Why should we listen to you, Comfortable?

Well, sir, I will take you through why Soraka is actually currently the best top laner!

But isn't she a support?!

Soraka's potential is far too limited in the support role! She has a hard time making an impression against aggressive lanes, as all she has to offer is sustain and a mild harass. There are currently far better supports in the meta. Soraka needs a new place to call home!

Pros: - Strong lane bully - A harass with low mana cost and a reasonably low cooldown - Scales very well as a bruiser into the mid and late games - A powerful pushing presence - Bananas of doom

Cons: - High skill floor - No strong escape in kit - No steroids

I'll go through the runes first, because they're easier to explain.

These runes are very easy to understand. You'll start with very strong survivability and be able to harass with auto attacks and your Infuse. This gives Soraka an early advantage, in particular, before she can build into her first few items.

The Greater Quintessence of Ability Power is chosen because that's what she scales on the best, meaning she has great early potential for harassing with her abilities and getting a strong wave clear. When combined with the Greater Mark of Magic Penetration, you have a recipe for sheer early game dominance and lane bullying that most champions cannot fight against effectively.

The Greater Seal of Armor and Greater Mark of Scaling Magic Resist are very good for her bruiser side. I'd strongly advice against taking flat MR blues, simply because her passive gives her a large chunk of early MR and this would waste some late game potential that you will find useful.

You're a Soraka. You'll have crazy sustain and poke at infuriating levels.

Remember this and you'll be fine.
As the starting items and boots choices are covered entirely in the "cheat sheet", I'll start with the core items.

Core Items

Seeker's Armguard is a standard AP/Armor item which scales very nicely from the early game into the mid game, meaning you'll be capable of sitting on it until you can finish your Chalice of Harmony, your other core item to solve the main problem of increasing mana hunger. Building these into Zhonya's Hourglass and Athene's Unholy Grail is paramount for this build.

Your Next Route - If you're behind

If you're facing a particularly tough time from AP damage based champions, you will want to pick up a Spirit Visage. Not only does it give a sizable boost to Soraka's already generous Magic Resistance, it also provides her with a great boost to her heals and more survivability with the health bonus and passive.
Alternatively, you could go for the Abyssal Mask, adding some lethality to your Starcalls when you get in good range of the opponent.
If you're facing a particularly tough time from AD based champions, swapping Lich Bane for the Iceborn Gauntlet or the Frozen Heart are your items of choice, both giving bonuses across her kit and reliable passives to assist in survival.

IF one of these items is bought, it will replace the Nashor's Tooth in your build and it benefit you more to look at the Rageblade as the next offensive item in your build.

Your Next Route - if you're even

A Lich Bane or Will of the Ancients is a nice pickup here.

Lich Bane adds some lethality to your pushing, allowing you to proc the passive whenever you want thanks to the low cooldown of Starcall and hit with those almighty bananas of doom.

Will of the Ancients allows Soraka a nice sustain pool, giving her already lethal Infuses an extra use for healing and another hefty amount of mana regen.

Your Next Route - if you're ahead

Grab a Rabadon's Deathcap and finish either your Zhonyas or your Athenes.

Rabadon's is very self explanatory, giving you a huge boost in AP and pushing you into a strong lane bully. Combine it with the AP you'll get from a Zhonya or Athene and you'll see your AP and survivability both shoot up.

And finally...

The alternative options are incredibly broad for Soraka and will be situational and down to preference:

Spirit Visage - Previous mentioned. Give her a great survival boost.
Rod of Ages - Rushing a Rod of Ages is always helpful for survival and sustain.
Liandry's Anguish - A great boost to the kit. Synergises well with all items.
Rylai's Crystal Scepter - As above.
Frozen Heart - As above.

Max Infuse first. Trust me.
The low mana last hitting and harassing you can grab from this is amazing.
It gains an astonishing 75% AP bonus!

For second, you do have a choice. I prefer to alternate between them.

Starcall is a great farming tool as well as lowering enemy MR to make that Infuse harass even stronger.

Astral Blessing is an amazing sustain tool, however the cooldown is pretty high, so use this wisely.

Wish is where you'll be getting free gold. Watch that bar on the left hand of your screen for opportune times to save your champions and perhaps turn a gank or a small team fight. You SHOULD be gaining a number of assists and easy gold from this great global, as well as giving you an opportunity to survive when most other champions would have little chance.
This also has an extremely generous +70% AP boost.

Top Three to Fight!

Vi - She needs to get in range of your Infuse to be effective and you will be able to harass her too much early game for her to be able to apply any real pressure.

Vladimir - He pretty much relies abilities to farm effectively. Don't let him do so. In the early game he relies on his blood pool to escape fights. Use your silence to stunt this blood pool and his farming and you'll be fine.

Darius - He's not going to touch you, unless you're going too close to an unknown area. Seriously. He's just so easy to bully with Soraka.

In short: Nearly everyone who excels in close combat or relies heavily on abilities to be effective is easy fodder for her silence, with few exceptions.

Top Three to Avoid!

Pantheon - He'll stun and combo you before you have a chance to shout "Ouch." His harass is only slightly worse than your own, but once he hits level 3, his Q->W->E->Q combo will deal too much damage for your silence and heal to deal with.

Jax - Being dunked from nowhere is never fun. Jax will do this and then stun you if you try to stop him from farming. A similar style to Pantheon. The first two levels you'll be okay, but once he has a combo, you're going to have a hard time.

Teemo - Far more reliable sustained damage than Soraka and his Q poke is more frustrating. His ranged based autoattack allows him to ignore Soraka's infuse and steal put out a lot of damage.

In short: Anyone with a better ranged AA will have a better chance of harassing. Anyone with a strong CC combo (except perhaps Renekton and Riven) will also be a tough match.

I didn't feel the need to add a section for farming, as it's rather self explanatory and the section would be underwhelming. Have a mini version instead.

Mini Farming Guide

Harass with AA and E.
Farm with Q and AA, with some E last hits if there is no need to poke.
Her bananas are slow, so this will take a little bit of time to manage last hitting, but once you have that down, it becomes ridiculously easy.

Mini Summary

- Bruiser. Really.
- Harass with AA and E.
- Farm with Q and AA.
- Her AP scaling on Infuse and Wish is ridiculous.


Thank you for choosing my guide on the actual current best top laner right now aka the goat-fawn-unicorn-lady Soraka.