Support Champions - Overview Part 1 (Sona & Thresh)

Sorry for the lack of posts lately, with school starting back up I've found my time a bit limited but will try to have at least one blog post a week and one video uploaded to our youtube channel. Without further ado, this post will take a brief overview of some of the champions who fit into the support role and give a brief description of their pros, cons, and general play style of the champions.

Sona

Pros:

• High Utility (Damage aura, resists aura, movement aura, enemy damage debuff, slow, AoE stun)
• High Poke (Q hits very hard in lane along with her Q Power Chord)
• Versatile support (can adapt play style from very aggressive with heavy poke or play passive and safe with her heal and disengage)

Cons:

• Very Squishy (About the same HP as a caster minion level 1)
• Mana intensive (easy to spam your abilities)
• Lacks crowd control early on

General Playstyle:

I find that I like to play Sona very aggressive in the early stages of the game since her Q and passive can dish out tons of damage. However, you should exercise caution when playing against tanky supports with CC (Leona, Taric, Thresh, Blitzcrank). When facing those supports I generally will attempt to bait out their main form of distance closing ability and then punish them heavily since they tend to have very long cooldowns. On the other hand, Sona does very well against supports who don't have any form of sustain. Supports like Janna, Nunu and possibly Lulu may have a tough time dealing with Sona's harass while she heals herself and her AD carry back up. If I'm facing a very strong early lane match up (e.g., Draven, Caitlyn, etc.,) then it is best to play a bit more passive and only try to harass when they're going in for CS.

Thresh

Pros:

• High amounts of crowd control (Massive slow field, grab, stun, displacement)
• High ability to make plays (Lantern, hook and displacement can turn the tides of a game)
• AoE shield (adds up to a huge amount of damage blocked in teamfights)
• High amounts of damage (Passive from E boosts auto attack damage, R hits very hard)
• Gains free AP and armor through passive (scales well into late game)

Cons:

• Loses presence and threat in lane if hook is missed
• Shorter auto attack range than other ranged supports (vulnerable to poke and harass)
• Lack of sustain
• Has a lot of mechanics and general play to master

General Playstyle:

Early game, Thresh deals very high amounts of damage with his charged up auto attacks so you can zone or pressure the enemy bot lane, allowing your AD to gain a CS lead. It's better to not use your Q (death sentence) in lane unless you can hit it since you leave you and your AD carry vulnerable to being harassed due to the long cooldown. Thresh has a difficult time dealing with poke so be careful of high harass supports like Sona or Lulu. Also, due to the fact that when Thresh engages, he place himself in vulnerable position after activating his Q, exercise caution against tanky supports with crowd control (Taric, Alistar, Leona) since they can easily turn your engage around. Wait out their crowd control abilities if possible before going in.