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Your Role as Support Soraka

Soraka was the very first champion that I played in League of Legends. She can fill the role of a sustain support very well with her Infuse and Astral Blessing. However, although she lacks CC, she can still be very useful with her Infuse as a silence and her Starcall that can shred through enemy MR, making her strong late game . Late game, she also provides her passive, Consecration and the runic bulwark, if the jungler has not gotten it already, to raise the MR of your team by 41.

This guide will focus on playing the standard support Soraka using the builds of the pro player, NintendudeX. Soraka began to fall off as a support around last winter until she got buffed with her global ultimate, Wish. Now, Soraka is a potent support again and she has been having success lately, and Soraka is now a commonly picked support on the pro curcuit again. If you want to learn how to play Soraka, read through the whole guide to get a proper feel for playing her.

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Soraka's Synergy

Ezreal is a great lane partner for Soraka, and has high synergy with her. His passive, Rising Spell Force, gives him a large attack speed buff, which is useful when he engages in lane. His abilities are great for poking, which constantly puts pressure on their team as long as he has mana. However, Ezreal has a large mana problem that can be solved with your Infuse. You may need to take an extra early point in infuse to deal with his mana issues.

Ashe is another great laner with Soraka. Her Volley provides a great poke, and she has plenty of CC. Infuse will give her the mana to spam her frost shot and provide strong poking, while Frost Shot will give Ashe the CC to finish her kills.

Kog'Maw is a fiercesome lane partner with Soraka. They both are pretty weak early game, but if you can get help from your jungler, you have a fiercesome late game. Expect to need help from your jungler, and your Infuse will be needed solely to keep Kog'Maw's mana up.

Pros +Ranged Bananas +Silence +Global Ultimate + Consecration Gives MR +Armor Buff Astral Blessing +3 Different Heals

Cons -Long Cooldown on Ultimate -Squishy -No CC -Brings Little Damage to Teamfights -High Mana Costs -Weak Early Game

• Greater Mark of Magic Penetration is a good choice for soraka because it helps her Starcall and Infuse get the magic penetration to be a good harassment technique early game.
• Greater Seal of Armor standard for most champions, provides good early game armor against AD carries. GP10s could be substituted, but the flat armor is just too strong.
• Greater Glyph of Scaling Ability Power for higher late game AP to prevent falling off late game. Soraka is much better in the late game and already has high AP early game with her flat quints.
• Greater Quintessence of Ability Power for high early game AP for poking with Infuse and healing with Astral Blessing. These should be chosen over Greater Quintessence of Gold because in an average 30 minute game, you will get 540 gold off of the runes for the entire game, but the runes give you ~15AP to start with. The early game AP is worth more the the GP10 for the entire match.

• Sorcery and Intelligence for 10% CDR for Wish.
• Summoner's Resolve for increased Heal.
• Summoner's Insight for 15 second CDR on Flash.
• Meditation to make up for the high mana cost of Astral Blessing.
• Scout to for better sight ward checking.
• Mastermind to further reduce the CDR of Heal and Flash.
• Greed for GP10.
• Biscuiteer , Wealth , and Explorer to buy starting items.
• Awareness keep up your level without kills.
• Nimble approximately 11 movement speed bonus once you buy Ionian Boots of Lucidity

To start off, you will want a Rejuvenation Bead to keep up your health, 3 wards(2x Vision Wards and 1x sight ward or 1x Vision Ward and 2x sight ward), and 2x Health Potion if you didn't upgrade 2 of your sight wards to Vision Wards.
. On your first back, if you feel that you need to choose movement speed for mobility and to avoid skillshots, buy 1x Boots, a couple Health Potions, and sight wards (or Vision Wards if needed)
. If you feel that you need more AP for better healing and harassment on your first back, you should go with 1x kage's lucky pick, a couple of sight wards, and a couple of Health Potions. As always, buy sight wards and Vision Wards whenever you need them.
. If you feel you need better lane sustain on your first back, you should go with philosopher's stone and a couple of sight wards. After you have bought the philosopher's stone, you will not need to buy many more Health Potions. If you do decide to buy one, do it only because you are getting harassed very badly.
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Make sure to go back your later to finish off the core items of this build ( Kage's lucky pick, philosopher's stone, and Boots).
. After you have finish the core, the next thing you should rush is the Ruby Sightstone and then the Ionian Boots of Lucidity. The Ruby Sightstone should come first, and the Ionian Boots of Lucidity can wait until you have a situational item, if need be.
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Situational Items

Shurelya's Battlesong is an important item to get if your team needs movement speed to engage and disengage teamfights. It also provides good health regeneration and mana regeneration. Eleisa's Miracle is a good choice to get if you wish to keep the philosopher's stone as a sustain item.You will take full advantage of its passive, which will lower the cooldown on your Heal by 25%. Mikael's Blessing is a great item to provide MR and mana regeneration, but you should only buy it if you need its active. If your carry if getting focused hard, and you need to get him out of hard CC to stop him from dying, you should buy this item. Mejai's Soulstealer is an item you should buy when your carry is doing well. Starcall will guarantee you an assist every time, so you will be able to get a good number of stacks. You may get focused, but that is actually good for your team. Morellonomicon should be bought when you need AP for stronger spells, but you need to stop an enemy with lots of vamparism, lifesteal, or health regeneration. Good against champions such as Dr. Mundo, Vladimir, or Volibear. Runic Bulwark is a great item because it provides high MR and a bit of armor for your team. Generally this item will be bought by the jungler or the top if they need the tankiness. If no one else buys this item, you should definitely get this for teamfights. Shard of True Ice is a cheap upgrade from your kage's lucky pick. However, this upgrade provides little AP and it mostly useful for its passive. This item works with champions such as Amumu and Shyvana who need to get up close when fighting.
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The Oracle's Elixir should only be bought for stealth detection of champions in team fights. Buy if up against champions such as Akali, Wukong, Shaco, Twitch, and especially Teemo. Do not use the Oracle's Elixir to kill sight wards because your can use vision wards to clear vital areas of wards. Finally, the Elixir of Brilliance and Elixir of Fortitude only be used before the final battle. When your team gets into the teamfight that will win (or lose) the game, that is when use should use both of these elixirs to get the game winning advantage.
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consecrationconsecration consecration is a good passive to counter AP carries that are bottom lane and provide a great aura in teamfights. The 16 MR it provides may not seem like a lot, but really helps boost the MR of your carry. The MR it provides will help keep your team alive from AP nukers and is a rare source of MR aura..
Starcall is good at shredding through MR with each Starcall taking out 8 MR at level 1. However, leveling this ability gives it only slightly more damage and MR reduction per stack. In teamfights spam this to take down MR. MR reduction doesn't apply to baron or dragon. Each level gives little utility, so this skill will be taken last..
Astral Blessing is your most powerful tool for protecting your carry. Don't forget the massive armor it provides, because it is not just a heal. Make sure to use it on your carry when they will be taking the most physical damage. Great protection against carries, Astral Blessing is maxed first..
Infuse is a great tool to sustain mana hungry champions such as Ezreal and Kog'Maw. Use it outside of fights for poking and restoring mana, based on what is needed more. Use it in fights to disrupt ultimates such as Absolute Zero and silence enemy AP nukers. Leveling gives a bit of utility, so I max this second..
Wish should be leveled up as often as possible, like every ultimate. The global presence of your ultimate means that you should be watching all lanes, because you can change the outcome of fights all the way across the map. Provides more health than the summoner Heal and has a shorter cooldown, so it should be used first..

Recommended Spells

. [+] Heal is the best summoner spell because its heal with Summoner's Resolve is almost as much as your ultimate.
[+] Flash is another important spell because it can be used as an escape, or to get into the right position for a teamfight.
[+] Exhaust is a good alternate for Heal, but their AD carry will just use Cleanse to get rid of the exhaust along with your Infuse and stacks of Starcall.
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Viable Spells

[?] Clarity would definitely solve your lane's mana problems, but it bring no utility to fights at all.
[?] Clairvoyance would be good for scouting bushes and checking dragon and baron, but it is not needed if you ward well. Brings no utility to teamfights.
[?] Ignite is good for stopping lifesteal and regen, but you don't want to steal kills, and you can pick a better spell.
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Bad Spells

[-] Ghost is for joining teamfights and escaping ganks, both of which can be solved by better warding.
[-] Cleanse is for AD carries who want to break free of disables. Not for you.
[-] Barrier is a selfish alternative to heal that only benefits you. Who is going to focus you anyway?
[-] Revive is a great choice if you want to feed as many kills as possible to the enemy team.
[-] Smite is for junglers only.
[-] Teleport is a great skill for top lane and Karthus suicide builds. Not for you.

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Early game warding is mostly to get vision of the enemies that are in the bushes an protect you lane from ganks. You will want to ward the lane bushes (#2) depending on how the lane is pushed. Most important is to take control of point #1, the river bush (this bush will protect you from the most ganks, and you should have it pinked, especially if they have a stealth jungler). Lastly, is the tri-bush(#3). You will want to have sight of this bush for alternate lane ganks, more important for the blue team to control. Dragon comes up at 2:30, but it is most important to have it warded by 8-9 minutes, which is when it is usually attempted.
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Mid game you should still be staying somewhat in the lanes, but there is more wandering and ganking to push lanes. You should have dragon and baron constantly warded by this point. You need to ward less in lane and more in vital points that the enemies will pass in the jungle.
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Late game you should be warding around wherever you go. Stick wards where you think enemies might come from and where they might be. Pretty much, ward everywhere.
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Soraka is the best sustain supports in the game. Her Infuse gives mana and her Astral Blessing gives health and armor, allowing her carry to sustain very well. Due to her abilities, she has a pretty straightforward role as a support.

Please do not down-vote because I have not addressed all items/laning partners/playstyles. This guide was meant to follow the play-style of a single pro, and his recent success with an exact way to build Soraka. The masteries and runes were directly copied from pro player NintenddudeX as were his item builds. I have seen a sufficient amount of games to understand his success with Soraka and I wish to share that with you.

This is my first time writing a guide, and coding. If you want to help me improve and you like my guide, give me a thumbs up and comment on how I can make my guide better. I will take coding suggestions, layout suggestions, grammar fixes, and build suggestions. I intend to make this guide encompass all of Soraka, so if you see something missing, do not hesitate, tell me about it.

• NintendudeX who uses a good Soraka build.
• Whoever created the ward maps (found them on google images)
• jhoijhoi for the guide creation tutorial and BBCode guide.

4/2/2013-Finished writing guide