Good day all this is my first guide here on mobafire. I decided to write it about Soraka because I enjoy playing this champion and is rather proud of my unorthodox build and have had great success using this build. So without further ado lets do this.

Pros

Fun to chase with q (a slow death to the would be escapee)
Strong heals
Awesome cc (dont believe? Try Rylais on q with the next teamfight)
Great sustain for self and ally
Can stand in the middle of a teamfight without fear and cause destruction until...

Cons

Enemy team focus you if you are doing well.
People tend to think you dont know what you are doing.
Tend to struggle with gold if your team is bad.
You can sometimes accidentally steal a kill or even double kill with q (team usually do not appreciate that)
You start squishy.
Your adc sometimes think heal has no cd...

My runes is by no means the only correct way to go. It is the way it is mostly because I only have 3 rune pages and this is the best fit that I have for this build.

Greater Quintessence of Potency : This rune is there for some early dammage on your e and bigger heals. Possible to replace with gold/10 or cdr but I never truly felt the urge.

Greater Glyph of Potency : This rune is there for the same reason as the Greater Quintessence of Potency can be replaced by almost any other glyph (except for ad runes)but keep in mind that on level 1 you do 80 damage with your e for no mana cost if you use the rune, masterie and item sequence as laid out in the cheatsheet.

Greater Seal of Resilience : You will most propable be playing bot so armor never hurts when facing a carry. Replace by whatever you feel like but I find this rune very usefull.

Greater Mark of Insight : Spell penetration but why? As I said I only have 3 rune pages and this is the best fit I have available but furthermore q and e will be used offensively most of the time so the spell penetration does not really hurt.

Remember even with the AP in the build you are still support so go with utility and most importantly get Wealth and Greed. Feel free to build masteries differently as long as you remember you are not an adc (you may think of yourself as any other role and should still be fine)

First of I have never been a huge fan of boots+3 pots but if you religiously follow the convention feel free. Just remember you have a healing ability (so why take pots?)

I start with the Amplification tome and 1 ward (Thanks Wealth).

Main reason for the ward is to just keep everyone from immediately getting on your case because supports need to buy wards right? I will not go into warding intensely but if they have a jungle place it above the bot lane if they do not place it in a bush below your lane to annoy people who think they are hiding.

Amplification tome is there to make your e super powered at the start and to give better heals.

Go for Ionian Boots next the cdr is always handy

Finish your Rylai as soon as possible I cannot stress this enough the slow alone is enough to make this item worth it even without the extra HP and AP

Abyssal Sceptre is a very good item on soraka because between your passive MR and the item you can usually counter the enemy mid very effectively and since you will usually be close to the action therefore the enemy team will have reduced MR.

Remember to always have wards with you and that is it for the items.

I do know I have more items in the cheatsheat but usually the game ends victorious at this stage. However if that is not the case get armor and then you are only susceptible to Bursts and ganks.

So items in short (Amplifying tome, Ionian boots, Rylais, Abyssal and wards)

Firstly I said this is a support guide which means you usually dont kill creeps or heroes and I do not really have gold generating items. So here goes

You "steal" assists. You do this by healing an ally while they are in a battle even if he is not losing the battle. Also in a team fight one use of your q should give an assist on any enemy killed.
Roam the battle field and help allies get kills even before laning phase is done, help them push etc.
When you can kill a creep that your carry cannot (2 or more creeps on 1 hit HP) do so.
If creeps have built up somewhere and you are close and your team is busy elsewhere dispatch of them (q is a very safe bet)

Like it or not you do not have burst damage like the normal mid hero. With that in mind you still build AP for most of the game (you must seem like an idiot). The support comes from your items and abilities.

Rylais : This gives 15% slow on AOE abilities and 35% slow on single target abilities so with Starcall you can slow every enemy around you by 15% which means enemies struggle 15% more to get away and they damage everyone in your team 15% less with attacks. Also with Infuse you can put the enemy caster out for 2.5 seconds and slow them 35% (spell vamp won't save them from your carries and they can't run away)

Abyssal : This item has an aura that Reduces enemy magic resist by 10. You have Rylais now so they cannot run away... With each Starcall you take away another 12 every 2 seconds or so (remember you do this to everyone close enough) the effect is that the numbers your team AP champion reads when he looks at damage can very quickly become a reality.

In conclusion you make your AP hero super powered and keep everyone alive with slow and failing all that you can still spot heal an ally in trouble or a team in trouble. Best bit of the healing is you heal almost double that of a Soraka without any AP.

Starcall (q) This ability do damage in a 530 AOE around you and can take away upto 120 MR. This is your most important ability when laning has become obsolete. It ensures that your team can destroy the enemy team with easy when amplified by a rylais. Max out second.

Tips:
Spam this ability in team fights.
If you want to push early game use this twice to not kill creeps and let your adc last hit everything.
Run around in the battle while casting this to ensure you hit everyone (remember you need those assists)
When chased by a bunch of enemies cast this (hope you have rylai) and flash away or run and cast etc (aim for allies note plural)

Astral Blessing (w) This is your spot heal it has a rather long cd and does not really heal more than 350 at the end of a long game however, it gives an armor boost for a short time after cast that can save someone being attacked by an adc more often than not. Max out last.

Tips:
If your lane partner still have pots and isn't having a crisis feel free to cast on self.
Usefull if you want to kill a tower to cast on a creep if you are alone and tower has very little HP left.
Use often except when a team fight is immenent.

Infuse (e) This restores mana to an ally or deals damage to an enemy and silences the enemy.

Tips:
This spell costs zero mana spam it.
Use on your carry so he can use abilities all the time.
When carry does not need manna annoy the enemy carry as much as possible with it without being silly
Use on enemies that cause distruction during team fights.
Very effective to get someone who almost got away
Chase with q and this usually gets a kill for the team
Use after q for a very nice early burst

It has been fun to write this guide even if a few other guides are similar to this but I truly do feel that one should never forget the Rylai option for Soraka. If you have questions feel free to leave them in the comments section. Do not just downvote guide before trying the guide and if you do downvote please say what was missing or bad etc(pictures etc does not count). For fun you can even try this for mid if every one locked except for you and mid is open.
Cheers