Hard Support Guide (Position 5): The Highest Impact Position by Gold

Position 5 is the role in which the player has less gold, less level, and fewer items, and yet it is the one that changes the result the most per resource invested. It is also the only position in which practically no visible stats measure what you have done. The scoreboard does not count the ward that prevented a gank, a field pulled at the right time, nor the second of a stun that saved the carry.

This creates the central problem of 5: without metrics, the player starts to measure himself by what he can see, which is kill and death, and starts to play for it. This guide is about changing this metric for another.

Part 1: The lane, and what you're delivering

The lane of 5 has only one customer

Your job in the lane is to make the farm of position 1 safe and constant. It's not about killing the offlaner. It's not about having the most assists. It's that, at minute 10, your carry has as many last hits as possible and is alive.

Three tools, in order of value:

1. Wave control. Pulling the field when the wave is pushing out of your tower is the most underrated play in the game. A well-controlled wave earns the carry more gold than any damage trade.
2. Trade damage at the right time. Hit the offlaner while he tries to last hit, not when he is free to fight back.
3. Regeneration and consumable. Your starting gold is there to keep the carry in lane, not to give you items.

The error that defines the bad lane of 5

Leaving the lane early to "help the middle". Every time you leave, the carry is alone against two, loses wave, loses level and gains risk. The 5 is the position that should rotate the least in the first eight minutes. The one who rotates is the 4.

Part 2: Support Savings

The 5 has the lowest budget in the team, and that's why it's the one that needs the most buying criteria. The rule that works:

Buy what changes what the team can do, not what changes what you can handle.

The expensive mistake: skip to item 5 before item 1. A 5 with Blink and no ward is a poor 4.

And the item that almost no one buys at the right time: detection. If the enemy team has invisibility and you don't have sentry in your bag, the rest of the plan doesn't matter.

Part 3: vision, and the idea that changes everything

Most players place a ward to "see if anyone is coming". This is defensive vision, and it is the least valuable half.

The better idea: vision is there to protect territory. You place a ward where your team needs to be. If your carry is going to farm the big jungle from the top in the next five minutes, that's where the ward counts, because his goal is not to see a hero: it's to allow your carry to stay there.

This rearranges the decision. Before placing each ward, ask:

1. What piece of map will my team use in the next few minutes?
2. Where does those who want to deny this piece go?
3. Does this ward survive long enough to pay?

And the half that no one trains: taking vision. A sentry in the right place before a smoke, a Roshan or an initiation is worth more than two observers in the usual place. The "usual" places are exactly where the enemy team looks first.

Part 4: The Fight

Your resource is control, and it should almost never be spent first

The support's instinct is to tighten up as soon as the fight starts. It's almost always wrong. The control of the 5 is more valid as an answer: it prevents what was going to happen.

The question before any stun:

Does this control prevent something that was going to happen?

If you can't name what it prevents, save it. The whole team depends on your two buttons arriving the second the game opens.

Dying well is part of the job

There is a huge difference between dying for free and dying buying time. The 5 that dies holding the enemy initiator while the carry comes out alive did the job. The one that dies because it stood near a wave, for no reason, gave a piece of map for free.

That's why the rule of thumb: don't give away a map pixel for free. The opponent who gets everything cheap executes without resistance; the one who needs to sweat for every bit gets frustrated and forces play. A silly habit solves a good part of this: click on the waves from time to time to see if there's anyone hitting them.

Part 5: The 5 in the middle and late game

From minute 25, 5 becomes the most fragile hero and the most responsible for information. Three functions:

• Buy and keep vision of the goal. Roshan, high ground, jungle entrance. Before the discussion, not during.
• Save those who are worth more than you. Glimmer, Force, Ghost. Your gold is used to keep the hero with 25 thousand assets alive.
• Being the reinforcement TP, not the first response. Falling from TP to react is bad in almost every case: the opponent came walking, for him the movement was free, and even if you kill the person who was diving he comes back and occupies the same space. You don't kill him twice.

Part 6: How to Measure Yourself Without a Scoreboard

Replace kills and assists with three questions at the end of the match. These are verifiable in the replay:

1. Did my carry have safe territory between minutes 12 and 25? If not, where was he hunted, and did I have vision there?
2. Did my deaths buy time or deliver a map? Count them one by one.
3. Were my wards where the team went, or where do I always put them?

A 5 with 0 kills and 12 kills that answers these three questions well played better than a 5 with 15 assists that responds poorly.

The 5 in seven sentences

• In the lane, your customer is the carry. Wave control is worth more than damage trade.
• Don't rotate in the first eight minutes: the 4 does it.
• Buy what changes what the team can do, in order: vision, mobility, save.
• Vision protects territory, not people.
• Control is response, not openness.
• Dying buying time is work. Dying standing still is surrender.
• Measure yourself by safe territory, not by score.