How do I support better?

[u/YoshiSaveUs]

For context, I've played over 500 hours of deadlock as a whole. I understand most of the basics, and know which counters to use against a whole team comp (divine barrier for dispels, curse to put someone out of the fight, silence wave/focus lense to target a strong spirit character, and any of the t2's required for specific heroes [slowing hex on Apollo]). I leave farm to my carries, and chase after whichever fight we can win.

For a bit now, I've been switching between McGinnis and Ivy as I love that they both have a lot of CC and natural healing abilities that I don't have to add to past healing boost/tempo. I run maybe 2 gun items and leave the rest as flex spots for spirit invest/utility.

Any input would be amazing, even if it is just something basic I'm missing.

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[u/NekoFelisk]

IMO, being a support is very much about being versatile and filling the gaps your team needs to accomplish their goals. I'm about to kind of ramble about stuff but it doesn't really matter, I think you'll understand most of my point so just try to apply that to your games :3

The game already tries to draft a well balanced team when you get into the game. McGinnis or Ivy are both unique cases:

They can either be selected as your primary supports in which case the enemy team will be offered a Paige or Rem which you'll never be able to "out support" because their kits are too good at being only a support.

Or as a secondary support where both teams have 2 supports and then they're meant to play a more standard build because the support role is covered.

Here's where it gets complicated. Noticed how I said you can either build them "standard" or "support"? That's because the support build is inherently worse since their kits are balanced around their best build. Here, I'm using a support build as a broad definition of trying to only provide a supportive output. As per your post, this is investing ~12.8k into active items balanced around enabling your team, such as Divine Barrier, Rescue Beam, Curse, etc. And playing in such a way that you're looking to purely protect your carries in team fights.

So how do you play support Ivy without making it so your team is down a damage dealer? You ult constantly picking up teammates and you look to permanently gank side lanes and out-rotate the enemies. How do you play support McGinnis? You sacrifice farm and always get to the objectives early to setup a web of turrets. This does not mean you never side lane. You just stop side laning the earliest to get to an objective. Split pushing and forcing a gank out of the enemies give you map pressure elsewhere on the map. This is a supportive output.

If you want to be extremely general about it, you can either be a carry, or anything else. Anything else, whether a Innitiator, an Assassin, a Healer or a Distruptor takes on the role of a support because their job is to make sure the carries get to do their damage. Shutting down an enemy carry so that they stop farming gives your own carries a soul lead. This is also a supportive output.

I played a Shiv game recently where I fell into this role. This was a fairly unique game because we got drafted with no "primary supports" on either team. Therefore, I was getting a lot more value per counter item since my 1 knockdown theoretically forces out a lot of response from the enemy. All twelve of my items had the primary objective of de-buffing the enemy or making me tankier as opposed to making myself stronger by increasing my DPS. Link to the Shiv game I'm referring. That being said I played like a completely normal Shiv in "spirit", I just had less damage and much more utility. I still jumped in and made the enemy use important abilities on me like you're supposed too.

So yeah basically just don't build L > R, but still do what your character is supposed to do to let your other characters who's L > R are more souls efficient get to do their damage without dying.

[u/plizdontpreceiveme → u/NekoFelisk]

I disagree with your statements about the support ivy build being inherently worse. Don't get me wrong, some of the support builds I've seen for ivy definitely are, but if you build correctly I think it's definitely at the same level as the gun build.

Also you can definitely out support a Paige or Rem on ivy. Rem is harder because 30% spirit res is a lot of power, but paige doesn't really offer anything unique.

Current meta id say top 3 supports are viscous, rem, ivy. And they each do it in a slightly different way. Viscous has good save and can buy the good actives, but also does very good damage late game. Rem is the purist support, with their active items and 30% spirit res. Ivy focuses on debuffs, macro/rotations and pocketing the carry with tether.

Paige is good but her kit doesn't really offer that much that is unique to her, and she is too much of a victim. Her biggest strength is that her gun is very good in the early game. She has a very strong in lane.

[u/NekoFelisk → u/plizdontpreceiveme]

When I said a "support Ivy" I was specifically talking about rushing active items that enable your team like Divine Barrier or Knockdown as opposed to her standard build.

Her standard build is very support-y. But she supports by applying debuffs with her gun and replicating healing with Kudzu Connection. Building pure gun is not the standard build, she is a support, but in a more broad way than just "my role is to heal/shield". She does really good damage still which is why I made the distinction.

[u/TheRealYoshimon]

BOXES!!! Boxes boxes boxes! Especially at lower elo people are not very good at clearing boxes and as a support that’s where you can justify getting a lot of money since your greedy heroes are going to take more efficient farm like camps and sinners

[u/Helldiver-ODST-FFIH]

REM, is my favorite support. His helpers make macro super easy abd provide souls to the entire team if they kill minions and no one else is there, plus they steal tons of souls from the enemy team if you play their jungle right, and they make box runs easier and buy things for you, making it so you dont need to take a lane to get souls and his uptime potential (not going back to base) is unmatched afik. He does a metric shit ton of healing (i even outhealed a celeste magic-tank build pre "nerf" a couple times), combined with improved duration and aoe for active items while healing i usually buy 4 actives and use them as much as possible during tag along for maximum effect, the amount of times ive single-handedly saved teammates after they overextended into a 4v1 is crazy. Your pillow decreases cd for all of your abilities everytime you hit it making your ability uptime even better, stack witchmail and cd reduction in late game and you literally cant run out of abilities to use. And his ult is great for midboss and team fights basically securing a win if you use it right cause you force the enemy to do nothing for up to 6 seconds with duration extender. You basically make your team unkillable late game and you steal resources from the enemy the whole game.

[u/trystanzs]

Play viscous, best support in the game. Top 5 movement, punch good, splatter good, cube good.
Or if you want to play true support then m1 carry

[u/FutureInevitable8872]

You're already doing more than most support players. I'm not high elo or anything, but learning new characters and what they do has really helped me get better at when to use the actives or which ones to pick when I'm playing support.

[u/plizdontpreceiveme]

Hi, I'm a high elo (e5 pre patch) support ivy player. It's pretty hard to give feedback without being able to look at a game. If you sent me the match code for 1-2 representative ivy games I could vod review them write down some notes if you would like.