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Soraka is just OP as **** or w/e

I've been playing Soraka in the 1300-1400 elo bracket for a while, i'm coming close to 100 games with her in ranked so far. I think she's just ridiculously good, and she is always my top pick for support. By reading this guide I hope to teach you how to be the most effective support you can be for your team.

8/0/22 is the most effective Mastery build I've found for Soraka.


This is a big one. Grab 4 points into AP in Offense tree to get to it (because it's the only tier 1 mastery that is worth something to you) and go for CDR. Early game CDR is all the rage, like i've mentioned before, the more uptime you have on your heal and Infusion the better.


I take these as mandatory masteries on almost any champion. I don't die very often as Soraka, but when I do, I want to be up, very fast, because the more time you spend dead, the less time you are supporting your team, that is the butt-end of it. Nothing else in Tier 1 Utility will save your ***, so better be dead for a shorter amount of time.

After Good Hands, you have a choice, you can either Max Mana Per Level and go into MP5, or grab 4 points in . I like Swiftness because it allows me to come back to lane faster and travel to key areas faster, and ward faster- not by very much, this is why it is an optional mastery.


I am really not sure about this one. I really don't know the effectiveness of 5% more vision for a ward, but I assume it allows me to move from a gank a split second faster, or something. Anyway, this is recommended, but again, it's a little controversial as there isn't a lot of data on it yet.


Take these. I don't care who you are, take them. You won't be CSing until late game if you are a good support, and even then you want to try not to CS. You need the GP5 and the extra starting gold is necessary for this item build.


Necessary. With your runes and , you should be at 15% CDR, which is just huge for level 1-6.


Since CV got a cooldown nerf, this is pretty valuable to keep CV's value. Also when you hit flash on accident like a scrub at least it will come back faster.

The Magic Resist, HP and Heal steroid that SV supplies to you turns you into some kind of late game offtank. Team fights will sometimes consist of chasing you down and killing your first because, some enemy teams have in mind that you are the squishiest target. By healing yourself for ridiculous amounts and just being a boss and silencing what-not. The short end of it is, you don't want SV for the CDR, but for the other stupid awesome gold-efficient things it can give you.

I start with 4x Ward, 1x Vision, 2x Red. No. Don't go for the Faerie pendant. Don't do it man. I'm telling you. You gotta' swim in the deep end without the MP5 like the rest of the big boys now. You can do it, I know you can, mommy believes in you.

But seriously you don't need the MP5 if you follow my rune/mastery pages, coupled with the incredibly high CDR for early game, you'll be fine unless you and/or your AD ranged have some kind of mental issue that propels you to kill yourself at the enemy tower or not plant wards in their brush.

The reason you go for 4x Ward is to stay in lane until you can get near 2k gold, basically, you can safely stay in lane and ward the river for a long time. The vision ward is for countering enemy wards at dragon OR to counter their support warding your brush. Basically you have to play a vision game with the other support- and seeing as you have the most potential with all that starting gold and wards, you can win it everytime. You can even forsake 1 health pot to get another vision ward if you feel confident.

CDR boots is obvious, faster heals/silence/mana back/ult the better. Philo for MP5/HP5/GP5, Heart of Gold for HP/GP5 - don't take any of your Ranged AD's farm, or momma's gonna have to sell your LoL account.
Grab Shurelya's early because it allows for so much utility- especially around dragon/baron/ganking/escaping etc. Should be near mid-game at that point.
You want to build either into Kindlegem->Spirit Visage or go for Aegis, but before all that ****, grab Oracles- unless your team is literally being obliterated and you are stuck at the inhibitor towers, in which case, too bad.
This guide doesn't list all the wards I get, but I get about ~15 wards a game, sometimes more, so keep that in mind, buy 1-3 wards at least every shop visit.

Aegis is obvious, whatever. Spirit visage was explained in the chapter above.
If the game continues, sell Heart of Gold to build Banshee's Veil or build into Randuin, whichever your enemy team would like the least to see basically. Always keep a slot open for wards, though.

Brush control. Early game is all about brush control, and if you play the wards correctly, you can win brush control relatively easily. CV is also useful to gain vision of brushes- every Taric/Alistar's nightmare. Your AD HAS to react to this vision and start beating the **** out of the enemy support-switch to their ranged AD if they get cocky and support is running away.

Being an amazing Soraka also means knowing to look around the map a lot- Look at your other lanes, check them quickly and go back to your lane, because your ultimate can basically be the deciding factor in early game victory- You can even let your mid or top know that they can fight or dive and you will get their backs with an ult from across the map like a bawssss.

In early game, too, your positioning matters a lot. Don't be near the river, even with a ward there. Don't be further up than your AD ranged unless you have total confidence that you can make it unscathed from their jungler. This is all to say:
You're not Taric, you're not Alistar, you can't stop them from ganking you easily if you push hard- which is what a Soraka+X lane does well (push and deny strategy). So positioning and vision is key- so is having the right AD ranged (more on this later).
Infusion target? AD carry -> You. Always. You have so much MP5 you shouldn't give two *****. If you're spamming starcall and going oom, you're a scrub, nuff said. If you don't use Infusion ON COOLDOWN EVERY TIME IT'S UP (unless there is nothing to silence and everyone is full mana, obv.) then you're bad. The mana that Soraka can give is essential to the pushing power of your AD.


Oh yeah if you get ganked, I forgot to mention, basically if it's someone who has a spell to cast that is essential to his gank- a la Rammus or whatever, you can silence them before they get it off- I wait for Rammus to be RIGHT close in range (if he even gets there while my duo and I are running away) and I silence him. Same thing with any initiator basically- Singed too. But some ganks are hard to counter, like Shyvana or GP or Skarner. In this case you reall y just have to watch the map and ALSO SOMETHING ELSE NEXT CHAPTER
Now listen to me.
Listen.
Awareness.

In fights, look at your friendly Mana bars. Does this character really need the mana? Or does my awesome silence just pwn **** right now? You have to learn when to make the call, and more often than not it's the silence. It's just too good.

Heals?
You->Carry/Whoever is being focused
Ult?
Don't be afraid to use it. Ever.

People might start focusing you in team fights. Whatever **** them just heal out of that **** like a boss- utilize brush and run towards team-mates, never go full ******. You know the drill.

Graves is op as **** right now and keeping his mana up basically means 100% uptime on pillaging and raping a lane.
Corki is similar in that respect except he takes a little bit of time to get to that point, you might be a bit behind from level 1 to 3-4.
Sivir is just op as **** right now imo and giving her more boomerang potential with infusion and if the Sivir uses her spell shield well, you should be basically ungankable and awesome in lane.

The reason why all of these are good picks with Soraka is- like I mentioned before, some junglers can **** your pushing strat up big time because they can't be stopped by silence or whatever and they're fast like kenyans. So Corki can Valk away, Sivir can spell shield any potential harm or ult/passive like a baws, and Graves can Dash/Smoke Screen. Tristana is theortically good with Soraka but she just lacks the pillaging power that these champs have in my opinion. MAYBE I'M WRONG OKAY I'M HUMAN TOO

Edit: December 6 2011
Fixed about half of it, too brain dead from writing essays to fix the rest. Will get to it.
[] Aesthetics and organization of Items chapter
[] Aesthetics and organization of Lane partner chapter
[] How to play like a champ re-write and organization chapter

I'll get to it but for now play like a pro don't suck etc