Playing Support Rubick

Hi, I've been playing support Rubick lately.

Should a support Rubick stay to babysit in lane or go to other lane for ganks?

As is the answer to many things.
"depends"

You have to make that judgement in game. If your carry is being pressured hard in-lane, you need to babysit so he doesnt get killed or completely shut down. If they can handle solo-ing the lane or the other side has weak laning prescence, go ganking.
Its also a question of whether your prescence can net you kills. Say your paired with a Mirana, between the two of you there is a fair bit of kill potential. Leaving lane in this situation, even if you successfully gank other lanes, is probably not worth it unless that other lane is being shut down.

Technical skills are easy, the hardest part of DOTA is the decision making.

He is not such a good ganker alone, but in a tag crew, he is worth every penny.Setting up for your teamate that has a really ****ty skill to land early in the game (level 1 Burrowstrike, Split Earth or Torrent - for your midlaner) is a really good thing by using Telekinesis.

When thinking about Ganking, the 1st thing you have to think about is, "is it worth it?"

While you're gone from the Lane, is the Hero you're Babysitting going to be able to Farm the same even if you're gone? if not, are they going to get a bit less Farm, or none at all while you're away? You even have to consider that they may be Ganked while you're Ganking some other Ganker...D{8

Don't go Ganking if someone on your Team is going to likely to get Ganked, it's usually more profitable to turn a Gank around with no Kills on either side than to trade Ganks with the other Team.

If they commit to a Gank but get nothing, they've lost out on Farm, but you haven't.

This is also something to consider when you Gank, if you and the person you're babysitting are probably going to lose out, you'd better make sure you can at least make someone on the other Team lose some Farm by returning to the Fountain. If you can...happy Ganking! 8{D

Thanks alot for the insights guys

Wow, lots of great info in there. Thanks for taking your time to do that.

Wow, lots of great info in there. Thanks for taking your time to do that.

Rubick is typically considered a very greedy support. He needs a fast 6, and he needs farm. He also only works against certain team compositions. Generally Rubick isn't great at ganking, or initiating. Only counter ganking, or counter initiating. It's generally best to just have a TP to save allies, while stacking, pulling, and harassing.

The idea of Rubick is to fight constantly and snowball your team with good steals. Rubick is the only hero where you're looking to fight INTO the best ults in the game. "Does their Enigma have blackhole? Great! Where is he, we should 5 man into his lane!"

I don't know exactly how to explain this, so I'll just say there are two types of steals. Steals to sit on, and steals that you use immediately. Steals to sit on are steals that you take randomly, and walk around with. Steals that you use immediately are huge team fight ults.

So maybe you steal Ice Shards. Sit on that and look for a big team fight. In a team fight enigma black holes. So you lift him, toss him, ice shard the team, steal BH, bolt the team, use BH. That's 4 spells, one of which is a 3 minute cooldown ult. Now you can steal a new spell and just toss BH away since it's worthless for 3 minutes.

Rubicks ability to use HUGE spells constantly makes him the ultimate team fight hero. No one can dish out that kind of damage utility, minus Invoker. But CERTAINLY no support can offer the utility that Rubick does.

Now let's say you steal Ravage, and use it in a team fight. Cool. Now let that be the spell you walk around with... A few minutes later, you fight into the opposing team. Enigma uses Blackhole again. What if you ravage to interrupt it, lift, steal, toss, bolt, blackhole? That's two of the biggest team fight ults from a support. Now if you have aghs, you can even steal ravage again, and use 2 ravages and a BH in one team fight (It's extremely unlikely, but certainly possible).

In a nutshell, Rubick usually can't afford to gank because he needs to get his ult up and look for good steals and start cycling through the opponents spells ASAP to generate some advantage for the team by winning team fights. His lane is mediocre, his gank is horrible, and his harass is pretty subpar. The moment you're 6, tell your team that you need to get some steals. Use map awareness and prediction to figure out where the good steals are. Fight into those heroes and counter initiate their strongest spells with telekinesis, then steal them and use them against the opponents. After you use a big ult, get a new spell to sit on and wait for their big ults to come up again.

Edit: If you have certain hard to land stuns (As Wulfstan mentioned [strongest Romanian teacher. No joke]), Rubick CAN be a very strong ganker. As those spells are typically very high damage and stuns for the mana that they cost, at the sacrifice of you having to aim them very well. Since they are guaranteed when you're with a Rubick, there is no longer a risk when you gank. There is no "If I miss, the gank fails". You can't miss, so it's a great gank. However, Rubick is a "set up" hero. He lacks true DPS. Another set up hero would be Shadow Demon. Set up heroes lack DPS, and are best paired with skill shot heroes. So if you're a Rubick, and your ally is SD, you've drafted poorly and your ganks will most likely not be successful.