General DiscussionMentality of most supports.

Hey, you should respect them they're supporting the team for you. #I'msupportit'sokaytofeed #TypicalCarryPickersAreSooBossy #PickSupportThen #Wards=Support #YoumissedonelasthitsoI'llstealtherest

sometimes it's ok :D e.g. if u are venge or io, you can "feed" to save someone else

otherwise pretty pathetic excuse,
fortunately not a general thing, from my experience

There is a difference between feeding and dying, but the line is pretty thin. In some cases it may be better to die as a support if you eat the smoke gank so the other team gets one kill instead of several. Getting your spells off in a team fight that make a difference is important.

Pretty much the main factor is the opportunity cost of the other team spending resources (time, gold, cooldowns, mana) and what your team will get out of the situation until you get back.

Because most supports are shit players, especially in the lower brackets. They have no idea what supporting means, they will sit in the lane when they aren'tneeded, they will pull when the carry can't tank (even with running around the tower) the tower, they will not gank or rotate, or when they do its random, and very few will ever smoke gank or TP to mid/offlane when they need help. They think that buying wards every time its off cd and planting them anywhere on the map is their job done. I mean damn, there are "supports" that seem to go out of their way to make sure they get like 0 CS

A support having high deaths (relative to others in the game) is an indicator of one of two or three things - either a lot of enemies that will fuck them up over and over again without too much they can do in response (Clinkz, Weaver, Slark, etc, big team fight heroes like spec and shit makes life pretty tough too) OR really horrible positioning and generally being shit at the game.

The circle jerk around supporting is absolutely hilarious, I guarantee you that 99% of the supports (as in people that play supports in most of their games) <4k only do it because they either suck or don't have the confidence to play a core hero more often

Feeding (unnecessary deaths) is bad... But often a support really cannot fulfill their role without a high risk of dieing. Here are a few situations in which best choice for a support hero is very likely to get them killed.

(1) Initiating a teamfight into a full health, full mana, ults are up group of enemies.... this is almost certain to get you killed, but someone with a disable really needs to do it.

(2) Covering a gank on your carry. Often a support does not really have the power to actually stop a gank cold, but you can prevent the carry from dieing by moving and casting aggressively drawing attention away and making yourself an easier target. This will often get you killed... but your carries unreliable gold is preserved, and you already got the wards, etc.

(3) Covering a lost teamfight. The fight is going badly and people begin to flee... the enemy might be able to chase down two or three or more low heroes depending on their mobility... But if you the support hero move aggressively instead, or retreat toward the enemy base you can often divert the chase for maybe 3 seconds to kill you (the easy sure kill) and ensure everyone else gets away. This costs your team far less and sets you up to win the next fight, but I am often accused of feeding if I do it.

(4) Placing wards where they really need to be... this is often a dangerous area where you really have to go there alone, when enemies are likely to be nearby. Placing aggressive wards behind a tower, at a critical uphill, or highpoint often can put a support hero in a position where they can't escape. If the enemy team picked no stuns, you can carry a TP, but usually if you run into two heroes while warding you are just dead. Again this will be in bad position on the map and might be called "feeding".

A good support hero will minimize these risks by timing and prediction of enemy movements... but unless you steal a lot of early farm you just won't have the mobility items required to escape these situations until at least mid-game and its not hard to get a lot of deaths before you acquire what is needed to position effectively and survive.

Then there are pub situations where you are stuck supporting with an inappropriate hero. In my most recent game I had to play support slardar with zero farm until mid-game because our team picked a bunch of greedy heroes and the lich randomed so he didn't know how to pull, stack, ward, roam, etc... As a consequence I could only accomplish anything by dieing and could never even save up enough for a blink dagger.

I honestly think its just the mindset of having a "fun" or "satisfying" game. A game is fun when you kill 20 people and only die two times, so people pick carries hoping that happens ("OMG! Did you see that rampage?!") It requires a sense of "playing to win" rather than "playing for glory" in order for the support thing to work, which is why pro teams seem to not only rely on out-picking, but "out-thinking" the enemy to win.

trust me, I barely made a mistake http://www.dotabuff.com/matches/1005915664

Relentless is back

It's not ok to feed, but what can you do when you have no items and the other team still insists on focusing you?

omg :D Benao plis sup me ez lane pls <3

Because Pieliedie happens.

All hail the return of Relentless!

Because my feeding either saves your carry ass, or wins us the teamfight by the enemy wasting all their shit on me giving you, the carry, an opening to counte rthem.

^WOAW, you're such a hero!

^ I didn't climb to 5k purely on playing support for no reason.

Because it really doesn't matter now games are so long. Better to join every teamfight and be 0-15-20 than dodge every fight that is looking bad, leading to scores such as 4-2-5 and very limited impact. Trust me, I learned the hard way (as someone who is 5k and only plays support).

I mainly play with supports and i never intentionally feed and the only time i feed is when i'm with a tank or carry, i play rubick who can't make or break a game but i usually get put with Axe, Ursa or Wraith King who can win you the game if they get tanky enough, i'd much rather they kill me with Rubick then kill the carry i'm on the lane with.

When you die for a sound purpose, it's not really feeding.