C'mon, Admiral. Time for your tablets...

*leads him away roughly by the arm*

Ignore him, he's harmless (mostly) but it does do well to keep an eye on him. He tends to wander when let loose...

Welcome to the forums, Sergeant! About time we had some more British blood to rival those darn yanks.

If there's anything I can help with, feel free to add me. Steam id is dakheva

Hi Duck!

You're right, supports have arguably the toughest role in the game - they are expected to buy things like wards, counter wards, invis sight, mek/pipe/etc, build their strength so they're not squishy... and all whilst the carry turns around and says "DON'T TAKE MY LAST HITS NOOB!"

It's a delicate balance, in truth, and each game is different as to what you should buy. I know that's not a helpful answer, so let me break it down into a few examples.

If there is more than one support on the team:
Usually if I'm on the lane that gets first blood, with the assist gold the first thing I'll do is upgrade the courier, the mid lane ganker *needs* flying courier by around the 3-4 minute mark ideally. If you're going 25 mins without a flying courier and there's more than one support, you've got issues.
If you can communicate with the other support, and they're doing better with farm than you are, you can ask them to get mek whilst you continue to get wards, or vice versa.

If you're a solo support:
Unfortunately, the pressure's on. Courier upgrades, wards and mek are your priority. If the team needs dust and such, you may need to remind the carries that you're a solo support and they can get it themselves. Or, if you happen to be doing well, feel free to help them out. But sight is *crucial* on the map for where your team are pushing/farming.

There are ways that supports can get farm though:
Pulling the lane - If you can stack jungle camps and pull the creeps into the jungle camp, you'll get the gold from that camp, as well as the exp. You'll also give your carry solo exp on the lane too. There are plenty of video guides on this online.

Assist gold - If your carry can handle the lane by themselves, go roam and gank, or gank your lane again. Your job is to babysit your carry so he can become big and strong. If you're winning the lane, then perhaps another lane could do with a gank? Keep a tp scroll on you so you can tp in to support other lanes if they are being ganked. You can be the one thing that turns the tide around - and also nets you a handy amount of profit.

Jungle - I make a point of two things if I'm running between lanes. If I'm running past a camp near the stacking mark, I'll stack it for the carries. If I'm running past the easy camp and I have a few seconds, I'll farm it. It's not a great amount of gold, but every little helps!

The main thing a support needs to worry about in teamfights is positioning. You *are* squishier than the rest of the team most of the time, which just means you need to watch where you stand. The team may focus you if they don't like your disables, but if you die and manage to disable the carry whilst your team kills the other four, then it's a win in my book. If you feel you're too squishy, get a bracer - you can always upgrade it to drums to help your team and give you some survivability.

If you need any more assistance with support, it's the main role I play, so feel free to add me on steam.

Hope that helps!

Clearly you've not thought this through, my dear boy! There's at least three characters I can think of that could satify Axella's needs. Spectre and Vengeful spirit for the casual lesbian, and for social inclusion, Morphling can get in on the action to accommodate for the vagina-penis.

Buzz-mooing? OH GOD THE UPRIGHT-WALKING COW ARMY HAS RETURNED - THEY WEILD HATCHETS AND HOLD GRUDGES!!

THE SECRET COW LEVEL WAS PROPHECY

Potentially Infinite Doom?! WHAAA

Alright, not quite as impressive as Shane's stats, but I just hit the big 1k milestone myself tonight

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=153199615

You'll have to point people out to me, don't know who is who! Going to guess the guy looking suave as fuck in the last photo with the dark glasses and blonde hair is Bearhug.

*puts on shades*

Now, this'll be the first time I've posted one of my games on the forums, and I'll put a disclaimer that there will not be any WoDota Shane-esque Kunkka plays from this Match ID. However, I played a game today with the doobs where I felt I really supported well, and had a few very nice escapes/saves of the team.

So, for those of you that are interested, the Match ID is 279162438.

Want the TL:DR version? The notable moments are as follows:

9:30 (For that pro escape)
11:15-30 (Combo kill with Tinker and recall escapes)
17:30 (Slight mention for the 2 recall saves of teammates, though admittedly they probably would have gotten out anyway )
28:55 (Fuckin' up dem chronos with Blinding Light!)
31:25 (Dem escapes #2)
36:35 (Force Staff + Blinding Light save)
45:16 (Rapier purchased just before the game ends)

About time you registered! We need that formality so we can keep tabs on the newbies *Insert NSA joke here*

Welcome to DN!

Welcome to DN, Duncan!

About time you saw the light and converted from the 'dreaded game' Here's hoping you can stay 'clean'!

Hop on the TeamSpeak server we have and start getting yourself some games with us

Hey jmlane!

My, that was a very professional-sounding introductory post! If there was a job going, I'd have hired you

Awesome that you're enjoying Dota 2, TI3 shows some of the best players in the world strutting their e-peens, and it can be incredibly motivational. You're right about DN being a friendly community - we're all here to help and have some fun. If you want some games, feel free to add some of the regular posters/hierarchical members of the community, or just get on the TeamSpeak server we have, and start gaming!

Enjoy!

He's a Ninja in a US flag!

Best camo evar, obvs.

I'm up for it!

That assumes someone's going to actually hire you. We should be fine.

Heya guys! I really do hate London as a city, so I'll likely pop up, but I won't be staying for the full duration. At the moment I'm thinking 4-5 days, so maybe Mon-Fri or a long weekend of Wed/Thurs-Sun. I'll definitely be coming up and bringing the laptop, and happy to bring some snacks and stuff with me.

I reckon this could actually be rather useful. Could put it as a sticky into the Introductions thread.

Bring in the interrogation lamp for the newcomers and demand they soul-search and come up with their playstyle

Though myself, I'm mainly a Team Member, PitBull, Boba Fett and the Support

Can you link some of the match IDs from Tidehunter games you've been having problems with?

Well, I'm glad I stumbled onto this!

*opens notepad and beginz the stealz*

Really useful info as always guys, thanks!

I'm sure there are plenty of people in the community that would be glad to help. For the others that may be reading this thread, why not tell us a little more about the problems you've been having, and your experience with dota? How long have you been playing, how many games do you have under your belt, what are the things you struggle with in game and would like to improve upon?

My ID is dakheva if you'd like to talk further, as support tends to be my favourite role. Something to do with the masochistic, eye-rolling satisfaction that comes from chasing after my dota 'children' with band-aids and sandwiches.
"Anti-mage! WHAT HAVE I TOLD YOU ABOUT PLAYING WITH ROSHAN!"

But yeah, the more you tell us, the more we can help!

Bandit

I feel that I was less help and more of a hinderance being carried by the rest of the team through the game