Support is the role that enables everyone else. Supports protect the ADC in the early game, provide vision, and bring engage, peel or utility in teamfights. It is often recommended for newer players because it teaches map awareness and teamplay quickly. This guide covers the role and links to the live support tier list, runes and our support runes guide.
How the Support Role Works
Supports come in a few flavours: enchanters that shield and heal, engage tanks that start fights, and poke or roaming picks that pressure the map. Warding and vision control run through all of them — controlling what your team can see is a support’s quiet superpower.
Because supports spend little gold on themselves, their impact comes from timing and positioning rather than raw items. A well-timed engage or a clutch shield decides fights that the scoreboard never fully explains.
Best Support Champions to Consider
Rather than hard-coding a ranking that goes stale, this guide points you to current data. The Support tier list ranks champions by real performance on the current patch, so it always reflects the meta as it actually is right now. Open it alongside this guide and treat the top of each tier as your shortlist.
From any champion on that list you can jump to its champion page for abilities and lore, its build for runes and items, and its counters for matchups. Comparing two or three options this way is far more reliable than trusting a fixed list, because strength shifts every patch.
How to Choose a Champion
Match your pick to your ADC and team. Enchanters pair well with hyper-carries you want to protect; engage tanks suit teams that need someone to start fights. The tier list shows current strength, and the support runes guide helps you set up rune pages for each style.
Builds and Runes
Once you have a champion in mind, lock in a reliable setup before you queue. The builds database gives current items and skill order, and the runes section explains keystones and full pages. Using an up-to-date build removes one of the most common ways to lose a winnable game.
When you want to see how the best players approach the role, the Support pro builds show exactly what professionals run, which is a great sanity check against your own setup.
Counters and Ranked Climbing
Knowing your matchups is half the role. Check the counters database for who beats your pick and who you beat, and read our counter guides for the trickiest opponents. When it is time to climb, the ranked climbing guide and the ranks guide tie champion choice into a longer-term plan.
Practical Tips
- Keep a pool of two or three support champions rather than chasing every new pick.
- Open the Support tier list each patch to see what shifted.
- Copy a current setup from the builds database instead of guessing items.
- Read matchups in counters before you lock in.
- Track balance changes in patch notes so your picks stay relevant.
