With patch 9.2 recently added and crit items back in efficiency, AD Carry champions are on the rise again. It has become easier for AD Carries to live up to their name and carry the team. This feels more fulfilling for support players since supports also play a huge part in leading their AD Carry to actually carry. It is also the reason many AD Carries prefer certain champions over others as their support; there are some champions they find truly supportive when it comes to helping their AD Carries scale. However, there are also certain champions they dislike because laning with them tends to be quite unrewarding. I thought it would be interesting to put together the champions that are most disliked by AD Carries. The champs chosen were all based on anecdotes from players in the common elos - below Diamond.



This list isn’t meant to bash the champions on it; I myself am a support main and play some of the champions mentioned here. The list is just to explore why some supports are disliked by ADCs. It’s mainly due to players just not playing support champs properly, yet it seems that those players often play these select champions.



If there are any supports you’d like to add to the list or want to share your opinion, feel free to use the comment section!

Lux

It’s quite well-known that Lux is one of the least-liked supports by AD Carries. At first, she may seem like a decent choice; she can deal damage to opponent laners with her E (Lucent Singularity) and occasionally bind them with her Q (Light Binding), giving her ADC a chance to score a kill. She even offers a double shield with her W (Prismatic Barrier). Not a bad skill set, right? Well, if a good skill set was all it took to be a good support, then she wouldn’t have made it on this list.



It seems that more often than not, getting matched with a Lux support comes with a lot of missed Qs and Es; in worst case scenarios, she’ll basically spam these spells, and since they aren’t cheap you’re often left with a mana-less Lux. As a result of her attempted E poke, you lose CS and general control of the minion wave. Little by little, you start falling behind in CS as the minions get caught in the “cross-fire”.



But not all is lost; we can definitely make up for the lost gold with kills and assists. Nothing to fuss about. We can ignore how Lux decides to (or not to) use some of her skills, as long she properly shields you with her W, which she is definitely going to put early points in to keep you alive.



But then Lux recalls and returns with items that seem less support-y and more full AP build-y. You try to be optimistic; maybe she’ll poke them down so you can deal the final blow. However, a few skirmishes later, your Lux has all the kills and quite a lot of CS; she tells you to look at her - she’s the ADC now. When you’re in trouble and hoping she’ll save you, all the skills she seemed to land quite well when getting kills now strangely miss their mark.

▲ Many AD Carries will agree this is so true in League of Legends.

(Art by Natalie Tran

She can’t land her skills when you need her to, she takes both your minions and kills, builds full AP, and dies almost every time she’s caught without her Flash up. It’s hard to keep your calm when this happens, especially if it happens with seemingly every Lux support you end up with. The cycle repeats itself again and again until you can’t help but resent Lux. You give up on believing that there exists a support Lux whose goal is to actually support you; your only hope is that maybe the next full AP, CS/kill-hungry, support Lux you meet will actually be strong enough to carry you.

Soraka

It may seem strange that Soraka - arguably the most support-like support character - is on this list. After all, she’s always there beside you, keeping you going with her heals and generally doing everything that a conventional support is expected to do. There is no other champion whose kit is as heal-focused as Soraka’s. With her great sustainability and ability to save almost anyone on the team in a pinch using her ult, she should be a great pick for the support role. Then why do so many AD Carries complain about Soraka support?



Soraka’s kit is one of the simplest in League of Legends — Q for damage, slow, and health regen, W for heals, E for silence, and R for healing everyone on the team. Her plain kit is why she is one of the champions often recommended to newbies, although a simple character does not a skilled player make. Soraka is easy to understand, but also very easy to fail with if you don’t have the right game sense.



Soraka’s heal offers great sustainability to her AD Carry, but at a price. It costs her mana and 10% of her maximum health, so the more she heals, the more health she will lose. She’s already a squishy champ to begin with; with her main mechanic making her even squishier, you’re left with a glass heal-cannon.



Thankfully, her Q can restore that lost health. A good Soraka will position herself well and successfully land Qs and basic attacks from a safe distance. However, a lot of Sorakas will get hit while trying to regain their health and just end up breaking even. A good Soraka will keep her E in reserve and use it to save you in a dire situation, yet many of the Sorakas you’ve met have likely wasted it on trying to poke the enemy. It’s quite possible that there are good Sorakas out there, and chances are you’d really like to meet one to see what it’s like.



Unfortunately, you can never tell at champ select whether that person wanting to play Soraka is going to be a support god incarnate, or will end up being only as effective as a health pot. If you’d rather not take the chance, then maybe suggest they take a tank like Alistar because at least his heal doesn’t bring him one step closer to death. If the Soraka still insists on being Soraka, then the most you can do is cross your fingers and hope for the best.

▲ Art by Zev

Blitzcrank

Blitzcrank, a hook champion, is one of the most popular picks at the moment -- it is a tier 1 support in solo ranked. Its win rate is decent as well -- around 51%. Given this info, why was Blitzcrank put on this list?



It is a "hook champion", which means that its “hook skill” is the cornerstone of its kit. If it can’t make a successful or properly-aimed pull, then it loses a lot of its strength. Almost everyone has had a game where a Blitzcrank player never landed a pull all game, or maybe the one pull it landed was on the enemy Alistar. The skillset of this champion relies heavily on the performance of its players, which means that unless these players are absolutely confident with their Q, they’d be better off playing someone else. Blitzcrank has no ability to poke from a distance either, so once enemy laners realize your support can’t land their grabs, they will fight back aggressively, resulting in you losing lane dominance. All your support can do is stand there, ping for your jungler, and occasionally shoot their fist out into the void.



Hook champions are usually more powerful during laning phase. Ideally, the dominance they offer in lane will offset their lower utility later on; enough good pulls can really get an ADC snowballing. However, no hooks lead to stagnation, and it is highly likely that a Blitzcrank who fails to land its Q during the laning phase will also miss its Qs in team fights. It is a high risk, high return champ, but the ADCs also have to suffer that high risk; when there’s no return, it can be easy to get tilted.

Non-Support Champions (Lee Sin/Zed/Yasuo/Ezreal etc.)

Once in a while, we come across strange picks like Lee Sin or Yasuo support. Creating new and sometimes unconventional strategies has always been a part of League of Legends. Any champions can be used as a support if you believe -- even Gankplank was once used as a support before he got reworked and got his E (Raise Morale) removed along with the buffs it offered. Many people say that any champion with CC or utility is viable as a support; people often seek to prove this in the field, but that also often means dragging (unwilling) ADCs into the experiment.



▲ Gankplank support... It was viable in certain tiers.

(Video from BALTOBOULBOBBI YouTube)



One condition to playing any non-support champion as a support is that you have come to an agreement with your lane partner so that they can play along to a well-thought strategy. Compulsively picking a non-support champ simply because you do not usually play supports leads to a bad time 9 times out of 10.



There was a spike in unconventional supports when AD Carry champions weren’t as effective and players were picking non-ADC champions in the bot lane. Now that AD Carries have regained their strength, it’s better if they have supports who can peel for them either with tankiness or help them scale with utility. You might want to rethink your Lee Sin or Yasuo support unless you have either a coherent strategy or the mechanics to make it work.

Xerath/Veigar

Although there are ADCs who are okay with Xerath or Veigar supports, there are also many who hate them. Xerath/Veigar supports are quite similar to Lux support; they heavily rely on poking and CC, which comes with high mana cost. In order to contribute to the lane, Xerath/Veigar players will need to be good with their skillshots, or they won’t offer anything as poke champions. After all, they cannot peel for the AD Carry since they are squishy themselves.



Xerath, however, is less risky than the other two since he has longer range, which makes him more viable in lower elos. With successful skill shots, Xerath will be able to keep enemy bot laners at bay. As for Veigar, he has the upper hand in zoning enemy bot laners with his E (Event Horizon), even if he fails to stun them. For this reason, the overall opinion of these two supports among players seems to be more positive than Lux in lower elos, although many AD Carries would prefer better choices that can actually peel for them. We do occasionally meet a Xerath or Veigar support that misses most of their skillshots and offers nothing during the laning, which makes them as bad as pull champions who miss their Qs or a Lux with bad aim. While they are disliked, they definitely aren’t as hated as others.

Honorable Mentions

The support champions that are mentioned in this section were once popular supports that appeared in the Rift (although they were not necessarily popular with AD Carries). They are no longer seen that much, either because they are no longer viable or have been replaced by better choices.

Miss Fortune

Miss Fortune support grew popular when GorillA invented it as a way to counter Zyra support in the World Championship 2016 when his team was playing against SKT T1 during the semi-finals. Although it was a unconventional pick, it was sensational back then since it was a smart strategy that helped PraY’s Ashe scale, letting ROX Tigers win against SKT T1. Miss Fortune’s E (Make It Rain) helped kill Zyra’s plants, while her ult (Bullet Time) had strong synergy with Ashe’s ult (Enchanted Crystal Arrow).



▲ GorillA's Miss Fortune Support at Worlds 2016 against SKT T1

(Video from Kate LoL YouTube)

Since then, Miss Fortune support made its appearance now and then in the Summoner’s Rift. Since Miss Fortune’s E could consume all 3 charges of Spellthief’s Edge, it was fairly easy to scale as MF support. Also, MF’s ult did powerful damage once she scaled well. She made sense as a support, but some AD Carries were still reluctant to go to the same lane with her.



It was mainly because many support players played MF support incorrectly. The only CC she had was her E, which was too weak to really even count as a CC skill. She is very squishy with no mobility skills, so there isn’t any way she could peel for her ADC. The most effective way to use MF support was paired with an AD Carry with strong CC like Ashe or Varus - something many MF supports seemed unaware of. She was not a conventional pick but a strategy to counter specific supports like Zyra, so unless you were playing against Zyra or had an AD Carry with strong CC, she wasn’t the most sensible choice for a support. Fortunately, it seems like players came to their senses again because MF support is no longer seen as much.

Nidalee

I wanted to mention Nidalee support since she used to be in Lux’s place on the list of least liked supports, dating way back to season 2-4. Unlike Miss Fortune support, which you could still see being played in the Rift on rare occasions, Nidalee support is no longer seen in the bot lane. This is due to the nerfs she got in her rework where she could no longer one-shot opponent bot laners with her constant Qs. Before that nerf, Nidalee support was all about throwing her spears around, hoping one of them would eventually hit an enemy champion and kill them.



Her ability to one-shot kill and heal (E: Primal Surge) while granting bonus attack speed allowed her popularity as a support to surge. Once in a while, you would find yourself walking down towards the bot lane with Nidalee support, whether you liked it or not. This was way before players were able to select roles before queueing up, which meant someone who did not main supports but was the last one to pick was forced to go support. Many of these players picked non-support champions as “support,” which usually ended up being Nidalee -- and AD Carries began to feel tormented.



Laning with Nidalee support heavily relied on her Q to have lane priority, and if she didn’t land any Qs, Nidalee essentially did nothing more than sap your EXP. Her unreliable lane harassment, the lack of CC or utility (not many ADCs will agree that her E is a great utility skill), and how she couldn’t even tank - because 9 times out of 10, Nidalee supports built full AP - led to her being disliked as support. Bad positioning in cougar form could also end up giving kills to enemies. There were even some players who argued that their “traps” could be used in place of actual wards and refused to buy any so that they could continue building more AP items. The more AD Carry players came across Nidalee supports like this, the more they began to grow frustrated. Eventually, whenever they saw Nidalee support, their mind was filled with doubt and fear even before the game started. It may have been for the better that Nidalee went through a rework, saving these players from further suffering.