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Across the years from 55% win rate on master tier to 46% win rate on low plat. [Soraka main sadness]

Siegfriedx1··214 votes·15,039 views

https://i.paigeeworld.com/user-media/1404457200000/532dbc484a9d68611c00ff18_53b70a2e007e55577dec9267_320.jpg

Season 3: My Soraka win rate 62% [on low gold] Season 4: My Soraka win rate 55% [on low Master tier/ high diamond] Season 5: My Soraka win rate 53% [on high diamond] Season 6: My Soraka win rate 52% [on high diamond] Season 7: My Soraka win rate 53% [on high and then low diamond] Season 8: My Soraka win rate 50-46% **[stuck on Low Plat] **

Every single season since the end of season 3 [my introduction to league] i hit high diamond at least once playing soraka because after so many games you just become good with dealing with your counters and going for your winning condition. Well this season I have a 50 Soraka win rate and a 46% average win rate and i'm not even on my true elo. It's in plat 4. I know that if i play Leona, Janna, Taric or Rakan that i will climb really fast but is that ok? Is that what I want when i play league?

I'm struggling so much with Soraka this season that it's not even funny. What before were counters to Soraka and I could deal with experience now became extremely hard counters, and match-ups where I was suppose to have advantage now feel like they are my soft counters because of how easy it is to deal with harass with the new runes and doran shield.

Many of you don't know what is going on with Soraka and why it's something particular with her [not just the game] so I want to bring awareness to it as, by judging how people plain ignore all my short posts about Soraka, i think it might be a problem of judging me as just someone who don't like the season instead of someone who is giving a meaningful feedback.

If you are new to the Soraka subject, this current design of Soraka was originally designed to be a high risk high reward support that would benefit from fights that happen slow/without too much immediate burst damage. She also was suppose to have a strong mid/late game if a head and a risky lane phase if she want to win it.

Here are 2 random videos I found on the internet showing random clips of the damage per second of different champions that she was suppose to heal [warning, you will be shocked by the difference of damage from season 8 to 5] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-Gyo4Fkos4
Another video of how damage used to be on season 5 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bqhSTbLroEU

A random video from Illaoi on season 8 just to compare the expected average damage output from a champion that is not an assassin: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NTGYcgvzroo

If ADC's can be measured by DPS [damage per second] Soraka could be measured by HPS [healings per second].

As you probably already know, this season average damage increased by a lot what can be translated on risks being higher for thing that before were not risky at all to be done. For a whole world of champions that is not bad news. Leona for example, always would jump on people trying to get a kill but without minding about the damage she would take.

In season 8 it became more risky, because of the damage output, to stay close to someone that can punish your position in a way worst way that it was in season 7. In summary, leona now, with the same amount of risk, can get way easier rewards and an enemy player, with the same potential rewards, now have to deal with a lot more risks.

On the beginning of season 8 that reasoning proved to be true and Leona and other champions that never depended of a delicate risk/reward balance clearly were out of line. Sona would be oppressive by never having to take risks with the increased range from kleptomancy and her extremely safe Qs and Ws, and champions that would never care about risk at all like leona and taric would experience way easier rewards because of risk increased to everyone else.

That was not only observed in the support match-ups but also in the professional play as players now avoid to try anything that was previously risky because what before was just risky now is a true crazy feat that can backfire in a way you will not recover after.

After a bunch of nerfs happened, leona and sona were not so dominant anymore but this season still work around saving people from burst or helping to cause burst. Pretty much everyone that play this game seriously is playing around that and always avoiding situations that in previous seasons would be already considered high risk in first place. We all know that ADCs that are meaningful are the ADCs that actually can cause Burst Per Second and punish position more because of the increase of risk we have now on positioning.

So where is Soraka in the middle of all that?

The amount of health she lose when she heal, the amount of heal she output, the amount of impact she have in mid game and the ability to self-peel were all designed with a slower season in mind. This means that every time fight get shorter and damage happens higher and/or faster that she will fall naturally behind more and more because her HPS and risk patterns don't change proportionally to those changes.

How riot dealt with that across the years then?

Usually they just are satisfied with boosting her Lane Phase bully traits and shift power from her mid-late game in order to make her catch up with everyone. They have been consistently doing that season after season every time that things go out of hand because it's easier to deal with the problem this way because of the nature of lane phase and the idea that she don't have an effective escape and need to risk herself to win lane. Basically if she win lane they expect her to be able to heal more as she and her friend will be stronger so they have been doing that for a while.

If you don't remember, she used to heal less during her lane phase when landing an starcall and heal way more in mid-late game when she was low health as well as when landing starcall on more than one target. They saw that damage output was too low from assassins at that time to kill her easily so they completely gutted that mechanic and instead created rejuvenation [a mechanic focused on lane phase that don't really help her after] .

So now we have a good reference of soraka past, what is going on then?

Well a lot of "placeholder" changes on Soraka were focused on making her a lane bully to try to solve multiple problems Riot was having with balancing her mid/late game as they were trying to change the pace of the game. Sometimes damage would be too low and shield and healing too strong, sometimes the reverse and now what i like to call... the extreme reverse.

Take in consideration that: The whole effectiveness of the champion is decided by how slow damage happen mid/late game and how strong she can maintain her position in a high risk situation as she damage herself to do her core mechanic. To balance her mid/late game balancing problems she depends on a lane phase focused in harassment to survive.

Illustrating the statement above from a design point of view: The extreme favorable situation for Soraka would be if fights lasted for minutes with damage extra low and the extreme worst situation would be if fights ended in an instant with damage super high. For Soraka the best lane phase scenario would be a lane phase where regen is non existent and the worst would be if regen was permanently high.

Now picture this:

Season 8 decreased the duration of fights by a lot and a guaranteed damage boost [that scale with your champion, not only base] was added to not only 1 but 5 different champions of the enemy team . At the same time multiple overbearing ways of ignoring harass were added and now even a permanent regenerating shield through overheal and doran blade exist. We have doran shield, life steal, fleet footwork, regen that trigger on damage from the resolve tree, biscuits, stopwatch and even relic shield as additional options to decrease harass or the success of harassment for soraka.

Can you see the interesting situation?

Her mid/late game was forced into the worst case scenario. The high risk pattern she once was used to deal with now became an almost certain death zone [risks went super high while rewards didn't increase in proportion] and her placeholder way to deal with season pattern changes got severely hurt [lane phase harassment].

Regardless of everything you might think about everything I wrote up to this point here is a honest feedback that I expect you to take my word for it. Soraka feel really, really bad right now.

By itself those problems don't mean she will not casually win. If your team is ahead the damage output of the losing team will be lower and you can help the winning best player to carry still. But was it because of you? Was the way I won something that highlighted the difference between a good player and a bad player?

When I play janna, or any other support to be honest, i know that even if a few players lose lane that I will impact the game somehow and create advantage on my own. That I will nuliffy advantage on my own in a way my team can sustain and grow.

With Soraka, my best chance of winning is to hang with a team that is already winning regardless of me.

If it's not clear, i'm basically saying that if I picked almost any game that I won playing soraka and changed to another support, that I would win the same way. That's how non-special I feel Soraka is right now.

Today I challenge anyone to convince me, as I have more than 2000 games with this champion, that there is a reason to pick Soraka if you can pick Janna. Janna is protective, not curative, what is essencial against burst. Janna can shield and have 2 ways to peel herself. Janna don't take damage to use her main mechanics, Soraka do. Janna have skill expression and will always be effective because of a long range risk free CC, what soraka really don't have. Janna can ward safely, Soraka can't. Janna don't have 0.5 casting time on all her skills, Soraka have, and so on.

What Soraka have to offer for someone that dedicate years playing her now? Her only meaningful skill that survived all the changes of the seasons was her equinox [silence] and she can't even properly invest on doing her starcall+equinox combo because everybody can have enough tenacity/movement speed so her Starcall slow just stop working after a while and just function as a bait to Soraka suicide in mid game.

I feel that every time I win with Soraka, I win by the wrong reasons. I win because my team was winning and that in any even scenario I'm facing way more risks than other champions for a meaningfully smaller reward. I enter in a match trapped in a lane phase that It's easy to not win, doomed to a mid/late game where I will really not make a real difference even when I'm personally ahead and hoping to have a winning team every time.

I'm miserable. 2000+ games with the champion and I can't outplay anyone. All my old winning moves are gone due to an increase of Risk and I'm reduced to hope my team will win because I'm not going to impact anything.

Season 8 broke my confidence with this champion, took away what I liked most and made me sad and demotivated. Patch after patch I seek for a word of any kind from Riot about Soraka and patch after patch I can't find any word of love towards her. It's almost like Riot don't like to deal with her. You can stop reading here if you want as I just want to vent a little on the section below.

You know what Riot? I get it.

When people play well with Soraka and she have a mechanic that allow her to have a good impact, it feels bad to who is playing against. I get it.

But do you think I like or wished that? That I like not having a well designed skill expression ability in the champion I love most?

Every single year that I play Soraka I don't hear people saying that I'm a good Soraka player. Even when I got challenger on X5 no one praised me for it. They always [always] say that Soraka is broken if I do anything good. You don't know how much effort I put on winning a match just to hear people saying that Soraka is broken because her kit don't show up skill expression and feel obnoxious.

With Rakan or Janna, I can literally press 2 buttons blind folded and people think I'm a god. They can't measure the amount of effort right. With Soraka I do so much and when I get to my limit I do even more and people will only feel bad for losing against me instead of happy to see I played well and I'm really going beyond my best.

To change that I used to create my own mini-games where I would rush mejai and stack 25 or would rush another different creative item as a way to make people realize "hey, that guy is doing good, it's not the champ" and for a long time that worked well.

Until now.

My suggestion, or desperate cry for help, would be just so you guys can find a way to make people realize when I'm playing well. Could be a stacking passive that increase when I'm auto attacking in lane phase, or a way to decrease the % health you lose healing based on something you do. Something to boost your heals landing a skill shot, I don't know. But I just want to be able to carry again if I play well.

I can do that with almost every other champion, why not Soraka?

Thank you very much for reading and please up vote for visibility.

141 Comments

Dont Bann Zoe57 votes

Very well written. I'm so happy that you shared about that here on the boards but so sad that no one is going to give enough importance to the words you are saying. I feel your pain and I totally support this post.

Unfortunately people here have a lot of fear about Soraka and don't usually upvote posts made from people that are either not popular no don't agree with a popular opinion [soraka should be deleted]. But your love is honest and i can feel ya.

Maybe that post could see more recognition on reddit! I'm up voting it regardless.

Siegfriedx117 votes

[{quoted}](name=Dont Bann Zoe,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=EM6nxTQw,comment-id=0000,timestamp=2018-02-18T23:59:02.977+0000)

Very well written. I'm so happy that you shared about that here on the boards but so sad that no one is going to give enough importance to the words you are saying. I feel your pain and I totally support this post.

Unfortunately people here have a lot of fear about Soraka and don't usually upvote posts made from people that are either not popular no don't agree with a popular opinion [soraka should be deleted]. But your love is honest and i can feel ya.

Maybe that post could see more recognition on reddit! I'm up voting it regardless.

Thank you for at least caring about it.

Spice POWAH11 votes

I hope a rioter sees this for you! maybe you'll get lucky tomorrow since they aren't usually on the weekends...

You got high ranks before, so your chances are pretty good, i think. And if this doesn't work, you can go onto a Meddler post.

ThePaperlucky26 votes

Perhaps the reason why Soraka is in this bizarre state is because her main identity, her main strength, is healing. It sucks so much power away from her other abilities that Soraka is only strong when healing, in general, is strong. Currently, the abundance of damage and healing reduction proves to be too hard for Soraka to keep up with. Not only so, her healing is almost purely sustain, something that is present in large quantity this season (lifesteals and regens), which devaluate Soraka even further. Another reason for Soraka's deficit is the fact that almost every aspect of League has a homogenized scaling curve: damage, defense, cooldown only get more effective as the game move on, especially for the team that is ahead: abilities deal more damage, hp and stats rises, and cooldown become low enough for constant brawls. Hence, healing, which relies on those elements, also has to scale, getting bigger the longer the game goes. The result? It becomes a win-more mechanic, extremely opressive when its counter is in check, while underwhelming otherwise. If Soraka is ahead, her low cooldown couples with high scaling makes her heal way too overbearing for the weaker team, as they simply don't have the gold to purchase her counter, nor the damage to "counteract" the healing. When she is behind, her healing seemly isn't enough too savage the game, since it scales with stats, which are granted through gold. And gold don't favour the losing team. That's why Soraka is quite a balancing issue. She either performs super well, or super bad. There's virtually no in between, as long as her identity and core strength is still a healing ability like the current one. In my opinion, for Soraka to be more independent of the game's states, a shift in power is requires. Her design should place an equal amount of power across her 4 abilities, rather than a pinpointed one that gravitates the rest of the kit toward it.

Siegfriedx111 votes

{quoted}

Perhaps the reason why Soraka is in this bizarre state is because her main identity, her main strength, is healing. It sucks so much power away from her other abilities that Soraka is only strong when healing, in general, is strong. Currently, the abundance of damage and healing reduction proves to be too hard for Soraka to keep up with. Not only so, her healing is almost purely sustain, something that is present in large quantity this season (lifesteals and regens), which devaluate Soraka even further. Another reason for Soraka's deficit is the fact that almost every aspect of League has a homogenized scaling curve: damage, defense, cooldown only get more effective as the game move on, especially for the team that is ahead: abilities deal more damage, hp and stats rises, and cooldown become low enough for constant brawls. Hence, healing, which relies on those elements, also has to scale, getting bigger the longer the game goes. The result? It becomes a win-more mechanic, extremely opressive when its counter is in check, while underwhelming otherwise. If Soraka is ahead, her low cooldown couples with high scaling makes her heal way too overbearing for the weaker team, as they simply don't have the gold to purchase her counter, nor the damage to "counteract" the healing. When she is behind, her healing seemly isn't enough too savage the game, since it scales with stats, which are granted through gold. And gold don't favour the losing team. That's why Soraka is quite a balancing issue. She either performs super well, or super bad. There's virtually no in between, as long as her identity and core strength is still a healing ability like the current one. In my opinion, for Soraka to be more independent of the game's states, a shift in power is requires. Her design should place an equal amount of power across her 4 abilities, rather than a pinpointed one that gravitates the rest of the kit toward it.

Thank you for existing. I just loved your reply and would love to see Riot giving their 2 cents about it. You were so insightful and I really feel you understand what I feel! That's exactly why I think that looking to WR may be deceiving! The way things are just don't feel good :[

I would support a modernization, but would Riot be willing to see a suggestion?

What if Soraka healing mechanic was not a core mechanic but an achievable state? What if her W was a healing with a long CD, something just like a Janna shield or old Soraka heal, but that could be heavily decreased by some mechanic, like taric do.

Now imagine this new mechanic that If done correctly and flawlessly would make her access this state [like when vlad get her red bar filled, or gnar when he is going to transform] where it would super change herself [maybe going closer to her Lore god form], in a way that every time you land this mechanic you get a reset on your healing cooldown?

Can you imagine a Soraka landing skill shots, avoiding skill shots, using prediction, playing a high risk/high reward play style like she was suppose to in a way that everyone is happy? In a way you understand the pattern and that allow counterplay for both parts?

Couldn't that be a better design for Soraka in the end? Would Riot be willing to see some suggestions?

It's hard to say but I would be willing to have change If it would help the game in the end! The placeholder solution of making her a lane bully worked for a while but I think the game changed too much for that still feel good.

Done253 votes

Perhaps removing the hp cost aspect of her heal, but give it a larger CD and have her Q grant CDR instead of a heal over time? Something like -X seconds per enemy champion hit. Double that if you land the center on them.

ShaolinToilet2 votes

That's a huge buff unless her w is on a 20 second CD. Your changes would make her broken or useless

Done254 votes

And you pulled this baseless assumption out of...where?

GigglesO4 votes

The same place that all the people that still want even higher damage pull all of their assumptions. Those season 5 videos were legit some nice outplays...

The new damage makes this game feel trash.

option paralysis17 votes

Exactly, you can play rakan and press RW constantly in teamfights and you're a god. But people that don't play soraka don't know how fucking careful you gotta be to survive, because everyone has a hard dick for killing you. I was a soraka main in s7, but I stopped playing her and support. Main jungle now. It isn't just that soraka is bad, games are a coin flip and you just can't outheal someones fed dmg. Can't tell you how many times I blew my ult because of that little delay on it, cuz my teammates die in 0,5 secs. Damage creep is just soooo bad and riot won't do anything about it. They really don't know what they're doing last couple of years. Idk if they're ignorant and bad or just shoving that 15-20 mins games down our throats cuz $$$. Simple feedback to their balance should be lcs games. They last so long cuz they know what happens when you just give a kill or two. But riot being riot, their answer isn't nerfing dmg across the board and let people actually play the game, but they want to give baron minion more buffs to end games quicker LOL which will work in solo q, but lcs will be longer even more. Just sad.

Unicornia13 votes

Thank you for this post. I logged in just to upvote it so riot can see this. ♥ Soraka

Siegfriedx17 votes

[{quoted}](name=Unicorn Harp,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=EM6nxTQw,comment-id=0001,timestamp=2018-02-19T00:29:07.162+0000)

Thank you for this post. I logged in just to upvote it so riot can see this. ♥ Soraka

Thank you for the support! You mean a lot to me right now!

rework trundle12 votes

This is actually sad, I actually felt something compared to the majority of the posts. Good luck in your quest to find your old main! I'm currently typing something similar in a word, I wish I had your writing skills.

Mama Soraka12 votes

I've talked to my pals about Soraka and at this point I'm so desperate for her to be a better champion I'd be willing to see her iconic ult get the axe in a kit rework if it meant she got more power elsewhere. I dunno how to fix her and it makes me a crying Soraka.

[sg-soraka]

Zerana3 votes

[{quoted}](name=Mama Soraka,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=EM6nxTQw,comment-id=0009,timestamp=2018-02-19T02:34:44.927+0000)

I've talked to my pals about Soraka and at this point I'm so desperate for her to be a better champion I'd be willing to see her iconic ult get the axe in a kit rework if it meant she got more power elsewhere. I dunno how to fix her and it makes me a crying Soraka.

[sg-soraka]

Maybe it should be a half and half ult? Half heal half shield, it would make those single person global heals hurt less, especially if that person dies anyway in a close fight. I've considered that idea for awhile since most players expect it even when there's no team fight and heaven forbid the team fight experience never happens, you basically cannot save the ult if no one is grouping, but you still have to keep people from dying. As for complete ult alternatives. Maybe a mercy ult would be fun, where you have to channel for 3 seconds to revive someone with half health. Not the whole team, that would be broken.

CasterGilgamesh2 votes

i would like it if her ult was single target but it heals for way more and it give immunity to damage for a few secs seems fair since she would be losing the global range

vossman8 votes

Soraka has been my favorite champion for a few seasons, and I agree this season just felt really bad playing her. A lot of people call her no skill, but i always enjoyed her nonetheless. A champion where in fights you balance your health and allies health often being one skill shot from death. This season just took a lot of my enjoyment for her out; either allies or myself get blown up to fast for the heals to even mean anything. Even if people don't get a grievous wounds item raka even with smart play is always one death from total loss of lane. With everyone just doing so much damage, and me doing so little meditating it I just felt so shity playing her. I tried adapting to the new Season 8 changes from when they were introduced and just felt no changes for the time they had to tune it up. Since it felt so terrible playing her I finally decided to stop playing LoL a few weeks ago. It doesn't look to get better any time soon since they are fine with one shot champions like zoe, or even kayn at times.

Siegfriedx13 votes

{quoted}

Soraka has been my favorite champion for a few seasons, and I agree this season just felt really bad playing her. A lot of people call her no skill, but i always enjoyed her nonetheless. A champion where in fights you balance your health and allies health often being one skill shot from death. This season just took a lot of my enjoyment for her out; either allies or myself get blown up to fast for the heals to even mean anything. Even if people don't get a grievous wounds item raka even with smart play is always one death from total loss of lane. With everyone just doing so much damage, and me doing so little meditating it I just felt so shity playing her. I tried adapting to the new Season 8 changes from when they were introduced and just felt no changes for the time they had to tune it up. Since it felt so terrible playing her I finally decided to stop playing LoL a few weeks ago. It doesn't look to get better any time soon since they are fine with one shot champions like zoe, or even kayn at times.

Thank you for your words! I can sense that you share the same pain I'm feeling and I just don't know what to do to make myself feel better from how my favorite champion is. Thank you for sending something about my post, mean a lot to me!

rtbf2217319558 votes

I agree Soraka is in a really bad spot right now. Last year I played 350 games, and had a 60% winrate, not just in the ardent meta but even outside of the ardent meta. But with the introduction of the new runes I feel useless. The duskblade meta combined with the increased damage makes it impossible to be useful as a Soraka. I sadly stopped playing her even though she is still my favorite champion. I hit gold in ranked with other champions for the skin, but I have no wish to play ranked anymore until the damage and duskblade are nerfed.

To sum up. All it takes to make a Soraka game is one player who will feed the duskblade user on the enemy. You can win lane as Soraka, but if someone feeds the Kha zix, or the Wukong you lost the game.

XxRogueFactorxX2 votes

You can win lane as Soraka, but if someone feeds the Kha zix, or the Wukong you lost the game.

^^This.^^

NorthernRedStar7 votes

I feel the same way, friend. She used to be one of my more played champions due to her dancing-on-edge -style of gameplay. Nowadays she's just unplayable because Janna and Lulu do her job better and don't get one-shotted in this meta of idiocy and damage.

Siegfriedx12 votes

{quoted}

I feel the same way, friend. She used to be one of my more played champions due to her dancing-on-edge -style of gameplay. Nowadays she's just unplayable because Janna and Lulu do her job better and don't get one-shotted in this meta of idiocy and damage.

Thank you for feeling what i feel! And for dedicating time to write that! Means a lot to me!

NorthernRedStar2 votes

{quoted}

Thank you for feeling what i feel! And for dedicating time to write that! Means a lot to me!

I completely understand where you're coming from. The current meta isn't letting support main showcase the extent of their abilities. Fights are decided by factors that are out of your hand because they last only a few seconds, if any.

I am one of those players who tells you Soraka has quite a bit of skill cap, due to managing both DPS and heals especially early on (Q movement cancel + one of the most awkward auto windups), most effective E placement, and deciding when it's worth ulting or not.

She's a champion who's not a one-hit-wonder, but one you have to be consistently on-point with, especially in higher elos. It's quite disheartening she isn't the only one.

Zyra's been getting the shaft too.

Elohaven7 votes

I hope a Rioter responds to this post.

+1 upvote

Sexy Fish Nami7 votes

Thats actually something I have been thinking of this morning, why do healing supports arent played as much as shielding supports?

My conclusion came from the fact that theres so much sustain being thrown around that healing supports identity is being outshined by all the regen riot added over the years.

I mean, look at nami. You can barely go poke anymore because the risk is so high. The only reason I think she can still hold her ground is because she has alot of hard cc. Though her laning phase went form being a bully to more of a passive support (that doesnt mean she cant bully btw) I cant imagine how it is to have your champion dedicated to be the queen of healers to be outshined by runes/items.

With the abundance of burst and regens outside the champions themselves, shielding supports are just way more efficient in terms of peeling.

I admire your dedication to your champion and I hope things goes better not just for soraka, but for the game in general.

ZeeWolfZ5 votes

Try playing Nocturne this season buddy.

SooFr0sty1 votes

My rank main the last few seasons, just not this one.

ZeeWolfZ3 votes

I feel you. I can't play him. Jungle clear - garbage Dmg - laughable 1 shot potential - doesn't exist Tank - can't Assassin - is not Bruiser - nope Duelist - a support beats him

Brain Errör 4045 votes

Watching this man... I miss season 5. Can we go back before the broken Juggernaut updates and update singular champs? Riot rollback please. Can we get a legacy server for us oldies?

CrazedPorcupine5 votes

as a fellow Soraka main, you put everything I've hated about this season for Soraka in a way that I could never do without coming off as a whiny little bitch.

I've actually been playing since way back when Soraka's heal was originally a heal over time, and played through every single change that they've made. In fact I've offered a lot of suggestions to riot on the PBE boards for how to help soraka, but they seem determined to leave soraka in this really trashy spot while they work on other "Problem champions".

Soraka as a champion is much like the Original Aatrox. When she's strong she's toxically oppressive (It's true). But when she's weak, she's nigh unplayable. I've offered a ton of suggestions that make her far more interactive without making her oppressive.

I really hope that Riot reads this and decides to try doing another GPU like they're doing for Aatrox, and make Soraka still a premier healer that doesn't live or die by the prevalence of Grievous Wounds or burst damage.

GigglesO4 votes

{quoted}

it feels bad to who is playing against. I get it.

99% of league players according to Riot. "Anything but instakilling feels like shit"

I am Razgriz4 votes

God, you said so much about your champ I could say about Nocturne. Which is my main.

I completely respect your opinion.

Ryouhi4 votes

Played a few rounds of Soraka yesterday.

In one round i basically hit Q after Q almost whenever it came off cooldown, but even with maxing Q first, the enemies were still able to outsustain any damage i dealt, it's ridiculous

Mig892 votes

but shes not meant to be a high damage champ.

Banbutsu Sozo3 votes

She's supposed to be a lane bully though. Hitting Q after Q should result in meaningful harass

sad þoy3 votes

First off, I upvoted this immediately!! ♥

Alright so I took the 20 minutes to actually adjust myself to read this and I can relate so much even if I'm not a high elo player, I'm currently silver 1 but I've been playing league since late season 5. Since then I have found interest in Soraka making her my main and just the mechanic of being able to heal my team mates, and peel for them literally playing god of your allies, sitting right in your hand. I liked the idea of that. When they removed the OLD passive effect of her Starcall, adding a new passive that we now know as Rejuvenation.. I kinda lost motivation because It really doesn't do much. You lose more health than you can heal with Rejuvenation, and since they added percentage health on her healing it didn't make it any better. You look at all of these other supports left and right and they can burst, hard CC, or displace one if not both you and your ADC in a normal 2v2 botlane and all you can do is chill. I hate comparing champions to each other because it'll never do anything haha but look at Leona, Thresh, Janna, Nami even. In almost every mechanic these champions are better. If the opponent team is smart enough, they'll automatically focus the Soraka down to prevent any healing to be done. It pains me when I try and do so well in team fights and then all that credit goes to the adc that literally sat there as I peeled, healed, and godplayed to keep not only our ADC but our whole team from getting dunk on. I was O.K. when they made this change to Soraka's Starcall at that time because the burst from current champions then wasn't as bad, but what is Rejuvenation going to do for her when being hunted by Assassins or burst ADC's (which ADC's shouldn't be able to do..). I heard people all over the boards say that Rito generally dislikes healers which kinda breaks me a lil considering the core of my gaming and the joy that comes of it is being a healer, something that can make a tremendous difference and while we have Nami (which is an okay healer), Janna (not that great a healer), and Taric (mana expense for such little heals doesn't do much).. they aren't my play style. I just really hope Rito considers reverting her Starcall passive just test it for a lil bit on PBE and realize it'd be a good thing. Especially since her heals require percentage healing now. Pls rito hear us out!!

[sg-soraka]

EDIT: I passed it onto a Rioter, hoping for the best!

https://imgur.com/a/96Qtq

Axerito3 votes

Let's also do not forget about Grevious Wounds items being more and more common. Now tanks can get a reliable GW item early into the game and next patch every AP champion will be able to buy an item which will apply this deduff with every instance of magic damage they will inflict.

But people will still be biased aganist her and downvote every post which highlights her problems now.

CasterGilgamesh3 votes

i have an idea revert the update she had!...on a serious note just undo the change to her heal make it so her Q reduces the CD of her heal for every champion it hits and make her ult remove grievous wounds.Also her star guardian skin should have been the legendary SG skin just sayin.

Banbutsu Sozo3 votes

Soraka feels far less fun to play this season. I can play her, but the reward isn't worth it to play super aggressive in the laning phase. I have had to change my playstyle. Thanks for bringing this up; your points are correct.

cocacolalips2 votes

Seems to be you didn't adapt to the support position changes well, there are dozens soraka mains in high diamond master and challenger, maybe you gotta re-learn the game to some extent, the game changes all the time it can be difficult to keep up.

Siegfriedx13 votes

{quoted}

Seems to be you didn't adapt to the support position changes well, there are dozens soraka mains in high diamond master and challenger, maybe you gotta re-learn the game to some extent, the game changes all the time it can be difficult to keep up.

I believe so too. But do you think that the Soraka mains that are in diamond and challenger that they are there because of the core Soraka mechanic that is healing or because they exploit some duo harassing lane of some kind to maintain a good WR? Because I have done that in the past when Soraka felt bad.

Sometimes I get this feeling that every season I get to do less what I'm suppose to and riot pushes me more and more as a lane bully. Idk, I'm just emotional right now and feeling very depressed by this game.

My last game,the one that I did before writing this post, was soul crushing. I did amazing things and in the end I was not in control. I couldn't really save not a single friend or do 1 single play regardless of how much I did. That can feel very crushing specially when a champion like janna would have won just fine.

cocacolalips2 votes

idk but hextech protobelt isn't exactly something you buy on soraka. maybe reach out to other soraka mains like the soraka mains sub reddit https://www.reddit.com/r/SorakaMains/ (much better than posting on the boards, you will only get uninformed and troll comments here), watch some high elo gameplay, review your runes, your items, your powerspike, your playstyle, sometimes when you do the same activity for so long, you develop habits that can turn to be detrimental without realizing it.

beatinbuddy6 votes

The problem is that support mains are being forced towards the tankier supports. I hardly played Braum, Leo, and never Tahm in ranked before this season but they probably have my best win rates. As a player who prefers to be a healer/protector rather than a tanky, killer support this season has been really hard. I've honestly had to switch most support lanes to the trinity of Leo, Braum, or Tahm because they have the strong lane presence to scare off the other team or keep them uncomfortable to a point they aren't diving you under your tower with jungler at 10 minutes.

Even though we aren't in a true tank meta anymore (that I can tell) lanes favor higher damage and higher durability almost across the board. I don't mind the changes to the support items this season but I do find it rough that as a Soraka it's nearly impossible to carry an iffy ADC. If they aren't mechanically tight and making good trades you're kind of SOL.

Trading badly = blowing your health bar keeping them alive and having to recall again. Playing too passively = falling behind early, essentially securing the win in the first 10-15 minutes for the other team as Soraka's team needs to be actively ahead for her to function properly Playing too aggressively = one or both of you caught out, especially if jungler joins the fight, and if you already used your equinox it's game over as your slow is pretty laughable and the damage is easily ignored if you aren't doing an AP build and maxing Q first

TL;DR Like OP said, Soraka is way too Win Hard - Lose Hard this season with little to no ability to actively carry her team (compared to past seasons) and practically no way to recover if you team doesn't flip some switch and enter carry mode.

Vicimus2 votes

I think this is very much a you problem. Soraka is currently at a 51% winrate with a 7% pickrate, these numbers aren't bad at all. One thing you have to recognize while one-tricking a champion is that your playstyles will not stay the same throughout these years. The game changes, and you have to adapt or move on.

I used to be a Talon main last season, and with changes to lethality over the past year, there's no reason for me to play him or even mid lane anymore. I have many more cases where I mained X champion or X playstyle and it got changed as time went on. We have to recognize and accept that.

I disagree with many points made here. It seems that you're annoyed by Janna. If she's that much of a problem, just ban her. You can make the decision to make sure you never see a Janna in your games ever again. Despite that, heals are much much more powerful than shields, especially at high elo. You can play around shields by choosing to disengage/not fighting when the shield is up, you can't play around heals. Heals are forced utility. Shields are strong, yes, but they require you to actually play aggressive otherwise the shield doesn't do anything. Soraka's E is extremely powerful. I can't remember how many times I've got fucked over by that spell, and a global heal isn't anything to scoff at either - it affects any lane, immediately.

The reason they took away her self-heal was because of how strong Redemption was. Note that the rejuvenation change was in 6.5 and Redemption/Ardent Censer/support item rework (aka when supports became strong af) was in 6.22. Rejuvenation was merely a response to make sure her self-healing was brought down to an adequate level, given the strength of her new toys.

Edit: you're taking Predator/Klepto on Soraka, idk what you're expecting tbh.

cocacolalips6 votes

zzz he is playing soraka top lane, buying stupid items, picking stupid runes, and is expecting to stomp meta top laners?. like wtf. I thought he was genuine and not very good at first, turns out he is simply a troll zzz

he also started whining on the soraka mains subreddit and got trashed by a challenger one trick soraka zzz

that's why the boards are a joke, the guy is a con artist and 99% of the people who read the boards have no clue what they are reading and talking about and upvote him anyway zzz

Numbuh 2142 votes

I feel that pain... Soraka is one of the first supports I picked up, and to see how far out of the meta she's fallen... it's saddening, even if I've personally moved on.

Thistlemin2 votes

I didn't have time to read the full post. I'd say Soraka has overall had a lot of high competitive play viability like the main writer posted. There are dozens of champs who have never been viable competitively, likely will never be viable in ranked.

I'm a Warwick main for example. I've logged thousands of games on the champ alone. I've always played him knowing he wasn't as viable as other junglers, that his kit was gimped in many ways compared to others'.

Another example; I was watching some of the pro matches over this last weekend and saw how impactful Skarner was in many of the matches. I thought I'd give him a try as his kit doesn't look overly complex. So I boot up a normals match because I haven't played the champion for a couple years at least, and have only logged a couple games on him ever. Result was like a 19/3/x game where I stomped and in the beginning of the match had to read each passive and skill to learn what they did. So I boot up ranked (plat 5 last season) and won three more straight matches. I still haven't lost on Skarner yet.

Lesson is, we don't always get cake and get to eat it too. I prefer Warwick's old target lock suppression kit, but it isn't coming back. I'd prefer they didn't change my rad Feral WW skin to some poison experiment thing that didn't resemble the old skin whatsoever., I'd prefer Warwick was given more impactful team fight utility or AOE damage without having to build items for it. I'd prefer if he actually excelled more than other junglers in a specific area other than just low opponent move speed boosting.

But Riot has announced that Warwick is the champion they've designed to be a jungle trainer who doesn't excel in competitive play. As much as that sucks because it says the game designers are intentionally capping or at least, gimping, his climbing potential...its okay. It gives you the choice to branch out, explore, discover, grow, learn new things.

I don't blame you for wanting to one-trick, but not every champ will be competitively as viable as the next from season to season, patch to patch. Be happy Soraka had such a long run for you. Most champs do not offer that same potential.

Iasam2 votes

I guess u got worse at playing the game. Theres some sorakas in pretty high elo.

Craig1 votes

I'm pretty confused by this post. So basically, you're a one-trick player whose champion isn't busted for a season and now you're complaining? Why not learn a new champion? Why not adapt to the meta? Why not play the game like everyone else?

Siegfriedx14 votes

{quoted}

I'm pretty confused by this post. So basically, you're a one-trick player whose champion isn't busted for a season and now you're complaining? Why not learn a new champion? Why not adapt to the meta? Why not play the game like everyone else?

Soraka wans't busted for many different seasons. Is just that this one is the one that feel worst to play the champion.

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