I know your cringing looking at this build, I mean wtf, supports don't deal damage. My attitude is damage is damage and damage wins games. The premise of this guide is pretty simple, stay with your team. As support there is absolutely no reason why you shouldn't be where the action is, you don't need farm, you won't run out of mana, and you can heal yourself if you get low on hp, so stay in play for extended periods. While I realize this is going to compromise time used to ward, the added benefit is worth it (having a team that is always at full health and having a support who is worth a damn in a team fight). I would like to point out that in other MOBA games this is how support is played.

Because of her mana regen on her "E" Soraka is best paired with an adc with long rang harass (cait, graves, ashe). During the laning phase try to get your adc to bully them out of lane with constant pressure, if done correctly you can force their jungle to camp bot, or you can pick up an early tower.

Here are a few tips:

1. Play very defensively, you are not an attack character. Don't be afraid to starfall if you find yourself in combat though.
2. Your biggest goal should be to not die, if you need to heal yourself do it.
3. Early game use your ult to save teammates from ganks, late game use it during a team fight right before the first person dies (after you've used your "w").
4. Your new motto with "w" and "e" is "use it early and use it often." Keep people at max mana and max health. Obviously, you might want to wait a couple extra seconds to use these if you think the other team might engage soon so you can make use of the 105 bonus armor on your "w" or the silence on your "e."
5. Avoid dying, I don't like "sacrificing" myself for another teammate, its never worth it. 9/10 the person you just died trying to saved ends up dying. It's usually better just to count your losses and move on.
6. If you follow this build you can deal some damage. DON'T TAKE KILLS (unless you just don't like the person). However, the damage you deal is enough that it will make a difference, so use it.
7. Get Philo stone and Kages pick first, then get boots, athenes, rabadons, then proceed to upgrade the philo and the pick last (to maximize the gp10 from them... THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT).

When I started playing this game, it wasn't the case that everyone seemed to think that a support should ward to the point that they totally negated having a build. Nowadays, this seems to be the overwhelming mentality. It's a terrible strategy. First off, your team needs to be doing something pretty spectacular with that marginal extra vision to compensate for not having a 5th player who can be worth a damn in a team fight. Secondly, its overall way more efficient for everyone to ward, and individual players don't fall behind. Plus, there is a "mental" effect worth commenting on. It's WAY more fun to play a character who can make dramatic changes in a team fight, and this is often times overlooked (I mean we are all about winning here), because when a player is having fun they care more, they make better decisions, complain less, help more, try harder, ect which= win more games. In sports, they hire people to manage team psychology, same is true with gaming.

Not true. Here's something to consider, lets compare the benefits of a runic bulwurk and a rabadon's:

9/10 times the other team is going to be focusing 1 player on your team, and its highly unlikely that player will be the support (this happens whether your with your team or just one other player). So in a nutshell, the Bulwurk gives YOU a lot of defensive stats, but only gives the player being focused +10 armor (maybe 1% physical damage reduction), +30 MR (maybe 3% magic damage reduction), and some trivial amount of AD and health regen. Does it help? yes. Does it help alot? No, you're not even really gonna slow the other team down on the burn.

"But wait, if I get enough auras and 'team' items they eventually add up."
- This is true, but generally the aura's are not worth the gold spent if you don't put to good use the other stats (generally defensive). Soraka should be a fair way out of combat and the defensive stats are almost useless.

"So when do I use those 'team' items?"
- They are amazing on the tank supports (like Thresh).

Back to the comparison. Rabadons gives 120 AP +30% more AP, under this build Soraka will already have about 120 AP before getting a Rabadons. This means the Item gives her about 200 bonus ability power. That means it adds 70 healing on her "W" and about 130-140 bonus healing on her ult (per player, that means it adds 700+ healing overall, that's a big deal), not even considering the extra damage from her q and e, this is WAY better than runic. Keep in mind you're cdr is maxed out too, so q is only a 1.3 sec cd, w is only a 12 sec cd, e is a 6 sec cd, and r is 84 sec cd.




I hope you enjoyed this guide, give it a try.