Basic Overview
There are 3 main roles in Dota that have numerous sub categories or branches off of them. They are the carry (the hero who is supposed to scale late game and "carry" the team), the support (the babysitter, "courier buying heroes"), and the team fighter (the heroes with huge aoe spells and ults that can turn the tide of a team fight). All three are essential to any game played, but supporting more specifically is targeted as the "boring" and "newbie" role. It is often left out in team picking, which can lead to an easy loss not because of being less skilled, but because of the neglect of those heroes that fall into the supporting category ( Dazzle, Keeper of the Light, Chen, etc.)
Normal Matchmaking
"Hey, we have 3 carries already pick a support"
"You pick a support, I'm going Drow"
"I ALWAYS have to support!"
Common Pub Misconceptions
A support has more jobs than any other role in the game. Think about it, a carries job is to farm as well as possible for around 30 minutes and then right click the **** out of anything the other team can spit at you. This makes many heroes such as Drow Ranger and Luna relatively easy to do well with late game as long as you can last hit better than a drunk monkey.
Although being the "beast" who comes out of the jungle with 5000 gpm and 6 Divine Rapier can be fun, not a single carry can survive a game without correct support. In fact, I would go as far as to say that the role of support is not only the most important role in a teams' composition, but in most cases, the most enjoyable.
The main difference between a carry and a support is that a support relies largely on early game kills using their good abilities; whereas, a carry just wants farm and the occasional kill until they think they can take on the enemy line up with powerful items.
As a support, you should always want as much farm and as many kills as you can get (just like in any other position), but you should never take away farm or guaranteed kills from your carry. You do not need the gold as much as they do in most cases. One of the huge differences between carries and supports is that a carry mostly relies on gold; whereas a support relies on levels (XP). That is why a support in most cases can excel at early game killing.
Periods
Heroes have sub-categories that place them by their ability to effectively lane, kill, and farm in early, mid, and late game. The three periods are roughly the time periods as follows:
There are a few supports that are considered "semi-carries". These heroes are mainly made to support as I have talked about previously, but can, with the right items and farm, scale up later on in the game and kill very effectively. These heroes could be Vengeful Spirit, Windrunner, Silencer, and others.
In order to semi-carry with these heroes, you must be wary of farm stealing. Do not think "Oh, I'm the carry in this lane not Spectre. I'll get the last hits."
Although you are going to get kills and partially carry the team, your hard carries take full precedence over you. The best way for a normal support to semi-carry is to lane with another support. Do not sacrifice your carry in top lane though. Here is an example of what to do:
You have a team like this on the Radiant side:
Pudge
Faceless Void
Warlock
Tidehunter
Windrunner (You)
The hard carry should 99% of the time get the easy lane (or long lane, for Dire it is top, and for Radiant it is bottom). So Faceless Void take bottom with Warlock (try to give your carry a support of the opposite attack, ranged + melee, or melee + ranged). Pudge takes middle, while you and Tidehunter take top (the short lane or suicide lane). That way you do not have to compete with a carry for your farm, your carry has the safe and more gold/XP productive lane, and you have good lane combos (support/semi-carry, mid hero, support/carry).
Although these heroes can be semi-carries, you do not want to go into every game expecting to carry with them. For one thing, being a semi-carry with a support hero requires a lot of early game killing, so each game is different in how well your lane plays against the enemy laners. With that being said, if your team is lacking in the carry department, and you are a support who can semi-carry, by all means do as much as you can to fill that role. That does not mean say you are the carry over a Sniper.
A lot of the time, a semi-carry is born out of pure incompetence of the other team, and some good skill/playing early game by that hero. If they continuously kill enemies for the first 20 minutes of the game, there is no reason not to build the expensive items that could make you more powerful late game.
Although this guide did not address many of the topics you might have thought of during the reading of it, it addressed the many topics i feel are not given enough thought. Supporting is my favorite role in the game because there is absolutely nothing better than to carry with a Vengeful Spirit, Dark Seer, or your other favorite supports. Their insane ability to kill so fast in the game just makes them the ideal heroes for skill-based players who hate losing to a stupidly farmed Drow Ranger. Try not to seek out the carrying spot on the team by picking Vengeful Spirit or another semi-carry support and yelling "Safe Lane, carry Vengeful" before the game even starts. See how well the early game goes for you and adapt your in-game strategy to fill the role you believe will help your team win the easiest. Supports help the team throughout the game with all their jobs and the items you build on them (Mekanism, Pipe of Insight, etc.). Without supports, your team will never work.
I hope this made you like supporting more than you did before reading. Also i hope you learned things about Dota and its mechanics that you did not know about before reading.
Please comment and like this guide. I hope to make more soon :)
Thank you, GhostSpawner
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