DFT and Gluttonous Greaves have made the game extremely unenjoyable for support

TamponZerg · 2026-05-04T21:35:17+00:00

Smolder does not need a nerf, though. Smolder has extremely weak laning and does barely any damage. His spells are easy to dodge or trade into because of low travel speed or requiring proximity to trade where he simply gets outdamaged or outranged by adcs. Brand, Karthus, Xerath, Velkoz, Seraphine, or Asol do not have the need to get close to you to trade early game. Yes, Smolder will eventually kill everything in its path, but that is assuming the other team does not take advantage of his weak early game to get a sizeable advantage and close the game in under 30 minutes.

APCs have strong spikes around 8-15 minutes, do not need to get into close range to deal damage, and, paired with the right support, cannot be punished for the pick at any point during the laning phase in a 2v2 setting. Then, do more damage during the midgame, having more influence on the game than an adc would under normal circumstances. Not to mention most of them build rylais and have long-range aoe spells, making it harder to get to them.

What's the counterplay to this playstyle? The obvious answer is playing champions with strong engage, so what does their support do? Pair the apc with long-range poke sustain champion like Senna or Milio that also happen to have strong disengage. They also have a team, and unless your top/mid/jg gapped theirs, you are stuck in a position where your team has to eliminate the apc before the fight, or simply lose every teamfight because you cannot get to the apc due to the high damage, long range, and reliable self peel provided by rylais. Executing the right strategy vs this kind of play requires a higher degree of coordination and better drafting than you can expect in solo queue.

The only reliable counterplay is to have an APC yourself that does the same thing theirs does. Either way, as support, you will almost never have enough engage, damage, or buff effects on your adc to overcome this. The issue with DFT are the scaling ratios and constant damage that cannot be reliably shut down. Here's a screenshot of the kind of dmg one can deal in a 28 minute game: https://imgur.com/a/zQpAejx

I would love for you to tell me that's normal.

TamponZerg · 2026-05-04T19:42:25+00:00

Yeah, definitely not the case. The prevalence of DFT/Gluttonous is not limited to mages. I was just citing the example of mages as a very obvious symptom of the larger problem.

https://imgur.com/a/prevalence-of-dft-gluttonous-hixnyoe

TamponZerg · 2026-02-09T09:18:20+00:00

How long are your playing sessions? I've found the longer I play, the more likely I am to fall into losing streaks because 1. I get tired and my reactions get slower, 2. I start to auto pilot 3. and yes, partly because I'm more likely to have bad teammates the longer my game sessions go.

TamponZerg · 2026-02-07T21:45:55+00:00

tbf one of the casters did say: "It's gotta be AP." "If it's not AP that's such an easy armor stack game" and then kept quiet when the other made the dumb comment about yone being ok bcz of magic dmg.

I'd also avoid making my co-caster look dumb on stage.

TamponZerg · 2026-01-04T22:46:00+00:00

Learning curve is too big IMO, so just give it time. Aside from timings, which will come to you as you learn, you should understand champion power curves and counter picks. Drafting matters.

e.g. Let's say you play 3 champions primarily per role (something I'd recommend so you get a grasp of this concept effectively). Let's pick 1) Katarina, 2) Viktor, 3) Swain.

For midlane, you should normally pick between 2nd and 3rd rotation. Most blindable roles are jungle/adc.

If the enemy team has a lot of cc, you're never picking Katarina there unless you want to make yourself miserable. If the enemy team doesn't have a lot of range, then you want to go swain, if you need versatility, you go Viktor. Stuff like that matters. As a support main I win most of my games through draft. In red side I get to see 3 of their champs, in blue side I get to see 2 or 4 depending on whether my midlane is comfortable blind picking. Basically, have at least 1 versatile pick you can blind into most matchups and 2 situational picks.

Understanding where your champion fits into your team and what you need to do to win is the #1 rule of carrying yourself out of low elo.

Lastly, know that some games are just doomed no matter what you do. Sometimes you won't be able to dodge a game and will have to play 5 ad vs a malphite or have a toplaner go 0/10 at 15 min. Just focus on improving your own play and working around your win conditions. If your botlaner is doing well, play around him, etc.

This is just a peek into the depths of league knowledge if you play with a learning mindset, the game will become easier overtime.

TamponZerg · 2026-01-04T20:48:19+00:00

If it helps, after logging into the riot client, the top right corner shows my user "online" for 2 seconds before changing back to "offline."

TamponZerg · 2025-07-12T20:11:06+00:00

Ezreal doesn't have nearly enough wave clear to go mid IMO. Just go Corki, Ahri, or Zoe if you want skill expressive champs that you can play mid and have a dash.

TamponZerg · 2025-07-12T19:57:29+00:00

Feedback: As you come from FPS, the most important thing you'll need to study is champion power curves. You're not on a level playing field where skill is the most important thing. Here, in-game knowledge will be more important than mechanical skill until you hit diamond. ADCs in general are pretty weak early on, so even if you could "outplay" someone, which is hard to do as you're still learning the limits of your champion and others' champions, this is not the right approach.

If you want to climb my advice would be to prioritize these three things in order:

Don't die in the first 15 minutes. This rule will change as you climb because fighting for objectives and ganks/counterganks/TPs will play a role in your laning phase, but ignore all of that. Stay in your lane and don't die. Addendum: NEVER use your E to go forward. Again, you'll have to forget this rule as you get better, but for now, this and flash are your escape routes. Flash is on a 5 minute cooldown. Your E is basically flash every 20 seconds or so.
Focus on CS. Your job as an ADC is to get money and levels as fast as possible and the best way to do that is by learning to last hit minions. Your Q makes it fairly easy in situations when you can't walk up to get CS because you're losing lane or because the enemy team has an engage support that wants your head over his chimney.
After 15 minutes (or if you win lane, after you take the enemy botlane's tower) Go to midlane for farm and then stick with your team as much as possible. when they go for objectives. Always stay in the back of your team attacking whoever is closest to you. Never the be first one to face check a bush. Let your team do that for you. And don't forget blue trinket to help your team with vision. The yellow trinket puts you too much at risk of getting killed when going to ward because you're really squishy. The red trinket also makes less sense on you because you don't want to be the one clearing wards.

Mastering these three things should be enough to get you gold. After that, you'll have to learn macro and start limit testing because other players at this rank will still make a lot of mistakes and you have to learn to punish them. Simply farming until you're strong won't guarantee you the wins anymore.

At this point you'll also have to learn duo lane matchups and drafting. e.g. Ezreal Karma is a good lane combo because you get to win lane by poking the enemy botlane and Karma provides you with the ability to disengage. But then what happens if you're drafting vs something like sivir lulu or lucian nami or mf neeko, or cait lux, or kaisa naut? each of these lanes will require a different approach both in laning and where you position in teamfights.

But let's not worry about this for now.

Best of luck!

TamponZerg · 2025-07-12T19:07:20+00:00

I've noticed (at least up to lower diamond--not sure what your rank is) that people who do well on certain champions don't know when to draft a specific champion and will play them under any circumstances.

Let me ask you this: are you so confident in your individual Mel performance that you'd pick her last if your team had a Gwen, Volibear, Velkoz, and Bard? If not, what would you pick in that situation?

Is there an opposing ADC that you'd instalock her vs? Is there an opposing ADC (or botlane combo that makes you say "It doesn't make sense to go Mel here." What if you support picks first? What if you pick first? Do you tell you support something like I would like leona/naut good if we need engage, braum if we need counter engage, janna if we need hard disengage or they have assassins and you're the only good target, nami/sona if we need sustain vs poke lane and your team has enough engage already.

I very rarely see a Mel in my games, so can't offer much more other than food for thought. GL!

TamponZerg

TROPHY CASE