AP Soraka: No, my horn doesn't poke through my Deathcap

Intro

This banner was made by me ^_^


Here is my revamped Soraka guide.

Hope you like it. =D

Pros / Cons

Pros:
+You can do quite a bit of damage with Starcall and Infuse
+You will keep your team up for a long time, despite the changes to her healing.
+Not too squishy mid-late game

Cons:
-People will focus the heck out of you just for playing Soraka in the first place.
-Squishy early game, plus heals are easily shut down with Ignite.

Runes

Greater Quintessence of Potency: These give you a nice early game boost to your AP, which is nice because Soraka's AP ratios are good enough to utilize that.
Other good choices-
Greater Quintessence of Insight
Greater Quintessence of Swiftness
Greater Quintessence of Fortitude

Greater Mark of Insight: These give you a nice little boost to your damage and stack with your Starcall's debuff.
I don't recommend any other choices, these are by far the best option.

Greater Seal of Vitality: These are a good choice. They will make you a little bit less squishy.
Other good choices-
Greater Seal of Clarity
Greater Seal of Resilience

Greater Glyph of Force: These give you a a nice boost to your late game AP.
Other good choices-
Greater Glyph of Shielding
Greater Glyph of Focus

Masteries

9-0-21 is a well rounded mastery set, with the combination of Arcane Knowledge, your MRpen Marks, and Starcall you will find that you can harass amazingly well and deal quite a bit of damage. I don't think Transmutation is particularly worth it on Soraka, so I instead take full points in Greed. You can take points in Runic Affinity if you want, but I prefer the full greed points. Sage is good if you are duo laning while Wealth and Awareness are nice if you're mid or solo top



0-21-9 is another decent choice since you are kind of squishy, especially on the dominion map. In this case I tend to take all the basic tanky masteries, though I prefer Enlightenment to Initiator because on SR Soraka will benefit more from CDR than bonus MS. On Dominion you may want to switch this because that bonus MS will give you an edge especially since you also take Swiftness. In the case of Honor Guard vs. Mercenary it just depends on where you are. If you are in a duo lane (where you will get assists more easily) go ahead and take Mercenary. If you are solo top or mid, take Honor Guard.



If you want a more offense heavy set you can take 21-0-9. I personally found I preferred 9-0-21, but this set works surprisingly well. It gives you a lot of AP and a general damage boost which is really good, especially early game. Blast and Archmage scale quite well into late game meaning you can use a more tanky rune set-up than the one shown here. I take a point in Runic Affinity because this is pretty much exclusively a solo mid set. You can use this set in lane, but I think the other options would work a lot better for a duo lane.

Summoner Spells

Good Choices:
Flash- Generally a really good choice on Soraka. Makes it much easier for you to get away.

Ghost- Great for chasing, it can also be used to escape.

Exhaust: Great for chasing. In combination with your Rylai's NO ONE WILL ESCAPE.

Ignite: Good for getting that last bit of health.

Teleport: allows you to return to your lane faster after recalling or to get up to your allies if you feel like you're too slow.

Decent Choices:
Clairvoyance- Good if you want to play her as a support

Heal- Not a bad call if you find you're dying quite a bit, although it's better to change your build to include items that give you more survivability.

Cleanse- good choice if you tend to get stun locked when you ult, also good if you have trouble escaping, provided you have some other means of escape (ghost, heal, flash)

Skill Sequence

Generally: R > E = Q > W
Astral Blessing is good, but Starcall and Infuse are more important.
What you should be doing regardless of what I've said above:
Analyze the game and combats and decide what to take based on that. You know what you need better than I do..

Build

or

Core:

Starcall

Situational Items

Tear of the Goddess/ Archangel's Staff: If you feel you need more mana you can get this instead of the RoA, but you will be more squishy and so you'll need to be more careful.

Deathfire Grasp: works well with starcall because its active deals magic damage. It's an extremely good counter to the more tanky Metagolem types, so it's well worth the gold in most games.

Zhonya's Hourglass: This will save your a** in a pinch, but don't rely on it to save you when you do something stupid and/or reckless...it's intended to give your allies enough time to get to you. I grab this just for the high AP but the escapability/survivability is obviously very nice.

Morello's Evil Tome: CDR is a must for Soraka so this is a good choice. It's not the most cost effective item, but it's one of the best CDR items.

Abyssal Scepter: Good for countering the passive of an enemy Soraka. Also good if you're up against a caster heavy team.

Banshee's Veil: Gives good health, mana, and MR. Also blocks 1 negative spell every 30 seconds.

Quicksilver Sash: This is a great but highly underutilized item in general. It not only removes CC, but it actually removes most debuffs from your champion.

Eleisa's Miracle: This is one of my new favorite items on supportive AP champions. The tenacity is great, and the health and mana regen are amazing for early game sustain.

Lich Bane: Because of starcall's short cooldown you can really utilize this item's passive.

Early Game

Farming:
Soraka is one of the best farmers in the game. Starcall only uses around 40 mana with the first rank and has an EXTREMELY short cooldown, this is your main farming ability if you choose to farm. You can last hit with your basic attack also ...but please, for the love of all things cute and fluffy, DO NOT attempt to last hit with Infuse! It has a 10 second cooldown and it only hits one target, which makes it completely and utterly worthless for farming. Riot gave you Starcall for a reason, so learn to use it.

Remember to buy wards and ward the map well. This can give your team an edge.
"Buy a ward, stop a gank, save a life. Wards."

Mid Game

By this point team fights will have started, remember to spam Starcall and Infuse on enemies and, if possible, heal your allies. Be careful not to overextend. You don't have flash so you can play stupid.

Don't waste your ult! Cast it near the end of a fight if possible to give your team an extra little push.

By the end of this phase you will have finished your Rod of ages and Deathcap (and possibly be half way through your Morello's). If you are lucky you might have the whole Deathfire Grasp also and be part way through your Rylai's.

Late Game

So things are tapering down now. You and your allies will be finishing their builds in a good game, while they may be struggling for gold in a bad game.

If the game is going well, build as normal. Don't get cocky.

If it's going badly build situational items that will help improve your game.

Stats using this build

The_Nameless_Bard wrote:

guntrumm wrote:

Quoted:

xSum wrote:

Sunx7 wrote:

nayaki wrote:

kilipo wrote:

Cheesyend wrote:

1337azn wrote:

Adiós a todos!

Hope you like my guide!

If you don't, leave a comment so I know what's wrong and can try to fix it.

Have a great day!

TheNamelessBard