Sadly this isnt your typical Soraka build, although from experience it should be.
The problems ive always had with soraka is that shes a great help to the team but she was always just too squishy and your always going to be focused if your too close, so I fixed this.
Your no help to your team if your dead! Did I mention that you wont be sacrificing any damage? Yay!

Take:
I take cleanse so that you can get right back into battle even after being a victim of CC and flash for those times you need to GTFO.
You could trade Flash for Ghost if you like, its just a matter of preference.
If you feel like you'll do fine without 2 excape's then grab Clairvoyance, its very useful to have for the team

Do not take:
You don't need clarity with all the runes and your E, its just silly and a waste of a good summoner spell.
Exhaust, really? You wont be going around being able to gank anyone.
Heal. -_- gtfo
I suppose you could take Fort but as long as your team is half good then you'll be helping them push like crazy.
Bla bla bla

Theres really not anything to talk about here >_>

You want to max out E first so you never have to get out of lane. Get this. Your E will do so much damage that it will make them stay the hell back at the same time you could use it on urself to have unlimited mana, HELL YA.
Take one point in Q early so you can farm.
And then max out your heal.
Why max out heal before Q? Because before you get your items, your still squishy and you'll need it. Although once you get your items, the other team will be crying as they run away from stars pricing their skulls.

Well of course this wouldn't be a tanky soraka build without 21 in defense, and your soraka so take the other 9 in utility fool.

I like to play soraka like Katarina early game and go mid and take boots and hp potions with me.
Why?
Because believe it or not, your going to be able to push the other guy to thier tower and keep him their for the whole time and the other team will want to gank you....bad... So you need boots to gtfo, cleanse+a heal helps too.

Then go back to base and grab a soulstealer, cause being tanky you will be grabing a alot of assist so why not?

CDR boots, hell yeah.

Spirit Visage for a early flat hp boost and hp gain from your heals and even more CDR.

Abyssal Scepter for some good magic resist and a lot of AP to back it up, cant argue with that.

At this point it depends on their team, if they got a lot of physical damage then grab a Glacial Shroud but most likly just grab your Rylai's Crystal Scepter.

Upgrade to frozen heart. Now your ready to tank them towers and solo baron.

Early Game:
You want to argue with your team and try to win the fight to gain mid. Cause being tank soraka is cool and hip.
Once in mid you can show off your high heels while you punch the other guy in the face with a silence and make sure hes aware you have auto attacks. Last hit with your rainbow stars. And always be aware that you are so annoying that the other guy in mid will cry to his team for a gank.

Mid Game:
You can start to get even more cocky at this point, but still make sure you don't get ganked yet to let them know your a boss.

End Game:
By this point you might as well be a dragon, why? Cause your awesome. Let their whole team know this by blowing your Q load all over everything while making them know they can't do anything about it by using E. Throw a heal on your low hp friends that didn't build tanky and lead them to the tower your about to tank cause your awesome.

You are a healer. That is your primary task. Keep your team healthy and alive, and keep them in a state where they can keep pushing. You have 3 tools to achieve this. Astral Blessing, Infuse and Wish. Keep their health up, keep their mana up.

In the laning phase, you should try to support your partner as much as you can. This could mean either keep him alive, or help him harass / kill the enemy. It's up to you to decide what the situation calls for. Don't hog all the minions (not that you'll be able to), but remember to last hit with auto-attack, Infuse, or Starcall as possible. I suggest not pushing too hard, though. Keep the minions near your tower. This can be difficult though since your partner will likely want to smash the minions as hard as possible. Ask him not to. He might still do it but... doesn't hurt to ask.

Keeping minions near your tower is helpful for 4 things:

1. Guarenteed experience. Enemies cant deny you, and they cant harass you as easily. It can also be easy to last hit a minion being shot at by the tower, too.

2. Harder to be ganked. If you're up near their tower, and an enemy Warwick or Xin Zhao bursts out of the bushes behind you, you're toast. No chance. If you're near your tower, you've got a nice place to run and hide in, much harder to gank you. They could tower dive you, still, but it's much riskier, and many times they won't try, or it'll end in disaster for them. Good for you.

3. Easier to gank them. Not just from your jungler bursting out of the bush behind them. If you have an opportunity to kill them, they will have a LONG way to run till they reach safety. Plenty of time for you and your partner to kill them.

4. Possible to deny them. If you last hit only, and keep minions near your tower, you and your partner can range out a little, and force the enemy to stay back away from you... and from the minions. If they can't get close to the minions, they get no gold and no experience. You'll outlevel them and outgear them. GREAT for you, and the rest of your team.





Once you get your Mejai's and Wish, you'll now have to keep tabs all over the map. Keep a watchful eye on the minimap. If it looks like someone is getting into a fight, check on them. If it looks like they're going to get a kill (or the enemy is going to kill them), use Wish. If they get the kill within 10 seconds, you get an assist. That's more gold, and one stack for your Mejai's. You might also prevent the enemy from getting a kill this way. Either way, it's a win. This is how you'll be getting your Mejai's stacks up. You'll be trolling for assists, using Wish whenever a kill is about to be made. It'll be easier once team fights start (provided your team is good enough to get some kills in the team fights, or even win them...), but until then, troll away!



In team fights, you have two playstyles. First, stay back, nice and far, throw out your heal on whoever needs it most. Use Wish if the damage is being spread out (most likely will), or someone really badly needs a double-heal. Infuse an enemy to silence them, very nice for stopping Tryndamere from spinning away, or Amumu to prevent his ultimate. If you see Shen, Fiddles, Miss Fortune, Malzahar, or any other champion with a channeled ultimate using it, hit them with Infuse to stop them. Remember this when you're trying to gank an enemy Shen and they decide to use their ultimate to escape. Infuse will stop them.


Once you've gotten yourself tanky enough that you can take a few hits, you can start playing more aggressively. Remember to keep throwing out heals and silences, but now you can also close in to spam Starcall. It'll deal some fairly consistent damage, always a good thing, and reduce the enemy's MR, which will help your AP DPS out, as well as your own Starcall spam. If the enemy decides to focus on you... Great! If you built yourself right, you should be able to last a good long time between all of the self healing and tanky stats. AD champions especially have trouble killing you given the fact that Soraka has a high base Armour stat (about 70 at level 18) and boosts her own armour by 80 when you heal yourself.

Here's a story: One time, I was with a couple of my teammates in the bushes in mid, with the rest of the team not far away. Suddenly, the whole enemy team started coming after us. We ran around the cliffside to our tower, where the rest of our team was waiting for us, but Poppy caught up with me. Suddenly I was pushed into the enemy team, Singed threw me further back, Ashe hit me with her Ult, Poppy used her ult on me, and all 5 of the enemy team focused me. I lasted through the stun and quickly double healed myself with Wish and Astral Blessing, Flashed back into my team, and supported my team as they quickly mopped up the enemy team, who had blown all of their ults on me.

Here's another story: Our team was losing hard, we'd lost all side and mid towers up to the inhibitor towers. Then we had a proper teamfight, aced their team, and I started to snowball. A couple of teamfights later, I was the main focus of the enemy Shen, very well fed Eve, Xin and Malzahar. I endured Malz's ult and Eve's stun, even an ignite, popped heals on myself, and literally crawled through my team, spamming heals on me, as Eve, Xin and Shen were on my *** trying to kill me. It was a simple matter for my team to kill them during that time. We went on to win that game, and my team and the enemy Maokai all agreed it was because I carried them through it.

Soraka helps the team regardless of who the enemy focuses. If they focus one of your allies, you keep them healthy and boost their defensive stats. If they focus on you, they find you aren't nearly as squishy as they expected you to be. Generally, they'd have better luck trying to kill your Rammus or Malphite. Maybe not quite Tank Mundo material, but getting close to there. The only time Soraka is effectively countered, I've found, is when the enemy has a very well fed Gangplank, who will prevent you from healing yourself, or if they time their Ignites perfectly that you can't Very annoying.



Once you've gotten yourself geared up, you'll even be a force to be reckoned with in 1v1 combat. The first game I tried this out on, I was attacking an enemy tower by myself when the enemy Nidalee came out in cougar form. I simply spammed my Starcall and Infuse on her, healed myself as necessary, and killed her while remaining at full health. The enemy Sivir came out next, and died the same, even with her Warmogs and Starks. The enemy Corki then came out (seriously stop coming out one at a time), he hurt me for a LOT more with his armour shredding, and he had a Banshee's Veil to help protect himself, so this was a much closer fight, but I still killed him 1v1 just the same. Another game, Tryndamere would try to gank me. I'd heal up till he enraged, then I'd hit Zhonya's, then he'd run with low health, and me still at full. So Soraka can become a deadly force, not to be trifled with. This doesn't mean that you should go out picking fights, though. You never know if that enemy gunning for you has backup coming, or if he himself is still too much for you to handle. You're still primarily a support class, and you should act like it. It's just good to know that if you have to fight someone, you can, and have a good chance at winning.