Future of our beloved/hated space goat Soraka

is problematic champion. There's no doubt about that. She had like 2 or 3 larger or smaller reworks. Some of them were good, others bad, but she never felt good, nor was balanced.

**Okay, so what's wrong? **

• uninteractive when playing with/against her
• playing with her/against her is really frustrating
• too reliant on her teammates/unable to hold her own
• feast or famine
• extremely low skill floor, very low skill ceiling

Okay, so she's uninteractive. What does that mean? Soraka is boring to play and its boring to play against her. It has something to do with my second point, but it's not the same. Right now her kit requires very little decision making or player input. her WER are instantaneous point-and-click, and her Q is unsatisfying with its variable delay/effects. She's reactive champion, she can't do anything resembling plays, she has to wait until her enemies do something. And when they do, she just spams her heal and prevents further trades, as her enemies lost HP in trade while she and her ADC didn't. This creates very passive and boring enviroment.

Playing with Soraka is... well, just stupid. You can't do anything because she doesn't provide any kind of support except occasional silence, which is soft CC. Again, its more reactive than proactive ability. Playing with her makes you stronger, sure, but it feels like you have just more HP than your opponents. Just because she can't do anything else. Her peel is non-existent, she's just health battery and ward bot. Playing solo against 2 people is NOT FUN. Playing against Raka sucks because she forces you to play defensively and keep back. You can't burst her down? Well, her ADC isn't going down as long she lives. You don't have healing support as well? Sucks for you, you auto-lose every trade where you don't kill someone. What's worse, can just fall back and recover her HP with pots/coin. Way out of danger, making her extremely obnoxious as you can't deal with her, unless you deep dive her while her ADC shoots at you the whole time. That's just stupid.

When she's alone i'd rather have extra super minion than Soraka in my team. She can't do anything useful alone, except when she buys Banner/ZZrot or something, but everyone can do that... Old Soraka could at least waveclear groups of minions with her Starcall and heal herself if needed... oh well, her Starcall is useless for anything else than laning. And it sucks at that as well :/ Her Astral Fusion is totally useless without a teammate, so yeah. Her R is just glorified heal. Only her Equinox does something when she's soloing, but thats one ability out of 5. Literally, super minion does more...

As i already mentioned, she's feast or famine. You either burst her down and obliterate her or she instawon that lane. Nobody can keep up with THAT amounts of healing. She's just roadblock, a damage check you need to pass. That's really bad... Also, her R only supports this, it's another damage check and stupid variable in teamfights.

Nearby ally has less than max HP and he can't heal on his own? Press E. Well done Soraka, you did well. Ally dying somewhere? Press R. Well done Soraka, you rock. Enemy coming dangerously close? Press W on them, so they wont. Seriously, even soft drink dispenser requires more input and decision making than Soraka...

**What could be better? **

• increase player input into playing her
• increase decision making difficulty when playing her
• make her less terrible in solo situations
• make her more engaging, both when playing her and when playing against her

First one is tricky. Healing should be reliable and powerful. Yet, it should be counterplayable, definitely not something targeted AND instantaneous AND global at the same time. She has room for 2 healing spells if needed... Healthiest (no pun intended) heal in league are Bard's shrines and Taric's new heal.

Decision making. This is somewhat included in her current kit but it's not perfected. She has to sacrifice herself in order to heal others. Nice idea. Her regen is balanced around this idea, so that she won't passively regen in the back line...except... its broken. She can bypass this by 2 major offenders: potions and Ancient Coin(+upgrades). basically adds +5.3 HP/5, +10.6 HP/5. All this when Soraka has only 2.5 base HP/5. This means HP regen alone on has value of at least 1200 gold for Soraka, as she would need more than 400% bonus hp regen to get that much from normal items. Potions suffer the same, basically, any flat healing is outright broken on her.

How to improve her solo capabilities? First, let her clear waves at least somewhat decently. She's beyond useless when she can't defend her own turret for few waves... She shouldn't be able to do it undefinitely, but her current state is just rubbish. Also, she needs more than 1 ability when playing solo... Janna and Sona are kinda similar, but both these girls can stand on their own. Its not perfect by any means, but its something. Every support can do this, except Raka... Other than that, ability to heal herself wouldn't hurt. Also, passive that does something when she's alone. Her damage against champions should be very restricted, so she can't be viable solo laner.

This one is tricky. How to make ADC play with his support the same way as support plays with his ADC? Make it so it's cooperation and not pokemon battle. There are ideas, and can show you some.

**My suggestions ** I'd like divide this into 2 groups: "soft" rework and large-scale rework.

Soft rework: Passive - Divine blood - Soraka can't get healed by normal means, such as potions or regeneration, only by direct heals from other champions. However, she can't draw minion aggro by attacking champions. Also, Soraka gains stacking AR/MR while channeling any spell. This buff lasts for 1/2/3 seconds after she stops. Soraka can cast and channel multiple spells at the same time.

Her Q stays the same, rejuvenation gets reversed back to flat healing she had before. E is the same, except that silence zone is tethered to her and she can maintain it for much longer time. She can press the ability after 1.5s again to cancel the channel, rooting enemies within. Soraka can move while channeling this spell. This adds serious zone control/decision making. Sealing off choke with long-lasting silence zone, capable of rooting enemies? Hell yeah! However she would need to stay close to do this, and increasing mana or even HP cost would offset its strengths.

New W. Something like this: Channeling "beam" healing, aka reversed friendly fire 's drain. Soraka gets hurt, but heals someone else over time. It has clear counterplay (CC her and its over), yet it could be so much powerful (the longer she channels the more she heals, much higher HPS, unlimited duration, high CD) and its much more obvious where the source of healing is (visible tether is easily identifiable). Easily balanceable as she would either need to go forward to heal allies in front line, exposing herself, or her allies would need to go back to her to get healed.

As for R, either keep Wish or give her something like large cleansing zone around her, which cleanses/prevents debuffs.

This solves her some of her problems while retaining parts of her old kit...

Large-scale rework

Passive: Divine Blood - Soraka gains bonus movement speed when near friendly champions. This bonus movement speed scales with their missing health. She can't be healed by normal means, such as potions or regeneration, only by direct heals from other champions. She can't draw minion aggro by attacking enemy champions. Aka, Soraka runs around damaged allies faster, not only towards them. This has huge synergy with her new kit.

Q - Starcall - Creates a delayed explosion (think of 's W). Enemy minions/pets in this area take damage, while champions hit are only slowed. When this ability hits champion or kills a minion, orb of healing energy is created. This orb moves towards Soraka, and she can absorb it to reset this ability's CD and restore her health. Ally champions can intercept this orb and they get healed instead, but CD is not refunded. So, this gives her waveclear (by resetting its CD if absorbed by herself), utilizes MS from her passive (for dancing around allies and delivering orbs to right targets). It requires some skill to hit, and to give that orb to her ally. It also allows her to heal even when no enemy champions are present (by killing minions with it). It's healing is much better than her W's, as it doesn't cost her health.

W - Starlight - Vladimir's Tides of blood which heals instead of dealing damage. Slower charge, longer range and HP cost/healing scales with both %HP used and AP. It would have base heal value, based off AP, multiplied by HP spent. Its heal could increase drastically with % of her max HP spent, like +5% healing per 1% HP used, so fully charged would heal 250% base AP value. Also, the longer she channels the larger zone she covers, but she's also vulnerable to CC while charging. _Synergises perfecly with her passive, as she would need really good positioning. Also fits thematically, she becomes the star she really is ;) _

E - Equinox - could stay the same

R - no idea? Suggestions please?

Feel free to comment :)