When Should You Roam as Support in LoL?

Support is a complicated role because right from the start you have to deal with multiple lanes. The job of a good support is to ensure that he spends his time across the map and not in the confines of a single lane. There are multiple ways a support can help early game, but in our experience, to roam as support in lol is the best of them all.

Roaming is when you leave your lane and move to another if your other lanes are struggling. That’s not always why you roam. Your top laner could be winning the lane but he needs a bit more help to claim the top tower. There are quite a lot of scenarios that allow you to roam and we’re not going to bother to list them. All you need to do is build experience overtime as a support and you’ll develop an uncanny ability to know when to roam. So, let’s get into everything you need to be aware of when roaming in League of Legends.

Ensuring the Safety of your ADC

The first thing you need to figure out is if your ADC can stay alive while you’re gone. Roaming is important but not as important as your ADC staying alive. If you think that the ADC will not be able to get farm against the enemy laners, then don’t go to roam.

A support should never roam when your ADC is squishy. If they have any escape abilities, you can roam but try not to be gone for long. You should see if your ADC has an advantage over the other laners and if he has the ability to sustain by himself. He doesn’t need to land any kills or anything, he just needs to be able to stay alive and get decent CS.

Not Every Champ Can Roam

There are a few support champions like Braum, Thresh, Alistar, Leona, Rakan and Blitzcrank that are born and bred for roaming. You shouldn’t miss any opportunity to roam with these supports. You pretty much guarantee a kill in any lane you go because of your CC that can keep an enemy in place while your teammates do all the damage. If you’re playing a sort of a utility support like Janna, Nami or Soraka, you need to roam a bit less than you typically would. These champions can’t help really quickly because they don’t have the damage or the stuns to lock down on an enemy hero.

Then, there are some supports that you can’t use to roam. That’s where the diversity and mechanics of the game comes in. A support that has CC, kill potential and hard engage is naturally decent at roaming.

Looking out for Gankable Lanes

If you thought ganking with a jungle role is difficult, then you should know that it is even more difficult to gank as support. There are a few laning heroes that are really good at carrying out ganks. Ahri is one that can really go in for the kill. If your allied hero doesn’t have some way to tear down the enemy hero once you disengage them, then there isn’t much you can do with roaming.

But, roaming isn’t entirely to kill someone; it can also be to save a teammate. If you notice that your ally is low on hp, you should definitely go and help them. Your map awareness and TP rotation needs to be on point because you just have a few seconds of a reaction time before they’re dead. You could save them with your abilities or you could die in their steed. This might seem like an impulsive move but a top laner dying is a much worse scenario than dying as a support.

If you’re playing somebody like Alistar who can dive post-6, you should go and dive. Don’t force your top laner to do the same; they could lose their life to get a kill. You should definitely help another lane if they’re doing well to snag a few extra towers in the early game.

Roaming After You Kill a Champion

People often think that if you’re a support and you and your ADC snag the kill on the enemy bot laner, then it’s to push. Well, not entirely necessary. Not every champ has the skills set or damage to siege towers early on. If you’re in a lane with Caitlyn, you can melt towers pretty quickly and you should definitely try to secure objectives.

But, if you’re paired with someone whose overall damage is somewhat lacking, then you should try to help other lanes. Getting kills on the enemy laner means that your ADC is free to farm as he pleases. He can stay in the lane and get all the CS in the world without any danger for his life. At this point, you should roam around the map and help other teammates secure a few kills and maybe even objectives.

Look for Missing Summoner Spells

Coordination can be quite important but it is also a department that League of Legends has to develop a lot in unfortunately. So, don’t always expect that your midlaner will tell you when the opposing laner is missing their key Summoner Spells. That’s why you should look around the map more than on your own lane. If you see that the enemy midlaner is missing Summoner Spells, it is an open invitation to gank the lane.

Countering Ganks

If the enemy jungler is about to set up a gank on your lane, you should definitely join the fray and try to get kills. If you don’t have vision of their jungle, you’ll probably see the gank coming far too late and by the time you get to the lane, you’re laner will be dead. But, that’s not entirely a bad scenario. You could try to chase the enemy laners a little bit and there’s a huge chance that at least one of them will be running away with low hp. You could try to get a return kill.

However, your map awareness needs to be on point to ensure that the situation including the death of a laner doesn’t occur. As soon as you see enemy champs surrounding them, TP instantly and you could save them even if it is at the cost of your own life. If you’re a support and you value your life above all else, then we’re sorry to say but you’re not that pro support that you claim to be. A support should be ready to TP even if it’s straight into his unfortunate death. But, you should see if your death could even save your laner. If they still die, then stay in your lane because roaming towards them is useless.

Closing Thoughts

Contrary to popular belief, roaming isn’t what supporting is all about. As we said, there are hundreds of things you can do to make sure your laners win each of their respective lanes. Players often think that they need to have a certain number of successful ganks before 10 minutes or they’re not good supports. Every game is different and situations can be something entirely new and you can’t necessarily roam and gank easily. You need to learn how to determine these situations because roaming in ungankable lanes will ensure your, and even your allied laners death…