General DiscussionSupport Player Stuck in Normal Skill

The quickest way to climb is playing cores. You WILL climb playing supports but it's slower. In the case you can't play cores then you either learn how to (me) or keep playing supports (what I was going to do initially).

I think it has to do with your KDA ratio when it comes to Normal Matchmaking.

KDA = Kills + Assists / Deaths

Say, you took 3 kills and had 15 assists in a game which for a support is pretty decent but in same match you died 6 times (which can be normal for squishy supports), then:

3+15 = 18 / 6 = 3 KDA

Now, that ratio is normal hence normal skill brackets.

If you manage to keep your KDA ratio between 6-10 for at least 4-5 games in a row, I think you'll find yourself in High Skill games.

But, you have to maintain ratio (or, even improve it), otherwise you'll be back in normal skills again after just 1 or 2 games.

Solution is to die less, and having more assists. If you're picking a kill here and there, it's a bonus. But keep your KDA higher than 5 for more matches.

(BTW, you and melancholy- are my favourite Dota buff accounts. You have insanely good win ratio with most of supports that even 4k supports intend to have while melancholy practices heroes on bot matches then the KDA ratio in real matches is mouth-watering.)

I hope, you won't change your account as you were the last person I thought would have any concern about Mmr / skill brackets. You should enjoy the game. And seeing your stats and role, I know you do. And, I hope you will find yourself in high skill games soon. Just die less.

@SaLTiMPagos_QQ

You're right about the cores part. It looks like i just can't set my mind to farm. Actually i don't really mind NS really much because as a support, it feels really rewarding when you can help your teammates until they all ready to fight.

@.PLutO

Hmm, that makes sense. I actually had High Skill match for once after winning 5 match in a row with relatively high KDA (cause Undying is so mean early stage). How about XPM and GPM ? Do you think it's also affecting skill bracket ?

My friend u gotta tryhard core to get to high mmr and vhs. I even suggest to go on a new account and chose yiuve played dota before opt when first opened dota and then play the best cores with high kda and stats to go vhs even from the very start. That's what i learned till now about this system of valve's

Just play ranked. If you keep winning supporting like you are it'll be very easy to climb the ranks

icrievritiem too m9

Pretty much what salsa said, you might not calibrate high as a support but if you are a good support you will easily dominate your games and rise quickly. Any support player who plays support because 'they can't farm well' is not a very good support player. To play a core role you really only need to be good at your specific role while supports need to be good at all roles to be a good support. Knowing stuff like mid farming patterns, specific 1v1 match ups etc is extremely important as a support player and much less important to a safe lane carry

2 years on the forums and people still fucking call me "salsa"

Apparently, Salza is a Dragon Ball character.

cuz Salza is a fgt name plz change

@Son

Nah, i think i'll pass on making new account just for the sake of higher skill bracket on it. One is already enough in my spare time.

@HotSalza

Well, not a fan of ranked but i guess that's the faster way. If hidden skill bracket also account things besides win rate (maybe KDA, GPM, etc) then ranked is the way to go higher.

@Sampson

Yeah, i also think i should improve my farming better. The problem is i rarely had a chance to practice it on cores against real player at SEA Server (because support pick is rare here so somebody should do it). Tried mid Viper once but then the team falling apart left and right.

@Minerva

Pretty much what Sampson said. My support game improved so much after learning the other roles.

Try playing with friends that will let you play other roles. I played the support role almost exclusively for my first 300 games or so until my friends told me that I should try playing other roles. I still mostly play the support roles, but learning about other roles is key to improving your game.

@Pilot

Yeah, i'll definitely try to do that with my friends. I think i'll start with WK or Sven since both of them seems easy to play.

Thanks for the feedback guys.

It's already been said, but you will need to play a core if you want to climb. Support players can only do so much for the team.

If you were playing disruptor, you could Kinetic Field + Static Storm their entire team and it wouldn't really matter if your cores didn't make the most of it.

Also, I don't understand why people don't understand the "Normal Skill", "High Skill" stuff. It's based on the average MMR you played with in that game. That is all there is to it.

You'll see yourself in High Skill once your MMR goes up.

if you're mainly a support player then the ideal role for you to learn next is offlane. it's a core role that doesn't have to be heavily dependant on farming. if you have a good understanding of support then you will be able to predict how the enemy supports play against you, and respond accordingly to maximise your xp/gold gain while keeping them from rotating to help other lanes.

it's a bit unfortunate that the offlane is basically a strong dual lane now, but i'm sure you can get the opportunity to go solo given how many people like to run junglers

some anecdotal data, here's my very first account that started in normal skill which i've been playing more frequently now http://www.dotabuff.com/players/31050362/matches?page=4 . Had to go something like 30-3 before I was being placed in high skill consistently

Evem if u rly wanna play sup, play sups that are good roamers and can givr too much team advantage such as bh and mirana. Bh is so good bc if u'r in normal skill ppl dont even bother lookin at mini map so u can ezly roam and kill em. Even if ur team is noob, u have ms of ur ult, slow of orb of venom+ the critical slow, and u can totally catch em offgaurd. U know what im sayin no need to explain that even noobs can at least attack the target and the gold advantage of ult is so much so yea that's it go bh ez roamer sup

@Minerva what server do you play on?

I've been purely supporting for 2 years (of 10 years) 85% of my ranked matches have been support and i'm stuck at 3.5k because my cores aren't competent.

So i try play a core and my supports have been unable to keep up with warding/smoke/stacking etc.

I hate this game.. but can't stop playing

@Crimson

SEA Server, which based on some comment here, not really suitable if you want to aim higher.
Well, that's a tough problem. Hope it won't happen too often.

====

Anyway, what a surprise. After posting this thread and then teaming up with my friend, we immediately got two High Skill match in a row. Looks like i need to team up with him if i really want to play High Skill match right away. Turns out he's already has a strange mix of NS/HS/VHS on his account.

@minerva
I would seriously be concerned with GPM if I'm Anti-Mage. But, I would never under-estimate XPM on any role.

You need to have decent-ish GPM but better XPM with higher KDA to climb skill brackets as I wrote earlier. Dying twice is one too many. If you pull, try taking last hits on those neutrals. Most of the supports don't do that. When you find battle brewing at other part of map in early game, TP there just to get assists and XP. If you are Urn carrier, be greedy with assists so you can have more charges.

XPM matters more because lvl 11 ultimates do change tides of battles in mid game and lvl16 ultimates in late game or around Roshan fights. It matters which team has which lvl of ultimates. Before initiating a battle or going to fight Roshan, open level tab and tell your teammates about enemy levels and compare it with your team levels. Plan accordingly.

Just keep higher KDA and you'll be fine.

Normally, it happens with me that I would get good KDA with heroes like Invoker, Wind, and Dragon Knight then other match I would find myself with one or two buffoons in my team so all that KDA gain in previous match would get ruined so SEA is hard. But, I'm trying. My previous account was support heaven for me but had to quit DotA for 1.5 years so had given that account to a friend.

This account, I intend to play all roles besides support to reach higher skills / Mmr, once I'm there, I'll revert back to support role as that's truly what I am. So, people encouraging you to try core roles are basically right.

I also second what HotSalza said. You're a really excellent support so try support roles in Ranked matches. You'll climb Mmr points sooner as with supports like you, carry and cores would shine. Also, in ranked SEA, core players do play relatively serious.

I'm glad that you found yourself in High Skill that soon albeit with a friend. Hopefully, you won't have to go back to NS again but if you do, people have already told you here what you have to do.

Good luck!

You look like a good support player right there which is not easy to find in your skill bracket, if you can translate that 60% winrate from your normal games to your ranked ones you will easily climb at least 500 mmr, but I still recommend you to learn the core roles because it will improve your supporting aswell as you will know better what your cores need from your supporting. Not sure if you played your 10 calibration games, if you havent finished them you should probably learn some core in normal matchmaking games and play with it in your last calibration games when you feel comfortable enough, so you can probably get better kda's and mmr.

there is no support on normal skill.
stop playing support. less people appreciate ur efford on low brackets

Man ... tried playing cores CK but didn't turn out well. Somehow now i'm quite understand why every team need a decent support. In this match, my Bane is really bad. For example, leaving me alone with Ember and Slardar during laning stage, sometime he tried to last hit but almost never try to harass the enemy even though he's ranged. Secondly, he didn't know that you can cancel Nightmares at any time, resulting us missing some easy kills when Invoker gank top. And then the most important part, lack of vision on the map.

Well, enough of my rant because im sure i also did really bad there (low XPM and GPM). Do you guys have any suggestion on easy cores i should try first ? I'm thinking of playing Slardar because for some reason, i did quite well with him.

@Minerva Spirit Breaker.
*Fairly tanky

*Doesn't need that much of XPM or GPS which you seem to have problem with

*can land you with higher KDA with gank-charges, great urn carrier.

*As you already have a mind of support, you would keep an eye on enemy cores and make time difficult for them.

*17%

@.PLuTo.

Oh yeah, i didn't even think about picking that guy. He's really annoying when you play against him. Thanks for the suggestion, i think i'll read some guide first and then tried him.

Everyone talks about KDA, but I think this is absolutely random. You can check my skillbreket changes here : http://www.dotabuff.com/players/308002452/matches; sometimes when I totally ruin game it goes "normal->high". And when I playing good (first-second kda/damage in team) - I lose my breket. I don't really care about this thing, cuz you teammates will feed in every breket in every game (maybe a little bit better in VHS, but you can't really feel it). For example - http://www.dotabuff.com/matches/2035674690 <- this called "high skill" game, heh.
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Sorry about my english, I skip all english classes in school.

@Мут, your skill bracket is important thing, because your initial mmr (when you play first calibrate game) depends on your bracket.

@miminito1992, yes, I know, but I've got 4800 mmr on my only-brood-account and don't want calibrate another. If you want calibrate you can just play first 3-5 matches on good dd like slark, get vhs and then go play with bots.