Soraka Re-Work Based on Vesh's Guidelines
This is a Soraka kit-outline that attempts to address the issues brought up in This Thread. It also includes some discussion of my reasoning and a list of alternate ideas for Astral Blessing and Starcall. I had intended to hold onto this until Vesh called for community feedback on the re-work, but the longer I keep it, the more I seem to keep adding to it.
This cannot be allowed to continue.
I've left a lot of the numbers in this build out, because the structure of the abilities is what I'm trying to get across, rather than the tuning. The build I've posted here is the one (out of the three I made ........why are you looking at me like that?) that I refer to as the "Simple Build." My hope is that there are enough ideas here to provide some utility to the community, even if the build I've come up doesn't turn out to be useable (which is likely). Here it is:
----------------------------
DESPERATION (NEW PASSIVE): This passive is split into two parts with a similar theme.
[Desperate Fury] : Whenever Soraka receives damage from an enemy champion while below [33]% health, Soraka releases a free, automatic [Starcall] (maximum once every 15 seconds). Each enemy champion hit will cause another [Starcall] to be released from their location. Each [Starcall] generated in this way will produce an [Astral Projection] from its center.
[Desperate Mercy] : Whenever a nearby allied champion drops below [dangerous, but not beyond reaction time]% health, [Astral Blessing]’s cooldown is reduced by [25?]% of its base cooldown (after factoring in cooldown reduction) and Soraka gains back [10]% of her max mana. This can happen once per cooldown period.
STARCALL:
[Active] : Strikes all nearby enemies for [?] magic damage and reduces their magic resistance by [?] for [5] seconds. This effect stacks up to [20] times. For each enemy champion hit, a killable pet called [Astral Projection] appears at Soraka’s location and moves towards that champion. This entity starts with [?]% of Soraka’s maximum health, which then decays to zero over [5] seconds. Upon reaching an enemy champion, the [Astral Projection] detonates (minimum detonation time of 2.5 seconds), dealing [twice initial cast] damage and adding another [2] stacks of magic resistance reduction to the champion hit.
Damage Note : Should be much weaker against minions than live. For champions, somewhat weaker if they stop or escape the [Astral Projection], and noticeably stronger if they don’t.
ASTRAL BLESSING:
[Passive] : Hitting and being hit by champions gives Soraka stacks of a self-buff called [Mortal’s Struggle]. She can gain a maximum of 2 stacks in a 5 second period and have 3 total stacks stored at any one time. Stacks are increased up to 2 when visiting the Spawn Pool. Soraka does not lose stacks over time (similar to abilities with ammunition).
[Active] : Restores [strong] health to a friendly unit and consumes 2 stacks of [Mortal’s Struggle] (if present).
[Ally Cast] : If Soraka does not have 2 stacks to spend, she loses [25]% of her max health and receives [Penance of the Fallen], reducing all healing received by [50]% and mana regeneration by [100]% until [Astral Blessing] comes off cooldown. Soraka can be killed by this damage.
[Self Cast] : If Soraka does not have 2 stacks to spend, [Astral Blessing] will fizzle and go on a [1] second cooldown.
INFUSE: is [Infuse].
WISH: is [Wish], but can be cast through crowd control, at the cost of extending its next cooldown by a substantial amount.
---------------------------- DISCUSSION:
Astral Blessing : This is the primary change. Soraka won’t be able to heal from a safe distance without taking a serious chunk of damage. This will allow her to heal this way a few times in situations where it is really too dangerous for her to do otherwise, but she won’t be able to make a habit of it. The healing debuff and % max hp scaling are to prevent Soraka players from trivializing the cost through other forms of healing and hp stacking. [Desperate Mercy] is intended to focus healing power in hard engagements, reducing Soraka’s ability to erase harassment damage in exchange for a heavier impact when she and her allies are getting hammered. It uses cooldown reduction instead of magnitude for the bonus, because WHEN a heal lands is often more important than how MUCH healing lands, and this should empower Soraka players to make more saves in desperate situations. [25]% will allow you to land a heal in those otherwise frustrating situations where your cooldown just didn’t quite make it in time, but won’t allow you to chain heals close together, which would steal the spotlight from [Wish] and make for a frustrating wall of healing every time the opponents picked a target. The mana return is to make sure that the heal doesn’t come off cooldown only to fizzle due to lack of mana, but this probably needs to be balanced by lower mana and regen in general for Soraka.
Survivability : This is an intended weakness of the kit, as [Astral Blessing] provides the only free survivability, and does so at the cost of using that heal on an ally. Because the kit is designed to have a huge impact in a protracted team-fight, the opponent should have the option of targeting Soraka first as a clear point of counterplay. Soraka players will have to use itemization and intelligent positioning (and allies) to protect themselves. [Desperate Fury] exerts a cost on the opponent for this decision, but in the form of damage, and it’s still less damage than they would take by ignoring her.
Counterplay : Aside from poor survivability, range is an intended weakness of this kit. An opponent who can deal damage from outside of soraka’s range can both avoid retaliation and limit her ability to keep their damage from sticking. They also have an easier time avoiding [Astral Projection] if she does land a hit. [Infuse] provides Soraka players with a means of helping the [Astral Projection] to land by making it harder for a caster opponent to attack it, and gives the opponent more reason to be aware of her [Infuse] cooldown. The change to [Wish] actually works AGAINST counterplay, but it was made this way on purpose, to keep Soraka’s vulnerability from becoming impossible to play around.
---------------------------- ALTERNATE MECHANICS:
[Starcall] – Line Bounce : After the initial impact with a champion, the star splits into two smaller stars, which land on either side of the target at a random angle. After a brief delay, they explode, dealing more damage (and adding more stacks) closer to the center. The champion will have to run perpendicular to the direction the stars fell in to escape the secondary blast.
This would not have the advantage of forcing the enemy to re-direct their attacks to avoid damage, but it doesn’t also doesn’t punish melee champions or over-privilege long-range champions. It also doesn’t have any synergy with [Infuse]. It also has the possibility of being dodge unintentionally
[Starcall] – Lead Off : After the initial impact with a champion, the star bounces in the direction the champion is traveling and at a distance determined by move speed (same mechanic as Draven’s axes), or a random direction and short distance against a non-moving champion, and detonates upon hitting the ground. The champion will have to change direction to avoid the secondary blast.
This would not have the advantage of forcing the enemy to re-direct their attacks to avoid damage, but it doesn’t also doesn’t punish melee champions or over-privilage long-range champions. It also doesn’t have any synergy with [Infuse]. There is less chance of being dodged unintentionally than with Line Bounce.
[Starcall] – Threshold : Stacks normally (and slowly) until a certain number of stacks is reached (probably 4 or 5), at which point the target, if they are a champion, takes a large chunk of extra damage and gets extra magic shred.
This does not have a dodge mechanic, but provides the opponent with a substantial event to avoid. They will have to break off engagement and let their stacks fall off before hitting the threshold to avoid the big hurt at the end. This style privileges long-range characters quite heavily against Soraka.
Tether (Optional) – to make the counterplay more clear for the opponent, the stacks can be distance tethered to soraka, either with a long tether that causes all stacks to drop when broken, or a short tether that causes stacks to fall off on at a time when outside of it.
[Starcall] – Bounce Projection : After the initial impact with a champion, the star bounces a short distance away from the target in a random direction and starts chasing from that point, rather than starting from Soraka’s location.
This would even out the skill’s effectiveness against opponents with longer and shorter range, but would also make Soraka’s positioning less important.
[Astral Blessing] – Carrot Version : This version would not damage Soraka, but would be weaker by default, and would gain a bonus if stacks were consumed.
This has less opportunities for unforeseen faults in gameplay, but the live version already rewards offense with reduced cooldowns and temporary armor, and that hasn’t stopped the problem of farm lanes. However, this build’s [Starcall] will cause less unintentional minion kills in bot lane and (hopefully) provide more threat to enemies, which might alter her incentives enough to change that.
[Astral Blessing] – Stick Version : This version would not damage Soraka, but would make her heal completely uncastable without stacks.
This would certainly solve the passivity problem, but is likely to feel like a poor fit for a healer archtype, and lead to many frustrating situations in which the player will have to watch allies die while trying to generate stacks.
[Astral Blessing] – Jungling : This would be a possible addition to any version of [Astral Blessing], which would generate stacks from hitting large jungle monsters, or possibly only the river objectives.
Without this, Soraka will have a hard time providing meaningful support on river objectives without opponents nearby to contest them. Also, this would still require Soraka to be in particular places where the opponents have an incentive to come find her, leading to some risk.
---------------
EDIT : Fixed some formatting and added some clarification.
