Your first point
Just step up and be the ingame leader for your team. Tell everyone what they should be doing, if you sound confident enough people will follow. If they dont want to listen then theres nothing you can do. The things pubs lack is a leader, everyone just runs off doing their own shit. If you know what he's about to do is bad tell him not to, tell him to farm or b or something.
I didn't bother reading the rest of your post sorry slash not sorry.
I see the same problems in my low MMR games. The total lack of cooperation makes supports less important.
This is what I have learned:
1. Buy wards. If your team ignores them, stop buying wards. Waste of gold.
2. Pick a support that can keep a carry alive. If he dies a lot, try to keep the second best carry alive.
3. Pick a support that can do something even if your carries suck. Split-push, gank, defense.
4. Pick a support that can move into the carry position. Jungler for example. Farm up and do what you can.
"Just step up and be the ingame leader for your team. Tell everyone what they should be doing, if you sound confident enough people will follow. If they dont want to listen then theres nothing you can do. The things pubs lack is a leader, everyone just runs off doing their own shit. If you know what he's about to do is bad tell him not to, tell him to farm or b or something"
sounds like a great way to get com reported
pretty sure this is not just a 2.1k problems, happens all the time at 3-4k from what i see. guilty of that myself, its like a bloodlust takes over once you start snowballing, getting level and item advantage.
so unless rise way above your current rank, the situation is unlikely to change, only solution is to play carry yourself (5 core games are perfectly winnable around 3k as long as they are cores with lockdowns) or play in stack where there is some semblance of organisation and there will be less throws
Only tip i have:
If you want low rated people to defend a lane, just ping it and say "farm top someone" and you'll get instant TPs
If you say "defend top" they get scared of the bad guys and stick to their jungle camps or whatever
Maybe you should try out Leshrac, I like him best when solo supporting because he can flash-farm easier than any other support, and he can solo push towers at any point in the game
I think the key is to play versatile heroes in pub matches, rather than just playing supports. Pick from a pool of heroes that are situationally farm-dependent. What I mean by this is, it's great if you get XP and gold, but you're still a viable hero with little to none of it. Popular examples (in no particular order) would include:
1.) WINDRANGER. Arguably the most versatile hero in DotA 2, Windranger can be played as solo mid, solo offlane, or as a support in the safe lane. She's a disabler, a nuker, a pusher, and a half-way decent support (if built properly). Wind can practically fill any role in the game, maybe except initiator and definitely not as a jungler. She can Escape with her Windrun ability, deal long-range nukage and provide sight with Power Shot, Disable with Shackleshot, and melt down towers with her ultimate, Focus Fire. Do be careful against magic-damage nukers, however, as Windrun doesn't give you immunity to spells and your HP pool is relatively weak compared to other heroes. Be sure to build mana-regeneration items, as Windranger has a terrible mana problem. Items like Eul's Scepter of Divinity, Orchid Malevolence, or even a Bloodstone if you're well-farmed are solid pickups for Wind. Eul's is good because it gives you another disable, something to protect you from magic damage (if timed well enough), and it grants you bonus move speed which works with Windrun because Windrun is percentage-based (you gain +50% move speed from Windrun, which will definitely stack with Eul's). Linken's Sphere kills three birds with one stone. First, it provides her with a boost to all stats, which is always good for any hero, particularly a hero like Windranger that is an Intelligence hero that plays much like an Agility hero. Second, it provides her with 150% mana regeneration to compensate for her otherwise dismal mana pool and lets her spam powershot. Lastly, it blocks spells once every 17 seconds, meaning she gets a minor form of magic immunity, which is spectacular considering it's her one weakness. A final note, always be sure to read item descriptions to see if things grant unique attack modifiers, because they won't work when you activate her ultimate (unless you have Aghanim's Scepter). Aghanim's is a good pickup, but only if you have enough farm and things are going swell. There are other items that hold priority over an Aghanim's Scepter for Windranger (such as a Mekansm, typically, or even your Linken's or a Eul's, as you'll likely need one of the two. In all, she is a very well-rounded hero, but know that she might take more than just a few games of play to really get into the swing of things.
2.) VENGEFUL SPIRIT. Personally, my best hero (with a 76% winrate) and, in my opinion, a very versatile hero. Say you're still in the hero picking stage of the match. If no one seems to be able to make up their mind, Venge is always a solid choice. She's not easily countered (except by nukers or chain-disablers like Lion or Shadow Shaman), and she counters nearly everyone as long as you are positioning properly. With Venge, you'll want to build a blend of support and carry items usually, and gank constantly. Vengeful Spirit is a very strong ganker with a solid, reliable stun and an ultimate that can shut down any low-mobility hero with ease. Not only that, but you can play Vengeful Spirit as either a hard support or a carry (or somewhere in-between). Just know that if you're planning a carry build, you will be inevitably inferior to the enemy team's carry in the lategame, so try to push hard and end fast. I suggest building high-mobility items (namely Sange and Yasha) on Vengeful Spirit to help her get the jump when ganking, to make a quick escape, and to make short work of chasing enemy heroes down. Vengeful Spirit is an aggressive, high-risk, high-reward hero that, if played smartly, can terrorize the enemy team (and gain the respect of your fellow teammates).
3.) MIRANA. Mirana is yet another high-flexibility hero, who is usually seen being tried to play as a carry, but in reality, she pales in comparison to true hard carries (such as Anti-Mage, Spectre, Faceless Void, Medusa, Phantom Assassin, etc.). This is largely due to the fact that her abilities don't exactly lend themselves to making her a true carry. Mirana is perhaps one of the greatest gankers in the game, and each and every one of her abilities (with perhaps the exception of Starstorm) lend themselves to this role. Sacred Arrow is fantastic or initiating a gank (if you can manage to land it, that is). If successful, a follow-up with Leap can position you into the perfect spot for securing the kill, while also empowering any of your allies that happen to be in the same lane. With an ultimate like Moonlight Shadow, Mirana is fantastic at avoiding enemy detection and setting up for the perfect gank. Not only that, but you can use it to initiate a standard teamfight (for example, if there's a stalemate mid, and no one is making a move for fear of initiation) or even to un-initiate (if things are looking rough, and your team needs a quick escape! With such a strong global presence, Mirana is the kind of hero that requires good team communication and coordination. If there are any language barriers with anyone on your team, I would not suggest picking Mirana. If you start getting flamed by other players, stop your semi-carry build and go into full-on support mode because your chances of "leading the team" are practically nonexistent. Remember that Sacred Arrow is a skill-shot (that is, it requires a lot of practice to land consistently). Being able to land a Sacred Arrow is vital to playing Mirana, so practice it out on bots a few games because bots move more sporadically than human players do, which will make it seem easier when you're playing against human intelligence. When playing this hero, just remember that she requires a great deal of cooperation, coordination, practice, and patience.
Hope this helps!
Here are some less popular examples of heroes that aren't quite as versatile, and may require more skill and/or experience but are still fairly viable and relevant to this topic. Most of these, people wouldn't consider actual "supports". True, they're not Hard Supports like Crystal Maiden, Io, or Keeper of the Light, but you don't want to play those kinds of supports in pub matches. You're usually guaranteed to have one person playing carry, claiming to know how to carry, not actually knowing how to carry. To fix this, you have to play versatile supports. Sven is a Support. Legion Commander is a Support. Are they ever played as such? Hardly... but hey, this works. I know, because this is how I've succeeded at raising my own MMR from a measly 1300 to my current just under 2000 (which is, by no means, impressive). Picking a versatile hero is good, but isn't the end-all for success. DotA is a multi-faceted game, and simply picking the right hero isn't going to guarantee a win. Item builds, proper positioning, strategy, game knowledge and cooperative play are all just as important. Instead of only playing the support role, you should branch out. To be honest, I don't see the appeal of playing carry position. It's a huge responsibility and if you fail, there is no hope for your team. To solve this issue, I would suggest playing the role of miscellaneous, that is, fit the team's needs. Be the last person to pick on your team so you counterpick and fill out your team's dynamic. Have a plan before the game starts, and communicate it with your team. If they don't like your plan, keep cool. Everyone plays the game for different reasons. If your goal is to raise your MMR, you have to remember a single glaring fact - DotA is a team game, and that means that your have to work together to accomplish a common goal (that is, to destroy the opposing team's Ancient and protect your own). The problem isn't that you're in a low MMR with players that don't fully understand game mechanics. It's that you're only playing the support role. Branch out. Try new things.
It's a good idea to have about 10 heroes you can play really well, and each one should have a different role: Carry, Disabler, Lane Support, Initiator, Jungler, Support, Durable, Nuker, Pusher, and Escape. For me, that's Medusa (Carry), Naga Siren (Initiator), Keeper of the Light (Support), Vengeful Spirit (Ganker/Semi-Carry), Enchantress (Jungler), Crystal Maiden (Support), Legion Commander (Midrange), Lina (Nuker/Ganker), and Windranger (Pusher/Semi-Carry).
1.) SVEN. Sven is just a good guy all around. He has a solid AoE stun, which makes him great at initiation. He has a large-range buff that he can grant the entire team. If the game goes late, Sven turns into god mode and carries the team. He can tank creep waves, tank towers, tank Roshan, and tank enemy heroes. Compared to other heroes, he has relatively high base Armor, but a lackluster HP and mana pool. HP items as well as mana regen will be necessary to get off multiple Storm Hammers in a single team fight.
2.) LEGION COMMANDER. Legion commander is surprisingly versatile, but most people play her solely as a carry (which I won't argue, she is incredibly good at). However, as a carry, she's vulnerable to any right-clicker, and with recent patches, she's lost a lot of her firepower and can often times end up being the team feeder. You can jungle quite easily with Legion Commander, but I wouldn't recommend doing it past level 6. By that point, you should be ganking, trying to gain as much bonus damage with your ultimate as you can. Be smart in who you use your ultimate on, and always have vision of the surrounding area. It's usually a good idea to Duel the hero with the most lockdown, as they won't be able to cast spells for the duration. Coincidentally, these kinds of heroes are typically Intelligence heroes with low HP pools, making them easy targets. Remember, with LC, you want to get in, win the duel, and get out. Don't hang around, because you risk getting ganked. Retreat to safety in your jungle where you can continue to get farm.
3.) DROW RANGER. I see people playing Drow as a hard carry. She's not. In fact, she's terrible at this position. If you compare her to hard carries, she has several problems with trying to fill this role. Problem number one: her ultimate is largely useless in team fights. Marksmanship only works if there are no enemy heroes in a certain radius of Drow Ranger, meaning that when you're in a fight, all the points you've put in your ultimate are practically wasted. Problem number two: she falls off lategame if she isn't gaining consistent farm. Drow has a pitiful HP pool, meaning she dies very easily and can often end up feeding during midgame teamfights. By the end of the game, there really isn't much you can do to stop enemy heroes from crushing you into dust in a matter of seconds. To solve this, you'll need to play Drow Ranger in a semi-carry position, focusing on teamfights with the silence from Gust, follow-up kills using Frost Arrows, and aiding in fights with a global buff to allied ranged heroes. What Drow Ranger is really good at is solo split-pushing and escaping with Shadow Blade and standing back and helping in team fights, rather than trying to take down the entire enemy team. One last thing - in order to really play Drow to her fullest potential, you have to know how animation cancelling works, otherwise you lose out on lots of damage and potential kills or assists.
4.) ENCHANTRESS. This hero is very popular on the professional scene. With her early-game ability to both gank and push, Enchantress is a very versatile hero that has a high skill cap in order to play her to full effect. As is usually the case with junglers, she requires a great deal of concentration to micromanage any neutral creeps under her control. Remember that Enchant can also be used to slow enemies, meaning she can gank the safe lane regularly to help the hard carry get some extra kills. Nature's Attendants is very powerful, and can help keep herself (and her teammates) alive in a pinch. Once she hits level 6, start pushing towers. Impetus allows you to harass enemies back so that you can push and they can't deny the tower (or at least, not as easily). Orchid Malevolence is a solid pickup for her, as it gives her another utility spell to use in team fights. During team fights, your role is to heal, silence with Orchid, and finish off any fleeing enemy heroes that dare to leave the fight. Enchantress also has a pretty good base move speed, so she can chase fairly well. Unfortunately, her passive, Untouchable, doesn't work on towers, so that makes towers a big threat to her. If you find yourself being focused by a tower, click the aggro over to one of your enchanted creeps or any normal allied creep to avoid getting blasted down.
Other honorable mentions include Venomancer and Naga Siren (and perhaps Death Prophet as well), but I am beginning to realize that this is just a forum post and not an actual guide for each of these heroes, so I'll just call it a night. If you want someone to play with that can maybe teach you a thing or two about playing any one of these heroes, hit me up. I'm on and playing daily.
Hope all this helps, and I wish you the best of luck.
I think you should forget most of what you've learnt about support. There's no point properly supporting carries who can't carry. You need to do a speshul type of support.
Support at normal is pretty much buy wards, keep your carry alive for the first 10mins whilst auto-attacking your creeps to negate his own auto-attacks.
Don't TP to other lanes trying to help out with a gank because even if you succeed your carry will die so the best you can hope for is to breakeven-100 gold for the TP.
Don't bother dewarding because the enemy won't have warded.
Similarly smokes are a waste of money because the enemy won't have warded. And even if they had see above - even if your smoke gank works, your carry will have died in the meantime.
After 10mins you are at most 1500 gold behind their carries (most carries get between 20-40 last hits in the first 10mins in Normal) so it isn't hard to catch up with a bit of split push wave clearing+T1 towers.
Just don't try and be that altruistic CM that is wandering arond with a magic stick+brown boots at 40mins.
If you want to increase your MMR you need to play more impactful and independent roles.
there is alot of gold on the map you just need to find it. Sitting around afk in lane crying about your carry missing last hits while you do nothing to increase your own items is what hinders your own gameplay. All carries are going to suck at that MM, if they where good they would be higher.......
http://www.dotabuff.com/matches/1142644558
I rarely play position 5 support but in the end of the match you still need items
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For you basketball fans reading, I'll be explaining a common problem I have in ranked games using the Hubie Brown 2nd person plural hypothetical tense:
Ok....you're a low mmr (1.6-2.1k) player. You like playing support. You watch a lot of Purge videos, you know about pulling through, stacking, warding/dewarding, rotating, smoke ganking mid, etc. Eventually you start to notice a pattern in the carries you help in lane. After the laning phase, your carry has plenty of cs, a few kills which you helped him get, and after farming a few stacks you pulled for him he is likely on top of of the net worth chart. NOW...after tipping a few team fights, you're forced to watch in horror as your carry is suddenly possessed by the ghost of Charles Bronson, and he either stops farming to go try and 1v5 the enemy team thinking he is doing well totally due to his own skill, or he pushes lanes alone into enemy towers and gets ganked, even with all your offensive wards showing the enemy team just walking up to him through the jungle. This is especially horrifying for you since the new rubber banding mechanics, and this often loses the game for you.
So, Am I wrong for trying to support like this? How do i stop it from happening?
Another thing I see is when I am playing a nuker. I do well in the early game, then something strange happens, me running around ganking people on rotations will force the enemy team to 5 man, or rotate more, and my team will just freeze in their lanes and stop rotating completely. It's hard to explain, but I have this feeling a lot, or if I'm playing a ganking offlaner like Night Stalker. It's like people expect me to do that the entire game, so they don't develop a rhythm of rotating and team fighting. The other team however will start picking off the idle laners and figure out how to initiate in sync. So again, my seemingly good play is detrimental. It almost seems like the team that gets pushed out of lane and forced to deathball will have the advantage in the end.
I actually get yelled at for pulling if my carry is vs a solo lane, and the carry will wander over to my camp and let the creeps attack the tower. Has anyone risen to very high skill spamming support? If so I'd like to know how to handle games where you are relying on your team to not be idiots.