How to Play Support Hero in Dota 2

Ok guys So this Post is going to be all about one of the most important role in the game :

  Support

Ok so you are being assigned the Role of  a Support Hero. But you have no idea what to do as a support. 

• Are you supposed to keep on sitting in lane looking at the enemy heroes and do nothing?
• Go gank?
• Deny the shit out of them?
• Keep getting blamed for feeding?

These are some of the common questions that are always in the minds on noob support players.

Ok so as a support player what are you expected to do?

          Firstly if you playing a support in a pub game ; well its so much the better for you. In a pub game there are hardly any supports and even if they are they hardly ward. So in a Pub game you should have a great advantage to your team just by placing those occasional wards in early game. This strategy works awfully well especially if the enemy's solo mid hero is a ganker quite like a Huskar, a BeastMaster, a QOP etc

Thats as far as is needed in a pub game ( I assure you that's more than enough)

However what most of you guys must be reading this post for is how to play a support in a proper high leveled game

Here are some of the Basic Tips:

1.  Making Life Hell    So your role is decided by the laning. If you are in a lane which is a trilane vs a solo suicide laner ( dire bot / radiant top) then there should be ideally two supports and one carry / farming hero. If you are playing one of the supports, your main objective is to make sure that their solo laner does not get any EXP at all. You, along with your allied support hero should stand in the jungle and have that constant threat looming over the opponent of a gank. If he decides to come forward and try to gain some EXP then you along with the other support should pounce on him. Basically your main job is to make life hell for the support.
2. 
   How do you know where the opponent hero is until and unless you can actually see him when he comes within range vision of the creeps. Well you plant a ward like the above image shows.As seen in the image, you can clearly see where the hero is. Ideally you want him to stay within the white line. That way he does not gain any exp at all. Also remember to ward the ancients in the dire side if the solo laner is a BeastMaster.
   
3. Pulling
     You will have one question. The supports do their job of scaring the hell away of the solo laner. But what if your farming carry cant maintain the creep equilibrium and ends up pushing the lane? As a support what do you do then. Well apart from trying to make sure that your carry doesn't mess it up next time what you do is you stack pull the creep camp. How to stack pull the creep camp?
   
     As you see in this figure the creep camp that can be pulled on the Radiant Side is just this one. You hit the creeps at xx.51 to xx.52 and you basically move as far away as possible. This would make the creeps follow you. At the minute mark (which is when the neutral creeps spawn) there would be no creeps present in the creep camp. Thus new creeps would spawn at that location. When you creeps are about to reach the region below the camp, you hit them again (or go near them in the day) and pull them towards the lane.
   
     Why is it necessary to stack pull the camps.?
   If you stack pull your entire creep wave dies to the neutrals, thus ensuring that you  don't push the lane on your pull/ For example if you just pull without stacking you would end up losing just one of your creeps. When the remaining creeps return to the lane, they would combine with the next wave of creeps. This wave would push down on the opponents tower where he can just sit and gain exp and farm ( which defeats the whole purpose of pulling)
   
   
4. Warding
   
     Warding is the job and the role of the supports. :). This guide is not about where to ward. I will put up a separate guide about that later. As a support you need to make sure that you have warded accurately and adequately. What do i mean by adequately? Many a times what happens is that you have placed innumerate wards all over the map at one particular moment. But the downsize to this is that all the wards will expire at the same time . And buying wards does have a cool-down. So if required you might suddenly find yourself without wards when its the most needed. Keeping important regions warded first also helps your team in other ways. You might be able to see their supports warding the same spot. You can then buy a pair of sentries and deward that region. The satisfaction that one gets out of dewarding someone Else's ward is unparalleled.Remember the first wards die out at 6 minutes so be sure to replace those wards at 5.50.
5. 
   
   Also what is important to note is the positioning of wards. In this guide im not pointing out exact locations of wards. What i mean to say by the above statement is that, You should know whether you are winning or losing a game. Your wards should reflect that. If you have a good Counter Attack strategy (insert IMAGE) of countering them time and again and then winning late game, you need to be defensive with your wards.
   
   If your team is a ganking team / early game team place offensive wards. It is not always necessary to place wards at the rune spot. But if you don't know where to ward that is a safe bet. Also ALWAYS keep an eye on MiniMap. It is necessary to keep an eye out for their ganks. Also if you can anticipate smoke ganks it would give you an immense advantage in the Game.
   
   
   At the beginning i said Warding is Job and Role of Supports.But that does not mean that your carry should never buy wards. If he has surplus gold he can always be asked to buy a pair of wards (150 only man). That 150 investment in the wards is much more useful than many more costly items in the game.
   
   
6. Ganking
     As a support hero it is your job to make sure that you gank their heroes as much as possible. The best time to gank is after 6 minutes. In proper games where the opponents are seriously warding it is necessary to smoke gank the opponent.
   
   
7. Trilane Vs Trilane   In a Trilane vs Trilane Situation do not leave the lane. Usually it is so tense in the lane that a slight misplay can mean a huge advantage to the opponent trilane. Always stay out of sight but just within reach. Keep harassing them if you can. If you cant then stay back to defend your trilane when they decide to go aggressive. Positioning is what matters in a trilane, so never ever be caught out of position. Ill do a separate post on positioning in a weeks time.

OK!! So that's that!! But then what about if the game goes late ? (as is more often than naught)

You need to remember certain things late game!

One , you cannot afford to be as aggressive as you could in the early game. This is a no brainer mainly because of the simple reason that their heroes would be farmed with some good items now. As a support your farm would be minimal and thus you cannot really expect to take them head on. 

In team fights you should know that you are most useful if you stay behind. As a caster (as most of the supports are , even if it is just a stun) Make utiltiy based items such as force staffs and euls etc.