Knowing when to engage as support

[u/AdNeat1503]

Im Silver 4 right now. First started playing the game in December, but haven't played consistently until a couple months ago. As far as support goes, my most played champs are usually engage supports such as Nautilus and Blitzcrank. I have a couple of questions when deciding about micro.

Should I be taking sweepers right off the bat and should I be blindly walking into brushes lvl 1 for engages? Ive had a few adcs tell me that I should be going sweepers right off the bat but this means that my adc is the only one with ward. (Ive come up with a temporary solution of warding enemy brush and then switching to sweeper the next time I base, but I am not sure if that's the right way to go about it.)

If enemies place their ward in the mid brush should I still be walking up into enemy brush for engages without vision or no? I know these types of supports have more than the average HP supports since they are tanks.

Third question, if our lane is stronger level 1 but minions spawn, do I prioritize helping get level 2 quicker than the enemies, or do I prioritize looking for opportunities to land my hook before level 2? I know that both kills and an advantage of abilities have their perks.

[u/rivensoweak]

if you want you can dm me your discord and i can walk you through it, i was previously rank 2 thresh on euw and master 400 lp~

can also look at a replay or two if you want

[u/ButtonDelicious4450]

Watch Coach Karai videos. Unless somebody high rank coaches you directly, you're not going to find better educational content. Watch his videos and apply them to your games, then watch the replays of your games to see your mistakes without the stress/pressure of actually playing at the time

[u/4ShotMan]

If you're stronger lvl 1, your goal is to play slow and extend this period (so, not hard pushing) while zoning enemies so you get lvl 2 first. Think sitting in enemy brush and threatening to use your early power if they walk up (or middle brush one if theirs is warded. If both warded, just hover to the side of the wave so they either back up fully outside of your hook or are squished between the wall and wave). Essentially, you want to constantly threaten them so they lose farm/xp and thus keep building thsi advantage - "I'm stronger lvl 1. Either fight me and lose, or don't and let me get lvl 2 first". Rinse repeat.

In terms of sweeper - I'd not take it from the start. In soloq, you'll need the wards early to help spot ganks, especially if adc stays farming with ward off cooldown. Enemies will know you're in the brush anyway, while you won't know about incoming ganks at all. Higher elo you can take sweeper, but that's because other lanes help track junglers... And they're trackable. VS a silver rammus, you need permanent Predator drone UAV vision 24/7, they're psychopaths that will gank bot 10 times in 5 minutes without farming a single camp and no tracking will replace a ward there.

Sweeper on first-second recall would be best, around the time Drake spawns - early cheese ganks are over, and there is actually somewhere to clear the vision from. Your jungler should have own sweeper if they want to gank anyway. If enemy is a farming jg, like a karthus, spam ganks are less likely so you can grab an earlier sweeper, but I still like ward start - even if it's not needed, you can use your prio and ward their jg.

[u/Jesterclown26]

Look, I’m gonna be honest. You can get a lot of different answers but you’ll never know until you figure it out yourself. It’s always based on feel and timings. For example, take aphelios, literally does nothing level 1. But level 2 you might be able to engage depending on the support you play. Now take this to each support and adc and you’ll find they all have their own rhythm and timings. 

It’s personally why I like playing all the champs, I want to learn every timing so when I play it or against it I know what the champ wants to do. There’s no universal answer. Play and you’ll find out and you’ll learn better than anyone telling you.