Breaking out of your roles: Carries as Supports

Hey everyone. Today I wish to discuss a subject, that is, new drafts for heroes that are usually picked as farming core heroes, and how viable some of them would be as support heroes. What heroes do you think can be played in these flexible roles? Let's talk about them.

Here's some thoughts:

Wraith King is the most popular one, even though he needs items to do any sort of major damage, he has one of the best stun/nukes of early game, and his Vamp Aura is extremely powerful with other carry heroes, and he can initiate fights with Reincarnation. Pretty solid pick.

Naga Siren can contribute a nuke, scouting, an ensnare, and a setup with or without items. She's not that strong early, but can be quite powerful in midgame. Works best with heroes with big teamfight ultimates such as Kunkka or Enigma.

Morphling: Can morph HP, can stun, and can create image of a hero, so maybe can be drafted as support with like a Terrorblade or Chaos Knight.

Sven: Recent Aghs update made his potential in this role an interesting idea for the late potential his team can have. Storm Hammer is extremely strong early game too for roaming. Good compliment to teams with a lot of late game potential in base damage.

Juggernaut: Healing Ward is really strong for early pushing sustain, and running him in jungle is also popular right now due to crit buff. Good for teams with hit and run strategies.

Kunkka has the potential, since X marks gives a ton of utility now, and if he can hit his stuns, he still contributes a lot to ganks and teamfights. Works well with Tinker.

Viper has the power to be a lane babysitter with constant harass, and with a Mek he can be quite useful with his Viper Strike through most of the game.

Drow Ranger is a good draft with other ranged carries such as Morphling, she can increase the power of many carries and provides a valuable silence all game. She also does a lot of damage mid-game with no items.

Huskar can be put as a lane babysitter, orbwalking to harass like Viper, and if drafted with a carry with good primary attribute gain, Inner Vitality can be extremely powerful. He can go for utility items instead of his usual damage.

Slardar recently got a cooldown buff to amplify damage, so you can amp almost their entire team now. Slardar would require a setup hero such as Shadow Demon, but his Crush is quite powerful for early clashes until he gets his dagger. Slardar struggles to get assists, so he really needs that dagger.

Legion Commander: Two of her skills are useful even without items. Duel can be used as a disable if friends are with you. Good combo with Carry Tiny or to counter illusion and summon based pushers.

Tiny had an ancient role that was once similar to this. With a good toss, he can setup many powerful skills. Probably not the best choice though, since Tusk is in the game.

Chaos Knight, I've seen this hero in a roam duo several times. I don't think it works that well, but it's worth a mention.

I honestly think that Drow Ranger support can be pretty good at times, especially when coupled with a melee carry hero and another support. One thing I want to try is a support Drow with an Omniknight core. I've played and seen a core Omni before, and giving a hero that is nigh impossible to kill a lot of farm has a devastating effect. Plus, this lane combo has a lot of kill potential. Enemies won't be able to run from the duo when their movement speed is 100.



As a support, Drow's squishiness is a non-issue, since most supports are squishy and still function as they should. Drow also has a crazy slow, a long silence that interrupts channeling spells, and a spell that amplifies any other ranged heroes' damage. Sounds a lot like a support to me! Even her ultimate indirectly strengthens her Precision Aura! Also, like Lina, Drow actually has some solo kill potential against heroes even without farm. Viable? Most probably.

Tiny

prettygood roamer


more so on those heroes though.



they are still greedy. most dont have the mana pools to sustain a combo early game.

naga support is good but she doesnt really have much more then her ensare. you see her run with a stack taker. since she can stack 2-3 camps at once so most lineups have a good stack taker and a really good roamer. plus she is actually really squishy considering other heroes that do the same for less. though if your running greedy she is super good.

Jugg ... not a support

sven is awesome as a roamer early. great stun and good ms.plus can transition well into mid game semi if needed with 2 items.

CK.... ehhhhh not really. mana starved. RNGesus stun reliant. only gets scary or useful with items.

viper... hmmmm yea i guess hes better in an aggro trilane really. IMO

Kunnka..... not really he is a pos 3 at the lowest.

Jug is actually an okay support. He can force the enemy supports to buy Ghost Scepter. He can force somebody on the enemy team to have to dive into his allies to destroy the Healing Ward, and he has very high earlygame potential for early roaming/first bloods. Also provides aoe sustain for objectives( Healing Ward nulifies tower damage, and makes rosh possible much earlier.) Overall okay potential as a support. His massive problem is the fact that he has absolutley no disable whatsoever(Ministuns don't count). Great dps/sustain support for when you already have disables.

Most viable to me are probably

Chaos Knight
Wraith King
and
Sven

they do that anyway.



errr, not really. dive to kill ward? why the hell would you "dive" to kill a ward? id just back off or if its a team fight one right click from a support will kill it and only badly positioned people get caught in bfury. he either needs a stun or slow or he goes boots first to get a full duration bfury off... even then they have to have less then 300 hp for him to kill them. maybe in an aggro trilane he could work but as a support... there are too many they do what he does better.



and he cant do this as a pos 1 or 2?



again ... not really the only "Support " spell is healing ward.all his other skills are hc or semi. he needs farm to be useful. he cant sustain in lane due to low mana pool. he is slow. he doesnt have any cc. he cant harass safely with out over extending.

and to further cement the reasons why he isnt a support.

he now has 6 extra agility.

icefrog has spoken.

As in, Melee Carries with Stuns?

I think he's an alright aggresive support. Blade Fury is still the most damaging level 1 nuke (Saying on badly positioned people get caught in Blade Fury is inaccurate, given Jug has decently high base move speed. And Healing Ward is obviously one of the best early pushing/brawling abilities, and doesn't really drop off. And Omnislash is still decent enough to burst down supports, and is a great ability in ganks, even at level 1.

It's also a bugger to kill a properly micro'd Healing Ward, because it has 450 base movement speed. It's definately not as simple as a support right clicking it in a fight, because 450 base movement speed is crazy unless you have a mobility item, or a re-positioning ability. And as a result baiting people in with Healing Ward is entirely possible. Because you have to kill the Healing Ward early in fights, or it's just to much sustain. Kind of like an Io

I'd agree, there are better conventional aggresive supports. But if you are just running something that wants to win early fights and end the game before like 20-25 minutes, Juggernaught is still really good.

As for the list;

Viper, Huskar and Drow Ranger seem like really bad supports. Like Viper is an awful hero from a position where he's behind, (Which supports kinda are), and just doesn't achieve anything without farm.

Huskar... maybe. Like with a kinda fast level 6 (So make him a 4 position not a 5), he can double as an initator with tonnes of early game magical burst through Burning Spears and Life Break. I just worry he will drop off to nearly uselessness in late game (Which is a bad trait of supports nowadays). And that he is kinda outclassed as a magical nuker/in lane harrasser by something like a Skywrath Mage.

Drow Ranger has the issue of wanting core priority of farm to get a fast level 6. This doesn't happen on a support. Precision Aura makes Agi items on him scale well enough that I can't see why you wouldn't just make him a core instead. Gust is fantastic yes, but I mean, you are essentially a poorly made paper bag as a support Drow, as opposed to a basic paper bag, because you won't be farming a quick mobility item on a support Drow.

I had to play a game as a support Gyrocopter recently due to a really dodgy last pick. His skillset kinda lends itself to a greedy #4 by concentrating initially on your nukes/stuns and then trying to transistion later.

However, we didn't have great synergy for landing Homing Missile reliably and it leaves him with lacklustre late game unless you manage to get a whole lot of assists/flashfarm on him. That game didn't work out great due to a ****py carry and them managing to take some of my ancient stacks.

On the whole, it has some potential but suffers from the same issues many of these "carry as support" roles suffer - i.e. do they really do a better job without much early farm than a proper support, whether your offlaner gets farm and is prepared to pickup the utility items (mek, pipe, etc) that your #4 normally might.

How exactly do you define support? buying wards? getting utility items? babysitting the carry?
and is your target the proffesional scene, or do you speak of pubs?

Viper schould get mek and when its like the current pub meta (5 carrys) she is imho one of the better supporters.

Another game i had was as Dragon Knight against a nuke heavy team. I got pipe and mek (I am doing the all hero challenge in pubs) and it worked out guite well - saving my team a lot