[Role] Support

Wrote this a whole ago, hopefully it helps.

#Support

##General
The support in Smite is a lot like a second jungler that brings CC rather than damage to a fight. As such, he has to have great map awareness, needs to keep the timers on all the buffs in mind, etc.

##Building
As a support, your job is to (who would've thought) support. You therefore focus on items that help your team rather than only yourself. Any item that weakens your enemy, takes away an advantage that they might have (e.g. reduces their healing, attack speed, etc.) aswel as items that help your whole team (e.g. additional defense, movement speed, etc.) are great. There's a lot of those so I wont go into every single one but rather explain a few important o
#Useful items


**Watcher's Gift** One of the two most common starter items for Support (the other being Mark of the Vanguard). WG is currently the most picked support starter item. The extra gold it gives (in comparison to Mark of the Vanguard) is amazing. It has pretty much everything you'd want on a support, so in most cases, this is the item to go with.

**Mark of the Vanguard** Hasn't seen as much use recently. It is, however, still viable in certain scenarios. An important thing to note is that it completely walls all damage the smaller camp minions do to you, so you'll take way less damage when clearing the camps. Generally, to MoV worth it over WG, you'll have to get a kill or two early. You can be more agressive with MoV because minions aswel as Gods hit less on you, so even if you have to tank a few archers (which usually really, really hurts) you'll be ok. The kills will also give you a good start in gold, as you'd fall behind otherwise. For an agressive playstyle MoV isn't too bad. E.g. Ares: he has relatively low defence but very high damage and kill potential, so an Ares with MoV playing agressive early is almost unstoppable. It's also a decent pick up as a 3rd item, if you find yourself getting pressured hard. You get good early stats but you delay the rest of your build a bit.

###General
Support is, in my oppinion, by far the hardest role to play well. Not only do you have to have great map awareness, rotate just like your jungler and help with buffs / objectives; but on top of that you also have to save your team, keep up in farm, rely on your teamamtes to deal the majority of the damage, never stray too far from objectives, keep everything warded, etc. Sadly, it's also often the least appreciated role (probably because you don't have a 10.0 KD/R to show off. So keep your head up, even if your team doesn't notice, you know when you did good.
#### Warding
**Everyone should ward.** It's not just the support's job to keep the map warded, everyone should be buying and placing wards. However; supports do tend to be the ones to ward more (there are many reasons for that which I'm too lazy to explain, but one of them is that you're also rotating a lot and as such get to ward places that others wont reach without taking a detour), so try to always keep some wards on you. The most important thing you need to know about warding is that it's very important to keep the objectives warded, preferably with a sentry ward. Having vision on an objective and knowing that the enemy doesn't is insanely valuable. It's also a good idea to keep a sentry ward on you at all time, in case the enemy places one and destroys your own.
###Earlygame
In the earlygame, supports mostly stay in lane with their ADC. They help tank red for their mid, go to boars with their ADC and then staqy there. Earlygame their job is to get their ADC fed while trying to keep the enemy ADC down. Kills are nice but not necessary. As a support you try to help your ADC clear his wave - if possible without getting any last hits as you want him to get those - and harrass the enemy. Get poke off wherever you can, try to cc them so your ADC can get a few basics off on them, etc., but your main focus should be on farming the minions. In Season 2 with the removal of Mida's Boots aswel as the removal of the GP5 from WG, farming has become much more of a problem for supports. It's very easy to fall behind if you don't actively farm. "If possible without getting last hits" still applies, but isn't as important anymore.
###Early to midgame
Your first rotation should be around the time that midcamps come up the second time. If everything goes perfectly, you should *already be there* when they spawn in - so keep an eye on the timer! After that your relatively free. Help the lane that needs help while keeping your farm up. Don't hesitate to "leech" from your teammates' lanes - you need the exp just as much (if not more) than they do. You might want to help clear mid for some additional exp, and/or head to backcamps with your jungler or just return to duo if your ADC desperately needs you. .
####Objectives and your positioning as a support
Objectives are insanely important in midgame and the support players are supposed to be there for pretty much every objective fight. The two main objectives on the map are the Gold Fury and the Fire Giant. As such, your positioning is very important. If the enemy team sees you on the solo lane, they might sneak in a Gold Fury before you can even get there. Wards help to counter that to a certain degree: you can see them heading towards an objective faster and reacter quicker, but not completely. In some situations you simply wont make it in time if you weren't prepared. Ward a lot, keep track of what objectives are up, where the enemy is, etc.
###Lategame
Objectives still stay relevant and so do kills. Your main job in lategame is to initiate. Force your enemy to blow their beads, try to single one of them out, push them into positions they don't want to be in, etc. When a teamfight breaks out, the enemy should be handicapped because *you* initiated well and gave your team an adventage. Gold Fury isn't as important any more but Fire Giant even more so, because with the FG buff a team can easily push two or three phoenixes or even win the game. Look to destroy towers (you should be bulky enough to tank them if your team helps you destroy them) and get objectives. Stay with your team (don't stray too far from the Fire Giant) and keep everything warded as best you can.