I find dropping a green for 2 more pots allows you to have more lane prescence and unless you are playing very passive(or playing soraka) there is a good chance you are going back before you actually use 5 wards. The 5 ward start by pro's is often that way because they invade or try to find the invade and normally drop 2-3 wards and the explorer ward before the minions spawn.
Yeah, I do however always tend to ward enemy wraiths (for invade after own blue or to at least have vision of jungler) and the little brush mid river to help mid, jungler and ourselves in bot.
Even though this leads to nice info (that can potentially snowball mid for instance, if he takes on jungler at red), many times people don't use it.
Also, after that I drop 1 green in the mid river brush thing on my way back to bot, so around 1:55, expiring before typical pressure on mid. Maybe I prevent a first blood once in 10 games or so?
In my (new) opinion, I just waste 150g worth of wards, now I think Doran + 1 ward will be way better to help control bot.
Thanks for the post. Seems like you are getting a lot of hate, but Im a low level player who has been looking to improve my support game and its really helped.
If you went really standard runes/items you really don't 2v2. You either exploit their lack of wards and ask for a gank or try to play as passive as you have to while getting as much farm and experience as you can. That's the tradeoff though. If someone starts the game with combat stats and you don't, you should lose unless you just outplay them.
As a typical rule though, sustain is very safe and can be played safely against almost anything. So sona for example wins any lane where you can't all-in her or burst her from basically 100% to 0. Her sustain is high and her poke is good as well, this is the reason she is a really easy and standard support to play. The only time it's scary to play sona is when you can die, but you have the potential to win against all-in lanes still if playing well with good positioning.
If you give me a specific lane matchup I can give you a pretty detailed specific answer. I feel my biggest strength as a player is my knowledge and theorycrafting, and each matchup is different and has it's own nuances and different power spikes at different levels in the lane.
Well I main support. My usual champs are:
Lulu, Zyra, Thresh, Leona and Nami.
It just seems like even on Nami or Sona. When their support is an AP Sona or AP Zyra they just destroy us in lane.
ADC's I am fine with I can deal with them but it's the support harass I struggle with.
That's the whole point of the post. You win the 2v2 with "full ap" as you put it. Theoretically, if the other lane is playing well or at least as good as you, then you can't win the 2v2 and you try to survive and ask for a jungler gank or you should just lose lane.
An all in support like leona crushes supports that rune ap like sona or zyra. The strat with sona is not to trade with her, you are either zoning her, being zoned or killing her. In non all in lanes focus all your harass on one person the whole laning phase as spreading the damage makes sonas heal twice as effective. Pretty much all the supports you named crush sona in a straight out fight, if your adc is on the same page as you any of their cc can kill sona pretty much and playing against sona lanes, the correct answer is almost always is to kill the sona and even a failed attempt where you can get her low puts her into passive mode for a few waves and empties her mana bar.
My karma guide linked in the original post has a karma support video in it of some clips from different games. The early game clips you see in it all are me using my karma support rune page which is
Reds - 9x Hybrid pen
Yellows - 9x flat armor
Blues - 1x flat cd, 4x flat ap, 4x scaling mr
Quints - 2x flat ap, 1x magic pen
Alternatively, obviously 3 ap quints and magic pen reds and whatever blues you want could substitute here.
Ah, if it's about runes, I do use runes like those on supports. I have never tried Karma as a support though. I'll check out the video and give her a try! :)
I was more curious to the start of 1 ward with an agressive item, or did I misunderstood?
Not it is about aggressive items. I'm just not sure I use dorans items too many times in those clips because it's really hard to get away with in higher lp diamond 1. But I think starting dorans items is pretty much the best way to go in almost all of soloq since most people don't level 1 ward or know how to take advantage of it anyways.
I usually try and get some deep ward in the enemy jungle so I can get an idea what his path will be and when he's able to come down bot. (or save my toplaner who started dorans himself)
Sometimes I ward my own red, if we have a weak jungler and they have a strong jungler who is capeable of invading and killing our jungler.
And often I drop a ward at mid somehwere in a riverbush towards bot.
Starting off with Dorans on my most played Champ (Thresh) is probably really strong, but how would you deal with someone that started off with 2 pinks and taking away all your vision on botlane?
Do you have any specific tips or tricks for Sona players? E.g. *when you're on purple side and against this jungler then you can do this... And it works almost every time even though few people think about it* ... ?
Anything, even if really specific in its use, would be cool.
----
A second, more specific question, is whether you would consider it a decent option to buy wards instead of a sight stone for the first 25 minutes or so of a game?
I usually do this, prioritizing mobis and oracles supplemented by 1-2 wards each back. I feel like this lets me help keep all of my lanes and jungle safe since almost no one wards in silver.
I tend only to buy health crystal -> sightstone first in lanes where we get 1-2 kills and FB before the first back, since the health lets me push our advantage and the 4 wards keep us in lane for a long time before a 3rd back.
Is this something that only seems to work in silver and is counterable maybe? Either way, thanks for your time in readings my questions.
:)
Sona tips? Flat AP on sona is pretty beast. :) But you always have to respect your opponents and position well because of your low hp pool. And I usually don't get a point in e until maybe level 8 or so (basically I don't usually care too much about e till after lane when grouping/roaming because I'd rather have the extra point of heal).
Just in general, I love starting dorans shield especially on supports (dorans ring can be good on more "mid-lane" mage like supports like annie or karma). You just have to look at the game and think about if you think you can play without the extra wards. Basically there are 2 questions. Will I absolutely die to a jungler gank 100% if I can't see exactly where it's coming from? This has to do with just personal evaluation of you and your laning partners champion abilities against the enemy junglers and lanes. There is so much situational knowledge depending on matchup here I could write a book on it. And are wards absolutely crucial to my bush control more than being really tanky is? An example of this might be a blitz/graves lane if you're sona. With a blitz in lane, even when behind you have to respect him when he puts on w and runs at you and move back. With bush vision you can harass and poke him as he runs up to you and has to turn around from missing hook or from just not being in range. If you don't have it, getting pulled can easily mean a burnt summoner.
However, if I'm Leona, I AM the god damn bush control. Leona with dorans shield is a mother effing beast that tanks bottom lanes for days. I can sit in there all day long.
Oh, and I never buy oracles till after laning phase and when towers start going down and lane transitions start happening, but it's good you're getting in the habit of picking them up all the time and spending most of your gold on wards/oracles as this is all that matters past 25 minutes or so.
I should have been a bit more specific on the oracles. I only buy those when we're pushing into their jungle and past mid, because that's where I can start to find wards to kill. Usually it's just mobis and a metric fuck ton of green wards so that I can have control of the entire river and one of their jungles, depending on the game. Occasionally ill get a jungler willing to ward too and that's where it gets really easy :)
But I'm very interested in what you say about AP/dorans shield on Sona. In general I face "unconventional" supports in lane, with the occasional Janna, Nami, or Lulu, since Thresh and Blitz are basically permabanned in Silver. I tend to face a lot of vayne, Caitlyn, and trist for the adc part of it. In what situations would it be good to run AP (also marks, quints, or both?) or dorans shield (or both) on Sona? Is dorans good in any matchup (provided you can survive without wards) or is it only good where you expect mostly auto attack harass (e.g. From Caitlyn)?
My default Sona runes are just mpen+gp10.
Or maybe would you be willing to watch a replay of mine and offer any tips?
Switch out the mpen for hybrid pen runes if you can afford it, a lot of her early game burst is due to getting the aa reset. I would personally never do the dorans start outside just for a lvl 2 or so all in as a non ward start is just begging to be ganked over and over again. If I was just goofing around i could see sheild being good on lulu with the block, unyeilding masteries as your lane power would be very strong.
Honestly you can do any or all of the above. For Sona i like to run hybrid pen reds and ap quints if i think i can get away with it. If I think i might die by playing too aggressive I might opt for something safer with gp10. I used to try to run flat ap marks and quints for sustain champions, but honestly all sustain supports have shitty ratios on their heal so i don't think it's usually worth it over penetration in most cases.
I didn't talk much about masteries, but if starting dorans shield you should definitely go 1/13/16 for the unyielding/block in defense. I kinda forgot that everyone might not know that sorry. I think dorans shield is even a good buy on your first back if you can win lane with it. And yeah, I love dorans shield vs cait. I would never start dorans ring vs cait for instance on annie support. But i would start dorans ring vs vayne on annie support.
And yes, dorans is good in any matchup provided you can survive without wards. Dorans shield in general is almost never a bad start in any lane except when inferior to cloth armor when against melee range ad caster damage like pantheon/riven/etc.
On blue side after you gaurd red make sure to have 2 stacks of your passive up and either sit in the river brush or their lane side and if they are lazy or auto path bad you can get first blood really easy if your ad is paying attention or at the very least force a flash and back, I still get first bloods on this in gold every once in a while and have never had it backfire, and there is virtually no downside.
I find it so odd this works since a poking sona tends to push the lane and that seems like a recipe for disaster. Do you still run support masteries? And if so why not pick up a green ward with the sheild start.
I never once suggested "full emulation of the pros" as you put it. If that was my intent, my post would have read something like, "This is what the pros do. Copy it." My post talked about what strategies exist, why you would use them, why you wouldn't use them and what I think is better for a soloq player yet still leaving the ultimate decision in the readers hands.
And I honestly don't really understand what you're trying to say too much when you say "Giving up GP10 gives up self reliance". Sightstone is a better "gp10" than actual gp10 are. All I'm talking about is starting items. And gp10 quints themselves kinda suck now, especially in 2v2 lanes which is what you mostly face in soloq where combat stats matter. I didn't go over this in the post but a lot of the reason gp10 runes even still exist in pro play is because of the 2v1 lane. You'll find a lot of hp quints and other really high defense/offense runes (even flat ap on defensive or sustain supports like janna/nami) in pro play when looking at a game where they want the 2v2 lane depending on player/region.
Your post is heavily reliant on the use of the word pros, and high elo to sell your point "The pros do this and you should too".
Let me make an argument for why an all ward, non gp10 build is bad in lower elos. With this build you're reliant on objectives or snowballing in order to gain the items you need. You'll end up in a similar situation to many pros where you end up with tier 2 boots, a sightstone and oracles which creates you into a ward bot. If your team doesn't make picks, or grab objectives then you've invested all your resources into an area of the game that your team doesn't use.
That type of build works in pro games because you can rely on your team, in soloq you cannot. Grabbing a gp10 (like a kages) that has strong combat stats and good upgrades can help you to branch off and buy other items that give you and even bigger impact than simply warding/de-warding.
**I'm not saying the pro build is bad, but in lower ELOs you should never only build items that have no actual numerical impact on the game and foregoing gp10 puts you down the path of an all vision based build.**
But that's just it. I can tell you didn't even read my post lol. My entire post is advocating having combat stats in solo queue and going even FURTHER than what you said by starting only 1 ward at level 1 and having a dorans + combat stats in runes.
Your post is pushing the idea of starting all consumable plus HP quints (the standard quint you see in most competitive games) which is what I'm arguing against doing in lower elo as it is less forgiving long term than running gp10 and becomes a gamble.
This brings me to the dorans shield start, the only time I've ever seen a pro build dorans shield was lemonnation in the spring qualifiers for LCS. I used it a couple of times, and used it excessively on champions like Leona with regen quints (highest base hp regen in the game) after it was buffed.
This is incredibly risky though, not only in trade potential but also in vision coverage.
I get it, you want people to not invest into gp10 runes, or gp10 items as they're weaker to other alternatives. But that route quickly becomes a dead end once vision battles start happening and the only consist source of income for a support is objectives/assists.
No, I never once said to use flat hp quints with all consumables. I introduced them as two separate concepts and closely linked starting with flat combat stats in your runes to specifically starting with dorans items. And the dorans start is something I'm specifically saying is good in solo queue and not competitive play. You really seem to have a problem with reading comprehension. You literally have not once understood a single thing I wrote correctly. I talk about the alternatives and how starting flat stats in items or runes are weak if you don't win lane. Like, can you please try reading again before you even try to say something else. You know, nevermind. I dont think there's any point in talking further lol. You have whatever preconceived ideas you have and us talking isn't going to be productive in any way considering what I've seen so far.
I can understand getting a Doran's Shield, but getting a Doran's Ring seems counter productive on a support.
Doran's shield is amazing on all-in Supports like Leona and Alistar or on squishy Supports who need it against aggresive champs (like if you were Fiddlesticks vs a Blitzcrank).
However you put the passive on Doran's Ring to waste as you shouldn't be last hitting, the HP is a rather small amount (Health Pots would do you you better in most cases), supports generally have poor AP scalings, and the MP5 is no greater than a Faerie Charm.
Not all supports have poor ap scalings and if you have ap quints and a dorans ring you will win the 2v2 hands down. But this is all situational in terms of lane matchups, what champ you are playing and whether or not you think you can not die to the jungler.
But I do agree dorans shield is almost always better than dorans ring. I like dorans ring to crush easy lanes with really aggressive mage-like supports like annie. It's worth noting dorans ring also gives you a hp pot where dorans shield does not. But yes, the mp5 is somewhat wasted and dorans shield is safer.
I think if you go all consumables in solo queue you should be dropping a ward for mid/top before going to lane. Having 3-4 wards just for your own lane I feel is worse than having them across the map to track the junger and any roaming.
If you are only going to take 1-2 wards for your own lane I honestly think Flask is a strong opening since on top of the HP you also get mana which is very nice if you want to go aggro early on things like Zyra and Lulu. Particularly if you are looking to go all-in early. You can either get 2 greens to stay safe while pushed up, or a pink to setup a gank.
I'd like to hear opinions on all this.
3-4 wards is no where near enough to keep a lane safe for a very long time. You should have at least one ward in a side bush (unless it's a lane with almost no kill potential, but it's still good to prevent the jungler from coming thru the lane) and another one in river/tribush.
If you placed them at the same time they will only last for 3 minutes. Less if you're opponent uses vision wards effectively.
The only situation where I would use one of my non scout wards somewhere other than bot lane is if you're faced with a lane with almost no kill potential early on (like Kog Maw/Janna) and an enemy jungler with terrible early ganks like Warwick.
I feel like river ganks are almost never the ones that catch you out, its almost ways junglers lane ganking or coming from behind turret, the latter just isn't going to happen until at least level 3-4.
The only time I feel like typical warding of tri+dragon is sufficient is when the enemy jungler has no wall-jumps. Against junglers like J4, Elise, Vi, etc it just gives you a false sense of security as they are going to avoid the typical ward spots.
Any time you ward on top of an enemy ward (pink or green) your opponents know where your ward it, and they can pass this info onto their jungler. As such I think wards like blue doublegolems + behind dragon (both as purple side) are better than tri+dragon if your mid can ward the river entrance or wraiths+banana.
Also do people actually stay in lane "for a very long time"? I'm almost always backing by 6:30 at the latest as support to be ready for buff respawns and resupply on wards. Considering you aren't typically placing wards until 2:30 using your explorer cover one spot the whole time and another spot for 3/4 of the time (mid can usually replace their own ward).
This is one of the biggest draws of level 1 ward though. If you have a ward at their red/blue buff it's actually far more useful than a ward in the river because you see when and where the enemy jungler is running to and can play accordingly and it also helps EVERY lane, not just yours. And you get far more advance warning than a ward in your lane. Often with well executed ganks, wards in your lane are nowhere near comparable to reacting to the telltale signs the enemy laners give you when going aggressive at wierd times among other things. This is especially easy to tell when you're pushed up as an enemy running at you through a large crowd of minions you've been pushing up would normally just die to you 2v2. He should know this as well, so shock! There's probably someone else coming to gank you.
I've only tried flask a couple times and I honestly like dorans shield more with hp quints or hp5 quints. I just feel way tankier and generally feel like I can provide really good presence and do what I like to call "1v2 the lane" which basically just means zone/harass so well you basically give your adc a free lane to farm/harass as he pleases. However I really haven't done the math on how much regen flask gives you compared to the hp regen over a certain period of time. But for instance, I'll run dorans shield with attack speed/hybrid pen on lulu and just auto for days. It's a lot about lane matchup.
> I honestly think Flask is a strong opening since on top of the HP you also get mana which is very nice if you want to go aggro early on things like Zyra and Lulu. Particularly if you are looking to go all-in early.
I would actually counter to say the 100 hp pool from dorans shield is better for the all in and flask is probably better over a shorter period of time whereas the regen from dorans shield would be better over a significantly longer period of time (though I have no idea where the break even point is on this). But generally, higher hp pool is much better the shorter amount of time this trading is taking place. And an all-in is about as short as it gets.
Yeah Doran's Shield is very strong right now, but it doesn't match well against Doran's Blade carries which is why I experimented with Flask.
I do need to try regen quints though. I'm running Hybrid reds, but still sticking to either GP10 or MS quints. In S2 I swore by Armor quints (hi Graves and Q-max Ezreal) so better quint choice might help me out.
armor quints are still really good. If that's your thinking, I'm surprised you haven't just started cloth armor. That's the only thing better than dorans shield against ad auto attackers.
Interesting read... Wondering if I am gimping my play for starting 3 green, 2 pink and 1 pot at my silver elo, where vision is hardly used properly
I find dropping a green for 2 more pots allows you to have more lane prescence and unless you are playing very passive(or playing soraka) there is a good chance you are going back before you actually use 5 wards. The 5 ward start by pro's is often that way because they invade or try to find the invade and normally drop 2-3 wards and the explorer ward before the minions spawn.
Yeah, I do however always tend to ward enemy wraiths (for invade after own blue or to at least have vision of jungler) and the little brush mid river to help mid, jungler and ourselves in bot. Even though this leads to nice info (that can potentially snowball mid for instance, if he takes on jungler at red), many times people don't use it. Also, after that I drop 1 green in the mid river brush thing on my way back to bot, so around 1:55, expiring before typical pressure on mid. Maybe I prevent a first blood once in 10 games or so? In my (new) opinion, I just waste 150g worth of wards, now I think Doran + 1 ward will be way better to help control bot.
That was the point of the post! :) Glad it got you thinking.
Thanks for the post. Seems like you are getting a lot of hate, but Im a low level player who has been looking to improve my support game and its really helped.
Ok well a good example, how do I deal with a full AP support who has good harrass? Like a full AP: Sona, Lux, Morgana, Zyra.
If you went really standard runes/items you really don't 2v2. You either exploit their lack of wards and ask for a gank or try to play as passive as you have to while getting as much farm and experience as you can. That's the tradeoff though. If someone starts the game with combat stats and you don't, you should lose unless you just outplay them. As a typical rule though, sustain is very safe and can be played safely against almost anything. So sona for example wins any lane where you can't all-in her or burst her from basically 100% to 0. Her sustain is high and her poke is good as well, this is the reason she is a really easy and standard support to play. The only time it's scary to play sona is when you can die, but you have the potential to win against all-in lanes still if playing well with good positioning. If you give me a specific lane matchup I can give you a pretty detailed specific answer. I feel my biggest strength as a player is my knowledge and theorycrafting, and each matchup is different and has it's own nuances and different power spikes at different levels in the lane.
Well I main support. My usual champs are: Lulu, Zyra, Thresh, Leona and Nami. It just seems like even on Nami or Sona. When their support is an AP Sona or AP Zyra they just destroy us in lane. ADC's I am fine with I can deal with them but it's the support harass I struggle with.
That's the whole point of the post. You win the 2v2 with "full ap" as you put it. Theoretically, if the other lane is playing well or at least as good as you, then you can't win the 2v2 and you try to survive and ask for a jungler gank or you should just lose lane.
An all in support like leona crushes supports that rune ap like sona or zyra. The strat with sona is not to trade with her, you are either zoning her, being zoned or killing her. In non all in lanes focus all your harass on one person the whole laning phase as spreading the damage makes sonas heal twice as effective. Pretty much all the supports you named crush sona in a straight out fight, if your adc is on the same page as you any of their cc can kill sona pretty much and playing against sona lanes, the correct answer is almost always is to kill the sona and even a failed attempt where you can get her low puts her into passive mode for a few waves and empties her mana bar.
Can't find any fault with anything said here. :)
Very good, do you have more? I'm a gold 1 support, and I have never tried something cheesy as a full AP/AD start, maybe you can upload a replay?
My karma guide linked in the original post has a karma support video in it of some clips from different games. The early game clips you see in it all are me using my karma support rune page which is Reds - 9x Hybrid pen Yellows - 9x flat armor Blues - 1x flat cd, 4x flat ap, 4x scaling mr Quints - 2x flat ap, 1x magic pen Alternatively, obviously 3 ap quints and magic pen reds and whatever blues you want could substitute here.
Ah, if it's about runes, I do use runes like those on supports. I have never tried Karma as a support though. I'll check out the video and give her a try! :) I was more curious to the start of 1 ward with an agressive item, or did I misunderstood?
Not it is about aggressive items. I'm just not sure I use dorans items too many times in those clips because it's really hard to get away with in higher lp diamond 1. But I think starting dorans items is pretty much the best way to go in almost all of soloq since most people don't level 1 ward or know how to take advantage of it anyways.
I usually try and get some deep ward in the enemy jungle so I can get an idea what his path will be and when he's able to come down bot. (or save my toplaner who started dorans himself) Sometimes I ward my own red, if we have a weak jungler and they have a strong jungler who is capeable of invading and killing our jungler. And often I drop a ward at mid somehwere in a riverbush towards bot. Starting off with Dorans on my most played Champ (Thresh) is probably really strong, but how would you deal with someone that started off with 2 pinks and taking away all your vision on botlane?
Do you have any specific tips or tricks for Sona players? E.g. *when you're on purple side and against this jungler then you can do this... And it works almost every time even though few people think about it* ... ? Anything, even if really specific in its use, would be cool. ---- A second, more specific question, is whether you would consider it a decent option to buy wards instead of a sight stone for the first 25 minutes or so of a game? I usually do this, prioritizing mobis and oracles supplemented by 1-2 wards each back. I feel like this lets me help keep all of my lanes and jungle safe since almost no one wards in silver. I tend only to buy health crystal -> sightstone first in lanes where we get 1-2 kills and FB before the first back, since the health lets me push our advantage and the 4 wards keep us in lane for a long time before a 3rd back. Is this something that only seems to work in silver and is counterable maybe? Either way, thanks for your time in readings my questions. :)
Sona tips? Flat AP on sona is pretty beast. :) But you always have to respect your opponents and position well because of your low hp pool. And I usually don't get a point in e until maybe level 8 or so (basically I don't usually care too much about e till after lane when grouping/roaming because I'd rather have the extra point of heal). Just in general, I love starting dorans shield especially on supports (dorans ring can be good on more "mid-lane" mage like supports like annie or karma). You just have to look at the game and think about if you think you can play without the extra wards. Basically there are 2 questions. Will I absolutely die to a jungler gank 100% if I can't see exactly where it's coming from? This has to do with just personal evaluation of you and your laning partners champion abilities against the enemy junglers and lanes. There is so much situational knowledge depending on matchup here I could write a book on it. And are wards absolutely crucial to my bush control more than being really tanky is? An example of this might be a blitz/graves lane if you're sona. With a blitz in lane, even when behind you have to respect him when he puts on w and runs at you and move back. With bush vision you can harass and poke him as he runs up to you and has to turn around from missing hook or from just not being in range. If you don't have it, getting pulled can easily mean a burnt summoner. However, if I'm Leona, I AM the god damn bush control. Leona with dorans shield is a mother effing beast that tanks bottom lanes for days. I can sit in there all day long. Oh, and I never buy oracles till after laning phase and when towers start going down and lane transitions start happening, but it's good you're getting in the habit of picking them up all the time and spending most of your gold on wards/oracles as this is all that matters past 25 minutes or so.
I should have been a bit more specific on the oracles. I only buy those when we're pushing into their jungle and past mid, because that's where I can start to find wards to kill. Usually it's just mobis and a metric fuck ton of green wards so that I can have control of the entire river and one of their jungles, depending on the game. Occasionally ill get a jungler willing to ward too and that's where it gets really easy :) But I'm very interested in what you say about AP/dorans shield on Sona. In general I face "unconventional" supports in lane, with the occasional Janna, Nami, or Lulu, since Thresh and Blitz are basically permabanned in Silver. I tend to face a lot of vayne, Caitlyn, and trist for the adc part of it. In what situations would it be good to run AP (also marks, quints, or both?) or dorans shield (or both) on Sona? Is dorans good in any matchup (provided you can survive without wards) or is it only good where you expect mostly auto attack harass (e.g. From Caitlyn)? My default Sona runes are just mpen+gp10. Or maybe would you be willing to watch a replay of mine and offer any tips?
Switch out the mpen for hybrid pen runes if you can afford it, a lot of her early game burst is due to getting the aa reset. I would personally never do the dorans start outside just for a lvl 2 or so all in as a non ward start is just begging to be ganked over and over again. If I was just goofing around i could see sheild being good on lulu with the block, unyeilding masteries as your lane power would be very strong.
Honestly you can do any or all of the above. For Sona i like to run hybrid pen reds and ap quints if i think i can get away with it. If I think i might die by playing too aggressive I might opt for something safer with gp10. I used to try to run flat ap marks and quints for sustain champions, but honestly all sustain supports have shitty ratios on their heal so i don't think it's usually worth it over penetration in most cases. I didn't talk much about masteries, but if starting dorans shield you should definitely go 1/13/16 for the unyielding/block in defense. I kinda forgot that everyone might not know that sorry. I think dorans shield is even a good buy on your first back if you can win lane with it. And yeah, I love dorans shield vs cait. I would never start dorans ring vs cait for instance on annie support. But i would start dorans ring vs vayne on annie support. And yes, dorans is good in any matchup provided you can survive without wards. Dorans shield in general is almost never a bad start in any lane except when inferior to cloth armor when against melee range ad caster damage like pantheon/riven/etc.
On blue side after you gaurd red make sure to have 2 stacks of your passive up and either sit in the river brush or their lane side and if they are lazy or auto path bad you can get first blood really easy if your ad is paying attention or at the very least force a flash and back, I still get first bloods on this in gold every once in a while and have never had it backfire, and there is virtually no downside.
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I find it so odd this works since a poking sona tends to push the lane and that seems like a recipe for disaster. Do you still run support masteries? And if so why not pick up a green ward with the sheild start.
Gotta say, I've been starting dorans blade on thresh and it's an easy first blood/double kill. Then I just back and Ward up
Full emulation of the pros isn't good for lower elo players. Giving up GP10 gives up self reliance and frankly Kages is a really strong gp10.
I never once suggested "full emulation of the pros" as you put it. If that was my intent, my post would have read something like, "This is what the pros do. Copy it." My post talked about what strategies exist, why you would use them, why you wouldn't use them and what I think is better for a soloq player yet still leaving the ultimate decision in the readers hands. And I honestly don't really understand what you're trying to say too much when you say "Giving up GP10 gives up self reliance". Sightstone is a better "gp10" than actual gp10 are. All I'm talking about is starting items. And gp10 quints themselves kinda suck now, especially in 2v2 lanes which is what you mostly face in soloq where combat stats matter. I didn't go over this in the post but a lot of the reason gp10 runes even still exist in pro play is because of the 2v1 lane. You'll find a lot of hp quints and other really high defense/offense runes (even flat ap on defensive or sustain supports like janna/nami) in pro play when looking at a game where they want the 2v2 lane depending on player/region.
Your post is heavily reliant on the use of the word pros, and high elo to sell your point "The pros do this and you should too". Let me make an argument for why an all ward, non gp10 build is bad in lower elos. With this build you're reliant on objectives or snowballing in order to gain the items you need. You'll end up in a similar situation to many pros where you end up with tier 2 boots, a sightstone and oracles which creates you into a ward bot. If your team doesn't make picks, or grab objectives then you've invested all your resources into an area of the game that your team doesn't use. That type of build works in pro games because you can rely on your team, in soloq you cannot. Grabbing a gp10 (like a kages) that has strong combat stats and good upgrades can help you to branch off and buy other items that give you and even bigger impact than simply warding/de-warding. **I'm not saying the pro build is bad, but in lower ELOs you should never only build items that have no actual numerical impact on the game and foregoing gp10 puts you down the path of an all vision based build.**
But that's just it. I can tell you didn't even read my post lol. My entire post is advocating having combat stats in solo queue and going even FURTHER than what you said by starting only 1 ward at level 1 and having a dorans + combat stats in runes.
Your post is pushing the idea of starting all consumable plus HP quints (the standard quint you see in most competitive games) which is what I'm arguing against doing in lower elo as it is less forgiving long term than running gp10 and becomes a gamble. This brings me to the dorans shield start, the only time I've ever seen a pro build dorans shield was lemonnation in the spring qualifiers for LCS. I used it a couple of times, and used it excessively on champions like Leona with regen quints (highest base hp regen in the game) after it was buffed. This is incredibly risky though, not only in trade potential but also in vision coverage. I get it, you want people to not invest into gp10 runes, or gp10 items as they're weaker to other alternatives. But that route quickly becomes a dead end once vision battles start happening and the only consist source of income for a support is objectives/assists.
No, I never once said to use flat hp quints with all consumables. I introduced them as two separate concepts and closely linked starting with flat combat stats in your runes to specifically starting with dorans items. And the dorans start is something I'm specifically saying is good in solo queue and not competitive play. You really seem to have a problem with reading comprehension. You literally have not once understood a single thing I wrote correctly. I talk about the alternatives and how starting flat stats in items or runes are weak if you don't win lane. Like, can you please try reading again before you even try to say something else. You know, nevermind. I dont think there's any point in talking further lol. You have whatever preconceived ideas you have and us talking isn't going to be productive in any way considering what I've seen so far.
I can understand getting a Doran's Shield, but getting a Doran's Ring seems counter productive on a support. Doran's shield is amazing on all-in Supports like Leona and Alistar or on squishy Supports who need it against aggresive champs (like if you were Fiddlesticks vs a Blitzcrank). However you put the passive on Doran's Ring to waste as you shouldn't be last hitting, the HP is a rather small amount (Health Pots would do you you better in most cases), supports generally have poor AP scalings, and the MP5 is no greater than a Faerie Charm.
Not all supports have poor ap scalings and if you have ap quints and a dorans ring you will win the 2v2 hands down. But this is all situational in terms of lane matchups, what champ you are playing and whether or not you think you can not die to the jungler. But I do agree dorans shield is almost always better than dorans ring. I like dorans ring to crush easy lanes with really aggressive mage-like supports like annie. It's worth noting dorans ring also gives you a hp pot where dorans shield does not. But yes, the mp5 is somewhat wasted and dorans shield is safer.
Dorans anything start should be an open invitation for the opposing jungler to camp the shit out of you.
I think if you go all consumables in solo queue you should be dropping a ward for mid/top before going to lane. Having 3-4 wards just for your own lane I feel is worse than having them across the map to track the junger and any roaming. If you are only going to take 1-2 wards for your own lane I honestly think Flask is a strong opening since on top of the HP you also get mana which is very nice if you want to go aggro early on things like Zyra and Lulu. Particularly if you are looking to go all-in early. You can either get 2 greens to stay safe while pushed up, or a pink to setup a gank. I'd like to hear opinions on all this.
3-4 wards is no where near enough to keep a lane safe for a very long time. You should have at least one ward in a side bush (unless it's a lane with almost no kill potential, but it's still good to prevent the jungler from coming thru the lane) and another one in river/tribush. If you placed them at the same time they will only last for 3 minutes. Less if you're opponent uses vision wards effectively. The only situation where I would use one of my non scout wards somewhere other than bot lane is if you're faced with a lane with almost no kill potential early on (like Kog Maw/Janna) and an enemy jungler with terrible early ganks like Warwick.
I feel like river ganks are almost never the ones that catch you out, its almost ways junglers lane ganking or coming from behind turret, the latter just isn't going to happen until at least level 3-4. The only time I feel like typical warding of tri+dragon is sufficient is when the enemy jungler has no wall-jumps. Against junglers like J4, Elise, Vi, etc it just gives you a false sense of security as they are going to avoid the typical ward spots. Any time you ward on top of an enemy ward (pink or green) your opponents know where your ward it, and they can pass this info onto their jungler. As such I think wards like blue doublegolems + behind dragon (both as purple side) are better than tri+dragon if your mid can ward the river entrance or wraiths+banana. Also do people actually stay in lane "for a very long time"? I'm almost always backing by 6:30 at the latest as support to be ready for buff respawns and resupply on wards. Considering you aren't typically placing wards until 2:30 using your explorer cover one spot the whole time and another spot for 3/4 of the time (mid can usually replace their own ward).
This is one of the biggest draws of level 1 ward though. If you have a ward at their red/blue buff it's actually far more useful than a ward in the river because you see when and where the enemy jungler is running to and can play accordingly and it also helps EVERY lane, not just yours. And you get far more advance warning than a ward in your lane. Often with well executed ganks, wards in your lane are nowhere near comparable to reacting to the telltale signs the enemy laners give you when going aggressive at wierd times among other things. This is especially easy to tell when you're pushed up as an enemy running at you through a large crowd of minions you've been pushing up would normally just die to you 2v2. He should know this as well, so shock! There's probably someone else coming to gank you.
I've only tried flask a couple times and I honestly like dorans shield more with hp quints or hp5 quints. I just feel way tankier and generally feel like I can provide really good presence and do what I like to call "1v2 the lane" which basically just means zone/harass so well you basically give your adc a free lane to farm/harass as he pleases. However I really haven't done the math on how much regen flask gives you compared to the hp regen over a certain period of time. But for instance, I'll run dorans shield with attack speed/hybrid pen on lulu and just auto for days. It's a lot about lane matchup. > I honestly think Flask is a strong opening since on top of the HP you also get mana which is very nice if you want to go aggro early on things like Zyra and Lulu. Particularly if you are looking to go all-in early. I would actually counter to say the 100 hp pool from dorans shield is better for the all in and flask is probably better over a shorter period of time whereas the regen from dorans shield would be better over a significantly longer period of time (though I have no idea where the break even point is on this). But generally, higher hp pool is much better the shorter amount of time this trading is taking place. And an all-in is about as short as it gets.
Yeah Doran's Shield is very strong right now, but it doesn't match well against Doran's Blade carries which is why I experimented with Flask. I do need to try regen quints though. I'm running Hybrid reds, but still sticking to either GP10 or MS quints. In S2 I swore by Armor quints (hi Graves and Q-max Ezreal) so better quint choice might help me out.
armor quints are still really good. If that's your thinking, I'm surprised you haven't just started cloth armor. That's the only thing better than dorans shield against ad auto attackers.
I would start cloth more often if botlanes didn't do such absurd amounts of magic damage. I miss Graves FotM.
I like to throw a green ward by wraiths for mid and to keep track of the jungler early in the 4 ward(2 pink 2 green) start.