User blog comment:Wario1226/Junglers as Supports/@comment-14984131-20130809105533

Good topic!

It ultimately results in questioning/clarifying the role of a support. We should all understand the role of an AD carry (seeing our role largely consists of supporting them! *Pom poms out*). People do come to question why champs like Kennen and Annie cant play the adc role. And they can, but in serious competative play it's less viable (i'm sure that the European and Korean pro teams who have played adc Kennen through S3 would contest that!) But neither Kennen or Annie have an attack damage steroid, attack speed steroid (or possibly an armour shed buff)  to assist their ranged attacks. Unlike adc Kennen, who can be quite effective, his use as an acd is not as annoying as the someone saying... “Oh, dont worry man, I'm playing adc... as Fiora (or Wukong)”. *Support bails from camp select*

 The key part of the adc's role is that they can put out large amounts of sustained RANGED attack damage by the time laning is over (or late game)!! There are multiple reasons for this, some are extremely obvious, others less so... but that's another discussion (a very related one, though).

The role of a support is a little more unclear. Yes, the ability to engage is important, if that's what your bot lane comp is geared towards (obviously with your mid/late game whole team comp in mind). But disengaged is also extremely vital. Particularly pre-6. It is why support champs like Janna, Thresh, Lulu, and Zyra are so popular. You can use them to sink a kill OR escape from one. It is the key difference between them and the supports you have listed. When we look at disengage, we are mainly looking at hard cc disengage, like ranged stuns or knock-ups/knock-backs. As a someone who has played jungler, you can appreciate the gap closers and burst damage (or heavy cc) that many junglers have. None of the supports you have listed could truly stump a pre-6 gank attempt from junglers such as Kha, Elise, Mao, Xin or J4. The kill lane supports you have mentioned are very likely to push the lane, so will leave you over exposed. Sure diligent warding can prevent a large amount of ganks, but if the opposition aren't totally incompetent the supp should be attempting to pink your wards to allow for the jungler and mid to gank.

Also, like a Voli support, a handful of these supports may thrive at the expense of your adc, which is usually counter productive. I've had many games as supp voli where due to Voli's passive, general tankiness, throw back, and inability to disable the opposition attacking my adc, I end up with a double kill (yes, wearing janitor overalls) whilst my adc died first in battle. Sure it was a 2 for 1 trade, but a 3/0 laning phase voli doesnt bring the utility that a Sona or Leona does to team fights, and can't make up for the sustained hyper carry that might have otherwise resulted. Ultimately it leaves you with (depending on how the other lanes went) 3 players plus a mediocre damage ranged champ with low utility and a psuedo-support half tanky-bruiser polar bear.

It's all good recreational wise, because unranked solo/due queue is meant to be fun. But in competitive play against competent opposition a kill lane with these guys as support is likely to lose your team the game.
 * Janna whispers to Graves: “Play passive, farm under tower. We'll deny them kills, match them in farm, and beat them late game.”



 Hope that helps to some degree as to why they aren’t likely to be seen in higher level competitive play. But for recreational play... go nuts!!

P.S have you tried support Anivia paired with Ashe, or Shen or Nasus support? All are pretty fun.

Happy gaming!