Supports... Halp!

You should definitely try out Lion then - he's somewhere between Lina and Crystal Maiden in terms of abilities, and you'll learn to love Mana Drain.

My advice would be to try out some other supports for a while and come back to CM later on - the basic positioning and skillsets are the same, but you have to be very precise with her, and get good at reading what's going to happen ahead of time.

Basically you need to be close enough that you can land your stun/slow as required, but far enough away that you can retreat or avoid being killed. Her ult is basically suicide in a full on team fight unless your team has good AOE lockdown like Black Hole or Reverse Polarity - it can also get you kills in situations where enemies are committed, but don't have a stun or enough damage to break your channelling. Remember to grab extra farm/xp by using Frostbite on big jungle creeps.

She's really not an easy hero to play though - and especially in pubs people see you as an easy kill and will go out of their way just to pad their stats.

It all comes down to positioning, the biggest problem most people make is that they commit too hard to a fight, and often even rightclick enemies during a fight.

If you have used all your spells then most of the time you wont add anything to thenfight. So just get out of there, use nova and frostbite and get out of there if you cant use freezing field.
Try to stay a little bit in range so you can use your spells again when they are off cooldown.

Personally, I always recommend Lion to new support players - he's easy to use, but there's enough depth there to master him. Minimal mana problems, minimal item needs, good stuns, big blasty ult.

I was going to recommend Warlock. basically, you Fatal Bond them, hit ulti on as many people as possible, channel Upheavel, and while you're channelling, you control golem. It's not that difficult, tbh.

I personally like Ancient Apparition. Good shutdown, good damage, awesome ult for a support. He's also great in the sense that you don't have to get way up close to fights. I usually hide behind a tree most of the laning phase.

These are the basics to mastering any Support Hero, you need to master them all, but take your time and focus on getting 1 of them down before moving onto the next.

You can then try the advanced stuff, like expanding on your general Map Awareness, e.g. not just being aware of who's Missing, but anticipating their movements, watching when Supports disappear and calculating where they placed Wards based on that (something I'm still trying to do...I usually have to guess where the Wards are ._. ).

When you start getting to the Tri-Lane level of play, then look at mastering the art of Stealth, i.e. make sure you're not visible unless it's too late! (my specialty) 8{D

Take a look at just the first 8 minutes this replay:- http://dotabuff.com/matches/751094389 (All I do after that is afk Farm since we'd basically won by that point 8{3 )

Set the camera to "Free Camera" and press F3 to change the fog settings to "Dire" (F2 gives you only Radiant's vision). This is useful for seeing how often the opponent sees me. I walkunder Wards a few times, but I spend most of my time hidden.

Notice how whenever I go to Gank, the Bane always panics and Nightmares me when he should be using it on Mirana (since I always get Wraithfire Blast off first). Surprise Ganks are the best Ganks of all and I gained a massive Psychological advantage from them.

Also, notice how when I (finally) helped Mirana get a Kill on Earthshaker, I was just barely at the edge of the fog, waiting for the perfect moment to strike.

It takes a lot of practice before you can mentally detect the edge of the other Team's Vision, but once you do, you'll find getting early Kills is easy.

Agreed, Lion is one of teh best starting Supports to play as, along with Lich (for similar reasons).

Personally, I wouldn't recommend Warlock...as a Support, he needs too much Farm to be effective imo. Aghanim's Scepter, Refresher Orb and Necronomicon. You need at least 1 of these by 20:00 and 2 by 35:00, becaus ethe Golems end up being completely ineffective against well Farmed Teams who can take them down in a few seconds.

He's my favourite Support at the moment too. <]3

I wouldn't recommend him to a beginner though. All of his Skills need to be carefully considered before using them to get the best effect, and the "right" Skill Build for 1 game can vary drastically from another (the only thing that stays constant is leveling Ice Blast at 6, 11 and 16). You also need to know when it's best to join your Team, or when you can safely provide covering fire with Ice Blast from halfway across the map, when to hide and when to emerge, etc. etc. etc.

He's a lot more complicated than almost all non-Micro based Supports.

So many texts! O.O
I'd love to watch your replay but unfortunately I don't know how >.<

I tried AA but I don't understand the ultimate. I pick where I want it to go and stuff but it just flies right by -.-

I would recommend Warlock if you are supporting a hero that can get some good early kills. Using his heal/Dot can either keep your partner alive while he dives or ensures a kill on a running enemy.