Hi! I'm Sophie, a former Platinum tier player and Soraka main with roughly 450k mastery points. I have mained her for the past two seasons and have gathered some experience on her that I now want to share with others in this little guide.

Keep in mind that this is mainly aimed at low elo support players as I have no experience in any elo higher than Platinum 4, where I peaked in Soloqueue in season 9, and thus can only judge game situations and ideal build paths for Gold elo and below.

Make sure to read the notes on each of the rune and build options for more detailed information, and I hope this little guide helps you!
:^)

Soraka is one of League's oldest champions; a true Enchanter whose main purpose in the game is to keep her allies alive.
She brings immense healing, a strong silence and a global ultimate heal to the table which make her an extremely strong teamfighter with the potential to heal allies from 0 to 100 if left unchecked.

As I have previously mentioned in my Threats and Synergies section, Soraka pairs very nicely with hypercarries such as Jinx, Sivir and Vayne as well as early game snowball-heavy carries like Lucian.

Soraka does not have any bad or very low-synergy lane partners; her playstyle is very adjustable, she can do anything from protecting the ADC as a healbot of sorts to aggressively poking and opening up opportunities for engage with her Equinox.

As for counterpicks, there are a few enemy supports where I would advise against picking Soraka into them (see also the Threats and Synergies section for more details), but in theory, you can pick Soraka even into a bad lane if you see a benefit for your team in the later stages of the game.
While matchups like Blitzcrank and Zyra have the potential to make your laning phase very hard and will probably force you and your ADC out of lane to the point where you may even have to let your tier 1 turret fall, you can still recover from this lane by being a huge presence in any teamfights and influencing fights across the map with a well-timed Wish.

Soraka is a fairly beginner-friendly support if you wish to learn the basics of the Support role and improve your map awareness, vision game and positioning. She may not be as forgiving as champs like Janna or Sona and the HP costs of her Astral Infusion can lead to bad Soraka players putting themselves at risk by overhealing their allies at the cost of their own HP. However, Soraka is easy to get the hang of and still has a fairly high skill ceiling for a healing support as a good Soraka can be oppressive in lane and turn teamfights in her team's favour.

tl:dr, Soraka is never a bad pick for your team and there is not much you can do wrong with her. Try not to get engaged upon, make the most of your Q and E, learn how to play around your ult and position yourself well and you are good to go. :)

Rune paths:
As I have already mentioned in the respective sections, Guardian is my current go-to rune pick and also my recommendation for Soraka newbies. The Resolve tree gives you benefits that you profit from throughout lane (like Font of Life's ally healing whenever you hit a Q) and the healing increase for late game that you get from Revitalize which synergises extremely well with your core items.
As for your choice of Secondary rune options, I would like to show you how well Soraka can utilise all four rune paths:

Perfect Timing: Start the game with a Commencing Stopwatch that becomes a Replica Stopwatch at 14 minutes and grants a one-time stasis effect. Takedowns reduce this timer by 2 minutes. – Since the Stopwatch nerfs in Patch 10.4, this rune only activates at 14 minutes, but the cooldown is reduced by takedowns in lane. Still viable if you manage to either play your lane aggressively enough to unlock it before the 14 minute mark or if you can sneak in a few assists with your Ultimate, but do consider other options from Inspiration in its stead, such as Cosmic Insight or Approach Velocity.

Biscuit Delivery: Receive a Total Biscuit of Everlasting Will at 2:00, 4:00 and 6:00. If the inventory is full while receiving a biscuit, the biscuit(s) will appear as soon as a place in the inventory is freed. – Cookies are a blessing against high-poke damage lanes where you need as much sustain as you can possibly get. They also restore health AND Mana, which helps a lot if you are incessantly casting your spells. Update: After the 9.16 cookie nerfs, they now come at 2, 4 and 6 minutes, restore only 10% instead of 15% missing health and mana and their healing duration has been decreased to 5 seconds – I would personally still recommend running them into hard lanes because the extra sustain they grant can really make a difference against the likes of Brand and Lux, but Cosmic Insight or Time Warp Tonic to get immediate healing from your normal potions are just as viable alternatives in the Inspiration tree.

Cosmic Insight: Gain 5% cooldown reduction and increases the cooldown reduction cap to 45%. Additionally, reduces the cooldown of summoner spells and item actives by 5%. – Really good rune for Soraka as CDR is something you can never get enough of. Considering that most of Soraka’s standard items grant CDR as well, you reach the 45% CDR threshold fairly quickly with this rune and the CDR from items; additionally, if you are building Redemption, Shurelya's Battlesong and/or Mikael's Blessing, the cooldowns of those items are reduced further by this rune, which has the potential to turn teamfight situations in your favour.

Taste of Blood: Damaging an enemy champion heals you for 18 − 35 (based on level) (+ 20% bonus AD) (+ 10% AP). – Chances are you won't go into Domination secondary most of the time; but if you do, this rune is nice to have. Anything that increases healing goes really well on Soraka as you are going to be looking to stay as healthy as possible throughout both lane and later stages of the game so you can keep your team alive for the longest possible time.

Ingenious Hunter: Reduces the cooldown of item actives by 15% (+ 5% per Bounty Hunter stack), up to 40% at 5 stacks. This effect also applies to trinkets. Earn a Bounty Hunter stack for champion takedowns, up to one per unique enemy champion. – One of the two Hunter runes you can feasibly go for. This rune is so genius because it reduces the cooldown of your Oracle Lens which allows you to clear enemy vision much more frequently and build up good vision to steer clear of enemy ganks and secure important objectives such as Baron or Drakes.

Ultimate Hunter: Reduces the cooldown of your ultimate ability by 5% (+ 4% per Bounty Hunter stack), up to 25% at 5 stacks. Earn a Bounty Hunter stack for champion takedowns, up to one per unique enemy champion. – The Domination equivalent of what Presence of Mind used to be, minus the Mana restoration. Nice to have if you do tap into Domination. If you know there are going to be a lot of takedowns that you are going to be involved in (i.e with an early-game team comp), this may be the rune for you.

Presence of Mind: Champion takedowns, after a 1-second delay, restore 20% of maximum mana or energy and increase your maximum mana by 100 (up to 500) or your maximum energy by 10 (up to 50). – With the changes made to PoM in pre-season, it sadly loses its Ultimate CDR, but the Mana restoration is still very nice to have for those few times that you feel like going into Precision. Overall, it is no longer as strong for Soraka as it used to be, and I would now recommend that if you do tap into a secondary tree that isn't Inspiration, you run either Domination or Sorcery runes.

Legend: Tenacity: Gain 5% (+ 2.5% per Legend stack) Tenacity, up to 30% with 10 stacks. – Pretty much the only other useful rune for Soraka from Precision besides PoM. Highly recommended if the enemy has a lot of CC because this rune and Mercury's Treads help shorten the duration of crowd control significantly.

Nullifying Orb: If you would take magic damage that would reduce you below 30% of your maximum health, you first gain a shield that absorbs 40 − 120 (based on level) (+ 15% bonus AD) (+ 10% AP) magic damage for 4 seconds. – Really useful against hard AP burst from the likes of Zoe, Neeko and Veigar.

Nimbus Cloak: Casting a summoner spell grants ghosting and 15% − 35% (based on summoner spell cooldown) bonus movement speed for 2.5 seconds. – This rune has become REALLY good since its last changes. There are other champs who can utilise it a lot better than Soraka can, but if you do tap into the Sorcery tree, try giving this rune a shot.

Manaflow Band: Hitting an enemy champion with an ability permanently increases your maximum mana by 25, up to 250 mana. After reaching 250 bonus mana, permanently restore 1% of your missing mana every 5 seconds. – Nice to have if you get to poke enough to stack it early. The Mana restoration passive helps if you do burn a lot of Mana; but if you get early Faerie Charms, chances are you won't need this rune and you can swap it out for Nullifying Orb.

Transcendence: Gain 10% cooldown reduction at level 10. Additionally, you gain either 1.2 bonus Attack Damage or 2 Ability Power (Adaptive) for every 1% cooldown reduction in excess of the cap. – If you are going for a more support-y build (by this I basically mean, if you are planning to stack Forbidden Idol items), this rune really pays off. You run it for the 10% CDR at level 10 more than the extra AP you might get so you hit the 40% CDR cap as soon as possible.

Scorch: Your next ability hit sets champions on fire dealing 15 − 35 (based on level) bonus magic damage after 1 second. – This is cheeky. Nice to have if you are doing a lot of poking, have a lane where you can play fairly aggressively or are just known to hit a lot of Qs. :^)

Item builds:
In this part of the guide, I will introduce you to the pros and cons of some of the items I have mentioned in the Items section earlier.

1) Starter items: Deciding between Spellthief's Edge and Relic Shield
This decision is situational and should be made considering your own playstyle, the nature of the lane, the enemy matchup and how much you are going to be able to poke during lane. Here are some things that I like to keep in mind when making the decision:
– If you know you are going to roam a lot and aid your jungler, go for Spellthief's Edge. As you leave lane, you lose out on Relic shares, and fights in the jungle are much more rewarding if you can stack your support item as well.
– If the matchup is hard (e.g. Brand, Zyra, Lux), always opt for Relic Shield. You will need to stay safe and out of range of the enemy's engage tools. Chances are you will be pushed under turret anyway with little to no chance to poke the enemy without dying, so you can safely go for Relic stacks if your ADC lets you, that is… :^) without risking stepping up too far to proc your Spellthief's Edge.
– If the enemy has chosen a melee support (e.g. Tahm Kench, Braum, Leona), you can consider going for Spellthief's Edge because the range advantage makes it fairly easy to get your stack gold just from autoattacking them and landing your Qs. Also, since most melee supports play with Relic Shield, they will eventually have to step up to the wave to get their Relic stacks; this is when you can freely harass them for maximum Spellthief's procs.

2) Build paths: When do I build what and why?
One of my favourite things about Soraka is her versatility. From heal bot to near-unkillable tank, she can do a lot of things with her kit and the appropriate items. Here are a few recommendations for build paths and when to use them (pretty much just a little in-depth explanation of the Items section, tbh):

Path 1: Healbot Soraka
A classic. Most Soraka players will go for this build. You start with your support item of choice (see previous section), opt for Ardent Censer as your standard first item and then choose between Redemption, Athene's Unholy Grail or Mikael's Blessing, add a Dark Seal to the mix, with Ionian Boots of Lucidity or any Resistance boots, and you're good to go.
This build is solid when your team has earned a nice early lead or you have a hypercarry ADC to protect throughout the game. I would only recommend this, though, if you do have a big lead. You are very squishy with this build as it focusses primarily on healing and shielding power and you have few resistances to save you from enemy engages.

Path 2: Healing and Resistance – AP
If the enemy has two or more AP threats or one AP champ with tons of burst, i.e. a Veigar, Kassadin, LeBlanc or even a Brand support, you might want to opt for a mix of support-y and MR items. Especially against enemies with a lot of CC Mikael's Blessing is going to be a staple in your build and a really good first item that is, if you make use of its active… ;^)
Since it is built from a Chalice of Harmony and a Forbidden Idol, it grants you healing and shielding power similar to what an Ardent Censer would give you, while also adding more Mana regeneration from the Chalice and the QSS active into the mix. It has become one of my most common first items on Soraka – not only does it save your ADC from trouble, but you can also use it to clear roots off yourself, which has come in handy many times against the likes of Morgana and Lux to avoid their follow-up damage.
With this build path, I then like to go for a Spectre's Cowl into a Spirit Visage. While this item does not immediately come to mind as a core item for Soraka, the passive – which increases the effectiveness of all healing – is fantastic, and the build path with a Kindlegem even grants additional CDR. Stronger heals on yourself on Q and R plus extra health and Magic Resist? Sign me up.
Next up is normally a Zeke's Convergence or a Redemption. Both items have their perks; if your team is more prone to clumping up in teamfights, Redemption may be your first choice there to provide AoE healing for fights in which your R is down. Zeke's, however, is not to be underestimated. It grants you Armour, Magic Resist and Mana from the Glacial Shroud, and the item's passive grants your ally bonus on-hit damage when you cast your R as well as a frost storm that slows enemies in a 300 unit range around you.
Your go-to boots with that build are always Mercury's Treads, which ideally you should get when you finished your Chalice of Harmony. The boots and Chalice grant Mana regeneration and MR respectively that'll reduce the early damage and burst potential of heavy AP "supports" by a significant amount.

Path 3: Healing and Resistance – AD
If you see the enemy lock in Zed, Kayn, Yasuo, Aphelios, Jhin, Pyke or Draven in champ select, this is going to be the build for you. Soraka is very susceptible to burst, and champs who do not necessarily rely on silence-able abilities to chunk you down cause her immense trouble to deal with. There are a few build paths who make heavy AD threats a lot less annoying to handle and keep you safe for long enough to save your ADC from the usual fate of encountering a fed Zed on a botlane roam.
Your first full item is up to you. Since ADCs like Draven or Jhin are likely to be accompanied by very aggressive, high CC supports (e.g. the aforementioned Pyke, Thresh or Braum), Mikael's Blessing is a very nice choice of first item, but you can also opt for Ardent Censer, Redemption or any Forbidden Idol item you deem the most appropriate for your current game situation.
You will want to run the Perfect Timing rune from the Inspiration tree in those games, because as your second item in this build path, I highly recommend Zhonya's Hourglass. Especially against champs like Zed and Pyke, who are looking to delete you as fast as possible, it comes in handy to deny them their primary source of burst (Zed's Death Mark and Pyke's Death from Below); in Pyke's case a well-timed Stopwatch denies him the reset on kill which is guaranteed to tilt him into oblivion… :^)
Start with Seeker's Armguard, you will need the Armour first. The Fiendish Codex provides additional CDR.
Your boots of choice here are Ninja Tabi. Rush those if their main AD damage dealer is their ADC, especially if it's Draven or Jhin. If that's the case, complete the Tabis before you even start building into your Forbidden Idol item. The reduced damage you take from autoattacks with Tabis will, for instance, reduce a lot of Draven's scary lane bully potential and you will take a LOT less damage from Jhin's fourth shot too.
As for your third and fourth item, you need to assess the enemy team and make out their win condition. If they have a scaling late game carry such as Twitch who is slowly starting to hit his item spikes, you might want to consider a Frozen Heart as it slows Attack Speed and provides good armour stats.
If all hope is lost and the enemy Master Yi or ADC is so fed that they could otherwise delete you with few autoattacks, consider a Bramble Vest into Thornmail. The passive applies Grievous Wounds to the enemy which helps your team take down such AD threats who also tend to build Lifesteal items a little easier.
Redemption as a second Forbidden Idol item granted you didn't already pick it up first and Zeke's Convergence are good items to complete your build.

Path 4: the GODLY TANK RAKA!
This build path is a favourite of mine. While cheeky (this will definitely raise some eyebrows among unknowing soloqueue teammates!), this build has proven effective over and over again and your stats and HP numbers at level 18 are absolutely ridiculous. Do keep in mind that the cost of your Astral Infusion scales partially with HP, so the more HP you have, the more it costs to be cast. If your playstyle revolves around just pressing W on your teammates, try one of the aforementioned builds instead – for this build to work, it is essential to use your W wisely and heal yourself up again by hitting Qs, especially before your Warmog's Armor has been completed.
You start with Relic Shield for this build, as the HP numbers it provides are going to work excellently with your planned build.
Your Forbidden Idol item of choice is Shurelya's Battlesong; since they changed the build path and turned into a Healing and Shielding Power item, it is almost too good to pass up on, especially for this health-based build.
You should also make sure to have selected the scaling health shard in your runes if you plan to go for this build; but if you do follow this guide, you are likely to run it anyway.
For boots, you will want to go for either Mercury's Treads or Ninja Tabi depending on the enemy team comp. If it's evenly split between AP and AD threats, take Mercs for the increased tenacity.
Your third item is going to be Spirit Visage, followed by Warmog's Armor – and here is where all the HP numbers I mentioned earlier come into play.
Soraka starts with 529 base HP which, without any add-ons like rune shards or HP items, increase to 1855 HP at level 18. Now let's add the stats she gets from the Health shard and her items.
– Runes: up to 90 HP at level 18
– Bulwark of the Mountain: +300 HP
– Shurelya's Battlesong: +300 HP
– Spirit Visage: + 450 HP
– Warmog's Armor: +800 HP
That amasses to a grand total of 1850 bonus Health just from the items and 1940 from items and the Health shard, granted that you chose to run it. So at level 18 with a full build, Soraka has a whopping 3795 HP – stats that rival that of a tank support. Plus, with that many HP, you get to profit from Warmog's Heart, which grants you quick Health regeneration out of combat.
You can complete the build with either the aforementioned Zeke's Convergence or Locket of the Iron Solari. This is the first (and only!) time I will recommend Locket on Soraka because with this build, you actually are a health stacker so the shield, which scales with Health, is going to be big enough to have an impact.

Even though this last build path may not be a traditional or conventional build for Soraka, I would definitely recommend giving it a try if you can preestimate that a game is going to go on for at least 30+ minutes – the only downside to this build path is that it's fairly expensive and doesn't really shine before you have completed your Warmog's Armor.

I'm going to keep this short because I already explained most of this in the Ability Order section's notes, but there are a few things I would like to point out for those who skip past the notes ;^)

What to skill and when to skill it?
Soraka has gotten some changes in patch 9.9.
Her Starcall cooldown was increased; while previously at 5 seconds at all ranks, its cooldown is now 8 seconds at rank 1 and gets reduced to 4 seconds at max rank. Both her self and ally heal with Rejuvenation (her Q passive) got significantly increased and now scale consistently with 50% of your AP. The Q passive also received a significant change: the movement speed you got (and granted allies upon Astral Infusion cast after hitting a Q) only used to proc when you were running away from enemies. With patch 9.9, this movement speed now applies in both directions (in and out of combat) and got increased from 10% flat movement speed to up to 30% decaying movement speed based on Q rank.
This is important because before patch 9.9, the usual way of playing Soraka in lane was to put 3 points into your Equinox before maxing W > E > Q; the low cooldown and mana costs made your Q a reliable poke tool even without more points in it than just one.
Now, after those changes, 3 points into Q early will nearly set it back to its old cooldown (6 seconds compared to 5, which is also still subject to CDR items, of which you will build plenty), with the added perks of higher MS upon Q hit and more damage. Maxing W after level 6 will increase its heal, you will want to go Q > W > E > Q > Q > R before maxing your W.
The old way of maxing E to reduce its cooldown is sadly no longer ideal, so you need to be a little more careful with playing around your E and its cooldowns because without CDR runes or items, the cooldown on rank 1 is 20 seconds.
The only exception to maxing Astral Infusion > Starcall > Equinox is when you have a lane that is SO far ahead that the enemy can and will not be able to take this game from you anymore. In that rare, but very enjoyable case, you can feasibly go for Starcall > Equinox > Astral Infusion. Do make sure to put 3 points into your W though before maxing E so you do not sacrifice too much healing for your E cooldown reduction.
It should also go without saying that you put points into Wish whenever possible. :^)

Special situations that require different skill orders:
– Invades: If your team has a strong level 1 and is looking for an invade, your ideal first 3 points are Equinox > Starcall > Astral Infusion. Your E may have a hefty cooldown early, but one glorious side effect of silences is that they also prevent the use of Flash. So if you land an E on an enemy who is unaware of the entire enemy team sneaking into their jungle and your team has the damage or CC to follow up, this will guarantee your team the First Blood and a successful invade. It does limit your poke potential in lane until level 2, though, so play a little more carefully until then.
– Countering invades: Same skill order as for invades. If you can see the enemy team coming through your jungle to invade you, make sure to have your Equinox ready. As was established before, the silence is a very strong tool early, and if your team is prepared for the enemy invade and ready to turn on them, this could possibly change the fate of their invade in your team's favour.
– Level 2 all-ins or early jungle ganks: If your jungler is pinging a level 3 gank or you are laning with a Lucian or Draven, you might want to opt for Starcall > Equinox > Astral Infusion. The silence paired with your Q slow and poke damage set up ganks and early harassment very nicely and may even lead to them burning Summoner Spells, if not even an early kill that you can snowball into a bigger gold lead.
– Level 1 enemy cheese: If the enemy jungler starts topside and your enemy laners do not have to pull, they may look for a level 1 cheese. This works extremely well with hook or hard engage supports and for example Jhin, Draven, Senna or Kai'Sa. This is not recommended as it robs you of any opportunity to poke before hitting level 3, but if it is necessary to keep your caught ADC alive, you can skill Astral Infusion > Equinox > Starcall. Skill Starcall level 2 if the enemy is unlikely to immediately engage again at level 2 or if you feel secure in your ability to dodge their engage (i.e. Death Sentence or Zenith Blade) without having to silence them as you are reliant on your Q to heal back some missing health without burning through all of your potions before three minutes of game time have passed.

Thank you for reading through my little Soraka guide.
If it did help you, make sure to let me know by upvoting the guide.
If there's anything you'd like to add or comment on, join the discussion.
Enjoy the goat and happy climbing!
♥

15.06.2019 – date of publication; minor language fixes
21.06.2019 – adjusted some threats’ lane difficulties, added Vel'Koz/Xerath as threats, changed title to include current patch
14.08.2019 – updated guide for Patch 9.16
27.09.2019 – minor edits and updates
11.11.2019 – updated Runes chapter
21.11.2019 – updated guide for new Support item changes
23.11.2019 – fixed outdated info on Presence of Mind, added Senna to the Threats and Synergies category, added new Rune sets, updated existing ones
29.11.2019 – brought back item sets since they seem to have mysteriously disappeared overnight, edited Tank Raka build to include Shurelya's Reverie
24.02.2020 – added Aphelios to Threats and Synergies, updated a few synergies, minor edits
28.07.2020 – another set of minor changes; added Nimbus cloak because it's shameful I forgot to talk about it for so long