@Vesh: About Soraka's heal range

Fashion Mage·10/14/2014, 5:25:41 PM·9 votes·1,762 views

In my opinion, Soraka's heal range is the only thing holding her back from being a decent pick right now. The low range encourages her to build tanky, but the health cost encourages her to build squishy. It's contradictory and the ability is rather clunky because of this. I've repeatedly died to AoE spells with her because her range is that bad. Even Taric has a higher heal range than her, and he can actually afford to get that close (that said, his healing isn't even close to being as potent). Don't get me wrong. She's certainly not garbage tier like she was before her rework, but I don't think she's a good pick either.

So, @Vesh (or any other Rioter who handles this sort of thing): If Soraka receives any buffs, would it ever be to her heal range? If not, how would you go about buffing her?

16 Comments

Jethzk10/15/2014, 1:17:30 AM5 votes

Having played soraka a bit, I've come to the conclusion that she's not strong enough to be a top pick. Her CC simply isn't enough to compete. It comes down to being reactive vs proactive. Soraka is a reactive healer. All of the great supports right now are proactive, with the potential to be reactive if needed.
Equinox isn't good enough at setting up kills or peeling opponents. It's only effective if her team already has quite a few roots and snares. I'd rather have Alistar supporting any day because his W and Q provide proactive peeling rather than a race against the DPS that inevitably results in soraka killing herself.

Soraka's heals don't make up for the amount of utility lost. Think thresh hook or Morg dark binding. These skills greatly outshine equinox in all but the most ideal of situations for equinox. Soraka's teamfight healing requires too much health in too short of a time period. It does not make up for the loss of peeling and utility that other supports bring.

I feel like Equinox needs an initial slow when it goes down and that it would be favorable to the root effect. I also think her healing range could use a slight buff. Perhaps something along the lines of a typical auto attack range.

I really preferred the old soraka's heal to the current soraka. Providing an armor buff meant that soraka's heal was somewhat proactive as well as being reactive. It was worth healing someone when they had lost health but were still going to take a lot of damage. There was a nice sweat spot to healing that has been lost. Now instead of hitting the nice timing, it's more about following allies around and trying to cast a heal any time they are close enough. Proactive healing works more like shielding, and overall I think the shielding mechanic is a healthier aspect. Lulu and Janna both do this extremely well and it's hard to pick a situation where Soraka is better than them.

The one thing about the new soraka that really stands out, is her potential to control areas with equinox. Expanding upon the zone control may be a good way to set soraka apart from other supports. As it is, Equinox just doesn't feel rewarding enough by itself. Champions move out of the circle in half a second and they don't get rooted. Even placing it where champions need to go, the root effect never goes off unless they are already slowed or stunned. As soraka doesn't provide a root or stun, it just doesn't synergize well with her kit.

Deep Terror Nami10/14/2014, 5:41:14 PM3 votes

Yes please, slightly increased heal range. Her lane poking, and teamfight capability (laying a silence/snare in the right spot) are quite spectacular, but she dies like a squishy melee support because she's both forced to kill herself and get into range of the enemy at the same time.

Kowe The Ewok10/15/2014, 10:01:42 AM3 votes

I'ld love her passive to scale her W range and lower the sacrificed health. It'ld feel more like. "Salvation" than becoming a Porsche when somebody is about to die.

17inchcorkscrew10/15/2014, 2:37:09 AM2 votes

Soraka's an AP bruiser, not a support! Put her on the front lines, and she's got CC and damage for dayz, plus heals on wheels. You think Soraka was garbage tier before the rework, which shows that you have no idea what you're talking about.

The one thing I would like to see is a reduced cooldown when her Q hits a champion. That would bring back the potential for her old spammy starcall because that was an iconic part of the champ. Q's base cooldown would have to be raised, of course, but the real problem is that rito will never accept solo raka. They even tried to steal 20% of her bonus resistances.

Marthian10/14/2014, 7:48:09 PM1 votes

Have you tried Archangel's staff with other tanky AP items? It helps a lot with her squishiness, and is a pretty good source of AP and mana.

eztarg3t10/15/2014, 1:56:33 AM1 votes

I think this is out of Vesh's hands at this point and more in GC and Meddlers. Also I think we won't be seeing any buffs coming for Soraka until after the pre-season patch has been implemented and has settled in a few months.

Arizel10/15/2014, 5:34:06 AM1 votes

I would like to put in my 2 cents here and say, I think Soraka's heal range is fine. I have been playing Soraka almost nonstop every time I've gotten the support role. I play a lot of games. She feels quite impactful in all stages of the game, but the tradeoff here is that her positioning MUST be impeccable to keep everyone alive without sacrificing herself. The Damage she deals/ the wave clear is decent if you build her more AP ish.

The builds I usually run have the following items by the time the game usually ends.

Frost Queens, Unholy Grail (Screw you Athene, we all know you are fake), Merc Treads, Spirit Visage

That is only 4 items. Usually by that time the game is over. The runes I use are all flat AP except for health regeneration quints.

At the end of the game I have around 157 AP, which is enough to give allies decent heals all around while having reasinable waveclear with near maximum CDR.

My only Gripe while playing Soraka is that she is too slow. Your complaints about the range of her heal being small is more than likely because everyone else on your team is faster than you and so you are unable to keep up with them and top them off. Or you cannot even reach them in time because they moved too far ahead of you and got bursted down out of your healing range. I think Giving Soraka a high base movement speed would go a long way in helping her without breaking her.

For Context I have 65 games of Soraka in Ranked with about 60 of them being post rework soraka. I have a 61 percent win/loss ratio.

Remlap122310/14/2014, 11:57:26 PM1 votes

There's lots of things holding Soraka back right now: her piss AP ratios, the fact that her heal has a mana cost on top of a freaking 10% max health drain, her extremely low HP5 (that wasn't adjusted to offset the fact that she can't heal herself anymore outside of her ultimate), and poor itemization (from lack of support focused HP5 items because the rest of the supports do not have this problem.) If he upped her AP ratios so that her abilities did more than tickle if you hit them right, removed the mana cost on W (making actually hitting starcall really rewarding), and gave her high HP5 (I was thinking more than Lee Sin, and have it scale worse than Rengar's) Soraka could be a top tier support. Her abilities are top notch, they're just unintentionally inhibited by Soraka's horrible stats.