Honestly, I'm terrible with the new her, so I don't have much to say besides the fact that it sucks that she needs to buy sightstone but loses health when she heals someone.
Also, her Q seems rather meh and very hard to land.
PurpleWii3 votesShort answer: She's very niche. but she works. Honestly, there are better picks than her even in her niche environments, but she works, and that's good enough for me.
Long answer: Soraka is basically a utility mage. What I mean by this is you build AP(
, 
, you name it just don't forget your 
) and that's how you get the most out of your abilities. You are pretty much forced to do this because:
Your W scales with your maximum HP; no about of health,armor,MR, whatever is going to stop you from killing yourself, and your health regen is garbage. The only way you can keep yourself alive is by healing lost HP by hitting Q's. The health you get from Q is a flat number that scales with the % of HP you're missing, but falls off hard later into the game. Building AP keeps the number respectable and gives you hidden durability.
You want to use your W as much as possible; If you're building CDR (and you will build CDR), you're going to kill yourself VERY quickly. At the same time, you're getting more use of your Q more often, which lets you potentially restore any lost HP, but as I said above the base numbers are very low; so you want to abuse the strong AP ratio by building AP.
3)You want to get the most out of every W cast More AP=stronger heals=More health restored per health lost from casting the ability in the first place.
and 4)**If you don't build AP, Your healing gets outpaced/falls off very quickly.Your healing stops scaling at level 9, and the enemy carries are building damage until they hit 6 items. **
Some things you want to know about Soraka when picking her would be the following:
Does my team have 1-2(or more) champions that armor/ resist stack? Tanks like 
and 
love to build armor and Magic resist, meaning that healing is EXTREMELY effective on them since it's,well, external Health. Your heals get extra mileage on these champions and drastically increases their durability!
Does my team have champions that can give me space to "work my magic"? When I say this, I'm talking about champions that can hold the line for Soraka so that she can stand behind them and safely heal. Basically anything that's durable and limits what people can do through CC. Again, Tanks like 
and
are good walls for Soraka to keep her squishy body behind while she does work.
Finally:
**Does the Enemy have "exploitable threats"? ** This is more of a varied topic, but Soraka "counters" quite a few champions. I'm not saying you should auto pick her when these champions come up, but she does well against them.
is just an example. Irelia's passive is quite redundant against Soraka because her E is a field that is consistently on Irelia, and her main way of keeping her teammates alive is through healing, not crowd control.Most top laners are also taking 
, so they won't be able to shut you out, or make you waste your Ultimate with 
That's about all I have to say, If you have any questions, don't be afraid to ask!
Pandemic Punch2 votesI am still crying over the rework. Pre-rework Soraka had my highest win-rate while being played as a support :-(. Good times.
FantasySniper2 votesBuilding her right is easy - just never build defense outside of SS, Visage, or Banner. Playing her right is harder - positioning and poking being the defining factors.
Her viability is definitely there, but you have to pick her for the right match-ups and compositions.
Aurora Donn1 votesImo she's alright. I find her more fun to play now because the "Heals on Wheels" thing and running around saving your team's life can be pretty satisfying. But the downside is that if the other 4 people on your team aren't going to be doing that much dmg anyway your heals aren't actually going to make much of a difference.
I like to build some AP/support items on her and then throw in a Warmogs(to sustain her own health and stay in combat to heal your team and not have to back) and a static shiv just to be able to wave clear when everyone else is too busy fighting to notice the MASSIVE wave pushing bot base turret....
Her aoe silence/snare if they stay in it is pretty neat and that skill alone can shut down many assassins that dive your carry. She's... interesting, but I wouldn't consider her influence on the game as a whole to be as powerful as say... a blitz hooking an out of position target or an alistair ulting and diving and cc'ing the enemy team for an engage etc. but that might just be because I don't really find simply restoring health to be that effective of a way to save your team.... the newly reworked ardent censer 
might be able to help a bit with buffing your allies.
OverpoweredSoap1 votesShe just seems so.
Lackluster, I mean she's good at healing, but she seems so terrible at everything else.
zane yalgir1 votesShe just seems so.
Lackluster, I mean she's good at healing, but she seems so terrible at everything else.
i remember that gjs and O_o my tele heal pre reowrk raka got.
i have this "fuck i gotta relearn how to make this work? fuck that " feeling
Water Breathing1 votesI've been spamming quite often in normals and I honestly say she is a bit sleeper at the moment (in my opinion)
She does seem very underwheming on paper, but she is probably one of the best if not the best support in 2v2 and 3v3 skirmishes.
If you have really good positioning, you can get a ton of heals off without being in danger.
BUT, a lot of people do not build AP and instead focus on regen. Warmogs isn't necessarily bad on Soraka, but it is not an item you build every game on her. I always max W-E-Q, or Q-W-E if I feel like poking (not often).
HER E IS AMAZING, I don't think people realize just how good it is. It shuts down soooooo many things and is amazing zone control. It is really powerful if used correctly.
Reikken1 votesshe's REALLY strong in the right team comp heals on a bruiser is OP pair with another healer for epic cheese
Karcist1 votesI'm just disappointed that her shocking banana build was ruined now that her Q doesn't reduce MR for epic damage on statikk shiv