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Feedback on the New Soraka

MungoGeri·11/6/2014, 7:57:58 PM·1 votes·934 views

Thank-you, Riot, for the new Soraka. I've played her in over 100 low gold/high silver ranked games and have thoroughly enjoyed playing her. This update made her what I had always wanted -- a true support who is devastating in her support role but weak if she's on her own. When I'm playing her well, she's truly a "force multiplier" that the enemy team has to contend with. However, I do have some feedback to give on her that I think would make her more enjoyable to play while not affecting her balance too much:

  1. First, a quality of life change. Please make it so that her W heal can only affect friendly champions. I can't tell you how many times I have mistakenly healed a minion during a fast moving fight while we're running through a crowd of minions.

  2. Second, could you make the range on her W heal a little bit longer? I understand that the small range on her heal is part of the balance of her character -- forcing her to be close to the fight in order for her to heal effectively. But, it's just a little too close right now -- especially if you're trying to heal someone who's jumped into the middle of the fray. Could you add just like 50 range to the spell?

  3. The self heal that Soraka gets from her Q is not very much. Of course I maximize her W heal ability first (which increases the self heal from Q) and yet still her self-heal from her Q is extremely small. It takes 3-4 Q hits to make up for the health cost from a single cast of W on an ally. Plus, in the laning phase, you're likely to get in range of enemy harassment damage when you try to shoot your Q on an enemy, so the net gain in health is usually 0 or negative. Could you increase the base self heal on the Q a bit?

  4. It's hard to hit an enemy with a Q unless the enemy is standing still and occupied with some other task. The reason is that its radius is so small and the enemy gets so much warning that if they're moving at all, there's almost a 0 percent chance that they will actually take the hit. If you aim the Q where the player currently is, then the enemy just has to keep moving in the direction they were going and easily avoid where the Q will land. If you aim the Q in front of the enemy, hoping to hit them where they will be, then the enemy can see the big warning circle in front of them and simply stop to let the Q fall harmlessly in front of them. Assuming that increasing the Q's radius would be too unbalancing, I have two suggestions: a) Make Starcall's delay shorter. b) Give less warning time to the enemy that the Starcall is coming.

Thank-you for reading. I hope you found this feedback helpful.

4 Comments

Siachi11/6/2014, 8:06:06 PM2 votes

Well I think they're experimenting with a W buff range, and they talked about maybe 'standardizing' the Q's missile speed so it might be a buff at longer ranges (So easier to hit at long ranges), but a nerf at shorter ranges. But I'm not sure if they're going to do anything with that.

And I actually kind of like that W affects minions, but really only because if I find myself having to split push (I end up in a solo lane, or the guy I THOUGHT would have been an ADC turned out to be a f*cking IP-grinding Bot), I can rush a Banner of Command and keep the one super-powered minion alive long enough for the tower to fall.

But that's a very specific scenario, and probably shouldn't dictate whether or not that aspect of Astral Infusion is kept or not.

Rikirie11/6/2014, 8:59:01 PM1 votes

Oh dear yes! Her W is what made me stop using her, I have to breath down their neck to be able to get a heal off. It's a little too close for a healer who is giving her own HP and has to be near the front lines!

Quacker211/6/2014, 9:02:36 PM1 votes

The only thing I agree with is the heal range extension (around 5- as you said). I think that she is fine where she is now. Her heal should be minion-targetable because there are some situations where healing minions is effective in pushing and sieging. The heal-effect on the starcall is alright in my opinion. This skill alone makes trades very favorable for Soraka in the long run and it lets her bully-out other poke supports without a heal such as Janna and Lulu. If you can hit starcall twice then you practically refund the hp cost. Buffing the heal would make mid Soraka more tempting I feel and its not where Soraka belongs. The hitbox and missile speed is just right for me. It gives enough time for a well-aware adc to sidestep it, but a delayed-adc a guaranteed hit. The slow is a nice incentive to aim for the bullseye as well. I might argue shes one of the most "balanced" supports at the moment.