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Hello, I am CheekyBaboon. I have played a handful of MOBA's across the years, but in no way claim to be a professional. I think myself as someone knowledgeable and part of that is due to this very site, where I have often sought guidance from.
Recently, I have noticed that some people are not entirely certain about how to play the support role in conquest. I have seen multiple games where the support is blamed for not securing objectives or because he or she is lost. I am creating this guide as a beacon of light in effort to guide both new and existing players that are not certain about the ever-coveted role of supporting your team.
I really try to be kind and persuasive of new players to Smite. If you see someone new to Smite that doesn't know how to support, I can only hope that this can serve as a valuable resource to help that person.
As a forewarning, I will mention that this guide is a bit long because I do try to be as detailed as possible. In essence, I try to hold your hand through the supporting process. Should I miss something, feel free to leave me a message or comment. I will always welcome constructive criticism. This guide will also be a WIP.
This is a good question. What, exactly, constitutes a god befitting of the support role? Most supports are there to take care of the carry by means of absorbing damage in lieu of the squishy ADC and/or using crowd control to stave off enemies wanting to destroy your team. For this reason, supports tend to be built defensively and often have stuns, slows, roots, and even heals.
Do you know how doctors might allude that the best cure to a certain lethal illness is prevention? This also befalls upon you as support. Being the tank and crowd control master on your team aren't the only ways to keep your carry alive. Warding is a key part about playing the role. If a friendly teammate can see a gank before it ever gets to him, he is much more likely to live.
Some people think that it is the support's job to die and I think this mindset is completely erroneous. Yes, you are likely to be the one on your team with more deaths than kills, but this is not a free pass to die frequently and end up giving the enemy team an enormous edge. Your job is to absorb damage, cc enemies, save allies, and to survive. Knowing when to back out of a fight is key.
Remember that the support role is vital to any team composition. Supports do not always get to bathe in the glory of massive killstreaks, but your role is just as important as the carry. In my opinion, support is one of the harder roles to play and often a thankless job. People expect you to know how to play it and when you do a brilliant job, you probably won't get much praise. Please do not let this defer you from the role. It can be very rewarding, specially when you're playing a carry and end up with a support who actually knows what he is doing.
Now I will give a few examples of some good supports and even some sub-par supports. There are many great supports with varying strengths and weaknesses. Guardians like Ares, Athena, Ymir, Geb, Sylvanus, Kumbhakarna, and Bacchus have crowd control abilities that allow them to peel off enemies from friendly allies. Normally, guardians are built with high protections and health in order to stay in the fight longer and continue to CC down enemy gods.
The mighty Greek God of War is a true nuisance in the hands of a skilled player. Early game, Ares does an enormous amount of damage and can become a force the enemy ADC will fear. Equipped with a cripple that you can refresh, Ares can ensure that the enemy will not escape if he manages to land Shackles. This ability can be difficult to fully take advantage of and Ares requires a prolonged length of time to dish out this much damage. Using stuns against him really hurts his damage potential. Additionally, Ares's No Escape is a mind game. The enemy is forced to buy early beads or waste their ultimates to not get pulled in, because if they do, it is almost certainly a death. |
Athena, in case you didn't know, is Ares' sister. She is a lot less brutal and more befitting of the term "guardian." Her Preemptive Strike allows her to jump into the fray or it can be used to rotate across the map quicker. Equipped with a taunt, Confound, Athena literally forces enemies to hit her instead of allies. Above all, is her ultimate: Defender of Olympus. This ability allows her to move from one end of the map to the other in 4 seconds and tip the scales in your team's favor. No other support can keep up with this. On top of that mobility, it does a lot of damage in an area around an ally and offers some mitigation. |
Ymir, Father of the Frost Giants, is a master of crowd control and can dish out plenty of damage if he can land the combo. This guardian can stun multiple enemies with his Frost Breath for a whopping 2.25 seconds. During that time, he can then apply a slow to make sure enemies cannot escape after the stun wears off. Do not underestimate his Ice Wall, either. It takes some practice, but using it properly can prevent an enemy from escaping or save an ally. This is why fighting him in narrow areas can be extremely dangerous. Most people will know to avoid his Shards of Ice, but if you can freeze, slow, and place a wall behind your opponents, this ability can end up doing a large amount of damage. |
If you have ever played on a team with a good Geb, you know why people love this god. His Shock Wave is easy to land and is really good at helping clear the minion wave. Roll Out is amazing because it can help initiate, escape, and immensely increases Geb's mobility for rotations. The most defining feature about this god is his Stone Shield, which gives your friendly target additional temporary HP. This can help teammates narrowly survive or to prevent them from being annihilated given that it removes any CC effects. If someone gets stunned or pulled into the enemy, shield them to give tem a chance to escape. |
You will find that Sylvanus will never be a bad pick. This god can provide both an aggressive and a safe laning experience. What is different about this god is that his basic attacks are ranged and have an AOE effect. Sylvanus doesn't have to dive into the fray and risk taking too much minion damage, since he can use most of his abilities and attacks from a distance. Verdant Growth provides a great root when it strikes enemise and if placed on the ground, it will grow into a flower that will give MP5 in an area around it. When I pick Sylvanus, I like to throw a flower behind the middle tower to give the middle laner some sustain during the laning phase. People will love you for doing this. Furthermore, his Wisps provides both a decent heal to allies and a DoT against enemies around you. Nature's Grasp can be hard to land, but if you pair it with your root, this ability becomes extremely deadly. Wrath of Terra is fairly easy to land with Greater Blink and has the potential to hit multiple gods around you. |
Sobek seems to be the most controversial. I have played Sobek support and done so successfully. He has a fast pull with Charge Prey that can isolate an enemy behind friendly minions or allies and even pull enemy gods into tower range when they push too much. Tail Whip is a nice AOE knock up that you can use to remove multiple Magi's Blessing in the late game and his ultimate, Lurking In The Waters is a long, big AOE slow that does a ton of damage when you resurface. The drawback with Sobek is that he can actually hurt the team. Charge Prey throws the enemy behind you a certain distance. If you charge from a bad angle, you could end up saving the enemy. Or if someone is chasing your low health teammate, you might end up accidentally pulling the enemy towards your ally, dooming his efforts to narrowly escape. Tail Whip also displaces enemies, so you could end up tumbling some foes in the direction of a friendly god. Conversely, Sobek can also save allies. Using a previous example, if you pull an enemy giving chase to your ADC from the right angle, you can actually force the enemy away from your ally. I like Sobek because he can be aggressive and much like Ares, there is a constant fear factor that he's going to pull you. Ultimately, there's a risk with Sobek that you don't run into with other gods. He's not a bad support by any means, there are just better gods fit for the job. |
Why the King of the Underworld is labeled a guardian is beyond me, and likely a thought that has crossed many other players. Hades does not fit the role of a support. He has amazing lane clear in the early game that can steal farm from the ADC. His means to CC someone is a silence + fear with Shroud of Darkness. It's nice, but it wont necessarily peel as well as a stun would. He's also ranged and his kit begs to be built like a mage. I have seen people attempting to use Hades as support and usually does not turn out well. For some reason, people do not want to buy Hand of the Gods on him. I will not even try to reason that out. I will just say that I highly recommend that you do NOT pick Hades for the support role. He is better in the solo lane. |
I know it's fun to stare at our scantily clad Goddess of Beauty, but this is going to be a pick I will not suggest. In the typical MMO role, healers and buffers are given a supportive role. Aphrodite, however, is lacking in some departments. Love Birds is an absolutely great heal. I mean, it can really make a difference in teamfights when she's constantly healing her allies. She also has an almost free Greater Aegis that affects her and her soul mate. Her Kiss can also stun enemies and Back Off! can momentarily stave off greedy hands trying to kill teammates. What I don't like about her is that she cannot tank effectively. She needs CDR and magic power to make the best use of her kit and building tanking items is really taking a lot away from Aphrodite's potential. She will become a high priority target when the enemy team realizes how much her heals aid allies and will therefore be melted down quickly. Aphrodite support can work if your solo laner is willing to take the role of a tank, which often warriors do. It's always a gamble though. Supports are generally underfarmed and underleveled and support Aphro will die quickly. She is very situational and I will recommend not choosing her. Again, she is not bad, but there are far superior options. Aphrodite also is better suited for the solo lane. |
Now you're in a match and you are not entirely certain what you should get at level one. You might be tempted to grab some boots at the beginning, but this is a surefire way to make your laning phase a struggle as you won't be able to stay in lane long and might be forced to back soon. There are two builds that I use when starting as support:
Starting items? Check. Let's head towards the laning phase. Not so fast there, now. There's a small pre-laning phase that you will be expected to partake in. As soon as you finish your items, you will need to begin walking towards the Damage jungle camp, not the lane. Here, you will meet the attack damage carry (ADC) and the mid god while waiting for minions to spawn. The locations of the damage camps are a bit different depending if your team is on the Chaos or the Order side. They are here, as follows:
If you do not know which side you're on, just look at the map. As the support, you will be laning in the long lane, or colloquially referred to as the duo lane. Look at the distance between the friendly and enemy tier 1 towers in that lane. You will end up in the lane with the longest distance between said towers. The damage camp is always in the jungle adjacent to this duo lane. Additionally, just look for the signs as you walk out of spawn. There will be some pointing towards the damage camp as you walk around the jungle.
Okay, now all jungle camps spawn at the 10 second mark after the game officially begins and the friendly laning minions begin their frivolous march to clash against the enemy minions. Your goal is to finish both the damage and attack speed camps and reach the lane by the time the minions get there, so timing is crucial. I will explain this in a step by step process.
The Mid Game should begin at around this time where people will begin looking for ganks. You want to take care that the ADC does not get ganked and will therefore ward the side of the jungle he is farming in. These locations will be labeled in the next section. Once you're back in lane, get some exp and help push if need be. Aid your carry with taking down the attack speed buff again and place two wards down. Now you're no longer considered part of the duo lane. You must roam and get exp from kills, exp camps, and jungle buff camps. Help with as many jungle buff camps as you can and help your teammates wherever you may be needed. This is the hardest part about supporting, the rotations. You have to be everywhere on the map. A good way to keep track of this is if you see the support going somewhere, it is a good idea to go towards that lane as well to balance any advantage the enemy support seeks to gain.
You will also be responsible for securing Gold Fury and Fire Giant kills. Get your HoG 3 ASAP so that the enemy cannot steal these objectives. This is an integral part of the support role and cannot, by any means, be overlooked no matter what god you pick. In order to secure these objectives, you will have to get them to at about 33% health or when you see the HP bar is yellow and not red anymore.
Rotations are key for this phase of the game. One thing to remember is that you want to be active, not reactive. Take initiative and make the enemy support follow you. Yes, if he rotates, so should you. If you rotate, however, he'll be forced to be the one that has to react. This should put you ahead if done correctly.
By now, you should be looking to start buying more items. You'll need defensive items and other items that will help your team. This will vary across enemy compositions, but I will highly suggest the following:
Late Game begins as soon as you hit around level 15 or so. The carries and solos will be a bit higher and they will begin to start doing a lot more damage. You should use any gold you have to buy defensive items after the aura items listed in the previous section. Hide of the Urchin works really nicely. If they have attack speed based carries, you might consider a Witchblade. If they have gods that use basic attacks, like ADC's, Midgardian Mail and/or Hide of the Nemean Lion work brilliantly. If they have a lot of magic based damage dealers, Runic Shield or Stone of Gaia can work really well. If the enemy healer is making a huge difference, you can consider Pestilence and definitely a Weakening Curse.
These are all defensive items, meaning you will not be doing much damage. It is not your job to deal the most damage in team fight. Your job is to force enemies into attacking you. You will be focused a lot just because you are the front line and if the enemies get through you, they get to your squishy mages and hunters in the back. You need to out last a lot of damage and survive as long as possible. It is your job to lure enemy ultimates onto you. These abilities can obliterate allies but you have to live through it as long as possible. If the enemy team is not focusing you, then your job is to apply CC's so your team has an advantage in fights. You might find this dull, but it can be very satisfying to survive Poseidon's Release The Kraken!, Neith's World Weaver, and Loki's Assassinate because this means that these abilities will not be used to rip through your squishy teammates.
During this phase of the game you will also likely be tanky enough to take shots from towers and phoenixes. When your team is pushing with little time to waste, run into tower range and allow yourself to absorb the damage while your team attacks the tower. You will be expected to tank towers and phoenixes when the lanes aren't pushed far enough. Sometimes you will have to do this under the pressure of enemy gods still alive and trying to stave you off. This is also another vital part of the support. These structures deal physical damage, so physical protections and HP works best. Under pressure of respawn timers, you might even have to tank the titan. This can be hard because the titan hurts. A lot. Even with tanky items, it will do a lot of damage. If there is no minion wave, you'll be forced to do this and you might even die trying. Sacrifice yourself if need be because your teammates cannot tank as well as you can.
When you get your first set of wards, you will want to choose two of these locations:
Rather soon, however, you will want to place down a ward or even better, a sentry ward inside the ring where the gold fury rests. If you put it inside, you will be able to see the actual gold fury and if it is being attacked. If you put it outside, it will not track the movements of the gold fury and the enemy team could possibly still kill it without you knowing.
As the game progresses, you will start to try and ward the Fire Giant as well. By this point, a lot of your other teammates should be helping ward too. Make sure you place wards around gold fury and fire giant throughout the rest of the game. This is part of your job and part of everyone else's. Everyone should ward, but you should always be the primary warder.
There you have it. This was my first guide on Smitefire and I hope it goes a way to help both new and experienced players improve their support play. Feel free to leave constructive criticism and suggestions, because I would like to make this guide as user friendly as possible.
Now get in game and do some great supporting!
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Also, on the side note ( people get mad at me because I ask this but I'll defend this until the last day of my life. ) : Why don't you include Aphrodite has a viable suppport god ? She has CC, her Kiss also, if you are linked to a ally and you stun a enemy, will give your ally plus damage on that enemy for a short duration, her Back Off! gives a slow and a back-up, if originated from the soul-mate, and her healing is just OFF THE CHARTS for Single Player Healing ( Reaching 900 in 3s easily. ) . Also, her ult can counter 97% of the ults inside the game ( Damn you Ne Zha. )
Asides from that, best guide for support atm out there !
I know my BBcoding wasn't spectacular and will look to definitely improve on that.
Sobek isn't a terrible god, but I suppose I didn't do him justice with the minute argument I had in the guide. I have played him successfully as a support on multiple occasions; it works. I will try to go more in-depth with this somewhat controversial god.
When getting Watcher's Gift I recommend getting 4 health pots and 4 multi pots. The MP5 from watchers is invaluable and allows you to be more aggressive by getting multi pots instead of health pots.
I forgot about multipots, but I will make a special mention about them. I don't personally use them too frequently because I haven't had the best outcomes with them in previous experimentation. I may give them another go around.
When getting Watcher's Gift I recommend getting 4 health pots and 4 multi pots. The MP5 from watchers is invaluable and allows you to be more aggressive by getting multi pots instead of health pots.
Other than that, nice guide!
Also one other note, you list Sobek as a weak support, partially due to his lack of a stun, but I don't believe this is true at all. Part of why Sobek is particularly viable atm is because he can play solo or support making him a solid flex pick. Additionally, his knockup which cannot be cleansed, as well as his pull (which stuns prior to the pull itself btw) are both excellent tools for peeling enemies off your adc. Aside from that, in teamfights he has a huge AOE slow as well as his AOE knockup, while still offering all the power associated with a Ymir support for example. I'm not saying he's as strong as Athena, Geb or Sylvanus, but he's still a solid pick that can work very well with the right team composition.
However, considering how long this guide is that's still only a tiny fraction of what is overall a fantastically impressive guide. While there isn't that much bbcoding as Fem said, I found that the pictures and spacing did break up the guide quite nicely into readable chunks, and didn't find any of it particularly hard to get through. Nevertheless, if you do want some additional bbcoding, I'd be glad to help.
But overall, this is probably the best overarching current support guide up on smitefire, well done! +1 from me
Otherwise, apart from some spelling issues, this guide is INSANE. You include everything important, from the basic items to warding strategies to rotations. This is AWESOME. Please make more guides like this, at least, after you touch up this one. +1