pacov

OK - I'm going to upload 2 clips re: that split pushing game.  watch and tell me what you think re: my pushing.  Take a sec and pause at the start to see the scoreboard, what objectives were up, etc.  There were more clips, but I lost interest after these 2. 

Updating in asec...

hmm... don't know i the 2nd vid finished uploading or not.  Vid 1 is live now though... apparently I needed to click on publish to share it... smeh.  Probably have to try to upload vid 2 again after work (vid 2 is sadly the more interesting 1 imo). 

Anyway, I think I've got all my goofy and/or weak support shenanigans out of my system.

Having said that, I want to talk about support shaco as I put in more than a few reps in on him. To start off, I think its worth noting that prior to running support shaco, I've logged a decent amount of jungle shaco games.   Being experienced with those mechanics give me a bit of a leg up.  But - you play him very differently as a support.  For one, you almost never stealth in to try to land an aa + shiv.  Instead, you walk up to shiv and then stealth to reposition as needed. 

Anyway, its AP shaco with low gold income.  The build works well enough (spell thief+3 health pots (no ward) >upgraded spell thief>dorans ring>boots>ruby>sightstone>dfg>mpen boots> dcap or mpen wand).  lv 1-4 = W, E, E, Q.  max R>E>W>Q.  Setup 2 boxes to leash for jungler, then immediately lane and setup boxes on both sides of bushes.  Push out boxes strategically to zone and/or save.  If they try to clear the boxes, it typically means they get wrecked and can't trade favorable/get zoned.

OK - so what's good about shaco support.  1st and foremost, he zones very well in lane.  You don't setup some cheese shaco boxes (stacked), you place them intelligently to function as 1 min wards and to gain lane control.  You'll be surprised at how quickly you can control the lane and control where the enemy laners can move. 

He can do a reasonable amount of dmg with his shivs during laning and can safely ward pretty much anywhere using his deceive to hop to safety as needed and/or scout.  Side note - its preferable to only use his q to get to safety... and super easy to juke the enemy team simply by facing 1 direction and hopping to a different location. 

Anyway, you ideally transition to late game being able to safely chunk squishies on the enemy team using the dfg + a shiv + ign.  it's generally enough to get anyone to back out off a fight if not kill someone.  You generally don't split push and instead get out boxes + wards to gain a high level of control around choke points. 

Pros

• Lane control
• Higher kill potential
• High vision control
• people aren't used to it so they have difficulty countering it properly

Cons

• You are support shaco and that at least sounds stupid
• cc is not guaranteed - only probable
• you need to be close enough to do damage, but you generally can't initiate

heh... take a look at my stats and itemization, though (scroll about half way down).

http://na.op.gg/summoner/userName=pacov

or look at the details and see what my gold amt is at relative to the other players. 

Fair point though re: people not thinking it fits - honestly it fits better than a jungle shaco in solo queue gold/plat level due to late game transitioning.  It has the same sort of trade offs you get when you run a burst support with arguably better zoning/adc protection.  It requires a decent skillset, though.  I'm finding the playstyle very useful late game. 

Solo Queue is a term most people use for Ranked games, not Normal games I believe.  And especially not Teambuilder.

There seems to be some potential to Support Shaco, but I've grown a little distrustful of the results of playing non-meta champions in non-ranked games.  I think we'd all be very interested to see how it does, so give us a heads up if you ever decide see for sure how well it fits in Ranked.

The fella that plays shaco support only is master tier.  He's the guy that wrote up the build and gave some playstyle examples in an ama on reddit a few days ago.  Keep in mind that master tier vs master tier champs, etc.  Also keep in mind that I'm not equating my skill level with support shaco with his - just giving a clear, ranked example of someone that seems to stay at master tier playing mostly shaco support... which I think illustrates his strengths. 

What I want to call out is that in all my games on team builder - even though weird elo occurs here and there, I've yet to really come across any over the top weaknesses against any support I've come up against other than sustain lanes make it more difficult - but you can still maintain solid zone control enabling easy adc farming.  The only times I've had trouble really are related directly to having a weak adc that chooses to get wrecked by feeding or getting chunked unnecessarily (eg I get a weak arse adc that is silver and were up against diamond/plat bot lane).  Things like that don't tell me support shaco is bad, though. 

Anyway, 7 games on team builder - 4 wins, 3 losses.  1 loss due to dc, 1 loss due to awful mid/adc.  1 loss due to a nonstop split pushing lee sin. All games I would have lost with any support with the exception of perhaps lux or annie.  When I play enough with a champ, I generally come up with reasons why I shouldn't play certain champs in specific roles - I haven't come up with a good reason not to play shaco as support yet. 

re: zyra - well, in lane, I think shaco has an edge on zoning, though zyra is certainly no slouch there - just not as good imo.  Late game shaco still provides better "set up" zone control.  Zyra's ult gives her the edge on creating instant group zone control/cc.  I think I might like zyra better late game if we are comparing dmg support shaco to dmg support zyra.  She can provide more dps than shaco can put out as shaco is mostly disruption and single target. 

2 kills in a game isn't getting gold by kill stealing.  His gold revenue is pretty normal for a support that builds up their farm item early and puts it to decent use.  Being 2k gold behind the farmers at the end of a game is a pretty typical result for a decent support.  You wont keep up with whoever ends up carrying most of the kills, but you keep with the rest of the team pretty well.  An AP support can do significant damage just fine without robbing their partner of kills.  They just have to pass on some support utility, like getting Aegis, buying lots of extra wards.

His gold amounts are pretty close between the 5-8 kill games and the 1 and 2 kill games.

"One trick ponies" often have thousands of games just this season. Thousands! On one champ!

Annie Bot (Master - Annie): 2200 games on Annie just in the past 11 months.

Mister Oink (currently Diamond II, formerly Master - AP Sejani mid): 1050 games on Sejani this season.

Lily Lancer (Master, Shaco support): 950 of shaco this season on just ONE of his FIVE accounts

Now, part of playing the game is having fun. i think we can all agree that there is a certain amount of weight to be put into playing champions you enjoy, rather than solely champions that have the highest PBW.

But until you start putting in hundreds of games of support Shaco, this guys success isn't something that you can use to support your own argument. You aren't at all like him.

These people are clearly mechanically strong. You pretty much have to be in order to play that much. If the point was to climb, don't you think that they would have hit Master Tier much faster playing meta champs? What do you think was the "win % penalty" for his ADC going on tilt because "fuck this shit. i got troll support shaco in my promo series". 1%? 3%? 5%? That means he has to be good enough at the champion to overcome a negative teamstart before the game has even started!

i'm going to make a statement here that has no statistical basis. i've never kept track of these records, but my own support evidence is this:

Even the best players in the world, on their mains, have only a ~55% winrate.

This means that, even the best players in the world, have, control only about 10% of their total number of games won (assuming the vast majority of players fall within a 45-55% win rate when playing against similarily skilled opponents).

My claim is the following:

There are 5 types of games. Each make up about 20% of your overall games.

First, you have games you are almost always going to lose. Aced in the jungle. 3-11 at 8 minutes, etc.

Second, you have games where you're somewhat behind at 20 minutes, but there's hope. You tend to lose these games more than you win, but you still win them sometimes. You're a few towers/kills/dragons behind a team with better scaling.

Third, these are the close games. Objectives are traded, nothing earned for free. Kills are close. Both teams contest vision and have similar scaling.

Fourth, are the games where you are reasonably ahead. You'll probably win these, but you can always throw.

Finally, are games you have no business losing. It happens still, sometimes, but it really shouldn't.

Some champions are better in certain kinds of games (except champs that are just mega-OP). Stalling mids like Anivia and Ziggs, as well as safe hypercarries such as Trist and Ryze are really good at turning around #2. Assassins and high damage mid-game ADCs like Corki and Lucian are really good at closing out #4 games.

Some champs are really bad in #1. Like jungle Tryndamere. Some champs are incredible at #5.

Now, you're a programmer so you should be familiar with Amdahl's Law and the Optimization problem.

Let's say, as an example, there exists a champion who is just incredible at turning around games of type #1, and average-at-best in every type of other game. This champion would probably be the most OP thing ever, because they'd be able to win, probably, 70% of their games.

On the other hand, there exists a champion who is incredible at closing out games of type #5, but average at everything else. They'd probably still "only" have a 50% win rate.

Since i don't think there are any champions that are able to turn around #1s that aren't going to be retarded OP, and making #5 games from a 98% winrate to a 100% winrate doesn't really mean anything, you really should only be focusing on game types #2, #3, and #4.

You said you lost one game because of a "retard mid". For argument's sake, let's classify that as a #2 game. Let's look at some supports that are able to fulfill some of a mid's functions: Zyra, Lux and Sona (as an AoE initator). Annie is a mage-like support, but she tends to struggle when behind. These champs have some sort of ranged CC that allows them to make a pick, offer some auxiliary waveclear. Sona and Lux both have shields to prevent poke from the enemy fed midlaner. Zyra and Lux both have safe "reveal the bush" abilities, preventing fatal facechecks.

The fact of the matter is, Shaco is going to be really bad in #2 games. He doesn't have the ability to consistently CC a fed target that is munching up your team. AoE mages are going to be out of range. Fed assassins have multiple juicy targets (everyone but top lane), and you can't keep them all safe. You can't assassinate a fed Tristana.

Luckily, he has some benefit in #3 and #4 games. Deceive allows him to ward much safer than normal supports. Boxes contribute additional vision and make him less dependent on the team doing their part of the warding. Boxes provide good zoning potential for dragons, and hallucinate can tank objectives such as towers. In #4 games, a fast DFG allows him to clean up after fights, and enhance his teams damage .

Of the 3 supports i listed above, plus Annie... also are really good in #3 and #4 games. Sona, Lux, Zyra, and Annie can all do incredible 4 or 5 man ults that instantly win games. Zyra in particular can have massive damage with just a Liandries. Tibbers can tank towers, Sona can heal up baron damage, Lux and Zyra can do some great roots against enemy facechecks.

Of course, Sona is not-so-good in #5 games, espiecially compared to support Shaco.

So, the way i see it is:

- Shaco is really bad in #1 games, but those don't matter.

- He's also really good in #5 games, but those also don't matter

- Nearly all supports have a consistent power curve in #2, #3, #4 games.

- Shaco is not significantly better than most supports in any #3 game. He does not have the same teamfight support, but he does offer very unique vision advantages. So we'll call it a draw.

- Shaco is worse in #2 games

- Shaco is better in a #4 game, assuming what your team needs is more damage. Most teams do not need more damage, since we are already in a squishy, damage-focused meta. AoE initiation is extremely powerful and is typically only found on tank junglers - not particularly popular atm - and supports. If your team needs AoE initiation, then Shaco is worse than other options.

- Shaco support will put some people on tilt, causing an instant 1-5% reduction of winnable games.

Still making clips and will read stuff later.  Made a few highlights.  1st game I'm with an unranked adc up against a diamond 5 adc and a gold V support. 

This last one was just fun

i think that there is a bit of miscommunication in exactly what is happening here and why those videos don't really mean much (for us - maybe they mean a lot to you because it allows you to gain some insight on your play):

i don't think anyone here is trying to convince you that you shouldn't play Shaco ever.

We are all saying: You won't see the results that you could more easily obtain on another, more conventional support for a wide variety of reasons. Until you play hundreds of games, of course. But don't let that stop you and it's totally fine if you play that in Team Builder because that's what those suckers get. TeamBuilder is about playing more relaxed games on newer champions. But we are going to take what you have to say about support Shaco with a grain of salt until you play dozens of games in Ranked. And, until then, we probably would prefer if you did not inflict it upon us.

We aren't saying: It is literally impossible for you to win a game with support Shaco. Or, "you should quit support Shaco".

Here's the 2nd vid for anyone that is interested - looks like the clips are super short. 

Sure.  But the point was that teams essentially never want inconsistent assassins from the support slot.  Just not something thats desirable.  The extra vision from boxes is nice, don't get me wrong.  But there are a lot of other problems.

Yes, Shaco is fine early.  But he is not so good late.  When played in jungle, you can probably make the case that his early game is so strong that it can sometimes overcome his weakish late game.  But can you really claim that his laning phase is so strong that it makes up for his not good late game when play as support?  I just don't see that.