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Hi there! I've been playing Soraka on and off since I started playing 12 years ago! This guide is just a very general guideline of how to play Soraka, with runes and itemization. If you'd like to ask more questions, drop a comment or drop by my stream! I stream almost everyday, and still play Soraka and other enchanters frequently. Thank you for reading!

If you're interested in my other guides:

Enchanters:

Lulu -> Support Lulu
Nami -> Support Nami
Karma -> Support Karma
Sona -> Support Sona
Yuumi -> Support Yuumi
Milio -> Support Milio
Soraka -> Support Soraka

Mage/Tank/Utility:

Zyra -> Support Zyra
Ashe -> Support Ashe
Amumu -> Support Amumu
Heimerdinger -> Support Heimerdinger
Lissandra -> Support Lissandra

Off-Meta/Fun stuff

Miss Fortune -> Support Miss Fortune
Veigar -> Support Veigar
Trundle -> Support Trundle
Jarvan IV -> Support Jarvan
Pantheon -> Support Pantheon

- You like healing? Soraka's your champ
- Like pushing people out of lane? Soraka's your champ
- Like making people ANGRY with how much you heal? SORAKA

Pros
- Deceptively Strong laning phase.
- Good vs poke compositions, since you can just heal everyone up.
- REALLY good, even with 1 ocean dragon . The regen lets you keep healing others with almost 0 hp even if you don't land Starcall.
- Global ultimate.
- Pairs really well with Mages (since they tend to have some CC)

Cons
- People will almost always buy heal cut vs you.
- Pretty vulnerable if you get caught.
- Everyone's trying to get rid of you first.
- Doesn't really pair well with too many ADCs.

There are 3 main mythics to buy, and generally speaking, you will be rushing one of these 3. Your early buys can include, Ruby Crystal, since it builds into all 3 items, and Faerie Charm, since that builds into almost everything you're looking to get anyways, so if you decide to get Locket of the Iron Solari instead of Moonstone Renewer / Shurelya's Battlesong, then you can still turn the Faerie Charm into something regardless.

Mythics

Reasons to get Moonstone Renewer
- Soraka's main and safest item choice. Can't really go wrong with this.

Reasons to get Shurelya's Battlesong
- Most hypercarries don't have much mobility, you can give that to them so they can position to put out their damage.
- Gives some assistance to team mates who may need to run at them more, like Hecarim Udyr Rammus.

Reasons to get Locket of the Iron Solari
- There's a lot of AoE damage on the enemy team to mitigate.
- There's a lot of burst champs that can kill you easily.
- A lot more safety, but less effective in extended fights compared to Moonstone Renewer

Boots/Shoes Choice

- Ionian Boots of Lucidity are a very safe choice
- Mercury's Treads if there's an absurd amount of CC and/or vs high AP team comps.
- Plated Steelcaps if entire enemy team is AD damage
- Boots of Swiftness if they have some very crippling slows that are hard to avoid, such as Ashe or Trundle Pillar of Ice
- Mobility Boots are actually not bad, if you really like roaming and impacting the map a lot more. Salvation will already help a ton once you're in range with it, and getting into that range with Mobility Boots will make you all the more infuriating to deal with.

Legendaries

Staff of Flowing Water
- Pairs much better with AD casters, such as Ezreal or Kai'Sa, or while having multiple AP threats on your team.
- Amazing to pair with Moonstone Renewer to constantly give the AP/Ability Haste
- Works nicely with Font of Life

Ardent Censer
- I usually don't end up buying this item in general, because if your ADC isn't doing too great, it ends up being a relatively weak buy.
- The only reasons why I'd buy Ardent Censer, is because I have at least another ranged Auto-Attack focused carry on my team ( Kayle, Corki, Graves, Kindred etc etc). AND/OR your hypercarry is really fed.
- Works nicely with Font of Life

Mikael's Blessing
- I'd be looking to buy this if there's a bit of CC to get rid of, but if there's too much CC, then it won't feel impactful at all. The main choices of CC, usually Ashe's Enchanted Crystal Arrow, or Twisted Fate stun card or other ranged hard CC abilities to get use against. Otherwise, better to just build other items.
- If you can self cast this by buffering it just before CC hits you, this also becomes a Cleanse for yourself, which increases the value tremendously. Here is a youtube short demonstrating that. Mikaels as Cleanse

Redemption
- Relatively safe choice if none of the other legendaries look appealing to buy. Works much better if you pair it with Moonstone Renewer or Locket of the Iron Solari.

Chemtech Putrifier
- Only to upgrade from Oblivion Orb. It is not worth completing this item until the very end.

Zhonya's Hourglass
- This item always ALWAYS baits people, and a well timed Zhonya's Hourglass can completely win you the fight by just stalling the threat that's on you.
- Would consider more vs mostly AD compositions, to make use of the Armor it gives, on top of it's amazing active.
- Stopwatch is also an insane buy that can win you a team fight.

Anathema's Chains
- If there's one and ONLY ONE particular threat on the enemy team that you just cannot deal with, taking 30% less damage from them could make all the difference, assuming everyone else on the enemy team is not really a problem.

Vigilant Wardstone
- This item should be your last item. And that's if every other item looks unappealing to buy. It does give a lot of stats as a last item.

Salvation
- Be careful of your positioning with this, you run EXTREMELY fast, and its very easy to run a little too far/close, then suddenly find yourself in some crossfire and now suddenly you're in trouble. As the healer, you gotta stay safe!
- Interestingly, you can use this as an escape as well, if you run towards people who are low health (but they're safe), and you DON'T heal them, so that you can maintain all the movement speed. So if the enemy completely focuses your lane partner, you can just keep them barely below the threshold, and make for a quick escape.

Starcall
- The farther away you cast this, the slower it will fall, so generally, its not a good idea to cast this at maximum range.
- Try to use this when you're in auto-attack range of an enemy, which will help hide the cast animation of Starcall and increase the chance Starcall hitting too.
- You can also use Equinox to make enemies walk towards or side to side, then place your Starcall into their path of nearest exit from Equinox.
- There is a projectile of stardust that travels back to you if you land Starcall, and if you heal someone with Astral Infusion, they will still get the bonus healing from Starcall, but you will NOT get the health cost reduction from Astral Infusion until the stardust particle touches you.

Astral Infusion
- With at least 1 ocean dragon you don't even need to land Starcall to keep spam healing, so you can position REALLY far back mid/late game, and as long as you don't die to some random splash damage like Luden's Tempest, you can just perma spam heal.
- Once this is at max rank, it becomes really easy to just completely run out of hp healing people, assuming you don't land any Starcall. So definitely try to land Starcall before completely healing everyone up.

Equinox
- A very fight changing ability, a well-timed/well-placed Equinox will win you the fight. Champions who have predictable locations they'll end up being in, and will stay there for a moment such as Vi Cease and Desist, you can place it JUST before she picks up her target, or Zac Elastic Slingshot, you can place it right where the indicator says he's going to land and he won't be able to follow up with his other CC.
- Very nice to follow-up with on targets that are already locked down, and almost makes sure they pretty much stay there for the entire duration of the silence and root itself. Incredibly crippling to people already rooted/binded or stunned.
- If you think someone might Flash towards you, then you can actually predict them and place Equinox so that they Flash onto it. Might even end up just killing them since they used their Flash and they end up rooted.
- Placing this on top of melee champions who are on top of your carries is also highly effective.
- In laning phase, you can likely place this almost behind them, so that they don't want to walk backwards to continue being silenced, so they will path to the nearest exit from the silence zone, and right there is when you can place a nice Starcall for a really good trade.

Wish
- More effective on low health targets and it will remove Grievous Wounds/healing reduction.
- Keep an eye on your team mates health bars, and very VERY often, in top or mid lane, you will turn a 1v1 or 2v2 fight around. Just make sure you back-up and aren't in any immediate danger while you look across the map.

TLDR; Land Starcall. Find out how to land Starcall.

Early Game/Laning Phase

- Soraka can be played a few ways, but I find the most optimal is playing aggressive
- Starcall early game has extremely strong trading numbers if you land it. Most ranged abilities have base damage of 80 on average, and Soraka's is too, BUT, it also heals her for 50 hp. So, in a simple trade of abilities 1:1, Soraka will win almost all of them. Use this to your advantage to be a lane bully.
- Astral Infusion follows from hitting Starcall, and also has strong trading numbers.
- If you can continuously land Starcall then you can just be forceful with trades because you'll heal it all back up. If you miss Starcall, then laning will be very hard.
- If your lane partner doesn't have hard CC and if your jungler/mid laner isn't coming then you can use Equinox as a poke tool as well.
- If your lane partner DOES have hard CC, then hold Equinox to chain the CC.
- If you're missing all your Starcall or it's too risky to walk up and try to land Starcall then just sit back and chill and be as passive/disengaging as possible.

Mid/Late game

- Once you have rank 5 Astral Infusion, this is where Soraka is THE healing champion.
- It will be extremely important to land your Starcall because of how fast you can spam Astral Infusion. The difference between landing Starcall and healing your team VS not landing Starcall and healing your team, will be night and day.
- Everyone will be doing a lot of damage by this point in the game, so keep an eye on flanks/threats and stay away from them. If you have Exhaust then be very ready to use it.
- Your job is to land Starcall, heal and survive. If you don't die in team fights, your team mates probably won't either.

Grading Explanation below the lists! Check the RANK too!

- Soraka is still a decent champion, and theres a lot of players that absolutely hate play against her.

13.23 Emerald and Below

13.23 Diamond+

Tier List Grading Points

- Winrates
- Champion Difficulty (more relevant in Emerald and below)
- Counter-play (more relevant in Emerald and below)
- Flex pick for draft (more relevant in diamond+)
- Early game (more relevant in diamond+)
- Late game/scaling (more relevant in Emerald and below)
- Anything in the (_Letter_+) row, means it's better the higher in elo you go. Anything in (_Letter_-) row, means it's better the lower in elo you go.

Overall Points:

- Games last longer the lower in elo you go. Therefore, mage supports tend to do much better since you can buy your items, and you basically become another carry threat. This leads to enchanters/engage being weaker in lower level play since you would rely on your teammtes more often.

- Champions that are fundamentally easier to execute on will have higher win rates. Since it is more unlikely players are pilot-ing their champion runes/builds/kit efficiently, the easier the champion, the more likely to maximize their kits. This is especially apparent in Platinum and below.

- I would recommend playing any of the champs in S+, S, or A. However you can climb on almost anything, provided you always look to maximize your champion kit, mechanics, and impact on the game. Winning is the result of improving.

If you have any questions, leave a comment below! I'll be editing this as I go and be sure to let you know once I have more updates. Or if you'd like to ask me a question directly, you can go to my twitch stream! twitch.tv/navcan

There's also my tiktok
And my youtube!

Cheers and thank you for reading! Good luck on the rift