Hello everyone, its OnixHawk with a guide on Soraka to Share. This guide was written in response to all of the new soraka fun we have been having. There are allot of builds out there this is simply the best fit for me. I classify Soraka as an AP carry because of her insane damage output, and her wicked disables. With the slow effect of Rylai's, the shred of magic resistance of your Starcall + Abyssal Mask, and the spell vamp of your Will of the Ancients your de-buffing enemies and rebuffing your team like a support but adding a surprising amount of DPS. This combined with the fact that you can silence every 4-6 secs and heal (12-15 secs) for around 500 (w) 700+ (r). Soraka is by most definitions over-powered ATM—hence the name of this guide, I don't expect her to remain buffed for long—however, in the mean time lets all have some fun with a cool champ.

So why play this Crazy Horn lady?!?

PROS

Surprising DPS
Amazing sustain
Global heals
Great 1v1
Great mid
Makes Karthus QQ
Awesome de-buffer in and out of team fights

CONS

Quite squishy early on
Very vulnerable to ganks <---- see Summoners spells chapter
CC = Scary
Is that it? I think so.

*For lane phase* just smash that fool in mid who thinks "HA HA its Soraka". Send that Vlad home in 5 mins with his metaphorical tail in between his legs (get over here WW we actually need you for something "you do have a tail right, ... no, well then just gtfo")
*For mid game* Avoid the easy ganks by keeping fairly close to your tower. Its not that you couldn't push to their base solo against all 5 of them its just well you know... This is where Soraka really shines, she can CV to stop those pesky ganks on the side lanes, follow the jungler around like the Paparazzi, and pick up some easy ***its with your Wish.
*For late game* Just roll with your team. Follow them around or be the team captain—call the strats CV to check and set up ganks silence to initiate and QQQQQ like Almost prom king Ammu. Silence the big CC's and damage champs i.e. Alistar (stop his ult before it starts) or Le Blanc (stop that combo before it starts) Warwick ( stop his ult before it starts) etc. Heal the carries or maybe yourself if your focused and just when the enemies think they are making progress Wish and wait for more "**** you"s and QQ's than a Karth Ult.

For Soraka I really like to focus on her early game damage. As I like to mid, I'm usually going against the AP carry a plus because of their dependence on their abilities, but also because of their lack of MR. For this reason I usually go with Greater Mark of Magic Penetration (9) and Greater Quintessence of Magic Penetration (2). Also as I am usually against magic damage I take Greater Glyph of Scaling Magic Resist(9). I use scaling rather tan straight because her passive gives you 16 to begin with and the scaling in the end allows you to not have to buy a banshee because you will already have some from you passive runes and spirit visage ~60 MR. For the seals I take Greater Seal of Scaling Mana Regeneration (9) simply because I like to use my Infuse offensively which limits the amount of mana I can give myself—also why my first item is a Philosopher's stone.

These are my primary choices however there are many options such as cool-down AP or straight hp.

For masteries I take the basics for any AP carry 9/0/21. The unique part is taking the point in CV. I always run CV on Soraka. I don't care if I am jungling (lol), I am going to take this spell. There are so many reason I don,t care to list them all but I will touch on this in my summoner spells section. Not too much else to be said about these except that they are a bit flexible as well. If you really wanted you could put 3 in good hands rather than perseverance, or you may really like gold and be a crazy man who runs greed and gp10 quints or something.

Another characteristic aspect of my build is taking Infuse first. I do this because it has no cost, it does decent damage lvl 1, and at lvl 1 the other guy has 1 ability and you just stopped him from using it [claps]. Lvl 2&3 I take Starcall, I do this to establish the dominance of the lane. By lvl 3 I am out damaging most carries and am able to farm more effectively as well. I take Astral Blessing lvl 4 not really to heal myself but to safe guard against the ignite ability spam retaliation. I don't tend to heal myself much as Soraka simply because it takes allot of mana and has such a high cool down that I like to always have it on the ready in a pinch. After lvl 4 I focus imbue, save 6/11/16, and after maxing imbue return to starcall and finish with lvling heal. I finish starcall next because I want to maximize the amount I am healing myself with the q (because of hextech). I lvl up heal last because this spell I mainly reserve for healing others during team fights and my ulty is enough during lane phase, a quick 200-400 between lvls 6-11 is enough to save lives as well as a properly aimed CV.

The 2 summoner spells I recommend are Flash and Clairvoyance. I take flash because it is one of the most effective escapes for Soraka, in my opinion better than Ghost because it can get you away through slows through (Veigar's stun box, Jarvan ult, dodge Ammu's bandage, Karthus's wall etc...) all things which can be exceedingly difficult or impossible with ghost. This combined with the fact that she needs to bring some escape due to her vulnerability to CC, makes flash a fairly obvious choice.

Now for CV...

The reasons I will always take CV—even in Mid.
1. No matter how convincing you are at explaining that your Soraka is a carry she will always bring with her the classification of support. So taking along CV with be the sugar to coat the fact that you are asking for mid when you have an AP/AD ranged carry on your team.

2. As Soraka you are very vulnerable to CC, so it is always a good idea to keep track of the enemy jungle, especially ones with strong CC (nocturne, fiddle, shaco, sin etc..). Also this allows you to keep track of Baron and Dragon for your team, your jungle may be taking red and be curious about dragon CV and the job is done.

3. Soraka is able to out class several champs in mid (Karthus, Annie, Gragas etc. Most ranged AD) Because Soraka can actually push the lane in a similar fashion to say Mordekiser, and because she is so hard to deal with she becomes numero uno for ganks. Soraka will have most champs even that pesky Vlad calling for ganks by about lvl 6 even if there is no jungle. So short story long, she needs that CV to follow up on MIA calls. Get a MIA bot with the possibility of a B, CV the base to make sure. Did bottom lane just get pushed and you lost vision, CV that bottom bush or River to make sure you don't have any friends on the way.
4. Finally, CV is just a great spell. With CV you can avoid face checking early bushes unexpected dragon/baron takes, check buffs and fake-out gank.

This chapter will have the Keys to My build and its distinctive traits.

There are several ways to build the new Soraka, many of them very effective (cool-down, tank, straight AP) but to pull these all together and turn her into a monster I have found what I believe to be an incredible combination—which remains effective against nearly all team compositions.

The Item which is surprising but likely least surprising in comparison with other builds is the Hextech Revolver (later WOA). This item is great for Soraka because it deals with her super high cool downs on heal. At lvl 5-6 with my build heal is only lvl 1, however by this point I am well on my way to getting my Philo and boots and am ready to consider Hextech. By my second B, I should have enough for the Hextech and with this item, depending on the size of the minion wave 4-5 should give you about 24 hp per Starcall. Starcall at this point should be lvl 2-3 and be on about a 1.6-2 second cooldown (depending on whter or not you have your Ionian Boots. This means that in 3 Q's you heal about the same as 1 Astral Blessing effectively removing the need to cast this on yourself.

The next Item which I find to be surprisingly unique to my build is Spirit Visage. This item has pretty much everything Soraka wants—Hp, cool-downs, magic resists, and that awesome increased healing to self. I grab this because of how it builds, Kindlegem is a great item early game cool-downs and Hp what else do you want. Also the magic resist is nice and the increased healing from visage puts you at around 27-30 hp from spell vamp, a modest but noticeable increase later when your 400 hp heals hit you for 460 and you 800+ ults hit you for over 900.

Rylai's Crystal Scepter is another item that comes as no surprise any longer. The 15% slow on Starcall is amazing in team fights, with a 1.6-2 sec cool-down you can more or less keep the entire team slowed for the duration of the fight—enough to effectively shut down most melee DPS. The Hp the AP and the passive make this a must.

Abyssal Mask Is an optional item that I strongly suggest. This is due to its nice magic resistance something you will have to work to build if you don't grab the Banshee's Veil and the ap is nice. But the passive is the main reason for this pick up. With the magic pen Runes the magic shred of Starcall and the resistance reduction you can effectively take them down to 0 resistance—if not into the (-)'s. This helps your damage and really improves your teams damage because the majority of the reduction is AOE and de-buff (imagine that late game Le Blanc combo vs. no magic resistance Teemo Muahahahahahah).

Ionian Boots of Lucidity These are a great item because they will help with the somewhat lacking cool-downs of this build only 25% from spirit and the boots.

Other Boot options I would suggest are Mercury's threads For dealing with that pesky CC + a Bit of MR. Sorcerer's Shoes To you attacks that little bit more oomph early on.

***Alternative Items***

These are the items that will take the place of your Banshee's Veil or your Philosopher's Stone when you no longer need this item—I would suggest keeping this till the end when you are prepared to sell it for that icing item like Rabadon's Deathcap or Morello's Evil Tome.

Void Staff as you may have guess this build highly favors magic penetration. This item is a great way to really drive the point home. When purchased after abyssal scepter, you will have a base magic penetration of ~13 from runes + 15% mastery + 40% void staff +(additional 20 from Sorc shoes), complemented by and instant reduction of 20 MR from abyssal and the bonus MR shred from Starcall which is 12 per hit stacking up to 10 times i.e. 120+20 magic resistance gone, which is more or less the total of most champs aside from tanks. So now basically we are dealing with negative magic resistance and why wouldnt you want 40% more penetration against MR that isn't there. It basically allowing your starcall to include the phrase TRUE DAMAGE.

Mejai's Soulstealer vs. Rabadon's Deathcap This (Mejai's) is another great item for Soraka which I would actually suggest over Rabadon's. The reasons for this are 2 fold (1) the stacks are exceedingly easy for Soraka to come by because her Wish grants ***its—allowing the option to watch the side lane every now and then and snagg a free assist when you see a kill in progress or make sure a kill happens and pick up the easy ***its to boot. During team fights your going to be targeting all their team mates silencing and star falling so each big battle should net you 4-5 ***its and possibly a kill or two or in stacks terms 4-9 stacks per team fight. The Second (2) is that when maxed Mejai's provides cool-down reduction a tasty 15%. At full power this bad boy gives you 160[20X8] AP. Now while this Might not quite compare to the 140 AP + 30% total in terms of raw AP I see the the cool-downs and comparable AP justifying the 1230 price tag a whole lot more than the 3600 price tag on Rabadon's—another reason why I classify Rabadon's as an icing item for Soraka because if it is late game and you going back home with 5k gp in your pocket you can pick any item you damn well please and this is the time to say screw you guys I'm gonna go ahead and double my AP for the next fight so my ulty hits for OVER 9000. Depending on how things are going for you you may even wanna snag Mejai's early for example in between Hextech Revolver and Will of the Ancients as they both build from an Amplifying Tome.


**For supportier builds**

Soraka is still a damn good support if she wants to be she is no longer the heal bot everyone wants in their pocket however, she can take along a few tricks to help everyone out.

Randuin's Omen this is a great item to deal with Soraka's squishier side. Snagg armor, health, HP regen, little bit of Cool-down (5%), and this cool little active that ruins enemy carry's days.

Frozen Heart Another cool little item for Soraka 500! mana, 20% cool downs!, 99 armor!, and 20% slower attack speed (for those damn Yi's and Jax Tryn etc...). An all around great item that I withhold from my main build reluctantly—I consider this a highly situational item but give me a reason to buy it and I wont hesitate.

*Light comedy to break up the wall-of-text that is this chapter, included*
Shurelya's Battlesong I like this item for one reason namely Soraka is slow 391 movement at full build this coupled with the fact that she is vulnerable to CC makes me want to get a Phantom Dancer simply for the move speed. But this item is quite helpful in many situations. -On the chase- Imagine a full 5 man group charging your team with a 40% speed boost the Calvary is here ***********ers! -On the run- imagine a team charging you as you try to sneak in that quick dragon (nobody knows right?) "quick finish it off, come on man use your damn smite lets GTFO" [boom 40% speed boost] "phew man that was close, thanks Soraka" "I know, I know I'm the ***** its cool you don't have to tell me"

Many others, Soraka is an incredibly flexible character that can pick up nearly item and turn it to gold (6 bloodthristers ftw!).

For those of you who make it this far Thank You

Soraka, at least for the time being, is one of the most versatile and fun to play champs. With a little getting used to you could quite easily escape ELO hell with this build, smash in some normal games, or just make people mad. The first time you force Heimer to back in under 5 mins you will thank me. Soraka is the kind of champ that can really turn games around, she has her limits—you cant carry a full team of your lvl 1 friends who want to try out the game for example, if they are bad they are just bad, and the horn wont get you out of it—but for the most part when played well the game goes well. You will feel a bit like Mordekeiser in mid at first when you smash the minion wave in seconds and stand just outside the radius of their tower like a caged Lion for the first 15 mins of the game, but The POWER! will subside and greater awareness will lend you the grace to go to the side lanes in your spare time and smash that **** too!