SMITE - Why Is Support So Underplayed / Hated?

Let me know your thoughts on this topic, these discussion videos are about sharing everyone's thoughts, not just mine.

[BasedChadman]

For me, Support feels more team dependent than any other role. I can't carry. I try to engage a fight, and my team leaves me to die. It's just a huge hassle trying to support a team that doesn't want to follow up on all your plays. I'd much prefer to play support with a coordinated and aggressive team behind me.

[Juggornawt]

Its unfun because a large percentage of the community is toxic, and it's always your fault. I'd like to see a video explaining why games like Smite draw in weak and entitled crybabies.

[franciscolaurean]

When I started to play I would often play support since no one else would but it wasnt the same after one game my ullr jumped in, missed his whole kit, and landed 1/5 autos, I was coming back to lane and had to dash ult as khep just in time to save him, I spammed retreat he was one shot and the other guy was full hp since he had life steal. My ullr didn't listen he stayed, I rooted and body blocked for him but mid rotated and killed the ullr with an aoe I cant do shit about that. He spammed you rock cancel that and feed the whole game. I wasnt as willing to support after that I still do once in a while but not as much as I used to :(

[MrHeadlessWonder]

I completely agree, I'm a support main and just having those games where you get blamed for everything when it's not your fault because support is frustrating it's why I like to balance out with every few games going adc or mage or something to keep my frustration down

[ridleydiddley]

Support is a big reason I haven't been playing as much. I've been on a horrid streak lately of getting instalocked out of roles and have gone an entire week of not playing anything but support. It's not rewarding, much less so when you're sitting there trying desperately to babysit a bad lane and all you can think is "I'd be doing so much better there." If things go wrong, it's on you. You didn't peel enough. You didn't dive when they wanted. You should have known they were going to ult. You you you you you. Your responsibility, your job, your fault, your role.

Supports don't have any player agency in a game of Smite because the extent of their abilities are all subservient to the damage dealers. You're purely a reactive role, either you react to your own team's engagement or your enemy's engagement. From there you peel, you CC, and you bodyblock until your cooldowns are up.

It should be taken as a sign of something more seriously wrong with the role when people would rather face a penalty than play it.

I'm not sure how to fix that, I'm not a game designer, I'm just someone who's tired of playing little but support for two solid months because you made the sin of resigning to fill instead of dodge.

At least Ganesh can do some damage of his own I guess.

[KamikazeDreamer]

I like support cause i enjoy being guardians but it takes forever to be able to hold your own or contribute much, building just defense and having shit lane clear early on. Hardly worth the thankless nature of the role plus the high probability of getting "you rock, cancel that" spams. I dont really play conquest anymore. Always get stuck playing support since most my teams tend to avoid it like the plague and beyone that, conquest is played by the most toxic of the already increasingly toxic smite community

[AZTaylor]

With the new Meta of Assassin's being viable supports I'm loving playing the role now..theres nothing more exciting than playing as Fenrir and turning him into a tank that can also do enough damage to help during team fights

[DonaldJuliano]

My largest issue with support is when people feed and I lose because I can’t impact the game enough. Or people spam blame you for their death when they miss play or feed.

[geminiangels]

To put it bluntly people want the spotlight most likely because of vain personal reasons. But on the flip side most people dont grasp the depth of support. Do we ha e dbl carry? 3 magical? AA or ability? What's our comp going to perform like? What is the enemy comp gonna perform like? Support is the deepest class in mobas for this reason. People honestly tend to worry only about themselves.

[iforeplay]

Am I the only one who actually prefers to play Support over carry. I find playing carry to be boring asf

[HardstyleGamng]

I love playing Support, but it’s a grossly thankless job. I wish there were more rewards or achievements you can get for being a good support player. People at the higher ranks understand the immense value of a support and being good or bad. But as I only just picked this game up a few months ago, it’s annoying when you can see what people need to be doing and you can’t do it yourself

[phoenixdive]

Hey that's me

Was a fun game man (you also played well so thankyou Mr Support)

[roachbagjr]

I like the video and agree what you said, I'm apparently a support main now since nobody else plays it. My only question is what should be done to fix the problem? This kinda felt like more of a rant and i'd really enjoy to see you come up with any solution to the problem of nobody playing supports cause it feels unrewarding. I myself can't think of anything but anything helps at this point really.

[pepsico]

I have played support for a few years now, and yknow what I love playing it with friends. In my friendship group I'm genuinely praised for being the support, for saving my friends lives, for building supports in memey/ experimental ways, for being aggressive and engaging with a team behind me.

But that doesn't address the major issue. You can't go in to a 5 stack for conquest with all your buddies whenever you play. People have lives, plus the fear of getting put against the sweatiest team known in existence is a dissauding factor (although I get why 5 stacks need to fight 5 stacks to make it balanced). My major issue is when you're without your bffs. The issue is the blame. You are the responsible one. And sure I've made mistakes in my time playing and I've lost games through stupid late game decisions. But it's funny because in those times when it was genuinely my fault and I admitted it, there was less flame towards me than when it was genuinely another person's fault. Not to mention if the game goes south as inters3ct said, how do you, the God behind in items, gold and levels, with close to 0 magical/physical power, balance the fight out without a damage dealer also making an effort. You can't. And even if you do get a damage dealer that helps turn the tide with you, all the glory on them.

Support is thankless, the game gives you no incentive, no reward, little gratification and no praise towards those who want to help. So why would you?....








THE REASON IS SPEED KEPHRI 700 MOVEMENT SPEED HELL YEAH FLYING AROUND WITH ROTATIONS AT THE SPEED OF LIGHT F*** MERCURY THE FAT OAF HELL YEAH NO ONE CAN STOP ME NOW

[cedddkkddkk]

Before i watch the video, this is why i think it’s undervalued and disliked:

It’s not glorious. Every person who starts playing Smite or any MOBA for that matter, wants to be the guy making the plays. Getting all the kills. The guy going 20/0. The guy bitches wanna suck off at the end of the tournament.

Support sadly just isn’t that. It’s a difficult role, maybe the most difficult depending on how you feel about jungle. It’s a thankless job. Everyone loves doing 100k damage in 2 abilities, but no one enjoys tickling an enemy’s health-bar with 3 rotations of their kit in a fight.

I think it’s mostly an ego thing. Why play someone who can’t get kills (and therefore in their mind, not contribute to the team...) When you can just play a role that can steamroll a whole team late game.

What people don’t seem to realize is that supports are the guys that make it all happen in the end. There’s a reason it’s called duo lane, not solo lane. Supports help ensure everyone makes it to the late game, sacrificing life and limb, glory and even a level lead to guarantee that Win.

I hate support too.

[CatBeenToHell]

Here's an unpopular opinion..
I genuinely enjoy support. I don't need numbers to tell me that that ADC got the pentakill because of me, if I know it, I know it and that's gratification enough. Performing well and doing my job gives me suffient boost to enjoy support 90% of the time.
I must say, I'm not a support main, but it's still enjoyable most of the time.
Also, on top of that.. Supports are very good for team morale boosts. You can save and give kills and peel and all that, which will help your team feel better and often perform better.
Plus, in season 5, you genuinely CAN carry on support. I've seen a solid amount of aggressive supports carry the game so. Just find your way to support IMO.

[WondderWaffel]

It's also the fact that once we discover a fun support pick that we can actually carry with, everyone cries out for hi-rez to hit them with the nerf hammer, making them unplayable for us and diminishing our (fun) god pool. You don't see much of: Guan Yu, Nike, Sun Wukong, Achilles, Aphrodite, Serquet, Erlang, in the support pick pool anymore(Baron in 6.1, with % healing nerfs, directly hitting support baron the hardest). Just waiting for the Fenrir and Ne Zha nerfs too, so we won't have anything but passive guardians again.

Yes some of them like Achilies and Erlang were just busted, in multiple roles, but things like the Serquet %dmg reduction just forced her out of support while she still remains a popular jungle pick

Well, thank god they buffed Xing Tian, finally some of the aggressive guardians are making their way back into support, now give Cabrakan some tweaks so we can play him too!

(Keep quiet about Ama and Odin, we need to hold on to every warrior we can get!)

[ViraLCyclopes]

The best way to support is by going full damage. You support your team by killing your opponents

[kristinareeves]

Support is amazing if your team following a bit of vgs

[silthersehost]

At a high level of play, support isn't a hated role because people generally understand that it's as important(if not more in some cases) as carry roles.
Up to diamond, people don't always realize that much and that usually results in a weak frontline/peel.
However, in ''elo hell'', playing a support to get you out of like gold is basically impossible, so people resort to playing carries and hope to god they can win through that.