Dota 2: Hard Support Guide for New Players

We will continue the series on roles in Dota to help new players understand more about the game. This time, the article will discuss one of the least popular, but equally important roles – hard support.

In the previous article, we talked about roles in Dota and position 5 (or Hard Support) is the least preferred role in farming. That means your character will usually be the lowest level and not have many items in the late game.

As a result, it discourages many people from playing in this position: there is a common misconception in the community that position 5 supports have no influence in the game, compared to other roles. This may have been true in the past, but the balance patches over the past few years have made position 5 much more important and worth playing.

In fact, you could say hard support is the most exciting role to play right now. The game is now shorter at all ranks, and hard supports, unlike other positions, rarely farm, and often have stronger early game power. If played correctly, support heroes rarely sit idle: you have to plan to find an attack direction or gain a macro advantage (general economy).

There’s not much difference between early, mid and late game supports: you should focus on the whole game and never ‘souls in the clouds’. There’s very little that satisfies you in Dota other than ‘outplaying’ your opponent with 5x your networth. But to get there, you need to understand the most important skills for a support.

UNDERSTANDING POSITION

Standing position is probably the most important skill in Dota. It’s important in every role, but with support, just one wrong move can cost you dearly. This is the first thing all support gamers should focus on.

Broadly speaking, standing is the ability to find space in combat so you can maximize your influence while surviving the longest to help the team. While tank or carry roles usually take the initiative to take the lead, most supports should stay behind, cast spells from a distance, run away while abilities are on cooldown, and then return when they’ve recovered.

The most common and biggest mistake that support gamers make is trying to auto-attack the target hero after using their moves (after the laning phase). This method can be applied in the first 10 minutes of the game, but after that, the amount of hand attack damage of supports is almost negligible. The only exception is when your team is ganking a highly mobile hero and you need every damage possible while disabling the opponent.

Support hitting a hero tank usually doesn’t make a difference, but it does leave you out of position, allowing the enemy to find and kill you easily. In most cases, retreat to a safer location, wait for the cooldown, and return to fight with the disables or supports you have.

USE OF CHARACTER

Learning how to cast spells in Dota is a skill that takes months to master. Learning when not to use them takes years. Skills in Dota, compared to some other games, are usually more influential, but have a longer cooldown. Knowing when to use them will make you a better gamer. You can’t push all the buttons and say you’re done.

With support heroes: you mainly contribute in combat through your skill set, and the outcome of the battle depends heavily on how you launch disables, as well as how you support the team.

Never waste skill sets, always know how to maximize them. That means you don’t disable on disabled objects, know which heroes to cast damage spells and your ultimates on priority objects.

Knowing how long your team’s tank can last or how long your carry can deal with low health can only come from experience. But once you get the hang of the game, start asking yourself when your skill set is really needed in that situation.

THE DO’S AND DON’T DO IT

New supports often face the following difficulties: they often mistakenly think of ‘martyrdom’ in the game (ie sacrificing for teammates). Therefore, this article will focus on the idea of ​​’death on purpose’.

You should be the one to check for potential smoke ganks from your opponents. Support heroes should go near the team’s farm carry if the team doesn’t go together and try to get some items. When the lane is empty, the hard supports should be the ones going into dangerous positions. Support’s life is always dangerous, but it is very valuable to the team.

Always consider whether your actions will benefit the team and when you can survive without losing your influence. Smoke gank detected, killed, but it gives valuable information to your team. However, survival is always more appreciated: use high ground and vision (with wards) to try to survive if possible.

Pushing lanes into enemy territory forces them to react and rotate, creating space for the team to farm, but pushing too hard and getting killed is worse than playing it safe and surviving.

It’s always beneficial to have vision control on the opponent’s side, but sacrificing your life for a destructible ward really isn’t worth it at all: try to plant wards while achieving other goals, instead of rush into enemy territory just to plant wards. Wards are best plugged while using Smoke of Deceit with the team during ganks.

EPILOGUE

All of the above can be summed up in one idea: as support, don’t commit suicide unless you have to. Hard supports are as important as carry at every stage in the game. They don’t really deal much damage, but they are the ones who initiate the first damage.

There are many skills in Dota that can only be developed through practice, while others can only be learned outside the game. Since these lessons will help you to play better, try to take the time to learn.

According to Dotabuff

Dota 2: Carry guide for new players