Amoral's Ranked Support Guide

Firstly you will need to Sentry Ward the objective if your team doesn't already have one on it. You want to make sure an enemy Ward of any kind is on the Gold Fury or Fire Giant. If there is, and you don't remove it, the enemy has clear vision on you and your team during the objective.

Consider placing Sentries just outside of center to catch wards placed in different areas. If you've picked up the Bracer of Radiance, the upgraded version can be used as a 2nd Sentry to help spot and clear more wards.

Also consider warding the enemy's jungle outside of the objective area; this can help spot enemies approaching, giving your team time to decide how to respond.

Enemies without relics are much less safe and can't take as many risks. Look for a 'pick' if you are able to burn relics via strong CC or help get a kill or two before attempting the objective. This will usually keep the enemy from pressing, so your team can kill the objective with less pressure.

• Example #1: you are Hercules Support, and the Solo-Laner is Chang'e (which you'll see often in lower ranks]. You have more CC and will be the better choice to zone.
  
  
• Example #2: you are Bacchus, and the Solo-Laner is King Arthur. This one is a bit more difficult to determine, and in the end both of you may need to zone. While King Arthur has some CC, he can only take one enemy out of play with a fully-charged ult, but he also provides consistent damage while being tanky and can harass enemies before they get close to the objective. As Bacchus, you have some CC and good damage. If Arthur decides to zone, you may need to step away if the enemy continues to approach, or if more than one enemy is nearing the objective.

Proper target selection is a difficult concept for a lot of players. When 5 enemies are running at them, people often freak out and are unsure of who to focus.

Your main job as a Support is to peel for the back line (your Mid & ADC). You want to keep the enemy Solo and Jungler from going on them. When a team fight starts make sure you are somewhat close to both, and do your best to keep tabs on which of your teammates had to use their relics. This way you know who needs more babysitting. If the enemy is not really diving your carries, you can move forward with your front liners and help to CC the enemy so that your teammates can kill them easier. Just make sure if the enemy does go on one of them, you stop diving with your front line, and go back to the carries, and peel that enemy off.

Outside of team fights, while you are laning and / or roaming through the early-mid game you need to be looking to either punish a bad god pick by bullying them at their buff, or just forcing them to use their relics. As an example, Hercules is a great god at doing this since your CC can heavily displace the enemy and your base damage is high, often forcing them to use Purification Beads or potentially die. If someone states that an enemy has used Beads, you should be looking to focus that target as they are much easier to kill now than they were with their Beads up.

Remember most games will have 1 player that is easily worse than the rest, especially in ranked. You can abuse them early for an easy lead that you can then use to punish the best player on the enemy team.

This is my personal tier list that is based on the usefulness of the individual god's kit, not on their current viability due to itemization and other changing aspects. The tiers should be self-explanatory based on the titles, but if you have any questions please feel free to ask.

Alright so its time to slam ranked, obviously your first thought is going to be 'I am a support main, I am going to que support!' I will highly advise you against this, and I'lll explain why.

At this MMR range, not only will you be matched with players that belong in this range, but also every person who is trying ranked for the first time will be in this queue...and yes, there will be countless players who are just reaching level 30 and think playing Ranked is a good idea, and they one-trick one god in every role. Your best bet is to hard carry your first several games. Queue up these games as Jungle / Mid if possible, as these are the roles that are likely to have the most impact when skill levels are suspect.

Now I know what you're thinking, "I don't know how to play this role, or I'm not good at it." I understand, and agree with you, these are not my most comfortable roles, but they are the best for carrying your early games. Here are examples of the gods you should be playing, and why.

• Jungle - Thanatos is a low Elo/MMR ranked stomper. No matter who your team has, or who the enemy is, this god is really, really strong, and right now there is a very strong build for him that lets you fight anyone and not fall off late. Sam4Soccer builds Manikin Scepter -> Jotunn's Wrath -> Hydra's Lament -> Serrated Edge -> Titan's Bane -> Bloodforge // Upgrade Manikin Hidden Blade. For your level order start 1-3-1-2-4, and max your skills in this order: 1-2-4-3.
  
  
• Mid-Lane: Zhong Kui this god plays itself, you do not have to be a mid-laner to stomp with this character. The build for him would Vampiric Shroud -> Charon's Coin -> Spear of the Magus -> Soul Gem -> Typhon's Fang -> Soul Reaver // upgrade to Sacrificial Shroud. For your level order start 1-3-2-1-4 , and max your skills in this order: 1-3-2-4

• Support Suggestions: Fenrir or Hercules. Remember that you will almost always have to do everything yourself. This is not the MMR to slam Sobek because the odds of your team following up off your Pluck is not very likely, however on the other 2 I mentioned you can build them supportive, and actually kill the enemy.

Now that you have most likely hard-carried yourself up this far, you are deep in Plat lobbies, and starting to get Diamond players here and there in your games. This is a dangerous area, and most likely where you will get stuck for a while. A good majority of these players are still mediocre and inconsistent, and many (undeserved) big egos live here. Its just high enough MMR that some weaker players can still reach it, so the toxic egos will farm them and think they are the best, but then the next game they will go 0-10 and blame their team because they were inting but won't admit because they think they are the next SPL player. So..."What do I do?"

Hold down your mental state, and keep going. You are not high enough MMR to fully switch to playing your preferred Support role. When you DO get Support, you can be a bit more open with your picks here, but you still want to be that aggressive Support because you should still be able to farm the enemy. Ymir and Sobek are good gods here, because they are great at punishing the enemy for overextending, and they have great tools for setup with your team.

This MMR is not much different than the 1500 lobbies, and you will most likely have to put in a lot of work to do well in this MMR because your team will refuse to win. Believe it or not, but people will just refuse to win if their pride is hurt. Keep your head on straight, and power through. The Jungle / Mid picks should still be happening here as they will carry games here.

You've done it, you've farmed your way up into the Diamond lobbies. Its time to officially role swap from Jungle / Mid to Support / whatever. These lobbies will be better than the lobbies you had by a long shot, HOWERVER that is not without fault. There are players in this MMR range who are great mechanically, but have the worst attitudes you've ever seen, and will baby rage at the smallest things. So remember to keep your cool, and mute them. At this MMR whatever Support pick you want should work, whether you're an aggressive Ymir or a backline Khepri.

Once you've reached the Diamond 3 area of your run to Masters, you will start seeing a lot more lower MMR Masters players in your lobbies, and typically this is a good thing, as most Masters players do not want low MMR, so they do tend to try harder, and a lot of players will be D2-D1 area, and looking to promote into Masters so they will also be trying much harder.

Good luck on your run, and I hope you find success!