Welcome!

I started playing League of Legends around three months after beta was finished. That was rather early when I got interested of making fun builds . I was playing practice games with "fun champs only" -mode for example. Around April 2010 I started my buildcrafting and registered on Mobafire. I was kinda unregistered member for maybe 2 months also before that. That's how I have been playing irregularly AD-Soraka for maybe 20 months already. That's kinda achievement. :D

First of all, I am not great player. But one thing what no one can't deny is that I have great knowledge of the game and Low-Mid -Elo (around 1100-1250). Playing League of Legends for over 2 years in pretty much same elo has granted me that knowledge. Why I am still in the same elo? It's kinda hard to consentrate, playing so long gives a bit ******ish view of game and you'll always have a bit different way of gameplay than your soloqueue-partners will have.

Why such a headline on a guide? I believe that headline is most important part of the guide. It's inspiring and telling you what kind of build and guide you may expect. I am always giving movie-headlines for my guides. Rammus was Rambo and well Soraka is Samuel L. Jackson -themed guide. Too bad that It's not AP-rainbow -guide. :P Maybe you already know my next headline. But I'll try to give some surprises. ^^ And I am soon publishing one guide without movie-theme. :O That's part of my oldskool-favorite style which I am not even playing myself.
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AD-Soraka works also in low-elo normal games but that'll need farming, luck and a way more skill than normal soraka.

Pros:
+Fun, oh yeah!
+Challenging, Finally!
+******ish, oh yeah!
+Awesome dmg, yeeeaaaah!
+Health & Mana -backup, I love it :)
+This build really has eggs, now you can make Dance Parties also without Gragas! (I'd prefer taking both Soraka and Gragas)
+Silence, Muahahhahahhaaa! (I love that evil pleasure when you are making enemy-caster completely useless with just one little skill)
+Chilling and consentration (You'll most likely get awesome consentration to the game and also fancy feeling. Has something to do with tha ultima challenge.)
+Winning other ranged dps-champs in 1vs1, like ashe, caitlyn, lux (lol yeah), and you love that feeling when you have beated another "*krhm* interesting" player with your fancy AD-Soraka.
+Usually no one from the enemy-team will recognize that you are AD-Soraka before about 30-35 min timeline. Low elo, oh yeah. :D
+normal runes and masteries are working fine

Cons:
-Global ultimate = useless but at least you have something to do while farming :)
-Weak against turrets
-Weak against cc (=weak against nearly anything :D)
-Flaming, lol, you really won't care about it :D You are having too much fun
-Reporting, yeah somehow people are shouting "report that soraka!" even if you have best stats on your team. :D That's not actually champion's fault. More like human nature. ( I have 3 accounts -> temporary ban wouldn't affect me on any way. (I am not raging or purposely leaving games or anything like that. Trying to be still a gentleman.) :P)
-won't work in a high elo
-nobody uses custom-games anymore (that's really shame :S) and good luck on starting practicing AD-Soraka in normal games :D
-only one live, when playing AS-Zilean you'll always have two lifes!

AD-Soraka works fine in normal games and should never be underrated. Soraka is hitting hard and he can also support her team kinda nicely.

1. Boots of Speed + 1 hp pot
2. 2 wards + 1 hp pot if you need it
3. Berserker's Greaves (keep on buying wards all the time by using your own common sense)
4. B.F Sword
5. Infinity Edge
6. B.F Sword
7. Bloodthirster
8. Banshee's Veil
Improvise, sorry but I have to say that usually you won't get anything else. Great items for end game: Heart of Gold's upgrade, Bloodthirster, Penetrator (stacks). etc.

Sidenote: Doran's sword -stacking is also viable option. Then you would start with Doran's sword and boots as a second item, then 2 Doran's swords and IE.

Be free to find your own formula but remember that playing AD-Soraka is always risky and Soraka's potential as a dps is better than many other supports. That's how AD-Soraka is usually better when builded by using raw dmg instead of attack speed. If you wanna test atk speed -fun-builds you should use Sword of Divine and Never Use Phantom Dancer. So much better atk speed for the price. Janna is great champ to start own buildcrafting cause Janna was actually dps at some point / Attack speed-building was Janna's normal build.

Masteries:

You can take 21/9/0, 21/0/9, 0/21/9 or 9/21/0 but I would prefer 0/21/9 or 21/0/9 for some mana and exp.

Summoner Spells:

You need these two to be real challenge for normal enemies.

Heal: Nice camourflage-skill and you may get couple kills with heal if your enemy doesn't recognize your summoner spells. Don't use heal for nothing, it's your last resort and try to do camourflage with it. / baiting-skill

Rally: I would prefer tankier build for that spell.

Promote: I would prefer tankier build for that spell.

Ghost: Good summoner skill for plenty champions but with AD-Soraka I'd still prefer taking Flash but you can take Ghost too if you really wanna do it.

Teleport: Never say never, but ghost is better on teleporting situations and has multiple purposes. Teleporting takes so much time that running with ghost is usually nearly as fast as teleport.

Cleanse: Great spell but if you don't have your flash or ignite then you'll have big problems.

Exhaust: Great spell too and works in some situations. (replacing ignite)

Those tower-spells are not gonna work with Soraka as good as these.

Generally movement spell replaces another movement-spell and utility-spell replaces another utility-spell.

Runes:
I like playing AD-Soraka with Xin Zhao's runes. Armor penetration for marks, mana regen or armor for seals, magic resist for glyphs and health points for quintessences.

General buildcrafting tips:
-Annie has best range and great potential to be powerful dps
-Soraka is usually builded with raw dmg
-Zilean is usually builded with attack speed
-Janna is usually builded with attack speed
-AP Master Yi is sometimes even better than normal
-AP Tristana is build used as some people's normal Tristana-build
-AP Urgot works okay
-AP Shen works sometimes better than normal and often better than AD-Shen.
-Don't go AD-Karma
-Don't go AP-Garen (yeah! I have tried that one too!)
-I don't prefer going mana regen-Garen on ranked (I have had one on my team but I am not using it myself)
-AD-Brand works mostly cause Brand's total OP'ness, AD-Annie is better in my opinion.
-Support-Jax works fine. Send me pm for tips. :P
-AP-Ashe works okay
-AD-Kennen is okay
-AP-Tryndamere is interesting
-AD-Gragas works
-SemiAP-Mundo is great
-AS-Pantheon
-AS-Heimerdinger
-AD-Sona
-AP-Miss Fortune

Warding:

-Placing wards at lvl 1; please don't do that. Always remember that you don't place wards cause that makes you look pro but you place wards cause that may save your life. How can opponent's jungle-gangplank threat your life at lvl 1? Just think about it. It's better to place ward when enemy-jungler is usually ganking; around lvl 4 (perhaps your lvl 3).
-You need only one ward in same area, sometimes i have seen people placing wards on both of the bushies next to the lane. If you know that enemy is in tha bush -> you don't have to see his face.

Something:
-Look the mini-map all the time
-Saying misses is a good habit but if you know that your team won't say misses you can still know if they are missing by looking mini-map
-Pretty often you are warding in order to save your allies which aren't looking map that closely, if you are looking you don't need wards in low elo -games. Reason: always same "tricks" and people think that they are so clever. (I am using wards all the time cause of allies)
-Flash is extremely popular at the moment and you can use it on dodging skillshots like Ashe's Chrystal Arrow
-Mercury Treads will get you away from Galio's ultimate before that's dealing damage.
-Infuse is bringing same number of mana to you as in the allied target.
-Soraka's ulti doesn't have channeling but practically that has short channeling/takes some time to activate so use it like 1 sec before perfect timing.
-Soraka's ulti heals approximately same number of health points as Karthus's ultimate deals damage.
-Silencing: Try to silence casters is basic rule (Brand, Annie, Morgana, Malzahar etc.) but sometimes it's great to silence that awesome support of the enemy-team. (Karma, Soraka, Janna, Sona etc.) After these basic rules; remember to use your common sense and/or learn dps-champions which need their spells so much that your silence would be just as useful as when casted on caster. (Tryndamere is perhaps the best example)