General DiscussionA misconception about support.

Carry because you need to not miss CS.
get levels and items faster than the other carry
dont get ganked
dont do stupid stuff and builds
shit on enemy team at 30-35 min because u are so far ahead of their carry

Um Im a scrub but, The only farm that supports get is pulling, roaming/smoking, or helping out kills in your own lane.

I dont think you can rate any roles because all of them are pretty hard.

Mid- watching out for runes, being careful from smoke ganks, farming and denying
Offlane- Maybe less farm than supports depending on the hero, watching out for enemy supports, not getting too greedy for cs
Carry- You prob get flamed the most if you are not able to carry (sometimes), Not all carries right CLICK....., they have to maintan the farm, making the right item choices, midas or not midas (f u midas gaming)

Support- Take one CS. Reported
Carry- Miss one CS. Reported

Which is harder?

Prioritize and ensure a good early game. Past then you can farm a bit, but I see far too many supports just sit idly not roaming, harassing, going for kills.

Take advantage of your early strength and get kills. Is that enough farm?

supports have other ways of getting money than csing the carry's creeps...

^^^ pulling camps and jungling. or Jungling in general

Like I said, the only farm supports get is from pulling and ganking

@ visage players.

KS = CS

amirite?

Yes, lion lina and visage gets farm from kill securing

I insta report supports who are in my lane soaking exp or gold.

Well if a lion is 150 gold away from a blink when the carry is 2k away from his next item...the lion should take the next wave

such a little insight

^Heisenberg

People are nonsensically adamant about supports taking 0 lane farm.

I like how everyone interpreted it as a carry should give his entire farm to the support. Plz watch professional games and understand that many times supports who need that item/level are given the farm required.

@168hmuted

Problem is, supports DO get reported if they attempt to lane CS.

Carries do NOT get reported if they farm badly.

A carry not farming well means he's bad. A support trying to get a teeny bit of lane farm counts as throwing or griefing.

stop copying shit u see in pro games. 99.9% of the time u fuck it up and you hurt your team

"Carry- You prob get flamed the most if you are not able to carry (sometimes), Not all carries right CLICK....., they have to maintan the farm, making the right item choices, midas or not midas (f u midas gaming)"

So basically your job is to

-Time your right clicks well
-Stay alive BUT if your supports don't ward or tp save you, it ain't yo fault
-Buy non-stupid items

your argument is what? so suppork-san or offlane-kun don't need items? middle-sama doesn't need to balance farm AND ganking?

inb4 carry is the most fucking simplest role in the game. no argument can go against this.

carries does get reported if they farmed badly, in what world are you living in
let me just give you 1 example
what role does this hero usually in

Tinker, Invoker, Meepo, Ember Spirit, Templar Assassin, Faceless Void
and
Visage, Chen

Who need to stay in battlefield for a long time?
Who can just cast their nuke and run for their safety?

What role does beginner suppose to play?
Can a person with 5 games can last hit intensively? or is it easier for them to read warding spot and read guides?
If you don't train your last hitting for a period of time, what will happen to your last hitting skill?

@Sampson, you are universally against all my threads.

Please enlighten me on how getting to 6 on a lvl 6 dependent support is less important than a carry going from level 6 to 6 and a half. How is killing 2 CS more important than a support getting that TP or warding gold that will save your life?

inb4 predicting your next hate comment that yet again comes with no arguments

If you farm that badly to get reported, then you suck so much ass that you deserve to get reported. Seriously, if people report you for your farm, you must be horrible.

People don't report carries for missing a few CS. People report and flame the hell out of supports if they take lane farm.

@yfay, I like how your example for beginners play is Chen and Visage.

I am talking about decent supports here. Not those idiotic lane campers with just blindly ward around. Stacking, saving lives, rotations, ganks and gamebreaking shit.

Not that guy who wards river the whole game.

so what topic is this, which role is easier to play or i must be right thread

So you ran out of arguments?

i don't get it.
so you said beginner should play carry right because it's easier?

pubs =/ pro dota

it is as simple as that.

@Yfay, when did I ever say that? I'm talking about accomplishing your role. For example, in 'ideal' scenario which depicts each role for what it is, a support protects the carry and everyone else for that matter while providing them with extra farm(stacking) and safety(warding,rotations), all the carry has to do is to farm up to his best.

Like yes, thats what the carry is. He's job is to literally do nothing but farm and then plow through everyone afterwards like a bulldozer. How is that more complex than middle who has to balance everything, including winning his lane, helping the others and managing runes? Or supports who literally dictate the initial flow of the game?

@Sampson, if you put it that way then sure. I'm just trying to show it is sometimes more effective to distribute a small part of farm to supports than the carry taking everything. That force staff might impact the fight a lot more than your 6th item crystalis.

its not needed to go far to see modest teams in modest tournaments (if you don't want to talk about the pro scene) where the support kills couple creeps.

It's just normal, lower tier players do that, middle do that, and pro's do that.
thinking that the game will be ruined or the carry under-farmed JUST BECAUSE you took couple creeps is asinine.

that being said, when there's no cooperation everything gets harder, I've had games where i couldn't contribute to the team anymore after 20 minutes because i did not have the right synergy with the team at the beginning, ofc it's my fault sometimes, but some other times its also because lack to see the big picture or understand what you are trying to do, even if you tell them.

@OP
Depends on game, really! If a carry can take 60 lh in 10 minutes (considering you're doing your job as support), if you try to last hit with him, probably you'll take 15 and he would take 20. I agree you should take the farm if the carry is not there, but if he is there, you either guard him, either go ganking if he can do fine solo against enemy offlaner.

Supports get gold in other ways. Dependent on the support most are fine with tranquils and a wand and not much else.

There are countless games where I have been about 20 minutes deep with a headress and some small consumables then right after a massive team fight I have like 1.5 - 2k in the bank.

Farming as a support is the most ineffective way to get items as a support. Do not farm it doesn't benefit you though maybe grabbing a quick creep or two later on (not in the early laning phase) is ok to help you get that 150 for wards.

"People seem to have it ingrained in their minds that support should not take farm. EVER." and this is correct supports should not be taking farm or afk farming its not that smart.

My opinons is that difficulty should be
Support>Mid>Offlane>Carry.

Mid>Offlane>Support>Carry

Why? Watch 1v1 TI3 tournament. With bottle ferry nerf more reliance on rune control and also ganking sides. 5k vs. 3k mid and you can tell a huge skill gap. Why offlane next? LOH/Hvost, Remember when LOH goes 2:0 vs. trilane? or 2-1 vs 2 top tier plaayers? 4 man alliance diving Xboct in TI3 etc... Lone Druid with 0 farm AdmiralBulldog but yet still gets carry items in time? Why support next? Good dual lane the support can out harass or at least sacrfice himself so that it's 1 support for 2. etc... Just look at good rhasta shaman & rubrick saving mid-late game fights. Finally carry, sure it's hard to last hit and dodge arrows. All they need is game sense and when to gank or dive etc... Supports have to ward, sacrifice & make due with less money etc...

@badger
That's what i was trying to say basically.
Farming the lane instead of your carry is 100% bad, but later on if you slip in couple hits on 1-2 creeps to get to the wards or dust that's fine IMHO.

You've said it right though that a support get its gold mostly from other things like team fights being done properly etc.

I used to think supports needed tons of farm- oh I've got to get the mek for our team! Omg I'm so squishy must gets aghs and bloodstone! Holy crap we're not going to win a team fight unless I have hex, need scythe! Then I realized I was just playing bad and used to out farming my opponents with carries. Good support needs very little farm to be effective, a boots and wards and that's about it. If you play effectively with those you'll get assists and have enough gold for your mek. Aghs is a luxury.

"Nyx hit level 6 or letting that Bane get his brown boots"

How does everyone interpret this thread into "let support farm and get fat". I believe it is very clearly implied that in certain situations, it is far more beneficial for the team to give that miniscule but critical farm for that support.

Demanding that Visage to rotate 24/7 instead of pulling some camps to hit 6 is stupid. Telling your supports to jungle farm for 300g so you can have a 4 creep wave farm is stupid while you can do the reverse. Not letting your supports get the gold for wards/boots is STUPID.

this is where communication comes in and is harder to do in pubs
skype/voicechat makes it a lot easier, so you don't have to type and miss out on last hits - makes a difference for sure
ill definitely give supports a few cs if the situation fits.
i also expect supports to take cs that they know the carry can't get, due to insufficient dmg vs their lane, or not enough atk range + enemy team is aggressive
i.e. ur playing luna with two supports, one is melee (harsh i know)
against aggro 3 tri all range all 550+ atk range

its guaranteed that ur gonna miss out so its best to let whoever can take it, take it for the time being.
especially when creeps hang around tower, supports should be gauging the carry's farm style
i.e. he hits a full HP range creep once, let's the tower hit it twice, and last hits it again (4 hits total usually)
this would mean you probably don't need to lower the HP of the creep for him, but i've had supports do this for me, and if you have good synergy... it works

requires generally two/three random strangers to be intuitive and co-operative
requires your ego meter to be set to low

http://dotabuff.com/matches/576695052
every time voxx tried to get a last hit, i would yell at him until he left the lane to go do mirana things

worth it

shit pub support players need to learn how and where you get gold.

(hint jungle and kills)

dont bitch at the carry for their farm when you should be doing your job to secure your own farm.

^

You could argue that perhaps giving your support boots is important so they can escape or get that stun but that in itself is a misconception.

1. This is why it is important to always (where possible) get two support or at least someone that can cover utility (Mek, Drums) while the hard support is doing roams, warding, helping the carry get farm buy being in the lane and stacking the jungle and ancients where we can.

2. Support is early game majority focused on positioning and map awareness. Winning your lane is all about where you are in the lane....do not leave your carry against a dual lane to go stack and pull unless the situation warrants it. You getting the farm while your carry gets none is bad practice and needs to be stopped. Stack only when needed.

3. Sometimes you just have to wait. Supports lose their shit too easy instead of remaining calm and waiting for the time to go. I have seen no item supports walking to mid through the tower to gank a level 8 invoker, don't be dumb you will die and make things worse for you mid. Don't aimlessly roam everything you do early game has an effect on the out come of that game. Supports are crucial to winning the early game along with the mid so don't fuck it up with bad rotations.

"Demanding that Visage to rotate 24/7 instead of pulling some camps to hit 6 is stupid. Telling your supports to jungle farm for 300g so you can have a 4 creep wave farm is stupid while you can do the reverse. Not letting your supports get the gold for wards/boots is STUPID."

Visage is almost NEVER a pulling hero. If you are playing visage like this then stop playing him altogether. If you have picked a visage you have with you one of the strongest lane supports, harasses and killing potential and you are grossly underusing him by pulling stacks.

Sauce http://dotabuff.com/players/69901617 http://dotabuff.com/players/90503334/matches?game_mode=&hero=visage&lobby_type=&match_type=real

"Telling your supports to jungle farm for 300g so you can have a 4 creep wave farm is stupid while you can do the reverse"

Never slow farm the jungle as a carry if you have a lane. That carry is your baby to nourish don't have him jungling so you can soak up exp and farm.

"Not letting your supports get the gold for wards/boots is STUPID."

I have never been in a situation where a game has ended without these items. If you are unable to get boots then air on the side of caution till you do.

Look at this game http://dotabuff.com/matches/575922453 Solo support with zero help. We were never without wards and I smoked, and ganked, and roamed and, tp'd to help lanes, and still at the end of the game had the same gold income as the magnus due to my involvement in the game. I picked the silencer because of their team, I would have been easier to go for a lion or a venge but I picked what we needed for that situation and it worked out even if I started the game 0-3 it ended fine.

TL;DR

>PICK THE RIGHT SUPPORT FOR THE RIGHT SITUATION FOR THE RIGHT LANE
>DON'T AIMLESSLY DO SHIT, PLAN ALL THE MOVES YOU MAKE EARLY GAME WELL AS THIS TIME IS CRUCIAL
>POSITIONING AS A SUPPORT IS PROBABLY THE MOST IMPORTANT THING YOU CAN DO
>EVEN WITHOUT ITEMS YOU CAN STILL SUPPORT OR ASSIST BUT HAVE TO REMAIN CAUTIOUS (DON'T WANDER)

If the situation is favourable, you'll never have to take CS from your carry, however I'm in the school of thought that if your carry is in a position (which he shouldn't be, but it happens) when he has to decide to choose one of two creeps to get the last hit, it's perfectly fine for the support to take the other rather than let it go to waste. Assuming you get one or two creeps per 2 waves from this (unlikely if your carry is good at last hitting, but still a possibility) that's 50-100 gpm for you right there. This still doesn't mean you should take any CS that your carry can get, only that which they in no circumstances can get.

Additionally if you perform a double stack and pull every 2 minutes, if you last hit every neutral creep that's between 135-200 gold for you, with the passive gold gain between this time, as well as any potential assist gold you get. It all adds up in the end, and considering a set of wards lasts for 6 minutes, you can perform this 3 times before needing to spend gold on another set, meaning you still gain around 200-400 gold. If you have two supports on your team (which you should but at 2.5K MMR doesn't always happen) this duty will be split between you, which helps massively.

therefore you shouldn't need to lasthit lane creeps as a support, but getting those which you are certain your carry could not get doesn't hurt as long as you do your job of maintaining lane equilibrium in your favour

well for instance, people do blame carries:

http://dotabuff.com/matches/577653452

nyx bitchin all game at juggernaut about his farm

it was jug/rhasta/ and sometimes CM bot vs AA/naix and sometimes SK

AA just skills touch and naix can free farm like a beast while I have to keep tryin to aggro creeps and not take hits from AA - overall, a losing lane.
I don't know wtf this kid expects as he had a thorn up his ass when i bought boots for jug. figured it'd be worth it since bladefury only works when ur close and all :D

Boots first...I think they are still legit on Jugger, but he just can't actually do that much against that lineup, it was just a bad pick.

I've played support for a very long time as a dazzle. What I've noticed over the past 3 months not attempting to KS creeps/heros and pull jungle, being ward bitch slot 5 after 2 years of being hyper-agressive:

1. Standing around denying creeps and pulling lane and only healing when the hero needs it instead of trying to use shadow wave to dmg enemy hero when he is getting close to creeps is not optimal. I can nuke lvl 1 with over 380 if hero is positioned right....

2. Not having the ability to grab support items if your carry is not killing enemy hero's puts your entire team behind if you do not have:
A. MEK
B. Mana BOOTS
C. Medallion of courage
D. Above all else... wards dust and tp scrolls....
I really value having a stunner in my lane and if I scoop up quick mana boots.... Team really values having a quick 10 min mekanism... instead of "oh i've been buying wards all game let me grab that 25 to 40 minute mekanism where it doesn't come in handy as much now.

I am really sick of playing dazzle as a slot 5 as he's a better 4 or 3 slot doing dmg/healing etc.

Again.......... I'm not saying EVERY support is this way, he has an easy way of accumulating farm, killing heros with assistance from a disabler. When I was out of the early game prior playing slot 5, I would OF COURSE allow the carry to take hero kills, last hits etc past 10 min mark. Not having any support aura or team items until mid/late game is unacceptable and a piss poor way to play the game.

Agreeing with Sampson solo queue dota/pub matches does not = pro dota and all this pro dota mechanics makes for shitty outcomes.

End of rant.

Edit:

One more point to be made.

A dead enemy hero is still a win in my book weather a support or a carry or initiator kills him. What I am so fucking tired of is some doucher crying they didn't land the killing blow on a guy. For the last couple of months I would get the enemy hero down to nill on health only to see a kill not get made due to one of my mates not having a skill off cd to reach that killing blow, or being able to run fast enough to land the last hit etc. Its always a win when you take an enemy off the map to revive, he's losing gold/exp and morale.....

I have had enough of playing passive dazzle no more.

support need very little gold. They need the gold for the following.

buy wards sentry and courier at time 0.
also buy two sets of tango at time 0. distribute 1 tango to each teammates.
and upgrade courier at exact time 3:00.
then buy wards
then buy wards
then buy wards
then buy wards

support can well afford these using only the free 'time gold' (1 gold per 0.8 sec).

therefore,

NEVER STEAL LANE CREEPS FROM CARRY OR OTHER FARM /ITEM DEPENDENT TEAMMATES

You can't buy Wards + Sentries + Courier + Tango + Tango at 0.

good supports can

yeah.. i couldn't, especially in lane since they just had better picks

just ridin my ass all game

at the end he was like, "nyx has triple jugg's farm LOL sad"
and i was like, "dude.. the fuck are you talking about, do you know how to add net worth?"

then he goes all chat and says "jugg thinks he has more farm than you naix"

the entire team even said that he typed, "nyx"

reeeeeeet

wanna get level and gold? buy midas at 13-15min mark haha.... i have to agree to you in one point.. every time i play support i get so underlelvel with the other heroes in the game, thats why im much more of a cm player because i can farm if i need levels, but everytime im playing rubick and were losing its really hard to get levels(offlane,midlane and carry needs to hit level 6 as early as possible).

Sorry would rather have a useful dazzle versus a gimpy buy mek in 30 to 40 minute dazzle or mana boots. Seems like everyone forgets that he has good lane push ability and can use creeps to tear down towers since hes healing them all the time. I'd rather do like I did months ago and crush towers in under 5-8 minutes and move to the next lane rinse and repeat, and kill enemy heroes. Standing around and killing nothing until someone needs a shallow grave or a shadow wave is retarded. I'd rather be able to support 4 people + myself in teamfights then being a gimpy support with brown boots a soul ring and wards 15 minutes in.

@ DK. Peniel

Yeah I've done a midas dazzle but stopped farming creeps/heroes and is viable... then soon after that due to mass butt hurt carries in solo queue and tired of people with sand in their vaginas, I went gimpy dazzle. My W/L has suffered and was 63% with him and is now 59%. Here's some midas examples that would always win due to my high farming:

http://dotabuff.com/matches/488953942
http://dotabuff.com/matches/488918480

They were all games that took 30 min or less..... who the fuck wants to farm their carry for 30 fucking minutes and not end the game in an hour? Not me. Late games suck. boooooo hissssss

This is a joke topic everyone seems like they are on completely different skill levels. Also it's like there's only type of game play. Obviously, dota isn't played the same way every game. When it comes to support there are plenty of questions to think about regarding on how you will support. Is there 1 or 2 supports? Does your carry require someone to be babysat? Is the team gank based? Is the team push based?

Two supports that aren't even comparable would be a crystal maiden and abaddon. The CM's gameplay is more gank orientated, and because of that, it's better to stay in lane and harass the other heroes, and then leave to gank other lanes when possible. Because of this, you would hope your farmer in that lane would be able to be self sufficient and stay alive. Hopefully this would be possible after a couple minutes of zoning/harassing/keeping lane control for him. You would also hope to pair this with a hero who can last hit on their own without putting themselves in danger.

The abaddon is more stationary and needs to sit next to the farmer in order to stay effective. A ganking abaddon isn't going to help a gank that much. Instead, just pull/gain exp and keep the farmer alive. Also, he needs levels to be effective instead of the VS who can gank at level 1.

Everyones points is way too vague. Stealing LH? It's okay if the farmer went to the side shop and there's no way they're going to get the hit. Or if it's contested with the enemy heroes from being denied. Contest last hits that might get denied. Obviously, don't be a jackass and just sit next to the farmer and fight for the same last hits if its uncontested.

Regardless, at least the way I play, I find the ganking hard support the best. This way you can get gold if successful. If you need to ward, you need to be walking around the map anyway. CM/Disruptor/VS are probably my favorites if i need to hard support because they can be active with just a couple of levels.

abbaddon is one of my favourite support heroes... one that i dont actually mind playing lol

op shield

I always wonder when my supports are gonna learn to ward the enemy jungle.