Your Friendly Neighbourhood Support

Introduction to the Guide

Soraka can be easily one of the most annoying supports due to her impressive healing skills. After the healer patch her Astral Blessing cooldown was doubled from 10 seconds to 20 seconds, mainly making her players find alternative ways to playing her, since before you didn't need as much cooldown reduction as nowadays. That's why in my updated guide I prioritize cooldown reduction to max out my healing capability all the way from early game in combo with other support duties, for example warding.

I tested multiple different item builds and runes before I decided how to update my guide to be best suited for Soraka's needs throughout the entire game rather than focusing onto mid to late game gameplay like most of the guides here in MobaFire.

Soraka vs Other Supports

Taric can be outhealed by Soraka in early levels since he has quite low mana early game. Nowadays Soraka has lower mana pool, but you'll still be able to outheal him early game and pain him by harassing with Infuse. Later game if Taric has bought any CDR items he can heal more often than you can, but your heals are still higher, but only single target spells.

Sona is no longer a serious threat to Soraka as a healer, because her heal is underpowered early game. If she can heal 3 times in the time you can heal once as a Soraka, I think you'd still heal far more than she does. However she'll still deal more damage than you will, unless you max out Starcall first, but she can be easily shut down in laning phase by constantly silencing her with Infuse. Most people seem to think Sona is OP as a support, but you can be OP as well with annoying heals and by silencing enemies. Just stay out of Crescendo, because if your whole team gets caught you might be dead, before you can cast your own ultimate.

Kayle was almost rendered a useless support with the patch that made her heal CD up to 15 seconds. I thought that was a lot, but Astral Blessing on a 20 s cooldown is simply far worse than her spells. Nowadays you don't see many support Kayle players, but she is not a serious threat to you, because you can outheal her lane and silence her, but remember that her heal range (1200) is superior to yours.

Nidalee's heal got nerfed as well and the AP ratio dropped to amounts she's no longer a threat. She can heal far more often than you, which makes her a better healer than you early game, but she lacks other supportive skills. The bonus attack speed given by her heal spell can however get you owned if you're not careful.

Karma is not too often picked, since people don't think much of her and in my opinion she's better as an AP carry than as a full support, because she requires some AP to heal efficiently. What you should know that early game without extra CDR she has 26 cooldown on her Mantra allowing her to heal only once during that time, but late game with 40% CDR she has 12 second cooldown on Mantra allowing her to heal far more often than you and in addition she can heal many allies (and creeps). Early game she's not a serious threat, but late game her heals can be really annoying especially if she's AP since she can heal multiple allies very often and her heals do damage as well.

Janna does not have a "real" healing skill, since mostly her ultimate is used as a disruption ability, but if she does use it for healing, she can heal quite a lot of HP to her allies especially if she's built AP (which can happen occasionally). Compared to Soraka, Janna has far better harassment skills and best CC of supports, but less durability during laning phase since she doesn't have a heal, but her shield can block quite a lot of damage. Also Janna's shield will give more damage to her carry whenever she casts it on him/her. You can outharass her if you play carefully whenever her shield is on.

Leona is sometimes used as a support, but I prefer her as a tank, because none of her skills support the way all above supports do, with buffs or heals. Instead Leona has a wide variety of CC skills, stuns mainly and if she can land her skills you are in trouble. Early game with proper runes Leona is nearly unkillable, but if you manage to harass her or her carry to low HP, there's no way for them to regenerate. Just like Amumu she can stun your whole team, so basically later game you should be careful whenever you see her, but after she's used her skills she can't do much during a teamfight.

Alistar is the CC king. He doesn't have a heal as powerful as Soraka but he's great at denying minions kills with his aoe heal. However he's way too durable to be able to kill easily and his Headbutt can kick you away easily. Pulverize will aoe stun and help his team to either grab a kill or let them escape safely as he's unkillable with his ulti. So in conclusion, as a healer Alistar isn't a big deal, but his CC is a serious threat compared to almost no CC Soraka.

Lux isn't often used as a support, but she can fulfill support role quite well. She's a disable based support since her shield isn't a good one. She has a really long range and she can both scout and harass with her Lucent Singularity and will kill you under your turret if you stay there with low HP. However if you manage to harass her there's no way she can regenerate and the usual Lux builds are quite squishy so she's rather easy to kill if you can catch her. One thing is that if she manages to get kills even as a support it means the opposite team will have 5 damage dealers since even as a support Lux should build AP like Nidalee.

Personally I haven't played as Nunu, but recently people have started using him as a support quite much, because of his Blood Boil skill that gives attack speed which works especially well with some auto attack based AD carries like Vayne. (Which is the usual combo.) Nunu has a personal heal, but he can't heal his AD carry, that's why when laning vs him it's good to harass the AD carry (as you should always do anyway) and leave Nunu alone. When engaging into fights take care for his slow and be extremely cautious if he has actived his ultimate. He is hard to kill and has quite high damage even without any damage items so be wary of him.

I haven't played as Blitzcrank either, but have watched more than enough when my bf plays him. This lane has no sustain unless it has Heal summoner spell, but on the other hand his grab can earn them an easy kill unless you're good dodging those. If you can dodge, you can win, but remember that Blitzcrank has pretty much as good CC as Alistar has and on top of that he has quite high damage as well, but no sustain. So being careful at the right time and being offensive at the right time will win you the lane.

Lulu has an arsenal of slow/speed buff, damaging multitarget slow and shield/one target spell. She's is usually played aggresive early game due to her skills so she well try to harass you out of the lane. Her damage early game can be quite high if she first hits you with her Q, then keeps auto attacking so you might wanna try to stay out of her way until you have your full arsenal of spells. If you keep silencing her and playing situations right, you can harass her out of the lane, since she doesn't have a heal (except for ulti that does heal), but remember that she can cast most her spells on one target (excluding Q) so she will either do damage to you or to your carry. Just silence her and heal your carry, but beware after she gets ulti, W+R on her ally = once you're caught, you die if you're not fast enough with your spells/ Flash.

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Soraka doesn't have as much CC as Sona and Taric, but her heal is marvelous and she's great against teams with suppression characters like Malzahar since you can cancel his ulti with Infuse and ruin their AP carry's chances of doing damage. Soraka is also a great pick against heavy AD damage teams, because of her heal's armor buff, but she's good vs casters as well duo to her often underestimated passive, that's actually quite good early game combined with Aegis of the Legion aura.
Even though usually an AD carry lanes with the support, Soraka can lane with an AP carry instead to maximize the usability of her Starcall magic resist reduction debuff.
Soraka is a great counter to aoe ulti teams that have characters like Karthus that can kill your team in an instant if you're all having too low HP, but she's also a good pick for teams that already have enough CC. However if you don't have heavy CC in your team, I wouldn't recommend picking a support that doesn't have CC either.

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Kog'Maw is the ideal partner for Soraka since he is one of the AP carries that require quite some mana to do best damage possible. This lane combo might not have CC, but your range in superior to that of others and since Kog'Maw will be able to spam his skills with your Infuse you have a good chance of dominating the lane.

Urgot is in the same series as Kog'Maw except that he needs mana even more than him, because without mana he is a melee character. When laning with Urgot, don't max heal first, instead max Infuse to keep his mana up all the time. Someone said that Urgot+ Soraka lane is scary as hell, because Urgot will have so much armor with Soraka's heal buff that they're impossible to kill. Additionally with Soraka he'll never go OOM and can nearly infinitely spam his skills.

Ezreal is one of the more mana based AD carries as well, but he can manage without, but having Soraka on the lane with him, will give him an advantage. The only disadvantage is that Ezreal's range isn't as high as Kog'Maw's for example and you have 0 CC in lane excluding your silence.

Pros / Cons

Pros:

+best heal in the game
+ global healing can save allies even if you're not near
+ very annoying to the opposite team
+ silence
+ can grant mana to allies
+ great debuff on Starcall
+ Starcall has spammable damage
+ stacking CDR will be more valid than ever

Cons:

- low damage early game
- you will not be allowed to farm
- long cooldowns on all skills except the only one that's not very useful at early levels...
- painfully long cd on heal
- all AP ratios are semi-low
- squishy early till mid game
- often focused
- can't use Infuse on herself anymore

Runes

I have to admit I still find this rune setting quite weird, because it's not too similar to standard support rune settings. Anyway I probably should explain why I chose these runes.

Cooldown reduction runes:
Soraka has a 20 second cooldown on her Astral Blessing without any CDR. With the 0-9-21 masteries you get 6% CDR leaving you at ~18.84 seconds cooldown on your heal. I experimented with health quintessences, but eventually came to the conclusion that if I want to play with Boots of Mobility then I need more CDR from runes, because as a support it takes longer time to get coins for necessarily items and without proper CDR early game you're left too vulnerable.
Taking both flat CDR glyphs and quintessences will give you a starter CDR of 16.89% from lvl1 giving your heal ~16.64 second cooldown from level one, which is more than Taric for example so you can easily outheal him. You can buy Boots of Mobility (or Mercury's Treads for CC heavy teams) without harming your healing capabilities.

Armor Marks: why marks and not seals?
As for marks, I've tried magic penetration, flat AP, armor penetration and flat HP, but in my opinion as a support you should concentrate on staying alive, therefore I chose the flat armor marks for survivability. If you prefer harassing, go ahead and pick Greater Mark of Desolation or Greater Mark of Insight, but nowadays I like to have more armor at start to compensate the lack of armor aura that Taric and Sona both have.

Health per level Seals:
As for seals I decided that since you can spam Infuse all the time, you will not need mana regen runes. I was left with two choices: armor runes or health runes. I've tried both and both work well, but since you will already get armor bonus from your marks, I thought maybe HP suited better.
Flat HP runes will only give you ~50 hp at max whereas scaling HP runes will give you ~135 HP at lvl18. They'll be more than twice better and more cost effective than the flat ones imo.
Note: Greater Seal of Avarice are a great choice to get instead of these, but like in my Sona guide I'd prefer getting 4 of those and 5 of either Greater Seal of Resilience or Greater Seal of Vitality. Also now that you can't use Infuse on yourself anymore, depending on how much you like to spam your skills, you can also combine either of these runes with Greater Seal of Replenishment/ Greater Seal of Clarity depending on which ones you prefer.

Masteries

I've been rather busy so it took my some to upgrade all my guides masteries to the new ones since obviously changing them will require me to change all the sections as well and here I am with the new masteries to Soraka.

Why these masteries?

I chose these masteries because the Defensive tree stats will work well with my chosen runes:

• Hardiness and Resistance together give you 4 extra magic resist and armor, but you can choose to put 3 points into Resistance to get 6 magic resist since your magic resist will stay stable and armor will scale higher throughout the levels
• Durability will work well with Greater Seal of Vitality runes giving you 275 extra HP at lvl18
• Veteran's Scars isn't the best mastery, but it's better than putting points into the Offensive tree, because the Offensive tree offers only 4 AP, 4% CDR and 10% magic penetration which you will not need

Utility tree offers you a variety of choices to pick, but I chose these because:

• Expanded Mind and Meditation give you some mana regen and allthough Soraka can manage without mana regen you don't benefit from the movement boost from Swiftness as much as some extra mana regen
• Improved Recall is a filler mastery which is far better than Scout (think about how little is that 5% extra actually, you can't see the difference) because sometimes teleporting home faster could save your life
• Good Hands is great if you have a tendency to die, but you can take the extra experience from Awareness instead, but nowadays I prefer the reduced death timer
• Greed and Wealth are the most crucial masteries to a support character because they boost your gold income greatly as well as give you a chance to keep some of the starting gold in your inventory to get your Philosopher's Stone faster
• Intelligence gives you 6% CDR which will give you ~16 % cooldown reduction at lvl1 with my recommended runes, when you start with your Astral Blessing having 16.64 secons cooldown
• Mastermind gives you 10% reduced cooldown on your summoner spells which isn't as good as the old mastery which gave you 15% lower cooldown, but this still helps you with your CV as Summoner's Insight doesn't lower the CD of Clairvoyance anymore

Other possible masteries:

Defense Utility: 0-18-12
It's possible to deploy points like this to put your points in the Defensive tree all the way down to get Mercenary as Soraka can get assists quite easily and will manage quite well when receiving far less damage than with the Utility masteries. I've yet to try this with Soraka but it has worked with Alistar quite well.

Summoner Spells

Basic spell combo for a support before Heal got buffed will offer you en escape mechanism and since I don't dislike CV even with that 60 second cooldown, it's still useful spell on a support helping with map awareness during crucial times and saves you or your allies from getting ganked when timed well.


Annoy your enemies with having 3 heals on one lane. To be even more annoying it's nice if you're lanemate has Heal too so you can just save yourself from pretty much anything. However, early game Heal isn't the best compared to Flash and won't save you, but mid to late game it will allow you to seriously save your allies from tough places. If you feel comfortable facechecking which most people do at 1600+ elo where I play mostly, it's ok to go with Flash+ Heal combo, which will give you a chance to save both yourself and allies as well if your built-in skills won't do it.


Some people do pick Exhaust on a support, especially when they play Maokai on higher elo games, but it's not a good spell on Soraka who is too squishy to get in the casting range without dying herself, so personally I don't like this at all. Also same thing for Ignite.

Skills

Originally I recommended upgrading Infuse together with Astral Blessing, but I've changed this, because when you can heal only once with Astral Blessing you can use Infuse twice meanwhile. However nowadays you CAN'T USE Infuse ON YOURSELF. That means you can only use it to silence enemies or to heal mana to your allies, but I still haven't been OOM even by maxing out Astral Blessing first, so even though it is a big change, it doesn't change Soraka gameplay much.

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Soraka's passive is one of the most underestimated passives in the game mainly because it only helps early game and early game it's extremely good in my opinion especially when combined with Aegis of the Legion. Late game having 16 bonus magic resists doesn't benefit your team as much, but it always benefits Soraka with low defenses.

Starcall is more useful than ever, because it can be spammed hard. This changed metagame a bit, because Soraka is actually good laning with a mage as well due to this skill which reduces magic resist of enemies. With 40% CDR you can spam this skill every 1.5 seconds reducing magic resist of enemies very hard. Imagine Annie or Brand using their aoe skills after that and all enemies are dead afterwards.
Before the patch that changed Soraka everyone thought this skill is useless, but this is the skill which makes the new Soraka most efficient, therefore I take it at lvl3 or lvl5 for harass, but if you don't need to harass then don't take this skill but it's great for stacking assists.
Starcall works best with Rylai's Crystal Scepter, because it will be a perma-slow.

Astral Blessing has a 20 sec cooldown, which will require you to get CDR as soon as possible as I've explained previously in my runes section. With full 40% cooldown reduction this skill will have 12 second cooldown which is still longer than the original heal, but manageable. You can level up this skill first, because it has such a long cooldown therefore you can't use it often enough to run out of mana.

Infuse has a relatively short cooldown, but you can't use it on yourself anymore. As I have always recommended to use it on your lane partner instead of yourself, I don't think it's necessary to say that anymore :D So, keep healing their HP and their mana. No need to max this out first, because the amount of mana given by Infuse was raised from lvl1 25 > 40 and so on.
If you want to be a sneaky *****, silence Malzahar when he is using ulti and disable other mages as well to save your allies: Soraka has her disables too, she's not all about healing.

Soraka's ulti remained the same, but the AP ratio went down, so no more 1k heals on her, but this is still her best skill and still annoying enough to drive your opponents crazy when you cast this and they miss the kill. Also a very nice counter to Karthus/ Gangplank's ulti.

Item Builds

Epic warder Soraka:



Fast cooldown reduction Soraka (=you don't have all the CDR runes listed):


Defensive Build for heavy CC teams


AP Support Soraka build (no CDR runes):

Item Choices

My preferable choice for boots are these, because these are great shoes on all supports due to the fact that you need to running all around the map warding. These shoes give you the advantage that you're faster warder than the opposite team support as well as you will reach teamfights faster if you happened to be elsewhere.
If you don't have all the cooldown reduction runes I listed it's ok. You can build these shoes for early game CDR.
These are great vc CC heavy teams as well as vs heavy magical damage based teams and along with Boots of Mobility my favourite shoes for Soraka.

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The very best of aura items: boosts up your magic resist bonus and in addition gives extra armor and damage aura to your allies. You will get the base stats and the aura bonus therefore it boosts your defenses quite well for the cost.
Easily upgraded from Philosopher's Stone this gives you nice hp and mana regen and 15% cooldown reduction being your main CDR item. I include this item in the aura section, because of the active skill that boosts movement speed for moment allowing you to either help your team run away or chase.
With the "epic warder" item build you will get ~35% CDR and with this item you extend cooldown reduction by 5% which isn't much for all the bonuses it gives. Your allies will get 10% cooldown reduction and a nice mana regen bonus which will greatly help if your team has multiple mana users in the team. It also provides you 520 HP which will allow you to survive longer.
This can be taken instead of Banshee's Veil if you need some magic resist and want to assist your teammates, but usually you AP carry already has this.
WotA can be agreat item on Soraka, because it benefits you by giving you some extra heal power and on top of that it benefits your ap carries by giving them spellvamp and 30 extra AP. Even if your AP carry had this, this is a good idea to get, because it stacks with your carry who has this (but not with other teammates).
If your team has 2-3 ad characters this is a good item instead of Soul Shroud, that works especially well early game. Imagine how much it helps your ad carry who already has The Bloodthirster to have that extra lifesteal given by this item. Not only does s/he benefit from this item, you also get that 250 hp and 15% CDR.
Locket of the Iro Solari The active skill of Locket of the Iron Solari could be the most annoying thing for the enemy team if you use this item and then use your ulti and Heal if that weren't enough. You'll be the lifesaver of your team if you already weren't. Always try to buy this.

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This is great vs heavy magical teams, because it gives you nice magic resist and a shield that blocks one harmful skill. You'll also gain some extra HP and mana from this.
Since you already should have Heart of Gold, in case you absolutely need armor, you can upgrade it into this item for some extra slow on the enemies and nice HP and mana regen.
Can be taken if you didn't take CDR shoes and you don't have cdr runes either. Otherwise with Shurelya's Reverie you'll exceed CDR cap too much.

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Used to be my favourite item on Soraka and still is mainly in Normal games, but can be useful in Ranked Games as well, because this gives 20% CDR and some AP along with mana regen. This doesn't help your team, but it's good item for Soraka if you want some heal/damage bonuses along with CDR.
My new favourite item for Soraka simply because the slow combined to Starcall is permaslow to your enemies. Also you get some nice HP from this, so if you ever get the extra coins be sure to consider this item.
For epic heals, but doesn't scale as well with Soraka as it used to. If you're getting hellish amount of assists (maybe kills) and are allowed to farm, you can get this but I still prefer Rylai's for the AP item.

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As a support it's your duty mainly to take of destroying the enemy wards and the Boots of Mobility will encourage you even more, because you can disappear fast enough from the wards you're destroyed before you're ambushed.
& These are your two main core items because you need the extra gold income since you won't be farming. Philosopher's Stone will give you good regen and Heart of Gold gives you some extra HP early game. I chose these instead of Kage's Lucky Pick because you can upgrade both of these items into items that are useful for you. IMO Deathfire Grasp isn't a good item on Soraka.
You need to buy a lot of wards to keep map awareness high. In the section below, you'll see where to put wards.
You will need to use these as well, especially early game.

Warding

Early game you should concentrate on warding your own lane: the intersect mainly or in case you're on the purple side you can ward both dragon and then the bush right below dragon on the enemy side of the jungle to see if the jungler will come to gank. Additionaly you can ward the bush right next to wall on their side of the lane to see their support and prevent him/her from harassing your carry too hard. Although it's no use to harass hard, because you can heal well enough for it to be useless.
Note: Everyone should ward their respective lanes, but you can occasionally CV the top bush to prevent your top laner from getting ganked.

Mid game extend your warding area to cover dragon and the closest mid bushes on both sides. If you're owning concentrate on warding the enemy side, if you're losing your own side. If you have enough coins ward both sides of the river on both left and right of the mid lane. After 15 minutes be always sure to keep a ward on Baron Nashor, because that's when he spawns and you don't want your enemy team to steal his buff.
Also those spots I put in the picture are the spots for most supports to put wards, so check them out for wards and take out those wards with Oracle's Elixir. I'm aware I miss a few wards from the picture but use common sense and you're fine.

Late game extend your warding area to the enemy jungle, mainly by warding their buffs and routes to buffs to always see them and pick up kills on soloers together with your team. Keep Baron Nashor warded, but don't waste too many wards on dragon, because at this point the other wards are more important. Keep on eye on both of the jungles to kill soloers and earn yourself a free Baron.

Gameplay

In general:

As a support you don't farm unless your carry is dead or at base and you're left alone in your lane. As a Soraka your main goal is to babysit your carry which doesn't mean you should only afk in the bot bush and heal occasionally. You're not a passive buffer, you're active healer and disabler which some people seem to forget about Soraka.
Most people seem to think having a Soraka in the lane = passive lane, but that depends on your playstyle. It's true you can't be aggressive early game, but that doesn't mean you should be passive - instead remember that you have a never ending health supply provided by Astral Blessing and never ending mana supply for your ally with Infuse which you should be spamming on both your ally and the enemy to piss them off and preferably zone them by silencing the support. (Works especially well vs Sona.)
You should also keep on eye on the map at all times and ping if your team doesn't have as good map awareness as you should be having.

Early game:

Early game is why people think laning with Soraka means passive play, because early game her damage isn't as good as Sona's damage and she doesn't have as much CC as Taric and Janna have. She however has an exceptionally good heal which allows you to harass as much as you want by using Infuse (and in some cases Starcall, but do not push while using this skill) and auto attacks since you can keep your sustain through Astral Blessing and Infuse.
Put a ward in the enemy bush and harass them further away (without taking too much damage) and definitely after lvl4 do not play too passive unless you're having a tough lane. Sit in the bush and be ready to harass and allow your lane partner to farm freely by silencing the enemy support and disabling their harass skills.
Do not go back before you get lvl6 preferably, becauce then you can afford both shoes and Philosopher's Stone. If you do go back earlier for a reason or another, DO NOT BUY SHOES first because it delays your warding if you don't get Philosopher's Stone as fast as possible.
When you do get your ultimate Wish remember to check out for other lanes regularly in case they need healing. That might save them from a tough place or even earn them a kill. Occasionally you can use Wish just to get an assist from a kill which gives you an advantage vs the other support.

Mid Game:

Keep on farming on your lane and remember to always have a ward on dragon. Keep watching for other lanes in case you need to use Wish and preferably you could try to push the bot lane turret allowing you go roam and extend your warding area to mid lane and maybe for an early Baron (right when he spawns at 15 minutes). You must never walk alone in places when you don't know where the enemy is and after you hve warded, stick together with your AD carry. Destroy enemy wards while putting your own wards.
In teamfights position yourself fat away from the damage dealer, but you still should be close to your carry because he's the one you should mainly be protecting. During teamfights heal him, not the tank. If you picked Heal summoner spell, position yourself in the middle of your team before using it so everyone benefits from it. If you took Exhaust remember to use it on the one that does most damage on the enemy team, which is usually the AD carry. Silence the AP carry with your Infuse which can cancel a Malzahar's ulti for example so keep that in mind.

Late Game:

Keep Baron Nashor warded at all times and preferably ward the enemy jungle as well and don't get ganked while doing that. Late game it's most important not to facecheck and die, because even as a support you're important part of your team that allows your teammates to slaughter the enemies by keeping their health and mana up during teamfights. If you're dead for nearly a minute that leaves your team a serious disadvantage in the case the enemy is pushing or taking Baron Nashor.
You should have you active skill items like Shurelya's Reverie and/or Locket of the Iron Solari by this point so don't forget to use their active skills when you need them. Don't use your ulti to gain assists anymore, simply to save people during teamfight and same goes for Heal if you picked it.

Game Stats

As a Soraka your score doesn't really matter: you might have 0-12 and a loads of assists. As long as you don't feed like hell, don't kill steal like hell and stack assists like hell, you're fine. This section is to demonstrate what kind of damage and healing power you should have with this build.

Usually your healing from the game should be higher than damage, unless you spam Starcall and use your Infuse more often to do damage and to silence than healing mana to your allies. Most people tend to use Infuse early game to give mana, but I use it throughout the game since late game skills will take more mana and that Annie might just get a kill she'd miss without that mana.
Basically I play Soraka as a full fledged healer (and I compete who heals most in the game, it's my own little way to feel satisfaction and not to feel bad about all the deaths I might have) so here's how I do:

Stats above are from Ranked Game at 1400-1650 elo (I'm last pick, so the others are somewhere between 1500-1600elo) with my recommended CDR runes.

Below are some example games how you could do in Ranked games with this build. Top game is the most recent game that carried me to 1500+ (I'm so proud to be gold) and now I'm forever happy since I finally achieved my goal :D
Basically during this game I had 0-5 during laning phase and my bf was complaining about it, but after I got my Oracle's Elixir I didn't die once so I could build up nearly a full build. I hope you guys don't die as much during laning phase, since rising up from 6-18 games when the opposite team has Baron Nashor ain't easy, but happens with an epic Singed tank in team carrying their girlfriends.
Ignore the other games, I was just lazy to to play with cut and paste in the middle of the night.
This is my Epic Warder Soraka at 1700 elo:

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Summary

There are different ways to play Soraka as a support, all mostly with some minor differences. This the way where maxed out cooldown reduction allows better use of skills, therefore better support for the team without lacking aura-items.

I'm open to critisism and will improve this guide based on given comments.

Updates

7/5/2012
Added Lulu section to Soraka vs Other supports and Laning partners that much up well with Soraka to the same part. I think I'll be adding more possible ppl, but those are the ones I've noticed to fit the best with her (but all other AD carries are good as well, except for Ashe, it seems that Ashe+Soraka lane never wins...)

10/2/2012
Added the new support items Zeke's Herald and Locket of the Iron Solari into the item explanations and builds as well. Still waiting for a support warding item...
Changed Gameplay section to be a bit more comprehensive.

25/1/2012
Added other players game scores into Game Stats section, added bigger pictures about other supports in the Soraka vs Other Supports - section.
Slightly edited Item Builds section by chancing the pictures larger and also added Will of the Ancients to the Item Choices section, because it was lacking earlier even though I thought I had added it there... Also edited the outlook of it by dividing it into better sub-sections.

12/1/2012
Midnight update on my guide on the commercials of Skins: added game new game stats and edited Summoner Spells section

28/12/2011
Edited Summoner Spells section and Masteries section slightly. Also added more colour to the guide (especially Pros and Cons). I'm planning on making Gameplay section a bit more... informative so I'll stay in touch when I have more time from real life.

27/11/2011
Changed masteries to the new ones and edited Masteries section to fit with the new masteries.

8/11/2011
Changed Item build and edited all sections and added couple of new sections as well.

28/10/2011
Edited Item Section and Runes slightly adding few other possibilities to build Soraka.

26/9/2011
Rewrote skills section and edited skilling order. Also edited the item build section and added an alternative build.

24/8/2011
Added Healer Change Patch-section to the top of the guide and edited Pros and Cons. I'll continue to edit the guide after trying out the new Soraka with this build and few others to see how valid my current item choices are.

23/8/2011
Edited Item section for even more early Aegis of the Legion and added Game Stats section to display the power of heal on Soraka

11/8/2011
Added a picture for the Gameplay section about warding and edited the text there slightly

22/7/2011
Edited item sequence slightly - different starter items and a more early Aegis of the Legion whereas later Shurelya's Reverie