The issue with playing a good support is that you need to be in a "real" game to actually learn how to do it.
Pub games really don't prepare players to support. You just don't get any tri-lane vs tri-lane experience, or real roaming vs enemy roaming experience. There is also very few chances to get experience being underleveled as a support in the mid to late game, where your CC is key, but you have no items to help you. You wont know to intentionally stay just far enough away from your carry not to take his xp, but close enough to protect him.
That stuff seems to advance for you anyway, no offense.
The best suggestion i can make is to watch pro games, learn all your ward spots, and learn to do things with your down time. If you have nothing better to do, stack, babysit, scout your enemies items, watch the mini-map like a hawk and practice monitoring enemy supports for counter warding.
As for your item questions, you need to call out that you are going mek, or look at what your team is building, or just ask. Its also a matter of knowing which heroes will do so. There is more to support than just mek and pipe though. You can urn or drums or force staff for example.
I do watch a lot of games (mostly purge), but that does give me an idea or two on things to do. I'm getting better at looking at enemy items and trying to get better at warding. I do feel that being underleveled (which happens often) is really, really a detriment when I'm getting focused out the ass.
Just saw your edit. Most of those seem to be standard, and I hate running with just one, if that makes sense. If one support happens to die early, then you're left without a mek for example. But is that maybe the price one pays and it can be made up for in other areas?
I have never seen anyone advocating purchasing more than one mek or pipe for a team. Even multiple urns is suspect.
Multiple forcestaffs are fine.
Play more lich. Easy, great in pubs, and you have high win rate with him.
I figured as much in regards to mek, which is why I asked that question. Good to know on forcestaffs. I'm really enjoying tidehunter lately, as his ulti is great. I'm still at the point where I'm learning how to play certain heroes, and playing mostly SD/RD to get out of my comfort zone slash learn new heroes.
good support is the one who buy ward, keep the carry alive most of the time and not feed death much
best support is the one who can keep russian carry alive, thats it
1st rule of support , never playe alone !
and then some minor rules like only die if really necesarry(dieing is forbiden at all times!)
Re: Never play alone.
Should I roam at that point, or try and farm? That's where I run into issues.
if you want to improve supporting, go join a league like IXDL or ESP. supporting in pubs is really weird and wrong.
If you go into IXDL-O let them know at the drafting screen you are support and you're new to comp level play. You'll get people ranting but ignore them. Just ask where they want wards and what they want you to do.
Vaikiss means you should stack. Stack is the term for playing with teams
Edit: just looked up IXDL-O. Interesting.
Watch your own replays. Realize your mistakes or have friends point them out for you, what you should of done, what you can do better, positioning, dewarding, checking player inventories. Etc.
I usually watch a random game or two of mine per night with a friend, just looking over what we could have done better. Everyone has room for improvement, game is hard.
Melody - Most of those are my problem as i'm usually too worried about gameplay and not messing up there.
So true, unless you are in a 5 stack or team. Don't bother playing support must unless you are last 2 pickers and the team well all carry. Too many times I've seen double stuns casted same time and double hex. When all the allies gotta do is wait 2 seconds for the spell to almost wear off.
I wouldn't recommend IXDL open league myself, just starting out you are rated 80% above every person on that server. With 3 losses, which may or not be your fault. Which I blame captain's drafting, would net you already in the bottom 5% of the player pool.
Bob_002
I play US East in the night and you're welcome to play with me sometimes if you would like.
[1] Stack as much as possible. It's nearly impossible to learn coordination and teamwork if the players keep changing.
[2] Keep playing those ranked games. Support play make a lot more sense when a team is trying to win rather than just playing a fun, casual game.
[3] Pick out your best 3 supports and play them lots of games. Don't pick other heroes for a while... like a month or the next 300 games etc. To learn how to see the map and think about the timing for wards, smokes. ganks, etc... all that requires that you do not need to think about how to use your hero. If you have not practiced your hero to the point that it happens without thinking, then you won't be able to think about the things a support needs to think about.
[4] Buy wards/dust/smoke whenever you don't have them and they are not on cd. Just have them in inventory. Then when you see a chance to use them you are prepared. Place wards with a specific purpose. Think about what you want each ward to do.
[5] Always be aware of the clock. This is hard, but often a support is going from one place to another or waiting for a gank to happen etc... During this time you can stack the nearest camp. Doing this will fix your bad carries failed farming. Once you have 3+ stacks on a camp, tell the carry. Otherwise he many never notice. Carries in your games will be bad. They need a lot of help.
[6] If you have an extra bit of gold, buy a salve. It might save you or let a friend return to a fight instead of walking back to base. A simple salve can win fights and the game and costs almost nothing. Mech and Pipe are great, but they are expensive. Lots of games you won't be able to afford them for most of the game.
Master Rhasta, Lion & Lina three of the most funniest heroes to play in pubs. Other than that master harder supports such as rubrick, chen and shadow demon. A very good support can keep up wards/sentry and get his core items too. Honestly playing support is only as fun as getting rewarded by a win by helping your carry dominate and carry the game.
I play 90% support and here is a trick that has helped me.
Download an interval timer on your phone or use one on a browser. Set it to make a beep every 1 min. Start the timer at around the 38-42 second mark of the minute just before the creeps come out. That beep will remind you that .53 is close and you will never forget to stack a camp again. Sounds lame as hell but its easy to forget stack times are approaching when playing.
That might really help. RM Lordy. I find that it can be hard to keep track of the time with everything else going on.
Here is an example game I just played if you want to see how to keep all the wards going and such while barely farming.
http://dotabuff.com/matches/427716969 Download the replay and watch my perspective. Its possible to have a big impact on the game with almost no cs with the right hero. Taking very little farm is important for a support because there is only so much to go around and the carry heroes need it or they are too weak.
In this game I am an aggressive support so I don't do any stacking. Heroes like Veno need to be either trying to kill someone or defending a tower/hero/position. Its important to be active all the time if not hiding, waiting to gank.
While its true that not dying is important, there are many circumstances where a support should make the choice to die to achieve an objective. In a teamfight getting off a good combo is often more important for a support than staying alive. Because your items are very limited it is likely that doing your job can only be achieved at the expense of all your hp.
dont go rhatsa rly not, it need skills not to feed.
play smting like lion cm and lina, roatate those for 100 games
Relentless - That actually gave me some better ideas. Stacking was one thing I'm curious about doing more of. Mostly as to when it should be done, if that makes sense. I also finally realized that taking last hits wasn't a good thing, as well. I'll also watch that replay.
I'm guessing Rhasta is Witch Doctor, and I enjoy playing him and have done pretty well with him int he past. I'd say my three best are probably KOTL, WD, and then split between Tide or Lich. I haven't played enough Lion to be remotely good at him and it's the same with CM.
Havoc Badger - I added you.
Rhasta is actually Shadow Shaman. This hero is also harder to play than most supports because he is slow, low hp, low armor, and worse yet his cast range is short. I think Witch Doctor is an easier choice to learn.
If you do want to play Shadow Shaman go for pushing items and level up your nuke to flash farm and push. Try to find a way to cast your ult in range where is can hit a tower every time you cast it and try to do this every cd. Its nice to get ward traps, but usually is more important to get towers.
I don't know why I didn't know that. Yes, I'm TERRIBLE with him. My timing is whack when I play him, I know that much. But, that probably plays into not being comfortable with him.
Play Crystal maiden, get that mana regen aura, wards/sentires, mek, portals to jump in and then assist with ganks, so easy to play.......
I think I also need to learn to better balance my aggression. That was really my downfall in my earliest games. And while I've managed to tone it down a lot, it is still there a lot of times and a huge detriment.
no no... CM is not "so easy to play"
If your game goes bad a CM without experience will feed incredibly hard.
Relentless's advice is great, also the minute timer is a really good idea.
There are a lot of nuance things you can do to help win the laning phase which can make a big difference to the outcome of the game.
Stuff like juking back and forwards within ranged attack range of the opposition support to make them step forward to hit you when you're already moving back out of their range, then turning around to hit them when they retreat again. Every time you get a hit on them without them getting a hit on you is a win.
When moving forward to attack their support or carry, you should usually only click to attack on the hero when you are already in range to attack them, otherwise if you click directly on them then you will drag all the creep in the lane onto you. Ideally, you will click on the ground near them to approach, attack from the same side of the creep wave where you creep are, then click back on the ground again immediately after to drop creep aggro.
Not taking the carries' farm is very important, as is denying. Sometimes you will need to juke attacks to get a deny in. Sometimes if 2 creep are losing health at the same rate and are about to die simultaneously, it may be beneficial to throw an attack on one to allow your carry to last hit them sequentially (usually only if hes a right clicker not a nuke farmer like weaver.)
If your carry is going to miss a last hit because takign it would require him to be in a dangerous position, then by all means you should take it if safe to do so. You need to grab any last hits he cannot get. If he leaves lane to buy, and a creep will die, grab it.
Pulling is done for 2 main reasons; 1 to keep the creep wave closer to your tower and thus make farming safer for your carry, and 2, to kill off your own wave with the neutrals to deny xp to the enemy heros. If you are already stuck in a defensive position under your tower, pulling is unnecessary and typically not helpful.
Communicate! If your lane is struggling, ask for a gank. If no gank is forthcoming, look at the other lane matchups and see how you might be able to create one in another lane. Often people are more willing to help you win your lane after they have won their own (this is selfish pragmatism more than good play.) If your carry is against a solo and you've zoned the solo out long enough for your carry to be able to safely farm in the lane without you, leave a ward in the jungle for him and rotate to another lane to help elsewhere.
So much more....
Read lots of guides!
I actually started figuring a lot of what you just recommended out in the last week or so. It does make my leveling and item pickups slower, but I also figure it works in the end because the carry gets farmed that much quicker if done right. I AM having issues on knowing when to right click and missing the CS, but I'm getting a bit "better" about it.
The info relating to harassing is highly beneficial, as well and makes complete sense.
3 game losing streak last night didn't help. Although in one we got straight outplayed via Io + CK (now I see why that combo is so damn rough).
The AP tide game I played sucked, but they had a TON of AoE dmg. Bristle + DP + Veno + CM.
Havoc - didn't see you on. And when I went to message, i think the dota servers were messing up at that point or something.
Vai - I did play a game or two with friends, just not a 5 stack.
I will say that some of all of your advice has helped. Save the windranger game I played. That game was just plain horrible.
Both the axe game and the Slardar game I played last night (people ended up picking supports, sooooooo), I'm seeing some definite areas where I should've changed things.
The Slardar game I should've gone BKB. Biggest problem there was lack of mobility in the endgame, and I feel that would've helped. That and a little better on the initiations. The Axe game, well I"m still figuring out how to play him. After playing against him last night and seeing what the opposing player was doing to control me, I have a much better understanding on his mechanics, as well.
slardar axe are not easy lol
basically all tank initiator heroes kind of need farmed items like blink dagger and so on
you need someone to support you lol
And farm don't mean you should sit there and farm all time, that sucks because you gonna get out farmed by enemy carry if they know how to play. That said you need both gank and farm, they are not easy to achieve at same time lol
I did fairly well with Slardar. I sucked balls with Axe. My initiations on Axe were really poor. They were just poor on Slardar, this time. It's a learning process, and thankfully, I'm learning.
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I play support the larger majority of the time and essentially want to be better slash win more. Now, I already know I'm doing some things wrong (like play aggressive or double up on Mek).
So, in lieu of working on the aggression, as I need to learn when to quit, is taking Pipe a better choice if Mek is built? I tend to follow guides as I'm still learning, but I also feel there are times when other items are better served than what is given in them (that much I do know).
I'd say feel free to shit all over my badness, but I figure that's a given.