There are many factors that make a support useful. It's easy to think of it in terms of damage, CC and sustain but it goes deeper than that. In this blog I will be going into detail of how I look at a champions skill set and how useful they are supporting. (Pretty much all of this applies to champions in general but these are the traits you look for most in a support)
Overarching Categories:
1. Damage
2. Sustain
3. Control
4. Mobility
5. Utility
Damage
Damage is a pretty simple concept. It is about a champions ability to do damage to the opponent.
There are quite a few kinds of damage that champions can have. It can be big on long CDs, it can be constant and continuous. It can be long range or all-in. All of these styles and types have their drawbacks and benefits. Many spells fit into multiple categories and many champions can excel at more than one kind of damage.
Sub Categories of Damage:
1. Burst
2. Poke
3. Sustained
4. All-In
5. High Range
6. Low Range
Burst damage is damage that a champion can do in a small period of time. Good examples of supports with burst damage are Zyra and Lux. If they land their spells all at the same time they can seriously chunk the enemy players in lane.
Poke is damage that is done at range or in high levels of safety for the one using it. Essentially it is damage you can do without fully committing yourself to a fight. Examples of supports with good poke are Sona, Soraka and Nidalee.
Sustained damage is damage that keeps coming and coming, it isn't all at once and tapers off. Essentially it's damage that isn't tied to long CDs. Thresh is a good example of a support with sustained damage because of the passive on his Q (For now at least :3).
All-In damage is damage that you do while fully committing yourself to a fight. It generally isn't ranged unless that ranged ability brings you into the fight or brings the enemy to you. Good examples of All-In damage supports are Leona and Thresh.
High range damage is a pretty simple idea. It's the damage you can do at high range instead of what needs you to get up close and personal. Lux, Nidalee and to an extent Lulu can do this kind of damage.
A small part of high range damage is ranged auto attacks. Not all supports have them, but they can be very important, ESPECIALLY early on when your base AD isn't negligible compared to health pools.
Low range damage is damage that you need to get close to the enemy to do. It tends to have a lot in common with all-in damage but isn't always the same. Leona and Taric have lots of low range damage.
Sustain
Sustain is about being able to keep yourself and your ADC in lane. Some wouldn't call a shield a sort of sustain, but I do, because it can be used to mitigate damage and let you stay longer.
Sub Categories of Sustain:
1. Heals
2. Shields
3. Max Health Modifier
4. Spell Vamp/Lifesteal
5. Regeneration
Heals are pretty straightforward. You have a spell which can be used to heal yourself or more importantly yourself or your carry. Examples would be Soraka, Sona, Nidalee etc.
Shields are also pretty simple. They are abilities which block incoming damage. Examples would be Lulu and Janna.
Max Health Modifiers aren't that common in supports, most of them are self-use ultimates that give you a boost in max health which isn't technically a heal but acts very similar. However, Lulu has one that she can give to any champion on her team.
Spell Vamp and Lifesteal are also not very common on supports. The most supporty-ish champion with it would be Morgana and her passive. It allows her to heal herself slightly in lane which while generally small since she can't build AP quickly, it can make a difference.
Baseline regeneration is not something to scoff at. While Mundo is not a traditional support, his cleaver spam can make bot lane very scary, and a lot of his sustain is through simple health regeneration. Some supports have fairly good baseline sustain and with early philosophers stones can stay in lane despite poke.
Control
Ultimately control boils down to hard CC and soft CC. However there are important differences between those CCs which impact your laning and late game.
Sub Categories of Control:
1. Slows
2. Silences
3. Stuns
4. Knock Ups/Backs
5. Taunts
6. Roots
7. Hooks
8. Fears
9. Blind
10. Suppress (Not really, none of the champions with a suppress really ever support but it does exist!!)
Slows are what they sound like. They are abilities or spells that slow down the enemy laners. These are important for landing other spells or for allowing you to chase others down. Many supports have slows and some like Nunu revolve around them.
Silences stop the opponents from using spells and some summoner spells. While this isn't the best form of CC bot lane since the major damage dealers in the lane use lots of AAs, it can be strong early on in lane where a lot of the damage still comes from abilities. Examples include Soraka infuse and Blitz's ult.
Stuns are one of the strongest forms of CC. They stop you from almost all actions and can easily change engages and team fights. Supports based around their stuns would include Taric and Alistar.
Knock ups are arguably the best CC in the game. You can't cleanse or QSS being in the air. They end channels and essentially stop action for the duration that the opponent is in the air. Knock ups add a lot of strength to a support's kit. Alistar was a top tier support for a long time because of his knock up and back abilities for example.
Taunts can be very strong in that you can move your opponent, however many of them have the negative consequence of allowing the enemy to continue doing damage during the CC. If you are taunted, you are still auto attacking (Except for Ahri, dunno why they call it a taunt) and still doing damage. However since you are forced to attack the caster of the spell, that person can change your positioning during the duration that you are CCed.
Roots are a very common CC for supports to have. While they don't stop the enemy from auto attacking, they lock them down in one spot and allow you and your carry to dump damage into them. While not as strong as other forms of harder CC, roots can be quite devastating when your target can't flash or dash away. High damage supports like Zyra and Lux rely a lot on their roots.
Hooks are incredibly strong and contend with knock ups/backs for the seat of strongest CC. These abilities bring the opponent to you. They essentially force their positioning to change and can easily garner you and your ADC kills. Blitz and Thresh are both known for their hooks.
There aren't a lot of fears on supports but they can be quite devastating depending on your luck. A feared enemy can walk right into your clutches or could continue to walk away. Support Fid and the occasional AP support Shaco are the only real examples of fears you'll find bot lane.
Blinds stop your auto attacks from landing. Essentially it makes them "miss." Teemo is the only somewhat common champion that supports and has a blind, but it can be fairly strong because you're most likely in lane against someone who relies a lot on auto attacks (ie the ADC).
Mobility
Mobility is all about how well your champion can move around the lane and the map. In general this is a more important factor on your ADC but some abilities can be given to them in order to help them escape sticky situations. Not to mention that avoiding death yourself is always helpful.
Sub Categories of Mobility:
1. Movement Speed
2. Dashes
3. Flashes
Movement speed covers a lot of ground in regards to mobility. It encompasses all of the spells and passives that allow you or your ADC to run faster. Examples would be Janna's passive, Lulu's whimsy and Kayle's diving blessing.
Dashes are abilities that let you move small distances quickly without actually skipping over space. This would include abilities like Nidalee's pounce in cougar form.
Flashes are essentially abilities that bring you a far distance. Some of them skip the space although there are some spells that are between a flash and a dash or have aspects of both like LeBlanc's distortion.
Utility
Utility is an umbrella term that applies to things that champions bring to the table that don't really fit the other categories.
Sub Categories of Utility:
1. Anti-CC
2. Vision
3. Experience
4. Revive
5. Steroids
6. Ally Displacement
Anti-CC is pretty much unique, support-wise, to Morgana. Her black shield stops CC from being applied to the champion that she puts it on. It is a core ability that makes her able to be a support.
Vision is pretty much what it sounds like. It comes from abilities that show portions of the map that aren't in view. Examples would be Zyra's seeds, Nid's traps and even Lux's singularity.
Experience is what enables a champion to level. Zilean is the only support that can increase the experience you gain, but it is one of the reasons people play him as support. It allows you to level faster than your laning opponents assuming the same creeps are killed in range and are last hit.
Revive is another spell unique to Zilean and is the other major reason people play him as support. It can quite easily turn team fights around to give a player on your team a free GA.
Steroids is a fairly general category that a lot of supports have. It can be anything from extra AA damage from Janna's shield or Lulu's Pix to extra damage that you can proc on Leona's sunlight passive. Nunu for example was a very sought after support because of his attack speed steroid.
Ally displacement is another unique skill only this one isn't given to Zilean. No, it's for Thresh and it's from his lantern. Using it he can help to move his teammates assuming they click his lantern.
Why does this matter?
This matters because it's far too easy to say a champion his this thing or that thing and he's automatically viable. Or that because he doesn't have this or that he isn't viable. This outline shows the many things that different supports can bring to a lane. It lets you look at viability in a deeper way so that you don't discount someone just because they don't have a lot of sustain for example.
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