03/06/2011 : added recommended lane partners

this build is a soraka build ment to be focussed on supporting and keeping the team going on pushes. it is also made to prioritise surviability over ability power to keep the healing going for much longer even if focussed on. It's weird on some ammount of point mostly because you will only get a fairy charm at the beginning and also for the late boots (i do get a lot of comments in games telling me i should get boots because i will die when i have a 0/2/16 ratio).

Soraka's role with this build is supporting/healing carries, tanking damages and luring ennemies. you will notice your position in teamfights will be either a bit behind your main tank or just a bit forward him to make some usually heavy dps (xin, yi, jax, tryn, etc) to take the bait and jump in the middle of your team. If you die in a battle while the rest of your team survived you did your job perfectly but it's even better if you didn't die.

this is my first build so if you have feedback on how to improve the guide please let me know in the comment section. this guild will be worked on again in the futur and still need to be corrected (i'm not natively english). Althought it's not yet 100% completed, the main idea of this build is here so i don't feel bad to publish it right now and work on it again in a few days.

pros

great defence
great surviability
great support healing and auras
great lure potential
good turret defence against minions

cons

squishy for the first few levels
heavily team dependant
no heavy CC
reduced mobility

the runeset as seen above is quite simple. Since this build will not get much ability power in most of the games from items. the runes are built so ability power can be obtained from runes at level ups. the 3 quintesences of fortitude are there also for early surviability.

the masteries are a standard caster 9/0/21. grabbing everything that helps ability power, cooldown reduction and mana regen.

this is where this guide becomes a bit original. the item order is quite unorthodox due to the fact that boots comes quite late in the build. Soraka built as i take it right now is made to be tanky in the heat of battle and even makes her able to be a front row character as a lurer or a secondary tank. Meaning she dies with the team or lives with the team. The argument of boots is that you can escape more easilly. Luckilly if you play well in a team and in teamfights running away and being chased should not happen often. on the other end if your team happens to be chased as the result of a loosing team fight, i suggest taking a different route than your allies to make ennemies split to improve rate of survival of your carries

While laning you start with a fairy charm and keep the rest of the gold for an early return. you support your lane partner while farming a few minions he might not last hit. at 620 warn your lane parther that you will be right back and teleport to town to get your phylosopher's stone. at this point with infuse you should be able to keep both of your health bars at full even against a harrassing combo.

mid game you want to have your aegis of the legion. this item gives some nice armor and magic resistance while also helping your allies survive with the armor and magic resistance aura. It makes your support job to heal the carries much easier as they are the ones who will benefit greatly of your armors and magic resists bonus the most.

when you have the cash you should build toward the gardian angel armor. this armor should allow you to stay near the frontline and even take the damage the same way a tank would. Most players will focus soraka even if she have a good armor because .... well she's soraka and supposed to be squishy. but remember that all the damage you take don't go to your squishy carries while they should be damaging the ennemy team quite heavily

if you have the time (i know this item comes late and most game the ennemy team will surrender before you get it) get your mercury threads for some more MR and some tenacity.

if the game really is long i then suggest to start building some AP items. Rilay's cristal scepter is a good item at this point because of his ability power, hp and area of effect slow added to your star call spell. But at this point the game should already be close to the end.

if you have time after that your 6th item should be dependant of the situation. A thornmail against a dps heavy team, banshee's vail against a ap heavy team and the if you need some more AP you always have the chance to pick up a meiah soulstealer or a deathcap

the skill sequence is quite easy to follow. the priority of the skills are wish­­ > astral blessing > infuse > star call. i heavily suggest placing a point in starcall level 8 because with my experience i notices its the point when you sometimes have to teleport to a tower to stop a creep wave and gives some farming potential with his area of effect.

the summoner spells i recommend are teleport for mobility between lanes that would let you farm pushed lanes in mid game and flash to escape these ''oh ****'' situations that sometimes happens.

trought my games with this build i noticed that some lane partners were much better than others ... and in opposition that some are almost useless therefore i will try to list them here.

recommended lane partners : i find meele physical DPS to be the best lane partners. these include Pantheon, Master Yi, Xin, Garen and others.

nice lane partners: usually ranged DPS or casters can be good lane partners but they usually lack the burst of damage to protect a soraka being targetted. these includes miss fortune, ashe, caithlin malzahar and others.

lane partners to avoid : trough my experience i came to avoid as lane partner anything that looks like a tank. A partner like Singed as an exemple is a good partner in the team but in the laning phase he just lacks the burst of damage to protect a soraka well and also lacks the damage to get some kills going and use the healing to its maximum potential.