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Soraka should take some notes from Malfurion

darkdill··32 votes·13,158 views

Malfurion's latest kit in Heroes of the Storm is a good example of how to make a good "healer mage", IMO. The way it works is as follows.

Q - Regrowth Heal target ally over 20 seconds. 5 second cooldown. Does not stack.

W - Moonfire Deal weak magic damage in a small area and reveal enemies struck a short time. Allies with an active Regrowth are healed for X health for each enemy Hero hit by Moonfire.

By itself, Regrowth will not heal very effectively due to spreading its healing over such a long duration, but when you apply it to multiple allies and then start hitting enemies with Moonfire it becomes very effective.

Soraka presently tries to do an inverse of this with her Rejuvenation effect along with sacrificing her health to heal allies, but this constantly leaves her in "balance sensitive" situations where a slight buff can make her broken. I think that if she were reworked (AGAIN) to use a style similar to Malfurion, it could promote some much healthier gameplay, requiring you to be aggressive to get real mileage out of your healing.

66 Comments

Khristophoros19 votes

Originally Soraka had a heal over time and it was more fair in lane. You could all-in and she couldn't just burst heal through your damage. She had sustain but you could fight her.

Then Riot decided heal over time is too "unsatisfying" so they made all the heals instant. That turned out to be a huge mistake but they stuck with that decision very stubbornly even though in the end they had to nerf and remake every healer.

darkdill8 votes

That's the problem with Riot: they HATE White Mages with a passion.

Khristophoros9 votes

To be fair healers were a huge balance problem in the early days of league.

Thee Pie Man1 votes

Ahh the early days. When Soraka could give mana to herself and other champions, silencing opponents with that point and click spell. (That used to be her E) When her healing only came from Mana, and when her Q was an AOE...

Good times, old times.

Sire Hippington3 votes

The issue with dedicated healers is that you either balance the game around them, like hot's which has a healer as backbone of every teamcomp, or they can quickly become a balance issue like soraka did often enough aswell as sona at times.

Lol in it's core is not designed around healing supports sustaining entier teams, they went a different path and that makes it hard to balance a dedicated healing champ.

Teridax682 votes

Indeed, Riot seems to specifically have a problem with damage and healing over time. Every time DoTs are mentioned, Riot repeatedly says how the effects are poorly visible and how they don't really see the gameplay in them, which is why Swain was reworked to lose practically all of the damage over time from his kit. On the few occasions when they were questioned on healing over time, Riot has said the same thing.

Part of the problem here is that Heroes displays DoTs and HoTs with much more clarity than League: in Heroes, any kind of health change over time is clearly displayed on a hero's health bar, whereas in League, there's no such indicator, with Gray Health being only small and situational progress towards that territory. As such, damage and healing in Heroes is always visible, even when it's delayed or staggered over time, because you will always be able to see its full impact, which also leads to this natural subset of gameplay where healing over time is the perfect "cure" to damage over time. By contrast, League can't do this yet, because unless a DoT or HoT operates in large chunks per interval, it's not going to be easy to spot. As such, it might be worth updating health bars further so as to be able to reintroduce damage and healing over time in League, in such a manner that it would always be appreciable to all players.

cocacolalips1 votes

original soraka would 1V2 with Q starcall spam zzz and her heal had no cost means she would top people health 24/7

this is the most ignorant comment I've seen in a while

Khristophoros3 votes

I am talking about when her heal was over time. You clearly didn't play back then.

Teridax689 votes

This is the perfect comparison, imo. For a time, I thought Soraka's health costs were a good way of introducing risk, but in practice, Soraka slowly damaging herself has only pushed her to become more passive, and to cheese those costs with regeneration items she shouldn't ever be touching in the first place. In the end, Soraka's healing is still boring and uninteractive, even if there's now this extra layer of complication that does little to make her more fun to play as or against. By contrast, Malfurion's recent rework gave him this tremendously unique gameplay where he has to juggle marking allies and spamming spells against opponents (especially with Moonfire being a lot like Soraka's old Q) in order to power his healing. In general, I feel League could take a page out of Heroes when designing its supports, not necessarily by making everyone a healer (that's a whole other can of worms), but by updating the design of several older supports to have actual gameplay systems and inbuilt challenges, rather than just on-demand blanket protection and free stats for the marksman.

With Soraka, I think it might be time to remove the health cost mechanic, and instead have her power her healing through participation. If Soraka's offensive abilities and/or basic attacks built up this reservoir of power that she could spend to massively empower her next heal, or if she marked targets so that they'd get healed when she fights, as mentioned in the OP, she'd become significantly more interactive, and would be prevented from simply hanging back and healing without having to participate first.

FakeGravity2 votes

i remember when was even worst, she use to be like tahm kench, you focus her she heal herself being impossible to kill, you focus anyone else and soraka just heal that person denying you current soraka does suffer from lack of interaction, maybe if they could rework her heal and passive into something like malfurion example then make her a more rewarding champion things would change

2Charmnot2Charm2 votes

Don't forget her old heal also gave 50 armor.

BLIGHTBRINGER5 votes

Thing is, there's a reason as to why Soraka's heal was changed from the heal over time to what she has now. The reason as to why is because the healing back then she had back then was quite uneffective. Assassin's could just burst down anyone while they are slowly healing, now Soraka can atleast heal her allies fast enough so that they don't die so quickly.

TheGoomyGamer2 votes

Some might say that burst mitigation is the job of shielders

BLIGHTBRINGER4 votes

True but knowing the amount of damage this game has nowadays. Pretty much every champion in league has burst now lol.

Anu3isII1 votes

[{quoted}](name=Darkin Hybrid,realm=EUW,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=K23zkA4G,comment-id=000200000000,timestamp=2018-04-15T10:45:02.707+0000)

True but knowing the amount of damage this game has nowadays. Pretty much every champion in league has burst now lol.

I generally hate correcting as a thing, but when a word is a logical combination of words, I can't resist it.

BLIGHTBRINGER1 votes

it's kewl, let me just correct that.

Khristophoros3 votes

Assassins did not exist in beta. The closest things we had were yi and warwick.

The only reason they made it instant was because it was supposedly "unsatisfying"

JustaNewb4 votes

So... the Original Soraka?

darkdill1 votes

No, not the same thing.

JustaNewb6 votes

She had a HOT that was amplified by her Starfall, that did low damage in a wide area. Wtf is the difference?

saltran15 votes

Agree, Soraka is hot.

JustaNewb1 votes

Heal Over Time - lol

BLIGHTBRINGER8 votes

But Soraka is hot tho :v

Sexy Jack Rabbit3 votes

What's with all the players of this game wanting to bang things with hooves Soraka Kindred

Votable Jester1 votes

Hecarim [sg-lux]

TyrekGoldenspear2 votes

^ This man has good taste.

saltran3 votes

I'm actually a girl but indeed I have good taste.

Kaìju3 votes

Personally I would rather she be more like Lt Morales, and have a healing tether that drains mana. That way she can heal whoever by standing by them, and her Q might buff her in some way. Her R is also really strong so if (key word if) they wanted to rework it, it could instead allow her to heal all allies nearby her for say 5 seconds, making her like the inverse of a battle mage.

Tomoe Gozen2 votes

{quoted}

Personally I would rather she be more like Lt Morales, and have a healing tether that drains mana. That way she can heal whoever by standing by them, and her Q might buff her in some way. Her R is also really strong so if (key word if) they wanted to rework it, it could instead allow her to heal all allies nearby her for say 5 seconds, making her like the inverse of a battle mage.

Soraka's new R should call upon the majestic beast Banana Unicorn to evac every teammate to do a fast objective.

FrostQueensPlane3 votes

Riot's live design team doesn't even play their own game you think they're going to play someone else's lmao.

VvVVvV2 votes

You got proof of this or are you just typing what you assume?

SpongebobIsLife2 votes

i believe Ghostcrawler made a statement a few weeks ago to the effect of, "you don't have to play a game to balance it" So there's been several, several people questioning if the lead of gameplay development and other rioters even play league.

Robert Smith1 votes

Well they have numbers and data that tell more than playing a game. So from a design standpoint they don't have to play to "balance", from a fun standpoint they do

SpongebobIsLife1 votes

lol....what

T4underbolt1 votes

What numbers tell them that something is balanced or not? Do you know why world of Warcraft has been destroyed and ghostcrawler fired? Because he thought that he doesn't have to play the game to balance it and screwed the game by using your precious "data" and his own bias.

Ariel the Cruel1 votes

Funny how people always overlook that Riot uses an internal master+ play-test team. (>_>)

ZackTheWaffleMan2 votes

You know what's funny? The ORIGINAL Malfurion from Warcraft III basically had Janna's ult.

WEANUS PEANUS1 votes

Tranquility does not knock back though, it just heals.

HealSIut692 votes

I actually think this could work really well. Her W should be reworked into a heal over time on allies. Her q should still relatively be the same but if it hits an enemy, allies effected by her heal over time will get a burst heal plus a 1 sec movement speed boost.

darkdill1 votes

I'd be a tad skeptical about the MS bonus, but the rest would be good.

Eedat1 votes

I havent played HotS since shortly after release. How is Abby doing?

darkdill1 votes

Still super situational, but I find him a refreshing change of pace.

Eedat1 votes

I remember when you could tunnel into the enemy base, drop some beetles, and recall. The beetles outranged the forts so you could destroy them if nobody came to clear them hehe

PokladnicaZla1 votes

Would need a bit of re-balancing tho,but it could work. Few questions: 1) Her healing on W would need to be buffed 2) Would be stackable?Or would it have a higher CD,with an even higher healing? 3) Would her max HP cost be removed?

darkdill2 votes

Not stackable, and the heal-over-time effect is not the bulk of the healing. It's more of an add-on that primes an ally to be healed by her Q.

And yes, this would involve having her HP cost removed.

FilDaFunk1 votes

Soraka is as much a poke champion as she is a healer, it isn't fun.

However, I think Soraka's identity is to be a burst healer, so I don't think HoT is the way to go for her. A new healer champ like that would sound very fun, however.

darkdill1 votes

The HoT isn't the bulk of the healing. It'd be more like a mini-buff that primes an ally to be healed by her Q.

YuGiHo1 votes

I love playing malph in hots. supports in that game are really so much more fun then n league and make me feel so much more important as a player without giving them all bunch of damage to stay relevant. Playing support in league is more like being the slave of whoever you go bot with.

i only hope they dont make a new healer that winds up what a soraka rework should have been.

Ariel the Cruel3 votes

LoL supports are slaves because of income optimization. HotS' simplified formula doesn't have this problem.

KlydeFrog1 votes

The difference is heroes has abilities that people in league would cry about . Pretty much every single supp in heroes can heal in some way .which in heroes the role is called heals and if u take 2 supps one is heals and the other is damage and or supp via cc

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