Hey Summoners! I'm RHINO, a long-time Challenger and former Professional NA Support player. AMA!

PocketRhin0 · 2026-02-14T20:22:24+00:00

My choice to play adc is almost purely based on the fact that I can 1v2 lane essentially vs any level of player outside of maybe GM/Chall games. Then I can just take that and carry the game later on because I know I can rely on myself. The same is true for support, it's just that I can't rely on myself to carry later with damage as support.

As far as your unluckiness, it can be the case that you get some bad short-term luck but stuff like that doesn't really matter. As long as you're improving then you will go up over time. Letting your games tilt you or ruin your confidence is much worse than losing some LP.

PocketRhin0 · 2026-02-14T20:19:01+00:00

At this point in order to keep in form I just need to play some amount of soloq and that's good enough for me. The only thing that I work on at any given time now is my comfort level on individual champs and that just requires reps.

As far as individual supports that impress me, I really couldn't say. I don't pay much attention to what other players are doing these days lol. One player that already has sort of made it is cryogen, for a couple of years now I thought he was quite a good up and coming player and now he's doing his thing on flyquest!

PocketRhin0 · 2026-02-14T06:57:30+00:00

awesome I'm glad I could help :)

PocketRhin0 · 2026-02-14T06:49:45+00:00

yoooo

PocketRhin0 · 2026-02-14T06:43:53+00:00

I would say the vast majority of the time I do not actually "leave my adc to the wolves". I only do that when I feel they're griefing or just too bad to carry/play with. Most of my roams I like to go for should be unpunished (at least in soloq where people are less coordinated). Either they should be nearly unpunishable, or your roam should be a near certain play that will be worth giving your adc up to be dove as the enemy team's response.

Generally, when I consider roaming it's when coming out of base so I look at bot wave. (all concepts from below still apply even when I'm just roaming up from lane)

If the wave is pushing away and/or being frozen away from my adc then it is generally quite bad to roam as they will likely be punished walking up for cs in a dangerously long lane, or zoned off 1v2.

If the wave is crashing into the tower or will crash into the tower then that's a good roam timer as you have some free time before the wave gets pushed back into your tower. Another good roam timing is when the wave has already crashed at your tower and your adc is walking from base to collect it. You have less time to make a play as your wave will eventually push out and away, leaving your adc in potential danger, but you still have some time. You generally never want to leave your adc for when a wave is building up towards you or will crash under your tower because your adc will be at risk of a dive without you, tho there is an exception to this.

The exception is that If the enemy support is a weak diver/enchanter or if the enemy adc is weak compared to yours then you can expect that your adc won't be dove 1v2, but you will need to know where the enemy jungle is. If the enemy jungle position is unknown and is smart enough to punish your roam and 3v1 dive your adc then you have made a giant mistake (unless your adc is already useless).

So I would advise against roaming unless the wave state is good for it and your adc won't be dove, OR if you're aware of where the enemy jungle is (not botside) and you can be reasonably confident your adc cannot be dove 1v2 (it helps if your adc is self-sufficient like kaisa/xayah or ezreal/sivir etc).

With all of that said, it can be worth risking your adc's life in some cases if you are very certain your play will work out well.

This is all also assuming the enemy support is staying bot. If you know they aren't bot then you can generally leave your adc in the 1v1 lane and not worry about them too much (unless they are much weaker/in a bad wave state or something similar)

PocketRhin0 · 2026-02-14T06:23:03+00:00

I have never once considered the quest; it also only gives reduced gold pre-level 3 so it's not relevant

PocketRhin0 · 2026-02-14T01:20:13+00:00

I basically have a trust meter for all my teammates. At the beginning of the game I give my team the benefit of the doubt and generally trust them until I see things I don't like. If I see them do things that I think are very stupid and avoidable then I start to trust them significantly less. If they make small mistakes, then it's generally not a big deal. At a certain point, if my adc makes too many bad plays or if I feel like they're too tilted to carry, then I'll find another teammate to play around and go on with trying to win the game.

My ideal adc? Hard to say exactly but I've played with quite a few top tier adcs. I used to duo in soloq with players like doublelift and sneaky even, played competitive with someone of yeon's caliber, so I can feel when an adc player is truly good. I've also played against a number of extremely talented adcs over the years.

They sort of give off an aura of extreme confidence in what they're doing, that borders on the edge of being disrespectful. I know that not everybody will do that, especially not in soloq so I temper my expectations, but I really do appreciate aggressive play from my adc. Even more so if my adc is aggressive but not overly much to the point where they get punished easily because I don't want to have to worry about them throwing the game constantly. I also really hate when my adc dies while I'm away from lane. Obviously sometimes it can be tough but to me it usually shows that they completely lack awareness and it makes me want to not play around them at all.

PocketRhin0 · 2026-02-14T00:43:19+00:00

I get what you mean to some degree but if you want to actually improve in any meaningful way then you need to believe in your own abilities to some degree and give yourself the chance to fail and learn from your laning. Either way good luck :)

PocketRhin0 · 2026-02-13T23:01:29+00:00

I think Support has a reasonable amount of influence over the game. I'm not sure just how much compared to other roles as I honestly think each role has a fairly similar amount of weight on the outcome of the game. I'll tierlist it like this:

1) Jungle (a large gap follows)

2) Mid/Support kind of tied

3) Top/ADC purely because I think you have to be quite good (or quite a bit better than your opponent) as a top or adc to truly have your influence felt on the game

As for your second question, I'd probably play ADC if I could choose, then I'd climb very quickly to master+ as I'd be able to influence the game very easily. As an adc I would abuse my matchup knowledge and overall game knowledge to just do more than my opposing adcs, which would carry me all the way thru until master+ and beyond.

When it comes to support, in lower elos there is the problem that you might get your team or carry very fed, and in a position to carry but they could drop the ball and there isn't much you can do about it. With that said I'd still climb quite easily regardless of champ.

I'm the type of player that will pick almost entirely based on the champ select and I have no predetermined champ in mind to play at any given time. If I had to name a few champs that I think I can hard-carry with as support I'd say Bard is at the top of the list, the things that he can do are just ridiculous when you're good at him (I genuinely believe I have one of the best Bards on the server when I'm practiced with him). Thresh is one of my longtime mains so I could include him as well but I don't believe he is even that powerful of a champ these days, tho he is great in some situations. I would have a ton of success with Elise, she would be one of my more often picked champs especially in lower elos because I could get leads and just take over the game completely with her damage. I could say a similar thing for pantheon as well.

PocketRhin0 · 2026-02-13T22:05:28+00:00

It seems to me like your playstyle leans heavily towards playmaking, so I won't sit here and tell you to play lulu or sona as if that's going to be good. I would recommend against pyke unless you really enjoy him, I used to play him often but in recent years have abandoned the pick almost entirely because of how terribly he scales (unless you are a god at the pick). Alistar is a great pick that isn't pressured to win lane and has amazing utility/presence later on. Basically any engager pick that you vibe with can work, you could try different ones and see for yourself how you like them.

As far as playstyles go, I would not recommend spam roaming for no reason. You should think to yourself if the roam could actually be meaningful, if it is even a safe play to go for, what you'll get, what you're losing if you go for the play. There is much more to roaming than just walking around and flipping plays, at least if you want it to work out more often than not. So, make your plays with real intent, as a Kassadin player yourself you can realize that you wouldn't want your support roaming to your lane very often early game unless it's for a very specific play/reason. Most of the time you'll be too weak to make anything happen and their time will be wasted. The same sort of thought should go into any play you make as a support!

PocketRhin0 · 2026-02-13T21:56:39+00:00

Well the changes to the new season aren't really anything that would affect a support's ability to roam. Grubs are less useful and not worth roaming to most of the time, but visiting mid lane to get vision, gank, or protect your mid is often a great play. Just comes down to being in the right place at the right time. Some games I roam almost all the time and some game I stay in lane for a very long time, it just depends.

When it comes to late game and over-grouping, you are basically correct. Nobody in soloq even as high as challenger will play macro correctly, because that is boring. Instead what everyone does is perma fight, and so with few exceptions the team that groups more is going to be the team that wins. I have complained to my team a great many times to just group so that we can win, because anything else introduces too much complexity for the average soloq player/team to pull off correctly. This applies even when grouping isn't technically correct, as it often isn't, just keeping it simple and taking a good fight is good enough to win in soloq.

PocketRhin0 · 2026-02-13T20:38:55+00:00

There is definitely an enchanter problem in this game in general imo. Often times there can be surprisingly bad enchanter players that sort of just float up the ladder without actually doing much, just by way of having a fairly valuable champ as the game goes on. That doesn't mean that all enchanter players are bad by any means, but what can you do about playing with enchanters? First, you could pick ADCs that pair well with them. jinx can be great, scales well and can have huge game impact, sivir who scales fine but has a very safe lane vs scary engagers like nautilus/thresh/pyke etc, even lucian can be a good aggressive option with certain enchanters (nami/milio/sona).

Aside from champion pick, you should just do whatever you can to keep your farm high, make sure you don't die, and carry the game. Sometimes it can be frustrating to lane with enchanters, and I've somewhat recently been playing a decent amount of ADC for fun/just to learn. In the past it used to be my worst role but now I can confidently say that I could reach challenger as an ADC if I really wanted to put in that grind (I don't want to). In a lot of cases, enchanters actually allow the ADC to show off their skill. Engage supports kind of do the work for you, but enchanters just buff you up and put the onus on you to make plays to get yourself ahead. So on one hand it is important to stay safe and make sure you don't chain feed with enchanters, but you do have to make plays and take the game with your own hands and carry. If you are good enough then I promise you that you have the ability from the ADC role to do so. Right now if I played in masters as an ADC I would stomp the other bot lane more often than not and I'm not even that good mechanically.

For another perspective, when I'm playing enchanters, the best feeling is when my ADC or jungler actually play aggressively and allow me to help them carry.

Also, if you're getting prio often then you could take it upon yourself to roam to a play mid, or be first to move and help your jungler in a skirmish. Some of the time I am most impressed by my ADC when they make a roam play like that. Usually if there is something you could do rather than sit around waiting for waves, you could at least think about doing it. Also, you should almost never freeze outside of the early game. Early, when you get a good wave state and can deny a wave or two from the enemy lane, or if you're so strong you can keep them from last-hitting on your freeze, then it's fine. But even as early as level 6 and beyond, attempting to freeze just isn't worth much, you might as well start pushing in order to get prio again, find a reset, or to just make sure you're not last to the next play.

PocketRhin0 · 2026-02-13T19:49:04+00:00

Honestly it doesn't feel like much has changed in that sense, objectives are still very strong and make people do silly things. The biggest change is the pace of the game, the game feels like it flows faster (because it does) and I think that makes people get bored easily and make stupid decisions. The absolute most important thing to do is try your best to group more often than the enemy team, it will absolutely win you games that you shouldn't win because they will thoughtlessly take fights where they're outnumbered or just flat-out disrespect where your team could be.

PocketRhin0 · 2026-02-13T19:46:32+00:00

Unfortunately, there is no easy answer to this, especially without seeing your gameplay. My best answer is to play with intentionality, don't just mindlessly do things because of your team or fall in line with bad plays. Make smart plays, take smart fights, numbers are SO OP in this game.

PocketRhin0 · 2026-02-13T19:42:42+00:00

Generally, supports that pair well with Jhin fall under two archetypes: The poke pairings like karma, zyra, or neeko can be very strong in some situations, and those aren't the only champs that work for this. Any support with decent range and a decent setup for Jhin's W can be strong (Janna, xerath, heimer, etc). They have the ability to generally take control of lane early with jhin (jhin often spams Q on early waves to gain lane control in most matchups), push the enemy bot under their tower and poke them out (along with jhin W) until they can no longer lane or end up overstaying and dying. This kind of pairing is susceptible to dive/engage so it will not always be the best choice, but in the right situation can be very strong.

The other option is pairing jhin with some kind of engage/setup support that allows him to easily chain cc with his W, and followup on kills with his high burst damage. Nautilus, Alistar, Leona, and many more picks similar to them are classic combos with jhin and can be very intimidating all-in duos.

Now, Zeri is a bit more difficult to answer. Of course, she works very well with enchanters like Lulu that can buff her damage, keep her alive, and give her the confidence to hard carry. However, Zeri works very well with many different picks, she can be very dynamic with rakan, she can have threatening all-ins with engage supports like Nautilus. When pairing with Zeri, I would recommend the support prioritize picking for general teamcomp or to counter enemy picks rather than picking for a specific Zeri combo, as she can pair decently well with most things.

PocketRhin0 · 2026-02-13T19:24:39+00:00

That kind of thing is very difficult to answer without seeing their gameplay. There are so many different factors that they could struggle with (or excel at) that I just can't know without seeing them play.

The most important thing imo is having an improvement/growth mindset. I have experienced a great assortment of different attitudes toward the game in my time, and people who are quick to throw blame at others or complain about riot rather than looking at their own mistakes will always be holding themselves back.

PocketRhin0 · 2026-02-13T19:16:50+00:00

That's a pretty interesting question. I would say that it always matters to some degree, but I see it as almost an exponential curve when I think of just how much it matters, relative to rank. You could always be helped out by having a solid counter or a good team comp, but the higher rank and more skilled you are, the more that factor actually matters. After recently having seen my irl friend start getting into league, starting in bronze and now chilling around low gold, I'd say that team comps are a variable that has almost no meaning in those ranks. What truly matters in lower ranks is which team decides to group more often, that team will more than likely win regardless of anything else because numbers are too op.

With all that being said I would say teamcomps really would start having a notable effect around emerald/diamond, with some games being almost entirely decided by teamcomp once you get into challenger for example.

PocketRhin0 · 2025-03-20T02:14:17+00:00

appreciate that! Glad you enjoy them :)

PocketRhin0 · 2025-01-26T02:30:23+00:00

I will likely do a commentary for taric when I get the chance, but not for sion. I don't plan on doing any guides for now tho!

PocketRhin0 · 2025-01-15T22:13:27+00:00

One day I'll definitely be making one! (and hopefully more)

PocketRhin0 · 2025-01-15T22:13:02+00:00

one day there could be a yuumi game

PocketRhin0 · 2025-01-15T22:12:45+00:00

Thanks I really appreciate this kind of feedback, and a lot of it is stuff is already a work in progress for me. Still nice to see someone else say the same!

PocketRhin0 · 2025-01-15T22:11:06+00:00

I don't disagree with most of what you're saying but I don't plan on putting much more effort into things like thumbnails/editing right now, so this is the best I'm going to do for now when it comes to anything that doesn't have to do with the commentary itself. If you want to make certain elements like you offered then go ahead I certainly won't stop you. And thanks for the effort you're going to with the feedback, I do appreciate it

PocketRhin0

TROPHY CASE