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Riot, I'm game for the Soraka nerfs but I think there's something very important you're overlooking

BottleCapster··14 votes·1,487 views

item 3301

Please, If you're trying to get Soraka to play more actively in order to maintain her healing, and overall trying to make her more managable, hit THIS Crutch. Because though i love my baby girl, This item literally stands against everything you worked for to make her a dedicated healer.

Explanation?

So you guys implemented a martyr style heal that requires soraka to use her health as a massive resource to maintain her healing. By placing her self-heal on Q, you intended to make it so that in order for soraka to maintain her healing she would have to land her Qs, Aggression to maintain her sustain. You even nerfed her base health regeneration to solidify this. So where does Coin play into this?

"Favor: Grants 4g and restores 5 health for every enemy minion that dies that you didn't kill"

This item is what Perpetuates Soraka's ungodly ability to be a passive heal-bot, and is even her recommended item for how powerful it is on her. The item REWARDS passive play, by giving gold and flat Health in a 1400 radius. This means that even if Soraka never bothers to land a Q, she can literally wait out her health costs, and spec her masteries and runes for regeneration for anything she's lacking. These changes on the PBE are a step in the right direction, but you need to remember the root of the problem.

Soraka started to teeter towards being unbalanced when coin was buffed and people realized its potential on her. Its a way to counteract her Martyr healing and contradicts the weakness Soraka NEEDED to get her identity as the premiere healer of the league.

But what about other supports who run coin?

I hate to say it, but honestly it should be asked whether or not an item that discourages interaction with an opponent, or outright rewards you for not interacting in meaningful ways with your opponent should be supported. Sure its less potential gold gain than other items, and Soraka is the only major outlier, but when your outlier is such a major issue you're left with the choice of whether to nerf that champion until they can't function without it, or make the item something less exploitable. As a Soraka player, I don't want to see my favorite character plunged into the dirt so that some Janna can walk around making only fleeting attempts to push an aggressive stance. Call me selfish, but I do think there's a reason to look at the item, and ask yourself if that's a playstyle that you feel is healthy and should be supported.

18 Comments

Aeolian Melodies14 votes

I disagree. There is no need to ruin an entire item line for a whole class of champions when only ONE champion breaks it.

BottleCapster1 votes

The point isn't to ruin the line, but rather to reevaluate what kind of play it promotes. Coin builds into a fantastic item as is, and Talisman of Ascension isn't getting any less relevant in terms of its raw offensive/defensive power. The point that I bring up is that the way it functions now fundamentally breaks the entire reasoning behind why Riot allowed soraka to remain a hyper-sustain support, and why they gave her a Martyr-heal in the first place. As i said before, there are two major options for this path, which is either nerf soraka on the basis she will have this, which would make soraka more passive as the Coin is not made to support aggressive play. (A game-state Riot expressed at her rework's reveal they didn't want for her), Or you take a look at the item itself.

Now with the way that riot has been pushing the game, trying to make it so that champions are more proactive and engage more with their teammates and enemies, taking things like Auras and slowly but surely patching them out of existence or requiring some sort of pro-active play, I don't think its far fetched to re-evaluate just what it is that Ancient Coin is trying to do. Of the three support income items, Coin offers the lowest but most consistent potential gold, but also serves as an item that gives really solid lane-sustain that requires no interaction with the minions, your team, or your enemies.

As is, I think the Coin line could use with some adjustments to make it more interactive, because the kinds of passive play that it can promote, (Exacerbated in Soraka's case) just don't seem to fit with Riot's overall goal for the game.

Aeolian Melodies4 votes

{quoted}

The point isn't to ruin the line, but rather to reevaluate what kind of play it promotes. Coin builds into a fantastic item as is, and Talisman of Ascension isn't getting any less relevant in terms of its raw offensive/defensive power. The point that I bring up is that the way it functions now fundamentally breaks the entire reasoning behind why Riot allowed soraka to remain a hyper-sustain support, and why they gave her a Martyr-heal in the first place. As i said before, there are two major options for this path, which is either nerf soraka on the basis she will have this, which would make soraka more passive as the Coin is not made to support aggressive play. (A game-state Riot expressed at her rework's reveal they didn't want for her), Or you take a look at the item itself.

Now with the way that riot has been pushing the game, trying to make it so that champions are more proactive and engage more with their teammates and enemies, taking things like Auras and slowly but surely patching them out of existence or requiring some sort of pro-active play, I don't think its far fetched to re-evaluate just what it is that Ancient Coin is trying to do. Of the three support income items, Coin offers the lowest but most consistent potential gold, but also serves as an item that gives really solid lane-sustain that requires no interaction with the minions, your team, or your enemies.

As is, I think the Coin line could use with some adjustments to make it more interactive, because the kinds of passive play that it can promote, (Exacerbated in Soraka's case) just don't seem to fit with Riot's overall goal for the game.

But Coin is supposed to be for more defensive laners such as Janna and Soraka. And, mind you, defensive laning is supposed to be an option. It's also supposed to be a viable option on more pokey supports who find themselves in a though match up. As a trade off it gives less gold and less raw stats than the 2 other alternative. The line of items is balanced on everyone else building it, Soraka is the only one who's ''abusing'' it due to how her W works, it makes more sense to hit Soraka herself (like making healing from other source than her Q and R heal her less, for instance) than to indirectly nerf everyone else who picks up Coin.

If you look at someone like Janna, in most lanes she gets outraded hard for trying to make use of Spellthief, and being ranged with a shitty AA animation I don't see her using Relic Shield very well. If you nerf Coin you nerf her, as it's her favored gold income item; yet Janna isn't the one abusing Coin. No one says ''holy shit Janna is healing all my poke because of this goddamn iten!''.

SpecterVonBaren9 votes

And item 3302 doesn't do the same thing by allowing melee all in supports to be able to sustain themselves and their carry through the poke of utility supports?

BottleCapster2 votes

The difference here is between active and passive play.

item 3301 Ambiantly sustains the support for being in lane. They get a small sum of gold and Health for every minion that dies so long as they do not kill the minion. You can quite literally sit in lane and receive the same benefit from the Coin regardless of if you're an active laner. item 3302 On the other hand is on a charge system, that requires the support (Usually melee but not exclusive) to get up close and personal to hit the minion so they can get that sustain and gold. If you sit around with those charges, your carry, yourself, and the potential gold therein is nonexistant. Its an example of active play, and therefore doesn't suffer Coin's issue. Going up to the minion puts you at risk for harass, but has good payouts to make it worth it. Coin does not have this trade off besides encouraging that you stay in lane as long as possible to get your optimal gains.

KingKong23502 votes

So would you suggest that in order for you to receive ancient coin gold, you would have to auto attack the minions? That at least pushes the lane and creates some kind of interaction with something. Maybe just the rank 1 coin would be like that

Penns7 votes

I actually go item 3303 on Soraka now because I like the ap, the passive, the CDR and the active of item 3092 is pretty ridiculous(ly broken) lol.

BottleCapster5 votes

I also tend to go Spellthief's on Soraka primarily because i enjoy her poke-game. Its not the most optimal item for her, but damn is it fabulous.

Emperor Cynric4 votes

shes getting nerfs? she isn't OP. She has one job and that's to heal. with things like grievous wounds and ignite that can cut her use in half. Also focus her in fights gets the job done as well.

Aeolian Melodies5 votes

{quoted}

shes getting nerfs? she isn't OP. She has one job and that's to heal. with things like grievous wounds and ignite that can cut her use in half. Also focus her in fights gets the job done as well.

Grievous wounds now only works on self-heals, meaning they no longer do anything against Soraka.

Espy Psyche4 votes

The thing is that you'll just make Soraka players rush Warmog's, and it'll be worse than it ever was.

BottleCapster3 votes

The Warmog's heart thing is an entirely seperate issue, and its never going to be a good rush item on soraka due to how her Healing costs work. The reason that Warmogs can be incredibly strong on soraka is if she can qualify for Warmog's Heart, which requires her to get 3k HP first, which is a massive gold sink, and is only really justifiable if you have a solid gold lead to work with.

Truth be told, I don't know a proper solution to Soraka's building HP regen, other than potentially having Riot hit the base healing in turn for better scaling, but that has the potential to bring back a much more powerful laning soraka with heals far beyond what should be allowed.

Krys Star4 votes

The item is powerful on her, yes, but let's be realistic here. One wave of minions restores 30 health tier 1. Tier 2, this goes up to 60. Unless your enemies are playing passively and poking you and your ally rarely (which isn't the case 99% of the time), the item is not going to sustain Soraka immensely. 10% of health burns faster than 30 to 60 health every wave. The bonus hp regen is nice too, sure, but the item isn't broken, nor is it broken on Soraka.

What makes Soraka broken is the fact Grievous Wounds no longer shuts her down, and that she has such a long range on Starcall and Astral Blessing. The nerf to Astral Blessing is all wrong, however. They need to revert the 100 range buff they gave it, not double its mana cost. Right now, she takes little to no risk healing her allies, healing herself back up, and just hiding in the back waiting. She needs to take more risks and sacrifices if she chooses to keep her ally alive.

Riot's going in the wrong direction with her Astral Blessing nerf, but I suppose all we can do is wait and see.

Seasoned Veteran Soraka player for 5 years.

ThePikol2 votes

[{quoted}](name=Frozen Beauty,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=AxNO5fcX,comment-id=0006,timestamp=2015-11-27T02:32:20.121+0000)

Right now, she takes little to no risk healing her allies, healing herself back up, and just hiding in the back waiting. She needs to take more risks and sacrifices if she chooses to keep her ally alive.

But why does Soraka need to risk if she wantsto heal ally? Neither Nami or Sona have to risk anythink when healing, and besides Nami can heal from way more range and Sona gives shield while healing. Soraka has to be right in front of ally to heal and not only pay with mana buy with her hp too and now they want to nerf her?

Krys Star1 votes

Sadly, this is the way it is. I love playing Soraka, but laning against Soraka is brutally painful too. She keeps her allies alive for so long, and you can't do much about it because she just hides behind her ally. Try to kill her, and you may take more punishment for it than she will. Sona's heal is mediocre, and so is Nami's, but they also cost a lot of health. Soraka sacrifices health, which she can quickly fill back up with Starcall (especially when hitting multiple). It's not that hard for Soraka to keep her ally alive, and she's not taking a risk doing it because that's all she has going for her: heals. Nami and Sona bring more than heals.

Supreme Senpai693 votes

Soraka is already pretty balanced. Whenever I'm in lane, this is how it goes:

  1. ADC takes damage
  2. I heal damage and lose 10% HP
  3. This continues until we're both low HP, with me also taking pokes as I run in to heal/Q
  4. Enemy gets a double kill

Granted, that only happens when my ADC is incompetent and thinks just because I can heal them they can suddenly tank every poke. With a good ADC, Soraka is beast. ....Kind of true with most supports though? Not really a need to nerf her into the dirt and spit on her too at the same time.

JARmates2 votes

This new soraka is so boring to play compare to her old ability. Idk i only play soraka when no one goes support otherwise it so boring

Fashion Mage1 votes

I agree, although the changes on the PBE aren't really a step in the right direction. Nerfing the most active and interactive way she has to restore health is an incredibly bad design decision.

Rather than gutting the coin line, Soraka could simply have a passive effect that says something along the lines of "Healing from items is reduced by x% on Soraka". This would solve literally every passive sustain issue she has.

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