If you feel that you’re not ranking up and getting stuck in low ELO as a Wild Rift Support, maybe you’re doing it wrong.
Here’s a beginner’s guide on how you can play better and easily rank up as a Support. This includes an introduction to the role, champions, and summoner spell you should pick. Along with positioning and other tips you should not forget when playing as a LoL Wild Rift support.
Contents
What is the role of a Wild Rift Support?
A Support in Wild Rift, alongside the Bottom Carry (also called AD Carry/ADC/ADR), is positioned at the Dragon lane of the Summoner’s Rift. They primarily assist their team with their skillsets in taking objectives.
A Support in Wild Rift, alongside the Bottom Carry (also called AD Carry/ADC/ADR), is positioned at the Dragon lane of the Summoner’s Rift. They primarily assist their team with their skillsets in taking objectives.
The support role is often misunderstood and overlooked in League of Legends: Wild Rift. Some bear that mindset that supports’ inability to deal significant damage and obtain kills means that they cannot carry the game. When in fact, supports play a pivotal role in attaining victory. Rather than taking kills, they serve as a foundation by taking care of the team, and by the proper utilization of their skillsets and executing team fights. Just like the rest of the positions in the game, it holds its own importance and purpose.
In contrast with the rest of the role, supports are not farm-dependent. Allowing the Carry to take all the gold for themselves to buy items, scale, and have the upper hand. Not least of all, they are also expected to provide and secure vision for the team.
How to pick the Right Wild Rift Support champion for your Team?
The first thing you will have to consider is the champion you will use.
Start by learning simpler champions like Sona, Soraka and Leona while you’re making yourself acquainted with the role. Also, learn how to evaluate what your team needs and adjust accordingly. If your team does not have a tank or a bruiser at least, pick a tank support. If your team lacks crowd control, consider picking Nautilus, Leona and Morgana.
There is a myriad of options to choose from when you are playing the support role. Knowing each type of support can help you select a champion and when it’s best to use them. The role is divided into three categories according to their game style and purpose.
Tank/Engage Support
Tank supports are champions that possess a high amount of HP or armor. Engaging and diving into team fights are more favorable to them as they can stay, take damage from the opponents, and survive for a longer duration. This will also allow your teammates to have a space to hit and cast abilities without worrying about dying. Leona, Alistar, and Thresh are good examples of engage supports due to their gap closer ability and hard crowd control that can disable their opponents.
Enchanter Support
Enchanters perform their duty as support by providing utility; heals, shield, movement speed, attack/damage/attack speed buff, and keeping them alive as much as possible.
Supports like Karma, Lulu and Janna also have peeling abilities that would hinder bruisers and assassins from targeting your carries. Enchanters have an advantage in the early laning phase against melee as they can poke enemies through their abilities such as, Karma’s Inner Flame, Lulu’s Glitterlance, and Yuumi’s Prowling Projectile. On the contrary with the engage supports, enchanters tend to stay at the backline as they are as squishy as their bottom carry. Apart from protecting their team from opponents, they should also practice good positioning as enchanters are potential targets as well.
Poke Support
There are supports as well that neither take damage from the enemies nor do they heal, shield or buff their teammates. Instead, they throw their abilities toward enemies to try to harass, annoy and force them to use their Flash, Barrier and Heal. Good examples of poke supports are Lux and Brand.
If you can be creative enough, it is possible to use unorthodox champions in this role. This includes Sett, Pantheon, Gragas, Annie, Ashe, and Miss Fortune. You’ll be good if you can fulfill and help without sabotaging your team. However, these are not always advisable due to its risks, especially in higher ranks.
If you’re still undecided, you may consult our Wild Rift Tier List to determine which support champions are the strongest in Patch 3.3.
Choosing the best Summoner Spell as a Support
Choosing the right summoner spell in Wild Rift can be tricky, but for supports there are only 3 viable choices.
Heal
Supports commonly use Heal. As not only can it heal you and your allies, but it can also boost your movement speed. It is however, not advisable for you to take it if your carry decides to pick heal. The healing effect is reduced to half for champions recently affected by it.
Due to changes with heal, it is better for the support to equip this summoner spell instead of your carry as the effects are increased by 100% on your ally.
Ignite
If you are an aggressive support craving the first blood, you may want to equip this spell. Not only does it damage enemies but it also applies 60% grievous wounds. Grievous wound reduces healing and health regeneration. It can be useful to use Ignite against champions that heal themselves and their allies like Soraka, Nami, Dr. Mundo, Yuumi, and Olaf.
Exhaust
Exhaust is a defensive spell as it slows enemies and reduces their damage for 2.5 seconds. With this spell, you will no longer have to be afraid of a fed Tryndamere, Khazix, or Jax chasing you.
How to carry the game as a Wild Rift Support?
These tips and advice that you should apply in-game from the early to the late phase when you play as a Wild Rift Support.
Tips to win your lane as a Support
Familiarize yourself with every champions along with their strengths and weaknesses. Apart from knowing your own, you must also be aware of your enemies. Then, come up with ways on how to counter them. This can also enable you to read and predict their next moves. This may be difficult initially, but your knowledge will significantly increase as you play.
Players should also have the ability to assess the situation they are in before committing to a team fight. Determine when it is best to engage, and when to play passively. For example, you’re fighting against a Draven and Thresh in the early game. It’s better to play passive during this time as Draven can be really painful to play against during the early.
Avoid taking free damages and getting hit by peeling abilities like Blitzcrank’s Rocket Grab and Morgana’s Dark binding by dodging it or by sidestepping.
Also, take the champions health, stats, active spells, minion waves and the level of each champion into consideration.
Speaking of level. Do not forget to know your level 2 power spike, especially when you are using Thresh, Leona and Alistar. Level 2 power spike happens if you manage to level up first before your opponent. Putting yourself at an advantage by having more abilities and better base stats.
Proper execution is advantageous as it can grant you a kill or two, or burn their spells at least.
Lastly, you should be careful of spamming your skills and ensure that it will not hit minions, especially when you’re trying to manage and freeze the wave. The last thing you would want to do is to last hit the cannon minion and steal your carry’s gold.
Improve your Positioning as a Wild Rift Support
One way to differentiate a good support from a bad support is by their positioning. Placing a Soraka or a Lulu at the front of the team is an example of bad positioning as they are unlikely to survive the fight due to their relatively low base hp and armor.
Instead, enchanters should position themselves at the back where they can freely support their team with heals and shields without any harm. While tanks and engage supports are expected to be at the front as getting deleted by an enemy assassin isn’t one of their problems.
Gold management: Which items to prioritize?
As a support, you must not starve your carry with gold and steal their minions. This will only hinder them from buying items that provide them buff and power spikes, and you might eventually lose the game. Supports do not depend on farming and can only earn from the passive gold, kill participation, and objectives. Hence, it is better to prioritize gold-efficient items in the game, such as the Enchantments.
Enchantments are purchased by first buying Boots of Speed and Tier 2 boots (Boots of Swiftness, Gluttonous Greaves, Ionian Boots of Lucidity, Mercury’s Treads and Plated Steelcaps). Putting enchantments on your priority serves as a good decision as it is cheap and enchantments provide active effects that are useful during team fights. Likewise, it gives you movement speed, so you will never be late!
These are the recommended Enchantments for Supports:
Redeeming Enchant: Summons a beam of light within a certain range and heals allies. Likewise, enemies caught inside the circle will be revealed and will take a small amount of damage. Redeeming Enchant can be used while you’re dead and can be used to scout areas. - Shadows Enchant: Sends two ghosts that seek out nearby enemies that will reveal and slow them. This is useful in determining enemies’ position and reveal invisible enemies as well.
Gargoyle Enchant: Tank supports benefit from this enchant as upon activating, it will increase their health depending on the number of enemies around. - Locket Enchant: Provides a shield for you and your nearby ally for 2.5 seconds. Similar with redeeming enchant, it is useful during teamfights as it can protect your team.
- Protobelt Enchant: This enchant will allow your champion to dash forward and release a cone of missile that deals magic damage. Several supports tend to pick this enchant as a gap-closer and can even surprise enemies.
Where are the best spots to place your ward?
It is rather a scary sight to see a dark map with no wards at all. Failing to place a ward also means you will fail to see the position of your opponents. While it is everyone’s responsibility to place a ward, always make sure that there are wards around the map and try to get rid of enemies’ vision.
At the start of the game, leave a ward inside the Red Brambleback or the Blue Sentinel pit if your jungler started on the other side to avoid getting invaded. Otherwise, just place a ward on the river to prevent early ganks.
Most importantly, secure vision on these parts of the map as it covers the objectives, river and the enemy jungle side, which will enable you to determine their position:
- Dragon Pit
- Rift herald/Baron Pit
- Top-side and bottom-side river
- Enemy jungle (Deep ward)
Lastly, do not forget to equip Control Wards as it can also reveal invisible enemies. So, be sure to take one with you while fighting against Evelynn, Teemo or Akshan.
Why should you use Oracle lens as a Wild Rift Support?
Oracle lens is just as important as the Warding Totem. It summons a drone over your champion’s head that reveals nearby wards and traps and highlights enemies. It is part of a support’s role to provide vision and deprive opponents of information by clearing off wards. This can also be helpful in scouting areas with no vision as it can show enemies that are hiding.
Roaming to Support the whole team
While Wild Rift supports are assigned to be with the bottom carry, they must support the rest of the team too.
Roaming around the map when it is safe to leave your carry can be helpful. In the early phase of the game, you can leash your jungler by helping them take the buff for faster rotations. Also, help them in securing the scuttler throughout the whole game.
Only start roaming if your carry and your enemies have recalled back to the base. You can surprise your enemies by ganking mid. This way, you can help your teammates and it can put you at a great advantage as you can outnumber them. However, you need to be careful when roaming during times when you cannot predict or see the enemies as you may have an unfortunate encounter with them and end up dying.
Securing Objectives to take advantage
Prepare to take objectives. Securing the Dragon, Rift herald and the Baron Nashor highly contributes to the team. Make sure to position yourself along with your team before the dragon spawns. This will give your enemies a hard time stealing it from you.
If you’re after the Rift herald, you may rotate towards the baron lane, especially if they’re at a disadvantage. Help your jungler in taking it while also making sure that your carry can survive on their own.
As a wild rift support, you can either provide heals and shield for your team or use crowd control abilities. Zoning the enemy jungler or carry is one of your purpose here if you’re a tank.
The Map Awareness of a Wild Rift Support
A good support constantly checks their minimap. This will enable you to see potential threats such as ganks and eventually avoid it. You’re more likely to see or predict the enemy’s position and movement based on their presence and even absence in the minimap. It is also useful in situations when your low-health ally jungle gets trapped in the river after encountering an enemy. With your map awareness, you will immediately notice your teammate and help them.
Lastly, If you see that enemies are missing, let the others know with a ping as they might not have noticed it.
Take a Break of WR!
Playing League of Legends: Wild Rift can be fun and at the same time, stressful. You may experience burnout and tilt upon losing games in a row. That alone can put you in a bad mood. This may affect your performance and decision-making skills. If this happens, try to take a break for a while and do anything that can calm your mind. Or maybe watch The Wild Rift Icons Global Championship to see how pro players win their games.
Once you’re ready, you can hop onto the Summoner Rift again and continue your journey toward becoming a Challenger!
Behind strong and fed carries are good Wild Rift supports that are continuously looking out for their team. Wild Rift is more than just killing enemies and becoming fed. It is a game that highly requires teamwork and getting rid of supports can only lead to defeat.
Now, who’s the worthy Wild Rift support champion that you’re gonna try next and why? Let us know in the comments!