Support is probably the least wanted, played and valued role in normal and low ELO. People want to play the carry or initiator and see sitting in lane babysitting as pointless. However it is one of the most essential roles in a team with wards giving map awareness, auras items giving subtle but strong boosts to the entire team and heals, shields and CC enabling your carry to get fed and farmed without a problem.
The thing with supports is that they're hard to screw up but even harder to master. Most of them, in my opinion, have fairly low skill floors but pretty high skill ceilings and getting good at supporting is one of the ways you can almost guarantee a win. Of course some are slightly simpler than others, as difficulty level varies for different champions, and another positive point of playing support is even if you aren't the best player it is hard for you to cause a team to lose. Naturally a mediocre player who has awful positioning and feeds can cause a loss for the team but someone slightly more skilled (but not by much) can still ensure the team has a good match which wouldn't happen if they played the carry or initiator. All a decent support needs is to ward, use skills on teammates and buy aura items to help their team.
Speaking of Wards they are one of the most essential items in the game, but warding isn't just the supports job, it is everyone's. Whilst this is clear early game with each lane needing to see the area around it so your top and mid will be buying wards this falls off a lot late game when map awareness is equally as important for big map objectives and for the jungle to avoid being caught and to allow you to catch enemy team members in compromising positions. A common excuse for many not to buy wards is 'I didn't have the money after buying my items' wards should be a priority for all players, you only need to pick up one (two or three for supports) each time you go back and if you're last hitting properly or buying gold items then it should never be a problem. Ensuring you always have decent map awareness is essential for any team.
Okay now we've sorted that out let's talk about one of my favorite supports, Janna. Janna, in my opinion is the best and most well rounded support character, despite lacking an in lane heal like most supports she makes up for it with a strong shield, godly CC and that ultimate. First of all her passive is incredible, sure it only works whilst she is alive but it affects the entire team and more move speed, for chasing and escaping, even just 3% more (which helps a lot in early game) makes a huge difference. Then we move on to that Q an easily spammable knock up in a line, this skill shouldn't be used to harass in lane, unless in the build up to a gank, due to the relatively high cooldown and manacosts. This can be used to stop escapes, counter initiation or generally mess up enemy teamfights. Her W gives a ghost like effect, further boosting her movement speed and stopping unit collision. It's active deals decent magic damage and is a long slow, 48% for four seconds at 5th level. It's a good skill once more for ensuring successful ganks and chasing but is also a decent tool for harassment in lane as, unlike her Q, it is purely single target so doesn't disrupt the creep wave for the carry. Her E is a pretty incredible shield. Fairly strong shield strength (with a .9 AP ratio) which also gives the champion bonus attack damage, this varies from 14 at first level to 50 at 5th. Maxing this and throwing it on your carry to harass in lane can result in a lot of damage getting through to the enemy team. Finally we have her ultimate, usage of her ultimate is what divides good Janna's from great ones. It can be used to initiate, save your team, counter initiate, lock someone to a wall and more. Unfortunately it can also be used to mess up your own teams positioning in a teamfight, blasting their carry's away and their initiators into you or accidentally helping the enemy chase and get kills (See Here)
Well that's Janna sorted out and a few small thoughts on supporting in general, so get out there pick up a support and pray your lane partner can actually last hit.
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