Hello and welcome to my very first guide. It is going to be about Soraka - best healing support hero in the game so far. I know I lost like 20% of readers now, because they would say that Janna, Sona,... is better, BUT Soraka has 2 healing spells (3 with summoner spell). So in my opionon, best healing potential.
I will try to cover some basic strategy and item build.

I will start with Summoner Spells, because you should synergize them with masteries.
My favorite ones are Healand FortifyWhy? Heal comes very handy when you need to counter Area of Effect (AoE) ultimates, like Miss Fortune, Kennen, even Karthus. Only one important thing: Your teammates need to be close to you.
As for Fortify: Do not use it to safe 30% of towers health, use it to kill. How? As Soraka, you can survive what others can't. Example: You are on bottom with your lane partner. He gets killed because he is dumb, so you retreat to your tower with 30% hp. Enemies will run after you thinking: "lol healorz, free kill" he rushes into you, tower starts to shoot. Normally it wouldnt hurt him much, but with Fortify on, it shoots twice as much. Just run around tower and heal yourself, possibly silence enemies with Infuseand do some more dmg in process. At lower levels its deadly.

If you want other spells, you can try Flashif you feel to squishy. Leave spells like Exhaust, Ignite, Rally and Smite to damage dealers. Clarityis waste. Let me explain: Infuse restores your mana. You do not need any mana recharging spells or items. If you run around, spamming Starfall, you are lame and most propably die + you will go out of mana.
You can try other spells, but if you are beginner, I recommend Heal+Fortify. You are support hero, so support.

Well, since our spells are Fortify and Heal, we should put our talents into Defense. Improved Heal and Fortify and mandatory and has to be taken. Dont take mana/health regeneration, put your points into armor and health pool.

Another way is Utility tree. You will have some nice CD reduction which is very very nice and I recommend to have 40% (hard cap = you can't have more). And you will level up faster. Just pick improved Heal from Defense. If you spec into Utility, you may want to choose different spell instead of Fortify and improve it in Utility tree.

Basicly Soraka wants CD reduction. Offense and Utility has CD reductions, In offense, it is low tier, so its not problem to go full Utility, 1 point in Defense and rest in Offense.

My first spell is always Starfall. You help your lane partner with damage, You help your creeps to reach enemy tower quicker, and you reduce Spell resistance of enemy champions with each hit.
You are support, but on level 1, it doesnt matter. Your melee attack does quite big damage and combined with Starfall it has very interesting results aka death of enemy champ. Players underestimate Soraka's damage on low levels, take advantage of it.

Second spell should be Infuse. You restore mana lost on Starfall + you can silence your enemies. Make a note: This spell DOES NOT cost mana, only CD.

Third spell is Infuse again or Heal. Now it really depends on your situation. Ask these questions: ¨
Do I have enough mana currently? If NO, then go Infuse.
Are the enemy champions doing serious damage? If YES, go Heal.

from now on, just switch between Heal and Infuse. You can have greater level of Heal, but be warned: You can't heal with level 5 heal and restore your mana with level 1 Infuse. I have played against few Soraka's and most of them was still out of mana, even with mana regeneration items.

Take your ultimate whenever you can, but that's obvious.
Starfall should be leveled up as last spell. But having it on rank 1 is crucial for gold income. I experiment once and play Soraka more aggresively, getting Starfall and Infuse to max level asap. I had 10 kills on level 8 but we lost the game eventually, because in teamfights I was useless. In 3v3 it might be good to do it this way and get Lich Bane as your item. You will do pretty nice dmg.

So recap in case you are doing great and your lane partner is good: 1-starfall; 2-infuse; 3-infuse; 4-heal; 5-heal; 6-ultimate; 7-heal; 8-infuse/heal Now it really depends on situation. When you ding level, look at your mana pool and check how much mana does Infuse restore, If you can barely cast heal after Infuse, level up Infuse. Big heals are for nothing if you can't cast them.

First item you need to get is this sweetie Ruby Crystal. You will have exactly 0 gold after this, and it will take lots of damage to take you down. In addition, on level 1 it does matter if you have 4 blocks of health or 6. Maybe not in numbers, but psychologically it does.

So now you are leveling up, you have more hp then others, what next? As Soraka, you should stay on line forever. My record is shop at level 13 first time. You shouldn't back to base just to buy items. You can heal and mana yourself up pretty quickly.

Anyway next item are basic bootsYou need movement speed to avoid enemy champions spells and to run away.

Next step is to upgrade your boots to Ionian Boots of Lucidity. As I said above, Soraka needs 40% CD reduction, so thats your first 15%.

From Ruby Crystal make Aegis of the Legion. It gives nice armor and magic resist to all allies, it synergizes with your passive great.

Ok you have movement speed, CD reduction, health, armor and magic resist. Now you have a choice: Either go for Soul Shroudor Rylai's Crystal ScepterSould shroud gives you 10% CD reduction aswell as to your allies, they will love you for it + it gives nice health and mana regeneration. Because of last component I don't like it very much, but it's still very good. Rylai's Scepter is item for more skilled players I would say. Slowing Starfall is badass. It gives very nice health pool + ability power which means better healing.

Next very very useful item is Glacial Shroud. If you dont trust just look at it and buy it please.

The game should be over by now, If its not, build Rabadon's Skullcap for massive healing or Frozen Hearth for survival and CD reduction.

That was "We pwn your face" scenario. In many games however, there are one or two champions that hits you like truck. It could be Lux, Malzahar, Tryndamere,... Any assasin basicly who knows what he plays. You should be aware of that and customize your build. Soraka is powerfull enough withount items, so make sure to pick ones you need.

Example: I'm on mid as Soraka, against me is Lux. She hits level 6 and does her combo on me. I barely escape from sudden death. Conclusion? More Magic resist, so I buy Negatron CloakNext encounter with Lux is piece of cake. Click on item in shop to look what you can craft out of it. Choose one that suits you best.
Example2: Same situation, but I've been raped by missed Jax from bottom. While im dead, I can buy Chain Vestand upgrade it to Frozen Heart.

You have to decide if you will take more magical or physical damage and adjust to it. You are like Predator, adjust to current enemies and... well.. Help your mates to kill them.

Soraka should be called Lady of Duality.
Each of her spells has double effect. Let's take it one by one.

Starfall - used for killing creeps AND reducing enemy magic resistance. It can stack up to 20 times, really badass but you won't stack it so many times anyway.

Heal - used for healing allies. With newest patch it heals a bit more, takes only 90% of ability power BUT (and this is big BUT) they increased armor component. You see, everytime you heal someone, it gives him 80 armor (level5) which means he will became Terminator (for 4 seconds) and will take noticeably less damage. So when you see someone being focused (getting raped) heal him. It will restore health and prevent him from harm. Since new patch I don't recommend healing before fight begins, because armor effect only lasts 4 seconds.

Infuse - mana yourself up, or share it with your mate. Giving mana to casters (Lux, Heimendinger, Annie,...) is WASTE. They should have items for mana regen. However restoring mana to ie. Warwick is great. Because you will restore 50% of his mana and he can go for hunt again. Try to not go below 40% of mana, beacause If you need to throw 5 heals on CD, you will be oom. Second use of Infuse is Silence/250 damage to enemies. Use it to save your allies, prevent Malzahar or Nunu to cast their Ultimate, pissoff Vladimir so he can't disperse.

Wish - heal all. 60 seconds CD with 40% CD reduction. Turn tides of battle. Counter any ultimate with it.

If you go mid, You should't have problems. You won't kill enemy (If he is dumb, then you will). You will force him to retreat from time to time, thus you will be highest level in game which means Soraka ownage.

If you go with lane partner, remember, he is your damage. Heal him, silence enemies, restore his mana. You will force your enemies to flee to base. And you will get levels more quickly. That's what Soraka is all about: You do NOT have to go to base, nor your lane mate.

In team fights, stay at back. You are dead meat in frontline. Try to interrupt enemy combo. Example: Pantheon uses his jump to stun your ally. His next spell will be that shower of spears in 99%. If you manage to silence him after he jumps, he will just run around like little baby crying for help. Important thing about healing: If you have two targets that needs healing, heal the one who contributes to your team better. If you have Jax who is killing everything in his sight he is your priority. If you have Ashe, who is still lying on the ground well... just let her die next time. Its cruel, but efficient.

Pros:
Healing
Silencing
Healing
Mana restore
Healing
Healing
Pushing lane forever

Cons:
Unskilled summoner means lots of deaths means low level means useless Soraka
Withount good team and teamwork, it doesn't matter how great you play your Soraka. Your team will Loose.

I wanted to write small guide but it turned out pretty big.
If I will see some response, I will explain few more tactics and strategies.
For today I wrote enough, Peace out Alatyr

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