My case for choosing to play support: Guide to gaining easy MMR and supporting EFFECTIVELY

I have been seeing a lot of posts recently about people complaining about whatever MMR bracket they are in, how there are never any supports, if they play support their carries are bad and that their teammates suck.

I am here to tell you I too felt that way about 15 months ago. I had all those feelings and was very frustrated because I believed I was better than the MMR I was playing in.

15 months ago I calibrated at around 2.5K MMR and for quite a long time I couldn't raise my MMR and began getting the feelings I described in the above paragraph. Most specifically the one about how I never had any supports in my games. I believed I was a core player and that I was better than all the people I was playing against.

Eventually I decided that what I was doing wasn't working, I had gone nowhere. I was not a redditor (and still really aren't I just like reading it occasionally) so I couldn't complain and make a post on here about it but I still did believe I was better than the people I was playing with, I just needed to figure out the way for me to actually climb out of the 2.5k bracket I was in.

I eventually realized that the biggest problem in almost every bracket (not just 2k, literally most brackets) is the lack of supports who know what they are doing. What I have observed in my time playing Dota 2 is that you either have games of 5 cores because no one on your team cared enough to play support, or you get one person who wanted to win bad enough to accept that they would play support if no one else would.

I then had an idea. What if I actually learned how to play support. At the time, I thought supporting was sitting in safe lane trying to keep the offlaner out and pray to god my carry could last hit. Well let me tell you that I was VERY wrong.

After watching way more professional games, pro player streams and effort in game I actually learned what supports were supposed to do in the laning phase (shoutout to BSJ streams and YouTube for that) and how to utilize smoke ganks.

After that it took me about 8 months to go from 2.5K to 4K that I officially achieved today. I have absolutely no doubt I can reach 5K soon and that is my next goal.

Advice for supports/people who want to learn how to support EFFECTIVELY are as follows.

1. The best Heros in my opinion right now to support with are Heros that have both offensive and defensive abilities (gotta save your idiot carries and be effective in team fights too xD) my top 3 are: Elder Titan, Shadow Demon and Vengeful Spirit.

2. Gank mid lane asap. Coordinate with your jungler/secondary support (jk let's be real it's a jungler) that you would like to smoke and meet behind your tier 1 tower, smoke around and kill enemy mid laner.

3. Effective warding. DO NOT under any circumstance try to ever take a tower with enemies missing off the map without having a ward behind or around the tower you are trying to take. If you leave your safe lane carry alone to gank/help other lanes leave a lane ward so he can see enemies tping in from their tier 1 tower attempting to kill him.

4. Understand when your team is strong. Don't fight if your carry is a few hundred gold from finishing a desolator or bloodstone. Those are fight changing items, direct your team so that they don't fight until after they have gotten their core items.

5. Fight around where you have vision. Vision can literally win fights on its own. In the mid game and on, try to communicate to your team that you want to fight around (insert lane here) because of the vision. If the enemy wants to fight you, might as well take the fight in an advantageous spot for you right?

6. Take down the rosh timer!! Know when aegis is going to be taken away as well as when he can spawn. (For those who don't know 5 minutes after rosh is killed aegis is taken away and he can spawn anywhere from 8-11 minutes after he is killed)

7. know when your team needs to group up vs when to farm. Especially against Heros like slark, Riki, slardar ect who like getting pickoffs, understand what the other team is good at and do the opposite. 5 man against slark in the early to mid game= easy wins.

8. Don't focus on your farm at all, focus more on keeping up vision and sitting behind cores that are in potential dangerous areas farming. (this can be difficult for some people but its true) My favorite hero right now is Elder Titan and the second I have tranquils and soul ring I literally need nothing for the rest of the game besides tp scrolls, wind lace and wards. A euls or force staff is great but not a big concern. Keep the cores alive and win games. Everyone wants the epic WD Aghs Ult but keeping your cores alive with vision and defensive help from your Heros skills is even more impactful trust me.

9. Last but certainly not least. Positioning. Here's a list of places a support should never ever be: rosh pit (be somewhere around or above it to either provide vision or fast defensive ability use response) hitting enemy towers (again always be behind or around your cores to help defensively or provide vision) anywhere in vision when defending high ground, same goes for when going high ground.

10. (/u/CallMeLeeeroy) Communication! While supporting those (too often big-ego) cores, you might want to let them know what you're planning. "I got an invis rune bottom, I'll be mid in 15 seconds, play a bit passive so we can kill him."is so precise that your mid lane is more often than not inclined to do what you suggest, even if you are in their eyes just a stupid support. It might just work out. Keep your team spirit alive! Your offlane dies three times within the first 5 minutes? "Guys, he's playing against a pretty disgusting trilane, cut him some slack. -But mate, you might want to consider playing a bit more careful or switching to the jungle." (This is where Iron Talon comes into play.) I know that whenever I stay calm enough to say positive stuff like this, it increases the chances of my team winning by a good enough margin to try (as a side effect this would make at least some games a lot better if more people did it).

Tl;dr read numbers 1-10 for help in learning how to support EFFECTIVELY.

I would love to hear feedback from everyone!

Edit: thanks to u/CallMeLeeeroy for #10, likes the way he phrased communication so much I wanted to include it! Thanks!