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Soraka and grievous wounds are in a very odd state

Crunchyfied·1/29/2017, 3:33:09 PM·47 votes·8,316 views

Soraka by herself is a good champion. Her immobility makes up for her being able to stay further away from the battle and heal everyone. But, Soraka has become an awful support pick because of grievous wounds. I don't mind ignite countering Soraka's healing for the few seconds it lasts, but for just 800 gold (Executioners Calling) an ADC can make Soraka useless for the entire laning phase and possibly the entire game.

It's extremely frustrating to know you can't play Soraka because all the enemy has to do is buy an Executioners Calling on the very first back of laning phase. Of course there is Morello's too but Morello's has a threshold for grievous wounds and isn't just a simple 800 gold. Other champions get affected by grievous wounds also, for example Vlad, Trynd, Volibear, Darius, etc etc. But the main difference from those champions and Soraka is that Soraka's entire kit is just healing. Those other champions can still do damage and be useful even if their healing is reduced. It's a negative effect on them but doesn't negate their entire champion's play style and kit.

Quicksilver sash's ability to remove ultimates like fizz ult, morde ult, zed ult, warwick ult was taken out of the game because it was a direct counter to the champions unique spell kits and made those champions ults useless once QSS was obtained.

Now I'm not saying grievous wounds should be taken out of the game because it is completely negating Soraka's playstyle, but Soraka should have some accommodation in regards to grievous wounds.

Either make Executioners Calling not have grievous wounds effect until the very last weapon upgrade, similar to Morellos. (It doesn't even build out of items that give grievous wounds, it's just a final item that has the grievous wounds effect slapped onto it.) This would allow Soraka more time in laning phase to have an impact on the game without being shut down during the first 10 minutes and this would also make the ADC's sacrifice building straight damage early game for the armor pen item that has grievous wounds. I mean sure Executioners Calling is a sacrifice that ADC's make to purchase but for 800 gold its value vs Soraka is completely worth it.

If changing the effect on Executioners Calling isn't an option, maybe change the healing aspect of Soraka. Maybe her heals ignore grievous wounds on allies with less than 50% or 40% or 25% health. This way she can actually do what she does and save allies when they are near death while not being able to heal them efficiently when they are above the threshold. Hell maybe even just make her ignore grievous wounds altogether I mean she's a champion that is solely based on healing. It would make sense that a Champion whose entire kit revolves around healing, has the unique ability to ignore grievous wounds. (Soraka healing without grievous wounds? What is this madness?)

77 Comments

6Sfool1/29/2017, 3:49:24 PM11 votes

GW isn't a soraka problem. It's a game health problem. Healing will always need to be overtuned to compensate for GW, and GW will always be a complete hard counter. I made a post where it would be reworked into a debuff that blocked a flat amount of healing determined by damage dealt, but it got ignored. Also, Riot has stated that they are too lazy to remove GW, or really do anything about that cancerous stat.

Over Innsmouth1/29/2017, 3:38:50 PM9 votes

GW should be removed. Healing should only be accessible to those with it in their kits, and being able to buy items to heal shouldnt be in the game. You've seen an ADC with BT turn into a better drain tank than any other in the game.

MLDzXnRRR1/29/2017, 4:08:00 PM8 votes

Soraka is broken or useless. Very bad design. She is super strong vs balanced teams, but she is useless and just a free gold in low elo or normal games where the enemy team is 5 carry/assasins. This isn't right at all.

Heroquet1/29/2017, 6:17:40 PM7 votes

They don't give a fuck about Soraka and GW, that's why. Supports are supposed to have a hard life, unless they're mages. You're supposed to still be able to kinda prevent a death by spamming everything (W/R/exhaust/solari, maybe redemption if they don't die too fast) with a few items to boost your heals (censor, mikael, redemption) and the occasional epic aoe silence to shutdown the divers (Riven, Lee, Kata, Kha, Zed, Talon if you have crazy fast reflexes or have a good guess on his plan...) before they delete your allies.

And it still works. Kinda. Thanks to exhaust mostly.

But, eh, if you want an idea, and an interactive one at that, i suggest we update Rejuvenation :

  • **"if Soraka's target is afflected with Grievous Wounds, the Rejuvenation buff is consumed, erases Grievous Wounds and prevents it from being reapplied for one second. **

That way you're allowed to ignore GW if you get close to hit that W and if you hit that fucking Q before healing. And then you still lose the rejuvenation heal, which is kinda significant in his way.

But to me, the real dumb thing is that the ennemy only needs ONE HIT from ANY PHYSICAL SOURCE, SPELLS INCLUDED to apply GW for THREE TO FIVE SECONDS. WHO DESIGNED FIVE SECONDS ?!?.

Sahn Uzal1/29/2017, 4:08:01 PM7 votes

Pink wards revealing Stealthed champions was removed because it nullified a big amount of their power. Meanwhile, healing champs.

Healing champs are gonna be overbearing without GW, because of how underwhelming they are with GW. They should just get rid of the mechanic and rebalance healing based champions and items.

Fondling Gems1/29/2017, 9:08:30 PM6 votes

I honestly never liked Grievous wounds because it isn't needed. In the current state of the game it is needed, but I think healers should be balanced around the lack of grievous wounds rather than teetering the line between being overbearing if no one buys it and useless if people do buy it.

Grievous wounds does an important job of cutting down healing. However one could do the same thing in a much healthier way for champs that don't have easy access to grievous wounds by just cutting down healing. It just doesn't feel right IMO. If you are healing by X amount, then you should heal by X amount. Not X/2.

This goes double for champion abilities that apply grievous wounds. Why should I heal less just because a Katarina is ulting me compared to an Anivia ulting me?

It isn't even counterplay due to how long grievous wounds lasts. It is like being counterpicked, except it is a stat that any champion can buy.

I have yet to see a good reason as to why Grievous wounds is a better option than just cutting healing down and balancing around that.

iTaLenTZ1/29/2017, 3:56:35 PM4 votes

I am sorry but Soraka is a toxic champ. I never had fun playing against one so i am glad she has been gutted. Hope she never becomes meta again. Boring stupid-ass rewarding-passive-play champ.

doiminat0r36001/29/2017, 5:36:53 PM4 votes

Maybe her heals ignore grievous wounds on allies with less than 50% or 40% or 25% health.

If this happens, then all grievous wounds effects would be pointless for mages (the main ones that have a common GW item). GW is only useful if they are on low health especially for some champions in many matchups.

A better solution would be to make her ult remove GW again. This wouldn't be nearly as much of a buff to her as it could be but it would keep her in line.

Nielarken1/29/2017, 10:44:53 PM3 votes

The biggest problem is that there is no counter play for Grievous wounds. You fight a physical damage champion and what do you do? you buy armor. If they see you buy armor what do you do you buy armor penetration. Now you two are back on even footing because you are able to counter the counter that was put out to some extent where you are able to manage it. Healers need some way to remove, prevent, and or reduce the amount that Grievous wounds does. Sorakas ult not being able to removing Grievous wounds was the worst nerf I have ever seen.

DemainaNyx1/30/2017, 10:23:29 AM3 votes

I've honestly never had anyone build an Executioners Calling against me when I play Soraka. And even if they do, the only way it's going to counter Soraka is if she heals during a trade. Most ADCs will walk forward, trade with the enemy ADC, and then walk back. Just wait for the debuff to go away and then heal. Unless the enemy support is an engage support, I can't see why this type of healing would be a problem considering that's what Soraka is supposed to do. And if the enemy support is an engage support, they should really be trying to get the Soraka, not the ADC.

Obviously during team fights this is a little different, but still, haven't had much problem.

I like the idea of if she lands a Q and then heals maybe that removes GW but possibly heals for a bit less initially. Or maybe do something like if she uses her silence field under an ally, it cures GW on that ally so long as they stand on it. That way her bit AOE silence can be used differently. Do you use it to help heal teammates more, or use it to zone/counter the Assassin diving your ADC?

FalconPawwwwnch1/29/2017, 9:02:03 PM2 votes

GW should be removed and healing values reduced if they become problematic

sobi9991/29/2017, 3:39:21 PM2 votes

Myself a soraka main. I made a post regarding this ages ago and not one person could give a good enough counter argument. It was that " Well, get rid of one item that counters heals, the most cancerous thing in lol". Well heals are just about in every freaking multiplayer/strategy based game and soraka has a juicy 10% max health as a sacrifice to compensate for it. Imagine adc applying grievous wounds to your whole team within few secs because their AS is insane and your there healing your butt off only to die with them. I do believe soraka's heals were not affected by grevious wounds in the past and she was literally unbearable but she has received quite alot of nerfs over the past and even when i play against opponents that don't have GW now, they still manage to win against me (lane and teamfight). Although her winrate is really good so unless someone clarifies how she has that then maybe i can try to improve myself.

Sozan51/29/2017, 5:23:01 PM2 votes

Quicksilver sash's ability to remove ultimates like fizz ult, morde ult, zed ult, warwick ult was taken out of the game because it was a direct counter to the champions unique spell kits and made those champions ults useless once QSS was obtained.

From wiki:

[...] it removes all Crowd control debuffs including: Malzahar's Nether Grasp Skarner Skarner's Impale Urgot's Hyper-Kinetic Position Reverser Warwick's Infinite Duress

Also, at least Executioner's Calling costs something.

item 3364 item 3070 Teemo item 3070 item 3341

That said, it is a problem, but removing Grevious Wounds would require some other changes to the game, like:

  • Nerfing lifesteal
  • Nerfing all sustain champions
  • And nerfing Soraka. Heavily.

But to be fair - I'd like to see that happen. I believe Lifesteal is overtuned (especially the hit-minion-twice-heal-half-health part) and sustain champions being either godly or shit depending if their enemy got grevious wounds.

Supreme Senpai691/29/2017, 5:52:16 PM2 votes

Honestly just play Nami. She heals just as hard as Soraka, but she can do other things too, and healing doesn't take her own HP away. Soraka needs a rework

4516Minor1/29/2017, 6:02:00 PM2 votes

I really feel like Soraka needs to be reworked, she's either useless or op

nice table1/29/2017, 6:38:05 PM2 votes

"we at riot don't want a single item to counter a large part of a champions kit" item 3140 Zed Kappa.

SpecterVonBaren1/30/2017, 1:14:44 AM2 votes

Short version. No.

Long version. Fuck no.

Riot tried having it so GW only effected self heals and Soraka went out of control with no way to deal with her, and only after they reverted that did she get back into line. I don't want to see her become that abomination again (Even if she still is in a way).

Pierce The Veal1/30/2017, 2:55:06 AM2 votes

Most people don't even remember to buy executioner's calling. I think soraka was just overnerfed if she's as weak as you say.

Or wait, let's check the stats: 52.65% winrate and 6.27% pickrate. That's pretty damn good. People who main her have 60% winrates. This is in Plat plus. In short, I don't think she's in a bad place.

IA9hRfpP5q1/30/2017, 1:51:05 PM2 votes

Soraka's problem is that she was once a self-suficient champion that could BOTH support and go to a lane, she could also survive a gank and had "skill" or ability to make plays...

Now she has an useless passive and is basically a heal-bot or slave-bot She is very boring to play and not really satisfying

But yeah, Riot listened to DariusMains and RivenMains "Soraka beat me top lane WAAAAHHH WAAHHHHHHHH Shes op plz nerf!! WAAHHHHH" when soraka beat them by timing her bonus armor on her heal while they kept taking Q's to their face shredding their armor protection.

But yeah, let's take her and make her a heal bot that can't heal herself, pays both mana and max health to heal someone ... which also makes no sense lore-wise and give her a passive that does NOTHING for her in lane or at any stage of the game.

RivenMains cry about anything and Riot listens to them Just like the RivenRework in PBE they were like "WAAHH LEAVE RIVEN ALONE WAAHH" and they delayed/canceled the rework Fucking cancer champion.

Poske1/29/2017, 4:14:05 PM1 votes

In order for soraka to exist GW needs to exist

Blåbæret1/30/2017, 1:14:32 PM1 votes

[{quoted}](name=King Crown,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=tkOe5V06,comment-id=,timestamp=2017-01-29T15:33:09.722+0000) Snip

Lmao, you want to buff Soraka? First of all she has a high win rate. Second of all, Soraka should never be buffed with her current design. Thirdly, in what world does Soraka need a buff? Rofl. The same way you can buy last whisper or void staff vs. tanks you can buy EC vs. soraka. As simple as that.

Soraka without GV would be permaban. I'm glad you're not a designer. Downvoted.

Gamukko Perkele5/28/2017, 8:22:01 PM1 votes

Maybe don't remove GW at all, but just nerf it a little, it needs a nerf bad. Its making this game way too toxic and healing champions are trash now because Morello is so overpowered

Malignis1/30/2017, 3:13:04 PM1 votes

I personally feel that Executioner's Calling should just be reworked into an item similar to Morellonomicon. The fact that Morello's effect doesn't apply until the target is low enough makes sense, it is weaker when the target is kept healthy but works well to counter healing when you focus a target down with burst. If they gave Executioners's Calling some more stats and changed the effect to apply similar to Morello I feel like it would be a more balanced option. This would allow ad assasins to still burst down their targets and get the greivous wounds effect early on but adcs wouldn't be able to apply it as easily until the mid-late game when their damage starts to snowball. Right now every auto applying the effect means that for that 800 gold you have less stats but you negate an entire aspect of a champions kit without any form of counterplay. With Morellonomicon you can stay healthy enough to play around the effect and manage your trades better.

That being said, I think people greatly undervalue Soraka's combat strength. People max her heal and then the enemy buys Executioners and they feel useless, because they forced all their early game power into her heal. Usually what I'll do is level my heal to second rank and then max my q. Starcall has is a cheap, low cooldown spell that can apply a lot of pressure in the laning phase. The regeneration on it is greatly undervalued as well. Healing after you've landed a Starcall transfer that regen to your ally, this is more than enough sustain to keep them strong enough for trades while allowing you to have more presense in the lane aside from hiding back and just erasing your adc's mistakes. If you opponent buys Executioners there is more balance in the lane because you aren't solely relying on your heals. They have less stats and your adc can take advantage of that, you have more damage to harass and set up for the trades where you now have a good chance to win because you aren't relying entirely on your adc's damage to win them.

I understand that playing Soraka as a more combat aggressive support isn't for everyone and that's totally fine, but the game is always changing and you have to change your tactics to fit the state of the game that we are in. Watch what your opponents build and adjust your gameplay style to accommodate, don't put all your bananas in one basket just because you feel like that is the basket that you are supposed to. You might be surprised by how strong certain champions can be when you play them in different ways.

Rainonyou2/3/2017, 12:47:43 PM1 votes

Soraka is a almost unplayable to be honest. Gw is given away for essentially free (287g). It should be given to mortal reminder but not execall. If it has to be given to execall, execall should provide no +0 AD. Gw could maybe scale 2.0-2.5% per level could also work.

As I have mentioned before in a previous thread at level 9, gw reduces soraka w to 120+0.36AP and r to 90/150/210 +0.33AP. And that is for the whole game. Assassins likely output 2-3k damage in 1-2 seconds late game, and soraka cannot prevent deaths. Hell she can't even prevent herself from dying either.

Rainonyou2/3/2017, 1:59:37 PM1 votes

I do like the ideas of returning gw removal with ult, removing it with every second heal, cancelling out gw if you land a starcall making allies immune to gw for a couple of seconds, removing gw of allies are standing in equinox, making gw a flat amount, removing soft cc when on low hp, and removing gw after it has mitigated a flat amount of healing. I also like Ops suggestion about ignoring gw at 50/40/25% hp. I would happily buy an item for 800g which would cut gw from 40% to 20% or even nullify it.

I would even be happy if they removed forbidden idol items in exchange for removing gw from execall and mr.

The percentage based gw as it is now is crippling. It's like paying 287g to remove 40% of a champions ability power or attack damage if they get scratched by a spell or an attack. Gw is quite preposterous really.

Fuminocchi5/19/2017, 10:15:09 AM1 votes

Tbh the only reason that Soraka's winrate isn't crap is because a lot of people still don't even buy executioners calling vs Soraka. I have 200k mastery points on Soraka and i'd say out of all the normal and ranked games i've played, I have only seen maybe a third of the ppl actually buy an executioners early if even at all. If every adc in all elos bought executioners first buy vs Soraka the her winrate would be super low. I do find it stupid how someone can make a champion useless by only spending 1000 gold. I really feel like that needs to be fixed. I did find one way to counter it tho, but its not practical in a high elo ranked game. I do a lot of different builds to make the most out of my healing, and going full ap Soraka, legit made executioners calling look like a joke. My w was still healing for over 1000 and my ult for over 2000 hp, and in one game as full ap raka I actually healed for around 87k. But like I said that isn't practical due to the low income supports get. The build would cost anywhere from 17 to 19k gold and usually supports average around 13k gold a game. Plus going full ap on Soraka takes time to ramp up, and if you get behind early it is pretty much useless. Hopefully Riot can find a balance between Sorakas insane healing abilities and executioners calling, cause I don't want Soraka to become overpowered, but I don't like how she gets shut down way to easily.

FourVsFive1/30/2017, 5:12:44 AM1 votes

They could bring back Wish removing GW, or make it so she only loses 6% HP instead of 10 when healing an allie with GW maybe?