Dota 2 Support Guide: The Best Tips to Become a Perfect Support

As we know, Dota 2 rules are straightforward - two teams fight each other to determine the best one. Yet it is widely believed that the winning team can only be a success if each and every team member understands exactly what he needs to do and how. This includes in-depth knowledge in each role, and what are the pros and cons of his hero, etc.

However, a successful hero, it’s only the part to become a winner. Your team needs to be a united mechanism, and today we will detail one crucial aspect of this - Support. This role is both unique and one of the most challenging in Dota 2, but incredibly useful for all the teammates. We have collected in this Dota 2 Support guide 13 pieces of advice that will together help you to become an excellent Dota 2 support. Let’s check them out!

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1. Realize Who You Are

Each position in Dota 2 has strategy and actions attached for each part of the game. Understanding what you need to do and when will help you to be useful during the whole match and even predict the enemy’s movements. If you read this article, you may understand what the support is doing in the game, but let’s repeat the basic things to realize who you are.

Supports’ character allows teammates to feel comfortable, creating the conditions for this right from the early stages to the late game. He makes a stack in the jungle camp, harrases enemies to save core-heroes, and distributes and sets up different consumables (health banks, wards, etc.) Your role is to support (sounds excellent) your team winning however you can.

2. Baby-sit Your Carry

As we know, support players need to customize their game style depending on the global strategy and other teammates’ playstyles. While the main idea is the same in each game - basically support must create opportunities for other players to grow in their characters and farm necessary items. It doesn’t matter how you achieve this, but your core-heroes must be more potent than their enemies.

You can’t take away gold and experience from your carry or mid laner. In the first 20-30 minutes, they need it more than you. Also, many carry-characters require baby-sitting and can’t stand up to enemies alone. Strong carry is a huge investment to your potential winning - remember it.

3. Abuse Your Jungle

The laning stage is essential and one of the crucial parts of the game. But there is a straightforward way to improve it for you and your teammates - stack your jungle camps. Camps of creeps are based in the jungle, but it isn’t practical to farm it instead of the laning creeps. But if you stack more than one camp, your carry will get more proficient from farming, and also you’ll get an extra exp of each camp.

It’s easy to do it, but you need to control not only the lane but the jungle too. Each camp has the timing to pull and stack the neutral creeps. In the video above, you can find all the timings and a strategy on how to do it. It will make your carry stronger even without killing the enemies.

4. Support Has More than Two Eyes

Don’t forget about warding the map to avoid stealing your jungle camps and enemy attacks. The observer ward is placed in an excellent position and can save your team from an unexpected attack or help you to gain superiority over the enemy. But before placing wards in a random place, watch this guide.

5. Block Enemy Camps

Wards allow you not only to make your vision bigger but also to bite the enemy’s economics. Your opponents can abuse the jungle as easily as you, however, you can also interfere with them. Place your sentry or observer wards near the enemy’s camps, and it’ll be blocked for the nest respawns. Only the way to unlock the camp is to place a sentry ward there and destroy the opponent’s ward.

6. Harass Your Enemies

“A good enemy - is a dead enemy.” - said a Chinese proverb. It also can be applied to Dota 2. A support character can’t kill a core enemy hero by himself, but he can make his life more stressful and challenging. It can be achieved by non-stop attacking, pulling the jungle creeps, stealing the runes, etc. These will make a problem for your enemies and could be devastating for their economics in the long run.

In 2013 Valve released a new system that allowed players to find equal teammates and enemies - it’s all about ranks.

7. Don’t Be the Epicenter of the Battle

As usual, support characters are subtle heroes with a small health point bar. That’s why they can’t be in the epicenter of the battle. The player who’s playing the support character needs to use as many abilities as possible during the fight. If one ability is used in the right place and the right time, it can increase the chance of winning.

It might seem hard to choose the right place, but the best one is a shadowy place where the enemies won’t see you and you can use all of your abilities. Don’t go over the top with your aggression, and try to use all of your skills sensibly.

8. Don’t Spare Money

It must be admitted that playing support can be a poor role financially. These characters spend all of their money on different types of consumables. Whatever, don’t be sad, it’s an excellent way to spend money. Don’t spare a significant sum, buy new consumables: wards, branches of three, health and mana potions, etc. All of these things can be a small stepping stone to your victory.

9. Give the Information

The ability to press your keys isn’t enough to be successful in Dota 2. Another vital side of the coin is your soft skills. Good interaction with your teammates will put you head and shoulders above your enemies, especially if you can understand their movements and predict the attacks. If you want to become a winner in this game, you need to give as much information as possible.

10. Follow the Timings

Supports have more free time to manage the mini-map and all of the enemy movements. It sounds sad, but it’s true. At the laning stage, core players need to pay more attention to creeps and enemies. But someone has to follow the timing of different aspects of the game: runes, shrines, Roshan’s respawn, camps of neutral creeps, etc. All these tasks are completed by the support players. A short but useful piece of advice - note all the timings in the allies’ chat. It will be helpful if other players don’t miss important events. Also, with the right timings, you can take your enemies by surprise.

11. Don’t Leave the Lane Empty

It isn’t easy to farm money when you’re playing as support. You leave all of the farm to your carry and spend your time preparing other useful things. But where to make money? There’s one thing that won’t interfere with your carry but will allow farming extra money. Don’t leave your lane empty when your teammates switch to other places. After 3-4 min you can get enough cash and exp to buy something and upgrade some of your skills. Do something, move around the map, and try to find yourself.

12. Don’t Dramatize Your Death

You may have realized many different things by the time you’ll have finished this article. Some of them will make you sad, including this one - you must die many times, especially if your carry is in dangerous situations. But your death is something to be expected, don’t worry about it.

For your team will be better if you die instead of your carry, who tries to collect money for the critical item, and can’t wait for it in the tavern. Someone needs to be a victim, and in many cases, support plays a part in this role.

13. Follow the Pro Players

It sounds overused, but this tip is critical. Each movement you find in pro players gameplay can be implemented into your own play style. It’ll confuse your enemies and make your skills more flexible and unconventional. Professionals spend thousands of hours to find all in-game details and solutions from various situations. It’s necessary to follow tournaments and pro players streams if you want to become a high-skilled player.

Follow these tips, and become the best support. It won’t give you the highest rank in Dota 2, but you’ll realize the potential to become better. Don’t forget to be sensible and non-toxic because at the end of the day it’s just a game. We feed it our emotions and hope that the outcome will be positive.

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