Should I leech XP from my teammates while playing support?

[Krotok]

Hello,
I'm learning how to play support in unranked games, and I wonder if I'm doing the right thing by staying away from my teammates while they farm in the jungle so they get all the experience, or if I'd better stay around to level up a bit. Most of the games, I end up being 2-6 levels behind my teammates and it seems ok to me, since I help my team by letting them grow stronger, even at my own expense. I guess support heroes can do their jobs at around L15-20, as their abilities are maxed out, and they don't need much items, but I wanted to know what you guys think? Should I leech experience from my teammates and level up as much as them?
Thanks in advance.

[Zagryzaec]

First thing you need to learn is that in dota is all situational and almost no always true answers.

While at high level "leeching" is not good idea, in lower skill brackets full supporting is suicide of your mmr.

To answer on your question you need to understand how you plan on winning the game. If you severly outleveled you cannot impact the outcome of any situation. If you cannot do this and your carry goes afk farm who is going to play? 3 teammates vs 5 enemies? Do you expect them to win 3 vs 5? Highly unlikely

[Boolet]

i usually use ganker or stunner like tusk, lion, shaman, shaker, etc while my carry is a hero that can deal mediocre damage while in early game like jugg and tiny(?). it is easier to win lane that way. i only need to focus stunning, pulling and my carry can deal enough damage to kill our opponent also i can rotate if my carry can do just fine by himself.

[Big Dog]

You should never be leeching EXP, you should almost always be fighting enemies to the best that you can as support.

This means trading hp and mana in lanes so your cores can farm better / secure the lane for themselves against the enemy heroes.

This means warding and dewarding when all your cores are afk in the jungle.

This means going around with the core who rushes blink or whatever and assisting them with kills / getting away from the enemy team as needed.

The way to get a lot of XPM as support is to kill enemy heroes.



If for some reason everyone on your team is doing nothing / not playing properly then in that case you can go jungle camps yourself or push lanes out with spells. Again you should never be just leeching. Even just nuking / right clicking jungle camps for your cores is better than leeching without doing anything but it is pretty much always better to be at another part of the map doing your own thing then it is to be afk near your cores in exp range.

For example a good thing to do is ward the jungle where your teammates are afk farming and then when the enemy comes to gank them you are already waiting there with vision of them and already in a good position so you guys can get the jump on them.

[Absche]

Just do something helpful while „,leeching“ xp.

[alone]

Preferably from mid.

[RadCon One]

Generally if they are jungling you should stay away unless you suspect they are about to be jumped on. In lane however, it isn't "leeching" if you are harassing the enemy while you are in lane or keeping the core alive. It is only leeching if your presence adds nothing positive to the person you are near.

I suppose some people may actually appreciate you staying near them in the jungle if they aren't strong junglers and you hurt (without killing) the jungle creeps and keep them healed, but again, as a general rule of thumb I wouldn't do it.

[BruT]

u must never leave lane as hard support, and if he try to tell u what to do u must give him two options to feed or to stay in lane and if he tell you feed you must show him whos the boss and make sure he lose his mmr, that way he will keep his mouth shut next time

[Highrule -1]

Originally posted by Zagryzaec:

First thing you need to learn is that in dota is all situational and almost no always true answers.

^

No point in asking such a theoretical question, any answer you get can be both right and wrong depending on how the game is going.

[Ironfist]

Yes, but not from mid lane. You can also get xp from pool neutral creeps from woods to lane. You need xp to gane lvl or you will useless in game. Leveling its not only giving abilities but attributes too.

[Schulti mit Sahne]

Originally posted by Krotok:

Hello,
I'm learning how to play support in unranked games, and I wonder if I'm doing the right thing by staying away from my teammates while they farm in the jungle so they get all the experience, or if I'd better stay around to level up a bit. Most of the games, I end up being 2-6 levels behind my teammates and it seems ok to me, since I help my team by letting them grow stronger, even at my own expense. I guess support heroes can do their jobs at around L15-20, as their abilities are maxed out, and they don't need much items, but I wanted to know what you guys think? Should I leech experience from my teammates and level up as much as them?
Thanks in advance.

Yes and no

It really depends on the situation. For example if you leave your carry alone and he dies alot, or doesnt get any farm at all from rightclicking because he is alone vs ranged harrassers (assuming ur pos5) then your job should be to zone these harrassers out. Rightclick them and hide behind the trees so they start focusing you. Ofc you shouldn't die so you should have an escape plan/route so they are either forced to chase you creating space for your carry to farm, or they stay in lane and you can continue to harrass them until they are at low HP. And yes despite your low rightclick damage, try to do it as often as possible so you don't necessarily have to waste all your mana immediately.(just make sure who you do rightclick. For example theres no point in rightclicking a centaur with his passive, or a DK with his Regen, but it has alot of impact if you rightclick their support who relies much more on regen items and has low HP/armor/HPregen.

This way of playing does the following: the enemy offlaners have to play more carefully, because they do not know if you hide in the trees or if not, this means if you leave your carry alone for a short while he can still safely farm. (ofc this doesn't work if they have some observers in the jungle and do see where you are)

So it is totally fine to leech EP as long as you do something that grants your carry the space to farm or even the opportunity for a kill.

If you notice that you cannot contribute in any meaningfull way to the lane, or the lane is about to beeing pushed out you can retreat, use a clarity meanwhile and pull the lane/stack camps for your carry(especially if the lane doesnt go very well)

Of course there are always exceptions... especially with certain offlaners that love to dive the enemy tower like bristle, undying, centaur... In those situations you have to be carefull with pulling because if you pull at the wrong time the creepwave will push into your own tower, granting the enemy offlaner the opportunity to dive and kill both of you.

[ナルゴ]

If it's the laning phase, you need ample justification to leave the lane. It better be extremely important: Pulling, warding, dewarding, stopping an enemy pull, etc. If you leave the lane and end up achieving nothing, then you've lost opportunities to get exp and harass or control the lane, while leaving your core vulnerable. Supports are less prioritized for exp, but that doesn't mean you should deliberately starve yourself and end up becoming a walking bounty rune.

[SiEgE]

Originally posted by Krotok:

Hello,
I'm learning how to play support in unranked games, and I wonder if I'm doing the right thing by staying away from my teammates while they farm in the jungle so they get all the experience, or if I'd better stay around to level up a bit. Most of the games, I end up being 2-6 levels behind my teammates and it seems ok to me, since I help my team by letting them grow stronger, even at my own expense. I guess support heroes can do their jobs at around L15-20, as their abilities are maxed out, and they don't need much items, but I wanted to know what you guys think? Should I leech experience from my teammates and level up as much as them?
Thanks in advance.

From my experience, your carries expect you to not steal exp nor gold, be farmed as good as them(but not too well, or else they'll use that as a reason to blame you at the end of the game), and be there to help them against gangs at the same time, making support's expected behaviour a Schrödinger's cat of a question.

[Krotok]

Thank you all for your answers. I understand now that during the lane phase, I'm expected to stay in my lane as long as I can. The lane phase ends when enemy heroes force me out of there, or when my carry isn't safe alone in the jungle.

And after the lane phase, when my carry is farming the jungle, it's ok for the support player to stay around if there are enemy heroes roaming for a gank, or if I have warding or stacking business to do. Otherwise, I better make myself useful elsewhere.

[Schulti mit Sahne]

Originally posted by Krotok:

Thank you all for your answers. I understand now that during the lane phase, I'm expected to stay in my lane as long as I can. The lane phase ends when enemy heroes force me out of there, or when my carry isn't safe alone in the jungle.

And after the lane phase, when my carry is farming the jungle, it's ok for the support player to stay around if there are enemy heroes roaming for a gank, or if I have warding or stacking business to do. Otherwise, I better make myself useful elsewhere.

No usually you can even leave the lane during laning stage and roam, even as pos 5, if you see and opporunity to kill or if the offlane/midlane gets ganked(just dont do it too often, sometimes you dont have to do it at all, so its mor eof a situational thing). It is just important to let your carry know beforehand, because theres nothing worse a pos5 suddenly tping out visibly for the enemy team granting them the opportunity to kill the safelaner.

Also if you want to know what to do after your safelane T1 falls and your carry starts jungling, its best to just ward the jungle for your carry and either help out the midlane, or offlane to take the enemy T1s if they are still up.
usually when the Safelane T1 falls(on both sides) the entire mapcontrol shifts so that part of the dire jungle area(lets say you are radiant) with the easy camp and hard camp suddenly becomes actually your own teams "area of control".

Heres a quick drawing i made to visualize this (the map is a bit outdated though i think)
(red is the dire controled area after T1 safelane towers are gone, orange is dangerous/contested area because it can be easily invaded(at least easier than the triangle, thus poses a bigger threat for the carry to farm in, but of course its situationally and depends on the location and strategy of the enemy team aswell as your own map awareness) and green are the camps that are probably the safest to farm. exception might be the medium camp right next to the midlane and river, this is actually also a camp that can get ganked easily sometimes.(im just too lazy to fix it because i marked it also as green lol)

https://i.ibb.co/hfqg4Qq/Mapcontrol.png

What i want to say with this is, you as support kinda control where your carry is going to farm by the wards you place. The carry obviously wants to farm where he has vision in order not to die, if you as support continue to ward the bot jungle after the T1 is gone, what actually happens is, that if the carry is not experienced(what i kinda expect in low brackets) he'd go farm in the bottom jungle and just waits for a gank to occour (if the enemy team does ganks like this). So In my personal opinion, it is sometimes better to maybe put up 1 ward in the bottom jungle somwhere at the contested area, in order to have vision when the enemy team thinks they can go for the T2 of the safelane or try to gank giving away their location. The Other wards should be placed either at mid (so you have vision to take the mid T1, or the enemy top jungle so Your carry can farm the area aswell while the rest of the team either tries to take T2, gank enemy jungle or Take mid T1. And again this is a guideline, not a common rule. Theres something called agressive and defensive warding aswell. But thats kinda my own general rule of thumb in terms of warding. I try to not use too much observers in the bottom jungle as radiant unless I expect fights to go down there.

[xxcookiexx]

Just make it seem like you're being useful but secretly leach as much xp as humanly possible so you can be useful later on at least on low-med mmr