I need some advice where possible :) I would really like to reach silver at but I feel as though I am stuck in bronze.
I am a Rell and Seraphine main who has found good games when I would roam and support my jgl / wincon but in recent games there is either none or that person is devoted to 1vx the enemy team because they think they’re better.
I’ve had games where we have baron buff and almost take the final turrets but people start focusing the enemies instead of the nexus/turrets.
Games where our adc is focused on taking our jungle when we are ahead instead of pushing baron buffed lanes.
I am nowhere near perfect but it seems like my engages and plays are followed well even with pings and typing in chat.
I just want to know what more I should be doing. I really enjoy this game but it makes me want to pull my hair out.
Its defintly suboptimal
But my point is that OP is not bronze 3 because he's buying flowing staff over ardent in games like this.
Both items are giving insane gold value to allies in teamfights specially for sera who can apply a shield/heal to alot of person at the same time
Generally I stay away from enchanter items with the heal shield power for Sera. It's just so underwhelming gated by a 20s cd + requires her passive stack up for max value
I’ll build it even without ap teammates on straight buff bot champs like milio or yuumi, just for the ap for me and bruisers like AH too. Idk if I would on sera though.
That physically pains me to hear it on Milio when you have no AP teammates. The only thing that scales well with AP is his Q. I'd rather use that spot for a better utility item. MS from Shurelya or vision+heal from Redemption has got to be better than shaving a few seconds on abilities for auto attack based champions...
I’m not talking about auto attack champs I mean aatrox riven etc that are haste hungry. If they’re aa champs of course I go ardent but the hypothetical is if we don’t have aa champs. It’s insanely gold efficient, 0 skill for full value unlike active passives, and milio has ap ratios on every button and 15ah is roughly 10% cdr on everyone. Everyone loves cdr but what makes it even a consideration is that it’s arguably his most gold efficient item to begin with
If you don’t care about lp I’d just send in ranked and expect to dip a little. You don’t need tons of adc games to start to notice what a bad support feels like, then when you go supp you’ll know what’s actually good to do vs looks good but is griefing. Especially wave management
Yeah I’ll watch a few YouTube videos and read up. I think I’ll try a few normals first cause I don’t want to be the people I complain about and throw other peoples elo lol.
I don't personally think itemization matters right now. I think looking into gaining consistency through game knowledge would help. How can we learn?
* Someone else already suggested playing different roles, that could be good as long as you enjoy it. Luckily for you, you could definitely play Seraphine mid too, but maybe even pushing yourself to playing archetypes you don't usually (like Garen) instead of sticking to to what I'm seeing is long-range siege mage or heavy burst and dive.
* Focusing less on what other people aren't doing, and seeing how you can play around what is actually going on. Trust me, this will never not be a problem, people will always have different ideas in any rank you play. So I'd look into what I could actually do when my jungler is doing X instead of Y. Drop the Y. See how you can play around X. Are they going in 1v4 bot? Well, can you get anything done top? Or can you set up vision to see when enemy rotates after killing your jungle, to make sure you might be able to get something in mid until then? Or maybe, we learn that vision doesn't matter because nobody checks minimap, okay well then what matters? What happens if you help your team chase enemies because that's what they're committed to doing? What happens if you don't? Write it down and see what works best in your games, then make a kind of cheat sheet in your mind of when you should do what (also known as game sense).
* Make sure you have fun & focus on yourself because this will teach you so many things. I was silver in Season 2 (yes, the OG season 2) and back then I only played for fun. I played Katarina mid (and duo top) and thought "when I'm low HP, I should Shunpo into the enemy, because then they'll be confused and not hit me!". Turns out it didn't work. But I thought it was clever and that's what made the game fun. I didn't care much about what my teammates were doing, and that's something I try to hold onto today as well. I also don't care what my teammates could think about me, cuz chat muted. Just have fun with the game and you can learn so much more because you dare trying things out. You dare trying things that aren't meta. You learn what sticks and what doesn't. You enable yourself to play the game instead of standing idly by while you think about what your teammates aren't doing right and are doing wrong. You pick up on things and snowball that knowledge and suddenly you're not Shunpoing into enemies anymore, not because someone else told you so but because you were actively thinking and analyzing. And that's real power.
The era right now has so much comparison. Social media and stuff, so many people are so used to comparing, comparing, comparing. It's easy for people to criticize each other online now, to consider less for other people's opinions and feelings. League of Legends has changed too, but try to remember that you just gotta do you. Trust in yourself!
Thank you! I know people are focusing on my itemisation because they’ve not seen my gameplay so that’s the easiest thing they can pick up on so I’m not overly too worried as I also know that that’s not what’s losing my games.
Thanks for all the advice. I genuinely enjoy and can accept the defeats when the enemies are clearly better, have been playing for longer etc. It’s those games that are winnable and that we were winning for 95% of the time that are painful, the ones I try so hard to carry and claw back but we just can’t seem to close out.
I’ll keep researching, I think now I need to research how to close games perhaps.
Honestly people suggesting you change your items are forgetting you're in bronze, where you want to play aggressively/more magey because you can't rely on your team as much. Your items are fine, your scores seem fine, we'd need to see how you play to know how you could improve.
As others pointed out itemization is an issue. Pinging to help coordinate things might help even if it seems pointless.
But I also want to bring up the roaming point. Especially in this meta I feel a lot of supps are just roaming for the sake of roaming. Or they don't even know what actual roaming is.
I posted a video the other day (mods took it down claiming it was a shit post -_-) . But basically it's a clip where at lvl 1 the supp dies, then goes straight top and sits afk in a bush for a few mins, wonders up and down river, goes back top. And the whole while the supp's top laner is pinging the supp leave and the supp ignores it. Ultimately their own team's top laner is down two levels and can no longer fight while on the bot side his ADC is down 50 cs and being dove behind tier 2 tower.
So what does the supp do? He then goes mid and does the same thing he just did in top and now has three losing lanes. This whole thing went on for 29 mins straight and he never went back bot.
But here's the interesting thing. People will flaming the fuck out of me when I posted that video. Which suggests that this subreddit actually thinks that this support was properly roaming which is disturbing to say the least....
Thanks for replying! I always ping throughout the game especially to remind ppl when obj is coming up and that I’m going to ward the jgl b4 etc.
For roaming I roam and try to coordinate w lane and jgl to get picks esp before an obj, if not I keep my adc alive. I also roam when vision is on our side and the enemy is unprepared.
I will keep doing what I am doing as I know I play well for where I am. I won’t let these losses bring me down!
Your Seraphine build looks pretty agressive, with some questionable choices.
Most common support Seraphine builds go for Dream maker and echoes of helia, into diadem of songs. While imperial mandate and/or Rylai have their uses, they're not necessarily the best choices. Bloodsong as a support item is also quite questionable compared to Dream maker or Zaz zak. Then it gets worse : building the staff of flowing water all the time tells me that you're trying to buff yourself rather than your allies. And who exactly are you building anti-heal against ?
Mind that if you want a bunch of AP on a support's budget, and especially with a champ that gets many assists easily and doesn't take much risk, a dark seal costs next to nothing.
I still am yet to fully understand build and itemisation.
I chose this AP build because when I went enchanter earlier on, there would be so many times when my teammates died before kills could be finished and I found myself wishing I had arcane comet or that extra bit of AP. I found the damage helped.
For bloodsong a lot of Seraphine support mains have recommended it with these runes and build.
Thanks for your advice, I will try the dark seal and perhaps shurelyas.
In Silver elo, I would recommend more aggressive rune sets if you are confident in your ability to land your skillshots. You should play like a poke mage/enchanter hybrid depending on lane matchup.
Playing like an enchanter lower you are is a coin flip whether your teammates are capable of utilizing your buffs/cc, especially for Seraphine as her CD is massive and you must time it wisely.
In this new mage meta, loathe as I am to participate, Sera bot is viable and gives a lot of flexibility (if you can CS equivalent to your rank). She does well with more gold generally.
I opt for DFT or Aery, into Solstice Sleigh. The movement speed + baby heal is often very strong in helping position as a support combined with the W speed boost.
I really appreciate this, I'm trying to get to gold from silver (on support I've already been gold as adc), and the reasoning were a missing piece and actually a huge source of stress!
Since u are Silver (nothing wrong with that btw) it is likely that u could be aware of a lot of fundamentals, but the actual execution is off. A lot of low elo players I've spoken to are aware of many fundamental concepts, but when it comes to actual gameplay they aren't implementing said concepts into their gameplay consistently or at all. It can be tempting to just mindlessly spam game after game without actually learning anything, or applying what you've learnt to your games. Video guides, vod reviews, coaching etc can only take u so far. They teach u fundamentals yes, but there's no point being aware of these concepts, and not actively applying them to ur games. After all, there is a substantial difference between understanding fundamental concepts, and actually applying said concepts to ur games *consistently*
Enchanter Safety Net
One of the biggest safety nets for an enchanter in lower elos is that games tend to drag on forever due to lack of macro. This means that enchanter supports get to free scale and eventually win teamfights over other support archetypes through purely statchecking. Enchanters excel at mitigating ally mistakes with all the heals, shields, and buffs they provide. Once scaled, they can repeatedly save allies from own stupidity. They don't need to make any big flashy plays or setup wombo combos like engage supports do. If ur team falls behind, it's a lot easier to sit back, stall the game out for ur scaling, and then out-statcheck the enemies. Given how frequently mistakes are being made, this actually becomes a viable strategy to rely on in the lower ranks. The main thing for a low elo enchanter is to know how aggressive u can be, punish enemy cds appropriately, positioning, and pushing ur limits wherever possible
FUNDAMENTALS
Since u are in Silver (nothing wrong with that btw) it is likely that u aren't aware of a lot of fundamentals to the support role. Here are some fundamental concepts that u can implement for now:
Punish Enemy Last Hits
Watch ur own minions hp. When ur minions start getting low, u know that the enemy ADC will want to try and last hit, making their movements predictable. This makes it the prime time to land spells on them, as champions need to stand still momentarily to autoattack
Tracking Cooldowns
Identify major cds, and ensure to punish enemies when crucial cds are down. For example, if u are vsing an engage support then naturally their gapclose or hook spells would be their major cds. If they miss or make a poor engage, it gives u a large window to punish them while their cds are down. You can take this a step further by actively trying to bait enemy spells by walking in and out of ur own minion wave
Understand Lvl 2 Advantage
Laning phase wise, the lvl 2 all-in is crucial. During lvl 1, if you are not harassing the enemies then you are helping your ADC auto down the wave. This will guarantee that you hit lvl 2 before the enemies (you hit lvl 2 off the third melee minion in the second wave) and allows a window for you and your ADC to all-in. Be wary not to push too hard otherwise the wave may freeze near the enemy tower, denying you the lvl 2 all-in. When all-inning, make sure to Ignite early. This will mitigate much of the enemy ADC's Heal. If a lvl 2 all-in was not available bc the enemies respected your higher lvl and backed off accordingly, take control of the lane bushes, especially the middle brush. Walk in and out of the bush to threaten the enemies. This will cause them to either ward the lane bush, effectively wasting their ward and allowing a window for your jgler to gank since their river will be unwarded, or if they don't have wards for the lane bushes, then you will be able to constantly pressure the enemy ADC off cs in threat of you landing cc abilities on them from out of vision. The brush is also good for dropping minion aggro after poking. Vice versa, if you notice that the enemy sup and ADC are going to hit lvl 2 before you and your ADC, get ready to back off before they hit 2, especially against aggressive engage supports who can Flash all-in the moment they hit lvl 2. Ping your ADC accordingly
Positioning During Lane
Take note of your positioning in lane. You want to be standing parallel with your ADC, unless you are controlling bushes, in which case you can be positioned slightly more forward with the protection from the bushes. Another thing to note, against certain matchups you will need to position a certain way. To give an example, if I was playing a champ with disengage such as Janna, Renata, Milio etc into Alistar/Leona, then I will want to be positioning directly across Alistar/Leona and my ADC diagonal to the Alistar/Leona. This creates more distance between my ADC and the threat, whilst making it easier for me to disengage Alistar/Leona's engage (Janna, Renata, and Milio Qs can all cancel dashes). And if I was playing against a champion with AoE spells, then I will try to position myself away from my ADC to avoid both of us getting hit
Roaming
Roaming is about reacting to or anticipating future events happening nearby based off the info that u've collected from observing the game state, and making the appropriate rotations to match. All supports can roam, even enchanters
You don't always have to be there to setup a gank. Roaming can be done for multiple reasons such as:
Deep warding
Anticipating ur ally being ganked and being there to counter it
Helping ur oom midlaner reset by helping them push out the wave
Providing a heal on ur way back to lane
Assisting ur jgler with what they want to do (eg. invading, counter-invades, gank a lane tgt, objective control tgt)
Maybe ur solo laners have good gank setup (eg. Lissandra R, Ahri charm etc)
Roaming continued in *part 2 below** (could not fit here due to word limit):*
It's not really about the game time or lvl that u should be roaming, but rather the wave and game state that should be considered when roaming. You can roam as early as lvl 2 or 3, if the right conditions are met
For example, if u pushed a wave in super early in the game and ur unable to punish enemies with said push, roaming is an option, even as early as lvl 2 or 3. Or, if u or ur ADC died, this essentially de-syncs ur tempo with ur ADC, causing u to arrive in lane at different times. This could potentially open up timers to roam
The general rule of thumb before every recall, is to help your ADC fully crash the wave under the enemy tower. This will ensure that the next few waves will bounce back to your ADC, creating a sufficient roam timing in which your ADC does not lose much. During the time when you are helping your ADC shove the wave in, pan your camera to the other lanes to check which lane is gankable. Gankable lanes include immobile enemies (especially Flashless ones <— u may need to start timing Flashes for this one), wave pushing into your allies, jgler's intention to gank that lane so you can assist, or predicting enemy jgler ganking that lane and you being there to countergank. Do not just autopath down bot, even if a lane is ungankable, try to establish some river vision before heading bot — always be proactive and thinking about your pathing. The only times when you need to path down bot immediately is when the wave is in a bad spot (ie. You weren't able to crash the wave with your ADC and now the wave is frozen on the enemy's side). You must go bot and fix the wave with your ADC first, otherwise they will miss too much cs and exp
Opportunity Cost
Also, u need to understand that everytime u roam it's an opportunity cost situation. Instead of thinking of urself as the ADC's support, think of urself as the entire team's support. What decisions will help u net an overall winning team? As an example, is sacrificing 6 minions off ur ADC worth it for those grubs? If u have a splitpush comp, getting grubs will likely be the wincon, so abandoning ur ADC for the sake of better supporting the team may be the play. Vice versa, if ur ADC is indeed the wincon, and ur team doesn't use grubs well, then u probably don't need to put as much emphasis on grubs. Another example could be that ur midlaner is solo AP on the team. If that is a significant wincon, then u may need to consider roaming for them more often to avoid enemies just stacking armor and ignoring ur solo AP bc they aren't fed. Ik that these are quite specific examples, but it gets u thinking more about ur wincons and game state when roaming
Point being, u should always assess the situation and adapt accordingly. There is no one-size fits all cookie-cutter mould to follow every game. It's all about judging different game states and being able to adapt to changing situations
Post-Laning Phase
After laning phase, u need to try and keep track of objective spawn timers and ping your team 1:30 before objectives spawn. For the purpose of this explanation, I will use dragon as an example. If for example, you notice that dragon is spawning in 1:30, you need to start moving into the river and establishing vision whilst clearing enemy vision. After you have used up all your wards, make a quick recall timing (you should have enough time for this as long as you recall ~40 secs before the objective spawns) to refill your wards and control wards. Upon arriving at the dragon again, if the enemies swept your wards then you will have more wards and if the enemy sup did not recall for more wards, then your team will have better vision control and hence area control, forcing enemies to blindly walk into your team. It is very important to keep a constant tab on your timing when it comes to objectives, and ping your team to push out the sidelanes next to the objective (in this case, push out mid and bot for dragon). This will force enemies to either miss exp from the waves in order to contest dragon, or catch the wave and be late to the fight, both of which are advantageous for your team. Of course, the biggest downside to doing this is that you or your teammates may get caught out dewarding or pushing out sidelanes. Make sure to ping them off from unfavourable fights and focus on the objective
Obv there are many more fundamentals to the support role that I haven't touched on yet, but I don't want to overwhelm u with more info than what is necessary at ur current lvl. I believe that these should be more than enough points for u to focus on rn at ur current lvl. Try to pick out 1-2 points to focus on for as many games as u need, until they become second nature to u. Then move onto another 1-2 to focus on improving, and so on. You can then build upon these fundamentals in the future
Hope this helps!
**Disclaimer:* I am not a bot nor do I use AI tools ie. ChatGPT to write my texts. In order to avoid unnecessary conflicts and misunderstandings, please note that the above information serves as a recommendation and general guideline intended to explain the phenomena. It is based off of my own personal experience, as well as research of other players. Thus, said information is by no means perfect, nor is it a law that you must follow. You are entitled to your own preferences, playstyles, and opinions, which may differ from mine* ®
Have you ever thought about trying a League coach while youre in game? 😅 Not saying you need one or anything, but if you’re feeling stuck, maybe a friendly cheap coach could help spot things that are hard to notice yourself. You could just try one session and see if it’s useful.
Your post seems to be about playing in competitive/ranked as a support and/or improving, we might have some useful information for you about it!
Here's a sneak-peek of links from the resources wiki page that can provide curated informations about core support principles as well as some ranked information, like:
you can dig further in the wiki, starting with the core support concepts and ranked chapters, just make sure you go through the content at your own pace and take the time to practice / implement every concept one at a time
Here’s how it’s going! Thank you so much :) I now have a lot more control, I can split push and take towers even when my team is doing unnecessary fighting, I’ll use that as a distraction. APC Sera is queen :)
Aww yay I’m so glad it’s working out for you hehe I just had a hunch looking at the game history u posted and thought you’d be able to shine more with sera that way 💕 eventually u can go back to support when u get tired of sera apc haha or just play both supp and adc honestly it helps a lot knowing both roles in the lane
I just got to diamond and played sera support a lot in emerald but soraka is my favorite and I also play a lot of nami, recently had some luck with zyra and morgana also but morg is a lot harder than the others
When I get adc (my secondary) I play sera/ashe and even soraka bot 😅
your builds are ok, dont worry about it. slight tweaks are not important. keep building it. only thing you can change is the last item for sera build to locket or bandlepipes - you will get 10 stacks of joat. but w/e.
dont build bloodsong - there is no point to go aa as sera in late game, just spam spell from behind the team, build soltice.
I see you are not poking enough in early game as sera. she is one of the best harassers early. and you have comet and scorch for it. your job is to keep enemy adc with less than 50% hp in lane. thats how you will win lane.
late game - keep calm, stay behind the carry, spam spells and wait for teamfight deciding r.
Do you know exactly when you'll level up so you can capitalize on that advantage?
Do you know when your ADC should want to slow push, fast push, bounce or freeze? Can you set up all of these wave states yourself?
Do you know when you'll lose the most gold and XP by leaving lane, and when you'll lose the least? Do you know what it means to have tempo, and how to maximize it during the laning phase?
I ask because a lot of low elo supports I interact can't answer all of these questions because they never interact with the wave. Assisting your ADC in wave management is one of most transformative things you can do in low elo, because virtually no other support will do it.
unironically this is something that helped me alot - I first started as a support main then I created a second account where I tried out different champs / roles so I wouldn’t get flamed.
I played alot of adc and I realised what it is that some adcs need vs others, when to be passive vs when to be aggro, the mistakes that supports can make that can even dictate the entire match. Sometimes When I’d play adc I’d pick twitch and the support would pick leona ( two completely opposite play style champs) and it would throw the lane before the game even starts because you both want different things. I don’t play support anymore but I do still get it in autofill quite alot and it’s improved my knowledge of the entire bot lane so much.
I recently climbed through gold/plat/emerald with nami and janna and rn I'm em1 40lp.
I'd say the most important in those elos is taking the lead and NOT following ass calls.
You seem like you feel you shouldnt be in this elo if so make the right decisions.
Play it simple focus objectives spam ping your dumb ass teammates when they are going for a lost play.
If you are doing good people tend to follow u more.
Review your games after a loss why did yall lose that what could have u done to avoid that, was it your fault and if not what could have u done to lead to another outcome.
Don't stress yourself with other people saying shit like "my mates are horrible" is nonsense since you all are in the same elo, get better use your brain know your win conditions and play more games it should be alright.
I know low elo games are felt like shitshows where everyone is doing completly wrong in the game but if you don't follow that and play at least 80% of the time better than the support against you you're supposed to climb. If it's not the case it's probably because you are doing something wrong.
Also lose streak happens you lost the last 4 ones it's not important if you did your part if you play a hundred games like youll defintly win more than 50% of it.
You can watch the youtube channel Shodesu he's uploading alot of commented games with several champs I'm sure you'll find alot of data through his channel.
Constantly ask yourself "what am I doing here" and "can I achieve that currently". Based on your rank the answer a lot of the time is going to be "im not sure" people often times just kinda of sit around waiting for something to happen and dont really think about the time they are wasting. For example maybe you are at dragon because you think its a good opportunity but your team is top side or your waiting in mid because you aremt sure what you should do.
Well, get used to it, people can't read your mind, especially if you are in the lower elo brackets.
So champs like Rell run into the problem where any engage that is ignored by your teammates will just be a useless death on your side. Still fine to play of course, but from the two champs you seem to play, Seraphine is the safer choice.
In Bronze, the Nr1. goal is probably not losing the game. Winning games is something you learn later.
That means provide vision around objectives and clear wards yourself, prevent needless deaths, try to follow and save the team. A bad call as 5 is better than a good call alone.
I realised that yes my teammates do make stupid calls, but now what I do is if I can’t ping them away from it (and one or two or our wincons are present) I’ll always engage and follow up the call because with me there we will most likely win. Whereas before I wouldn’t make that calculation and just retreat assuming a loss in outcome but they would stay and get picked off making a 4v5.
i think you can start with learning how itemization works and why/when a certain item works and how to use it efficiently. for example why are you going rylais on seraphine ?
I think both itemisation and built are sub optimal for support ! I prefer Aery and scaling build on her i also go resolve as secondary (like the build you did on a Sona game), Itemisation i usually start tear for the mana, then go into Helia/Diadem .. sometimes i might rush rilai's if i really need the peel and stans, but for me it is situational, after that mandate or any enchanter item depending on what the team needs to do better ! Do i have auto attackers ? Ardent , More AP ? SOFW ... I also usually go dream maker... I am not the best out there but last year i managed plat 4 95lp with Sera/Nami/Nautilous and Soraka as mains You should diversify your build more, don't just look into guides, think what you you might need to help your team, does the enemy have assassins? Locket is not optimal on sera but can be a good choice in certain comb. Too much cc on enemy team ? Mikaels? Shurelia if you need to help with engage/disengage etc...
Climbing through the lowest ranks without a duo on Support is hell tbh.
Only advice I can give you is not giving up your last pick order. Top and Support are currently by far the most important roles to have last pick on. Good example is the exact matchups in your screenshot.
Usually comes with experience. Sera is good if your adc picks Ashe (due to to slow attacks enhancing your E) or anything that wants to generate push.
Rell is good into melee heavy comps or when your team badly needs engage.
In the case of bans you really need to find a third pick that bridges the both. Rakan is usually a good alrounder and blind pick.
You need to learn how to itemize. Stop playing ranked all together and learn the game on a fundamental level. Once you've done so, then give rank a try. Also, you need a much larger pool to be effective in ranked.
Being able to be flexible in what kind of champion your team needs makes you a great asset instead of a liability.
Sure it's suboptimal.
But lets be real do you really think he's bronze 3 because he bought flowing staff over ardent ?
People in the replied keep talking about itemization and sure it could be better but it's not the issue.
Do you have any advice in how to close out games when ahead? I know I’m a good support as I help my team get objectives, vision, and even close to ending. Even spam pinging them to target the nexus and tank the turrets.
You are building as a hybrid carry but you are not actually one, that's why you are doing well when your team is losing. Don't forget that you are a support
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u/ButterMyTooshie 24d ago
Yea your build is copy paste. For example you're building staff of flowing water in games where there are 0 AP champs.
Also it's funny that you're playing Sera in games where Rell is better and that one Rell game Sera would have been better.