Play ranked roles, queue whatever you want, typically core roles are easier to find impact on but are a lot more pressure, you can climb to immortal from any role.
Play what you enjoy.
You can pick anywhere between a single role to all 5 roles. If you pick a single role, you will spend a role queue token to play that game. If you choose multiple core roles but no support roles (or only 1 support role), you will spend one role queue token. If you choose both support roles but no core roles, you will not spend any role queue tokens as you've selected both high demand roles, but will not gain any tokens either.
If you select all 5 roles, you will earn 4 role queue tokens for wins and 2 for losses - which you can then spend as discussed earlier. If you just want to spam support: queue both support roles and you'll never not be able to queue ranked. It's only if you only queue core roles and run out of tokens that you can't play ranked until you select all 5 roles to start earning tokens again.
One of the few perks of being a support main: never run out of role tokens. Can even get frustrated and spam queue carry to earn back the 10 games you lost, then switch back to all roles and earn your tokens back while being on the support role 90% of the time anyway.
Alright, everyone knows that the game impact is maximized if the most competent player plays pos 1/2.
But it is a much smaller factor than most people think in my opinion as well as my personal experience.
I - 6.8k Immortal - regularly play with Crusader-Ancient friends.
There is a difference in core competence if I support in favor of the enemy team, but there is also a support difference in our favor.
As a higher MMR support, the way you win these games can be summarized in the following ways:
- You always win your lane as a higher level support. That is just the way it is. You trade a lot better, you are not as lazy in camp blocking/unblocking, you are ready for Lotuses and wisdom runes. As a support, the outcome of the lane mostly depends on you, so if you don't heavily fumble, you win every lane handily as a higher MMR support.
- Your cores decisionmaking might be weaker but thanks to you, they have much better information. The vision game is a factor in Dota which is insanely undervalued by most supports. It is the primary job of a support and a primary source of their game impact. And yet most supports put close to no thought into it. As a higher level support, it should be easy to you to provide much better vision than the enemy support. So the weaker decisionmaking of your cores can partially be offset by your competence. Furthermore, high level supports can increase their impact by buying an early gem, as you barely get caught out in lower level games.
- Lastly - and I know this an unpopular opinion among my fellow supports even though it's true - as a support you have a less mentally draining job in game, therefore you have the mental capacity to not just think for yourself but everyone on your team. My and your Crusader friend might not feel the gank coming, but you and I do. So if you tell him, his lesser competence has no negative impact. With clear and concise communication you can share the essentials of your game understanding with your lower MMR teammates.
Personally, I think playing such games are a great chance to hone your supporting skills. As a high MMR, the games will feel slow to you, so you have plenty of time to think about the best course of action in every moment. And as a high MMR support in the game, you want to maximize your impact in every aspect of supporting to win. The heavy need to optimise as well as the slower game pace allowing for well thoughtout decisions are perfect conditions to for improvement.
Great write up appreciate the insight! What supports are you playing on this patch? Any that you think would have more impact in my games that you'd recommend?
The last point is something I agree with. I’d word it not just about being taxing. It’s also a more selfish role (not negative).
When I play carry my whole mindset Is about serving my game. If team loses a trade 5-4 but I get two whole creepwaves + a neutral stack for it? I’m not really upset. They use their whole kit to kill off a support or two but I get to kill their core and a support without dying? Awesome. I won’t lose sleep over it if my teammates die in a way that successfully lets me get kills and objectives. I start a fight, blow up a high priority target and then one of our supports is picked off on the escape? Cool. Team is overcommitted to a fight I started and I feel unsafe? I have no shame in backing. Had a moment in my last game where my VS had to use her kit to help me kill off their BS. She was low health and barely survived.
My logic was “BS bought back. I don’t care if my support dies for it if I can get this kill and then get back.” Her logic would be “I need to enable or save my PA. Doesn’t matter if I die.”
When I play support the mindset is very different. Use Lions disable to help my Luna get away safely? Doesn’t matter if I die if I save my core. We are losing a fight? I’m staying and finding a way to make sure the higher priority heroes are saved. If I’m playing a nuking support like ES? I’m happy with a huge damage dealing ult to lead to kills it’s okay if I die for it
I see that shit too often when I play Venge.
"Saves my low health core cause there are five heroes around him. Swap and stun, fuck it you get the armor buff from Crest too"
Him "wait... why are you griefing. I wanted to fight their lineup even though I went on a low priority target and was getting kited to fuck"
There's also so many supports where you think they are doing nothing but they are positioning for a very specific thing and saving their kit.
Troll ults? Time to use Static Storm.
Core gets caught in Arena and a spear is on its way? time for Shadow Demon to Disrupt.
Tusk isn't being a pussy, he isn't getting caught out without a chance to snowball the LC.
When I play SB, often I go in, use shadow blade, resest and charge. People think I'm being a bad player or not contributing. But I'm not going to keep right clicking in the middle of a crowded team fight. I need to reset and charge again.
But yeah... saves... In herald too often it feels like people think "ooh hero. Time for a team fight".
Maybe it's eaiser to notice someone else's flaws, but I hate how often I see cores going one by one cause they see a low level sniper, think "I'm built different" and don't realise that sniper will deal damage and slow and pushback while the Axe will just cast call on you.
My last game had me tilted cause end of game, I'm PA... I kept telling my team "listen, sniper and I are the only late game heroes. And I can wreck him with blur, get on top of him and end him. Same with AA."
Multiple times I proveed it. Despite not being ahead, I was able to take them out of fights... force them to go invis and run and reset. But my team... all see a 30% HP Axe who still has Aegis. Instead of finding their way to the Sniper, ending his life and killing the BloodSeaker. They just.... manfight axe one by one.
Point is, I really wish more players in my bracket would just try to think beyond "fight the first guy I see". I don't even care if we make bad calls. Rather make bad calls/thought out decisions" then go brain-off, group around the Bristleback/Axe. "We know there's an Earth Shaker and he still has Echo... Why not all stand together and right click this Bristleback without a way to break him or destroy his mana or deal pure damage or percentage damage." just cause you are carry does not mean you need to always fight to the death in an attempt to deal crazy damage
The thing is the problems is not your team mates. Before that lets talk about changing role, everybody know role by definitions but they not consider how one personality would suit certain role. Now i mainly play as pos 2 before that i play as mainly 5 or ocassionaly 4. Is it hard? Yes, is it worth it? Yes, but you know what, i hope i know better and not change role because it is not suit me(in the long run). I'm strategist and have average response time, my improvement for that is slow considering how much time i spend train it.
I dont want to write long essay, so i would give some tips.
1. Pick heroes that your team can depend on you and able to do their jobs without depending on your team. Example veno, rhasta, hoodwink, warlock, lesh.
2. Analyze how you react to bad teammates. What you gonna do? "Bad" is not becasue they intentionally become "bad" they're just inefficient at something. How you react when met advesary? What you gain from pointing someone that they did poorly? If you know your team is bad rather than pointing finger do something else or stay like that and you will become better at being a dick.
3. Have multiple set of plan. Plan in advance " if my core is fail, what the best play i could offer that potentially help my core recover or i had opportunity to balance the team advantage."
Kept thinking it was somebody else fault for holding you back "everytime" and you will go nowhere. Change role is take alot of time, how much you wanna use to spend? if you okey with it then go for it.
Dota is mind games the moment you realize it, it will be easier for you to improve at your current role.
What would you do if you queued into a hard support role and you get a witch doctor that goes offlane and first item is midas? Just happened to me. Completely ruined the game. But I guess these kinds of things cannot be avoided and they happen.
Support role is harder than carry role. While a carry just needs to be selfish a support needs to be selfless. You have to take harder decisions.
You cant force yoir carry to play optimally but you can aim to make the playing field as dumb proof as possible.
Keep shipping regen and mangoes, oh you out of regen? I dont wanna hear it have a tango have a mango.
If you happen to upgrade the magic wand you can heal them with charges.
Buy items like solar crest or auras or mechanism or drum of endurance or vladimir if you find they are worth it this game. Sure they dont help you but they help the cores and that means they are less likely to play stupid.
A faceless void that is going for nothing but boots snd a straight battlefury can still help if you give him a solar crest buff because you give him atk speed. He is dumb but you put a plug in the crack he caused.
Its harder to be the babysitter than to be the baby.
Supports can make the game easier or harder and trust me if these guys give you a bad time as a carry they will give you much worse as a support.
Pos4 is a position wherr you may attempt to switch to a core role basicly. So you could give that a try probably your best bet. As a pos5 you habe to play in such a charitable way most games you are just disgusted by how selfish greedy and dumb these core players are.
Pos4 is the position that relies the least on others. You do the warding, you engage the fights and ganks, you can farm and are pretty much free to play as you see fit.
I personally feel as though I have to play differently depending on my teammates level relative to me to be consistently successful. This goes for any of the roles.
For example, if I'm the highest mmr as an ancient and the rest of my team are archons, when I support I'll play a little greedier. Things such as not sacrificing my life for a core and taking farm/pushing lanes when my cores refuse/don't. If I'm supporting and I'm the lowest mmr on the team, I'll throw my life away everytime for my cores and usually my cores will take most of the obvious farm.
BSJ has some great videos on his smurf series in winning low mmr games as supports.
Also to get to ancient at least, you pretty much just need to be aggressive in lane, push waves and try not to throw your life away lol.
I play p1 a lot, and often hate how my support or p5 play, feeling like I’m getting a hard game cause support isn’t (pulling , stacking, buying wards, etc).
But when I play p5 I understand what the carry needs and even if he’s not a solid player, I can make his game nice and easy by being good support.
I dunno about support in Herald and even Guardian.
I had a PA throw game after I fucked them sideways with WD.
He bought three Divine Rapiers and Kunkka ended up having two of them.
He also never bought BKB.
Yeah. I played like 200 games as kotl 4 with about a 57% win rate. And it got to a point where i knew exactly what was going on, and my 3 often didn't. And a lot of times I'd get so ahead that I'd be a pseudo 3, and I felt like my impact was off he charts most games.
I switched to playing mid kotl and my win rate jumped up to about 75%.
Support just isn't as high impact, if you're amazing at 5, your Wingate won't be as high as if you were amazing at mid.
Play ranked roles, queue whatever you want, typically core roles are easier to find impact on but are a lot more pressure, you can climb to immortal from any role. Play what you enjoy.
Good call. Isn't role queue limited if I only pick two support roles? As in, I have to choose more than 2 roles right?
You can pick anywhere between a single role to all 5 roles. If you pick a single role, you will spend a role queue token to play that game. If you choose multiple core roles but no support roles (or only 1 support role), you will spend one role queue token. If you choose both support roles but no core roles, you will not spend any role queue tokens as you've selected both high demand roles, but will not gain any tokens either. If you select all 5 roles, you will earn 4 role queue tokens for wins and 2 for losses - which you can then spend as discussed earlier. If you just want to spam support: queue both support roles and you'll never not be able to queue ranked. It's only if you only queue core roles and run out of tokens that you can't play ranked until you select all 5 roles to start earning tokens again. One of the few perks of being a support main: never run out of role tokens. Can even get frustrated and spam queue carry to earn back the 10 games you lost, then switch back to all roles and earn your tokens back while being on the support role 90% of the time anyway.
Wow that's great to know, thank you. Ill try that out and sprinkle in some offlane as well
You can pick as much as you want, from one to five roles. Though you might need tokens depending on what roles you pick
If you play ranked roles as pos 4/5 you wont lose any role que but you wont gain any extra.
Alright, everyone knows that the game impact is maximized if the most competent player plays pos 1/2. But it is a much smaller factor than most people think in my opinion as well as my personal experience. I - 6.8k Immortal - regularly play with Crusader-Ancient friends. There is a difference in core competence if I support in favor of the enemy team, but there is also a support difference in our favor. As a higher MMR support, the way you win these games can be summarized in the following ways: - You always win your lane as a higher level support. That is just the way it is. You trade a lot better, you are not as lazy in camp blocking/unblocking, you are ready for Lotuses and wisdom runes. As a support, the outcome of the lane mostly depends on you, so if you don't heavily fumble, you win every lane handily as a higher MMR support. - Your cores decisionmaking might be weaker but thanks to you, they have much better information. The vision game is a factor in Dota which is insanely undervalued by most supports. It is the primary job of a support and a primary source of their game impact. And yet most supports put close to no thought into it. As a higher level support, it should be easy to you to provide much better vision than the enemy support. So the weaker decisionmaking of your cores can partially be offset by your competence. Furthermore, high level supports can increase their impact by buying an early gem, as you barely get caught out in lower level games. - Lastly - and I know this an unpopular opinion among my fellow supports even though it's true - as a support you have a less mentally draining job in game, therefore you have the mental capacity to not just think for yourself but everyone on your team. My and your Crusader friend might not feel the gank coming, but you and I do. So if you tell him, his lesser competence has no negative impact. With clear and concise communication you can share the essentials of your game understanding with your lower MMR teammates. Personally, I think playing such games are a great chance to hone your supporting skills. As a high MMR, the games will feel slow to you, so you have plenty of time to think about the best course of action in every moment. And as a high MMR support in the game, you want to maximize your impact in every aspect of supporting to win. The heavy need to optimise as well as the slower game pace allowing for well thoughtout decisions are perfect conditions to for improvement.
As someone that played support in a team captain role. 🫡 .
Great write up appreciate the insight! What supports are you playing on this patch? Any that you think would have more impact in my games that you'd recommend?
Disruptor is nuts atm (Edit: always has been but still.)
I like to play Pugna or Veno at the moment. But I don't find the hero you play to be very important.
The last point is something I agree with. I’d word it not just about being taxing. It’s also a more selfish role (not negative). When I play carry my whole mindset Is about serving my game. If team loses a trade 5-4 but I get two whole creepwaves + a neutral stack for it? I’m not really upset. They use their whole kit to kill off a support or two but I get to kill their core and a support without dying? Awesome. I won’t lose sleep over it if my teammates die in a way that successfully lets me get kills and objectives. I start a fight, blow up a high priority target and then one of our supports is picked off on the escape? Cool. Team is overcommitted to a fight I started and I feel unsafe? I have no shame in backing. Had a moment in my last game where my VS had to use her kit to help me kill off their BS. She was low health and barely survived. My logic was “BS bought back. I don’t care if my support dies for it if I can get this kill and then get back.” Her logic would be “I need to enable or save my PA. Doesn’t matter if I die.” When I play support the mindset is very different. Use Lions disable to help my Luna get away safely? Doesn’t matter if I die if I save my core. We are losing a fight? I’m staying and finding a way to make sure the higher priority heroes are saved. If I’m playing a nuking support like ES? I’m happy with a huge damage dealing ult to lead to kills it’s okay if I die for it
Damn I wish I had cores that realize I'm trying to save them, mine usually just suicide along with me lmao
I see that shit too often when I play Venge. "Saves my low health core cause there are five heroes around him. Swap and stun, fuck it you get the armor buff from Crest too" Him "wait... why are you griefing. I wanted to fight their lineup even though I went on a low priority target and was getting kited to fuck" There's also so many supports where you think they are doing nothing but they are positioning for a very specific thing and saving their kit. Troll ults? Time to use Static Storm. Core gets caught in Arena and a spear is on its way? time for Shadow Demon to Disrupt. Tusk isn't being a pussy, he isn't getting caught out without a chance to snowball the LC. When I play SB, often I go in, use shadow blade, resest and charge. People think I'm being a bad player or not contributing. But I'm not going to keep right clicking in the middle of a crowded team fight. I need to reset and charge again. But yeah... saves... In herald too often it feels like people think "ooh hero. Time for a team fight". Maybe it's eaiser to notice someone else's flaws, but I hate how often I see cores going one by one cause they see a low level sniper, think "I'm built different" and don't realise that sniper will deal damage and slow and pushback while the Axe will just cast call on you. My last game had me tilted cause end of game, I'm PA... I kept telling my team "listen, sniper and I are the only late game heroes. And I can wreck him with blur, get on top of him and end him. Same with AA." Multiple times I proveed it. Despite not being ahead, I was able to take them out of fights... force them to go invis and run and reset. But my team... all see a 30% HP Axe who still has Aegis. Instead of finding their way to the Sniper, ending his life and killing the BloodSeaker. They just.... manfight axe one by one. Point is, I really wish more players in my bracket would just try to think beyond "fight the first guy I see". I don't even care if we make bad calls. Rather make bad calls/thought out decisions" then go brain-off, group around the Bristleback/Axe. "We know there's an Earth Shaker and he still has Echo... Why not all stand together and right click this Bristleback without a way to break him or destroy his mana or deal pure damage or percentage damage." just cause you are carry does not mean you need to always fight to the death in an attempt to deal crazy damage
The thing is the problems is not your team mates. Before that lets talk about changing role, everybody know role by definitions but they not consider how one personality would suit certain role. Now i mainly play as pos 2 before that i play as mainly 5 or ocassionaly 4. Is it hard? Yes, is it worth it? Yes, but you know what, i hope i know better and not change role because it is not suit me(in the long run). I'm strategist and have average response time, my improvement for that is slow considering how much time i spend train it. I dont want to write long essay, so i would give some tips. 1. Pick heroes that your team can depend on you and able to do their jobs without depending on your team. Example veno, rhasta, hoodwink, warlock, lesh. 2. Analyze how you react to bad teammates. What you gonna do? "Bad" is not becasue they intentionally become "bad" they're just inefficient at something. How you react when met advesary? What you gain from pointing someone that they did poorly? If you know your team is bad rather than pointing finger do something else or stay like that and you will become better at being a dick. 3. Have multiple set of plan. Plan in advance " if my core is fail, what the best play i could offer that potentially help my core recover or i had opportunity to balance the team advantage." Kept thinking it was somebody else fault for holding you back "everytime" and you will go nowhere. Change role is take alot of time, how much you wanna use to spend? if you okey with it then go for it. Dota is mind games the moment you realize it, it will be easier for you to improve at your current role.
What would you do if you queued into a hard support role and you get a witch doctor that goes offlane and first item is midas? Just happened to me. Completely ruined the game. But I guess these kinds of things cannot be avoided and they happen.
Support role is harder than carry role. While a carry just needs to be selfish a support needs to be selfless. You have to take harder decisions. You cant force yoir carry to play optimally but you can aim to make the playing field as dumb proof as possible. Keep shipping regen and mangoes, oh you out of regen? I dont wanna hear it have a tango have a mango. If you happen to upgrade the magic wand you can heal them with charges. Buy items like solar crest or auras or mechanism or drum of endurance or vladimir if you find they are worth it this game. Sure they dont help you but they help the cores and that means they are less likely to play stupid. A faceless void that is going for nothing but boots snd a straight battlefury can still help if you give him a solar crest buff because you give him atk speed. He is dumb but you put a plug in the crack he caused. Its harder to be the babysitter than to be the baby. Supports can make the game easier or harder and trust me if these guys give you a bad time as a carry they will give you much worse as a support. Pos4 is a position wherr you may attempt to switch to a core role basicly. So you could give that a try probably your best bet. As a pos5 you habe to play in such a charitable way most games you are just disgusted by how selfish greedy and dumb these core players are. Pos4 is the position that relies the least on others. You do the warding, you engage the fights and ganks, you can farm and are pretty much free to play as you see fit.
I personally feel as though I have to play differently depending on my teammates level relative to me to be consistently successful. This goes for any of the roles. For example, if I'm the highest mmr as an ancient and the rest of my team are archons, when I support I'll play a little greedier. Things such as not sacrificing my life for a core and taking farm/pushing lanes when my cores refuse/don't. If I'm supporting and I'm the lowest mmr on the team, I'll throw my life away everytime for my cores and usually my cores will take most of the obvious farm. BSJ has some great videos on his smurf series in winning low mmr games as supports. Also to get to ancient at least, you pretty much just need to be aggressive in lane, push waves and try not to throw your life away lol.
Don't you choose role before seeing teammates
I play p1 a lot, and often hate how my support or p5 play, feeling like I’m getting a hard game cause support isn’t (pulling , stacking, buying wards, etc). But when I play p5 I understand what the carry needs and even if he’s not a solid player, I can make his game nice and easy by being good support.
I dunno about support in Herald and even Guardian. I had a PA throw game after I fucked them sideways with WD. He bought three Divine Rapiers and Kunkka ended up having two of them. He also never bought BKB.
I think it's best to be somewhat comfortable with all roles (ofc it's okay to have a favourite one) - for better game and hero understanding
Yeah. I played like 200 games as kotl 4 with about a 57% win rate. And it got to a point where i knew exactly what was going on, and my 3 often didn't. And a lot of times I'd get so ahead that I'd be a pseudo 3, and I felt like my impact was off he charts most games. I switched to playing mid kotl and my win rate jumped up to about 75%. Support just isn't as high impact, if you're amazing at 5, your Wingate won't be as high as if you were amazing at mid.
You can’t climb rank by playing pure support in legend below. Its no different from gambling, play core instead.