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Ideas, Thoughts, and Discussion: The Star Child

Stacona··3 votes·452 views

Soraka has had many reworks and has been a balance headache, and frustrating to play against, but I still think a dedicated healer can be balanced. On a side note, been playing Mario+Rabbids: Kingdom Battle recently and that game is really, really good; I would put it on par as "the modern day Super Mario RPG: The Legend of the Seven Stars", just instead of Geno and Mallow we get Rabbid Luigi and Rabbid Peach - got off topic, now back to Soraka!

These are just general thoughts:

~ Soraka needs to have proper interaction with the opposition so that her frustration levels to play against are massively reduced and she feels fair, while keep her unique power and still be a powerful healing mage.

~ Healing needs to not be linked with health costs. Flat health cost would help tone down early game Soraka power, but encourages her to build tank; % health cost is useless early game, but is to discourage her from build tank - yet health costs kind of encourage that. Her healing needs to be linked with mana costs and/or some kind of unique system and focused on ability power ratios rather than base heal so the dedicated powerful healer is at least squishy so she is always kill-able.

~ Better skill expression and try to create her heals into more of a skillful act. A couple of good examples is Nami's heal where she can choose to nuke two enemies or heal two allies depending on how it is used and Rakan's has to land a skill shot on an enemy champion for a powerful and spammy area of effect heal; adds skill to the healing abilities rather than a simple and mindless point-and-click. ~ ~ Something that can be done could be re-adding a low duration damage reduction or armour/mr buff, but this time around the heal is delayed after X seconds or upon casting the ability again to end the damage mitigation effect early for a faster heal. Just an example idea. ~ ~ ~ The problem with the old damage mitigation tool is that the heal and armour buff applied at the same time which kind of countered each other since you want to use the damage mitigation on the ally to reduce the amount of damage that target takes, but you end up healing a full health target. ~ ~ ~ Reversely using that to heal an ally kind of wastes the damage reducing half of it, or make her too strong in heal baiting scenarios. So a well timed effect and this or that option should add a proper skill element to the heal, as well as some other tricks.

~ Soraka needs an entirely new kit to make her more interesting and fun to play as and against, something where everything goes together and works together, has Soraka properly interacting with the opposition, something that feels rewarding to play (especially for those that main the champion with hundreds of games), and something that is fair while still being powerful.

~ I loved Starcall being a spam ability, this does not mean bring back old mindless Starcall. An idea for an ability that I want to see in the game is a paint-brush-like ability where in this case you fly your mouse cursor around and stars fall from it for a short duration damaging enemies below and most likely a second effect since Soraka is a support; it would be a very fun ability to use. ~ ~ This would require a static / locked mouse cursor speed for the ability duration in order for it to be balanced and not severely broken on high mouse cursor speeds.

Below is a base idea for a new kit that its purpose is entirely to sprout out more creative ideas. Something entirely for fun and to work from to expand upon and improve, to make it better.

Movement: 340 units per second

Star Energy (Passive): Same Target Static Cooldown: 3 seconds Soraka's attacks and abilities against enemy champions grant her Star Shards, attacks grant 1 and abilities grant 2. If Soraka heals an allied champion within 1.5 seconds of it taking champion or epic monster damage then she gains 3 Star Shards.

Each Star Shard permanently increases Soraka's ability power by 1%.

Current Bonus Ability Power: X

Celestial Essence (Q): Cooldown: 8/7/6/5/4 seconds; Cost: 65 mana; Range: 1000 / 75 units For the next 1.5 seconds, Soraka restricts the movement of the mouse cursor causing star powder to fall from it, dealing 90/130/170/210/250(+30%AP) magic damage over the duration while slowing enemies down for 15% to 50/55/60/65/70% for 1.5 seconds based on how much star powder they take.

Gleaming Light (W): Cooldown: 1.5 seconds (applies after); Cost: 40/45/50/55/60+ mana; Range: 900 units 1st Cast: Soraka calls upon starlight on the target ally or herself for up to 2 seconds, granting them 15/20/25/30/35%(+3% per 100AP) damage reduction (max 60% damage reduction).

2nd Cast: After 2 seconds or upon activating Gleaming Light again, Soraka ends the starlight and heals the target for 30/45/60/75/90(+100%AP) health.

Consecutive casts of Gleaming Light within 6 seconds of each other cost 40/45/50/55/60 additional mana, up to a maximum of 400/450/500/550/600 mana.

Shadow of the Eclipse (E): Cooldown: 24/21/18/15/12 seconds; Cost: 100 mana; Range: 550 units Passive: 30/35/40/45/50% of the area around Soraka is covered in Shade which slowly rotates around her. Enemies that are damaged by Soraka while in Shade restore 15/20/25/30/35 mana, allies around Soraka and not in Shade gain 10/15/20/25/30% increased healing from Soraka.

Active: The entire area around Soraka is covered in Shade for 1.5 seconds and silences enemies within, but halves all of her healing effects for the duration while slowing herself by 20%. After 1.5 seconds a Super Nova is created to deal 80/100/120/140/160 plus 8/9/10/11/12%(+2% per 100AP) of target maximum health as magic damage to struck enemies while applying grievous wounds for 3 seconds.

Star Beam (R): Cooldown: 180/120/60 seconds; Cost: 100 mana; Range: 1000 - Global Hold Down Skill Key: Soraka channels in place for up to 3 seconds unleashing a powerful star beam at the target location [300 unit radius] healing allies within for 75/100/125(+30%AP) health per half-second that slowly follows the mouse cursor. Star beam cannot be summoned within a minimum proximity to Soraka.

7 Comments

TyrekGoldenspear1 votes

Okay I'm back. I see you're trying to give Raka more skill by a very unique method, using the mouse cursor itself to direct the spells.

I like the kit you made personally. But I would shy away from giving Soraka a %AP bonus. Maybe a flat bonus would be better, that way it is easier managed.

Stacona1 votes

The problem with flat AP is that it can involve her going tank since she gets ability power, where as a % boost like deathcap passive has her wanting to keep building ability power and remain squishy to be truly effective. So the % value is build AP to get AP, no build AP and you don't get AP. A flat boost would involve build AP or don't build AP, you still get AP, we want to avoid the don't build AP option as much as possible since Soraka building in an unintended fashion has been one of her many balancing issues in the past.

Ability Power ratios can be tuned around this easily so the AP is mostly going into utility power rather than damage power. So your healing power equates to your squishy levels and how aggressive you play to acquire stacks, or with skillful good use with your heal, champions should not get huge rewards for playing passively or mages should not be building tank / tanky at all.

Yea, I just think flat AP bonus will not stop Soraka from going tank - even if most players go squishy - I want to avoid having Soraka to repeat past flaws of tank super healer which she is hard to kill and so are her team mates when she is nearby. If Soraka, at any point, can be blown up easily then that is always that hope of the other team can actually win the fight rather than feel completely hopeless.

TyrekGoldenspear1 votes

The problem with flat AP is that it can involve her going tank since she gets ability power, where as a % boost like deathcap passive has her wanting to keep building ability power and remain squishy to be truly effective. So the % value is build AP to get AP, no build AP and you don't get AP. A flat boost would involve build AP or don't build AP, you still get AP, we want to avoid the don't build AP option as much as possible since Soraka building in an unintended fashion has been one of her many balancing issues in the past.

Yeah you're right here. I guess I was just afraid of the % boost being as high as it was, and considering how simple it is to get the stacks and how there is no cap, Soraka can end up scaling like Veigar.

Ability Power ratios can be tuned around this easily so the AP is mostly going into utility power rather than damage power. So your healing power equates to your squishy levels and how aggressive you play to acquire stacks, or with skillful good use with your heal, champions should not get huge rewards for playing passively or mages should not be building tank / tanky at all. [snip] - I want to avoid having Soraka to repeat past flaws of tank super healer which she is hard to kill and so are her team mates when she is nearby.

This so much. One thing that bugs me around Soraka is that rn you can build somewhat tanky and just build an ardent and redemption, and you're pretty solid on healing. At this point getting more AP would just give you fatter heals on W and R. We gotta keep Soraka the squishy white mage to keep things fair for the enemy but at the same time give Soraka the tools to not feel helpless and want to hang back and be able to do her job, but to be aggro with her team and engage with her enemies to make things more fun for everyone.

Stacona1 votes

I gave the ability to self-cast W, but can no longer self-heal with R. I am fine with a global heal, but rather have a global heal with a little more thought process and skill than simply press R - also more fun sending down a giant ion cannon of healing beam from the skies! I just double dipped with the ultimate about long range clutch saves rather than 5 guys being super durable from all that channeled-healing over time.

~ Wanted this to try to showcase a dedicated healer feeling like she requires skill to play. ~ Keep simple to use abilities, but they have trade-offs instead like Q loses control of Soraka with restrictive mouse cursor movement or your silence is within your attack range for a more aggressive positioning and you have reduced healing and movement during the duration to force Q slow and E silence to work together for the E nuke - since you are in aggro range you can use W to keep a squishy white mage alive. ~ Ensure Soraka is a proper squishy white mage, where she becomes super powerful as the game goes on and is also a glass-healer. I am sure more people will enjoy playing a champion with FAT HEALS than weak heals and be unkillable. Unkillable super healer is not fun to play against, we already experience this from all of Soraka's iterations, she has to be forced squishy to be healthy for the game. ~ Reduce passive play and reward aggro play. This new passive is supposed to be just that, when Soraka is playing risky and reachable by the enemy she gets rewarded with bonus ability power (% boost to ensure she builds squishy; I do feel Soraka should be more on the scaling side than early game anyways), but with the risk of being counter attacked. The passive on E allows Soraka to get rewarded for situational and closer range healing to allow for longer range heals, and on the enemy side she gets rewarded to recover some mana back to relieve some of the burden of her high mana costs (I the irony to all this is I re-added damage mitigation to the heal and re-added mana restoring for Soraka; this time around it is done right where it encourages Soraka to interact with the enemy in a healthy way).

Final Spark Lux1 votes

Lets see;

You've given her a way to increase her AP permanently by PERCENT, given her damage that rivals some mid lane mages on a 4 second CD with the range of a blitz hook and a scaling slow.

Given her a %dmg reduction spell that's also a heal that scales 1:1 with her AP on a 1.5 second CD which she can once again use to heal herself

Given her mana restore back ontop of being able to increase allied healing by a large percent as a PASSIVE which has an active that again does a large amount of damage rivaling some mid mages AND applies grievous wounds.

Did I miss anything? The only think that doesn't sound like a nightmare to vs is her ult. Is this some kind of joke? You overloaded her kit completely. You claim she's supposed to be a dedicated healer, then give her %AP building passive, high base damage values, %max health dmg ontop of flat damage, and to top all that off, she now has a 1:1 AP heal that she can once again use on herself. No thanks. Soraka is a nightmare to vs now, but this would make her even worse. The only people who would think this would be fine would be soraka players themselves, because they'd be the ones playing it

Stacona1 votes

Complaint comments are neither constructive nor feedback. You need to try again.

~ This is only the first pass of a concept kit anyways, so why are you nailing the specifics?

~ The power is curved towards really high utility scaling for building ability power, but it is weak in the early game. Damage values are pretty ass low and they do not scale very well, they are decent base values for the early game as a support.

~ The passive rewards aggression, which is what we want for Soraka, if she is playing aggressive then she is killable, if she has a passive kit then she can never be reached.

~ While the Q is active you lose control of your character and the damage is over time. The duration cannot be turned off so for the whole time you are a sitting duck, so use wisely. You gain huge reward for using your Q+E together with ensuring the E nuke and E mana return BUT it is super risky because of how close you need to get and having extremely limiting control of your character for 1.5 seconds, including unable to dodge skill shots.

~ Your DR shield / heal (it is a pick or choose, low duration DR shield to add skill to the heal with timing) has some insane mana costs if you spam it, which that mana cost increasing has a static duration. Mana gating the ability is how it is balanced around the ability's power.

~ This entire kit is powerful and simple, but is a lot more skill dependent because everything has trade-offs and decision making to use rather than be hard to use abilities, also the abilities are pretty weak in a vacuum BUT strong when you combo them together.

~ She is allowed to self cast her W because Soraka needs to be turned into an aggressive healer to be healthy for the game, while also being squishy.

~ % AP boost rather than flat AP boost are doing the same thing. The difference here is that % AP boost requires Soraka to build squishy, while flat AP boost does not, while still making sense that Soraka is a hyper white mage (so she scales super well, but in her team utility rather than damage). We want Soraka to be a squishy powerful healer and avoid her going tank or tanky as much as possible, squishy healer means she can die easily, and being able to die easily means there is counter play for the enemy to win the teamfights.

~ In lane the high mana costs and low base heal means she is not a super frustrating healer in lane, and if she wants her power for the late game and give herself back mana then she HAS to play aggressive which then places her at risk of being killed by the enemy so the reward needs to be there to encourage aggressive gameplay for the Soraka. So a low base heal means a potent AP ratio to balance things out, it keeps her scaling power while not having her oppressive in the early game.

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