My question is about how to keep up (in terms of level and $$) as a support after the laning phase winds down. How do you, as a support, keep up?

This is something I learned from a match last night. We got off to a good start but in the mid game I was badly under-farmed. I think it's not wrong for a support to be 1-2 levels behind but I'm generally having trouble staying within a few levels of the carries. Using last night's game as an example: (I was playing ES) I had my arcane boots fairly quickly, had some wards up, flying courier bought, and the rest of the team was doing well. However, I felt that if I tried to grab an empty lane for some solo XP and last hits, I was an easy target for a 2 man gank. I didn't have the right items to efficiently farm the jungle and I felt like I needed some more items (blink dagger) to contribute to team fights/gank. That situation is one I'm having trouble recovering from. I finished the game 5 or so levels below the average. I typically have a better game than that but I still have the "always-behind-in-mid-game" problem.

What do you guys do, as supports, to catch back up after "sacrificing" some of your early gold and xp for your support duties? Do you grab a teammate and run around keeping the lanes pushed out? Do you just follow the carries, play conservatively, and get some assists?

Thanks!

-Eight

I think ideally the carries on your team would be benefiting from your support and getting kills/destroying towers which is in turn giving you gold/xp. It's nice to think that way but that's a perfect scenario and you'll probably hardly ever find yourself that well-off.

I have been focusing a lot on trying to get timing for creep-pulling down correctly. If you stack that camp and pull, not only is your carry in a better position to farm under your own tower, but you are now safely earning gold in the jungle. At the same time it's hard to judge when it's appropriate to go do this because you can't always leave your carry alone etc.

Creep pulling can help a bit, but doesn't work in all situations. As a support you still need to be a part of team-fights and get the extra gold and exp awarded from them. This will help out the team. You don't typically want to try to go into a solo-lane as there will likely be another player who needs the farm more than you do. What you want to do is use some of your pushing power to clear some of the lanes either in a safe, warded location, or with another teammate. ES has fissure and ground pound to deal a nice chunk of damage to creeps, and you can more-or-less keep spamming the spell every minute with arcane boots. Basically you should just be picking up leftover. Wards are your primary concern and secondarily a mekansm for team heal, if no one else is building it.

You are most definitely squishy bait for any enemy roaming around, so you shouldn't be far from your other teammates at any point without a TP scroll or two.

was this the game where i was bloodseeker? as far as i remember you were among the regular levels, its just me,sven and ursa were top level. your did pretty good, the only thing i would say was improve where you use the fissure, there were a few moments where you blocked us in alone so we couldnt pursue, his wall should be used to block escape routes along with the stun.

Haha, yeah, I probably had bad fissures as often as I had good ones. I was way behind in terms of gold. I barely got the blink dagger. I also died too often (because trying to farm vacant lanes) which wasted a lot of gold. I just kind of wanted to know what support people think when laning is winding down.

I've been thinking: "Keep wards up, and farm all the things in vacant lanes." I saw that XP going to waste as lane creeps kill each other and I thought that was my chance to free-farm.

It seems like I should be thinking: "I keep wards up and stick with a teammate and try to contribute to ganks/teamfights/towers while not getting killed."

As someone who supports a good deal in pubs - and is relatively successful with most support heroes - here are my 2 cents:

As a support you should be a couple levels behind other gankers, and tailing farther behind your carries IF they are doing their job properly. As carries benefit more from a solo lane - they will be outpacing the entire team. If they can farm well and get some kills - they'll snowball far beyond the rest of the team.

Heck, I've had games very successful games as a support where I've finished a full 6-8 levels behind the carry.

So this isn't a bad thing. This is by design as most "supports" are that way because they don't benefit AS MUCH from the extra levels as a hard carry would. As long as you are deny'ing/harrassing/warding/etc, you are doing your part to win your lane.

By mid game you should be roaming with your carries to help secure kills. As they are likely doing most of the work - being behind a few levels should still not affect your mid game (as long as you had a successful laning phase). Just continue to take part in the pushing/teamfighting and you will be able to keep up in xp/gold with the rest of the team. In my opinion, in my opinion - your mid game goals are to help your carries secure kills and keep them alive where possible.

Now... just because trailing in levels is not necessarily bad - it also means that you shouldn't ignore farm. Get some gold wherever you can by last-hitting creepwaves your carry cannot secure, and get the assist gold where possible. Also as mentioned previously - stacking/pulling and some jungling mid game are all good tools to keep your farm and levels at a decent pace with the rest of your team.

There is a good link that discusses this on reddit:

Common mistakes of support players

-PA

When I'm playing support, I'll usually take a lane that's pushed to the tower and push it back a little bit for the gold and XP. Though lately I've been playing a lot of Support Dazzle who doesn't need items THAT badly, just the XP.

If you're hurting for XP, try and stay safe in team fights, support the carries, soak XP from jungle/pushed lanes.

If you're hurting for gold, pushed lanes and the jungle are your safest ways to get it, that and assists. Lots and lots of assists.

This. Many times I will see a support die for no reason. Sometimes the "reason" is they sacrificed themselves so the carry could live. In a pub I find this logic confounding as the average carry is likely functionally retarded.

Now, I'm not saying this is OP's problem. But I will say the best thing the average support can do is "not die". Since (as a support) you shouldn't be initiating teamfights, ganking, or any of that other nonsense - you have more time you can dedicate to watching the minimap, and staying behind what ever fat guy you've elected to soak all the damage.

Unless you're name is OmniKnight - in which case, you are that fat guy. But you have an OP ult. So you shouldn't die anyways.

On a side note - not all the true supports have been released, and some heroes tagged as support really aren't. For example - Necrolyte is more of a semicarry that needs gold so he isn't instagibbed in teamfights and can fully use his abilities. Shadow Shaman and Lion on the otherhand are gankers that can scale very well - but don't necessarily need xp/gold to contribute to teamfights.

I think it's important that if you are going to support - not only you pick a hero that can contribute well without the gold/xp of a carry, and you have a plan on how that contribution to team victory would occur.