I often get called out for not doing well enough - not enough kills or gold.

Is this because I'm still a low level, and being paired with other low levels? Please tell me players do learn how the damn game works eventually. As rewarding and fun as Support play is, it's pretty damn disheartening when no-one seems to understand what you're doing for the team...

Preaching to the choir, my friend. It gets a little better as you move up the ladder, but the problem still maintains for the most part. My advice is to find good, understanding people in the community to play with and group up with them. They'll appreciate you much more then the common pubby.

I wouldnt worry about it too much - you're playing in low so good support play often isnt recognised - you might be doing everything right but sometimes your team make poor use of it and you lose anyway (and probably die a fair bit as you're the most vulnerable). Even by not taking farm you're doing your team a favour by letting them concentrate it more on the heroes that need it. (assuming they can last hit...which is quite a big assumption in low!)

At the end of the day, numbers are numbers - concentrate on getting decent assist and deny counts and you're doing your job - if the rest of the team fail in their's despite your help...well this would still lose you the game as a carry, but at least you're giving them the best possible chance.

As you work your way up the brackets, people will recognise your work more, even if you still get some idiots.

Warlock and Lich are both good supports at this level as at least you have a big, visible ult that they can see working, and they both need very minimal farm to be effective.

While I only play 12 games my self, I had the exact opposite experience. I got told thanks for buying the courier, getting wards for pudge hooks or keeping people safe.

I started a match earlier as the only support character on my team (again :P), bought the courier and some wards at the start of the game, and then paled when I saw my other team mates were going top and bottom, leaving me to solo the mid lane. The top lane (we were dire) had Axe and Bounty Hunter, so I asked one of them to go middle since I was support. Axe replied:

"**** off, Axe is terrible in mid."

"But I'm support, and you guys need the extra exp and farm."

Axe: "And I don't care."

It's like people don't even play to win! They just roll a carry, and then hit things without any thought at all.

Thanks for the feedback though, everyone! I'm still going to keep supporting since I really enjoy winning. I just can't wait to reach the higher levels, and diminish my chances of playing with fools.

I must admit I get some groups telling me how wonderfully I'm doing as support others telling me I'm doing no good as i have low kill count! (depends if we win or no)

In pubs I just say that I'm support at the start at the start and normally people don't start raging at me, either they
a) Don't know what support does so don't want to speak or
b) Know what support does and comments are adapted accordingly.

I mean I'm by no means good at what i do but i have been told that I am doing amazingly (even tho i tend to find i get the last hit on hero all the damn time :\ any advice on how to stop this while still doing the rq support damage would be appreciated.)

I.e my last game last night I was on 15 kills 1 death and a chunk of assists. my team loved me... even if i was stealing their gold from last hits.

I've also seen even tho I have gone from level 1 to level 5 ish (don't actually know what level I am now) I have noticed a massive improvement in people calling me a nub, maybe its coz I'm getting better and maybe its because people around me are less useless. :P (here's hoping its the first one :P)

Eventually playing with friends and people you know can help eliminate those problems. Playing on public matchmaking sadly brings a lot of randomers and Carry-obsessed players to the game. =/

I think I'll start letting them know from the beginning too. Though I do always buy the courier straight away, and a couple of wards, and then tell people I'm warding the river before I get into lane position =P

As for last-hitting, just keep moving (right clicking) and you won't attack. I find it's your own instincts that you have to fight against! The amount of times I've played as Omni, running literally right next to a low-HP enemy to slow them down with my aura, waiting for an ally a few steps behind to finally catch up and deliver the final blow... It's so tempting! But I only last-hit enemy heroes if I'm positive no-one else is in a position to do so.

I think an easy way to fix OCD (obsessive carry disorder) if to reward people for things like assists. For example if a hero gets 10 assists the announcer could shout something like "Savior!" If someone gets 20 assists the announcer could shout "Guardian Angel!" Lastly if someone could scrape 30 assists in one game, it has only happened a handful of times for me, The announcer could proudly announce "Divine Intervention!". They could also have a counter on the top of the screen that counts the wards placed. Little things like that make life as a support worth wile.

I think ( and am probably wrong) but I think that the last hit on the hero does not mater since the kill and assist gold is the same.

Lol, DotA even has medical terminology.