Whenever Soraka is banned its usually never because shes OP.

HandheldBrandon·Jan 24, 2016·56 votes·5,438 views

Its usually because people don't feel like dealing with her.

Seriously there has been maybe one time that i ever thought Soraka was OP and that was ages ago but everytime i see her banned the excuse it that people just dont want to deal with her.

EDIT: People seem to think** I THINK** Soraka is OP.

They would be wrong i am simply making an observation that whenever Soraka is banned in any kind of environment its because people would rather not deal with her rather than her actually being in any kind of OP state.

74 Comments

La BarbotteJan 24, 201610 votes

shes cancer to play against

HandheldBrandonJan 24, 201616 votes

Shes honestly not even that bad but she makes the game extremely boring.

Healz PleaseJan 25, 201611 votes

For who? If you play Raka right then she can be really fun.

HandheldBrandonJan 25, 20164 votes

Maybe for the person playing her and her teammates but i guarantee you the opposite team feels quite literally the opposite.

She not only causes the lane to stagnate but she has always erased harass damage. She is boring to deal with for people because her design is to help her teammate survive through a steady stream of healing.

I dont know if you watched the All stars but the match with 2 zileans literally just farming it out is what it feels like for people when they have to deal with her.

taestheticJan 25, 20162 votes

{quoted}

Maybe for the person playing her and her teammates but i guarantee you the opposite team feels quite literally the opposite.

She not only causes the lane to stagnate but she has always erased harass damage. She is boring to deal with for people because her design is to help her teammate survive through a steady stream of healing.

I dont know if you watched the All stars but the match with 2 zileans literally just farming it out is what it feels like for people when they have to deal with her.

If no one played champions the enemy team found boring or annoying or whatever, there would be a lot of champions barely played. And I enjoy playing Soraka a lot. There are a lot of champions that are super boring to play against. If people find her boring and annoying to play against, I will play her more. Means more chance of the enemy team getting fed up and tilting and more chance of me winning. :^)

Also, I've not seen much Soraka in high elo - probably because there is a lot of counter to her. I'm not high elo so I can't say what, but I've barely ever seen her played on stream.

HandheldBrandonJan 25, 20164 votes

{quoted}

If no one played champions the enemy team found boring or annoying or whatever, there would be a lot of champions barely played. And I enjoy playing Soraka a lot. There are a lot of champions that are super boring to play against. If people find her boring and annoying to play against, I will play her more. Means more chance of the enemy team getting fed up and tilting and more chance of me winning. :^)

Also, I've not seen much Soraka in high elo - probably because there is a lot of counter to her. I'm not high elo so I can't say what, but I've barely ever seen her played on stream.

You know at one point Yorick was banned too in games.

He wasn't banned because he was overpowered or anything he was banned because he was so overly oppressive in lane that people literally did not want to even deal with him even in the slightest. Sure you enjoy playing Soraka but i guarantee you people don't like playing against Soraka because dealing with her is one of the most mind numbing things in league.

Every time Soraka has been banned in ranked it is because people dont want to fucking deal with her and how boring she makes things. Sure she can have some fun moments but its usually for the soraka player and her team and the enemy team is more than likely irritated with her.

I for one absolutely hate Zed. I think he is everything wrong with assassins considering he has a super safe laning phase and excellent wave clear with nearly zero risk to himself. But thats just my opinion. People hate dealing with Soraka because she makes the laning phase for her carry overly safe and just washes away pretty much any damage done to her carry with a steady stream of health and thats what people hate.

I also don't think you are understanding what i am saying because you make it out to seem like i am saying she is OP which i am not. I am saying everytime she is banned its because shes annoying to deal with not because she is too strong.

iamleburkJan 25, 20161 votes

Ehhh but she's supposed to be a cock blocker, thats her design. It's the type of annoying design that lets Teemo and Tahm mains get off. And she makes a boring lane but outside of lane she's kind of useless

Supreme Senpai69Jan 25, 201610 votes

Playing Soraka is VERY fun. Playing against her is just so annoying.

But... that's true of other champions like Lee Sin, who also isn't OP and is fun to play as, but is hated to play against.

HandheldBrandonJan 25, 20162 votes

That definitely seems to be how people who play her feel.

I occassionally like to sit back and heal allies as Soraka and i too have fun with it and she does have her hard counters but i definitely see where and why people don't like dealing with her. She stagnates any form of interaction in the lane until a third party comes along.

JacctheInsomniacJan 25, 20169 votes

[deleted]

HandheldBrandonJan 25, 20163 votes

No one said shes not easy to deal with.

What i get from most people is that they would rather not deal with her at all. Also not too mention Zed is probably a poor choice considering soraka can drop a silence field directly under Zeds target and he becomes an instant sitting duck if the team has any sense of surroundings.

JacctheInsomniacJan 25, 20163 votes

[deleted]

It Hertz When IPJan 25, 20162 votes

When I do a Warmogs build on her, I get Rylai's. Her E becomes orders of magnitude better, as with a slow built in targets can either elect to burn a mobility spell or get immobilized, and her Q slow becomes more effective.

ofartJan 24, 20166 votes

So what if she's not OP? She makes laning super boring.

HandheldBrandonJan 24, 201629 votes

Thats literally what i was saying.

She is not banned because shes OP shes banned because she is literally so boring to deal with that people just flat out opt to not have to deal with her.

Solari FortuneJan 25, 20164 votes

I ban her away so I have a chance of actually doing something in the lane phase. She can make her ADC pretty much immortal and sits so far back you can't do anything to her

disregardableJan 24, 20163 votes

She was kind of close to OP the patch she was reworked. Every nerf since then has been undeserved imo.

Krys StarJan 25, 20163 votes

Sad part is, rickless is literally gutting her come next patch cycle... He's reducing the heal on her W to 80 / 120 / 160 / 200 / 240 from 120 / 150 / 180 / 210 / 240. Which might not seem like a huge deal, until you consider the fact that her self-heal mechanic is moving from W to Q, AND her mana cost for W was nearly doubled. They're reducing the heal, moving the self-heal to Q which is typically maxed last, while retaining its new massive mana cost (remember it's on a short cooldown and is cast very, very frequently). Then there's Starcall's reduced range, from 950 to 800. That's 150 reduction of range, and the impact size is going from 265 to 235.

Sure, it now has a added slow to it, but... Soraka is receiving nerfs after nerfs after nerfs, only because she's anti-fun and frustrating to play against. In all my years of playing, since before season 1 started, I've watched this vicious cycle repeat itself every year. The second Soraka becomes an appealing and/or viable pick, she quickly gets nerfed in successions. It's sad and heart breaking, because she's always been my top 3 picks in every single season. She was my very first buy in early 2010. I have 815 games from season 5 alone! I just wish Riot could stop doing this to Soraka every chance she receives the spot light.

There is a way for Soraka to be a viable, healthy dedicated healer, and I've suggested how, but Riot refuses to implement her as a HoT healer... But I guess we'll just have to sit and wait to see how the slew of nerfs turn out.

PDE5 InhibitorsJan 25, 20161 votes

Those nerfs don't even sound like they're reasonable lol. I honestly will have to see it to believe it.

Probably not even nerfing Tahm because "he hasn't been out long enough to sell enough skins yet".

Hedgehog HustlerJan 25, 20161 votes

The nerfs won't see a chance of implementation until 6.3

Tahm had a huge nerf in the removal of movement speed when devouring an ally + reduction on the R passive damage, and his entire kit is based around his q and w. Without his E it would remove all of his sustain without items, and basically is necessary for him to work.

Right now he's almost inert in lane before 6 unless your positioning sucks.

Gregor GysiJan 25, 20163 votes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=foO9n0-F0Lo ^explains Soraka

Royal BardJan 25, 20162 votes

Thing is, people want to carry in SoloQ, Soraka makes it hard.

CheftoniFTWJan 26, 20162 votes

It's because she keeps driving people bananas.

HandheldBrandonJan 26, 20162 votes

I will hit you.

DrackolusJan 25, 20161 votes

It really sucks. She's by far my favorite champ to play. But I understand that she's not very fun to play against. I'd rather she was fun to play against, but at the same time I don't want her to stop being fun for me to play. I like healing people. Most people like watching health bars go down. I like watching them go up. That pretty much puts me at odds with every single person I go against because I specifically want to erase their fun. I don't know what to do about it =\

NinjaGuy69Jan 25, 20161 votes

{quoted}

It really sucks. She's by far my favorite champ to play. But I understand that she's not very fun to play against. I'd rather she was fun to play against, but at the same time I don't want her to stop being fun for me to play. I like healing people. Most people like watching health bars go down. I like watching them go up. That pretty much puts me at odds with every single person I go against because I specifically want to erase their fun. I don't know what to do about it =\

Looks like here's someone who has it figured out. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but you're not the only one who doesn't know what to do about the Soraka problem. Her creators, Riot Games, don't have any idea what to do with her as well. The issue with Soraka, as many people (yourself included) have pointed out, is that she's just not very fun to play against. She makes the laning phase boring, but more importantly, extremely frustrating for her enemy laners. This is counter-intuitive to what Riot seeks to provide for players: a fun, interactive game. Unfortunately, Soraka will never be balanced to a point where she can be both viable and fun to play against because her kit is anti-fun. If her healing was her kit's only issue, she wouldn't be that complex of a puzzle to solve, but the larger issue is that she has multiple tools in her kit to make the game frustrating and cock block her enemy laners.

Her Equinox is even more frustrating to play around in my opinion because of the way the spell works. A good Soraka will hold on to her Equinox and use it only when necessary. This spell alone deters the enemy team from turret dives when Soraka and her ADC are on the defensive. Conversely, her Equinox, coupled with a well-placed Star Call, can cripple enemy laners when Soraka and her ADC are attempting to secure a kill. This leaves her enemies with only one option: focus her first. This aspect of forcing her enemies to focus her to prevent her from healing leaves them frustrated because it makes them feel like they don't have any other options if they want to win the lane. Soraka's mere existence in a lane eliminates her enemy laners' gameplay choices and reduces them down to "focus the White Mage if you want to win".

Her anti-fun, unfair kit was the reason Riot reworked her in the first place. Unfortunately, they only succeeded in changing her from a brain-dead, annoying, magic resistance shredding support into a slightly less brain-dead but even more frustrating support. As I mentioned previously, Soraka (in her current state) will never be allowed to be viable AND strong at the same time, simply because this only leads to unfair, irritating games. The truth is that Soraka is a doomed champion and Riot will never tell you that. It's just not Soraka as a champion, but the concept of the champion itself (premier healer) makes balance nearly impossible and the only way to address this issue is to give her a full rework so that her kit can be transformed into a workable and multidimensional set of spells that provides fun for everyone involved instead of frustration.

hi im mintyJan 25, 20161 votes

I would never waste a ban on soraka... she's so easy to kill. Early game she has CD, health and mana issues.

Idk why people use up a ban on her.

chipndip1Jan 25, 20161 votes

{quoted}

I would never waste a ban on soraka... she's so easy to kill. Early game she has CD, health and mana issues.

Idk why people use up a ban on her.

You're looking at an elo issue. If you climb, people play Soraka better by just not being stupid enough to get close to you.

HandheldBrandonJan 25, 20161 votes

Thats what people seem to fail to realize is that the better the player the less mistakes the Soraka will make.

RyzeReworkJan 25, 20161 votes

Soraka isn't op she's just fucking annoying tahm kench and mundo are op soraka annoying

grimalbatrossJan 25, 20161 votes

if u build full ap soraka shes pretty op healer

DivewingJan 25, 20161 votes

Every time im up against soraka i think: this will be different. It never is. You poke the ADC- HEALED. You try to poke her- ADC drops you to 1/2 health Heck even if you land CC on to the enemy ADC, the silence will likely invalidate the rest of it, and worst case scenario, they have to flash.

JUNGLE ASSISTANCE IS MANDATORY. And this is a problem because you may have to face crap like Vayne. who NEEDS a royal shithousing on to have a chance at winning.

Then theres also the thing where the enemy adc can misposition all they like, without 5 years of CC, all the damage in the world wont matter. Whereas you have to worry about every stary ability heading to you

John ViandeJan 25, 20161 votes

Soraka is really OP if you don't have any ways to assassinate her efficiently. Her heal is too powerful and her CD on the heal is too short. She can literally counter sustained damage.

The only weak spot of her heal is the mana cost and her health. But if she is full mana/health when you engage a fight without any way to kill her fast, you are REKT.

She is the only supp that makes a team think "you need to kill the supp first". Even if you kill her, it leaves room for adc and apc to stay alive since they are not always priority target anymore with her in their team.

Taric the GayJan 25, 20161 votes

She doesn't bother me much. I like farm lanes :)

NazZomLordJan 25, 20161 votes

i personally deal with her by killing her aalllll early game. Varus gives grievous wounds Any assassin will kill her

is she annoying? Eh kinda

marco361231Jan 25, 20161 votes

when i play blitz, i get my adc soo fed by keep pulling soraka xD

chipndip1Jan 25, 20162 votes

{quoted}

i personally deal with her by killing her aalllll early game. gives grievous wounds Any assassin will kill her

is she annoying? Eh kinda

GW doesn't do shit to Soraka anymore outside of healing herself.

NazZomLordJan 25, 20161 votes

Exactly, then you kill her easier

chipndip1Jan 25, 20161 votes

{quoted}

Exactly, then you kill her easier

Um, no.

If Soraka is sitting behind her adc and only coming up to land Q's, she makes hitting her herself difficult without improperly positioning yourself. The reason why Soraka's annoying is because she forces you to either never snowball or position like a fuck-tard to try to hit her. This is why people love fighting her with Blitz, who literally pulls her across the lane and kills her unless she burns summoner spells. Also, her silence circle makes it so some champs will get in the right position to hit her, only to not be able to use spells.

Not as bad as she was before now when her circle was almost 1000 range and she literally did not go oom, but still annoying.

DownrunJan 25, 20161 votes

Revert the grievous wounds nerf to give some counter play to her heals. She'd be in a fine spot and they wouldn't need to continuously nerf her because of a change that was dumb to begin with.

NonfaktorJan 25, 20161 votes

Based on the front page it looks like people say they ban her because she is "boring" to play against and they can "deal" with her but it isn't fun.

I am here to tell you that the reason she is perma banned is because she is hard to "deal" with. A good soraka carries every game they play in. She is very safe to play early game and her team fight is insane.

I try to play Soraka every time we have first pick and the enemy doesn't ban her. Why? She is OP.

If your team is behind then you can turn the game by baiting the enemy into a bad fight. If you are ahead you just don't lose.

Good Soraka players don't get caught in a team fight and go down without first setting your team up to win the fight.

Last game I played Soraka in our team was behind 10 kills. Zed and Master Yi were fed to the max. Neither one of them could kill me fast enough for me to not make a difference. I play a super mobile, tanky, low CD soraka and it is just strong.

I absolutely hate playing against soraka because I assume the player playing her is good and will be very difficult to deal with because i know how difficult I am to deal with when i play her.

nami tfJan 25, 20161 votes

Am I the only one who thinks Soraka is unplayable in any role but support? In addition, Starcall is really difficult to land when there's a lot of movement in lane, a lot of back and forth push-pull. Equinox works better for sniping than Starcall, which serves more as the followup as then you can predict your enemies' movements more easily as they move around your purple circle. That said, it DOES use up mana, so this combo isn't too good in early game. She's best when built tank and AP in late game, coupled with the heal summoner spell or teleport. Her ult actually loses a bit of value in teamfights when everyone is packed together since you can use W more than R anyways - since you're built tanky, you have a lot of health to spare anyways.

VallaarMorghulisJan 25, 20161 votes

well the other champs arent op neither but super lame to play against. Rengar, Mundo, Tahm Kench, Janna. They arent Op at all, they are just boring to deal with so they are banned.

IqqiJan 25, 20161 votes

My favorite part is all the people who still play her in ranked who dont even know her kit changed. They keep healing without understanding you are transfering health and then they never use their other abilities to silence and steal health. Amazing.

DengedenJan 25, 20161 votes

Aside from the rare counter pick, that's the only reason I ban anything.

FortisDominusJan 25, 20161 votes

DW i always ban soraka too for the same exact reason

KeevalroyJan 25, 20161 votes

Nah she's not OP at all, she's just really stupid to play against. I can try to poke before a fight, but it doesn't matter because the only thought Soraka needs to have is "Durr, missing heath! Ugh! W! Me good at game!" Playing against Soraka makes me give up hope for the game ending before 40 minutes when someone can finally reach her as she's warding.

Edit: And it's not that I'm opposed to long games - I like long drawn-out tense games with similar skill and coordination between two teams. That said, it never feels like there's any tactical thinking going on when Soraka is on a team so it just makes me feel like there's not a lot I can do because no one is going to die and we can't get to Soraka...so I guess we'll have to keep waiting until she strays away from the pack.

Teridax68Jan 26, 20161 votes

Hopefully the upcoming nerfs to the early healing should make her less of a sustain battery in lane, but Riot probably needs to find a way to make her healing scale less hard in lane but better afterwards. Soraka's fine when her healing has genuine costs and doesn't shut down fights completely early on, and we'll probably be seeing more of that with reduced self-sustain, but there's also the risk that her healing may eventually ramp back up and negate too much damage.

CasterGilgameshJan 26, 20161 votes

soraka just needs base damage nerfs and heal scalings riot wanted her to be high risk high rewards they don't want her to be a tank but people still play her tanky because it takes less effort than ap mage soraka because her healing doesn't get good scaling until you bought like 3 major ap items and not only that alongside the base heal is pretty good but it's unneeded when the base heal IS Good so people are free to be tanky even though she pays health to use.