User blog comment:Pacpac1997/Unorthodox Supports/A Different Way to Play Support/@comment-24.222.90.212-20120622193757

Support has never been about babysitting, this is a common mistake of new/non support players. Support is about denying cs, harassing and getting your ad ahead of their ad. Winning exchanges, coordinating commited all in attacks and either poking or cc when the enemy goes to last hit are the biggest part of supporting (and having higher than average map awareness). Only very few supports can successfully carry if you just babysit. Soraka is really the only one that comes to mind atm. And yes, you're able to carry as a support, although I'd say it's harder than most other posisitions (on par with jungle maybe, since both are pretty team reliant it's hard to carry in your own rite)

Sustain is not at all important on a support, so long as they can win exchanges without it - and when you sacrifice sustain you generally gain better poke/cc, so it's very common to be able to come out ahead in exchanges without sustain, of course this makes your job more active, because the longer you go between exchanges the healthier a sustained opponent will end up. Keep in mind some AD's are better off without sustain than others, someone like Graves does great without sustain. Tristanna and MF are also great, and in their case they can nearly negate the sustain from the enemy lane, so if you're facing a Trist or MF, going no sustain is less scary, and if you're playing with a Trist or MF against someone like Soraka, it puts their lane at an even greater disadvantage.

For this reason unconventional supports work out great, while also giving your opponents a false sense of superiority depending on how weird the choice seems, someone like Twisted Fate or Anivia work surprisingly well - Anivia being one of my personal favorite supports, ice wall is such an immense catalyst for winning your lane and objectives, and ultimately the game. TF having such an amazing stun and able to hop over to mid and help out in ganks? Works amazingly.

I will say this though; not every character will work as a support (tbh most will, I've played so many unconventional supports at all different levels of ELO up to 2100) and typically I would say it's easier for an AD to play with a conventional character than an unconventional one, simply because they know what to expect from you if you're Sona or Alistar rather than support Ahri or Akali. Duo queue if you want to do really weird supports, it works out better for your teammates morale and skype communication.

TL;DR version: Supports aren't about sustain, there are tons of viable choices for supports, you can carry as support, don't be afraid to experiment, playing with a friend will help