Dealing with Soraka in Lane

So, a little bit ago I laned against a Draven + Blitzcrank as Varus + Soraka. They really didn't know how to deal with the Soraka in lane and allowed me to get fed off of that, so I just wanted to quickly talk about different ways you can deal with her.

First off, what they did. Any time the Blitz wanted to engage a lane fight, he would pull and combo the Soraka, and then he and Draven would focus her. Soraka and I would then focus our damage onto the Draven and he would die before Soraka did, and the blitz would then either keep going to try to finish the Soraka and give me a double kill or run back to his turret and live.

Now, they always say to focus the Soraka, but if you do that, her ADC will just kill you, like what happened there. With the nerfs to Soraka's heal cooldown, it now being 10 seconds at rank 1, I think it would be better to focus the ADC, especially if you rush Phantom Dancer, like this Draven did (he said it was his first time playing Draven). The heal is still balanced around being spammed, so despite its long early cooldown, it's still a fairly small heal in the earlier ranks especially. And since she'll typically only get to use it once in a lane fight now, focusing the ADC isn't a bad idea. The final thing is to just not even fight the enemy bot lane at all. Sit there and farm. They have no way to engage on you and Soraka lanes are typically susceptible to jungle ganks, so farm, get a gank or 2, and kill them there to start to get fed.

The other thing is build. Like I mentioned above, the Draven in that game rushed Phantom Dancer. I would personally recommend that, any time you are against a Soraka, you rush Executioner's Calling and then go into your normal build. It delays your first big powerspike by 800 gold, which is quite a lot in the early game unless you're getting fed, but the Grievous Wounds will let you focus the enemy ADC even more than the heal cooldown nerf, even as the cooldown drops to its original 2 seconds. 40% of Soraka's heal being knocked off is a lot, and makes her very easy to deal with in lane fights. Just ignore her. She does minimal damage and, when you have Executioner's Calling, her heal is basically useless, so she just ceases to be a factor in lane fights at that point.

Finally, champion picks. If you want to do more than just survive lane against Soraka, you want people with burst. As aforementioned, her heal cooldown is up to 10 seconds at rank 1. Draven + Blitz is honestly a lane that should've won if they played it correctly. Other good picks would be Caitlyn + Blitz (Cait places trap at Blitz's feet, Blitz pulls, enemy gets trapped, boom headshot), Lucian, Brand, Blitzcrank in general, Annie, basically anyone who can kill a target quickly.