Sadly it makes rise to a new issue that she has a 40mana aoe slow with a really low cooldown that heals her. (Just for your information an ez Q costs 30. This is really dirt cheap.) But there is MORE! You get alignment buff and can apply it to your ally as well! I really have a bad feeling about this. If her winrate grows or something I bet reworking her again will be inevitable
Iqqi3 votesI have not played the new Soraka yet. But I have plenty of games on the old Soraka. Basically if you were smart you built her like a tank, you stayed well back to make sure it was never you who got engaged on, and you kept your ADC alive through the lane phase. If you did all of this you transitioned into team fights as a huge beast.
There was little room for outplay or the ability to shut you down in lane. If the enemy team tried to play like a kill lane with a Leona or a Blitz. As long as you were not dumb and put yourself in a position to get griped or engaged on. You survived the lane and they fell off. This change wasn't about "making Soraka interactive" by making her use her Q. It was about making her have to come out from 50 yards behind the ADC and put herself into some vulnerable positions.
In the end I think these changes are a buff to skilled Soraka players, and a nerf to bad ones.
Erockandroll1 votesI have not played the new Soraka yet. But I have plenty of games on the old Soraka. Basically if you were smart you built her like a tank, you stayed well back to make sure it was never you who got engaged on, and you kept your ADC alive through the lane phase. If you did all of this you transitioned into team fights as a huge beast.
There was little room for outplay or the ability to shut you down in lane. If the enemy team tried to play like a kill lane with a Leona or a Blitz. As long as you were not dumb and put yourself in a position to get griped or engaged on. You survived the lane and they fell off. This change wasn't about "making Soraka interactive" by making her use her Q. It was about making her have to come out from 50 yards behind the ADC and put herself into some vulnerable positions.
In the end I think these changes are a buff to skilled Soraka players, and a nerf to bad ones.
Even with skilled players, they need to take more risks. Building tanky and staying way the hell back is something they were trying to avoid.
Raka being the hyper healer, you generally want to target her first, except she's always in the back line preventing that from happening. Riot tries using her Star caller as a means to require raka to step up and actually put herself at risk. except the risk was always to great, since Raka lacked the kiting tools to defend herself. Which is why the most effective builds where the ones which mittigated the problem completely.
I think with the new abilities, she is definitely more reliant on her Starcaller, But she can also rely on that ability to help her in a tough situation.
Iqqi1 votesShe is. And there is no doubt that they nerfed her burst HPS by transferring enough of her HPS to the HoT. Sure overall 1 hot + 1 heal is more health than 1 heal from before. She can heal more efficiently now I believe when able to use the starfall HoT mechanic, but her burst healing and her healing without being able to starfall has been nerfed.
With 200 AP her HoT is healing for 42 health every second for 5 seconds. Before her heal was 240 + 60% ap.
I am interested to see if this change is enough to make people start playing Soraka differently or if we are just going to see people buying Warmogs much more often and or sooner than before to compensate for the reduced heals when not using the new HoT.
disregardable1 votesIt heals her 56 health. Not even all at once. Until level 8. When it'll heal 64 health. Not all at once.
Quepha1 votesIt's also a pretty short-range skillshot that's incredibly slow (unless you want to cast it from even shorter range) on a squishy champion.
I really think they need to give starcall back a little more range, trying to cast it is more like a death sentence. It doesn't matter how bad Riot makes the rest of her kit, Soraka still doesn't want to try casting Starcall.
Krinu1 votesThe problem is that Ancient Coin means that landing a Q nets about the same health during laning as just standing near a minion wave that dies.
Furthermore, she's so vulnerable to getting blown up - she's squishy, has zero burst self-healing outside of her ultimate, and her self-peel is very difficult to pull off - that going in to Starcall is inviting death. Huge risk, tiny reward compared to just parking in the backline.
They need to nerf ancient coin and give her better survival tools. Then she'll be able to skirmish on the front line.
