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What are these PBE Soraka Changes?

9L9L9L9L9L9L9L··6 votes·2,243 views

Starcall Mana cost reduced to 50 from 70 / 75 / 80 / 85 / 90. Cooldown lowered to 5 seconds from 7 / 6.5 / 6 / 5.5 / 5. Radius reduced to 235 from 265. REMOVED: Epicenter effect. Increased damage and Slow icon slow. NEW EFFECT: Slow icon slows at all times. NEW EFFECT: Striking at least one enemy champion grants Rejuvenation for 3 / 3.5 / 4 / 4.5 / 5 seconds, scaling with rank. This buff is non-stacking. ALIGNMENT: Restores 10 / 13 / 16 / 19 / 22 (+ 10% AP) health per second for a total of 40 / 52 / 64 / 76 / 88 (+ 40% AP), and grants 15% bonus movement speed when not moving towards enemy champions. REMOVED: Heal scaling with missing health.

Astral Infusion Base heal reduced to 80 / 110 / 140 / 170 / 200 from 120 / 150 / 180 / 210 / 240. REMOVED: Passive component. Reintegrated as the Rejuvenation buff for Starcall NEW EFFECT: If cast while affected by Rejuvenation, Soraka will replicate the Rejuvenation buff to the target ally, restoring an additional 30 / 45.5 / 64 / 85.5 / 115 (+ 30 / 35 / 40 / 45 / 50% AP) for a total heal of 110 / 155.5 / 204 / 255.5 / 315 (+ 90 / 95 / 100 / 105 / 110% AP).

Is this suppose to be a buff or nerf to Soraka's kit?

28 Comments

Sightless668 votes

Nerf. Nonexistent self-healing in teamfights, significantly decreased healing in teamfights, less healing potential in most situations until Q and W are both near maxed, although there is slightly more passive healing potential in laning and slightly more reliable CC. Some people will tell you it's a neutral change, but that's a very rare opinion among people who have played with it. The PBE response is pretty universal about it being a hefty nerf, and that's after a few patches of getting to play around with it. Except a significantly lowered winrate.

The big problem is that Alignment doesn't make you a better healer than old Soraka even in perfectly ideal situations (which are rare to begin with), but it does make you way worse in situations where A. You consume the buff quickly (this is common because it's a 5 second buff consumed by a 2 second or lower cd skill) (EDIT: No it doesn't, this point is not valid)B. You hit multiple people with starfall (no stacking for multiple people) C. You have to heal the same target multiple times in a row rapidly (no alignment stacking) or D. You have to save someone from getting bursted down. Your potential in every situation matching those criteria is significantly lowered.

That said, if you do still want to make her work, there is one thing going for her; Poking people with Q. Lower early cd and lower mana cost together make for really enjoyable laning, particularly when people try to bully you at level 1 or 2 and you just stomp on their face. Give up on being a healer, max Q in lane (some people max E second too), poke with it for very low mana costs. Snowball the lane and end the game before you ever have to face the horror of teamfighting as Soraka. It's not exactly good, but it's not exactly bad either, and it's really funny.

MEMEME6701 votes

Does it still consume the buff though? I know the early iterations did so, but the OP has wording that implies it doesn't (replicates instead of gives or something similar).

Skia Asteri1 votes

{quoted}

Does it still consume the buff though? I know the early iterations did so, but the OP has wording that implies it doesn't (replicates instead of gives or something similar).

It does not consume the buff from her anymore.

Sightless661 votes

It did last patch. However, I haven't played it this PBE cycle, so I could be incorrect on that point. If so, that definitely would go a long way towards making her not as weak as she has been. It would be still be less self-healing, but not nearly as much less as I had been experiencing. Still a nerf, but that actually does address the biggest problem the rework was sitting on.

Skia Asteri2 votes

{quoted}

A. You consume the buff quickly (this is common because it's a 5 second buff consumed by a 2 second or lower cd skill)

The buff does not get consumed in when healing an ally in the current experimental iteration.

Sightless661 votes

Oh, that's actually pretty good. I hadn't played with that iteration. Got sick of her last cycle. It's still weaker than live, but that definitely ensures that it won't be a gutting, and after all the PBE patches of straight gutting I will gladly take that. Thanks for the info.

CrazedPorcupine3 votes

It's an absolute destruction of Soraka's playstyle.

Crett2 votes

Buff/Nerf. Soraka's passive/over time sustain seems to be higher, but she might not be able to sustain as hard against all-ins

MisterHealYoGirl3 votes

That was the intended effect; if her weakness to all-ins is more pronounced, she can have more power healthily added to her sustain.

APrinnyDood3 votes

"she can have more power healthily added to her sustain"

Kind of a pity they never really got around to that part. The nerfs to the base healing on W really cut out any added sustain potential she might have had before she had both W and Q maxed. On top of that. and alignment's duration conflicting so hard with her W CD and Q's CD being longer than W's means she can't even sustain people more over time in the mid/late game in anything more than a light poke trade.

It will be a few patches before Riot's "intended effect" matches up with "what they actually did". If they choose to go down that route of course. That random MS buff on rejuvenation kind of makes me think they aren't comfortable putting any power back into her healing.

MisterHealYoGirl2 votes

I mean, of course they're not comfortable with her healing. On Rift, I'm a Soraka main, and I can't tell you how toxic it is to have your whole job be 'make anything your opponents do in lane not matter'. It's not even like Janna, where you make plays that shut down other people's plays: you're just refusing to acknowledge that your opponents are even in the lane with you.

The live value on her heal at max rank is 240 (+60% AP). On the PBE, the value of a max rank heal is 310 (+100% AP). Even at the mimimum rank of both W and Q, you're still getting more healing per W: 120 (+-60% AP) on live and 122 (+100% AP) on the PBE. If you space out your W casts, you get more for your buck; if you spam it to make someone burst-immune, you get less.

With these changes, they've made Soraka better at dealing with a protracted poke war, in which she heals (and therefore Rejuvenates) multiple members of her team over time, but worse at dealing with burst.

Iqqi1 votes

{quoted}

Buff/Nerf. Soraka's passive/over time sustain seems to be higher, but she might not be able to sustain as hard against all-ins

This is it. With the amount of damage people can put it now. (ie) the insane amount of burst in this game. The HoT is completely pointless as it will never have enough time to heal enough to matter. Therefor making Soraka completely worthless. You could make her HoT heal 2000 damage over 8 seconds at lvl 18 with 6 items and it would still be completely worthless when you also consider what the damage output is at that point in the game. No one outside of some big tanks will be able to live long enough for this HoT to even matter.

Death to Soraka!

MisterHealYoGirl2 votes

Neither; it's just a change.

Best KhaZix Void1 votes

IDk why they're doing all this stupid bullshit when they can just revert the dumb ass GW change they made so she isn't 100% cancer and just leave it at that.

Jungle Lux God1 votes

I feel like it's intended for it to be a power neutral change that makes her much healthier and solidifies her role as the premier healing support. It's probably a nerf though because she can't heal herself as much while still healing her allies, but I guess that would be the intent of the change.

Fashion Mage1 votes

NEW EFFECT: If cast while affected by Rejuvenation, Soraka will replicate the Rejuvenation buff to the target ally, restoring an additional 30 / 45.5 / 64 / 85.5 / 115 (+ 30 / 35 / 40 / 45 / 50% AP) for a total heal of 110 / 155.5 / 204 / 255.5 / 315 (+ 90 / 95 / 100 / 105 / 110% AP).

Where did you get these values from? If these are true, the amount she'll heal with AP will be absurd. Might even justify the nerfs.

9L9L9L9L9L9L9L1 votes

[{quoted}](name=Fashion Mage,realm=EUW,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=aXIV5hXB,comment-id=0005,timestamp=2016-03-03T01:23:31.519+0000)

Where did you get these values from? If these are true, the amount she'll heal with AP will be absurd. Might even justify the nerfs.

I found it on Surrenderat20, just wanted to post this so I can hear your thoughts on these changes

Canidae1 votes

It's the base 60% AP plus the heal-over-time which heals for 10% AP for 3-5 seconds based on Q rank (so lowest is 90% or 60% plus 30% over 3 seconds and highest is 110% or 60% plus 50% over 5 seconds)

However, the original post's values aren't updated for what's going live. It'll actually be 122 / 166 / 212 / 260 / 310 plus the relative % AP ratios.

Br4ndon1 votes

I love how theyre willing to change her playstyle and rework her kit almost immediately after she becomes a popular ban and pick. While almost every other champion that goes through the same process just gets number nerfs.

I'd rather a under tuned and weak soraka than what theyre trying to do.

Water Breathing1 votes

The main point is to take power out of her W and place it in other aspects of her kit. Right now, Soraka's Q is literally useless because everything in her power budget is her W. They need to actually make Starcall a skill worth using, which is what this is aiming to do.

For those freaking out about the updated heal value that goes to 110% AP, its misleading because it is heal over time and not instant, does not stack or refresh with multiple heals, and is also reduced by ignite / GW

Billy VoHagen1 votes

Lane buff, team fight nerf. That's how I see it.

Canidae1 votes

I'd consider it a rework (despite popular opinion =w=). To be fair, this is coming from a player who alternates between copious amounts of AP or stats/hp regen on the LoL Cleric.

The major changes I'm seeing are the reduction to self-healing in combat and massive improvements in her ability to kite enemies and early game resource management. (like seriously? max rank Q reduced from 90 to 40 mana, granted maxing it first is sorta a "noob-trap" if U don't know what you're doing, but)

also some of those numbers aren't accurate https://twitter.com/ricklessabandon/status/705167515840696320

Xosra1 votes

Ok I am definitely happy they made it not take the buff off her. Still when this goes through i think i will try out an AP soraka who puts two point in W early then max Q and make her a sorta poke heal champ like Sona. With the reduced cost of Q and the healing over time she might be pretty decent with a Sona playstyle. The constant 50% slow it will give will be usefull at least.

FenrirStriker1 votes

Personnally I see it as a nerf and a change of her playstyle, because of those change we'll see a return of Mid raka as she should in theory have more over time substain then the enemy, if they really do intend to go whit those changes, they should also lower the health cost for her heals then.

Iqqi1 votes

Super nerf to Soraka. About to make her the least played support in the game.

Instead of actually being able to heal people, you just get a HoT. Which is completely worthless in game. The HoT's "rejuvenation" in no way supply health to a teammate fast enough for it to matter.

No one will play Soraka after these changes. The entire idea behind her will be completely gone.

Vanjie1 votes

They have spent nearly 8 months on this goat so they need to hurry up with it so they can work on someone else. Useless Riot games developers.

Sluiceway1 votes

Riot needs to stop messing around and just revert Soraka already. It is the enemy team's job to kill me, not mine. Especially since she is going to be hated by the enemy either way, they can at least please us Soraka players.

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