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I have decided to publish this guide first, to let more people know about supports. I will do improvements over time. Thanks ! Do hope for constructive critic.
Firstly, we will begin by explaining the term of "support".
Supports are often underrated by a lot of Dota 2 players. In MMR Ranked match, we can see that there are always people asking for "supports", which make it clear on how a good support can be the key to a victory.
However, many are not willing to choose a "support" hero. Players want to pick a "carry" and dominate the game, feeling the happiness of eliminating the opposing heroes.
Although this may be a detailed guide, there are always room for improvement. You can look for other guides, or video explanation, and may even try to improve base on personal experience.
If there are mistakes and errors in this guide, or any place for improvement, kindly leave a feedback down on the comments sections.
What exactly is a support?
Supports are heroes who focus more on buying team item, mainly helping the team in:
Although different heroes have different core items, there are a few core items for the team, yup, the whole team.
I) Animal Courier - Animal courier can be considered one of the most important items in the game. It saves time travelling from base to lane, by bringing the items to the heroes. A good team will definitely have a animal courier, as it will make a big difference to the opposing team, if they don't have a courier:-
Basically, you have to create space for your carry to farm.
Missions to complete:-
1) Let your carry get the last hit . - No matter how good you are at last hitting, as a support, you should only get 1 ( MAXIMUM ) last hit, per creep wave. If you are a ranged support, consider harassing the enemy heroes to allow your carry to farm better.
2) Denying - As a good support, you need to know the mechanics of denying. By default, click "A" on the keyboard, and then click on a friendly creep, to kill it. But do remember you can only deny a creep when it has low health, and you should only do it when the creep has like 1/6 of his health, like how u aim for last hit.
The reasons to deny
I'll put both of this under the same section. As you can see what i said above is to help your carry in the team "get fat", creating opportunities, doing your responsibilities, etc.
As for the mid - late game, one thing to keep in mind is to have consistent wards. For a team with good support, they should be having clear vision of rune spots, gank spots, and so on. - throughout the game, so be sure to buy wards if you are the only support in the team, or if the other supports are not doing so.
This is also the time when ganks start to become more often. Be sure to hold a town portal scroll, wherever you go, just in-case you have to tp to your base to defend when your opponent are "ratting", or when your team needs you in a gank fight happening soon.
Do note that you should be involved, if possible, all the ganks and team fight in the game. Although it is the carry's job for killing enemies, support are also the key to pulling off a successful teamfight victory. ( That's why a town portal scroll is handy here, allowing you to move from different lanes to different towers, to your fountain, etc. )
Do also keep in mind that , as a support, you should never walk alone to farm lanes or roam around the map for fun. In the mid - late game, you are like a handicap compared towards the carries in both team ( provided that they have farm ). Therefore, if the opponents have wards at some specific places, and manage to catch you being "single", they'll pull you to death.
Sometimes, in the early game, your carry might be in the fountain for health/mana regeneration ( Take in any other reasons for the carry not to be in lane ).
Therefore, this is the chance for you to get last hit, earning some gold to spend.
There might even be chance for you to accidentally kill the enemy hero when in ganks ( Do not do it intentionally ), or you might face an enemy hero on a 1 v 1 when placing wards and you used your ultimate ability on the enemy ? ( Heroes like crystal maiden )
Assuming you don't have much farm, you will still earn periodic gold. Each player receives 1 gold every 0.6 seconds, which results in 100 gold every minute.
What happens if you die and lose your money?
To be honest, supports are considered to be more squishy, and tend to die easier in fights. If there must be someone to sacrifice, when in major fights, it is okay for you to die, creating space for your team's carry to farm better and make better progressions, without losing gold from death.
Positioning becomes crucially important here. If you are a ranged support ( normally becoming especially squishy ), know where to stand when in team fights. Do not rush to the front line, and tend to do a aggressive montage. Know where to stand in team fights, depending on your role.
Map awareness is also extremely important. For a good player to be good, they must have good mini-map awareness. What are the wards for ? Wards give you vision, in the big map, and also mini-map, allowing you to see heroes passing by ganking spots ( assuming you warded at the correct space ), giving you time to retreat. ( TP scrolls also becomes important when retreating from ganks )
Now let's get into the items section.
We'll start with boots. Support heroes often go for Arcane Boots. If you ask me why, it will be pretty obvious, as the arcane boots are the only boot-upgrades, that gives you a active for the team. Mana can be extremely important for the support hero itself, and might often come in handy for some "mana hungry" heroes. I'm not saying this is the only boots that you can get for a support hero, but this is a recommended item.
You've most probably heard of Mekansm. Mekansm is the best of the best item, when it comes to a support's core. It is a well known, and strong team item. It passively provides an extra of 4 health regeneration, in a 900 radius, which is considered fairly useful in the midgame, i supposed. Its active heals 250 health and gives +2 armor to allied units, also in a 900 radius. Although 250 health may seem a bit less in the late game, but at any point of the game, you might be able to save one or two teammates, and turn the downwards spiral of the fight into a victory.
We have now talked about the Mekansm, and the Arcane boots. Fortunately, in the 6.84 update, there is a new item "Guardian Greaves", which is the combination of Mekansm + Arcane boots + a recipe.
Some may consider this item to be an extension, but to my opinion, i find this quite useful.
Let's have a look at the Guardian Greaves ( short form GG in this guide ) passive.
- Provides nearby allies with 4 health regeneration and 2 bonus armor. If an allied hero's health falls below 20%, they receive 15 health regeneration and 15 armor.
This passive is considered a life saver most of the time. 15 health regeneration is above average, and what makes it better and overpowered is the 15 armor. PASSIVELY !!
Next look at its active - Restores 250 health and 160 mana to nearby allies, and removes most negative buffs from the caster. A combination of the Mekansm & Arcane boots, but with an extension of removing negative buff, which is like the blessing of an angel, bringing in luck to finish off the opposing heroes !
Some other utilities items that are good on a support would be
Late games are when things start to get tough for supports. Most supports tend to scale badly in the late game, resulting in hard positioning and hard gameplay, when the carries in the game are fat and could finish you off a few hits.
However, there are some heroes that comes to exception. For example: Crystal Maiden, Lich, Dazzle, Witch Doctor, Winter Wyvern. Although some may still be squishy, but their damage/skills scales well in the late game, making them the core to a well fought gank, wiping the enemy team.
Here is a link of the explanation for Hard Supports.
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2XPpfHxB78
*Credits to Youtube Channel: Relax You're Fine
*Again, some items mainly found in supports in the late game
(Most of the time)
"Although it might seem to be a support's job to babysit a carry all game long, if your lane doesn't need constant help or attention, it's nice to set your sights on ganking another lane that may need help." - Credits to : Bunkansee, a notable editior in DotaFire
*http://www.dotafire.com/profile/bunkansee-37597
Depending on the situation, sometimes you might need to roam around the map, finding opportunities to benefit your teammates in other lanes. Examples of roaming would be support bounty hunter. Even in competitive games, we always see professional players playing bounty hunter as a roaming support, going around the map, sniping hunter, providing map vision, scouting enemy movement.
To benefit the most out of roaming, always carry a tp scroll with you. You might need to constantly portal around different lanes in map. Carrying a smoke might also be a good idea, if you are planning to gank enemy heroes without them seeing you through wards.
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