I know I'm a little late to the game with ranting.. but what's the point of the new Soraka?

IHopeILive·May 20, 2015·4 votes·954 views

I get why they wanted to change Soraka's kit. Doing Q spam while healing everyone with your ult, healing people with your W and giving mana to stay in lane with your E. That all makes sense... but what is the point of this new kit? I don't really get it. It's either "die trying to to damage with Q" or "die trying to heal someone else". So I have the option to either try to support, but die due to the fact your heal takes away your life, making you an easier kill. Or go mage Soraka and die because of the short range and long falling time of the Q, and short range of the silence.

I just don't get why I should ever pick Soraka anymore. If I wanna heal I'll pick Sona, or hell even Nami. They have no downside to their heals. If I want to do damage (support or otherwise) there are a million better options.

I feel like Soraka needs another rework.

9 Comments

1000angrybeesMay 20, 20153 votes

Actually, people should be focusing on AP and mana rather than health. building health gives more away than what you're healing, and health regen doesnt have the best build paths for soraka. Instead, she heals her ally, and uses starcall to poke while gaining health back.

Water BreathingMay 20, 20152 votes

She's fine, she kinda seems underwhelming on paper, but a 1.2 sec CD heal late game is crazy.

I feel like people focus on getting health regen and that may be the problem. Health regen sounds good but feels really bad in my opinion. I mean I guess it works. I just see some people get Visage and Warmogs and I'm like...what are you doing? Why not spend that gold on actual AP that benefits all of your skills.

Like when people go for warmogs I cringe because you're just sitting on pure health and that just makes you super inefficient until you complete it.

If she goes for straight AP / Utility she heals like mad. You don't even need to risk safety; I bait people for days with item 3040 active and if I have a lot of gold, item 3157 .

ZoroastrianMay 20, 20151 votes

I usually get warmogs and a mejas. Well along with talisman for the movement speed and mana regen. But to utilize tear you need to rush it early. getting a tear sounds insufficient because you're a support that heals using your own hp. Mana shouldn't really be a problem especially because you should be spending that 700g on sightstones and vision wards and boots.

Water BreathingMay 20, 20151 votes

I don't always get tear. if I decide I want to poke in lane with a few points in Q early I will usually get it depending on how well the lane is going. The CD of Q goes down with rank and heal is already a short CD. Q also doesn't need a target to cast. I can usually stack it by the 20 minute mark.

I find that rushing it isn't a problem. I can stay away from skillshots pretty well enough to delay boots a bit and I always come back with at least 1 ward and I don't have any problems.

I find it more useful for the AP and safety it gives, the mana is just an side benefit. It's less risky than item 3041 , and provides a good chunk of AP, especially if I plan on getting Frozen Heart. Sometimes I do get , but it isn't exactly practical for every game.

ZoroastrianMay 20, 20152 votes

I believe the point of her is to have the safest lane possible. Aphromoo suggests starting flask with soraka and many hp pots. Your q pokes and heals , and maxing W first will insure 1 or 2 heals will restore ur adc to full hp. She's the safest champ to take basically as long as she is not focused. But who would ever actually focus the support because you're guaranteeing a kill to the enemy adc that way. but yeah when you build AP, and get your warmogs, you will definitely become the focus of team fights because raka's 300hp heal per second is so annoying to deal with. but yeah that's her purpose.

FourVsFiveMay 20, 20151 votes

I main Soraka, went from Silver 5 to Gold 1 using her 90% of the time. She is still a good support, she does feel like she is lacking, but still not has bad as people make her to be. If she only lost 5% HP when healing allies with heal debuff that would help counters not destroy her so easily.

ZACKandATTACKMay 20, 20151 votes

She needs a special rune page set up for her with HP regen quints. She is still fine, but now she has real counterplay.

The5lackerMay 20, 20151 votes

In lane it's "harass harass harass"

In teamfights it's "flail wildly."

So...not much has changed, to be terribly honest.

MarthianMay 20, 20151 votes

Sona and Nami have no where near the HPS (heal per second) that Soraka can have. She's not really a front liner anymore, she's generally wants to be in the back now. (and yes, she could easily be a front line support, and it was painful, even with minimal ap investment)