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@Riot Why is Soraka the only champion in the game who actually suffers BUILDING a specific stat?

Sairek Ceareste·4/12/2018, 8:38:23 AM·3 votes·3,618 views

I'm talking about Bonus Health.

Soraka's heal costs 10% of her total health bar.

This means, the more health you have, the more the skill costs. This is literally the only skill in the game (that I know of -- I haven't played every champ) that has a percentage based cost like this. Not 10% of current health. 10% TOTAL health.

Why in the hell is it like this?

Building bonus health on her is literally a liability unless you get item 3083 (and this build isn't very viable and isn't as good as people like to make it out to be) . She is the only champion in the game who literally suffers from building bonus health because it technically makes her heal -- her MAIN MECHANIC cost more. Which means to make up for the cost, you have to land that many more Star calls, which means you also have less mana to heal with, because you're using it all spamming Q's to try and make up the health you just used to heal, or the damage you just took from an attack. And those Star Calls aren't guaranteed to hit.

I don't know ANY OTHER CHAMPION in this game who actually becomes more of a liability and actually weaker when building a stat, than they would have been without it. At the very least, a stat does nothing, like mana on manaless champions. I don't think I need to describe how dumb in design that is where health -- a UNIVERSAL RESOURCE EVERY CHAMPION IN THE GAME HAS, is a liability on a champion (who's main mechanic is to ironically, restore said resource). This problem is even more obnoxious when tier 3 gold generation items have bonus health on them item 3069 item 3401 item 3092 so you have to suffer taking bonus health to unlock the ability to hold a 4th ward in that item slot. And let's not forget some other important support items that have bonus health on them as well. item 2065 item 3107 And don't even get me started on all of the AP items that also grant bonus HP. Death Cap, Zhonyas, Banshees and Seraphs and... that's it. Unless you want a Void Staff or a Lich Bane for some reason or a Mejai's. Not exactly a handful selection.

So, you're either going to build into a useless duck who can't regen off of Star call and can only heal a pitiful amount of HP until you get 3,000 HP and Warmogs to suddenly heal a ridiculous amount if the game even lasts that long, or you avoid bonus health like the plague and risk anyone on the enemy team comp stepping on your like a bug if your positioning is anything less than pristine. It's fucking horrible to play either way and it feels even worse to build.

Soraka also has the lowest health regen in the game, so the health regen stat on her just sucks. With, item 3222 on every other support, I can get between 18~20HP/S. On Soraka, I'm lucky to get 11 HP/S. That's how low her health regen is. 11 HP/S when you chunk 10% of your health bar and generally have around 2,000+ health because you built item 3069 or item 3092 along with item 3107 and maybe item 2065 isn't very useful. Hell, it's not very useful even if you DO avoid all of the bonus health items like the plague. Just play Soraka and get an Ocean drake. She feels so much better and fun to play when you're not having to recall to refill your health pool every other minute even after throwing out a few heals.

Fixes to Soraka to make her more healthier to play and build on her would be:

Fix her health regen: Keep it low at the start so she can't abuse health regen in the laning phase (I assume this is why it's as low as it is), but have it curve up higher via level ups, so by level 18 she is on par with the other supports. She'll still have lower regen until late game, but at least the stat won't be next to useless on her and damage won't stick to her face like someone super glued it on her by the time laning phase is done, cutting the amount of Star calls she needs to land for healing damage back up outside the laning phase (it's already a lot without building full AP), and the amount of recalling she needs to do.

Bonus Health Does Things: Make Star call's rejuvenation when she lands a Starcall recover more based on more bonus health she has (AP would increase the damage but NOT the health recovered -- only bonus health would do this). The bonus she has would be applied whenever she casts her heal on someone else as well. Y'know, kind of like Taric. Who can heal. In two AOEs. Without killing himself. And heals more based on his bonus health (but without the AP).

This way, she could build either burst healing [AP], or longer, sustained healing [Tank], or even a mix of both if she wanted to (opens the options up for all of the other AP items that give health), but would require also getting in the fray more because she would need to land those Star calls, which a bulkier build would allow her to do without being instantly deleted for stepping out. Bonus health on her would have an actual benefit she can carve a play style out of, instead of just being a liability until Warmogs is online.

OR

Fix the cost of her heal: Change her heal cost to 10% of her BASE health (or some other flat cost). That way, bonus health on her would be... oh, I don't know, fucking bonus health.

I know, crazy thought isn't it?

Of course, there's also the issue with Soraka where a whole 800g item 3123 counters three of the four skills in her kit and people still yell that she's OP (people in my experience who didn't buy said item 3123 ), but that's a whole other discussion.

TLDR; Bonus health on Soraka is a liability until she gets Warmogs online. No other Champion in the game has this problem, especially on a skill that's their main mechanic and purpose. This makes building items on her feel absolutely awful since a lot of support/AP items have bonus health and you either have to avoid them, or have to build Warmogs to make use of the health for it to not be a liability anymore.

24 Comments

OurLestrade4/12/2018, 8:42:04 AM1 votes

At one point she was meant to get penalties to armour and MR, it's to stop her being an unkillable health dispenser. I remember the days of tank top Soraka.

trunoob4134/12/2018, 8:46:20 AM1 votes

Honestly I'm fine with it costing health what i do find odd though is that while it costs health the heal does not actually scale with health

DerMangoJoghurt4/12/2018, 9:16:17 AM1 votes

This problem is even more obnoxious when tier 3 gold generation items have bonus health on them item 3069 item 3401 item 3092 so you have to suffer taking bonus health to unlock the ability to hold a 4th ward in that item slot.

Why not use item 3096 item 3097 item 3098 ?

Sasogwa4/12/2018, 9:29:13 AM1 votes

Though it is awkward and feels bad for her to get total health costs, it would be easily abusable to buy a bunch of health for her to spam heal like a tard if it was base health costs instead. The thing is Soraka's healing is insane and the only thing limiting that is the fact she has to pay total health and can't really build tanky and be the ultimate 0 counterplay healing bot. And if you were to nerf her otherwise to implement these base health costs, what of her current version? Straight nerfed to allow for tank Soraka to exist?

That being said, a bonus health ratio on the self healing from Q would be an interesting feature. But doesn't it get transmitted to the adc if you heal them or sthg like that? Not too aware of her kit rn and I'm blocked out of a lot of sites including league wikia cause at work right now :o

Kaìju4/12/2018, 3:32:17 PM1 votes

Soraka has not received any buffs to her healthier thematic since before they added GW for tanks and reworking GW for mages.

rtbf2216514124/12/2018, 8:34:45 PM1 votes

item 3083

item 3065 item 3107 item 3382 item 3027 item 3109 item 3010 item 2010item 3305 item 2033 item 3069 item 2031

Excuse me?

And + her Q + item 3010 makes how much self healing again?

Used To Main Zed4/12/2018, 9:19:41 PM1 votes

So I am a little bit late to the party with this post but I wanted to add my 2 cents. Now I freely admit, the math I'm posting below IS NOT accurate. I didn't look at the numbers, or bonus vs max vs base hp, etc. this is simply my own basic league for dummies understanding of her.

Soraka's heal is, indeed, 10% health cost. Meaning she can heal 9 times before she is completely out of resources to heal with since she cannot be reduced below 10% by using it.

So her base amount of heal per life is 9x. With 2000hp she can heal somebody 9x. With 4000hp she can heal somebody 9x With 120000p she can heal somebody 9x. When she has 2000hp and uses all 9 heals, she is left with 10% hp which is 200. At 120000hp, after using 10% go she is left with 1200hp. So after using all her heals she is left with more hp than she would be if she had not built the health. Meaning she is more likely to stay alive long enough to pump out a few Q's, regain her HP and continue healing her team.

You see what I'm getting at? She doesn't suffer at all from building HP. She simply doesn't get any extra benefit from it with that one specific spell.

She still benefits from the extra HP because no matter how many times she can heal you, she can either be tankier to withstand assassins, or squishier to die to them.

Building HP is essential, it simply gates her power in lane. If it didn't cost 10% hp then she would simply be the old, no risk high reward healer. Now she actually has to interact in lane to get her HP back with Q and that's a good thing!

The 10% hp cost is simply the best way to keep her heals strong because if she could spam it all day with no repercussions then Riot would most likely have to nerf the strength of her heal to compensate.

Every champ has stats that are good, bad, or mediocre. For example: Aatrox benefits from building Tri-Force even though the mana doesn't do anything. In the same way, Soraka benefits from the bonus HP even though it doesn't help her healing.

TwinkiePro4/12/2018, 9:59:35 PM1 votes

Riot hates warmog's soraka. It's pretty cancerous to deal with an infinite healing support that has no downside and plays super safe.

Bern4/13/2018, 8:53:00 AM1 votes

Every champion that buys LDR or takes Cut Down is penalized for buying extra HP. Those aren't built into the kit, but they're built into a playstyle and buildpath.

Soraka is discouraged from it because Soraka's healing is extremely frustrating to deal with, and the main counter is killing Soraka. At least shields (especially at early levels) are temporary; any HP Soraka heals for stays there forever.

Executioner's tax is godawful to pay before you've at least got IE+Zeal item; same concept as QSS tax, but less expensive and less punishing if you don't buy it. Dumping 800g into executioner's puts a laner behind a pretty penny. Admittedly, I'd rather just see the game balanced so that executioner's didn't need to exist, but...

DeathBurst4/18/2018, 8:01:47 AM1 votes

I agree on the sentiment, but the analysis you make is wrong.

It's annoying to see her heal costing more when you buy Bonus Health without doing more, but it's not actually a liability, and it doesn't punish you to build Health, it just means Health is LESS cost-effective than for other champs. "Less cost-effective" doesn't mean "not effective at all", and even less "actually counter-productive".

Let's run an example scenario:

  • You have 1000 base HP, you spend 40% of your HP on heals.
  • With 0 bonus HP, enemies need to deal 600 damage to you to kill you.
  • If you buy 500 bonus HP, enemies need to deal 900 damage to you to kill you.
    • They do need to deal 300 more damage to you to kill you. You're not punished for buying health, you're more durable after having bought health than before.
    • They need to deal only 300 more, when you bought 500 HP, so your buy isn't as efficient as it "should", but no, it doesn't punish you.

That being said, I repeat, I agree with the sentiment. If a spell costs more, it should do more, if only to give a sense of causality and consistency.