Which champions are viable for support (healing, buffing, aid help)?

Which champtions are viable for support in terms of healing, buffing and aid help in League of Legends nowadays? I mean, is Sona good for help? Can we count Soraka and why? Is Taric a tank, or a good support champion? etc.

Which champions are viable to play nowadays on LoL as support?

Solution 1:

The following champions are considered support champions, in the sense that they will either heal/shield an ally and/or buff their armor/magic resist/movement speed.

Janna excels in supporting teams.

She has many support abilities:

• Howling Gale which launches enemies into the air in a line.
• Eye of the Storm shields an ally for a determined amount of damage and gives a damage buff, and it is the only shield capable of protecting turrets.
• Moonsoon is a teamfight changer ability as it aoe heals your team and blows away enemies in Janna's ability ratio

Janna as also a natural passive that is buffs the movement speed of your whole team.

• Tailwind grants 3% move speed buff!

Karma can contribute with great magic damage bursts. Additionally, she has a single target movement speed buff. Karma is a special support champ in the sense that she does not posses an ultimate ability per se, but her ult, Mantra, gives her a bonus effect on all of her other 3 spells:

• Heavenly Wave + Mantra = AOE Heal in a cone in front of Karma
• Spirit Bond + Mantra = Single Target Move Speed Buff x 2
• Soul Shield + Mantra = Very High Scaling shield + Aoe Magic Damage around the shield bearer, in my opinion her best ability of all.

Kayle makes an ally invulnerable to all damage for 2-3 seconds! Additionally, she heals allies and slows enemies, making her a very nice support pick. Unlike Janna and Karma which build defensive and AP items, Kayle builds Hybrid items like Hextech Gunblade and Guinsoo RageBlade.

For a quick overview of her abilities:

• Divine Blessing heals up an ally and grants a movement speed bonus.
• Intervention grants invulnerability for 2-3 seconds, which can completely alter the course of a team battle if used well.

Lux is considered a support/mage. She can tear up teams with her chain of abilities, possesses a 2 unit root, AoE slow, and an amazing Ultimate.

Additionally, her main supporting ability is:

• Prismatic Barrier shields an ally for damage.

Morgana is just like Lux in that she is a support/mage. However, she is considered a better support for the shield she grants:

• Black Shield is a very unique shield that blocks magic damage and any negative effects: all snares, silences, blinds, etc. This shield scales with 80% of her total ability power. It is a total carry protector and game changer skill.

Additionally, Morgana has a single target root, a magic resistance debuff AoE DoT, and a powerful AoE stun.

I mean, is Sona good for help?

Sona is the queen of support in my opinion, closely followed by Soraka. All her abilities except for the ultimate give your teammates a buff and she can not be ignored damage wise.

• Hymn of Valor is an aura granting a buff to damage and ability power.
• Aria of Perseverance is an aura that increases armor and magic resist to allies. On cast, it will heal the most wounded ally nearby. The Powerchord bonus decreases total damage output of the target by 20%
• Song of Celerity gives a temporary movement speed buff to your allies, in addition to the aura which grants a fixed movement speed bonus!

Can we count Soraka and why?

Soraka is one of the oldest support champions, and one of the most powerful ones. She has a single target heal plus armor buff and the ability to grant mana to an ally.

• Astral Bleesing heals for a decent amount while granting 20-80.
• Infuse grants mana to an ally. No other hero can boast an ability like this.
• Wish is a global heal. The epitome of an incredible support heal.
• Consecration, her passive, increases magic resistance for nearby allies by 16.

Is Taric a tank, or a good support champion?

He can be both. Taric's base armor and health and armor/level and health/level increase are very high compared to all other support champs.

Taric can heal and has an Armor Aura, Damage Aura, and a Stun, which makes him a reliable support character. However, one of his downsides is being a melee character unlike many of the others mentioned.

• Imbue, if casted on an ally, heals Taric and your ally. If casted on Taric, he heals himself an additional 40%.
• Shatter is an aura that increases allies' armor by 10-30 and increases Taric's by double this amount!
• Radiance heals Taric by an amount per second while granting an aura that increases attack damage by 15-45 (and double that on Taric). Make sure to use while taking down towers and in team fights!

Zilean is an amazing support champ with the unique ability to revive champions.

He is a great addition to a team because he posseses:

• Time Warp is a single target Speed Buff/Debuff
• Chronoshift revives a fallen enemy with scaling (200% of AP) restored HP and Mana. That's like fighting a 5.5 vs 5 :)
• Heightened Learning, his amazing passive, gives all allies an 8% bonus to experience gained!

As you can see, LoL offers you a wide variety of support champions to play.

Which champions are viable to play nowadays on LoL as support?

Depends completely, for instance:

Your team has an AP carry, AD Carry, a tank and a Beefy Meat Shield champ, what are you lacking? Since you already have an AP carry you can play a pure support champion like Taric, Janna, Soraka or Zilean.

Now if your team has already a Tank, an AD carry and a Jungler, your team will need some magic damage source, then playing Morgana, Lux or Sona will make the team composition solid.

If you want a current metagame opinion on which are the most played support champions, I would say Sona, Karma and Zilean.

Solution 2:

There are many champions labeled "support," but of those only a few see play at the competitive level. For example, here are the support characters that were played in the Season 1 North American Dreamhack qualifier along with their win/loss/ban stats*:

• Janna: 5, 0, 0
• Karma: 0, 1, 0
• Sona: 4, 1, 0
• Soraka: 0, 8, 0
• Taric: 7, 3, 4
• Zilean: 0, 1, 9

The other "support" champions (Lux, Morgana, Kayle, etc.) didn't see much play at the competitive level.

The Karma pick was controversial, by the way. So much, in fact, that HotshotGG had to come on the forums and explain he didn't pick her to throw the game:

I was putting a Hex on Matt Marcou.

Akakakaka

No, but seriously. Karma vs Vlad is ok if the Karma plays mid, we've never played vs Vlad top so we kinda got face rolled.

Anyone saying we lost because we're trying to prove a point is wrong.

In other words, I wouldn't really describe Karma as a good support. Quite the opposite.

Now, why are the other supports perceived as good?

Janna:

Janna is a great support for two reason: she is amazingly good at protecting your carry with all her CC, and that ability is not really dependent on farm or level. Once you've hit level 6, she's got most of what she needs to babysit effectively. That means more XP and farm for your lane partner at little cost.

There's a reason she's nicknamed the "goddess slut of assists."

Sona:

Sona simply has a very large support kit: she can harass effectively with her Q, heal decently with her W, increase allies movement speed with her E, and an AoE CC with her R. Additionally, her Q and her W give pretty decent offensive and defensive AoE buffs which can make a good difference in team fights.

On the downside, she requires more farm than most supports which means less farm for your carry.

Soraka:

Laning with Soraka gives you outstanding sustainability: she can restore both health and mana to her lane partner, allowing you to stay in the lane much longer. If played with a range carry, allows you to "poke and heal" by harassing the other team of their lane, making them miss out on farm and XP while your carry gets to stay in the lane.

Additionally, she's got a global heal as her ult to help from across the map (or in team fights) as well as a silence to help her protect her carry.

Taric:

First of all, don't tank with Taric. I mean, you can if there is no one else willing to play a tank, but it's far from the most effective way to play Taric. More importantly, there are many characters that make better tanks than Taric (Amumu, Shen, etc.).

Taric's strong point is that he gives good lane sustenance with Imbue (heal) and Shatter (armor aura). While it may not be as good as Soraka in terms of sustainability, he is better than her from aggressive laning, as his stun can help initiate several fights. Basically, Taric is good if your bottom lane is going to play aggressively whereas Soraka is a better fit for defensive laning.

In tournaments, he's played heavily and even banned. He's considered a good support and an amazing roamer. Outside of tournements and high Elo play, he's pretty underplayed.

Zilean:

Unlike the other supports above, Zilean makes an outstanding mid. In fact, when Reginald plays him, he goes mid. His bombs are simply devastating early to mid game (i.e., before people start building Magic Resistance) and make a painful harass. Late game, he's mostly useful for is utility: a powerful speed buff, a powerful slow, and the ability to resurrect an ally.

* Data was calculated manually by thread author and thus is not complete, but it's good enough.