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That's So Raka: Tweaking the Rework

Jackofheartz·9/26/2014, 2:22:06 PM·5 votes·2,681 views

I'll start off by saying I actually like the update. Her gameplay is much more interactive and fun, whereas before she was just a battery. My issue with her right now is that she feels very clunky and EXTREMELY killable. Most of this clunkiness/squishiness is centered on her W.

W: Astral Infusion

Passive: Each enemy champion hit by Starcall heals Soraka, increased by 1% for every 1% of Soraka's missing health.

Firstly, why is this even a passive? Why is this not tied directly to her Q? I like her new Q a lot. She has some poke power, some sustain, and even a slow with good aim. Having it work on enemy champions and not minions is fine so she doesn't just go solo beastmode anywhere. So where's the problem? Let's look at...

Active: Soraka blesses a friendly unit, restoring its health. Astral Infusion cannot be self-cast, and nor can it be cast if Soraka is below 5% of her max. health. RANGE: 450 COST: 10% MAXIMUM HEALTH + 20 / 25 / 30 / 35 / 40 MANA

Ok, so her heal has a health cost. Given it's power and low CD, I'm fine with a health cost, but why a a mana cost? What's the point of that? She's injuring herself to heal an ally making her very vulnerable, and with a max health cost at that. Also, let's look at that range. I get that her passive allows her to rush to an ally to heal them, which adds gameplay, but let's remember she's INJURING HERSELF to do it. How is she supposed to survive any of this? Oh right, her Q.

Well her Q has a 950 range and casts faster the closer she is to her enemy, so she pretty much has to cast on top of herself in the middle of a teamfight to offset the health cost of W. How is she supposed to survive that? Oh, her E.

So let's play this out. A teammate is in danger, her passive activates. Soraka rushes in and casts E to silence her foes, W to heal her ally, and Q to heal herself. That's how that's supposed to go right? That's pretty hard to put together, especially considering the ranged attackers outside the zone, the auto-attackers inside the zone, and the fact Soraka is VERY squishy.

Sona can heal, shield, poke, stun, and grant movement speed to get in and out easily all in one combo. She does all of this at a range, with only mana costs. Soraka pretty much has to kill herself just to heal. Why not build Soraka tanky to give her survivability? This comes at the cost of a decrease in power, and let's not forget her heal is a MAX % health cost so she's still putting herself in a bad place.

So let's try to clean this up a bit.

Idea 1: Soraka's passive also grants % damage reduction while active. If she's gonna have to heal at such a short range, she's gonna need this to stay alive.

Q: Just integrate the passive from W. C'mon, there was no point to that.

W: Get rid of the mana cost

Idea 2: Q: Integrate the passive from W. When in close range, the center of Starcall stuns instead of slows. This will give Soraka some time to get in and out of heal range, and give her a little extra zoning power so she can use her E on ranged attackers.

Idea 3: W: Successive heals increase Soraka's armor/mr by 10, stacking 3 times, lasting 6 seconds. This will hopefully beef up her survivability as she kills herself.

Edit: These ideas are all separate.

13 Comments

Dryad Soraka9/26/2014, 6:16:15 PM3 votes

I feel like Starcall's self-heal should be amplified when it hits a champion in the center.

Hyrum Graff9/26/2014, 3:21:41 PM2 votes

A rioter stated that if you don't give w a mana cost, you need to raise mana costs elsewhere, which makes q feel like it costs too much mana.

I really like the idea of her gaining armor/mr or damage reduction at lower hp levels.

Origami Kaiju9/26/2014, 2:47:42 PM2 votes

I agree a lot with what you're saying.

I love how interactive she is now, however I think she could use some fine tuning. Some problems I'm having is, like you said, she feels a bit clunky right now.

The range on w is a bit of a problem for team fights in my opinion. For instance, your jungler amumu dives into the enemy to ult, and consequently takes a lot of damage. You have to get within 450 range of him in order to heal. You move forward, heal him, reduce your own health, and are now sitting in the middle of the team-fight at 40% health. You are such a juicy target, you will get instantly blown up

I honestly understand why Soraka is squishy. Somebody with the power to heal all her teammates so effectively should not be an unkillable tank, but at the same time, I think she should be able to fight from a safe distance being so squishy. I don't think being incredibly squishy and having to be in the middle of the team-fight is an equal trade off for 2 second heals. Not to mention, Soraka is still low mobility. She gets a huge movement speed boost when running toward injured allies, but she still has no escape to save herself.

So I think Soraka should be able to heal from a safe distance.

PokladnicaZla9/26/2014, 4:57:44 PM1 votes

The reason her selfheal is on her W so that she doesnt get abused in solo lane and gets nerfed all over again.

Aside from that,i agree her passive needs something more so that it feels special,now its just meh(atleast to me)...

Duke Anax9/26/2014, 3:18:10 PM1 votes

There is a very good point to putting the passive on W instead of Q, because it scales with ability level. That way you have to either level damage or saveheal first, instead of doing both at once.

I suppose it's a way to keep her in check early solo lane.

The mana on the heal is somewhat necessary too. Otherwise you'd first heal then just spam Starcall all day long.

I agree that Starcall needs some slow on the outer rim to be effective, but that can also be done with buying Rylai. Health is a tardeoff, but getting none at all leaves her really weak.

Some added defenses would be nice, however I feel that Soraka needs to be this easy to kill, her heal is insane and when you have a Kayle back healing her, no one dies.

MrSc0tty9/26/2014, 6:41:20 PM1 votes

It's to prevent the crazy rise of Laneraka 2: Anti-Interaction Harder.

Making her Q damage scale with Q and heal scale with W prevents her from strolling into mid, going "fuck W I'm not leveling this until I'm required to" and just playing with W E and R.

Shiny Reshiram9/26/2014, 8:08:22 PM1 votes

How about we just put her back to being Soraka and people learn how to fight her if she's in lane? Lane swap, counter pick, jungle call, she was never hard to kill.

7ha7guy77710/3/2014, 12:04:50 AM1 votes

Has no one else noticed the fact that she can use a heal that costs 10% of her max health while she has at least 5% health left? a soraka with 5.1-9.9% could in effect kill herself by healing an ally. Shouldn't this be changed?