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Soraka and the toxicity of strong healing mechanics.

Secretlolz··4 votes·733 views

After the changes to how GW work, the incorporation of viable AP builds for supports, the addition to masteries that empower healing mechanics and a game that focuses much more on quick deaths and fast games, Soraka is having a blast.

All the things previously mentioned made her incredbly powerful, for a champion that focuses on negating plays, kills and overall interaction, I'm surprised she isn't up for some heavy changes.

Right now Soraka can heal up for so much, and provide so much Effective HP due to the Keystone mastery on the cunning tree, that she vastly outclasses any other support in terms of providing all members of her team with survival. Of course, she can't make flashy saves like Alistar, Thresh or Janna could, but that is the worst part, because she generally performs much better than them, currently sitting at 52.45% win ratio on champion.gg, 9th spot among supports, I'm waiting for the updated statics for these last 3 days, but I wouldn't be surprised to see her higher.

I play on Diamond IV, usually either team's first ban is Soraka. And if she isn't banned, she gets picked pretty fast, like if she was Lee Sin or Vayne.

If all this isn't ringing bells for anyone idk what to say. And yes, I know there are nerfs for her already, but, are they nerfing the actual problem?

11 Comments

IcyPepper4 votes

Of course, she can't make flashy saves like Alistar, Thresh or Janna could, but that is the worst part, because she generally performs much better than them, currently sitting at 52.45% win ratio on champion.gg, 9th spot among supports,

Now, win rates don't mean everything, but I'm just going to say the eight supports above her (one being Janna, btw) are four mages (two with heals, one with disengage, one with mostly damage and some cc), and four tanks (two hard engage, one just sheer cc for disengage/engage, one with heal and cc). Now, gonna be honest, that's not bad for diversity.

I'm going to say that Soraka, imo, is not toxic. She just plays differently, and makes for a different playstyle against her. You would play differently against a Leona and Blitzcrank than you would against a Janna or Nami. If she's a bit overtuned due to the masteries, I'm fine with a nerf, but I wouldn't consider her toxic just because she forces you into a different playstyle like, well, basically any support ever.

I mean, Blitzcrank can land one Q to secure a kill, but general consensus is that he's frustrating, but relatively balanced(?). Do you consider him toxic? He's picked more and has a higher winrate at the time I'm typing this, as well as forcing people to play a different playstyle. Wouldn't that make him equally, if not more, toxic than Soraka?

She's unique. Let her heals be the strong aspect of her kit, and tone her down if she's overtuned, but I wouldn't consider her toxic.

magic pole1 votes

nah because blitz actually takes skill. his Q is extremely telegraphed, part of the skill is making it not be so telegraphed. and if he misses the Q you can usually punish him

soraka, on the the other hand, takes little skill. she is a very uninteractive champion. she makes trades pointless, and she will hide way in the back throwing out Q's and waiting for the health regen masteries and possibly runes to kick in. Im not saying she's OP but this "uninteractive" kit where she just keeps her distance and out heals every trade is toxic for her opponents

IcyPepper2 votes

Man, the number of times I've heard this...

sighs

I'm guessing no matter what I say, you're going to stick with what you think, right? I mean, you opened up with a biased statement, and a big part of this is mostly up to opinion in the first place.

Do you want to agree to disagree and leave it at that, or are you up for actual discussion?

magic pole1 votes

yeah, I've played against her enough times to consider her toxic, not OP. but look at the incoming nerfs. and if you've heard it so many times, theres probably some truth to it no?

she forces bot lane to be a farm lane unless junglers intervene (which, honestly, i don't even mind. I suck at laning relative to other adcs at my elo, probably because adc is my worst role and i don't play it much, but i excel post-lane and during team fights. so i don't mind being forced to farm and not trade, but it still feels oppressive that she so harshly limits your options and play in lane).

while yes other supports can force you to play a certain way (e.g. blitz makes you respect his presence and position behind minions...braum is hard to all in so you tend to go for trades instead...etc)...no support really does this to the extent that soraka does imo. THERE IS NO TRADING against a competent soraka player.

again not saying she's op but these reasons are why people ban the shit out of her, why she feels toxic to play against, and why she is getting nerfed.

how bout you read your post and pretend i said it. goes both ways eh

Also, let me add this: here's one of the nerfs on PBE

Star Call (Q) range reduced to 800 from 950

THIS right here demonstrates what I'm talking about. This nerf means she has to take more risk if she wants to regen some HP. It gives her opponents more of a window where they can punish her, as opposed to live. She can't stand behind all her minions and still hit Q's with this.

Penguin Eclipse1 votes

[{quoted}](name=magic pole,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=bzm7ejjO,comment-id=0000000000000000,timestamp=2015-11-27T04:44:13.665+0000)

yeah, I've played against her enough times to consider her toxic, not OP. but look at the incoming nerfs. and if you've heard it so many times, theres probably some truth to it no?

she forces bot lane to be a farm lane unless junglers intervene (which, honestly, i don't even mind. I suck at laning relative to other adcs at my elo, probably because adc is my worst role and i don't play it much, but i excel post-lane and during team fights. so i don't mind being forced to farm and not trade, but it still feels oppressive that she so harshly limits your options and play in lane).

while yes other supports can force you to play a certain way (e.g. blitz makes you respect his presence and position behind minions...braum is hard to all in so you tend to go for trades instead...etc)...no support really does this to the extent that soraka does imo. THERE IS NO TRADING against a competent soraka player.

again not saying she's op but these reasons are why people ban the shit out of her, why she feels toxic to play against, and why she is getting nerfed.

how bout you read your post and pretend i said it. goes both ways eh

She doesn't feel toxic she is the very definition of toxic. Back-line healing without interaction was what Soraka wasn't supposed to be able to do after the rework and it is exactly what she is doing. Her heal was balanced around not being able to do that.

magic pole1 votes

thanks. you managed to condense my posts into 1 sentence.

IcyPepper2 votes

Meh, I'm fine with the Q nerf. I hope they adjust the missile speed, because that things feels harder to land than a Blitz's Q at times, and considering that her W costs health... ya know.

Although I figured that as long as you dodge her Q, you eventually outtrade her due to her W health cost. Unless she has assloads of health pots in the early game, she's got to run out of health eventually (and since she doesn't deal much damage at all by herself, someone like Lulu should be able to beat her eventually).

But, while she's slightly overtuned (if we went by pick/win rate, she's roughly equal with Blitzcrank on both), I'd rather her get a power shift rather than just straight nerfs. Make some of her skills more interesting to use, I guess.

But, just to level with you, between you and me her ult's strong, but kind of boring. Great when you have map awareness, and the high cooldown [looking at you Mister 30 second ult cooldown >:(]. Shame that so many champions are in line for a rework, because she could use a Gangplank level rework.

magic pole1 votes

I agree, her Q is very hard to land, kind of like Zilean Q. It's just that at the moment there is almost no risk associated with casting the spell, and that is the problem; it's very difficult to punish her Q cast since she can cast them from inside her minion wave.

The Q nerf is a good start, but i'd be fine with a missile speed increase alongside the reduced range. Guess we'll see how it plays out. It's weird. she doesn't feel particularly powerful outside of lane, yet she is a very common ban (kind of like yasuo).

Luckily i think she might be easier to balance than Blitz. His entire kit revolves around 1 skillshot. Miss it? he's trash. Can you land every one ? Then he is fucking OP. ... and she kinda already got that GP level rework which leaves us where we are now. Personally id like to see her power shifted a bit from lane to post lane. She's pretty damn easy to assassinate once you're grouped up.

as it stands, all 3 nerfs on PBE are direct nerfs. Straight up nerfs, no power shift, just nerfs. idk if that is the best course of adjustment. Seems like then she might just become forgotten. But that fact that she might eat a nerf to 3 of her abilities is pretty nuts. Just goes to show how unbalanced she is atm.

Erockandroll2 votes

{quoted}

She's unique. Let her heals be the strong aspect of her kit, and tone her down if she's overtuned, but I wouldn't consider her toxic.

Riot has mentioned before that they found Burst healing to be toxic. (But I wouldn't know anything about that. I don't see raka in my Elo.) But if an ADC can buy 20% LS, and Juggernauts can get Warmorgs, I would call BS on Support healing.

I'm not entirely sure, but she does seem unique. In the sense that her Healing works best with a more, self sufficient ADC who can strut their power with the borrowed health. (Thinking along the lines of a lane bully like Graves, or possibly Draven.)

IcyPepper2 votes

I don't recall the exact source, but a dedicated healer is a pain in the ass to balance, Soraka will likely be the only healing-focused support in the game.

But still, that sucks with the whole LS thing. It's not fair a support's power gets reduced because LS is stronger (well, maybe, it just doesn't feel fair, like an ADC getting nerfed because a support item is powerful) :< But eh, if that means she can see some power shifts I wouldn't mind more focus on her Q or E.

Penguin Eclipse1 votes

{quoted}

I don't recall the exact source, but a dedicated healer is a pain in the ass to balance, Soraka will likely be the only healing-focused support in the game.

But still, that sucks with the whole LS thing. It's not fair a support's power gets reduced because LS is stronger (well, maybe, it just doesn't feel fair, like an ADC getting nerfed because a support item is powerful) :< But eh, if that means she can see some power shifts I wouldn't mind more focus on her Q or E.

If there is one thing I have learned other the past several years it is that lifesteal is probably one of the trickiest and hardest mechanics to predict which direction it will take and how it will impact balance. It seems so simple. Build a lifesteal item when you need it and you are good to go. But it's not. Changes made to lifesteal almost never produce the results you think they will.

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