Picking the Right Support

Hey,
nice guide, I should add Witch Doctor and Lina to Harassers, cause both have good rightclick damage and attack range. Add Crystal Maiden there, too, cause she can almost spam her spells due to her Aura. Maybe even Treant, cause he deals very much damage to melee heroes.

IMO, the "lategame" list is a bit screwed up. Windranger is a godd hero in lategame, but shes not a support anymore. If it comes to lategam she transitions into a very good (semi-)carry, so she shouldnt be on the list.
Then, if Warlock is on the List, you should also add Lich(insane damage with ult) and Phoenix(stun that goes throuhg BKB). Also, add Bane to the lategame list, due to his Aghs upgrade now. Even without Aghs, he disables 2 enemies (Nightmare and ult) and enfeebles a 3rd one, turning a teamfight into a 2v5, and he gives no ***** about BKB.
If you consider Enigma a support, then he should be in the lategame list too.
Also Ancient Apparition is a very useful lategame support, cause his ult prevents any heal.
And add Windranger to Disablers. 3.75s stun on 2 enemies is a hell of a disable


Also, add disablers to the question "Do the enemy have a killer lane...." cuz often its better to for example Nightmare a chasing enemy then to cast Purify.

Also, I wouldnt necessarily pick Nukers against squishy line-ups. Getting kills with a Lion or Lina might be good at first, but it might be a better idea to pick disablers gaainst them, so that your carry can get the kills early.

Nice Guide :) +1
Wraith King can be support , for some conditions he can be roamer support too :)

This is quite helpful, nice categorization. I can just quickly glance at it even in-game when picking. Thanks

Guide was written before Abaddon was released :). Seriously though he's another hero who's difficult to place in these kinds of lists. Fantastically good at helping allies in tough lanes, pressuring the opposition and tanking.

However, he's like some of the various heroes mentioned in comments - Undying, Visage or the 'unusual' supports like Sven or Bounty Hunter. These heroes don't categorise very well - a lot of their skills are unusual or 'special case'. For example, is Visage a nuker? Um kinda (it needs to build up damage). With his minions does he count as a disabler? Depends what point in the game you're talking about. Is he a pusher? Well he can be. As you see - these kind of answers make it difficult to give definite guidance.

As much as I'd like to include them, I think to play these heroes you need a full guide on them so you can understand when to pick them.

I'd love to see both bounty and visage included, both bring a lot to any team, visage being the king of trilanes and all that, and support bounty totally being a thing, other than that, I love this guide, it's made me think a lot about what support fits, great job!

Awesome guide that I find myself referring to quite often!

Sando: Nice that your have expanded this one so much but Abaddon is missing on the list :X

Also maybe worth mentioning that the "special case" Omniknight is best when your team has at least 1 very agressive melee initator (e.g. Brewmaster)/carry (e.g. Troll Warlord, Faceless Void) and the enemy team has many melee heroes, preferrably heroes that rely on armor for protection. If (almost) everyone is ranged, then Purification is kind of wasted and I wouldn't pick him.

Took a while, but think they're all fixed now.

Learned a lot! Thanks! Any chance the pictures with broken links could get replaced with a valid picture/text?

Great guide! I love the detailed explanations. I wish there was a way in game to set the layout up so that you can visibly see the supports and the roles they play. Thanks for the time and effort!

If you think of it this way, pros win games by utilizing amazing plays that no one else would have expected or thought of, whether it was originally designed by a difference in how a hero was played, or the role of a particular hero.

If no one defied the normal (pub) way to play heroes, then Dota would be a boring game that would have been forgotten a long time ago. Devising new ways to play heroes is what keeps people from leaving.

Now I'm not saying that you should never follow a guide; guides are excellent when you want to learn the "normal" way that hero is played. But I say that you take that "normal" way to play them, and use it as a basis for implementing your own style. Each game requires something new and different; cookie-cutter builds only work in certain scenarios, and therefore should be used only so that you can understand the essentials of that hero.

The next step from any excellent guide like this is to, after you achieve the essentials that this guide teaches, go out and try new strategies and styles with those heroes (supports in this case).

PS +1 from me. I enjoyed reading what you had to say, as it was a breath of fresh air from playing support time and time again.

Great guide!

I'm sure a lot of people will have their own opinions, but it's not like you can account for every personal situation they encounter during game play, so this is good ground work to go off of.