Support Main

I loved playing games up until now. From the early days of O2Jam and Flyff, to Grand Chase, Dragonica, Dragon Nest, League, DOTA, ML, Wildrift, Genshin, and Valorant, I tried to play a lot of games. I noticed that from the get-go, I always wanted a support role, which is very weird, to say the least.

For RPG games, being a support character would either mean a magic-type healer, who provides the team buffs and to enemies huge debuffs (atk, def, resistance decrease) or a tank-type knight who soaks in huge amounts of damage and has high armor and magic resistance. Sa totoo lang, hindi ko alam kung nag-eenjoy ako ng ganon or dahil yung mga kalaro ko mas malakas sakin kaya napilitan ako mag-support, but I remember fondly amazing memories from it — raiding boss dungeons, late-night farming with a party, me being too excited to go home to log in and check in on the guild house — all of those things made me really happy.

When I became a bit older, my old RPG gaming buddies started growing up and we kind of drifted apart. This was around the time where I was introduced to Multiplayer Online Battle Arena (MOBA) games by my classmates. I started playing League and Dota 2. Sobrang galing ng mga kaklase pati mga kaibigan ko mga tipong 100 cs 10 mins pati 10 mins bloodstone hahahaha so syempre iwan na naman tayo sa support role. For MOBA games, support roles are usually subdivided into two: Soft support (called position 4 in Dota) who provides a lot of utility (stuns, slows, debuffs) for the team, and a hard support (called position 5 in Dota) who is in charge of map vision, buying potions, and helping the main carry of the team to get stronger. Of course, I was always put into position 5. A lot of my friends would tease me and say things like, "Gago support ka nanaman hahahaha nag-eenjoy ka ba diyan", "Di ka aasenso sa rank mo pag nagsupport ka", and "Wards lang naman trabaho mo eh". Di naman ako madali masaktan sa ganyan, but what I do not like is the difficulty of ranking when you are a support. It goes something like this: When you are playing as a carry, there is a possibility that you could single-handedly carry your whole team to victory and rack up points. When you are playing as a support though, you rely on the carry's abilities also. Of course, that is not to say that supports cannot "carry" the game — they could, but it's difficult if the carry could not cooperate. An added stress also is the fact that a support's role is to make the carry's life a bit easier in the game, so no matter how hard you try, if the carry's struggling, ang sakit rin sa loob mo.

I dreaded being a support because of MOBA back then, but there was this one friend of mine who is a support main. He told me, "The most difficult role in the team is the support. Aside from the fact that the carry relies a lot on you, kailangan mong anticipate yung galaw ng kalaban mo and make moves based off of it." He likened it to playing chess. You have to set up a lot of things beforehand (Provide vision for the team to attack/defend, buying utilities to aid in clashes, prioritizing skills that are in synergy with the team, etc.) Hell, even when you're just choosing a character to play, the team would revolve around your character. It is then that I found it to become an important role.

It was just around this year that I started playing a lot of First Person Shooter (FPS) games like Valorant. Even if FPS games are really intently focused on wiping out the enemy and planting bombs, Valorant adds another dimension through it and added roles (similar to MOBAs). Syempre, support na naman tayo. I main Sage, who heals teammates, slows enemies, and resurrects fallen allies. People sometimes would tell me, "Wag ka na mag Sage, ok lang". But for me, there's really this different kind of satisfaction supporting your team to victory. I may be the bottom frag always, but a win's a win, right?

Aside from the fact that it involves a lot of decision-making, I love that being a support provides you also with an endless avenue to learn. Say for example in Dota, a key skill in supporting is learning when to ward, where to ward, when to pull creep camps and to stack camps. It takes a lot of games in, but there's a different kind of satisfaction in seeing that your strategies are utilized by your team (and of course the enemy team being completely obliterated).

I could feel that this write-up does not go anywhere sensible, but I would just like to point out how being a support changed the way I understood playing games. A lot of people pursue a win, which is, I won't deny, the main priority. But to me, playing games, and playing as a support allowed me to extend my love for learning new things outside of academics. I mean, real talk, nakakasawa rin mag-aral di ba (kahit na bumabagsak tayo hahaha). It feels nice to integrate that same level of learning to something you love to do all the time.

Lately, a lot of my friends have been advancing ranks and I rarely play with them on ranked games. But well, admittedly I suck and I cannot carry a whole team to victory, so there's that. But I don't know, helping others grow should be the way to go, right? I'm proud to do this.

12/30/20 0234