Morello was perfectly right on why Soraka should not exist

I remember being on the TF2 forums when he said this. It was hilarious how many people called Morello an idiot for commenting on balance in a game he had no experience with.

LOL shittalking the Medic in TF2, the most appreciated class that brings the most depth and adaptive playstyles just because he is simply more capable of winning a game thanks to how much a good Medic can do. That in addition to this post's RELEASE DATE. I actually remember this post despite all the time that passed, Morello made himself look like a fool with his primitive perspective on the Medic. Soraka IS the Medic, except she can't play aggressively after laning phase and while her heals are massive, she is ultimately incapable to save her squishy carries from the LETHALITY meta. I'm not surprised Soraka is so bad because a point and click 500+ health still won't be to enough because just about any assassin can instantly 100-0 a squishy.

Do note that they found a way for her to exist though. But otherwise he is completely correct.

Healers on the whole are a very difficult class for game balance, yes, but they actually did a very good job on Soraka. Her heals, while usable frequently, drain her own health to heal up allies, making her very susceptible to being blown up the moment someone so much as sneezes on her. She has the lowest base health regeneration stat in the game at level one and second lowest at level 18 (Mordekaiser is the only one with worse) and relies on hitting a skillshot to help her regenerate the health she loses. This skillshot can be easily dodged at long ranges but is easier to hit closer up, but close up is also where her enemies can nuke her off the face of the planet and the small heal boost she gets from her Q isn't going to save her. While it doesn't necessarily fit thematically with Soraka to burn her own health to heal allies, it's the healthiest way they can have a healer in league since she actually has to interact with her opponents if she wants to continue healing. The most aggravating part of her was her laning phase, where she could pretty much nullify any poke to her ADC and all-inning was a dubious task due to her low-CD heal, but they fixed that too by doubling the heal cooldown early on while maintaining her late-game healing rate. As far as healers go, Soraka is among the healthiest designs out there.

Well, healers per se aren't a problem. It's how you implement them and how the game works that can make or unmake them.

I will take World of Warcraft as example because of my experience with it. Especially in Vanilla WoW (aka the time period when WoW was new, no expansions) the PvP scene was entirely set in Battlegrounds which had teams of, respectively, 5, 15 and 40 men facing eachother. It was never a death match, the smalles bracket was a "Capture the flag" match, the 15 men competed for control points that awarded resources with the first team reaching a cap winning and the last was a large battlefield where you had to destroy the enemies' outposts and finally killing their main boss (which is the most similar to a "MOBA" kind of match).

Healers were not rare and had a major role in all scenarios. Leaving "perfect balance" aside we can stay that having healers in these matches was not a problem and instead enriched the gameplay.

But why? Simply because of how healers work in that game: Healing spells had cast times that could be pushed back or entirely interrupted (plus they needed to stand still while casting keeping the line of sight with who they wanted to heal), mana did matter before you had the good amount of gear (not a problem in LoL imo) and the one of them that had high healing spells didn't have AoE disables if not on long CDs or just as a "Oh fck!" button. Also, not every class and character had access to self healing/sustain and that meant that their HP bars should be managed and not just replenished.

Now, I'm well aware that most of those things can't be added to LoL as they are but revisitng the "Healer" concept and maybe strike down a lot of today's self sustain might bring a lot of things in balance.

One more flaw of the genera high self healing (life steal, self sustain, etc.) is that Burst Damage ends up either being a sure kill or totally irrilevant because leaving an enemy at 10-20% hp just leaves him/her a chance to heal back nearly instantly.

A champion will never be 100% erased from the game.

A champion may be reworked to the point that their appearance, their history, and ALL of their abilities are entirely replaced and the original champion itself is virtually lost to time. But they will retain their name and whatever Riot defines as the champion's supposed identity.

Soraka's identity, from my point of understanding, is that she is a force for good who dedicates her existence to the aid of mortals and wishes no harm to befall anyone.

Her place, therefore, is a field medic. Why is it that she goes around damaging enemies just to restore her own health? That isn't a "medic". That is a life-sucking vampire. She's no angel. Soraka, from what I have seen, is just a succubus. Silencing enemies and holding them still while she literally drains the life out of them and invites her allies to partake in some sadistic orgy.