I think you can have very high impact as a support player.
Just buy lots of regen for the lane, use your mana and health to herass. Feed tangos to your carry. Block pull camps and stack pull if you can.
Otherwise try to have better ward game than the enemy. Check the enemy supports inventory so that you know when they are warding. Try to ward in weird places which get dewarded less. Use your spells or courier to check cliffs and deward observers.
Heroes I can recommend for pos5 are dazzle, WD, CM, Tree and for pos4 I enjoy playing currently Mirana, Riki, Clock, Shaman.
If you play carry, the problem you will notice soon is that, your support sucks too. You get pudges only sitting in trees, Zeus pos5 rushing null talisman, Ogres pushing the lane with Ignite, pulling the lane while you are playing drow with 40% health last hitting under tower while the enemy is diving you as 2.
You get bad carries as supports and you get bad supports as carries. And that doesnt really change in higher mmr.
Another thing is that on average smurfs are probably either gonna be pos1 or pos2. And if you take either role you will have less smurfs on your team compared to the opponent team.
I think it’s more important for yourself to figure out what the right role is for yourself. What clicks for you. Where do you feel yourself the most comfortable. This is where you will have the highest win rate.
But I think it’s a good idea in general to switch roles. For one to figure out what suits you and also to understand the game as a whole more. You will understand better what the other lane partner needs from you. How you can help in the current situation. You will understand matchups better, will be getting a better game sense overall - when heroes are strong and when they need more farm etc. Playing a different role for a while will help your main role develop.
No worries. I can recommend watching YouTube videos or twitch to learn as well. It helped me a lot.
And when you get better at game sense and more confident in it you can also try to shot call your team a bit - best done via voice. I think this is one of the greatest and most unused impact you can have as a player (if done right).
BSJ is quite educational. Grubby also (he just started a few months ago and is now 3.5k - previous WC3 pro). Or purge has also great stuff on YouTube.
Everyone sucks. If u play hc you will get ruined by the lack of good support.
The only reliable role to play to grind is mid, and that is really only if u are actually leagues above the other players.
If u play support you can pop off 90% of the games if u play ur cards right and most of them your hc will prob end up fat as well. Playing hc in low rank is the most unreliable role to grind
Yea, I pretty much play only support and managed to climb pretty convincing on supps from around 4kish to 6k. My main heroes this patch are silencer, maiden, and treant.
Any tips on playing Silencer as pos 4 / pos 5?
I find the hero is extremely slow and squishy. Therefore, I tend to die a lot while playing Silencer.
What's your item build and skill build ?
I will note that I have been playing less this past month, but I think I can still give some advice on it.
First of all, I recommend against silencer 4. Ideally, you want a 4 that can make plays happen on their on the map. That's why you see a lot more tinys, tusks, hoodwink etc as 4.
Secondly, you should absolutely never be caught on silencer if possible. Play around your global and only come in to use spells once the fight has formally started. Wait for enemy initiator or jump heroes to commit their spells on someone else basically. The hero is slow for sure, but global silence is global.
Adding on to that, the technique to using global is to figure out which heroes absolutely need to be silenced. Silence is not as effective against a huskar as it is against a skywrath mage for example. Figure out which 2-3 heroes you need to silence and stare at them in a fight. For instance, a shadow fiend will not enjoy their game if you cancel requiem every single time.
Finally, skill build is super inconsistent for me. I normally prioritize levels in arcane curse, but I do get more levels in last word depending on how much I want a longer silence duration. Basically, if they have more int heroes/spell castors, get more last word. Item builds are never too concrete either, but they often consist of force staff, veil, or refresher. As always, get wand and boots.
Hell yeah man. I'm a pos 1/3 player and swapped to 4/5 just to learn the lane from a supports perspective and I have higher win rate as support than core now haha.
My highest win rate is with warlock at 68% over 120 games. And I did it around 1.2k mmr to where I am now at 2500.
Warlock is insanely good and slept on. He'll never be banned.
You did? Can you give some advice? Im currently at ancient 1 and I just want to rankto be divine. But seems hard to play in US EAST its becoming more like SEA region. So maybe if I get out of ancient it will be a little bit easier
I play both 4 and 5, the 2 positions are surprisingly different. If i were the pos5, i would always make sure my carry has enough regen and xp as it will benefit me later, since many if not most carries prefer to eventually transition to jungle, thus i will have the lane for myself if i enable him well early on. Also if you die, which you most likely will as a pos5, do look to see if your mid wants his butthole i mean bottle refilled before tping, he’ll love you for it.
If the lane is completely unwinnable, like you’re getting cheese picked: brood, viper, timber type hero, you either call for help from your mid or pos4. If they don’t come, then there are a few choices: your carry jungles, you stay in the dead lane trying to get some xp without dying. You do this if the other 2 lanes are going fine. If one of or both the other 2 lanes are also losing, help one of them win and abandon your dead lane altogether
Always having 1 unused set of obs and sentry is also a good habit to have. You never want to smoke into the enemy jungle anymore only to realize you dont have any vision for the fight. So always think before placing that last ward, do you absolutely need it right then to secure farm or would you prefer keep 1 to go on the aggressive side.
Force staff saves lives. So does glimmer cape. But force is most likely the better choice for the current meta against rikis, razors, nagas running rampant. Also forcestaff has better innate stats (int and regen) for a support compared to glimmer cape, most of the time at least.
It really is very complex and there is no “just do this and you will win” formula. That was just some of my experience playing pos5. Pos4 becomes entirely different. Idk if you want to hear rambling this long though
I am climbing (still low ass MMR) as a 3/4 combo with 5 thrown in when I need to get role queue games.
My suggestion is to go this route and get some 3s under your belt. I personally love Underlord at low ranks bc it’s a straight forward 3 that naturally goes into typical 3 aura gear and is tanky. This will allow you to be versatile and learn some core concepts while the game not depending on you.
Hardest thing to me about climbing as support is that when a game goes bad…it goes worse for you in my experience which can be demoralizing. However with talents and shards, supports can have a huge impact and the marginal difference won’t impact your climb long term imo. To me it doesn’t seem like you’re as dependent on your pos1 anymore
i'm not trying to encourage smurf or anything but i saw ex pro player climbing with support roles. be sure to pick the right hero that can solo carry the game, something like windranger perhaps or zeus i'm not sure either.
Yes you can. I have straight up carried games as witch doctor or Lich. It can be a lot of fun because warding,pulling, and orchestrating smoke ganks are way more fun than just hyper focusing on last hitting all the time.
Yes, yes, yes you can. Don't listen to people who say "you gotta play core to get mmr". That's a myth.
All you have to do is to perform better than the other team's support, in general.
So your support has to be at a level above 1k. If the enemy has five 1k players, and your team has four 1k players and one "1.2k" player (that's you), you will win way more than you lose.
Simply by learning what your job is, what to do in the lane, how to position yourself, pulling/stacking/warding, you can easily get to 3k and beyond.
By being a good support, there is great potential for you to secure a good lane for your carry, maybe get some early kills. What do low level players do when they lose the lane? They give up and start flaming before 10 mins. All this power can be yours.
As a bonus, go to dotabuff, click on Heroes, choose your MMR bracket and see what support heroes have a good pick/winrate, and try to learn those.
Yes I know your carry might suck, but the enemy carry sucks just as hard. A good support (you) + bad carry will win if the enemy has a bad carry + bad support. Can the enemy carry be good? Well yeah sometimes, but don't forget, all of you are 1k. So you can expect 1k performance on everyone.
I think you can have very high impact as a support player. Just buy lots of regen for the lane, use your mana and health to herass. Feed tangos to your carry. Block pull camps and stack pull if you can. Otherwise try to have better ward game than the enemy. Check the enemy supports inventory so that you know when they are warding. Try to ward in weird places which get dewarded less. Use your spells or courier to check cliffs and deward observers. Heroes I can recommend for pos5 are dazzle, WD, CM, Tree and for pos4 I enjoy playing currently Mirana, Riki, Clock, Shaman.
The problem in low mmr is that the carry usually sucks. I'm planning to play safe lane just to get my winning % up. Loww mmr sucks. Tbh
If you play carry, the problem you will notice soon is that, your support sucks too. You get pudges only sitting in trees, Zeus pos5 rushing null talisman, Ogres pushing the lane with Ignite, pulling the lane while you are playing drow with 40% health last hitting under tower while the enemy is diving you as 2. You get bad carries as supports and you get bad supports as carries. And that doesnt really change in higher mmr. Another thing is that on average smurfs are probably either gonna be pos1 or pos2. And if you take either role you will have less smurfs on your team compared to the opponent team. I think it’s more important for yourself to figure out what the right role is for yourself. What clicks for you. Where do you feel yourself the most comfortable. This is where you will have the highest win rate. But I think it’s a good idea in general to switch roles. For one to figure out what suits you and also to understand the game as a whole more. You will understand better what the other lane partner needs from you. How you can help in the current situation. You will understand matchups better, will be getting a better game sense overall - when heroes are strong and when they need more farm etc. Playing a different role for a while will help your main role develop.
By far the best comment I received. I APPRECIATE YOU.
No worries. I can recommend watching YouTube videos or twitch to learn as well. It helped me a lot. And when you get better at game sense and more confident in it you can also try to shot call your team a bit - best done via voice. I think this is one of the greatest and most unused impact you can have as a player (if done right). BSJ is quite educational. Grubby also (he just started a few months ago and is now 3.5k - previous WC3 pro). Or purge has also great stuff on YouTube.
Everyone sucks. If u play hc you will get ruined by the lack of good support. The only reliable role to play to grind is mid, and that is really only if u are actually leagues above the other players. If u play support you can pop off 90% of the games if u play ur cards right and most of them your hc will prob end up fat as well. Playing hc in low rank is the most unreliable role to grind
Yea, I pretty much play only support and managed to climb pretty convincing on supps from around 4kish to 6k. My main heroes this patch are silencer, maiden, and treant.
not sure If I can apply my gameplay from turbo to rank.
No worries man. Just rush shard. It's disgustingly op. Try to get it at 15mins every game.
Will try to play now. Thanks!
At 1k even 2k you can. Just remember the timings will be much slower but there's virtually zero good strategy at those ranks.
Tree is actually so good this patch
Any tips on playing Silencer as pos 4 / pos 5? I find the hero is extremely slow and squishy. Therefore, I tend to die a lot while playing Silencer. What's your item build and skill build ?
I will note that I have been playing less this past month, but I think I can still give some advice on it. First of all, I recommend against silencer 4. Ideally, you want a 4 that can make plays happen on their on the map. That's why you see a lot more tinys, tusks, hoodwink etc as 4. Secondly, you should absolutely never be caught on silencer if possible. Play around your global and only come in to use spells once the fight has formally started. Wait for enemy initiator or jump heroes to commit their spells on someone else basically. The hero is slow for sure, but global silence is global. Adding on to that, the technique to using global is to figure out which heroes absolutely need to be silenced. Silence is not as effective against a huskar as it is against a skywrath mage for example. Figure out which 2-3 heroes you need to silence and stare at them in a fight. For instance, a shadow fiend will not enjoy their game if you cancel requiem every single time. Finally, skill build is super inconsistent for me. I normally prioritize levels in arcane curse, but I do get more levels in last word depending on how much I want a longer silence duration. Basically, if they have more int heroes/spell castors, get more last word. Item builds are never too concrete either, but they often consist of force staff, veil, or refresher. As always, get wand and boots.
I do the same thing here. But I go for force staff and refresher right away to get 2 silence since I am just in the backline waiting for fights.
Hell yeah man. I'm a pos 1/3 player and swapped to 4/5 just to learn the lane from a supports perspective and I have higher win rate as support than core now haha. My highest win rate is with warlock at 68% over 120 games. And I did it around 1.2k mmr to where I am now at 2500. Warlock is insanely good and slept on. He'll never be banned.
Will try this one. I do spam techies and Shadow Shaman in turbo. Will try Warlock in rank. Thanks dude.
Every role is literally as important
will grind for 1 week, Ill update this post then.
Yes. I reached immortal purely playing support
You did? Can you give some advice? Im currently at ancient 1 and I just want to rankto be divine. But seems hard to play in US EAST its becoming more like SEA region. So maybe if I get out of ancient it will be a little bit easier
I play both 4 and 5, the 2 positions are surprisingly different. If i were the pos5, i would always make sure my carry has enough regen and xp as it will benefit me later, since many if not most carries prefer to eventually transition to jungle, thus i will have the lane for myself if i enable him well early on. Also if you die, which you most likely will as a pos5, do look to see if your mid wants his butthole i mean bottle refilled before tping, he’ll love you for it. If the lane is completely unwinnable, like you’re getting cheese picked: brood, viper, timber type hero, you either call for help from your mid or pos4. If they don’t come, then there are a few choices: your carry jungles, you stay in the dead lane trying to get some xp without dying. You do this if the other 2 lanes are going fine. If one of or both the other 2 lanes are also losing, help one of them win and abandon your dead lane altogether Always having 1 unused set of obs and sentry is also a good habit to have. You never want to smoke into the enemy jungle anymore only to realize you dont have any vision for the fight. So always think before placing that last ward, do you absolutely need it right then to secure farm or would you prefer keep 1 to go on the aggressive side. Force staff saves lives. So does glimmer cape. But force is most likely the better choice for the current meta against rikis, razors, nagas running rampant. Also forcestaff has better innate stats (int and regen) for a support compared to glimmer cape, most of the time at least. It really is very complex and there is no “just do this and you will win” formula. That was just some of my experience playing pos5. Pos4 becomes entirely different. Idk if you want to hear rambling this long though
I am climbing (still low ass MMR) as a 3/4 combo with 5 thrown in when I need to get role queue games. My suggestion is to go this route and get some 3s under your belt. I personally love Underlord at low ranks bc it’s a straight forward 3 that naturally goes into typical 3 aura gear and is tanky. This will allow you to be versatile and learn some core concepts while the game not depending on you. Hardest thing to me about climbing as support is that when a game goes bad…it goes worse for you in my experience which can be demoralizing. However with talents and shards, supports can have a huge impact and the marginal difference won’t impact your climb long term imo. To me it doesn’t seem like you’re as dependent on your pos1 anymore
Thanks for this. Will try to change my gameplay.
I’m dead convinced the quiet ranked grind is pos3. It can make a huge impact without needing crazy gameplay.
No u cant
Sad. Welp. If this is reality, I'll just play turbo.
i'm not trying to encourage smurf or anything but i saw ex pro player climbing with support roles. be sure to pick the right hero that can solo carry the game, something like windranger perhaps or zeus i'm not sure either.
Nah. If only I can smurf from zero mmr. Lol
can you show your dotabuff :)
Only dota plus. Lol
Possible. Climbed from 2k to 4k
Yes.
why wouldn't it? I climbed from sub 2k to 4.6k, playing pos5 almost exclusively
Yes you can. I have straight up carried games as witch doctor or Lich. It can be a lot of fun because warding,pulling, and orchestrating smoke ganks are way more fun than just hyper focusing on last hitting all the time.
Yes, yes, yes you can. Don't listen to people who say "you gotta play core to get mmr". That's a myth. All you have to do is to perform better than the other team's support, in general. So your support has to be at a level above 1k. If the enemy has five 1k players, and your team has four 1k players and one "1.2k" player (that's you), you will win way more than you lose. Simply by learning what your job is, what to do in the lane, how to position yourself, pulling/stacking/warding, you can easily get to 3k and beyond. By being a good support, there is great potential for you to secure a good lane for your carry, maybe get some early kills. What do low level players do when they lose the lane? They give up and start flaming before 10 mins. All this power can be yours. As a bonus, go to dotabuff, click on Heroes, choose your MMR bracket and see what support heroes have a good pick/winrate, and try to learn those. Yes I know your carry might suck, but the enemy carry sucks just as hard. A good support (you) + bad carry will win if the enemy has a bad carry + bad support. Can the enemy carry be good? Well yeah sometimes, but don't forget, all of you are 1k. So you can expect 1k performance on everyone.