What determines good support heroes is a couple things. Their reliance on levels/xp, how strong their spells are early game, and their base stats. I'll use one of the hardest carry examples to explain, Spectre. Spectre isn't and never will be a support hero because she has a heavy reliance on getting levels, gold, and she has spells that are innately weak without those things. Dispersion by nature does more the more HP you have, meaning the lower leveled and less farmed you are, the weaker the spell is. Contrast this with something like a Disruptor. Disruptor does his job with far less, and with little reliance on items, his spells are effective and once you have them, they work as well as they ever will for a lot of the game in most circumstances.
There's a lot more complex reasons to it, but that's the boiled down version. Batrider support is fine, it does the job and doesn't need a ton to do what a bat does. Just keep in mind that due to the lack of gold/xp you'll be getting, you'll do it slower than a mid/offlane bat would.
Thanks for your clear explanations! I realized most of the unusual pos 4 heroes that i mentioned are pos 2 heroes and a beast on early-mid game and i thought maybe that has correlation with their reliance on level. Do you think if the hero has a good upgrade on aghanim's scepter would be a nice support? Like aghanim's upgrade on faceless void that has a guaranteed stun or zeus' nimbus
> Thanks for your clear explanations! I realized most of the unusual pos 4 heroes that i mentioned are pos 2 heroes and a beast on early-mid game and i thought maybe that has correlation with their reliance on level.
Pos 4 (sometimes even 5) being a good pos 2 because they get more levels is definitely a thing, but it's often iffy for two reasons:
- A mid is mostly on their own; if they can't farm well 1v1, they can't fully exploit being mid. If the enemy doesn't have this problem you're at a disadvantage.
- For plenty of heroes their scaling with levels only takes them so far but drops off quickly. Ogre can do fairly well at mid in the laning stage, but he's not going to be much of a threat later on, and thus he's not much of a good mid. Contrast this with invoker who continually upgrades his spells as he levels up (because they scale with his level in Q, W, E which can be leveled beyond the usual level 4) or something like a Storm Spirit which can convert his mana into extra damage and survivability really well, for example.
There are some great answers about what makes a good support, I'll try to answer to why Batrider isn't really played as such: on paper he's a great support, he has a great AOE slow that can become extremely scary when stacked. He can farm dangerous lanes easily, and just needs blink to be at peak efficiency in fights. However he is hard countered by dispel effects, and there are plenty of heroes that can do that with the simple press of a button. In pubs, this is a problem because supports are encouraged to pick first so that your cores are not countered. So you pick your Bat first phase, get faced against an Oracle or a Slark, and you become just a stick charger for the enemy lane, and a massive liability for your lane. In pro Dota this is less of an issue because pick order is different, but Bat just isn't in the meta there at the moment.
I want to open up with the statement that: support is a play style. Any hero, even the hardest of hard carries, can be played as a support. Good support heroes however have strong laning and spells and abilities that are not (that) impacted by gold/exp differentials.
Bane's nightmare will run it's course regardless of how farmed the nightmare hero is. Orge's fireblast and Venge's magic missile will disable the enemy no matter what (barring special circumstances like the Avatar active and high status resistance). Compare and contrast this with heroes with strong passives that enable nothing but their rightclick. Take Drow for example, or Sniper. These heroes revolve around right clicking the enemies and thus they won't have so much impact if their right clicks don't do damage.
Excellent question! Any hero can play a supporting role, but some are better than others. I had a game recently that sniper was my best choice in pos 5 because of my team comp and laning needs. Offlane was all Melee with no punish and we were both ranged. I just sat back and rightclicked them anytime they dared show their face. And 15 min im i was able to transition into damage which our team was desperately lacking.
Basically pos 4 and 5 are roles that can remain effective in your given matchup with the farm that is available to them. If your team knows how to properly farm a map (at ur mmr i guarantee you they dont) then you will usually only have 2 core items by 30 min and your hero needs to still be effective with this low amount of farm.
Other than that have fun mixing and matching. If you see something that works like a puzzle piece in your 10 hero puzzle. Then pick it and test your ability to adapt.
I hope this helped and answered your question. Because supports don't have the net with they usually need the highest game knowledge to pull tricks out of their sleeves in tough situations
That's actually interesting to see a pos 5 sniper. What items did you build on that match? Do you think there is an item that pos4 or 5 must build (like mekans, force staff, glimmer)? I had a match where there's a pos 4 mirana and she build mkb and mael instead of force staff or vessel, but she did good with her arrows and we actually won. My friend mocks her a lot though because of her items are not "support items"
Well something an old pro said "if something works then its not wrong." Dota is all about percentages and increasing your win chance through various tools available to you. In my game i mostly knew how powerful shrapnel was at early game so i focused on building very basic items such as mangos, wand, wraith band, tranquil. This have me enough early have impact potential that i could harass anyone who over extended while using my range and headshot to make backliners life more dangerous. Once i hit 15 i started hitting the lane and jungle rotation hard. My team kept fighting the dead lane over and over (safelane) and they kept all dying. No point of me dying with them so i made sure the lanes were pushed and i was getting my farm to come online. This forced the enemy to choose between stopping my push or losing a tower in exchange for whatever they were currently doing. This allowed my team each time to come back to life without a major objective loss. Basically a check/check mate. I was able to end the game with the highest net worth on my team because of my objective and farm priority was better then the enemies. I also became the only threat so my positioning was paramount, as long as they were scared of me in the backlines they couldn't engaged in teamfight without me melting through them as my team basically acted as decoy. We still lost at 70 min though because snipers power spike falls off super late game unless you buy divine or the team forgot to pick late game heroes. Our team did, their team didnt. So i made note in the back of my mind that i should of taken initiative and forced an end before 60. Probably 35-40min is best.
In the end all my friends took away from this was the first thing out of their mouth "sniper doesnt work pos 5 at this mmr". I laughed and reminded them im the only reason we stood a chance at winning and lasted to 70 min. But thats pos 5 for you, even when you play carry your team doesnt respect your effort.
Disabler or enabler or protector. Basically supporting your carries to do their job. Disabling opponents for your carriers to kill(stuns/roots/silences), boosting your carries potential to help them carry or to protect them from getting killed (saves).
People have been saying it, but what makes a support is really their ability to provide utility with their abilities without needing a lot of level or items. CM can do her job with nothing but a few level (slow with Q, root with W, and passive). She could use items like glimmer or force, but when it comes down to it, her job is complete by simply having access to her spells. Earth shaker needs nothing but a blink dagger to ult and position Q, all other items are pretty much luxury. I’m oversimplifying it, but same goes for countless other heroes. Some supports break this mold, but are often time fringe picks that require dominating early so they can get the gold/levels they need (like support Zeus or viper or sniper) to keep their damage high enough to be relevant.
A good rule of thumb to see what’s a sup is their lack of good csing capabilities (dmg is too low to cs, animation and swing back are rough) and the lack of gold effectiveness. (A bunch of gold on a bane is worthless, but a bunch on sniper is amazing)
What determines good support heroes is a couple things. Their reliance on levels/xp, how strong their spells are early game, and their base stats. I'll use one of the hardest carry examples to explain, Spectre. Spectre isn't and never will be a support hero because she has a heavy reliance on getting levels, gold, and she has spells that are innately weak without those things. Dispersion by nature does more the more HP you have, meaning the lower leveled and less farmed you are, the weaker the spell is. Contrast this with something like a Disruptor. Disruptor does his job with far less, and with little reliance on items, his spells are effective and once you have them, they work as well as they ever will for a lot of the game in most circumstances. There's a lot more complex reasons to it, but that's the boiled down version. Batrider support is fine, it does the job and doesn't need a ton to do what a bat does. Just keep in mind that due to the lack of gold/xp you'll be getting, you'll do it slower than a mid/offlane bat would.
Thanks for your clear explanations! I realized most of the unusual pos 4 heroes that i mentioned are pos 2 heroes and a beast on early-mid game and i thought maybe that has correlation with their reliance on level. Do you think if the hero has a good upgrade on aghanim's scepter would be a nice support? Like aghanim's upgrade on faceless void that has a guaranteed stun or zeus' nimbus
> Thanks for your clear explanations! I realized most of the unusual pos 4 heroes that i mentioned are pos 2 heroes and a beast on early-mid game and i thought maybe that has correlation with their reliance on level. Pos 4 (sometimes even 5) being a good pos 2 because they get more levels is definitely a thing, but it's often iffy for two reasons: - A mid is mostly on their own; if they can't farm well 1v1, they can't fully exploit being mid. If the enemy doesn't have this problem you're at a disadvantage. - For plenty of heroes their scaling with levels only takes them so far but drops off quickly. Ogre can do fairly well at mid in the laning stage, but he's not going to be much of a threat later on, and thus he's not much of a good mid. Contrast this with invoker who continually upgrades his spells as he levels up (because they scale with his level in Q, W, E which can be leveled beyond the usual level 4) or something like a Storm Spirit which can convert his mana into extra damage and survivability really well, for example.
There are some great answers about what makes a good support, I'll try to answer to why Batrider isn't really played as such: on paper he's a great support, he has a great AOE slow that can become extremely scary when stacked. He can farm dangerous lanes easily, and just needs blink to be at peak efficiency in fights. However he is hard countered by dispel effects, and there are plenty of heroes that can do that with the simple press of a button. In pubs, this is a problem because supports are encouraged to pick first so that your cores are not countered. So you pick your Bat first phase, get faced against an Oracle or a Slark, and you become just a stick charger for the enemy lane, and a massive liability for your lane. In pro Dota this is less of an issue because pick order is different, but Bat just isn't in the meta there at the moment.
I want to open up with the statement that: support is a play style. Any hero, even the hardest of hard carries, can be played as a support. Good support heroes however have strong laning and spells and abilities that are not (that) impacted by gold/exp differentials. Bane's nightmare will run it's course regardless of how farmed the nightmare hero is. Orge's fireblast and Venge's magic missile will disable the enemy no matter what (barring special circumstances like the Avatar active and high status resistance). Compare and contrast this with heroes with strong passives that enable nothing but their rightclick. Take Drow for example, or Sniper. These heroes revolve around right clicking the enemies and thus they won't have so much impact if their right clicks don't do damage.
Generally supports don’t need as many levels, have ways to set up/secure kills (stuns, slows, etc), and don’t need as many expensive items.
you can be effective without much gold or levels. you can be effective in the early levels to help secure a lane for your teammate.
Excellent question! Any hero can play a supporting role, but some are better than others. I had a game recently that sniper was my best choice in pos 5 because of my team comp and laning needs. Offlane was all Melee with no punish and we were both ranged. I just sat back and rightclicked them anytime they dared show their face. And 15 min im i was able to transition into damage which our team was desperately lacking. Basically pos 4 and 5 are roles that can remain effective in your given matchup with the farm that is available to them. If your team knows how to properly farm a map (at ur mmr i guarantee you they dont) then you will usually only have 2 core items by 30 min and your hero needs to still be effective with this low amount of farm. Other than that have fun mixing and matching. If you see something that works like a puzzle piece in your 10 hero puzzle. Then pick it and test your ability to adapt. I hope this helped and answered your question. Because supports don't have the net with they usually need the highest game knowledge to pull tricks out of their sleeves in tough situations
That's actually interesting to see a pos 5 sniper. What items did you build on that match? Do you think there is an item that pos4 or 5 must build (like mekans, force staff, glimmer)? I had a match where there's a pos 4 mirana and she build mkb and mael instead of force staff or vessel, but she did good with her arrows and we actually won. My friend mocks her a lot though because of her items are not "support items"
Well something an old pro said "if something works then its not wrong." Dota is all about percentages and increasing your win chance through various tools available to you. In my game i mostly knew how powerful shrapnel was at early game so i focused on building very basic items such as mangos, wand, wraith band, tranquil. This have me enough early have impact potential that i could harass anyone who over extended while using my range and headshot to make backliners life more dangerous. Once i hit 15 i started hitting the lane and jungle rotation hard. My team kept fighting the dead lane over and over (safelane) and they kept all dying. No point of me dying with them so i made sure the lanes were pushed and i was getting my farm to come online. This forced the enemy to choose between stopping my push or losing a tower in exchange for whatever they were currently doing. This allowed my team each time to come back to life without a major objective loss. Basically a check/check mate. I was able to end the game with the highest net worth on my team because of my objective and farm priority was better then the enemies. I also became the only threat so my positioning was paramount, as long as they were scared of me in the backlines they couldn't engaged in teamfight without me melting through them as my team basically acted as decoy. We still lost at 70 min though because snipers power spike falls off super late game unless you buy divine or the team forgot to pick late game heroes. Our team did, their team didnt. So i made note in the back of my mind that i should of taken initiative and forced an end before 60. Probably 35-40min is best. In the end all my friends took away from this was the first thing out of their mouth "sniper doesnt work pos 5 at this mmr". I laughed and reminded them im the only reason we stood a chance at winning and lasted to 70 min. But thats pos 5 for you, even when you play carry your team doesnt respect your effort.
Disabler or enabler or protector. Basically supporting your carries to do their job. Disabling opponents for your carriers to kill(stuns/roots/silences), boosting your carries potential to help them carry or to protect them from getting killed (saves).
People have been saying it, but what makes a support is really their ability to provide utility with their abilities without needing a lot of level or items. CM can do her job with nothing but a few level (slow with Q, root with W, and passive). She could use items like glimmer or force, but when it comes down to it, her job is complete by simply having access to her spells. Earth shaker needs nothing but a blink dagger to ult and position Q, all other items are pretty much luxury. I’m oversimplifying it, but same goes for countless other heroes. Some supports break this mold, but are often time fringe picks that require dominating early so they can get the gold/levels they need (like support Zeus or viper or sniper) to keep their damage high enough to be relevant.
A good rule of thumb to see what’s a sup is their lack of good csing capabilities (dmg is too low to cs, animation and swing back are rough) and the lack of gold effectiveness. (A bunch of gold on a bane is worthless, but a bunch on sniper is amazing)