I noticed that some support champions are played more often than others, as they help their team more. What makes these champions better than the others?
For example, it seems like support champions with stuns will benefit a team more. However, Soraka, one of the most played support champions, doesn't have any. Why is this?
The job of support champions is to make the other champions look good. They can do this in many ways: healing them (soraka, sona, taric, alistar) and Buffing them (Janna with her shield, Nunu with Blood Boil). The crowd control spells help in the team as well which can help in making a support better. For example: Alistar has a weak heal, but the CC he provides makes him a good choice.
So essentially its the buffing and healing that makes a support, but the CC they can provide can make the champion more appealing.
Basically some supports provide shields for their carry and team, some offer their team heals and others like Alistar and Blitz provide heavy CC.
Soraka can heal you, harras and silence opponents and has global heal. Giving her stun would be too much I believe.
Different supports fits with different ADs and playstyles. Supports with heal are the best for hypercarries that are a bit weaker early and just wants to farm. Soraka with someone like ashe for example is a good example. On the other end of the spectrum with offensive supports we have blitz and Alistar that is the best examples. Alistar and blitz can give you a huge lanepresence but if you got zoned and farmed out alistar is deadweight as he have to get close to do something and that is a risk. The best you can do is to ask the AD carry what support he prefers, if he knows what you can do he will probably be most effective
A good support champion is able to provide lots of CC's, as well as buffs/heals. However, they all have very different roles, and there is no "best" support. > The best support will be the one that fulfills the necessary roles for a certain team.
For example, Alistar has a lot of health and provides amazing CC with knock ups and his headbutt, as well as his heal. He is also useful for staying in front of the team to keep opponents from reaching his squishier allies with his ultimate.
On the other hand, Janna is a lot more squishy but also provides good CC with a knock up, a slow, and a buff that can be used on ally towers and champions, providing 50 AD at level 5. Her ultimate knocks enemies away and heals allies.
Soraka has a MR passive, and is able to silence enemies while providing lots of Mana and Health to the team.
In addition, there are some more 'offensive' supports such as blitzcrank, who can help the team by pulling in an enemy with rocket grab.
While playing a support, one should not build the same items every time. They should focus on defensive items, as well as support items to suit your teammates. Supports also need to buy lots of wards and have good map awareness.
To summarize, the ideal support should be chosen to fit the team. Experiment with different combinations of AD carries with supports and find what works best for you.
Some good combinations I have found while playing support:
Caitlyn-Taric Vayne-Janna Urgot-Blitzcrank
In my opinion, Janna is so useful on all the AD carries. Her shield is like a free BF sword @ level 9, in addition to it being a shield. When supporting a decent player on bot lane, we rarely lose.
Blitz and Alistar are the best in my opinion, they also aren't that bad to play. Soraka, Janna, and Sona are nice too either because their cc or heals, but they are squishy. With the other supports being so squishy I would say the tankier ones with CC are so much better
What makes a good support? in my opinion, its being able to balance whatever gold you have to buy wards, keeping the map visable for the team, having some sort of CC is always preferred, or if you have to play something else, make sure they have some sort of sustain or ability that hinders the opponents ability to play or attack. also knowing when to fight, and when to help out teammates. The best supports to play at this current moment are janna, alistar, soraka. those are my top 3 because of how good they are.
