UPDATED Guide to the Tournament Support Soraka

Introduction

Hello all, this is Crestinglight here with my tournament support guide to Soraka the Starchild! I'd like to start this guide off strong, so before we move along, let's show you that it actually works!

Here is a recent screenshot. Two entire days of solo queue!



And just to make myself look like even more of a pretentious bastard, I will also flaunt that there are three more victories of similar score if you were able to scroll down!

Hey I'm a support, I take credit where I can...

OKAY, now that we've got that out of the way, you saw that it works, and it works in ranked games! In this guide, I will be sure to tell you everything I think you need to know, because playing Soraka isn't about what items you build or what runes you use. It's about how you play her that allows you, and your teammates to do well!

IMPORTANT NOTE

I am aware that Soraka no longer has endless mana, so if you find any parts about having endless mana please disregard them, though I still do not change my build. Personally, I don't find Soraka to be that mana hungry unless your teammate is really getting wrecked, and even then the philo-stone seems to get me through mana problems just fine. If, however you are having issues with mana, feel free to grab your Glacial Shroud for your Frozen Heart early. This should solve the issue!

Last is my little note about the second build. The second build in this guide is just for fun, and is an AP damage build. Soraka can be quite the sick caster, but always know, THIS BUILD SHOULD NEVER EVER BE USED IN A RANKED OR TOURNAMENT GAME!! The second build in this guide is just for fun in normals, and won't be elaborated on a TON.

Common Abbreviations

Here are some common abbreviations that I will be using throughout this guide!

AA - Auto Attack
AD - Attack Damage
AP - Ability Power
ArPen - Armor Penetration
CC - Crowd Control
CDR - Cooldown Reduction
CV - Clairvoyance (Summoner Spell)
DPS - Damage Per Second (champions)
FB - First Blood
GG - Good Game
GLHF - Good Luck Have Fun!
KS - Kill Steal (NEVER DO IT)
MPen - Magic Penetration
MP5 - Mana Per 5 sec
MR - Magic Resist
Quints - Quintessences (runes)
Ult - Ultimate move, "r" on the keyboard
XP - Experience

Pros / Cons

There are many support champions in this game, so let's take a look at why you might (or might not) play Soraka over the other champions that you could chose!


Pros

Biggest heals in the game
Refills mana!
Amazing longevity in lane
Huge, life saving silence
Global heal allows for across map support
Ultimate makes it easy to farm assists
Shreds MR for great AP support
She's a goat, which is awesome


Cons


Slow move speed
Lacks escapes
Big cooldowns
Gets focused to eliminate healing
Does next to no damage (Support build)
Very money hungry (as are all supports!)
Enemy champions pull on her ponytail. It's very devastating.

Runes

For our support Soraka, we are going with Greater Mark of Insight, Greater Seal of Avarice, Greater Glyph of Focus, and Greater Quintessence of Fortitude.

As for our marks I chose armor marks. As a support Soraka, you will not be doing much damage at all (that is not your purpose), however you will definitely be tanking damage in your lane and throughout the game, as the healer often gets focused for early kills and in order to eliminate all buffs in teamfights. I go with the armor marks because it is likely that we will be going up against an AD dps in our lane, so this will directly help you early on. However, you can also choose MR marks in order to be more resilient to AP carries.

For our seals, we really want Greater Seal of Avarice. We need as much gold as we can because we won't be getting any creeps (see the Ranked Play section). The more gold we can get per 10 sec, the better we can contribute to our team by getting more advanced items. My second choice (if you find you are really getting farmed off assists) would be Greater Seal of Potency for some more AP for bigger heals. If, however you find that you are still dying a whole lot and getting focused, you could also take Greater Seal of Resilience. This will give you more protection from the enemy carry and make you a little more durable in lane. Also, I have noticed that some people take Greater Seal of Replenishment with Soraka, and I guess after the nerf I can understand. For me, I would never sacrifice the g/10 for MP5.

Glyphs are an obvious answer and in my opinion should not be swapped out for any other glyphs. Soraka really, REALLY needs CDR, and Greater Glyph of Focus is just the right thing to give her that little boost in her early game in order to make her a viable healer. If you are in a premade though, and you find that your teammates don't really need healing that often I suppose you could take Greater Glyph of Potency, but then again if this is the case then you should probably not be playing Soraka anyway, and should perhaps be using a more offensive support such as Sona or Karma.

Now for the big ones, and these are really going to be runes that you will have to tailor to your own play style: Quintessences. For my play style I like to take two Greater Quintessence of Avarice, and one Greater Quintessence of Fortitude on my support Soraka. For us, gold is going to be vital in these games, and since we don't get cs, we need to take some runes to help us out with this. Soraka is also incredibly squishy and tends to get focused down in lane, so the extra health can really help you stick through the harassment and can even ward them off from hitting you at all.
We could also take Greater Quintessence of Potency for bigger heals, especially if you find you are hanging back and playing more passively. You could also take Greater Quintessence of Swiftness for a little more escape ability and to really get where you're needed when you're needed. I encourage you to try a few different options and see what works best for you.



Ok wait, by the end of this build, you have over 50% CDR, but the cap is 40%! Why not take MR or AP Glyphs?!!!

Yes, if you follow this build exactly, and you reach end game, you will have over 40% CDR, and that is something you don't generally want. However, you need to keep in mind that Soraka is needed most in the early game, while babysitting the AD carry. We need to get CDR on her as early as possible so that she can really be an asset to her carry.

Beyond that, you should always, ALWAYS, be building to counterbalance the enemy team, meaning that you wont necessarily end with this exact build! Sometimes you will need to build items that don't give you any CDR such as Randuin's Omen or Locket of the Iron Solari in place of Zeke's Herald or Frozen Heart. Having that CDR as a backup is crucial to ensuring we reach our cap and getting those early heals out as quickly as possible.

As for our AP Soraka build, we really want the most damage possible, so we are going to take a lot of AP and MP runes. Though, if you want to be able to spam those harasses a bit more, you could also take Greater Glyph of Focus, or Greater Quintessence of Fortitude for more survivability.

Masteries

Masteries that we take for support Soraka are going to be 8/1/21.

First, we take the 8 in offense for the extra ability power that Mental Force provides, and the CDR that we get from Sorcery. It may seem strange that we don't take Archaic Knowledge, but remember that we are here to support our carry and our team, and the extra MP is really not necessary for our build.

The 1 point we are putting into defense is for the single purpose of enhancing our heal. The new summoner heal has been improved to an amazing degree and is really, really worth it now. With the extra heal that this provides to us and our teammates, we should be able to support our entire team throughout any fight!

Lastly is the utility tree. We really want to take away some main points from this tree, and those are the movement speed from Swiftness, the gold per 10 sec from Greed, and the CDR from Intelligence. The other masteries in this tree are really personal preference. I know I cannot live without the XP from Awareness myself, but some would prefer to take MP5 masteries. It really depends on your own play style.

As for this build, we really want to do as much damage as possible, and I find that in order to make this build viable, this requires 21 points in offense, with 9 in utility. The 21 in offense is pretty self explanatory as it is the classic AP offense tree, but I really like the extra move speed that we get from Swiftness for this build seeing as Soraka has literally zero escapes. If you find you want some more longevity in lane however, you can also switch those out for 9 in defense.

Summoner Spells

For this section, I would like to start by saying there are really three summoner skills that should probably be chosen just about every time you play Soraka, the most important of which is Clairvoyance. CV is the bread and butter of the support community, but you really need to know how to use it. CV allows you to continually have vision on the other team. As you play LoL and get more familiar with the habits and routine of the other players you will learn how to more effectively place your CV. This simple spell could save your teammates from a gank, save your team dragon, or even be used for something as big as stealing baron buff. Learn how to efficiently use this spell and you will be an irreplaceable asset to your team.
Oh, a note on pushy teammates with your CV: you are there to help them. If they have an inkling that an enemy may be in a bush or in a certain area in your jungle, even if you don't share the same inkling, give your CV to them. It helps keep the attitude together as a team, and makes them feel more confident in you, and you never know when they could be right.

Now, on to the new summoner Heal. This spell has been completely redone and buffed, and it is now amazing! I take this spell on all supports that I play because of its incredible effectiveness. It becomes yet another heal that you can pop in an emergency situation, and I find that it saves lives many more times than you would be able to save without it. I love this new spell and I would say it is one of the "Core Summoner Spells" for this champion.

Lastly is Flash. Flash is a great spell for an AP type Soraka and can definitely do well on support Soraka as well. Seeing as Soraka has zero escapes, this can give her the out she really needs while being chased, or even to get her within range of a dying teammate. My only issue with this spell for our support Soraka, is that as a support champion, we need to let go of our selfish behaviors. We aren't DPS and we aren't here to ever run away. We need to stick with our DPS through to the end, and I find that having flash there puts me in more of a running mood. You would be shocked at what you can survive when you stay these things out, for example a few days ago I was playing with an Ahri who got jumped by herself by four enemy champions. By the time I got there she was almost dead, but after an Astral Blessing and a Wish she was back at half. Together we were able to kill two of them, then with a well timed Heal we were able to pick off another before the fourth went running. I would not have been able to do this with flash, and we probably both would have died in that case.



A Note About Exhaust

I would also just like to mention, that because of the huge rework to Heal, often times your AD carry will take Heal/Flash. In this instance, it is actually best for you to take Exhaust and Flash, or exhaust and Clairvoyance, whichever you prefer. This maximizes the amount that your carry receives as far as healing goes, and also gives your carry that heavy exhaust in lane.

Other Viable Options


Teleport is a decent spell for Soraka because of her slow movement speed. This can really help her get back in lane to continue gaining XP, to keep up with other champions on her team, or it can really help get her into those teamfights where she is needed, right after she's backed.

Ghost can be a strong spell because it works in many great ways: as an escape, to keep vision on an enemy your team is chasing, and to catch up with a teammate in danger.

Cleanse can be great for an enemy team that you see has a lot of CC. For example, a team that might consist of Alistar, Kassadin, Vayne, Fiddlesticks, and Nasus would definitely warrant taking Cleanse. In this situation you may even want to grab a Quicksilver Sash as well.


Absolute No No's

Smite: Though it is possible to jungle with Soraka, do not ever do it. It defeats the entire purpose of Soraka, and if you are jungling then who is bottom with your carry?

Revive: Still no. This spell should have been taken out too. It's stupid.

Clarity: Even though we don't have spammable mana anymore, I find that Soraka is really not that mana hungry. If you're having issues with mana, grab an early Glacial Shroud or ask your jungler if you can have blue buff (provided your midder doesn't need it such as Kennen) or if he can help you with enemy blue buff. You should never need clarity.

Surge: Sigh. Why do you need attack speed? This spell was created for Teemo. That's it.


Everything else is gray area. If you find you REALLY need Exhaust cause your carry is an idiot and didn't take it, then you have to do what you have to do.



As for AP Soraka, she needs as much damage on her side as possible. Ignite is going to be necessary in order for her to get kills, and it can also serve as a way for her to be an anti-support, as ignite reduces the healing your opponent receives.

Items

All of these items are 100% necessary for our support Soraka and should be used in every game that we play. Soraka is an auramancer at heart, and we really need to play into that by getting her as many aura items as possible. First, we want to begin with Faerie Charm, 4 Sight Wards and one Health Potion. You can also take 3 wards and 3 pots if you feel more comfortable with some extra health in lane. As for our Philosopher's Stone, the gold that we get from this item is invaluable. Rush this item early in order to be able to keep up with the needs of your teammates.

Aegis of the Legion is another item that we need to make sure we get at least by mid game. This item will help you to become more tanky with the health, MR and armor it gives, while aiding your carry and possibly your solo top (provided they are AD such as Wukong or Nasus) immensely.

Abyssal Scepter does essentially the same for us that the previous item does but for our AP instead. This will help your AP carry out quite a bit by lowering the enemy's MR, and give us some tasty AP for even bigger heals than we already had.

Lastly is Shurelya's Reverie. Be sure to grab this item later in the game when you no longer need the gold from Philosopher's Stone so badly. Pop this item every 60 seconds for a huge burst in move speed that will allow your team to catch a fleeing enemy or to make some amazing escapes yourselves.

As for boots, I actually take Mercury's Treads on Soraka. Soraka has literally no escapes, so the aid that you get from these boots can mean the difference between life and death against that team that has massive CC. Choose carefully. Analyze the other team, figure out how much CC they have, and think about whether or not this will be a useful item to you.

Next I would say Ionian Boots of Lucidity are a decent choice. With the exact build I have posted in the top section, we will reach the soft cap of 40% CDR, even with Mercury's Treads being our choice of boot. However, not all games go the same. Sometimes you will find that you maybe need to purchase a Will of the Ancients instead of a Frozen Heart, or a Randuin's Omen, which won't give you any CDR that Soraka needs so badly. In these cases, you will definitely want to grab some CDR boots, because no matter what you build, Soraka is really a champion that needs as much CDR as possible in this game.

Third choice is going to be your Boots of Mobility. These boots can really help you get back in lane speedy quick or help you run over to that team fight that your big dumb tank initiated with just 4 people while you were at base. Pop your global heal as they start to take damage, then run like hell.

Ranked Play

Now for the fun part: How in the hell do I control this thing?!?!?!?!

Well my grubby little minions, fret no more as you read on about how to goat it up with the amazing Soraka support!

In our early game, we immediately want to locate our enemy. We should CV their base at about 10 sec in to see items and who will lane where, in case it is unclear who will lane where. Our second CV should be used on the beginning of the opposing jungler's route. For example, if they have a jungle Amumu, at about 1:10 we want to CV their blue buff. In a few secs, the minions will come down lane. Wait for them to begin battling and locate the enemy champions in bot lane. The last thing we want to do is face check the bushes to find two of them ready for us, giving them an early FB. You can also have your AD carry shoot a skill shot such as Sivir's Boomerang Blade and listen for the sound of it hitting enemy champions. Just be ready and prepared for an ambush.

Now that we are in lane, we can establish brush dominance. Further down will be an image of where we should stand, along with ward placement. At this point we should hide in the brush, disabling Soraka's AA of minions, and for now we just chill out. Do not lay a ward at level 1. I will go over warding further down.

From here we simply want to wait in the brush, allow our carry to farm, and heal/provide mana whenever necessary. That's right folks, we don't last hit minions! Leave it all to our carry, don't take any last hits when they could get them. Only ever last hit if your carry is backing and there is no one else to take them. At this point it's better you have the last hits than the turret.

Here is an image of good positioning, along with a solid ward placement. Your early game should look like this:

At this point, and perhaps a bit earlier, it is time for your jungler to be ganking, and your carry should be getting aggressive. It is now that we really need to step up our game, and along with our newfound ultimate we need to keep a constant eye on all of our teammates. Keep in mind, it is okay to top off your teammates' health bars even if they aren't in an emergency situation. This can give them all some more longevity so that they don't have to back, keeping everyone up with the XP of the enemy.

Also, be sure to keep in back, and only explore in order to ward, always using CV first of course. You are not the tank, nor are you even the dps. Don't get out of position, and stick close to teammates at all times.

This is the point at which all of the lanes are converging and team fights are beginning. More than ever it is important for you not to get out of position. If you die at this point, it's gg for your team. Without a healer they will be lacking the cc that comes from your silence and the massive heals that come from your Astral Blessing, Wish and Heal. This is really your time to shine since you should have most of your CDR by this point, and you can make some seriously epic saves for teammates who may be turret diving the enemy, getting locked with CC or just getting focused. Stress to them not to run, because you can keep them alive for a very long period of time. If they are the damage dealer, they want to stick around and put on as much hurt as they can.

Warding is absolutely vital to winning this game and it will save your team so many times you wouldn't believe it. While your jungler may be warding as he roams the board, it is really only your responsibility to ensure that your map is warded at all times. As the support, you should be running around your map quite a bit helping whoever needs it whenever they need it, so it should be pretty easy to drop a few wards as you run.

However, always remember that your enemy sees you as a very, very easy target. Make sure before you enter any bush or area that you can't see into, you want to use your cv to ensure a safe passage.

Below is a map to give you a good idea of where you should be warding:




Blue Dots - These are areas in which you should always be dropping sight wards. You want to make sure you put these into the bushes so that you get the most out of your wards, and you can anticipate the ganks that your enemy is preparing!

Pink Dots - These spots are where you should always be dropping Vision Wards. This is where the enemy support is going to be placing all of their wards all the time, so its always worth it to get the extra pink ward, especially when you can make $25 just by shooting down their wards!

Gray Dots - Great ideas, but very situational. If your enemy team is sort of always out there and don't gank much then I wouldn't bother warding these areas, but sometimes you get into some games in which it seems like your enemy is traveling as one big pack, just waiting to pick off any stray that innocently wanders into the jungle. These gray spots are common bushes for whole teams to hide in, because they provide little mobility for the victim to get out, especially with any blocks such as Crystallize or Pillar of Filth. If you can see it coming, you can avoid it and maybe even take out a turret while the fools wait for an innocent doe that will never come!

*An Extra Note About Warding: Never, ever place a ward at level 1. There is no way that any jungler can finish his route before level 2, and placing a ward at this time is only going to waste about a minute or two of visibility, which could end up being crucial to the early lane phase. At this point we need to assess the jungler in order to figure out exactly when we should place the ward. If they have a jungle Shaco, you want to place a ward (directly after a cv of course) the moment you hit level 2. If, however, the enemy has a jungling Warwick, you can lazily place it whenever you've hit level three or four. To reach maximum effectiveness, you really need to study enemy champions and learn just how long they stay in their jungles, and just how effective ganking opportunities are for them.

Lastly, on wards: When you get into lane, immediately take a look at the opponent's items. If you can see that they have wards in their arsenal (especially if it's a support such as Sona or Taric), then you really want to grab yourself a Vision Ward the next time you go back. Trust me, they will be infuriated. Plop that sucker down in river bush and destroy that ward that they paid $75 for. You'll get the extra return of $25 to your inventory and they will have to fly blind for the next three minutes, ensuring a nice, fat gank (maybe even a double kill) for your jungler.

In team fights, your positioning is very important. If you are too close to the mass of the group, I can promise you that you will get picked off within the first 3 seconds. Enemy teams love to take out healers because they undo all of the damage that their team has worked so hard to do, and they also tend to super buff every member of their team, along with debuffing the enemy team (such as lowering MR or Armor). If we hang too far forward, the enemy dps will run straight through our tanks and smack us in the face with their big f*cking swords. Don't let this happen, hang out in the back.

Although, we also want to make sure we aren't too far back because we have to remember that goat is super slow. If your teammates start moving around a lot and you're too far behind, you won't be able to reach them with Astral Blessing, and they'll die. And they'll be pissed. Baaaaaah-d.

Major guidelines to positioning in teamfights: you always want to analyze your position and make sure of a few things. You want to be just far enough back that any skill shots thrown by enemy players will not reach you. This will prevent them from running through the meat shields to reach you, which will allow your tank to really do his job. This means that we shouldn't be in the cluster of names that always winds up in a teamfight. We need to remain in relatively easy access to our teammates, yet stay in the back. Watch your teammates' health bars and make sure to heal those who need it.

Take a look at the picture below. Who do you think is going to win this fight? Why? Where do you think the best spot for the team's support would have been?



I seems very obvious that the green team is winning this battle. Ignoring the fact that this battle is 3v4 (which wouldn't happen if red team had wards!), the positioning of the green team is stronger, and it allows them to control the battle. Now, if the green team had had a support in this fight, where would be a good position for the support to stand in?

The yellow star marks a great spot in which our support could stay. She would be out of reach of Kennen's Slicing Maelstrom, and any other enemy champions would have to get through her entire team before she could be harmed, giving her plenty of time to get away. But the biggest aspect that makes this location strong is that our support would really be able to reach any member of her group that needs her from here. As we can see, Pantheon has separated from the group here, but he is at full health and dealing quite a large chunk of damage, so at this point we can see he is very much in control. At the current time in this battle that we should really be focusing on buffing and healing our friends who are within Kennen's ult, so that they can survive the next few seconds and beat him to a useless bloody pulp on the floor.

This is a big question that I find a lot of new supports really have a lot of trouble determining in the heat of the moment, and your instincts will sharpen as you practice and learn. It will happen sometimes that you will pop your ultimate and summoner heal, but a few of your teammates are still really taking damage. This can sometimes make it difficult to decide who you will and will not save, especially when all you have left in your arsenal is Astral Blessing, but the main way to really excel in this category is to learn the roles of your other teammates. I suppose the first role that I can really cross out for you is the tank. The tank is the initiator and he is expected to have tons of health, MR and Armor, and he is also expected to take a lot of heat, and even to die for his teammates. If it comes down to it, and everyone is still taking large chunks of damage, the tank should be at the bottom of your priority list.

Now the general guideline here is that you should really be healing your squishy dps allies. But the question is, do we heal our AP or AD carry? This can be a tough question that you may want to establish an answer to before a teamfight even breaks out. So let's start with the obvious: If your AP carry is doing terribly, does no damage and is essentially useless, don't waste your heals on them when you could help sustain someone who is really going to carry the team. The same is true for your AD carry. If they are useless, don't spend the time, mana or cooldowns to save them when you could save someone useful.

If, however, both your caster and AD are doing well and are contributing to the team, which one do we choose? In this case, I would say (if you can only choose one of them), we generally want to save our AD carry, and this is for one simple reason: there is a period of time after every teamfight in which the losing team is dead, spawning or returning to base for health, and this is really a point in time that your AD can take advantage of. It is far easier for an AD carry to down an enemy turret quickly than it will be for your AP mage.

Beyond this bit of advice, you really need to just practice and learn for yourself. You'll start to get it... who will you choose? Live or die, make your choice okay I really need to stop doing that.....



Don't ever play this build in ranked games ever. Not ever. If you want to play an AP carry, play a real AP carry, that's what they're there for. Learn how to play Annie, Kassadin, Ryze, or Malzahar and choose one of them.

Conclusion

The basic summary of this guide is that this is how I play the goat queen Soraka. This guide was never intended to boss you around or tell you how to play, but rather I wanted to share some of the information that I have learned over my time playing supports so that hopefully some players in the League of Legends can learn how to play, and therefore enjoy supporting their teammates (especially knowing that the only reason those noobs are winning is cause you're there saving their ***es!!!). Furthermore, don't ever be afraid to communicate with your team. If your carry is being too aggressive and getting himself killed, tell him to back off! And vice versa as well. You are the eyes and the ears for your carry who is too busy focusing on last hits and potential kills so make sure you are typing in chat and pinging to alert them to what they need to know. Pay attention to all of your teammates across the entire map, and make sure to always ward for your team. They will thank you for it!

Thanks for reading this guide, and feel free to shoot me comments or questions in the section below (and don't forget to give me a +1!)