Counters

- Interrupt the Alistar combo.

- True damage,they will deal full damage to him even through his ultimate.

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- These traps can counter Alistar to enter a fight.

Synergies

- The best synergies with Alistar are those champions that can deal significant burst damage in chain stun with the Alistar combo. The goal is for Alistar to initiate the fight with his Headbutt, Pulverize Combo and then for these champions to follow up on that knock up with a stun of their own - immobilizing the champions and then dealing significant AOE burst damage to the enemy team.

- You want to lane with AD champions that are aggressive in lane, those that have their own form of cc are best.

Runes

- Kill lane
x9 x9 x9 x3
- Passive late game lane (When playing passive I would suggest taking a Faerie Charm Health Potion and 2 Sight Ward)
x9 x9 x9 x3

Summoner Spells

These are the standard choices for summoner spells when playing a support champion. Your team needs someone to have Clairvoyance for map control, and you as the support are the obvious choice to use it..

Flash is a must for Alistar for a variety of reasons. You can use it to get in range for a Headbutt (W)/ Pulverize (Q) combo, to initiate a fight, or to catch an enemy out of position. Flash can also be used to Flash/ Pulverize (Q) a squishy to then Headbutt (W) them back into your team. In this scenario, be sure to have your ultimate ready or risk taking significant damage.

If the enemy team has a hyper carry team centered around their AD Carry, sometimes it's better to take Flash and Exhaust. Between Pulverize, Headbutt and Exhaust on the AD Carry in a team fight, you'll basically immobilize that carry for quite some time while your team does some damage.

Yet another option is to take Heal and Flash to secure your laning phase. This ensures that you will be able to survive going into almost any situation and absorb a lot of damage.



You may want to opt for Flash and Exhaust if you are going to try and get kills in bottom lane. This is an aggressive strategy, when paired with a duo lane partner can be effective for snowballing the lane, and pushing quickly and getting a fast tower. Combo's like Vayne Alistar, or Trist Alistar are very powerful combinations that can burst an enemy in lane quickly. Using your combo ( Headbutt then Pulverize and then using Exhaust is an incredible amount of CC early game. This will hopefully be long enough for your AD Carry to dish out some serious damage.)



Opting for Heal will offer you the ability to bait dives to the enemy team, it can work for both you or your AD carry. While less popular because the AD carry will take heal to gain a larger effect, this tactic is still viable and heavily annoying. This also offers more passive play and should be taken in an extremely passive lane.

Counters

-Nocturne is the anti-soraka. If you ever want to counter a team with Soraka, grab nocturne. Nocturne can easily ward bait, by placing wards – the ones that you are trying to clear with your oracle. If Nocturne catches you out of position clearing a ward, you can literally die in three hits. This is not good and will cause a 4v5 fight. You won’t even live long enough to have your team come and help (even if they could see you being killed). Because of this Nocturne is very strong against Soraka. In addition, Nocturne can his ultimate on you in team fights – making it so you have to waste the heals and wish on yourself, rather than your allies.

-Lastly, there are other champions that counter heal compositions. These would include Miss fortune, Tristana and Katarina – because they have built in healing reduction effects on their abilities. It might be a good idea for you to ban some of these champions if you plan on running a team composition with Soraka in it.

Synergies

-You want to use Caitlyn, she is 100% the best AD champion for Soraka Combo. She can spam her Starcall (Q) on creeps and push the tower really fast. (use caitlyn's traps in the triangle brush so you know if there is incomign gank). Have Soraka ward the River. This way you can push without fear of being ganked pretty aggressively. Because of the range on caitlyn's auto attack (foucs more on pushing the lane and getting the tower (try to get it in under than 6 minutes) than trying to get kills. Once the tower is gone, have Soraka ward the Golem or Lizard area (depending on which side), then continue pushing aggressively and back if you see gank coming.

-Soraka works very well with any champions that have a built in heal component to their skill, or champions that would go items that would cause healing effects. The multiplicative effects of Astral Blessing(W) and Wish(R) with these items can be very strong. It also lets you know that if you had to choose between two champions to heal, which one will heal for more based on their items and abilities. When you are designing a team composition you absolutely want to select from this champion list. If the other four champions on your team are not on this list, you are not making the most of a Healing team composition.

Summoner Spells

These are the standard choices for summoner spells when playing a support champion. Your team needs someone to have Clairvoyance for map control, and you as the support are the obvious choice to use it..

Yet another option is to take Heal and Flash to secure your laning phase. This ensures that you will be able to survive going into almost any situation and absorb a lot of damage.



Opting for Heal will offer you the ability to bait dives to the enemy team, it can work for both you or your AD carry. While less popular because the AD carry will take heal to gain a larger effect, this tactic is still viable and heavily annoying. This also offers more passive play and should be taken in an extremely passive lane.

Counters

- Leona has very few counters because as a support champion, your job to protect your teammates and be a utility to them is difficult to stop. Bruiser-type champions that shrug off crowd control and run at your carry as an unstoppable force make your job pretty hard, but not impossible. Basically any champion that makes it so you're helpless to tank damage for or protect them can be a counter to Leona. The best counters are those that interrupt her combo; champions like Janna and Alistar.

Synergies

- She does very well with champions that have consistent damage or damage-over-time effects, such as Brand during the mid/late game. These champions can almost instantly proc her Sunlight so that no instance of Sunlight is overlapped and wasted. Bottom lane, every AD carry works well with her because they are a source of pretty consistent damage and can take advantage of her stuns as well as her inherent ability to tank damage. During the laning phase she does well with champions that can combo with her stun and play very aggressive. Champions like Jarvan, Trist and Ezreal.

Runes

- Kill lane
x9 x9 x9 x3
- Passive late game lane
x9 x9 x9 x3

Summoner Spells

These are the standard choices for summoner spells when playing a support champion. Your team needs someone to have Clairvoyance for map control, and you as the support are the obvious choice to use it..

Yet another option is to take Heal and Flash to secure your laning phase. This ensures that you will be able to survive going into almost any situation and absorb a lot of damage.



Opting for Heal will offer you the ability to bait dives to the enemy team, it can work for both you or your AD carry. While less popular because the AD carry will take heal to gain a larger effect, this tactic is still viable and heavily annoying. This also offers more passive play and should be taken in an extremely passive lane.

Counters

The biggest counter to Taric in lane is Soraka since she is able to neutralize the damage done to her ranged attack damage carry. Her heal also gives an armor buff which neutralizes Taric when he attempts to Shatter for an armor debuff. The biggest counter to Taric in terms of enemy team composition are ability power heavy teams since Taric's armor buff aura does nothing to neutralize magic damage.

Sona is another with her massive lane sustain. It can make dealing damage / being aggressive worthless if she maxes heal first.

Janna can be a hard champion for Taric to deal with bottom lane because she can kite so well. Taric being a melee champion has to run up to the targets to use 2/4 of his spells and Janna's slow, shield (damage absorb) and knock up can make it very hard for a Taric to successfully harass bottom lane. Granted this is only vs good Janna's. Vs bad ones you'll poop on them.

Synergies

My favorite ranged attack damage champions to lane with are the ones with a slow or a stun. My preference of the three strongest ranged attack damage champions to lane with are Caitlyn, Vayne, and Miss Fortune. You can chain your stun with Caitlyn's Yordle Snap Trap, Vayne's Condemn, and Miss Fortune's Make it Rain to synergize damage. You can also lane with ability power champions like Brand and Sion to chain stuns together for the same purpose.

Summoner Spells

I tend to take flash over ghost because I feel as though there is more utility in flash. The ability to blink over walls and flash out of skill shots is something that ghost can't do. Although Ghost gives you increased movement speed it does not allow you do create get out of jail free type short cuts.


There is almost no alternative to having Clairvoyance as a summoner spell when using a support champion. Other options may be Heal or Clarity, but having the ability to gain vision of the enemy without risk of face checking or cost/time of placing a ward is very rewarding for how little risk it comes with. When you become experienced in using Clairvoyance around the map you will be able to prevent a majority of the ganks the enemy jungler attempts on your team.



This is great if you're going really offensive bottom lane or they have champions like Kennen or Tryndamere where Exhaust can completely shut them down when used correctly. I find myself taking this spell a lot in the bottom lane as playing offensive with Taric is something you can do vs a lot of supports bottom lane.



This is a great spell if you feel you will need the extra help staying alive bottom lane or if your team could use it. I like taking heal when I wanna feel really comfortable bottom lane like nothing can kill me.

Counters

Janna is countered by champions with the ability to poke. Yorick can poke effectively while keeping himself healed, making it hard for the AD carry to survive with no sustain. Sona can poke while keeping the AD carry and herself alive, making it tough for Janna if she takes a little too much poke. Taric is tough because if he lands a stun, Janna or the AD carry can get 1 shotted.

Synergies

Janna synergizes well with ranged AD carries the best, providing them the crowd control that they would normally lack, a shield, and additional damage to their autoattacks as well as a method of protection. However, Janna basically works well with any champion that utilizes autoattacks. This includes fighters and bruisers such as Warwick, Lee Sin, and Xin Zhao. They all can utilize Janna's boost to their attack damage and her wide array of crowd control.

Summoner Spells

Flash can be used both offensively and defensively on Janna. You already have high mobility on the battlefield with Janna’s passive and her Zephyr (W) but having flash to instantly reposition you can be extremely important. Flash will give you the ability for a clutch shield saving a teammate, hit a fleeing champion with a Zephyr (W) to slow him down and secure a kill, or positioning yourself for your ultimate and split the enemy team. Using flash defensively you can get out of a gank or a bad positioning in a team fight. Flash is widely regarded on the competitive scene as the best summoner spell in the game.



Clairvoyance is key to every support champion. Using Clairvoyance correctly can spot ganks before they arrive, track down enemy junglers, or provide vision when chasing down enemy champions. You can also scout the neutral objectives, reset enemy buff timers, or scout the fog of war and bushes to help your team safely move into enemy territory. Using Clairvoyance will increase your utility for your team significantly and will compliment your support roll within the team composition.



This is a great spell if you feel you will need the extra help staying alive bottom lane or if your team could use it. I like taking heal when I wanna feel really comfortable bottom lane like nothing can kill me.