Hi, I'm Nightsbane, a support main from OCE. This is my guide for League of Legends premier healer - Soraka, The Starchild.

Sometimes Im called Nicebane on account of my friendliness. Im here to help u learn and build Soraka.

Soraka was my first main, and although play Braum and Morgana lots more now, I have the softest spot for Soraka. She is one of my all-time fave champs and whenever I need to have a fun game, or a win, I saddle up the goat and take her on a rift-trot. She never lets me down.

The focus of this build is to try and impress on Soraka players the importance of building Ability Power and the risks of building Health. My build path is high risk/reward as it relies on not dying. On the flipside, I think its the most OP soraka can become. Goodluck with this guide and in all your future games, I hope we can help each other climb the ranked ladder.

Lastly, although I've tried to make a really good guide and share all I know about the champion, I'd really love any feedback you can give me on how to improve this guide or my knowledge of soraka generally. I hope u enjoy this as much as I did making it.

This build is unique because the item path is so different from other guides. After reading a lot about Soraka I have come to the firm decision that:
1) Health is always an inferior defensive stat
2) Ability Power is the most OP build path
3) Tankiness is required to prevent assassination
4) The most efficient path to maximum ability power and non-health survivability is to
build and stack Mejai's Soulstealer, and tank Armour/Magic resistance
5) This build encourages and supports defensive play which increases the need to think on
a macro-level, which in turn builds the players mastery of the game
6) This strategy can either make you unkillable or a spectacular feeder.

Many people, the majority, as well as professional players, stack health on Soraka. I find this unfathomable. When Soraka was reworked, Riot made clear that they were unhappy with her role as a tanky solo laner and attempted to reposition her back as a support. Part of their explanation emphasised that Tank Raka has a toxic play style, where she could build full tank without any drawback and spam abilities without any disincentive.

To rectify this they made two important changes. First, to crush her tankiness, they hit her with a 10% maximum health cost per w heal, which means 9 heals and she must back or can be one-shotted. Second, to give a dynamic playstyle, they allowed her to heal herself on sucessful landing of her skillshot ability. The heal on her Starcall heals for a flat ammount which scales off Ability Power.

Think about these two interactions. Soraka damages herself for a percent of max health, and heals herself for a flat amount which scales off AP. The more Health she obtains, the greater the raw damage she takes, though always at the same ratio - 10% of maximum health. The more Ability Power Soraka obtains, the greater the return of health to herself.

When people stack health, mostly warmogs armour, they report they are able to deliver more heals to their allies, what they mean is they heal their ally for a small amount, then EXIT combat to activate warmogs heart, regenerate their health, and return to battle.

(As a side note, Riot also hit soraka with one of the lowest base HP regeneration rates in the champ pool, at 11HP per 5s, equal to Gnar. Only Mordekaiser has a lower HP regen, Making percent increased health regen less efficient than with almost every other champ).

To illustrate, Ill explain in relation to the ability ASTRAL INFUSION]]

Astral Infusion
Passive: Each enemy champion hit by Starcall heals Soraka for 25 / 35 / 45 / 55 / 65 (+40% of ability power), increased by 1% for every 1% of Soraka's missing health up to a maximum of 50 / 70 / 90 / 110 / 130 (+80% of ability power).

Active: Soraka blesses a friendly unit, restoring 110 / 140 / 170 / 200 / 230 (+60% of ability power) of its health. Astral Infusion cannot be self-cast, nor can it be cast if Soraka is below 5% of her maximum health.

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EG1 (my build):
1855HP Base + 150HP from sightstone = 2005HP total
0AP Base + 180AP from mejais + 40AP from censer = 220AP

AT FULL HEALTH
soraka heals an ally. At max rank The ally is healed for 230HP (+.6*220) = 362HP
soraka loses 10% max health = -200.5HP
soraka lands a starcall, healing for 65 (+.4*220) = 153HP plus 10% (15.3) = 168.3HP

At the end of the exchange, soraka's ally is healed for 362HP and soraka takes 32.2HP damage. At 45% cdr soraka can complete this cycle every 3.25s (starcall cd). After 10 cycles, 32.5s has passed, soraka has healed her ally for 3620HP and taken 322HP (slightly more if the cumulative effect of the health cost is taken into account, but im lazy so ill work it out later :>)

AT 15% (300HP) HEALTH
soraka heals for 362HP
takes 200.5HP dmg
lands q, heals for 153HP + 85% = 130.5HP = +283HP

soraka ends on 383HP, healed for 83HP

Soraka can heal indefinitely. Before reaching 15% health equilibrium is found where soraka will self heal for an amount equal to the 10% damage she takes from allied heals.

Additionally, it takes approx 30s to back, heal and race back to the fray. This is less time than raka would spend walking the rift vulnerable while warmogs passively heals her.

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EG.2 (HP tank build): 4000HP + 40AP (ruby ss+warmogs+rylais+whatevs)

AT FULL HEALTH
soraka heals with w. Ally is healed for 230 + (.6*40) = 254HP
soraka loses 10% max health = -400HP
soraka lands a starcall, healing for 65 + (.4*40) = 71HP + 7.1HP = +78.1HP

Upon completion, Soraka's ally is healed for 254HP and soraka takes 321.9HP damage

AT 15% (600HP) HEALTH
soraka heals an ally for 254HP
takes 400HP dmg
lands starcall, healing for 71HP + 85% = 60.35 = 131.35HP

soraka ends on 331.35HP, taking 268.65HP damage in the exchange.

Soraka cannot heal again, she must exit combat to activate warmogs heart, or back and heal.

To enable the massive regen available from warmogs heart, soraka must leave combat for 8 seconds, where she can regenerate around 130HP/s. This will take around 30s to regen to max health from 15%. Soraka can be at full health 38s after exiting combat.

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In short - The more AP, the more soraka heals for, reaching a point of equilibrium. With AP she can stay in combat and effectively heal as damage is taken. The more HP, The more Soraka must pace the rift waiting to be healed passively. She becomes less squishy at the expense of weaker heals and no sustain.

Flash - always. 100%. Soraka lacks mobility. Flash is a no-brainer

Exhaust - Standard, safe summoner spell, with intense utility. Also the best scaling summoner spell. Proper use of exhaust is key to competent supporting.

Heal - A standard item to take on ADC, although the changes to the mastery tree means that it has extra benefit when taken by the support. Take if you duo with your adc and when your adc has some understanding of when to properly exhaust, which s/he should take instead. If not, opt for exhaust.

The current meta is dominated by tank/engage supports, which make sustain champs more vulnerable. Soraka is most challenged by toplane and unorthodox supports, such as Volibear, Kennen and Fiddlesticks, and also many hard times with tanks like Braum/ Nautilus/ Leona/ Thresh/ Tahm Kench.

Soraka has a relatively better time against Janna, Nami, and other AP mage supports who provide sustain. Soraka is great when you have a tanky team comp already with some good hard cc.

If you have a duo who really knows their stuff, Soraka will help them snowball the game hard.

Talisman of ascension - Every stat is beneficial, the active synergises extremely well with Raka's passive, and increases her mobility.

Sightstone - Every support needs a sightstone. Dont upgrade to Ruby Sightstone lik you would with other AP mages like Sona, as you will spend valuable gold on health with is swallowed by the interaction between Starcall (q) and Astral Infusion (w). Vision control is one of your most critical duties.

Mejai's Soulstealer - the entire build hinges on your ability to stack this item. Get it early as possible and once acquired - dont die. Stack it selfishly (use your ult even when its not essential) until u are dealing a good ammount of AP. Those stacks are more important than any one player or any one teamfight. Dont lose them without burning everything to get away.

Frozen Heart - Armour, cooldown reduction, no health. This is an item Soraka needs, even if its not the item Soraka players want.

Ardent Censer - Gives your heals a damage steroid, gives cdr, gives movement speed which I love on Raka. Good final item, swap with Zeke's if that's your preference

Mobility Boots - You need mobility and thats what these give. Enchantment: Alacrity gives more speed but if you would rather Flash more, Enchantment: Distortion is almost as good.

Intelligence = -5% and increase total to 45%
Talisman of ascension = -10%
Frozen Heart = -20%
Ardent Censer = -10%

= 45% reduction

When Mejais gave 15% cdr I would reach 45% with mejais, talisman and frozen heart. Sometimes I chose Morello and Frozen heart if I die too much, and then switch out ardent censer for zz'rot, as im probably being focussed or assassinated by the enemy midlaner. Remember to be flexible and build according to enemy composition/fed lanes.

Thanks for reading my guide I hope it was worth it for you. Don't forget to vote for me if you think my guide will be helpful to others.

Ill keep a log of any updates/changes I make as the game progresses and I get feedback.

Big shoutout to JhoiJhoi Who's Karthus build guide helped me heaps with formatting etc.

Goodluck on the rift boys and girls :>