Hi there! So you want to learn a bit of Soraka, here's the place to come. I'm going to go over Soraka's abilities, builds and runes in more depth here. Feel free to scroll to the section you want!

Soraka's Abilities

Passive: Soraka gains 70% movement speed when moving to allied champs under 40% hp

Starcall

(Q): Soraka calls a star down to a target location. Any enemies in that location will take damage and be slowed by 30% for 2 seconds. Soraka will also get a health rejuvenation buff which she can pass to allies by her astral infusion (W).

Asteral Infusion

(W): Soraka sacrifices a portion of her health to heal an allied champion. The cost will be reduced if Soraka has a rejuvenation buff onto her. Soraka cannot use this ability if she has 5% or less health.

Equinox

(E): Soraka creates a zone of silence. Any enemy who steps in this zone is silenced until they leave the zone and take a small amount of damage. If any enemies are in the zone after the duration is ended, they will be rooted and take additional damage.

Wish

(R): Soraka calls upon the stars to heal all allied champions. This heal will have a 50% increase on champions below 40% hp


Now you know what her abilities do, there's a couple of important things to note here:

1. You need to use your asteral infusion wisely, if you don't hit an enemy with your q when you will have to sacrifice more health to heal them and you will run out of health very quickly whilst doing this.

2. Try to save your ultimate for when your allies are lower health, it will restore more health to them. Doing this will often turn fights around in your favour, making close fights won and bad fights possible to win.

3. To get your equinox root off more consistently, it's best to use it during team fights when nobody is paying attention to it, this will allow your team mates to get off lots of free damage onto the enemy

4. Sometimes it's useful to have an ally (not the carry) on low health so you can run out of bad fights quicker. (only do this if you know you won't be flanked and your ally won't die from this)

Runes

Summon Aery

I like this keystone because you are able to get extra damage off onto the enemy with spells and auto attacks, plus whenever you heal an ally it will give them a shield which you don't have in your kit.

I have opted into Arcane Comet before in free lanes where I can play very aggressive and do a lot of extra damage in the lane. I find this keystone to be suboptimal on Soraka since I can't shield my carry and it's not guaranteed poke, but it can be fun.

Manaflow Band

This rune gives you 250 extra mana and restores 1% missing mana after you've gained the 250 mana which is nice on Soraka. Celerity is another option but I find it redundant since if an ally is low you go at very fast speeds towards them. Celerity is useless on soraka, if you're above 70% hp in all your fights, you're not healing your team mates enough.

Nullifying Orb can be opted into if you're against a double AP bot lane and you need the extra survivability but even then I would jut go double MR in small runes and stick with Manaflow Band.

Transcendence

Great rune, it gives more needed ability haste at every 6 levels. I wouldn't choose any of the

Scorch

I prefer scorch out of the last column as it gives a little more damage in the early game, waterwalking isn't great for Soraka as she doesn't tend to roam much and gathering storm isn't great at the moment either since it takes too long to start getting any benefit from.

Font of Life

Font of life is really good on Soraka if you're able to hit her Q's in lane, it gives your adc a little extra health if they attack the enemy tagged with it

Sometimes I'll opt into Bone Plating instead against certain champions like Leona who want to do a combo consistently as I'll take less damage from that champ.

Revitalise

heals and shields you cast and receive are 5% stronger (10% stronger under 40%). This is the whole reason I like resolve secondary, I'm able to get stronger heals from the get go and it only increases from here. This rune's strength increases the more items you get and it always shows when you heal that one ally at 10% hp back up to almost 100%.

Guardian Runes

Guardian

If you or an ally within 350 units would take significant damage from an enemy champion, monster or turret you both gain a shield for 2 seconds. (45 sec CD). This rune is not your go to rune, this is taken when the enemy has got kill potential over you and you don't. This rune page is just for surviving through the laning phase, it's significantly weaker than the previous runes page.

Font of Life

Impairing the movement of an enemy champion marks them for 4 seconds.
Allied champions who attack the mark heal a small portion over 2 seconds. Soraka's q does slow enemies when hit, but this is the only ability that is able to proc this. However, the other two runes of this branch are useless for Soraka.

The rest of this rune set is all talked about above.

A quick note about summoner spells:

Flash is always taken

Heal should be your standard summoner spell, it works off the revitalise and it allows your adc to take defensive or offensive runes like cleanse, barrier, ignite or exhaust

Barrier is a good alternative if you're up against lots of assassins or high damage threats, or if you want to take it to bait the enemy immobile squishes into bad fights.

Core Build

Your core build consists of 3 items: Moonstone Renewer, redemption and either staff of flowing water or chemtech putrifier.

Moonstone Renewer

whenever you are in combat you will heal your lowest health ally for 70-100 health, each second in combat will increase this heal by 12.5% (up to 4 stacks). This item gives 5 ability haste per legendary item (your completed ward quest will count)

Redemption

Redemption gives lots of health and ability haste as well as a fantastic active, you save save allies from fair away even without ult, or steal objectives with it.

Chemtech Putrifier

Dealing magic damage to an enemy will afflict 40% grievous wounds. Healing or shielding an ally will allow their next attack within 5 seconds to apply 60% grievous wounds.

These items give extra AP, mana regen and healing and shielding power which all play to soraka's strengths. The chemtech putrifier is especially great when allies aren't building it, you can pass them the grievous wounds effect which saves them an item slot.

Your boots will usually be Ionian Boots as it gives 20 ability haste, though if you need the defensive boots against a heavy AD comp or AP comp then it's perfectly fine to take those too.

Situational Items

There's a few good extra or situational items you can build on Soraka that aren't expensive.

Vigilant Wardstone

(requires level 13 and 20 stealth wards placed) allows you to hold and use 3 control wards at a time. This item gives 40 ability haste which is a lot and movement speed which is nice. Great item in the late game. This should be your last item

Staff of Flowing Water

if the enemy isn't building any anti-healing then this is a great item, extra healing and ability haste

Mikael's Blessing

Removes all crowd control debuffs off an ally or yourself and heal the target for 100-200 health.

Meja's Soulstealer

Gain 4 stacks per kill, 2 per assist up to 25 stacks. Gain 5 AP per stack and 10% movement speed if you have 10 or more stacks. Lose 10 stacks on death.

It's extremely unlikely you'll finish more than 4 items in a game, so it's important to itemise for each game. If the enemy does little to no healing from items, runes or innate ability then you can swap chemtech putrifier for a situational item instead.