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@Morello, it's really time for that Soraka rework.

Canastus·5/22/2014, 12:34:46 PM·41 votes·25,595 views

The latest patch notes have made clear in what a terrible state Soraka currently is. Apparently it's impossible to balance this old goat as long as her current kit remains in place.

We know, she used to be a dedicated healer but you radically nerfed the effectiveness of her heals and reduced the armor buffs on her W. Next you took the damage from her starcall and slapped a ridiculously low ap ratio on it. Bear in mind, that was still during pre-season.

Then people started to play her as a solo-laner since her ability to support was less than favorable after what you've done to her. She already lacked any form of peel and her damage was abysmal. So naturally all she could do was try to sustain herself while farming on a solo-lane to get that gold which she could impossibly acquire as a support (it takes 600 AP (!) just to undo your season 4 nerfs).

Now that patch 4.8 is here, we're dealt with another wave of Soraka nerfs. This time you've reduced the damage on her starcall EVEN more and added a mana-cost to the only reliable form of poke she had, her silence. You claim to only weaken solo-lane Soraka with those changes but actually you've killed support Soraka aswell.

No more silencing people while throwing bananas at them. How do you expect to pay for those insanely mana-hungry heals if she already used up most of her mana-pool after applying a short-lived silence that costs 50 mana (!) and yet only deals a laughable amount of damage? It used to be tolerable since it was a free ability but now it's entirely unacceptable.

You never really calculated her overall mana-costs apparently. You may have not have realized it yet but you've made her gameplay even more passive since she can't even poke people anymore. Where's the interaction with the other player which you've wanted the entire time?

Since you clearly refuse to buff Soraka in her current state, we've got to ask ourselves: what's next? How about that rework which you've been talking about for god knows how long? Time's running out for this old goat and all you do is watch as she slowly dies.

125 Comments

RiotMorello5/22/2014, 9:23:30 PM26 votes

Couldn't agree more. It's prioritized to be done this year as part of the gameplay reworks we're doing.

We really bolstered this team up in the last few months - to the point they're the same size and scope of the Champions team. This is because there's so many like Soraka that need love - and that takes a concerted effort between art, design, engineering, sound and QA. Soraka is one of the most overdue champions to us because of both healing's identity in League and how long she's been in the game.

100% with you here, and acting on it as we speak. It won't be out before the next few patches, but it's in the plan for releases this year.

Linna Excel5/22/2014, 6:11:02 PM6 votes

They want soraka to slowly die. That way when they radically change her people won't complain.

They could have let the FOTM thing play itself out. But then there'd still be a lot of Soraka fans who will complain. By continually weakening her, they keep driving away more and more people who care about her. She's got a pretty strong fanbase, for a number of reasons, so there's be a lot more rage on the forums if they just left her unnerfed with a lot more fans when the radical change happened.

Now they got a perfect opportunity to deliver another back-breaking nerf to her. She became FOTM because some people didn't know her counters and they were playing all in champs. There was QQing on the forums because the FOTM crowd for the most part doesn't understand picks, counter picks, and countering other player's picks in most cases.

Now that the nerf is going into effect, more and more people who were fans will be crying for Riot to rework soraka. Thus making the radical changes more palatable to the player base at large.

As a developer, you can't just rework a champ with a strong fanbase that you don't like. You need a lot of people QQing about that champ and you need to make that champ a cancer to the people who once loved playing him.

That is the pragmatic way of dealing with the issue. In this case Soraka. Tomorrow it'll be some other champ.

Yfrappefort5/23/2014, 5:08:23 AM6 votes

If anything, I would really like it if Soraka could keep her ultimate. This is, to me, her core indentity skill (just like Karthus and his Requiem) and should not be removed.

eztarg3t5/22/2014, 8:16:27 PM4 votes

Sadly I agree, when I first started playing Riot I got instantly attached to Soraka and she helped me get into the supporter groove. But nowaday I can't bring myself to use her in regular pvp. I only feel comfortable with using her against bots. And it really pains me to see this happen to her so plz riot do something for Soraka other than kicking her in the stomach with another nerf.

VioShine5/25/2014, 5:07:02 AM4 votes

The easiest way to view Soraka is to start at the very beginning: what's her core concept? Every champion has one, and as long as that concept is kept in mind, one doesn't have to bother with the ridiculous balancing of "champ X does Y, but this champ does exactly the same thing!".

In my opinion, Soraka's core concept seems to be longevity. She wants to drag fights out as long as possible, slowly giving her marksmen/team the edge in the battle. If we carry this core concept, we can break her down into design variables to determine her scope (fancy talk for what her kit does individually).

Right now, Soraka's current kit has the following: zoning (Q), MR shred (Q), heal (W and R), silence (E), and mana restore (E). Sorry, but that tiny damage from E isn't very consequential in the games I've played with her, so I don't count it.

What's the issue with that picture? All of the top played supports have at least some form of engage or peel, and, in many cases, both. Thresh has his hook and flay for both, Leona has a hard engage followed up with sustained lockdown, etc, etc.

We also have to observe the issue that pure blood supports (also known as classic supports) such as Janna and Sona and falling by the wayside due to the changes in the game. Supports have quickly morphed into a off-carry type of role, due to Riot's changes, player mentality, and simply what the game rewards in a design sense.

Bearing all this in mind, the following bullet list can be gained:

  1. She must be able to sustain her team in varied situations.
  2. She must be able to either peel or initiate.
  3. She must be able to off-carry, if given the opportunity. If not, then she must be able to provide enough in other categories to compensate.

So let's make Soraka into a sustain monster, capable of NOT carrying her team, but easily able to push her team to victory by dragging fights out. There's a few ways to do this: heals over time (HOTs), damage share/split (en-kor from MTG), or stay her current course.

I lean towards a split of HOT and damage share/split, like so.

Passive: When an ally that Soraka has placed a heal on reaches full health, that heal is passed on to the nearest allied champion and refreshes its duration.

Q: Ally cast: The ally is healed for a small amount over the duration. If the target did not reach full health by the end of the duration, half of this spells cost is refunded.

Enemy cast: Silence the target for 0.5 seconds.

W: Soraka creates a zone of celestial energy on the ground, providing armor/MR bonus to all allied champions that stand inside. Additionally, all enemies passing through this zone are slowed.

E: Soraka creates a link with an allied champion (picture a white Karma link), healing it over the duration. Whenever that champion would receive damage, half is dealt to Soraka instead.

R: places a celestial boon on all allied champions, healing them each second over its duration (duration extends based on level).

The Q is super sloppy imo, but I think these all somewhat form the idea of what I think Soraka should do: a classic support that can be brought up to a new level.

amnesio5/22/2014, 9:44:30 PM4 votes

I agree, so many unnecessary nerfs.

namielise5/22/2014, 4:08:06 PM4 votes

riot needs to see this and we need an answer because i think her rework should be a priority

Pangrine5/23/2014, 1:48:02 AM4 votes

All of this talk of Morello salivating over a Soraka rework just puts a dread feeling in my stomach.

I'm calling it now. He completely ditchs having Soraka act like a support. She "might" keep wish in a heavily nerfed form. Everything else will be about doing tons of damage and making the dps-oriented players feel good. They'll replace her heal with some sort of weak shield (or maybe just a tiny flat mr/armor boost ala Galio) and call it a day. Starcall will be gone as well as infuse, replaced with hard hitting nukes because hey, "Death is the ultimate CC".

People will flock to her after the rework because that's always what happens. They'll play her in solo/jungle, get her nerfed again several times in a row and she'll be back to probably a worse state than now. The 1337-dps 420noscope players will move onto the next FoTM champion and anyone who enjoys being a cleric/medic/defensive support will be handed another broken toy told to "deal with it, healing is toxic because it's bad. Now excuse me while I go play an assassin whose sole identity is bursting someone from 100-0 before they can react trololololol"

Absolute Soul5/23/2014, 6:19:36 AM4 votes

played her support with the new patch, they couldn't have nerfed her more if they'd taken her out of the game. As one who's played her as one of his mains for a time, they've made her 100% useless. it's not even worth it to cast infuse now with the mana cost in laning phase, it's become a useless ability. she can now just sit back and cast a heal every 20 seconds and watch her adc get rolled out of lane

lxlLilybellelxl6/4/2014, 10:34:13 AM3 votes

This actually saddened me when i saw the nerfs. I mained Soraka SUPPORT, but was well aware of her solo lane capabilities. I was happy with Soraka before as a support, heals, mana, silence and harass with Q. The damage now is laughable, so much so that the two games I've played with her since 4.8 I have never felt more useless in all my time playing Soraka. What's hilarious is that enemies know she can't do damage now, so she is easy pickings with no ability to peel or defend herself, at least before people were afraid of getting hit by starcall more than a few times, now I am just a walking summoner spell Heal/Clarity. I have no ability what so ever to bring pressure into the lane, making it far too easy to push back my ADC (sorry, Marksman!!)

To be honest I'm not understanding why you bothered buffing supports for season 4 with AP scaling on their moves, then nerfing them once they leave the bot lane, while Quinn and Vayne can wreck top, Riven can feast on mid champs, Braum can Jungle and I've been dealing with nothing but kill lanes bot for the last two days. I feel almost useless as a support unless I'm playing Morgana, Annie, Orianna, Braum, Thresh or Leona. It seems all that's happened is this season has paved a path for tank supports while leaving true utility based supports in the dust. Lulu's tiny nerf hurt her support, Soraka as mentioned above is laughable, Janna has no damage what so ever ( but I love her utility!!), Sona is in a terrible place at this moment, and Nami is, well, Nami.

I thank you guys for trying to buff supports with income items, and their new scaling, but to be honest support is still in a bad place right now. As aggressive as bot lane and jungle have become, True utility supports are having a hard time, so are any Marksmen ( let's face it we all still call them ADC's) that aren't Lucian Vayne or Cait!!

Raz al Ghul5/22/2014, 10:00:32 PM3 votes

Might I recommend having her sacrifice a percent of her own current health to cast her heal, while at the same time applying a buff to herself that increases her own regen for x amount of time in order to heal back some of that health. Additionally, the regen shouldn't be enough to fully recover, but the buff should be extendable by her involving herself in combat with enemy champions. This way she can't hide behind every one and heal (well she can, but she hurts herself and her heals become less effective), and she's encouraged to engage in combat to recover while her enemy is also encouraged to engage in combat because they have a window where her health is lowered as well.

NoticesKouhai5/22/2014, 3:48:04 PM2 votes

What do you suggest they change?