EPT***
Quick step-by-step guide on how to fucking support in the 3k bracket :
![[image loading]](http://tof.canardpc.com/view/da4608e9-7ec4-4f0c-87a4-4db10b125e66.jpg)
If for whatever reason you were too slow to secure yourself a good farming spot on the map during the draft (like mid, safe, jungle, or even offlane, which is often not the best but still is better than nothing), you will have no choice, you will have to play fucking support -- unless what you do seek is to lose the game, because you find joy playing in low priority, in which case picking any hero of your liking is perfectly fine.
I've met quite a few people that claim not to know how to play support, so here's a quick step-by-step guide, based on empirical data that I gathered throughout many games :
1- last pick a fucking support hero, who preferably can transition to a normal core play-style (if you're unsure, just pick an INT hero, they're all fucking supports).
2- buy a walking courier and maybe 1 ward (you can immediately sell it back), but do NOT waste your tangos for the mid player. Who does this guy think he is anyway, fkn Sumail?! Type : "lol" instead, and walk to your lane.
3- stand behind your carry, and throw some auto-attacks at the opponent. Do not worry about messing the creep agro, this guy picked a core which means he knows how to handle his farm.
If, while outplaying your opponent like so and securing your lane, you happen to witness that you core does in fact fail to get one or more last hits, go ahead and ping the creep body. It's just a community thing to try and help each other improve, by pointing out mistakes. You'll find that players are generally quite grateful for that.
4- when/if the opponent is at ~60% hp, use ALT + left click as much as you can on him, to signify to your core that your opponent has, indeed, 60% hp. Which, for anyone who didn't buy their accounts, is a clear signal that this is the best time to kill him. If you have a stun or any form of damaging spell, throw it right away and start right-clicking from your position (ideally max range, your side of the map - safety first). Keep pinging your target the whole time (even if you die), it's a team game and communication is key.
This remains true during the whole game. As a fucking support player, your role is to help your team score kills and get fat, so you need to make sure to bring basically anything that you see being low HP (enemy heroes, towers, neutrals, even allies is helpful) to the attention of your cores, and keep pinging them as long as they are in vision, alive, and low HP. This may sound counter-intuitive at first because it very much sound like spam but there is no way to block this so it clearly isn't considered a spam, just useful repeated information. Much easier to do if you're already dead, which fortunately shouldn't be an issue being a solo support, and if you follow this quick guide.
In addition, but this is advanced (high 3k only), you can also periodically (on CD if you really want to be efficient) use the scan on the Roshan pit, to check if anyone is inside. However this might be bugged on the 3k bracket, because sometimes it doesn't get red but then the opponents just kill Roshan. To be confirmed.
5- when you respawn after your probably retarded and definitely useless core player couldn't even help you get what otherwise would have been an easy kill on their bristleback, TP immediately back to your lane, preferably when the enemy creeps are attacking/in range of the tower. That way you can nuke the creeps for free, taking full advantage of the lingering regen effect from the fountain.
This applies to other lanes as well. You always want to TP when the enemy creepwave is in range of the tower (ideally inside the enemy creepwave, the bigger the better), not only for free nuke but to assert dominance as well (just remember that the nuke will be free only if you TPd from the fountain to begin with).
6- this one is pretty obvious but : do not waste gold on wards or dust or anything that just disappears when you use it. You want real items, so save gold for mana boots and probably aghs next (all supports have an amazing aghs upgrade so it's a no brainer first item).
You're probably wondering how a fucking support can afford these items.
Besides TP nuking, the unspoken 3k farming priorities rules are quite straight forward. It's okay to try for last hits when :
- your core has already missed one or more creep ;
- OR you told your team that this guy should not have picked a carry in the first place, and now the game is probably over anyway ;
- OR you can tell that you are a better player and thus will make better use of the gold ;
- OR you just feel like last hitting because in the end there's nothing he can do about it and it's only a 3k game I mean come on, who fucking cares -- typing : "just play" is quite the diplomatic move, in case he'd signal discontent.
If they X ping you back, type : "relax nob" and let him have the next 3 creeps. Then start trying again but randomly. This should net you some last hits while also helping your core to step-up his play, by increasing his focus.
A good time to start real farm would be just after your core died to a gank by their mid, which he didn't see coming because he
7- solo farming can be quite difficult and dangerous for a fucking support hero, especially when the map is dark. And dark it will be because, guess what, as usual when you play with useless cores in this trash bracket, if YOU don't manage the vision, nobody fucking does. And you can't exactly manage the vision when you need the gold for your items.
So, your farm is riksy, and slow, probably costing you a good chunk of mana, too. You will need to run back to the pool/shrines to regen, often. You will also probably die, a lot. Do not let this discourage you though, fucking supports do die, it's a part of their role and it's perfectly fine -- more on this further down.
On the plus side, visiting the base often basically means that you do not need a flying courier. Hence, you can safely let the mid/offlaner get that upgrade, at the time they deem opportune.
8- after they died to a clear over-extension in your T2 closest jungle camp, one or more of your feeding allies will most likely try to hide their lack of skills behind an alleged need for wards (more often referred to as fucking wards, in this scenario).
As a support player it is you duty to recognize that this, truly, is a morale issue. You will thus address it with either a jolly "Well played!", a playful "Game is hard.", a detached "just play safe", or a more involved "stop feeding pls" if the plaintiff has more than 1 death in his KDA.
Be wary though that infrequently, random pub players with probably very minimal understanding of the game and equally low level of self-restraint, will not fully acknowledge that these words were your benevolent, and indeed whole, contribution to their misplay.
Instead, they may mistakenly see that as an opening for more discussion, and start bringing up your hero's name a lot, even sometimes repeatedly pinging at your hero's position (and they will have both the time and energy for it, because they did just feed), while mindlessly still mentioning fucking wards.
That kind of disruptive behaviour can end up hampering the team spirit and even your fucking support gameplay.
Thankfully, the way out is simple, type this : "solo support lol".
It is notorious that fucking supporting alone is impossible. Therefore, any correlation they're seemingly trying to establish between the fucking wards and you hero (?) does not make any sense. It's a known fact in the bracket, so most players will quickly stop harassing you. There's no one to blame really, it's just how it is. It can't be done. Keep farming, you might consider a Midas if things go well (it's never too late to get one, unlike a core, a solo support can get a Midas at any time).
* Side note on the notion of solo support in the 3k bracket : the notion of solo support is widely accepted as referring to anyone playing a support (=INT) hero. When none of them is willing to buy support items, the actual number of INT/support heroes on the same team is of no relevance, making each and all of them effectively solo supports (meaning that you can indeed have one, two or more solo supports in the same team, global support output will be unchanged : roughly zero).
9- if your whole team ends up dying because they, again, took a fight without you, despite, again, very limited vision and no detection (well OK, slardar still had 1 charge on the dust he bought 35 minutes ago, but it was in his backpack, he probably forgot about it too, and he got 2 shot by Monkey King anyway), yet YOU still manage to secure an objective for the team (tower or fleeing opponent) : quickly buy all the available wards (NOT sentries, those are too expensive, and limitless which defeats the purpose of buying all of them very rapidly).
Buying a shit-ton of wards, very fast, will show your hopeless allies that you know exactly what you're doing and have always been, regardless of their opinion, deeply committed to being a fucking support and winning the game.
-- In the extremely unlikely case where there are no wards left to buy, just keep working on your item progression (after aghs, blink is almost mandatory but you might consider Maelstrom or Octarine if you need to transition to core-solo support, to win the game by yourself). You could also buy mass smokes but beware that the invis is bugged in the 3k bracket, as it will break as soon as you try to farm and sometimes for no reason at all, making them basically a useless item.
10- you can keep those wards in your inventory until the end of the game, in fact you probably should, since having them demonstrates that you are doing your job (but do NOT have more than 4).
Having these wards on your hero will prove to anyone that if you somehow end up winning, the praises should go to you for fucking solo supporting this shit ; and if/when you'll lose, well then you did everything you fucking could but your team was probably just another bunch of trash noobs who know nothing about dota, thx gaben for the matchmaking.
-- If you couldn't buy said wards, you can always spam buy sentries at the very end, this will at least raise your support score on the board.
11- lastly, remember this : it doesn't matter if you die. You don't have to worry about buyback either. Because you are a fucking support, so no one can flame you. Which means you can basically farm anywhere on the map, for free. And spend whatever gold you have, immediately.
Once the laning phase is over (~15 minutes mark), you can either fully commit to your core transition, or go semi-afk and do stuff IRL, chances are nobody will notice either way. Until they die and decide to blame it on wards, in which case see step 8 above.
Now, some people will be low enough to still flame you for your KDA (or any other random shit). This is the proper reaction :
"flaming ur support?"
"nice"
"I am stop support, gl".
(MMR raise not guaranteed)
edit :
last step - if you somehow manage to win the game, type : "commend pls", after all, you WERE the fucking solo support and did the impossible ; if however your noob teammates end up losing the game for you, a sober : "ez mid, ez carry, ez game" should clear everybody's minds on the real problems at hand, in this game.
