enough mana regeneration - infinite sustain for her lane partner. With some ability power items, Soraka can deal quite heavy aoe damage with good positioning.

Pros: Provides good sustain for lane partner Can gain easy assists by helping out allies arround the map after lv6 Can work great with ability power team because of Starcall magic resistance reduction Provides support for entire team in all game phases

Cons: Doesn't get much use from getting kills Doesn't do too much damage Doesn't have an escape No gap closer Gets blamed if ADC plays bad Usualy behind in items at lategame stages

Good Soraka: Knows when to use heal Knows who to target with heal Knows when to use silence and when to regenerate mana Doesn't waste ultimate Knows who to silence Knows ward spots

Bad Soraka: Wastes heal Regenerates mana in teamfight instead of silencing Doesn't defend carry Uses ultimate just to get an assist Takes farm Doesn't ward

gain a lot of stats that are useful for a support.

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cooldown reduction for Flash, which means that you can escape from sticky situations more often, also if used with Enchantment: Distortion, Flash cooldown will be arround 3minutes instead of 5. the beggining of the game, which alowes you to purchanse an extra Health Potion. This also gives you extra 2gold/10seconds, this might not sound like much, but lets say the game lasts 40minutes, 40x60=2400s, 2400:10x2 = 480gold. Which if you think about it, is a nice amount of gold since you shouldn't take minion kills. These masteries also provide you with some gold upon hitting the opponent champions, it might be only 3gold per attack, but it has 5sec cd, lets say you hit an average of every 7.5sec. Once again lets say the game lasts 40minutes. 2400:7.5=320, every hit 3gold = 960gold. So these masteries might seem not very useful, but they provide you with a huge boost.

game not so useless, because if you check Soraka's base stats above, you'll see she has very low armor.

when laning vs strong supports like Sona or Taric which also deal a nice amount of damage.

because it makes your Astral Blessing have a shorter cooldown.

means you can get your items sooner even if you don't get assists.

As a Soraka I suggest using Flash and Exhaust. This combination alowes you to get away from sticky situations or Flash towards your teammate to heal him at the last moment, Exhaust can also be very helpful for the whole team, ether slowing down a fleeing opponent, or weakening someone like Katarina.

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Exhaust is not very useful, but Barrier can save your life. people like it, and if used well it can save your and your teammates' lives many times.

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doesn't benefit from any cheap items, so it's best to start all consumables to sustain in lane long and not get ganked, so tht on your first trip back you can get some nice items.

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- these two items provide you with very nice gold income and some useful stats, aswell as later in the game build into some other items. It's best to also get Boots or higher, because your opponent will most likely have boots by that time, and you need to be able to escape.

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movement speed ( Soraka doesn't need more)) and cooldown reduction, which means you can heal more often. The enchantment is only in those cases where you often stay in the back, and your team sometimes needs to retreat, if you're completely dominating the enemies, get Enchantment: Distortion upgrade which will make the cooldown on Flash 188seconds. the free wards. Every time you go back to the fountain, you get 5free wards, but you can have only 3of them up at the same time. If you have this, it means you don't need to buy sight ward and can save a lot of gold. shield for all of your allies nearby. It might not be a very big shield, but how many times has it been that a teamfight ended 4for5 with the last enemy being with less than a 100health? :) Now after 3.10 update it also grants the aura for extra defenses, so it's an even better item! the opponents try to cc-lock the carries. this item is the movement speed, it can be a great initiation or escape tool providing a speed boost to your teammates. more damage, also it gives some magic resistance and movement speed which increases your survivability. The main reason to get this item is the active, it sends out two ghosts which seek out the nearest opponent champions, slows them and reveals them for a couple of seconds, which means that you can finish off the ones that got away after a teamfight.

on your AD carry and his playstyle. From this point forward, im going to split this chapter into three sections:tips that work for both teams, for the blue team and for the purple team. This information isn't nescessary for skilled support plays, but could be very useful to new players, so feel free to skip this if you please.

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even deny some farm for the opponent. Aswell as warding up the map to help the team. When playing as Soraka you can provide infinite sustain to your AD carry, you have amazing healing abilities, and the ability to restore mana, which noone else does. Early game you should simply let your carry farm, and wait until lv4, at lv4 your Infuse deals a nice amount of damage and Astral Blessing heals quite a bit - so you should simply walk to the enemy carry, silence him and use a basic attack on him whenever he gets too close. consecration and Runic Bulwark, but so that Starcall hits atleast 3opponents. Also heal someone as soon as he/she gets to low health, and when atleast 2people are low health use Wish.

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team's red buff camp, while your AD carry guards the tribush - so that your opponent team does not invade and steal red buff from your jungler. At arround 01:50 head towards your lane, the enemies will have a slow start if they invade later, and you don't want to lose experience to lane minions. If your opponent jungler started at blue buff, you should immediatly ward the river bush at 02:05, because the enemy jungler might come straight to your lane. If he starts red buff ward at arround 3:00 if he doesn't show anywhere on the map, because it will take time for him to come to you. If the enemy jungler shows up at top lane, wait arround 30seconds until warding, because he won't make it to your lane so fast, and if he shows up at middle lane and runs off towards bottom ward 10seconds later. Also if your jungler isn't doing very well and is behind in experience, or is helping top lane most of the time, ward the tribush, because the enemy jungler might go in to your jungle, and come to bot from there. that you can see the opponents if you do dragon, also while doing baron, you should ward on the other side of baron pit (best in the bush) and the tribush, you should also have a pink ward in dragon and baron pits at all time after there's a chance your opponents might take it or have it warded.

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enemies aren't invading, and if they're not head off to lane. If the enemy jungler starts at red buff, ward tribush at arround 02:00, and if you see him at middle lane, ward at dragon as soon as he leaves. If the opponent starts at blue buff, don't rush warding, and tell your AD carry to try and lasthit as late as possible, because that might end up with your opponents pushing a little bit. But if you happen to push out, ward at dragon at arround 02:40, and if you're really pushed up, ward the tribush as soon as possible. Also if your jungler is losing and your lane is pushed to your tower, ward the tribush which is next to your tower, because some junglers like Zac or Jarvan IV can come from there. Now you might be wondering, why not ward the river bush? Well if you ward the tribush, and at dragon, your opponent won't get to the river bush, you'll see him way before that - which is not viable on blue team because some junglers can jump from tribush near tower to the river bush. you're going to kill the dragon, when doing baron you need to ward the enemy blue buff, and the bush behind the wall of blue buff. You should also have a pink ward in dragon and baron pits at all time after there's a chance your opponents might take it or have it warded.

Ezreal is a very good AD carry to lane with Soraka, because he needs to play aggresive, and in process sometimes loses a bit of health, which Soraka can heal up quite easily. Also he uses a lot of mana, which Soraka can also heal up, which means Ezreal can play aggresive and spam skills and make use of Soraka's kit.



Ashe is actually needs someone like Soraka in lane to play aggresively, because she has a very weak early game, so she can realy use the heal and bonus armor from Astral Blessing, aswell as keep a perma slow on opponents, or poke them with Volley because of Infuse



Corki can play extremely aggresively with Soraka, because he has a lot of damage potential, but it all costs a lot of mana. Well Soraka can max Infuse first if Corki is ok with it, and let him poke them nonstop, especialy after lv6.



Varus can spam his Piercing Arrow and completely destroy opponents at all ranges, thanks to Soraka's Infuse. Which means that Varus will have easy farm and maybe even kills, and Soraka won't have to worry about her carry dieing and blaming her.



Caitlyn - She doesn't nescessarely need Soraka's help, but if she does have one to support her, she can spam her Piltover Peacemaker and poke down the opponents or waveclear very easily.



Draven - He also doesn't realy need Soraka as a support, for Draven it's better to have a support who can lock down an opponent in position for extended periods of time, because of his huge damage.



Graves - For him Soraka is only useful if playing very aggresively and constantly spamming Buckshot, otherwise it's better to have a support with more crowd control because of Graves' damage.



Kog'Maw - For Kog'Maw, Soraka isn't the best support early on, but later in the laning phase, after lv6 can realy benefit him, alowing him to spam Living Artillery and poke down opponents, or maybe even kill them from afar.



Miss Fortune - She doesn't realy get much use from having a Soraka nearby, because she doesn't use that much mana early on, or later. But if the Miss Fortune player is experienced and knows how to land Double Up, and uses it often, the Infuse actualy might help a lot.



Quinn - Quinn can be a very good match for Soraka, letting her spam Blinding Assault and trading enemies easily. But this combination isn't the strongest one possible, as Quinn doesn't realy need the bonus mana, if played smart.



Sivir - Soraka is a very good support for Sivir as she requires a lot of mana to keep poking or pushing. Also Sivir has quite low defenses, and Soraka solves those problems with bonus magic res from consecration and armor from Astral Blessing.



Tristana - For Tristana this matchup can be very good, or quite useless, she can ether Rocket Jump into the enemies and abuse the armor from Astral Blessing or play passive and make soraka useless.



Urgot - This combination is very powerful, because Urgot needs to be tanky because of his low range, and can use the mana for Acid Hunter spam. Which means that this combination can completely zone out the opponents from cs'ing if played well.



Vayne - Vayne has a weak early game, which Soraka can help with, by constantly healing her and not letting opponents poke with the silence, which can turn out to be a very well farmed Vayne, which is very dangerous.

Alistar's heal is actualy very weak, it's weaker at rank5 than Soraka's Astral Blessing at rank 2, altho Alistar offers much more crowd control. When fighting against eachother Soraka has the advantage, because she can silence Alistar before he gets in range for Headbutt.



Blitzcrank doesn't have any dirrect support to the AD carry, but he is much more versitile and can set up better kills. When fighting against eachother it can go ether way, depending on how each of them plays it out.



Fiddlesticks doesn't have any heals to benefit the carry, but after lv5 he can cast Terrify on the opponent whenever he gets too close, which will offer a nice duration of fear, maybe setting up the carry for a kill. When fighting eachother - Soraka has the advantage, since she can silence Fiddlesticks before he casts his fear, or interrupt him as soon as he casts Bountiful Harvest.



Janna's shield is weaker than Soraka's heal in theory, but Eye of the Storm also gives attack damage, so if used well this can be a lot stronger. When fighting against eachother, Soraka has the advantage, since she can silence Janna and interrupt her ultimate, or stop her from using other abilities, but when fleeing, Janna can't be cought as long as she has mana.



Karma's shield is weaker than Soraka's heal, but Karma has a lot more crowd control, and can set up more kills for the AD carry. When fighting against eachother the advantage has to go to Soraka because of the long range silence]]



Leona vs Soraka match up can go ether way, depending on how both players react to eachother. If Leona plays aggresive and looks for stun opportunities - Soraka doesn't stand a chance, because her silence isn't long. But if Soraka and her carry play well and let Leona be while focusing the carry, it can turn in their favor aswell.



Lulu's shield isn't the strongest one, but she has a lot more crowd control than Soraka does, this also depends on the players. If Lulu plays aggresive, Soraka will silence her, and will jump on her with the AD carry fast, but if Lulu plays safe, Soraka won't be able to get in range for any abilities without taking damage.



Lux' shield is stronger than Soraka's heal if it goes twice through the same player, also Lux has a lot longer range than Soraka's Infuse, so she can poke from a far and keep away from the silence. This matchup has to go to Lux because of her crowd control, shield and range advantages.



Nami's heal is overall better than Soraka's if there's an opponent or two arround, since it can deal damage and heal twice, but if the opponents are playing carefully the heal only procs once and won't be as useful. This matchup has to go to Soraka because of Nami's long cast time, in that time she can easily be silenced and become useless.



Nidalee's heal is weaker than Soraka's but it provides the AD carry with a nice attack speed boost. Also Nidalee can poke from realy far away and deal heavy damage with Javelin Toss, and check bushes with Bushwhack. When fighting eachother, I'd give the advantage to Nidalee because of her long range poke and zoning.



Nunu & Willump can be stronger or weaker than Soraka depending purely on the carries they have, because Nunu & Willump can use Ice Blast for poking, and Soraka simply heals all that up. But if used with the right AD carry the advantage goes to Nunu & Willump because of his Blood Boil ability, which makes carries like Vayne a lot more useful.



Sona's heal is nowhere near as strong as Astral Blessing, but she also has a lot more poke with Hymn of Valor and a lot better zoning. Altho if played well - Soraka has the advantage because she can silence Sona and delay her full combo.



Taric's heal is better overall, because he heals himself and an ally, but it heals for a lesser amount. He also has a lot more crowd control than Soraka. But if played well I give the upper hand to Soraka since she can silence Taric before he gets in range for a stun, and without stun he can't even get his other abilities off.



Like Blitzcrank, Thresh doesn't provide dirrect support to the AD carry, but can set up very good kill opportunities. And his range is longer than Soraka's - so the advantage goes to Thresh



Zilean isn't a very popular support, but he is actualy very strong, he might not have dirrect support to AD carry aside from movement speed increase or huge slow. But after level 6 he can realy turn a fight arround with Chronoshift. He also provides very good poke with Time Bomb. Overall the advantage goes to Zilean for his heavy poke, slow and an amazing ultimate.



Zyra doesn't have any abilities that benefits the carry dirrectly, but she can set up a very nice kill with her crowd control, or poke down enemies with deadly bloom. But overall the advantage goes to Soraka because a well timed silence can mess up Zyra completely.

- How is soraka better than other supports?
- She has very good healing abilities and provides infinite sustain to her AD carry.

- Where do I ward as support?
- Look at the Gameplay chapter above

- Why does soraka throw bananas?
- Because bananas are awesome

- Is she viable AP?
- She can be built AP, but to do good damage she needs to be in the center of attention, which means she'll die fast because she's squishy.

- Are you highly ranked?
- No I'm not

- So why should I follow this build?
- This build is for begginer supports, if you don't like it - don't follow it.

Overall Soraka is a very fun support to play, providing good support to her AD carry and after lv6 to the whole team, I've played many games as a Soraka and I always did well and didn't let my AD carry get too far behind, no matter that we lost a few games.