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Soraka Build Guide by Warpagi

Support Soraka.. from Gold to Diamond. Patch 7.3

Support Soraka.. from Gold to Diamond. Patch 7.3

Updated on May 15, 2017
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League of Legends Build Guide Author Warpagi Build Guide By Warpagi 5 2 60,901 Views 2 Comments
5 2 60,901 Views 2 Comments League of Legends Build Guide Author Warpagi Soraka Build Guide By Warpagi Updated on May 15, 2017
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Choose Champion Build:

  • LoL Champion: Soraka
    Mastering Soraka.
  • LoL Champion: Soraka
    First time Soraka

Spells:

LoL Summoner Spell: Exhaust

Exhaust

LoL Summoner Spell: Flash

Flash

Threats & Synergies

Threats Synergies
Extreme Major Even Minor Tiny
Show All
None Low Ok Strong Ideal
Extreme Threats
Ideal Synergies
Synergies
Ideal Strong Ok Low None

Intro

Hey. I'm a Soraka main with over 200K mastery points on her as well as over 60% winrate in ranked. I wrote this guide when I was in Gold5, planning to main Soraka while climbing my way to Diamond. Right now, I'm in Platinum 2 and climbing on.


Old note: (I know that Gold 5 is very low Elo. The reason I expect you to trust this guide to be more than G5 level is that it contains a lot of details and very thought-out information. I got to Gold not knowing half the things I know now about Soraka.)

Looks like I was right. ^^ This knowledge here did help me climb.

Also, Sorry for the extremely text-heavy guide. I hope and believe that it will be worth your time, especially if you are currently in bronze, silver or gold. If you are higher, I think there's still some aspects you may have overlooked that this guide will help you with.
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Pros / Cons / When to play her.

Pros

    Insane healing
    Nice movement speed
    Game changing ult, she can help all lanes once she has lvl 6
    One of the least boring champions
    Low cooldowns
    Global ult that can highly impact other lanes
    Medium risk- high reward champion
    Easy to play to a decent level
    Mastering her is very rewarding as well
    Useful even if behind
    Not very high feeding potential (she is not likely to KS and thus reset her kill gold)

Cons

    Squishy
    Passive/reactive gameplay
    Her E is one of the hardest abilities in the game
    She is vulnerable to assassins and divers. Mostly divers.
    Her laning can be difficult if adc decides to push.
    Can't arrange ganks.
    Does not work in every team comp.
    No hard cc
    No wave clear
    Not enough mobility
    Not many other buffs for the team besides healing. (unlike Karma, Janna Lulu and Nami)

When to play her



Soraka needs a team that is heal-able. A team that can protect her. A team that's focused on team fighting over split pushing and a team that is likely to stick close together during fights.

Pick Soraka if.

1. Your team has tanks, champions that heal themselves and champions that are likely to build Spirit Visage. (Mundo, Swain, Nidalee, Kayle, Galio, Anivia, Zilean)

2. Your team has high mobility (Rammus, Corki, Quinn, Ezreal, Lucian, Vayne). You can't provide mobility for your team but you can follow them if they get low hp.

3. Your team has CC. You don't have any reliable hard cc and your team needs some. (Sion, Nautilius, Malphite)

4. Your team has good wave clear. Remember that you have none. ( pretty much any ap damage mid laner and adc's like Tristana, Twitch, Sivir, Jinx that just melt minions)

5. Your team has good amounts of physical and magical damage. You deal no damage. If your team is full ad or simply has too little damage you should consider going ap supp.

If your team is the opposite of this then consider picking other supports. Soraka is strong and can overcome most teamcomp issues but too much is too much.
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Starting items

Pick a supp item and 3 biscuits or a refillable potion

Go Ancient coin and biscuits for a safe game. If possible, it's great if you can survive in lane until you have your ult and these are the best items to help you achieve that.

Go Spellthief's with Biscuits IF
-the enemy bot lane has a weak early game.
-the enemy supp is melee and will probably go Relic shield (it's very easy to stack the Spellthief's when he goes for minions)
-your adc has strong early game or great poke and with some extra damage from you he can get the enemies to back early or be low hp and thus very vulnerable to ganks.

Go Refillable potion if
- The enemy bot has a lot of poke.
- Most likely the early game will not be in your favor no matter what we do.
- Your adc does not plan to push lane or take any risks and is just waiting for the late game.
- You expect to be forced to recall early.
Ex: Soraka + Vayne vs Lulu + Caitlyn
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Mid game items

A pro would say rush Sightstone, get it on your first back. Also boots should take priority over upgrading your supp item.

We're not pros so go ahead and upgrade supp item to lvl 2 and get Boots of speed and 1-2 Control wards on your first back. If you survived for long enough to also get a Sightstone, congratulations! Don't ever risk your life for that again, it's stupid.

Here's a trick. You may keep getting biscuits throughout the game! If you make nice use of them they will certainly be worth the investment. There's no other champion that benefits more from them. (did you know the buff they give you also buffs your W just like landing your Q does?)

After that you will want your first items. Make them all be cheap items that amplify your healing.

If you like
Redemption
's active get this item... though it's not my favorite item on Soraka because..
1. You have enough healing.
2. It gives you a lot of health that you don't need.
3. The other items just feel a ton better. ( You should never get all 3 heal amplifying items! It's not efficient.. unless you go full Ap after that, but then you'll be too squishy and immobile)

Ardent Censer
is 100% efficient on Soraka.

Mikael's crucible
this is one of my favorite items. It buffs your heals so much you can get ONLY Mikael's and a bit of ap (like Zhonya) and heal for crazy amounts the whole game, nothing else required. 100% must buy.

Athene's Grail
This isn't a very mainstream Soraka item but feel free to experiment with it. Don't take it together with Mikael's. If you feel like you're easily landing Q's in a teamfight and if you for some reason want to heal more tanky team mates then this might be the item for you. If you find yourself not having enough CDR this might be the best item to make your build perfect.


Locket
can be a great starting item if you're slightly behind.
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End game items. All items that work on Soraka and when to get them..

I must start by saying that you should always adapt your build to the situation. Soraka isn't a champ that can fit in every teamcomp and against any enemies unless you do a great job picking the right items. Consider what you're going to build before the game even starts.
Ask yourself how the game, especially team-fights will go and anticipate what you're going to need. The better you understand what are the biggest threats to you and your carries the better you should be at preventing them from loosing you the game.

Don't die 5 times to Zed and flame your mid laner for it. The moment you see that mid lane fed 2 kills to Zed you should already be buying the armor for Zhonya, warding like crazy and saving exhaust for when he comes after you. Your eyes should constantly be on Mid so you can ping the moment he goes missing.



When facing a full ad/full ap team always let your team know and make sure that you yourself build accordingly.


LOCKET

- Get this if:
1. The enemy has a ton of burst ex. Veigar. You can't outheal Veigar's damage. You actually might not even be able to heal your adc ONCE before they die to Veigar. Loket is one of the things that can help you here. You see Veigar stunned your full health squishy, you use Locket, they survive with 10-20% hp, then you can heal them back to around 50% hp and they will survive a little extra damage from the enemy team and hopefully walk away.

2. The enemy has area of efect damage that you can predict. Ex: ziggs, lux, kayle, velkoz.

3. Your team tends to stick close together and prefers team fighting over split pushing.

4. Your team mates lack mobility and have to commit once the fight starts.


ZZ ROT

- This is a personal favorite. It may seem counter intuitive but it gives great stats that Soraka benefits from a ton. Get this if:

1. You need the defense stats. They're great for Soraka!

2. You're loosing very hard early game and will out-scale the enemy if you get to the late game. It can be a game changer if you need to stall the game to win.

3. You didn't build Talisman of Ascension already. (the movement speed passive)

4. You know how to use it well. Move quickly across the map, leave ZZ rots near lanes that are currently ignored then get back to where your team is and force the enemy to focus on the teamfight rather than the lane that's being pushed by the ZZ rot. After a while you should have a nice wave formed where you left your ZZ rot waiting to be pushed. Don't use the ZZ rot if your team is taking free towers. It won't help at all.

5. Your team has little wave clear. You can get a ZZ rot to help out pushing or defending. Remember, wave clearing is NOT your job and you should NEVER waste time fighting minions. Your team might have the impression that you know what you're doing and the people with wave clear on your team might go do some other **** rather than clearing the minions themselves. NEVER let your team fight without you. Remember that besides whomever is carrying your game you should be the second most important member in a team fight. Have some pride and never try to wave clear for your team.

6. You have Mobility boots. I don't recommend getting it with any other boots unless you urgently need it for defense purposes. (enemies are breaking into your base)

ZHONYA

- This item is amazing on Soraka. Get this if:

1. You have no other ap item. You very much need some ap on Soraka. Even if you get + 50% heal from items and masteries, that will not help you any unless you multiply that amount with some ap. You may have heard that Soraka's ap scaling is ****. That is simply not true. Full ap Soraka is **** indeed but you don't want that! Aim for 50-150 ap on her and you'll see crazy amounts of healing.

2. You're good at using it. If you're likely to even forget you bought it, just practice it on normal games until it's second nature. Using it well can probably boost your performance as Soraka by a ton.

3. You need the Armor stats and you are being targeted. Ask yourself if Zhonya is better than Guardian Angel. Remember the heal from GA. Consider the difference in cooldown, GA has a much longer cooldown. Consider the synergy with the rest of your build,(Ex: do you need more Ap or some magic resist? do you need 10% cdr or not?) and finally consider getting both if the enemy team is just crazy about killing you first thing in a fight and have the means to do that. Sometimes your **** team will be too busy engaging and not notice you're being zoned or killed by an enemy that's coming from behind.


ZEKE's

- This item is great on Soraka because of her low cooldowns and how fast she can activate it. Get this if:

1. Someone is carrying your game super hard.

2. That carry makes good use of the Crit chance or Ap Zeke provides.

3. You can safely follow that carry around. Don't get it for a jumping assassin that will go for the enemy carries whatever it takes. Zeke's won't activate in time for the assassination and you'll find yourself in a really bad spot while your assassin already got away to safety, you'll die for nothing. Get ZEKE for more immobile carries that are likely to play safe and survive the team fight long enough for ZEKE to activate no matter if you're not paying attention to its stacks/ not forcing it to happen.

GUARDIAN ANGEL

- This is pretty self explanatory, get it if:

1. You will likely die to crazy unpredictable burst/chain cc/ combo. Ex: Enemy team has Oriana mid, Malphite top, Amumu jungle, Tristana adc and Zyra supp.. you get the idea. You won't be able to Zhonya.

2. You need the defense stats.

3. You want the enemy team to ignore you if possible. Zhonya is more like a bait. GA is more like a "stay away" sign since they'll see you having it.

SPIRIT VISAGE

- Get this if:

1. You need the def stats. Enemy team has a lot of magic damage but you're not very threatened by cc at the same time. Ex: Ziggs, Lux, Vel koz, Kayle, Xerath. You know you will be poked but not bursted down.

2. You are planning to build Knight's Vow.

3. You have no other health item. Don't ever get too much health, it's a waste of gold.

BANNER OF COMMAND

- Not much to say about this one. Get it if:

1. You like the deff stats.

2. You want to punish the enemy team for having too little wave clear. (underfed adc, a lot of ap champions and tanks)

3. You know how to use it, similar to ZZ rot.

BANSHEE'S VEIL

- Simple. Get it if:

1. The stats and shield happen to be exaclty what you need against the enemy team.

2. You are behind in the game and need to go tanky to survive more in a teamfight.

3. The people that usually delete you are ap and have some sort of hard CC.

4. You don't expect to get poked randomly and lose the shield. Spirit Visage is a better option against ap poke and poke in general (since you'll have better sustain).

KNIGHT'S VOW

- This item was NOT designed for Soraka but it can do wonders. Get it ONLY IF you know that a certain team mate is dealing a TON of damage. Consider building it together with Spirit Visage to maximize the effects. Think about it as an item meant to heal you and NOT to protect that carry. Also, remember you will be taking a bit of true damage, so feel free to build a bit of health without feeling too bad about it. (Spirit Visage or Redemption)


WARMOG'S ARMOR

- You may be wondering why it's not here. Well it's a bad item for her.
- Base health regen is incredibly bad on Soraka.
- 3000 Hp is useless and again- it's **** on Soraka.
- If you build her this way, yes you will heal 1000000 times without getting low but only if you're out of combat and only over very long time periods of time. Your team will die before you can heal them for a decent amount. Your heals will be too small. You will still be squishy. You will still be vulnerable to enemies deleting you and you won't have space in your inventory for the truly useful items.
- Only works well on ARAM. There, I recommend that you build it. (you can go Talisman- Ionian Boots- Locket - Redemption- Spirit Visage- Warmog's armor)


Finally, the last items- very late game, if you can replace one of your cheap items with something expensive then go

Rabadon

but only if you already have some decent amount of AP. If you don't then go

Rylais

. Remember, these are very expensive items. Don't force them into your usual build.
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Runes

Quints

- Ap/ Movement speed/ Health regen.

Health regen is the best. (remember, it's not %base health regen, that one sucks)

Marks

- M. pen/ Armor/ Ap.

M.pen isn't great, I think. Go armor or Ap.

Glyphs

- Ap/ Mr/ Scaling Mr

No big difference.

Seals

- Health/ Scaling Health regen.

Scaling health regen is great.
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Spells

Ofc,

Exhaust- Flash

is standard.

Other options are:

Instead of exhaust:


Barrier

- You're mega important for your team, you expect to carry more than your noob teammates and to heal more than your enemy's 2 biggest damage dealers can deal damage. You know this for a fact so you pick barrier. It's not a bad choice and might be worth facing a bit of flame from your adc.

Heal

- Might be good in certain situations but,.. I don't think so. Don't get fooled by the "I'm Soraka, if I heal myself I can do more stuff" kind of thinking. There's better options.

Ignite

- No, just No. Only if your Adc is your premade, you're always crushing your lanes and the enemy supp is Nami/ Sona then maybe consider ignite, otherwise it's no good. It provides zero protection.

Instead of Flash:


Ghost

- Might just be a great replacement for your Flash. As Soraka you rarely need to Flash and when you do it's 95% defensively. There's very rare cases where Flash is better than Ghost for you so it might as well work. Remember that you WON'T need to Flash for kills/ Flash over the wall for dragons/ Flash- Ult someone. Also remember ghost will multiply your already high movement speed and you'll feel like a pro running across fights saving all your 4 noobs at once and being uncatchable for the enemy team. If you get ganked, remember to use it earlier than you would use flash otherwise they might still catch you. It might take a bit of practice to use Ghost to it's fullest. It's lower cooldown makes it an epic choice for Soraka. I'm starting to pick it more often than I pick Flash.

However, do get flash if the enemy team has champs that make walls: Jarvan, Yorick, Anivia and Taliyah and if they have lots of hard cc and burst that you might need to urgently flash away from.
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Skills

Early on you need 1-2 points into Q. Getting more really doesn't do much. W is extremely important and your strongest spell so max it as fast as possible. E is complicated.

Try to use W right after Q for even more healing.

Your E is amazing if used well. Ask yourself if you need it in lane and get it as soon as you need it, not sooner, not later. Enemy has a Blitz? If he hooks your adc have your silence ready. Put your silence in front of blitz so that he can't E your adc or at least, not chase after him for extra auto attacks+ thunderlords proc. Enemy has a Miss Fortune? Make sure to have your silence ready for when she ults. If you have no clear use for Silence in lane you can skip getting it before lvl 6. After that you can expect dives so you better have it anyway.

Max E after maxing W if:

1. You want to main Soraka.

2. You have asian reaction time.

3. You can think of multiple ults/ channels/ combos that you can interrupt in that specific game. ! You cannot silence Lucian's ult ! (not sure why) Also, you should know that you CAN actually silence Anivia's ult.

4. You know how to mess up assassins with it when you know their target.

5. You can always put your E in such way that you root someone that's chasing you if they try to go through it.

6. You can predict enemy's motion. Are they likely to stay in one spot? Silence. Are they going to flash over a wall? Silence that place so they can't escape. Are they going to come super fast? (Hecarim) Estimate how far they will get when your root activates and place your silence accordingly. They won't expect you to time it right and will likely ignore it.

If this sounds like overthinking things, just max your Q, it's not bad or anything.
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Masteries

Pretty obvious.
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How not to feed.

By feeding, I don't mean necessarily having a bad score but assisting the enemy team more than you assist your own team. Keep in mind that the score is a very inaccurate way of judging your performance so don't think too much of it.


* This advice alone should be enough for you to have a good winrate at least in bronze and silver *

Ways to not feed on Soraka:
    Ward. At least ward your lane and river bush. Don't ever be too startled by a gank.

    Play safe. Soraka doesn't have much mobility and escapes. If your adc is in a dangerous place ask him to leave.

    Remember, if your bot lane has equal kills and deaths by 10-15 min it's a win for you!

    If you got behind avoid trading with the enemy bot lane. Don't be exposed to any skill shots. A single cc ability can mean your death.

    Don't let trading, landing and dodging skillshots take all your attention. Your eyes should be on the mini map.

    If you never died, hit the enemies as hard as you can. There's no KS if what you do is win your lane. However, if you did die before be extra careful and try to NEVER take kills unless you're 100% sure you're the only one that can do it.

    If you are very behind you will most likely become unable to stay in lane. You will be a sure kill if they decide to dive. If they dive once expect them to dive you again.

    If you know they can dive you anytime DON'T stay on bot lane. There's better things for you out there. Ask your jungler or mid to help you bot. If they refuse, roam, and advise your adc to do the same after clearing waves. Be ready to let your tower fall if the 2 of you can't protect it and your team refuses to help.

    If you're behind on bot and your team comes to help you, try to get the enemy tower! It will at least turn into a tower for a tower exchange if not better.

    Even if you have no control over the river, (strong enemy jungler, enemy bot is pushing hard) you should never let them have free dragons. Keep that thing warded as hard as you can and always ping when an infernal drake is up or when the enemy team might gather to take any drake.

    Loosing an unwarded drake counts as YOU feeding.

    Don't flame and avoid chatting if it's making you die.

    Make a habit to always check for global ults before the game. Think about them when you're low/ when you recall/ when your team mates are low.

    Buy the right defense items.

    Ask your team to stay together or protect you. Sometimes they just won't realize that the way they engage leaves you vulnerable to enemies coming from behind.

    Again, don't KS. 0-10-30 is a much better score than 2-10-28!! I will show why below.

    And the best possible advice for this: Watch your deaths in replays. There's no better way to stop feeding than this. On the moment you might think "this moron adc got me killed" "this tryhard yasuo always gets me baited into the enemy team", "they always fight without me and I get there too late", "this brain-dead **** was pushing top while we lost a 4v5". You will see that most of these things could have been prevented by YOU alone. You could ping, you could have better awareness, there has to be something.

    Don't flame. Comes without saying. If you flame you are 100% assisting the enemy to win the game. Support is the most relaxing role to play. If you of all people is flaming then all hope is lost.

    Heal the **** out of your team. Ok, you are 0-10. You are about to get killed by the enemy team like always. At least. At least give your HP to someone that can make better use of it. Your role is to heal after all. If you heal more than some of your enemies deal damage you're still kind of helpful. There's nothing worse than a Soraka that keeps her health to herself.

    Checking your healing after the game and comparing it to the damage dealt will give you a somewhat decent idea about how useful you are.



The difference between a support that does kill and one that doesn't


Let's say you are 0-10-30. They might say " report Soraka for feeding, 0-10" noob but that's not a good way to look at it. Your score is actually not bad at all!

If your score is 0-10 then you gave the enemy team 1492 gold.
It goes like this: 300+274+220+176+140+112+90+72+58+50

An average kill is 260 Gold +150 assist gold so 410.
410*30 (your assists) / 5 (your team members that share that gold) = 2460! That's your gold contribution to your own team.

2460> 1492 therefore you are NOT feeding.

Now let's say you get 2 kills in between your deaths., Your score is 2-10-28

Let's say you get 3 deaths - 1 kill- 4 deaths- 1 kill- 3 more deaths
That's 300+274+220+300+274+220+176+300+274+220 gold

Equals 2558 GOLD! That's over 1000 more than before that you gave the enemy team!

Your kills and assists are still worth on average 2460, just like before.

Now you compare 2460 to 2558 and Congratulations! YOU'RE ACTUALLY FEEDING.
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Upcoming chapters/ updates

- Boots

- add Mejai soulstealer to items

- Warding

- Roaming

- Adc synergies

- Skillshots

- Teamwork, your role.

- Dealing with Adc's

- Winning, Dodging and Climbing
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First time Soraka

If you didn't open the other build version, my recommended items for you are
    -Ancient coin-> Eye of the oasis.
    -Mobility boots
    -Locket
    -Ardent censer
    -Athene's grail
    -Guardian angel

With this all you have to do is place wards and click Locket during a teamfight to protect the team mates surrounding you with a small shield.

Your ability order- Max R> W> Q> E But put 2-3 points into Q before maxing W.

Play your laning phase as safe as possible. If they have nasty skillshots stay behind minions. If your adc is pushing lane stay behind, on the side with the bushes, away from the river. If your flash is not up, ping your adc to stop pushing.

At lvl 6 keep your eyes on the map in case you can ult for a team mate.

If they have tank support or tank jungle expect them to dive you.

If they have assassins, be sure they will come for you and also dive you.

If bot isn't safe for you anymore roam and help your mid/top or jungle.

In teamfights landing Q's is NOT important. Stay behind your carries, heal them and if someone comes to kill your carries Silence them. Only Q if it's safe and doesn't require you to be in a dangerous place.

Don't get caught and don't die. Remember in a teamfight you're the 2nd priority for the enemy team after your squishy damage dealer. It's not bad to die as a support but make sure you die for something and after you've done as much healing as you could.

Avoid picking Soraka into Leona, Blitz, Sion, Alistar, Brand.
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Progress climbing.

Starting season 7 the right way ^^.
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