Hello, summoners! This is my first guide, I decided to write it because of last patch, which "nerfed" supports hugely. At first I was shocked when I read these changed, Soraka's main job was (and still is) healing. And AP ratio of her heal was halved, CD was doubled... So I was just "wtf? what I will do with Soraka?". She was my favourite for ranked together with Sona.
So I thought about it and I prepared this build. I tested it (so far in normal games) and it works good for me.
My basic idea was to reduce cooldowns as soon and as cheaply as possible. So let's go on it...

9x just because most of your damage is magical. Not very important, but there're no better marks. CDR marks are weak too much.

9x for greater survivability or 9x Greater Seal of Replenishment helps early game very well.

9x this is important, your first 5,85% of CDR.

2x another 3,28% of CDR, so you have 9% CDR from runes.

1x for some early game survivability, or whatever else.

Standard 0/9/21. I was thinking about 9/0/21 for 3% of CDR from , but lack of MR and Armor means lower survivability, so I found 0/9/21 better.
You have 6% CDR , so together with runes you start with 15% CDR. Now you need remaining 25% ASAP. So we continue with items...

Your main job is to keep your lane partner alive, but also to stay alive yourself of course. You both have some MR from your passive, also you can grant some Armor from your . You have MR and Armor also from Masteries and probably Armor from your Seals. So next two important things to improve your survivability are movement speed and health. And as I said before, our objective is to get max CDR.
There are two items, which combine these 3 things easily and cheaply - and .

Regardless to this, start with . Another possibility is to start with Boots + sight ward + Mana Potion, to prevent your lane from gank, but you will be more squishy without health boost.

I suggest to farm a little on lane, not just stay in brush and spam your W. Mainly you can't spam it with it's new CD (and also your E no longer has double-effect when cast on yourself, so you will be oom soon), so you must be more active. Your CD on your E is reduced, take advantage of it with your lane partner (it's really better to laning with some champion who uses mana, like Ashe, Caitlyn,... not necessarily ranged, also for example Talon looks very well) and harass a little more, you can replenish mana often, do it! Use your autoattack and use E as silence + damage when it's handy, but still play carefully.

Your goal is to get about 1500 gold ASAP. Then you can port to base and buy and . In fact, it's all that you need for full supporting. Your CD of heal is now 12 sec, it's decent, because basic heal values are greater (and also it grants higher Armor buff), and anyway, in this phase, you haven't money for expensive AP items, so the difference in AP ratio compared to "old" Soraka isn't important.
Also your ulti become great with this soon CDR and with strongly reduced mana cost. You can help your other lanes very often, and your enemies will hate you. It's sign that you do your job well ;-)

Next item is "standard" for supports - philosopher's stone. It grants you some pretty mana and health regen and also some extra gold until you build it into something else.

Next item is very important, because it became amazing for Soraka due to reduction of CD of your E but also of your Q.
It's . Your become DEADLY with it. CD is 6 sec with your 40% CDR. So 35% targeted slow + silence each 6 sec almost for free? Yes, please!!. Also your gets incredible buff. Basic CD was reduced to 2,5s, so it means it's 1,5s with your CDR. And Rylai's slows for...how long...? Yes, 1,5s. And yes, it means constant mass slow (btw with a little increased range and with reduced mana cost again).

Then I suggest to build your Kindlegem into and your Stone into . It's quite cheap and it grants huge health and mana regen, so you can spam your E to silence + slow, and also you almost don't need to heal yourself, so you're more usefull to your team-mates. And it also has a Tenacity. And it's very good, because you haven't Mercury's Treads.

Last two items are situational, if nothing special happened, I suggest to increase your AP. So for example and or . But often the game will finish before you get both these items. Of course also you can take for example against heavy AD team, when you're focused, or another common situational item.

To summarize - this is the item core:

Start with W -> E -> W -> Q -> W
or W -> E -> W -> E -> W, if you're mana starving too much and take Starcall only after Ulti.

Then max your W/E by turns and of course Ulti each time you can. Your Q as last, you just need to have it on lvl 1 to slow effect from Rylai's and sometimes to kill minions faster if neccesary.

is a must for Soraka or any other support. It's very usefull spell. Check brushes before you enter them if you're not sure what is waiting there... Help with catching enemies in jungle, check places where you haven't wards, etc., etc.

best spell. Everytime. Ghost hasn't sense for Soraka, and also any other spell. Maybe Heal can help, but Flash helps you to survive more often, also you can flash'n'heal your team-mate if he's out of your range to save his life, and more and more other uses...

Hope that this guide helps someone to play with "new" Soraka. I'm convinced that she's not worse than she was, maybe she's even better. She only needs a little different playstyle.

Please try to play it and comment before you vote. I'll be pleased by you're comments and positive critism.

Also sorry for my mistakes in English :)


For the sake of completeness, here are notes for Soraka from the last patch:

• Recommended Items updated
• Base health increased to 446 from 426
• Base health per level increased to 71 from 67
• Starcall
  Cooldown reduced to 2.5 seconds from 3 seconds
  Base damage reduced to 60/85/110/135/160 from 60/90/120/150/180
  Ability power ratio increased to .4 from .25
  Mana cost reduced to 35/40/45/50/55 from 40/50/60/70/80
  Shred increased to 8/9/10/11/12 from 8 at all levels
  Maximum stacks reduced to 10 from 20
  Range increased by 30
• Astral Blessing
  Ability power ratio reduced to .45 from .9
  Cooldown increased to 20 seconds from 10 seconds
  Base Heal increased to 70/140/210/280/350 from 60/120/180/240/300
  Armor buff increased to 25/50/75/100/125 from 20/35/50/65/80
  Armor buff duration increased to 5 seconds from 4 seconds
  Cast range increased to 750 from 650
• Infuse
  Ability power ratio increased to .75 from .6
  Cooldown reduced to 10 seconds from 15 seconds
  Silence duration adjusted to 1.5/1.75/2/2.25/2.5 from 1/1.5/2/2.5/3
  No longer grants double Mana when casting on yourself
• Wish
  Ability power ratio reduced to .7 from 1.3
  Mana cost reduced to 100/175/250 from 200/275/350

And here is the list of my games with this build from last two days: