@Vesh, Let's Talk Soraka!

Hey!

I know you have some plans or Soraka in the works right now, I'd like to give you some extra feedback before you go through with any changes. Generally, I feel Soraka is in a very good place right now. She is a pretty good solo queue pick, and she is INSANELY GOOD in ranked 5s (I literally spammed her to challenger 5s).

Soraka's kit rework is, I feel, the best designed gameplay rework for any champion we have seen so far. Not only did you preserve all the values of Soraka players, but you created a healthy, fun, and most importantly very unique gameplay pattern that is totally new to League. You made it work. Her kit is fucking fun to play. Weaving between topping up your team mates and making sure you don't get 1 hit by some AoE is insanely fun, and takes so much skill from the Soraka player.

When I pick Soraka, I have a clear purpose in mind with my team composition, and I have a reason for picking her. Unlike when I play Janna, Nami, or Sona, who can literally be picked into anything, Soraka has a specific use case - heal up your team mates. That's all she does, and she's damn good at it.

On top of this, she has tools available that allow her to get some vision coverage and disengage/disruption within a team fight, but they are not overwhelming at all for her opponents to deal with.

Starcall

Whoever made this spell give vision, you are a fucking awesome person. Part of Soraka's old identity was knowing if a threat was near by, because her starcall would be available to cast. Giving this spell vision captures that same identity, but creates more gameplay around it. It's a tool she can use to ward safely.

On top of that, the sweet-spot mechanic is very niche, but very nice to have. It feels good when you score it every now and then, and doesn't feel bad at all for not landing. It's more of a bonus than anything, and it feels that way.

I have two criticisms for Starcall.

**-Please normalize the projectile speed. **It's insanely slow at max range, and kind of annoying to land. On top of that, the speed at which it falls in melee range throws me off more than it helps me.

If you choose to normalize the rate, I would expect these to happen as well:

-Cooldown increased, as it'll be easier to land now.

-Projectile speed isn't necessarily the half way point between max and min range of live. I'd prefer it to actually be slightly higher than that. It's a very powerful spell if landed on multiple targets.

-Please add some AP Scaling to her slow value. I like utility scaling a lot, and this just seems like it's missing on her kit.

While I have seen some complaints about the projectile speed of the heal particle, it doesn't bother me too much. I think the main reason players want it sped up is when they are low and need it to survive. Maybe we could increase the projectile speed based on how much health Soraka is missing? I am otherwise indifferent on how you handle the healing projectile speed.

Astral Infusion

Fucking. Well. Done.

This spell will literally kill you while saving your team mates. In a team fight, I find myself <10% HP almost every time, yet I didn't actually take any damage from my opponents. I was just healing up everybody.

I DISAGREE HEAVILY WITH INCREASING THE RANGE OF THIS SPELL!

That puts Soraka in much too safe of a position to heal up her team mates. She needs to be exposed, she has to risk going in or not. She has to have the potential to just die to an AoE spell if she spams this spell. It's her weakness. Please, do not increase the range of it. If anything, lower it slightly and put that power elsewhere in her kit.

If you give me 100 more range, I can safely heal up my bruisers in a team fight and that is way too good. Please, leave the range as low as it is. It's very well done.

The numbers are great, the cooldown is well thought out, and the cost is very appropriate. If you were looking to buff soraka slightly, I'd probably reduce the mana cost very slightly to 20/23/26/29/32. I do feel that the mana gate is necessary however, so don't ever remove it.

Otherwise, please leave this spell alone. Increasing the range is not how you help Soraka. Keep her exposed, give her the tools required to stay alive, leave it up to the player's mastery to execute it correctly.

Equinox

Again, beautiful spell. It has INSANE utility. Ridiculous. It fits on her kit amazingly well too, an AoE silence zone that ends with a root. This spell can be devastating in team fights, but it has to be placed well. It's her only escape tool, and without it she is assassin fodder. I shit you not, a fizz could literally press Q on me and I'd just die there and then. Without good use of Equinox, Soraka is trash.

I do not feel that this spell needs any changes. The damage, zone size, durations are all great. The cooldown is high enough early games that she has to really think about when to use it. Mana cost is fine, root duration scaling is totally fine. In a team fight, she has two ways she can use it. Combo it with other AoE spells for a wombo, or use it to peel for herself/ADC. Choosing who to silence will decide the team fight, it's very rare that you'll get a 5 man silence.

I love the counterplay to this spell, too. Players very quickly learn to not stand on that zone. The root doesn't actually proc very often in my games because it's just so easy to walk off the area, but it's absolutely devastating if used as chain CC. Soraka actually has to use it to support her team mates! HELL YES SUPPORT KIT IS ACTUALLY SUPPORTING.

Seriously though, great spell. Well done.

Wish

Not too much to say about this. It's Soraka's panic button. She's low, her team is low, they all have grevious wounds on them, everyone is losing hope and then suddenly Soraka changes the team fight.

Because it pretty much has to be used in combat (unless you want to burn a powerful spell to stay in lane for another 30 seconds), it's totally awesome that it's burst heal without any sort of targetting required. Removing grevious wounds gives her a way to deal with that insane hard counter, but the cooldown is high enough that she has to fight through grevious wounds at time.

My only criticism of this spell is that her heal is only boosted via an arbitrary threshold. I find myself thinking "Okay, wait for everybody to get <40% HP so I can get full use of this spell", and then suddenly someone gets bursted down below 40% while the rest of my team is all above half, and I feel like I have to suboptimally use my ultimate.

That's my biggest issue. Suboptimal use of wish is pretty much guaranteed. It's not the same situation as starcall where the boost feels like a bonus. The boost feels like all its power, and it feels like total shit to use her ult and then think "wow, if I had waited two more seconds for my team to drop a little lower, we would have won that fight".

Before I can really comment on a fix, I'd like to know why a flat threshold was chosen, and why the "1% per 1% missing" was abandoned. This is something I'd like to discuss, as I really don't like the idea of a specific number that makes your spell 50% better.

Salvation

Hilariously well done. Bananambulance is the greatest passive I have ever seen. Totally thematic, great synergy with her W's low range.

The only annoyance I have with this is, when I'm walking towards someone who forces me to take a curve-ish path, I lose the passive benefit for a second or two. I totally understand why that happens (it would create weird optimizations of utilizing her passive to get away), I just wish there was some work around for it. Maybe it's also something we can discuss.

Those are all my points.

TL;DR

-Normalize Starcall projectile speed, but not to whatever is half way between fastest and slowest. Preferably a little slower than that point. -Increase cooldown of Starcall as it'll be easier to land. We don't want her to be an oppressive laner. -Give her Q's slow some AP scaling. -Do not increase the range of her heal. -Equinox is awesome. -Wish feels suboptimal to use majority of the time, threshold mechanic is kind of annoying. -Salvation is hilarious, kind of sucks when your pathing causes you to face away from your ally.

9.8/10 rework. Thank you for all the effort you put into this kit. I can't imagine how many iterations you went through, but you definitely nailed this rework.