Hello Summoners,
this is an in-depth guide, drawing the whole big picture. Have fun reading my toughts and strategies on Soraka, the Starchild.
For even more detailed information, try out the links - like this one if you have trouble with abbreviations in LoL.
You may skip [*] marked sections if you don't have a lot of time.

my IGN is "Gott der 7 Meere".


Check out my other guides if you like (Taric and Sona).

Soraka is the strongest sustainer in lane, because of her mana refund skills and her huge heal with additional armor buff. She can make her lane partner almost invincible for a short time and feed him with all the mana for spamming his skills. The silence component, her passive MR aura and her ultimate make her a strong counter to AP casters. Playing Soraka is all about keeping your teams health (and mana) bar's up and silencing any threat to your team. To be of further use to her team, she can debuff all enemies around her with a stacking Magic Resistance Reduction, that will act like Vladimir's Hemoplague and increase magic damag by a lot. It can be devastating when coupled with AOE's.

Consecration Consecration
Passive: 16 MR aura.

Strong early against any form of magic damage. Weak later ? Not really, as those 16 MR still reduce any magic damage the more, the less MR you have. Sure the tank will not need this insignificant (compared to his 200MR) boost, but for the squishies this still is the difference between live and death.

Starcall
Activation effect: 20/30/40/50/60 Mana for 60/85/110/135/160 (+ 0.4 per AP) magic damage and a 8/9/10/11/12 Magic Resistance Reduction debuff to all enemy units that lasts 8 seconds and stacks up to 10 times every 2.5 seconds (1.5 seconds CD with maxed 40% CDR).

Soraka is not a nuker, but this makes her deliver strong sustained damage (even without any AP) if no one pays attention to her. Together with Abyssal Mask you and your allies will do true damage that will only increase if you succeed in stacking this. No AP but CDR and enough durability to chain this spell will make you deal significant damage out of the blue if you make the effort to use this skill.
As a closing example: If you would succeed in stacking it 5 times (8 sec duration, with 1.5 sec CD) and add your Scepter, you get to -80 MR. All magic damage on a target with -80 MR will be multiplied by 44%! Playing with champions like Fiddlestick ( A Harmless Scarecrow) and Amumu ( Cursed Touch) - and many more - makes buying magic penetration almost a waste (Info on Magic Resistance).

Astral Blessing
Activation effect: 80/110/140/170/200 Mana for a 70/140/210/280/350 (+ 0.45 per AP) single target heal with a 25/50/75/100/125 Armor buff lasting for 5 seconds every 20 seconds (12 sec).

Although Mana intensive, its the best heal a AD carry facing another AD carry can get. The CD is annoyingly long but that only makes CDR much more effective here. Better than the heal, the huge armor buff is incredibly powerful. If you find yourself loosing sight of a target in the heat of battle, remember that you can click on the champion picture on the left side instead of accidentally healing a minion.

Infuse
On allied cast: Restores 40/80/120/160/200 Mana to target ally (NO self-cast possible) every 10 seconds (6 sec).
On enemy cast: An instant free cast 50/100/150/200/250 (+ 0.75 per AP) magic damage together with a 1.5/1.75/2/2.25/2.5 seconds silence every 10 seconds (6 sec).

As allied sustain this equals to 166 MReg/5sec on max rank with 40% CDR. Unfortunately with the last patch, you now have to worry about your own mana. This is still almost a free Clarity every 6 seconds!
Better yet: on enemies this can be cast to almost chain silence someone. 2.5 seconds silence is one of the longest silences in the game, and castable every 6 seconds... This shuts down any form of AP DPS'ers in their tracks (Ryze, Cassiopeia, Karthus). Plus the - free - damage is very sizable early.

Wish
Activation effect: 100/175/250 Mana for a 200/320/440 (+ 0.7 per AP) global heal to all allied champions every 120/110/100 seconds (72/66/60 sec).

A ultimate that deserves the name and suits Soraka's reputation as healer. It is quite big with max. level and some AP. But the best part about this, is that it gives you tons of assists on all fights, regardless where you are on the map. No kill after level 6 where you don't get extra money.

> > >

The CD on your skills is (almost) unchanged by level, meaning CDR has a huge impact in early game. You only need enough heal to remove enemy harassment, put any other point into your Infuse. Get your ultimate whenever you can and use it to help your teammates. It takes quite some time, to get the map-awareness and timing.
Be careful with the early game CD of your heal, a Soraka that doesn't heal when it is needed is useless. When to get Starcall ? You must have one point for Teamfights, other than that, its up to you. It is a double edged sword in laneing as you can easily push your lane. And it puts the weak Soraka in the front line, which I find rather is sucidal.

Example skillorder (Not a blueprint):
Tip: Spam your Infuse, it's free!

- Combined with your wards, Clairvoyance will allow you unlimited map-awareness. Best support spell there is. I always take it. (Even if you can rely on your team to ward properly, this spell is still superb!)

- Without means of escape you are dead if focused. This is best avoided with Flash or Ghost. Since Flash provides the most in terms of utility allowing you to "extend the range of your skills", it is generally preferred.

If you are confident that you can avoid death with clever positioning or you really don't want CV, other, situational, options cover: Clarity, Heal, Exhaust, Teleport, Promote, etc.
Please don't ever spoil a game by taking Revive for Soraka. No honorable player vexes his teammates.

You can skip the rest of the guide, this section is what counts. Wards win games.

• Buying wards. Every player should spent the rest of his money on Sight wards. Supports should always have enough wards in the inventory to cover at least 2 important spots always and prioritize them over items. Have a Vision Ward whenever you can, you need "true vision" for specific areas, to destroy enemy wards, discover stealthers or bait the enemy! Recall when you are OOW. "A truly outstanding support will win games with only basic boots, having spent the rest of his money on wards. He will have prevented every enemy gank, stolen every enemy neutral champ, totally defeated their jungler and goten every single dragon and baron for his team. He will never have died facechecking as opposed to his enemies."
  If you want, you can type something funny into the chat, to make them buy wards... like this true story.
• Where to place wards. Placing wards on lane bushes, jungle entrances and bufs, enables your team to gank and steal bufs properly. Now you realize how important wards are, they only are as good as their placement. Read this summary on warding and learn to place your wards better with every game you play - just buy some wards for "learning" purposes and place them on "new" spots every game.
  Warding also includes the wards of your teammates. One isolated ward helps far less than a line of two or 3 wards spread across the map. Tell your Mid/Top/Jungler to ward if they don't, explain to them if they place wards poorly. This helps a lot if done
  correctly and ganks will become virtually impossible for the enemy.
• Destroying wards. Getting an Oracle's Elixir is a high risk-reward action. It has the potential to totally cripple enemy map awareness and prevents the enemy team from ganking and steal buffs effectively. Get it when you have Mobility Boots and some HP AND the enemy Support is warding A LOT. Generally you should prefer Vision Wards over Oracles. Let someone who is more tanky and comes around more take one (your jungler).
• Reacting to enemy Oracles. Everyone has been angry about the enemy getting an Oracle, but you should just continue with your job, never let them prevent you from warding. Rather, place your wards in unexpectd locations and bushes. And bring that enemy Oracle-Bearer down! Remember that he has wasted 400 gold and his advantage is only temporary.
• When to place wards. You are supposed to know the spawn and respawn times of major neutrals by heart and type them in the chat so your warding is timed well!
  • Baron Nashor will spawn at 15:00 and respawn every 7 minutes, his kill will give 300 gold AND 900 xp to each player of the successful team.
  • Dragon Ebenmaw will spawn at 2:30 and respawn every 6 minutes, his kill will grant 190 gold - but NO xp - to each player of the successful team.
  • Big Golem and Elder Lizzard (Blue and Red Buf) will spawn at 1:55 and respawn every 5 minutes.

If you achieve ward dominance over these spots, AND your team abuses this you will win for sure (Steal them if you can!).

General summary of warding locations:

• Early game: River and - if asked - buffs, dragon (dragon always with a [vision ward]).
• Mid game: Mid cross-sections and buffs/dragon when respawn is imminent.
• Late game: Defensive or offensive warding of jungle cross-sections and of Baron - but avoid soloing.

Just let me remind you that you will only become a good or even outstanding support if you master warding.

There is no specific item or rune that decides your fate in the mach. What matters is your total setup. I want to point out which stats are best for Soraka and some ways to get them.

There is one stat that decides your lane: Cooldown Reduction. Although CDR in general improves Soraka's performance, it is your lane-ing phase, where the long CD of your heal will be noticed most. You can easily start with 15% CDR form runes and masteries without any sacrifices and just by getting another CDR item, you will reach 30%. Your Heal, will be usable more frequent and you even have more harassing potential with your silence. Rush this. Together with CDR, your survivability should build up fast. Soraka dies in a heartbeat when she is CC'ed. This has to be avoided by all means. Get Movement Speed to stay out of trouble and ward properly. Since your base MS is low, you need more than tire 2 boots, get Swiftness , Greater Quintessence of Movement Speed and rush your Shurelya's Battlesong. However, even if you get really strong, you miss the point of supporting if you don't ward properly. There is no reason why you should rush any item - even gold items - before buying wards. Still, Gold/10 seconds is nice to have and you will aim for this with masteries, open rune slots and your next items. Especially the Heart of Gold unites all the stats you need, as Health is what you want next. Increase your survivability so you never die, before proceeding to buy offensive stats as powerfull aura items or AP.
Avoid any items/runes/masteries that give you unwanted stats like AS, AD, APen, crit, lifesteal, spellvamp for your core build - every piece of gold spent on them decreases your performance. Thats why one particular stat deserves a closer look: HPreg. Only if the enemy harassment can't be out-healed should you take Health regeneration into consideration. Remember that you don't have the money for luxuries (even when we buy items that give us HPreg, you should always be aware that you don't need it and thus not prioritize it).

Your runes are item replacements that you don't have to buy in game. With the usual money shortage of supports runes provide valuable stats for nothing. They are crucial. They have their biggest impact on early game if you take flat stats or on late game if you take per level stats. The same holds true for masteries. Get only the stats you desperately need and upgrade your summoner spells.


Masteries

As support you are torn between the Utility mastery tree and some points into defense or offense. Depending on enemy (and your own) team composition you might go more into one or the other. As long as you want to support, you should try to get Greed and if you like Wealth for a more flexible starting item choice. Whatever you do, get as much Movement and CDR as possible. As an example:

4/0/22


Runes

I know that runes are expensive. I don't expect you to try them all out just to know what works best (I have done that for you already). Here is my line of thought: Soraka's sustain will probably win you the lane if you get over the first 3 levels unharmed. Get defense stats and CDR to improve your early game-play, when you are still weak.

(Armor) - Bottom lane damage comes from Minion and the AD carry and it's physical. Even tough these are only Secondary runes, I don't think you should take offensive stats, your damage is high enough without them.
(Armor) or (Gold/10sec) - Defence or Gold.
(CDR) - More Heal and Mana early game.
(Movespeed) or (CDR) or (Gold/10sec) or - I advise you to get Movespeed though.

To get exactly 15% CDR you can use 7 blue, a yellow and a red flat CDR rune (5% from runes + 10% from masteries) or 9 blue and 2 quints flat CDR for (9% from runes + 6% from masteries).

Slightly adjust your rune setup if you know that itimization requires specific stats (e.g. CDR + 4% or just a slight increase in MReg. Sadly you can't escape the fact that Supports are forced to go for Gold/10sec, and there is an overwhelming force imposing Quints and now even Seals of Avarice and the Greed mastery on you. Don't let that blind you to the fact that other stats can be better. I favor Movespeed especially, others might cheer on Health. Ponder the ups and downs of your rune choices and find what works best for you.

Finally: as a good rune setup for most champs takes Red: Armor Penetration, Yellow: Armor, Blue: Magic Resist, Quints: Movespeed, you might as well use it for Soraka; indeed I encourage you to buy these Runes first when you get to summoner level 20 and can buy Tire 3 Runes.


Items

ALWAYS GET:
Sight ward

Utility items:
Speed (Get at least early.)
Zeke's Herald CDR (Get a quick in any case.)
Catalyst the Protector Mana (Usually a is enough when having Mana issues.)
Philosopher's Stone MReg (After the Changes to her E, get MReg or your Heal will be down in endgame.)
Kage's Lucky Pick AP (Other stats have priority tough.)
Consumables (The Elixir is awesome, since together with a it gives you quite a bit of CDR until you get the advanced CDR items, AP is nice too.)

Durability items:
philosopher's stone Defense vs. Balanced (Always get and cheap HP .)
-> / -> / vs. Physical Damage (With Astral Blessing you should be at +300 Armor.)
-> / / / vs. Magic Damage (This and runes/masteries will steer you towards +150 MR.)

Situational items:
Zeke's Herald On request ( is saver than )

Is this the best starting item ?
No, it isn't. Ther are a number of good starting stats, but HPreg certainly isn't one of them. The only reason why you could possibly start with this, is that you get your Philo stone quicker. But who would want to loose his lane, just to get a Philo? As far as I can see, there are 3 decent starting options for soraka, and another 3 slightly worse ones. Remember that the best thing you can get for your early lane is: [item_text=Sight Ward]s! Lots of them.
Starting Items:

• It is not a bad idea, to start with only wards in your inventrory. Soraka has all the lane sustain she needs, and the only thing that will make her recall, is a dark area around her lane.
• The next option is for agressive laners and gankers: you will need Boots aside form all the wards you can get. Altough you will stay in lane less time, you will escape dangerous situations, and this allows you to always walk in the much needed experience range.
• The third option I propose is for very strong poking champs, or mana-hungry lane partners: get a Elixir of Brilliance together with wards. There is nothing better than this - unfortunately only tempoprary - consumable, that will decrease your CD's by another 10% and give you some tasty AP on top of that. It should last long enough to win you the early levels, and when it expires, you will have achieved lane dominance. Make sure you only start using it, when you need more Heal and Mana/Silence than your innert CD's can handle. If you start with some CDR quints, you will even reach the 30% CDR mark at level 1. Believe me when I tell you that this is close to OP on Soraka.
• The lesser starting options range from Faerie Charm over Amplifying Tome to a Regrowth Pendant.

When you face stealthers in lane, or have a jungler that want's to gank a lot: get a Vision Ward.


Why not Merc's ?
You can stay out of Combat range with just healing and Infusing, these boots allow you to ward quickly and to be where the action is. If you have no CDR runes think about getting Ionian Boots of Lucidity early.

Boots: Get Mobility Boots if you feel save, else take Mercury's Treads.


Lets have a look at the new items: Zeke's Herald, and Emblem of Valour.
Thes items correct the drawbacks of the old "Stark's Fervor" (20% AS, Unique Aura: 20% AS, 17% Lifesteal, 30HPreg, 20 Armor Reduction) that only had offensive stats, making it a sub-optimal choice for supports, and the Randuin's Omen that is quite expensive and only works vs. physical opponents.
In my oppinion we have a nice change, that now allows supports like Soraka to buy Zeke's Herald to help your team's AD's and get her the much needed HP and CDR at the same time, and Locket of the Iron Solari to counter early game AOE and to provides some burst "heal" regardless of magic or physical damage. Also, the price tags of both items are in reachable ranges and especially the (new) Locket upgrades your Heart of Gold to something handy, finally. The changes make Zeke's to be considered for your core build due to its wide spread stats, especially CDR.
The Emblem also seems to be a good item to get on its own vs. physical threats.

Aura item discussion:
Zeke's Herald
Even tough Auras will buff the entire team, there is always one carry that you may want to help specifically. Choose according to him:

• Your AP DPS Carry (Cass/Ryze/Karthus) is doing well ? Get Will of the Ancients (wota).
• Your AD Jungler (Lee/Xin/Jarvan) is on a killing streak ? Get Zeke's Herald before he is shut down.
• If your team is balanced and no one requests specific items: Aegis of the Legion. Although only a shadow of its former self this item still helps even after several nerfs (when it still worked on minions, it was mandatory).
• Feel free to replace it with Soul Shroud if you need more Mana/CDR yourself or your team is loosing all blue buffs (But because Shurelya's Battlesong is redundant with Soul Shroud, only get one of them).

And remember that you should buy at least one big defensive aura - for your own survival - early.

Aura items: Take what your team needs, experiment to find out what impact the auras have. It is very difficult, because their influences are rather subltle.


Activating items discussion:

Soraka lacks utility compared to other supports. Therefore, these items are great on her. Shurelya's Battlesong is your item, get it always. Randuin's Omen is situational and you will only get it vs strong AD carries. I have never taken a Deathfire Grasp (dfg) on Soraka, just because there are so many other options, but it can help to bring down a HP heavy champion. The new Locket of the Iron Solari is a cheaper form to upgrade your HoG, and has more uses vs. magic damage dependent teams.
To sum it up: All these items are possible upgrades from your gold/10 items, that you may consider, but don't buy them every game, they are very situational counter items, generaly you should stick to the before-mentioned aura items.

Active Items: Get them, especially Shurelya's Battlesong asap.


Is this item viable on Soraka ?
For Soraka, we have surprising synergy with this item. Her Infuse will not only silence, but slow every 6 seconds now. Her Starcall will become a reliable AOE slow on top of that.
The stats, HP and AP are good, unfortunately your main stat, CDR is lacking. If you want to build AP carry, this is your item, but for Supports, only get this if your team lacks CC and you already have your core build.

As in my Sona guide, I will show you a cheap and powerful build, that enables you to grow strong with assist money, and a gold/10sec build that allows you to itemize and ward properly without (many) assists.
deumira's Soraka guide suggested most of this build, I only suggest you get CDR runes for blue and MReg/level yellow runes.

Build progression:
-> -> -> -> -> / / Zeke's Herald /


Start with Boots and a ward, and try to get Armor and the Shroud asap. Upgrade your boots and keep the warding up. Gold items are not mandatory for warding and you will just delay your build a little only to get more money after your team wins those fights due to your warding. Slowly get HP for survivability and more aura support.

But since this build DEPENDS on assist money for warding (and warding is what a good support prioritizes) you will use a different build for very long games (as your early strength might go unnoticed but your lack of money won't) or high elo games where you won't get that many assists at all. Preferable in this case:

Build progression:
-> Philosopher's Stone -> -> ( ) -> -> before or after: /Kage's Lucky Pick -> -> / Zeke's Herald /


Start with Wards and the Charm and rush your Philo Stone. The goal is to get your Shurelya's as quick as possible without making sacrifices in warding. If your lane is going bad, consider Ionian Boots of Lucidity and buy more gold items ( Heart of Gold, Kage's Lucky Pick) - one way or another you need that CDR.
With capped CDR, start working on your teams aura needs and your own survivability.

Now these builds will work for nearly all games... but sometimes the enemy makes the fatal mistake of taking ALL physical or magical damage (or their only one different carry fails). That is the time for hard counter builds. All pysical teams are EASY to shut down completely with the following:

Build progression:
-> -> -> ->


Mandatory are Ninjas and Movespeed quints. Get some HP and Armor next and go for either Randuins or Frozen Heart or even Thornmail.
Again, only use this when their ENTIRE team is ad dependant and the ap carry (if they have one) has failed completely.

All magical teams are more difficult to counter because they mostly have a lot of CC, Dots and on top of that: nukes.
Lets face it, when they really focus someone, he will probably be dead if he isn't the tank (All the more reason for your team to have a decent one like Galio :). However, your chances go up a lot if you get Tenacity and MR so they don't do true damage to you (and your team):

Build progression:
-> -> -> -> / / /


Start with an elixir, if you think your lane will have trouble and you will be required to heal a lot. Level your Infuse, as it is your best protection from casters. The silence will help you prevent many kills. Your passive Consecration will help a lot in early game. Be advised to get more MR and HP early! Mandatory are Merc's, a lot of HP and MR (get these in rune-from too if you can); for nukers get Banshees, for dots get Force of Nature, for suppressions get Quicksilver Sash. Keep an Elixir of Brilliance ready to use always, as it is your best emergency boost: cheap, fast and stronger healing when you need it. Spirit Visage is the pervect anti AP item. Not you should always get it though, but the most focussed - and thus most heal-requireing - champion.
Finally: Consider getting Heal or Cleanse (Silences can destroy you).

Protect your jungler:
"May the stars be a light to you in dark places when all other lights go out."

(If you don't know what a Jungler is... and read on Golems and Lizzards too.)
Jungling is the most challenging and rewarding champion role in the team. Having one player carrying both powerful buffs in the game roaming on the map is undoubtedly handy, and ensuring permanent control of these buffs via warding and ganking at respawn is your key to vitory. Another reason is getting dragon asap.
Having said that you should realize how important their protection early game - when they are yet weak and locked in an epic battle with a giant stone golem - is.
Some junglers can have a hard time without Blue Buff (Fid, Amumu, Skarner...).
Your job is to make sure your team detects the enemy. Your teammates should surveil the jungle entrances to the respective jungle areas. This gives you a warning should things go tough. Your Clairvoyance has a CD of 70 seconds, meaning you can use it twice until spawn of Blue (1:55) or small Golems (1:40) once at the very start (until the 45/30 sec mark) and then at spawn time, or shortly before.
If someone requests it, CV the enemy summoner platfrom. Else use your first CV to spot the enemy, and don't hesitate to place a ward in the enemy jungle before the 2:00 min mark.
If you detect the enemy team at blue or golem, your team is save, can pull and walk away. Else you better beware of enemy intrusion. Be ready to place a ward in the bush when you see the enemy comming and retreat to another bush as group. Ping them and attack if your team is dominant early or retreat until they start blue to surprise them then. Do never ever steal a kill, and especially not the first blood, the money is way better for other carries.
Soraka can ease a junglers start by taking Astral Blessing and healing him once he takes damage while walking away (make sure you don't steal his xp though !).
However, your duty to the jungler is not over yet. You should ward at his request if he fears for jungle intrusion and you have to track the enemy jungler with your CV. If he deviates from his rute, alert your teammates of possible ganks.

Protect your jungler: Sight Ward

Tip: If your jungler is confident, you spotted the enemy and invasion seems unlikely, you can take the small golem champ with your lanemate. Pull them and let them chase you, let your carry lasthit them, obviously.


Lane control:
"Silence! I will have no meddling with my blessed child."

Throughout the game, your Carries main interest should be to gain as much money and experience he/she can. As the advantage he/she has in comparison to the enemy Carry may decide most clashes, depriving the enemy from money and experience has the same results. Encouragement and demoralization from having good or poor farm is the basis for Victory and Defeat.
After (and while) doing your best to help your jungler get his exp, bufs and money - so he can help the other lanes do the same - your duty lies with your lane and your lane partner.

Money: Every minion should die to the last hit of your lane partner. If he can't kill them under the tower alone, that is the only time you are allowed to attack minions to help him farm. If he recalls, pick up the farm and lasthit yourself.
If you can, try to prevent the enemy carry from last-hitting, by distracting him, bringing him to low HP and making him recall - and lastly, if there is only a small risk for you, killing him. Small damage exchanges where your sied wins and that your side can outheal, will do this. But, you are not the damage dealer; you feed your lane partner the mana and health so he can do that.
Experience: Stay in the experience range (1600) of dieing minions. Make your enemies fear getting into this range themselves. The reasons and workings of Zoning should be known to any and all players, but mostly to you as a support.
To sum it up: Try to gain a small advantage over your enemies, but opposed to wasting that advantage in a foolish act of killgreediness, try to use it to increase your advantage with depriving your enemy from exp and money. This is much saver than killing and has the same result.
Two things are in the way of making this advantage permanent: Ganks and Recalls.
Ganks: Do your best to track the enemy. CV is essential to spot the enemy jungler, but keeping an eye on the minimap for MIA's is just as important. Warding jungle entrances, river and lane bushes, prevents ganks. Clearing enemy wards or knowing where they are, allows for your own ganks.
Recalls: If you leave the lane, you will loose xp. Only recall when a minion wave is just gone, or it is unsave to stay (low HP, enemies near). Always beware of returning enemies, they may be a lot stronger than when they backed. Your slowly gained advantage my be gone in that instant.
Pushing: This does not refer to pushing towers - your ultimate aim - but to the creep wave positioning in the lane. If your damage to minions ecceeds that of the enemy, the fighting zone will slowly travel into their direction, and you will start to overextend. That is bad because you are more vulnerable to ganks, and it becomes harder to zone the enemy - you will get zoned yourself. Therefore: try to balance the damage, so the line stays in the middle of the lane or gets pushed a little into your direction.

Abuse your Infuse for lane domination. Your lane partner should know that he can spam his spells when a Soraka is around. If you still have more mana, use the Silence to dish out some damage. If they make ready to do anything, your silence will stop them in their tracks and prevent them from their foolish actions. If they still feel eager to get to the stars, heal their target (the unhealed of you tow should pay attention if they suddenly change focus) and retaliate.
Soraka has no nuke, so don't try to suddenly jump them. She excels at winning in the long run, or with the enemy stupidity when underestimating her power and endurance. Make sure you never die in early game and keep the possible ganking routes warded/watched. And don't be discouraged from a weak start, you will soon dominate them.

Laning phase: and later philosopher's stone Sight Ward

Tip: Support every lane you can. Tell them to ward if they don't, warn them from incomming ganks, keep an eye on the minimap and ping if people are missing. You are the eyes and ears of your team and you can prevent a lot of mistakes. One of the most important things for your team is the reaction about a lane that is having trouble. Don't leave that lane alone. Tell the jungler to help, help yourself or make lane switches. Changing the lane can completely turn the table for the enemy laners and is your biggest instrument to prevent enemy freefarm. Try it and learn how to do it properly. (The earlier you suggest a lane change, and the less feeding, the better it will work.)


Dragon:
"When awakening the terrible dragon in its lair, your team will test their skills for the first time in an epic battle. But the enemy lurks in the trees around and may challenge the honor of killing this beast. The Couragious and Cautious are honored with the last strike and will ravage in their wrath on the grounds of Summoners Rift."

There are two different kinds of dragon fights: I call them Private and Public fights.
The best case scenario means, your jungler tells you he is ready for dragon, and you take one minute to place a Vision ward at dragon, clear the enemy ward, and then proceed to place one or two more wards on the pathways to dragon (mostly blue buff and mid jungle entrance. Then you and your jungler quietly do dragon, he provides the damage and you the heal. After that you type in the respawn time, e.g. dragon killed at 12:56 means you type "drake 18:56". Two things are paramount for this. One: you have to know the enemy jungler is somewhere top. Two: you are confident that your lane partner bot can handle a 2v1 for the time. Essentially this scenario assumes that the enemy is not ready for dragon yet.
Now the other type of dragon fights is more common and more interesting. If you start challenging the enemy vision, there should be some reaction, a CV and a new ward mostly. Now the battle has started. It is not so much about the dragon itself, but about who has vision on dragon and champion presence in the area and therefore this is about the better position in the battle to come. When your position is better you will start to battle dragon, tank it, lure it from its lair and bring it down.
Because killing dragon rewards 190g per player and is roughly worth 2 kills and you should expect the enemy to gamble at least two lives for it. Mostly that of his jungler. Therefore having smite ready in your team is paramount when attempting dragon, so it can't get stolen easily. You should also make sure that the enemy teleports (if he has some) are on CD so that no solo top can suddenly appear out of nowhere and cc your team.
Now there is no harm done in aborting dragon. But there has to be a path you can retreat to. You should never do dragon, when you see the enemy converging at your position from all sides - in this case better isolate the highest priority target (mostly mid) and catch it in a bad position. That means when the shoe is on the other foot, only go for dragon as a team, use CV in advance and ward all over the place.
Now on a side note. Sure dragon is "decisive", the ~1000g is nothing to laught at. But it only bacomes a game changer when your entire team is aced because they ovestimated the value of it. Only attemt to steal when you have retreat ways, e.g. Flash up, strong cc... Dont take dragon at all costs. If you trade dragon for a tower... thats not bad at all.

Dragon: Sight Ward


Pushing:
"We shall gather our strengths and strike for their defenses swift and enduring we must be."

Pushing means applying pressure to a lane that - if no enemy reaction comes - will eventually result in the destruction of a tower. The new masteries are a huge boost for tower destruction, just couple Siege Commander with Demolitionist and On The Hunt (and your buddy Taric's Radiance) and win the game.
However, Soraka has limited "direct" pushing abilities. She can clear minions with her Starcall but other than buffing the tower-target with her Astral Blessing to last longer, she has only items like Aegis of the Legion she can resolve to. However, her strength in sustaining her teams health and mana will often enable them to push after clashes and thus she is a valuable asset in this part of the game-play as well.
One tower rewards your team with 750g, that is one big step towards winning the game. Get towers whenever you can and make sure that when you retreat, the pressure on that lane doesn't suddenly disappear and the enemy counter pushes.
Pushing is very dynamic and when the element of surprise is gone - the enemy has gathered under the tower and will make his last stand - pushing stops. If you want to push effectively, then quickly adapt. With enough vision, you can easily apply pressure on more than one lane (Split-pushing) and lure the enemy out of the safety of their tower. Yes, you can force a fight and tower dive too, but that is not pushing, that brings us to the next point: Teamfights.

Pushing: Sight Ward for sustain for tower-tanking

Tip: If you have a poking team, you can use Soraka's superior sustain to wither them down, before diving or just taking out the tower.


Teamfights:
"I wish for justice on the field of battle."

Your strength lies in your Infuse. It is an important part of your team's Crowd Control arsenal and must be used correctly in order to win. Sure, your healing is awesome and such, but the Silence is the effective way of shutting down any ability based and dangerous enemies to make them vulnerable for such time as your team needs to pre-emptively take them down... no healing needed...

Now for a successful teamfight, respectfully learn the following points by heart:

• Before starting a teamfight, mark the target with the highest priority.
• Let the tank initiate and disable any target with dangerous ultimates instantly.
• Speed him up with Shurelya's active if you have it.
• Start stacking your Starcall.
• Let your carries do their job and help them by silencing any ability based champions - if there is not a dangerous ultimate you have to save your Infuse for.
• Time your Wish right for maximum efficiency, use Astral Blessing if only one person gets focussed.
• (If that Akali tries to save herself: Vision Ward her Twilight Shroud and get that ward money back via assist! The same goes for Twiches or Eves or any other nasty stealther, just ward in advance of theamfights here.)
• Use flash to kite and stay out of trouble, yet still stay near your team.
• Don't forget to use Starcall whenever it comes of CD.
• Don't make the mistake of running away from them - it will weaken your team and you.
  You won't live through a lot, so make sure you stay save and get enough HP for it.

If EVER you die; learn from your mistakes. If you are too slow, get boots. If you notice some crazy high magic dmg, get MR. If they kite you to death, get a Quicksilver Sash or/and Shurelya's Reverie. If they kill you alone, stay with your team. If they kill you with your team, tell them who to focus. If they nuke you, get a Banshee's Veil. And so on...

Mandatory:
Enough HP to survive, Flash and Wish ready and superiour MS.

Passives:
Your auras of course Consecration and Zeke's Herald

Actives:
For sustained damage chain cast Starcall and use your Infuse on the most dangerous target.
Positioning: .
If you are suppressed during figths: .
Stealthers involved ?:

Tip: Positioning is your key to survival and victory. Be fast and learn where you can survive. Try to learn ALL champion abilities and ranges, so you know when you are save from them. As a final note here: You are disposable. Do not hesitate to sacrifice yourself if that means you win a battle, or a carry escapes.


Baron:
"Rid the world of the biggest of evils !"

Money. Experience. A BUFF; healing, replenishing mana and giving AD and AP for your entire team. I see you get the big picture. Baron means victory. So please, by all means, try to get it! Similar to dragon you will ward and quarrel over the positioning, and there will always be clashes in the area. Warding it properly is even more important than at dragon, clearing enemy wards just the same. But most important of all: Do not split up when baron is possible. You need everyone together. People with teleport might wander, but only when ther are ready to hop right into the heat of battle.
As with dragon: Accept defeat when you see a hopeless case. Running for baron with only parts of your team is stupid. Your jungler might try to steal it, but nothing more. Prepare for a long siege and hopefully you will only loose one or two towers.

Baron: everything you got!

Tip: If you are not absolutely sure of it, don't attempt baron. You just don't attempt the VICTORY thing. You DO it, or you DON'T do it, there is no in between.

When I first played League of Legends, what I valued most, was the easy-going attitude on low levels. It was indeed your skill (not very advanced skill), that decided the games. The more I rose, the more people took this game seriously, a little too serious. In my humble oppinion, real life is serious enough. I want to enjoy playing LoL, so why so serious?
You are allowed to loose when you fought valiantly. You are allowed to make mistakes if you learn from them. The enjoyment comes if you can improve yourself as a player and a teammate.
Every game has its rules, and everyone should fight for them, or League of Legends will end in chaos and anarchy. Honor the Code. Honorable Ladies and Gentleman will furthermore elevate themselves over the usual LoL-mob and behave in a more civilised and sophisticated way.
If we talk about the community, we mean that part of society (in all its wide spread diversities) that plays in the League. Mostly, your opponents and teammates are not so different from yourself. Don't be quick to pass judgement on them, therefore, talk about other stuff as well, and not just about bad skills.
If you are tired after a game that went bad...

Make a custom game just for the lolz, invite all your friends and just Troll with them: ALL TROLL - NO RULES (no suciding, no flaming, no afk).
It is the easy-going attitude in a free game that is the most fun, where all options are open, where you can experiment with unusual things, where dieing is part of learning and loosing just the clarification of the fact that your way did not work as intended.

Someone tells you AP Miss Fortune does not work ? All roaming: fail ? Promote is bad ? That two supports are too many ? Don't believe him. Try it out yourself. You think my guide is wrong ? If you don't try it out, you will NEVER know.

I will join you if I see an open game, because I always want to try new ways and I figure bot games are not the place to try things that require teamplay and are a bit boring. Have fun!

If you truly are interested in Soraka, try out all of her aspects and variations to discover how versatile she can be. I'll be glad when you tell me about your way with her, and how it works.

Thank you for reading my guide. I look forward to seeing you play Sona on the Field of Justice. Special thanks to Mobafire.com and all the valiant LoL players that put up with me.
Since this guide is brand new (1/3/2012), I appreciate you helping me improve it (seriously, I do).

My ingame name is "Gott der 7 Meere".