Soraka is one of the underrated supports in the current meta. She has great sustain, poke, AOE silence/snare and a global heal. However she is very immobile and its harder for her to heal herself than heal allies which is probably the reason she is not that popular. However, with great practice and positioning, she can be a game changing support.

Pros

+ Amazing sustain + Global heal + Great AOE silence for team fights

Cons

- Very immobile - No engage - Landing snare(E) or slow(Q) is hard

Passive - Salvation Soraka's passive gives her movement speed when moving towards allies who's health is very low. This is very great because it allows soraka to quickly position herself close to those who need her healing powers.

Q - Starcall The new reworked Q of soraka is an aoe spell. It deals damage in a circle and also slows those at the very center of the circle. Additionally, when there is a point in W, the Q will be the main healing power for Soraka to heal herself. To make it easier to land Q, try to use your E first and snare an opponent, but if you can't you should be able to sort of predict where they're gonna go to avoid the snare and try and land a Q there.

W - Astral Infusion The W is Soraka's main ability, which is her heal. When cast on allies it takes from her own HP and heals her allies. Additionally, when there is a point in Q it scales for better self heal on Soraka. An important note here is that the W takes a percentage cost of Soraka's max health rather than a flat amount. This is key when itemizing on Soraka later.

E - Equinox This ability provides an AOE silence, and after a while, if enemies remain in the circle they will be snared. This ability is amazing in team fights especially if opponents try to jump on your carries. Simply cast the ability under your carries when enemy champions are melee range to them and they will be silenced and free for your carry to either attack them or escape and re-position themselves.

R - Wish Soraka's R provides everything you can wish for. Its a global ult that heals everyone on your team. Very crucial in team fights and also for helping out other lanes when you're not there. This is not to say that you should always ult to save your top, mid or jungler and then be vulnerable in your own lane, but try to keep an eye on the health bars on the top left of your screen and see if anyone needs help.

Runes

Soraka's runes are somewhat different from usual support runes. I like marks of armor rather than hybrid pen or ad marks since soraka should be doing less poke early with her auto attacks since she will almost always get out poked like that or will be vulnerable to cc.

As for seals, once again I went with 7 seals of armor instead of health since soraka's heals will take away a percentage of her health anyway and the armor will just be better. There are 2 health regen seals as well for better early game regen since Soraka won't have the health regen items she needs yet.

Moving on to glyphs, 6 scaling magic resist is great since ap threats early on are mostly low and she will need the magic resist later when the ap carries have gotten items. There are 3 ability power glyphs for better heals and poke early to help Soraka stay in lane and keep her adc there as well.

Finally the Quints are health regen once again for early sustain cause of the nature of Soraka's W as she won't have items to help her regen quickly yet.

Masteries

A classic support yet slight different 0/9/21 mastery page is what I prefer on Soraka. In defense you'll see that there's only 1 point in Veteran Scars and that is because health is once again being avoided. Instead there are 2 points in Enchanted Armor and once point in Hardiness for better armor and magic resist stats that our build heavily relies on.

A note on the utility page, is that there is a point in Phasewalker to speed up Soraka's recall which will be needed throughout the game especially after team fights when she expends all of her health to save others. This however came at the cost of Bandit but once again as I mentioned earlier, Soraka is not really gonna be poking with autos a lot early game.

The key point on how to itemize Soraka lies with her W, Astral Infusion. Since the ability takes 10 % of Soraka's health to heal her allies, it will be pointless to build a lot of health items that will be used up anyway. Theoretically without any health regen, soraka can only heal her allies 10 times, and she will be at 0 HP herself.

Starting off in the lane, always go with coin for health regen and stay away from Spellthief's Edge cause the 5 extra AP will not help if you or your ADC gets poked a lot and you have to heal them all the time, or well, if you get poked yourself without being able to heal with your Q.

The best way to build soraka in general is to get a lot of health regen, while trying to avoid health items. This is why ZZ'Portal is my favorite item on Soraka due to the high armor and magic resist stats in addition to the health regen, and a sexy active. Be careful where you place it though as the active could be useless if the portal is misplaced.

Other great options are Frozen Heart for armor, mana and cooldown, and also Locket for magic resist, health regen and a nice shield active for team.

Laning Phase

During laning, try to make sure you stay out of danger and peel for your ADC if they go for trades by healing them and silencing the enemy ADC/Supporthealing while poking to heal yourself. ALWAYS have river or tri-bush warded depending on what side your are and how far you're pushed. Any gank on soraka early will be devastating due to her high immobility.

You should outsustain almost anyone but if you're behind in lane, try not to overheal your adc and leave yourself vulnerable with low health. If you're ahead and have a good amount of mana then you can poke with Q even if you don't need the heal.

Against melee supports like Leona, Alistar or Nautilus you can try to poke with auto attacks but try to do that after they use some of their cc to stay safe from getting engaged on.

Past Laning Phase

Try to stay with your carries as much as possible and heal them when they need it, but once again don't overheal them and leave yourself very low.

In team fights, try to get your Q and AOE silence on a decent amount of enemies, or use the silence to protect the carries when they're jumped on by assassins. Also use your Q on snared enemies to gain as much health back using it. Use your ult ideally when everyone has taken some damage, when they all need the heal, but don't hesitate if your main damage dealer(s) are the only one(s) who need it.

Remember, that your position at the beginning of the team fight should be at the back next to the carries and not in front with the tanks. When hell breaks loose your passive will allow you to go and heal whoever needs it and then you can walk back out of the danger zone and apply your aoe silence/snare and Q for heal. As the game progresses your W cooldown will be low so don't forget to keep healing your allies but also keep an eye on your own health, as landing Qs will be crucial in extended team fights.

Soraka is a very fun support to play casually in normals but she can also be taken to ranked games once you master her. Make sure you position yourself right and heal whoever needs it and as the Starchild you will outshine your enemies and emerge victorious.

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