@SmashGizmo: Please nerf the frustrating parts of Soraka's kit, not the fun ones!

Soraka main here. I'm not highly ranked, but I'm also not a complete potato, and I'd like to make a request regarding the nerfs that she's slotted to receive over on the PBE.

I won't argue that she needs them - her win rate's gone up with the latest mini rework that was designed to be power neutral, so a nerf is clearly in order. No disagreements there. What I'd like to request is that the part of her kit that's infuriating to play against get looked at, rather than the skill-based part that leaves windows of vulnerability open.

The problem, as I see it, is as follows: When Soraka moves forward to trade, she's rewarded by getting a larger heal (thanks to the heal over time effect from Rejuvenation), a burst of lane pressure (thanks to the movement speed buff from Rejuvenation, the toughness buff from Windspeaker's, and the damage buff from Ardent Censer), and health from the Rejuvenation effect itself. She also opens herself to getting poked down some or even engaged on, as her Q range, while decent, isn't as long as many support and ADC abilities.

That's all fine and dandy. Opening oneself to risk should carry some reward, otherwise it feels really lousy.

The problem comes up when she starts to lose.

Because healing doesn't inherently involve the enemy, just allies, there's no reason for her to expose herself to risk. To combat that, her healing costs her a hard-to-generate resource (health), and her kit is put together in such a way as to make the best way to recover said resource involve interacting with the enemy. The issue arises when she can gain health back without interacting with the enemy.

Enter , , , , and to a lesser degree .

These items provide some impressive levels of lane sustain. A nomad's medallion acquired at level three, for example, grants nearly twelve hundred gold worth of health regeneration to Soraka. This drops over time, of course, since her base health regeneration increases with level and the coin items do not, but it's still a very powerful health restoration item for her.

A Soraka with FQC and a quarter of her health left has a choice: She can try to go land a starcall, potentially granting the enemy a kill, but also potentially putting her back into a safe level of health to stay in lane. Or she can back, deny the enemy a kill, but leave her ADC alone and lose out on experience. She'll also be constantly skirmishing in order to capitalize on the gold income granted by the item.

If she has nomad's medallion, other other hand, things are different. She hugs the tower, takes advantage of the insane levels of health restoration and large effective radius it has to gain back a quarter of her maximum health with some minion deaths, and then goes back to doing what she was doing. The enemy can't poke her when she's hiding behind her turret, and watching a nearly dead enemy laner recover health by just twiddling their thumbs is super frustrating.

That's not really fun for anybody, and a big part of what people complain about when they have to lane against Soraka. It's not "she makes her ADC too powerful" it's "nothing I do matters, and even if I do hit her and she doesn't hit me, she just hides under turret and gets all her health back."

So please. Don't nerf the parts of her kit that reward her for skirmishing. Nerf the parts of her kit that reward her for not skirmishing.

Thank you,

• Krinu