Micro and Macro of the Support role—an Overview
Some of the recent patch changes have benefited the economy of the most underrated role in Dota—supports. Lowering the price of most vision and support items, as well as minor tweaks like tango sharing, has increased the disposable income of supports by a decent margin, more often than not allowing them to get to their items faster. The final game-changer was the introduction of AoE kill bounty gold based off the difference in Net Worth. All of this has greatly increased the amount of utility that supports can provide in the mid- and late-game, not only making the role more fun to play, but also allowing it to shine brighter in the hands of expert players.
What do supports do and how can pub players benefit from understanding this position better? It can a remind dedicated core players as to what limits they might impose on their team by occasionally not utilizing the map effectively and leaving their supports heavily underfarmed. Newer players as well as hardcore veterans can benefit from an in-depth understanding of supports—at the very least it can make them appreciate their supports more and tackle some of the long-drawn myths about the role.
Drafting and Laning
The support role has a huge amount of “subtypes”. There are roamers, gankers, disablers, nukers, babysitters, healers, pushers, outpushers, bullies etc. More often than not each support hero is going to have a different degree of proficiency in several of these traits.
It is generally the case in Public matchmaking that the supports are drafted first, or at least one of them. First pick supports should generally be extremely versatile, being able to fit any lineup, or meta-mindful, potentially deterring the enemy from getting the annoying popular core hero. With that in mind, having a support with a diverse skill set, as opposed to the one with a strong focus on a single aspect, is preferable, however, disabling abilities should be generally valued slightly higher.
Second support pick should be generally aimed at plugging the holes in your team’s current draft or, if your team is self-sufficient enough, at countering the enemy cores.
The first priority of plugging the weaknesses in your lineup is rather straightforward. It will generally boil down to how the laning stage is expected to go. For example, If you are expecting a bad mid match-up for your teammate, going for a stats-heavy mid-lane “bully” is an option. Heroes like 
Bane and even 
Jakiro are adequate in this scenario, since they are decently tanky and are good at trading early HP. The latter is also an amazing way to deal with a potentially problematic and decently popular 
Templar Assassin.
If, however, you expect your mid player to be on the winning side, it is generally best to leave them alone to get experience. It is also preferable to leave the mid player alone even if they are losing the lane and your contribution does not change the balance of power in the mid match-up. Simply soaking extra xp without zoning the enemy mid will generally exacerbate the issue even further.
Similar logic can be applied to other potential weaknesses your team might have. If you are lacking outpush, getting a wave-clearing hero might be a necessity. Healing heroes in general offer a lot of value in the early-game teamfights, while dedicated babysitters can help your carry have a good time in the lane.
There is a difference between a babysitter (e.g. 
Witch Doctor) and a bully (e.g Bane). The former should generally try to secure farm for their carry, and while it often involves zoning out the enemy, having a way to sustain your carry is generally advised. The latter is a more aggressive alternative, which is better suited when supporting a hero who can sustain himself better in the early stages. For example, when you have 
Juggernaut as your primary core, Bane can be a better option, since once Juggernaut hits level 3, he is really hard to completely harass out of the lane. This opens up the potential for Bane to do work in the other areas. Whereas in the case of 
Spectre, for example, a constant help from a support is generally required. A tied down support is not always a bad thing, but for some supports, being active early is necessary to achieve their potential while for others it is not.
Countering enemy cores should be the second priority. When having multiple choices, the one better at dealing with what the enemy team has drafted is going to be the better option. The matchups section on Dotabuff can be generally helpful for newer player in giving a general idea of what heroes work better against others.
That said, second support is often non-existent, especially in the lower brackets. Most of the time, the best one can hope for is a non-greedy jungler with at least some impact in the early stages of the game. That puts an immense strain on the solo support as well as weakens the lane, so it is generally ill-advised. Some heroes can make up for it, however—
Enigma, 
Chen and 
Bounty Hunter all fall into the category of non-greedy support/jungle heroes, which do not necessarily make the lanes weaker, but offer a strong boost in the early-mid game.
Early game
The beginning of the game was historically the time when supports were supposed to shine the brightest. This is mostly no longer the case, since the transition of supports into the later stages of the game is much easier and there is less stress on winning in the first 10 minutes. This, however, does not mean that being proactive in this stage of the game is ill-advised for supports.
It generally boils down to maximum efficiency one can get from their hero at this stage. Most options at this time are in one way or another related to either zoning, ganking or jungling/stacking.
Depending on your choice of hero, these choice might be limited even further. Hence the question, “where I can be of the most use right now?”, generally has a rather clear answer.
One of the biggest mistakes many new support players make at this stage is that they turn themselves into self-proclaimed martyrs. In many cases it comes from the way newer players are introduced into this game: “pick 
Lich and just eat creeps in lane” is usually the starting point for players and this habit of “just eating creeps” is extremely hard to deal with, if it is left unattended for too long.
Supports are the kings of the game in this stage. Frequently, at least one of them has almost complete freedom to roam and make the life miserable for the enemy players. Their abilities generally have the most impact compared to anything else on the map, but this mentality prevents them from exploiting this fact. New players are generally too used to the status quo of staying in lane, so they feel discomfort leaving it. Sometimes it might be the most efficient way to play, but most often it is not, and seeing these moment is a necessary skill to develop to play support properly.
Last piece of advice for the early game is simple: always carry a TP scroll. This item will generally have a priority over early boots, upgraded 
Magic Wand and even a delay on an upgraded courier. A 75 gold item used at a right time and in a right place has the potential of winning the game or at the very least putting the odds in your favor by a huge margin.
Mid and Late game
Most frequently, the mid game is the time when supports stop being an independent piece on the board, but rather become the backbone of the team, hence there is no simple advice as to what one should be doing as a support at this stage—there are simply too many options and the most efficient ones are going to vary from game to game.
On the micro level in teamfights and ganks, it is generally better for supports to try to stay in the backline once their abilities are used. If possible, you can often initiate with a strong disable and possible nuke follow-up, but once it is used, there is generally very little sense for most support heroes to auto-attack—it will simply get them killed and a marginal increase in DPS on the target is usually going to be miniscule in terms of utility, compared to getting an opportunity to use the nukes/disables a second time. Go in, focus priority target, step back and look for opportunity to engage again, while your tankier teammates are battling it out. Do not sacrifice yourself needlessly.
The macro, as stated previously, is a very complicated matter. At this point it frequently includes the whole team and getting it all coordinated can be a daunting task. Once again, however, it is possible to identify several broad options for supports.
One of the most underlooked options at this stage is, surprisingly, farming. At this point most core heroes are capable of split-pushing or farming the jungle, often leaving at least one relatively free lane. Utilise it in-between teamfights and ganks—getting at least some farm on supports is necessary, since the utility they provide can often outshine the marginal increase in DPS or survivability of a core. Support with a 
Force Staff, 
Blink Dagger, 
Mekansm, 
Glimmer Cape etc. can often contribute more to the power level of the team, compared to a core with an extra 2k net worth.
The other options often revolve around ganking and taking objectives in preparation for the final stages of the game. It is also possible to try and end the game at this stage and for many lineups it will be the best outcome. Supports should generally be a part of most ganks, since their individual power level at this stage is still relatively high but also because they will usually benefit the most economically. That said, the ganks should generally have an idea behind them, a secondary benefit to getting a kill. Otherwise it might frequently be not worth it, as it prevent your team from collecting map’s resources effectively and the payoff might not be as great.
In general, there are only three types of side-benefits which might deserve the commitment to a gank—disrupting item timings on an enemy core, getting a tower and getting Roshan. Getting multiple side-benefits is also possible, if the team is coordinated well.
As a support attempting to initiate a gank your macro role is generally related to vision. Going in blindly can not only net very little result, but also kill your whole team. Warding is almost mandatory and understanding what wards provide the most benefit to your team at a given time and up to 6 minutes into the future is essential. Most regular warding spots can be found in one of our previous posts. Depending on where your team is attempting to achieve something, some wards will have more value, obviously. Finally, 
Smoke of Deceit is also a very handy tool to have, but might not always be necessary.
The overall gameplay in the late game should be very similar to the mid game one, but with understanding that the stakes are much higher. If the game goes late, every single player should play extremely safe and supports should double-down on this, since they will usually be the easiest to kill and their death will always mean a huge disadvantage for their team.
The vision is hence of an even greater importance and using smoke just to ward can be a viable option, though getting some side-benefit from it in form of a kill is always welcome.
Final Thoughts
To this day it is baffling how pieliedie did not get a single MVP at the end of Team Secret’s matches in the Shanghai Major. The amount of correct micro plays required from a support hero is comparable, if not above the same amount for cores, and all of this was without the benefit of having a farming priority. There is definitely potential for highlights coming from supports and understanding the role better might even help people realize the amount of work a good support player can do.
When introducing someone to Dota, please do not keep on brewing the mentality that supports’ impact is limited or at the very least point them in the direction of this overview—in the long run it will benefit our game as a whole.
I think that the "ganker" status can be put on almost any hero, i like to play a hc style of Night Stalker, farming the safelane them rotating and ganking the enemies leaving the lane open for the safelane support to get his xp and needed itens.
pieliedie didnt get a single mvp because most of the viewers have the misguided thought that if a team wins games, its all about that carry, all about that carry, no trouble....
Yup, pieliedie pretty much won secret the major. It was kind of sad to see envy or w33 getting almost all of the MVPs when most of the work was done by pieliedie and puppey.
Can they do something where supports get stronger if the carry is nimwitted? The problem with playing support is not necessary being gold deprived, it's that you have to pray that the carries know wtf they are doing, which they often don't.
ppl dont give a **** about supports , at the end of the game who got the most kills ? w33 ? OK he is the MVP ...
that is how ppl think :))
Agree to everyone commented above. Youtube highlights also focus more in Carries and less in Supports, glorifies carries. So most of the viewers pay more attention to carries. Everyone wants to be that badass carry that win games and often forget how important supports are to make that happen.
Support still the role that required the highest skill level to being done properly
if u played only carry, u are playing a kind of world of warcfrat
nice article
Playing support is so much fun in 6.86 ^^
Good. But you should have a competitive carry to actually win. I always encounter a noob carry whenwver i play support.
The whole fact supports almost never got MVP in the Shanghai Major should only surprise those who don't play pub matches and/or look at stats from lower levels which do make up the majority. Supports are grossly underplayed and under appreciated. It doesn't help that the game reinforces this whole 'servant' culture on supports. I want to write an article on this fact because it's alarming it hasn't been changed.
This infuriates me to no end that this STILL isn't realized by many players strong and weak, why exactly support is under loved. A good example is why people jungle Legion Commander, Lifestealer or Ursa rather then play a hero like Enigma, Chen or Enchantress who is much better suited to that role then LC. It's simply to have a shot at being a carry rather then trusting some unknown to do it.
Another example is MMR experiments. Several players have tried playing lower rated accounts to get up from 2000 or whatever to 5000+, several cores succeeded but nobody on support has succeeded. The closest someone came to my knowledge was playing Chen exclusively and basically ending up with the most farm anyway in lower end games which isn't what most people have in mind when you think support.
True, some people shackle themselves by trying to play a support as you would competitively or at higher levels but knowing 'what type of support' you should be is rarely dependent on what your own team is running, it's dependent on the skill level or mentality of the carry players on that particular match. In other words, it's dependent on things you can't possibly know unless you know every single person on your team really well and it's this what makes support so hard to play in the minds of many.
I've seen games where a Spectre has won a lane alone against Viper and a Bane while their LC goes off to jungle and someone else supports the offlane while I've seen Juggernaut die constantly despite having a Dazzle basically sitting on him and having ganks from a jungle Enchantress. Granted the latter game is likely to lose no matter what the Dazzle player does, but just because someone picks a given hero is hardly any guide of what they intend or how competent they are with a hero and some people treat games like friggin libraries with how much they talk prior to the game so you can't even get a feel for how they play and what they expect.
At the end of the day playing support 'right' in a given match depends on a lot things you can't know at the time and most people simply don't trust randoms to carry for them and for good reason. The stats on this very web page should tell you what people think of supports. They might win games, but winning while Anti-Mage and Phantom Assassin take forever to actually do anything useful and you almost lose because they aren't contributing then say 'gg commend me' as if they did all the work isn't a lot of fun or particularly satisfying.
i always commend good support, but lot of support are dumb
Well said @peachrocks.
@peachrocks
What about vanskor, 7k, only supporting :)?
Whole comment thread is a massive support circlejerk. Supports are far from underrated. People make such a conscious effort to notice and praise supports due to their confirmation bias that supports are an 'under appreciated role' that they actually get way more credit than they deserve. Calm down guys, seriously.
@EE- Feeby
Not familiar with this attempt. Obviously the player but not the climb. I did say to the best of my knowledge and it's not impossible, most people gave up out of sheer frustration which is the point here.
@Fang
You are just fueling the fire here. Not sure if troll or serious. There's obviously an issue. MVP votes almost never going to support tells you how people value support. Stats on how often support is played tells you how much people don't want to play it. The role is simply not desirable to most people, some will begrudgingly play it and a very small number willingly play it but it's nowhere near even 1 out of 5 let alone 2 out of 5 even out of those who begrudgingly do it.
@Peachrocks I think you've got a good point that it's harder to impact the game as a support in low MMR (I know all about my bracket :)), mostly because even a bad support will usually show up in a team fight, and mostly will hit his Q or R or whatever at roughly advantageous time and then usually die, giving a good core enough room to do stuff. On the other hand, a bad underfarmed core will feed (much worse on a core), and even when given all the space in a world and the best possible support execution (be it initiation or disable or heal or whatever), will not get much done in a bigger fight and enemies will tunnel vision the carry anyway. Besides, the game will go late anyway, where supports have arguably less impact than they had previuosly. That's why it's easier to rise in MMR as a core in my opinion as it is as a support. It could be confirmation bias as I mostly play support in games with friends (pos 4-5 is my favourite role) so I might be extra frustrated when I try that in solo queue.
But just to give a ranked game example, I picked lina mid and marked it, then a guy 5th picks ember and says he wants mid, so I will go safe lane carry lina (definitely not something I'd like but at least it's not impossible in my tier), but hey, I'm not playing safelane carry line, because the IO in the lane insists he's a good carry Io with armlet (because he probably saw a pro player do it once for the laughs), so I end up solo supporting a safelane Io that game on Lina, while Bloodseeker refuses to leave the jungle. Go figure... In hindsight I should have just taken his farm as we were in full retard mode at that point anyway. :) But yeah, support is a role that thrives on cooperation and my tier MMR pubstompers are usually the heroes who can do a decent job by themselves through snowballing and just outplaying the enemy in lane through mechanic skill. I'm not hopeful that will ever change, but this article is certainly a step in teh right direction just to give people a general idea.
the only support that gets the MVP vote at Shanghai is only Fear with his Godlike Streak Mirana plays, where at that game he managed to solo double kill the Earth Spirit and Invoker in the Rosh Pit fight as a position 4 Mirana.
Not saying that Fear is the best support here, but just pointing out an example of what a support HAS to do to stand chance winning the MVP vote from the game.
Man, if you were in my bracket mmr, no one, i said no one will volunteer as a support unless they read cautions and consequences on playing all carry in one team. Leaving me to pick a all-around support.
@ G
Thanks for that. I did consider digging for it, but I didn't want to be sad at all the lack of support votes, but yeah, they basically have to be a carry to stand out.
@ JojoBird
I've sung this tune for a while now and Valve has done things to at least take tabs of what players want/do. What they do with that information is anyone's guess but there's been a few steps to help supports lately such as glimmer, aether lens, mango etc. These things need to continue (and then some) cus the numbers are still far lower then they need to be and many people don't play support or don't play Dota at all because of the lack of impact on support.
It's a role that requires great coordination and more importantly other players taking advantage of the doors you open. If you don't get that, it's a frustrating experience for many and in some cases even if your carry does win you the game because of what the support/s did, it's not satisfying. Very few games are based on being the 'servant' after all.
MVP votes were just a joke. You shouldn't mention it at all. One more detail to remind us how dumb our community is.
As a support player, I was amazed after voting for MVP in games and seeing how little(in certain matches) people had voted for either really great support play, roaming 4th and offlane. I would go back through the matches and yeah the carry and midlaner would be great in some matches....but the support play and especially the 4th in a few games were really underappreciated. feelsbadman :<
There are a few additional things I think Valve can do to help this problem, things beyond the items Peachrocks mentioned above (glimmer, etc.). This Spring Cleaning update giving assists when you buff an ally / debuff an enemy before a kill is a step in the right direction. Something I would like to see is an end-of-game statistic that includes wards purchased / placed, courier purchased / upgraded-- things that reflect a support player's "true worth" (rather than net worth) and ability to help the team. When someone is 2-5-20 as solo support, buys wards, crow, ups crow, and ends the game with brown boots, Force Staff, and an Aether Lens, it's difficult for many players to understand the impact that the support has had because they can't see it. Most of those wards have expired. The courier belongs to everyone. Cores might remember one time the Force Staff saved them and be grateful, but more commonly (this is my perception-biased opinion) they take that save as their right as a core player.
While it is unlikely that these kinds of changes will influence the mentality of the entire community, anything that makes a support feel appreciated after 40 minutes of "We need wards" spam is a good thing.
Icefrog doesn't care about support players.
@Yoric
This is one thing that gets me about Valves mass promotion of comp play. It's nice to have the support for it but then you end up with a bunch of people playing cores who 'expect' others to be their servant and do things they feel is their 'right' as a core even though their skill doesn't measure up and the sort of play they want isn't right for a given game or worse simply doesn't work at a pub level.
the thing is many ppl just dont know how to play support an whine about that they cant get out of that bracket with only playing support. u can be a passive support if u want to raise in mmr in that role. u need to smoke mid stack camps for ur carry dont single pull the small camp, outzone the offlaner all this stuff. if u do everything right ur carry bottom has free farm and ur mid won his lane because of u. the support has the most impact in the game up to 15 min u just need to use that instead of just sitting in the lane next to ur carry sucking his xp, ruining lane equlibrium while harrassing because u aggro creeps and deny a creep now and then which the carry can deny too.
i think its kinda similar to football. a striker always gets more credit than a defender. if a striker scores 3 goals in a game he is the mvp of the game but no1 gives a shit about the defender who prevented 4 goals and got 2 assists.
Nice article again, as expected from Dotabuff.
I had to put the support role down for a bit. Support role has a certain charm to it (like getting a triple kill with your CM Ulti), but at the end of the day, it's jaded by all the harassment you endure from the rest of your team when they aren't doing well. You can't support stupid. You cannot give vision to the blind. You cannot heal the broken. You cannot support out of low MMR.
@ Strygwyr - "u need to smoke mid stack camps for ur carry dont single pull the small camp"
I actually had a team complain that I was stacking the ancients and other camps for them and begged me not to (even though we had a Medusa). Smoking in low MMR? What's that....
I play a wide berth of support heroes. But just as you wouldn't want to be counter picked as a carry, you don't want to pick a support that has zero or negative synergy with the team (like picking a CM on a team with no casters).
I am currently at exactly 3600 mmr, and as we enter game lobby i start by asking if anyone is calling mid or safe lane carry. Often times no one says anything, which is baffling since you are playing a game with a bloody keyboard in front of you. They invariably lose a lot of gold, and try and 5th pick their heroes (without saying a word) which hampers any synergy (especially if their aren't a smart carry) because they feel they are so good they HAVE to pick last.
Also I would like to agree with the comments @Yoric, and add another suggestion that if people are going bind a key to "we need wards" tie it to a command that if the wards are currently out of stock it says so immediately so they tone down their passive aggressive behavior.
@Strygwyr
So... you're saying the supports are to blame for the fact that everyone treats them poorly because they didn't play well enough in the early game to win. Interesting thought.
"Enigma Enigma, Chen Chen and Bounty Hunter Bounty Hunter all fall into the category of non-greedy support/jungle heroes",... uuuuuuummmmm noo?
When someone is abusive to me as a support player, I assume it's because I am not present enough to support. So, from that point on, I follow the complainer all over the map, and I hide in the trees so as to avoid taking any last hits, but to still get xp.
I generally don't catch abuse as a support. If I do get 'we need wards' when I'm getting counter warded like crazy due to no map control and/or someone on the other team gets a gem, I politely tell them this fact and they shut up. It still doesn't make it fun though when the above situation happens and your well placed wards wards can't do anything...
Also smoke is really overrated. I hear a lot of people say 'use smoke' when responding to support complaints but it simply doesn't work sometimes. I almost always carry one so we can use it but good luck getting a few of the four randoms coordinated enough to use it and stop their afk farming for a moment to make a solid play. Many people play Dota like an rpg, grind levels, get new items and beat the final boss, they will do this even if their hero is out carried in the late game and they need to take action now.
Sooo yeah... Try carrying around a smoke at all times in pubs, sometimes it'll work sure but other times you will be frustrated in the futility of a wasted item slot no matter how many times you signal 'gather for smoke here'.
Puppey and Pieliedie never get the same respect of carry players
sometimes i feel "enough" to be a support player. but when i pick carry, its stressed me out since my other teammates can't be a good support as i am. and that's why.. i still stuck in my support role although its really tiring for me, but with it, i feel so confident in game. Nice game is not because the carry, Its about there is someone that can support your team well.
@ MissBug
I just try do what the team needs. However that's almost always playing support and buying all wards, all detection, all courier, upgrade, smoke while everyone else gets to buy actual items that have impact and have fun. I don't mind doing it occasionally but geez....
See the whole thing about many of those clips from Pieliedie and Puppey that I thought was interesting is how they do an excellent job of setting it up, but without the carry to finish the job, it would be near meaningless and that's what many players experience in pubs. They are obviously not as talented as Puppey or Pieliedie but I'm sure anyone who's played support knows what it's like to set up an excellent 3 man stun or a 5 second arrow as Mirana and your carry stands there and doesn't do anything. It really drains my will to play the game.
@peachrocks
Also agree with you. we cant play Dota just 5 carry... or 5 support tough >.<
Still also need support n carry to work as team.
I think most of the MVP votes came from people who didn't watch the whole game...the people who only look at the KDA. In the end, only the number of times you kill or die are important.
5 support games are actually fun
@ Legend and Bug
Supports can somewhat carry especially with a coordinated team. CM or AA with a Scepter can be nasty. Add an octarine core to that and you've got a menace on your hands.
Any hero scales with items, just carries traditionally scale better. Most carries like Jugg, PA and AM however have no capacity to be supports. Some can get by like Sven but you are usually much better off playing something else. I honestly wish for 4 man dota with a variety of changes aimed at making warding a job for everyone, mostly in making wards free (not even taking up an item slot) due to the 'fifth' player simulated as buying them. I'd list the full preliminary idea but it's too long to list :D.
So, who is most commonly taking the decision of where the team goes? The support? the carry? the mid? or I... the captain? Just don't try to answer with captain, cause there aren't really captains in pub games. So, what role should be the most fittest to take the decision of where the team goes or needs? Is it the support, the mid, or the carry? Sometimes, when I'm support I just find out that the core is like over-impressed with his kills and thinks he can kill everyone, but he can't. So he goes and die foolishly. Sometimes the support is trying to say or tell where to go, but they are not really having the vision and timing on what's really going on (I think more like baby-sitters support). If you dotabuff can do an article about these team interactions! That'd be great. Thank you, great article!
Well-written article!
Anyway, it's nice to see that supports are given spotlights too.
When I play, my role is support. Even though I picked any core heroes, I still play as support.
Providing wards, courier, and other stuffs ; for the sake of core's strong item build.
Furthermore, empowering the moods of any hopeless in their team, is also one of a good support can do. The so-called "moral support" :))
This is so true i always end up the only support in every match,but i love to play it its challenging.Btw, plz report this support no fly courier til 10 mins game ty is one of the moat heard from ur mid guy who u altually gave tangoes and ward to :( 2K mmr ;;;;;;;;((((((((
Newb picks carry doesnt mean they good at carrying, just because they are easier compare to a sup, what they do is very direct, wait and jump in, get kill, thats it, a good sup is usually requiring higher skill, than simple minded carry
Proud to be a support player, it taught me to be a better carry when I have to play carry.
But it is true that most people look down on supports and treat them like servants for wards, smoke and whatnot. I feel sad when encountering with these heartless A-hole. It really demotivates a support player when the cores treat them poorly.