League of Legends: Supporting 101, a pre-season update

28 Nov 2013

Season 4 pre-season is here, and boy is it a doozy. If you haven’t already, I highly recommend hitting up the 3.14 patch notes or dropping into a few games in normal queue before playing ranked (hypocrite alert, I just dove straight in).

New season, new pre-game

I’ve branched out a tad, not only being forced to change my masteries (I still feel 0/13/17 is the best, for now) but also my runes.

I run three rune pages depending on the situation/champion I’m playing:

• Health, MR/level+Armour, and Gold/10 - For champions like Blitz and Sona that got heavily nerfed last season as far as aggression is concerned (base HP nerfs), or in match-ups against high early level burst like Blitz or Graves
• AP, Armour+Flat MR, and Magic Pen - For champions like Lulu and Sona who can glass cannon lane around levels 1-6 really hard. Even post nerf Sona can 100-50 any carry with a good Q-Power Chord-Q combo
• Old school Gold, Flat AD, and MR/level+Armour - Running Gold Quints, and taking flat AD to get some more heavy poke on

Who works now, who doesn’t

I’ve always been a believer in the idea that there is no such thing as a counter if you are good enough with someone. Regardless; Blitz still counters Sona, Lulu counters Leona, and Thresh just shits on everyone.

As far as the mages go (Annie, Lux, Nidalee); the same high risk/high reward system applies. If you can secure the kills and more importantly the gold, you can win a game just from bot lane. If you do not, you fall off: simple as.

So who’s the strongest?

At the minute I believe it comes down to personal preference. High win rates can be found on Leona, Annie, Thresh, and Janna. Play someone who matches your style, or duo with someone you can effectively communicate with, because communication is more OP than a difficult lane match-up.

Starting items and builds

Thanks to the new trinkets and gold items (and gold income) support is incredibly diverse and actually exciting at the moment. As of writing, Spoils of War has been nerfed–after it was discovered how ridiculous a ranged support and a marksman were when both started with it–to apply to melee auto-attacks only, but the item is still incredibly strong (think of a healing Leona/Blitzcrank).

My builds tend to focus on either offence or defence now, building a gold item and a sightstone first, then focussing on something like a Rabadon’s Deathcap or a DFG if it’s going well (The AP Mage’s “support” abilities like slows and stuns now scale from AP), or a Randuin’s Omen, Frozen Heart, Banshee’s Veil if more defensive stats are needed.

Wards are still OP

With the new limit on 3 wards and a pink per champion, you need to be making sure you not only keep on top of your own warding, but try to nicely suggest your team-mates do the same.

Good luck, have fun.

So there’s a fix-up for the previous post. It’s a bit mashed up and a lot of things need clarification, but Season 4 is a long way away, and there’s much more to learn and many more games to play.

One more thing, I made Gold II (again)!

Duo queueing with a friend trying to get to Gold, branching out to top lane and AD carry for about 30% of my games (and sometimes winning even those games!), and being more confident in shot-calling has landed me back in Gold II. My aim is to reach Plat by Season 4 placement. Wish me luck!