07/18/2012: Made the guide
07/20/2012: Cleaned up the Warding section, added separate chapters.

WORKING ON FIXING ERROR'S IN THE ITEMS SECTION

This is Chainer314, and today you are going to learn how to ward, because i am sick and tired of other supports not knowing where or why to ward and me getting free $$$ from killing their wards. Of course, ill go in depth in the guide so just scroll down and read.

Oh, and enjoy =D

Pro's:
Tons of anti-damage
You can sit around without a care in the world
Has a theme song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CC_Y4zOUdcI
Can go Pure AP and deal TONS OF DAMAGE

Con's:
Has a mortal enemy: Blitzcrank
Cursed Warwick so he might be mad about that
Can die from a feather landing in japan.

For Marks, is pretty much the only thing you can do, All the other marks dont realy do anything for you and there is NO, and ill repeat that, NO Point to using Secondary marks, its a waste of IP and you get reduced things from it. So you only want a primary ability mark. And if your going to have that, might as well make your Starcall and Infuse hurt at least a little for the enemy AD carry and enemy support.

For Seals, is your BEST FRIEND. It will never lie to you and always compliment your hairstyle and fashion choice's for the day. Oh, and it gives you TONS OF GOLD Which your going to kind of need, since you will NEVER CS, and if you take a single CS from your carry as a support, you should uninstall LoL And go play something simpler, like Pong or something.

For Glyphs, is a cool choice, you could even substitute it for but i would recommend the cool-down per level over the magic resist for late game potentials. If you think about it, unless your doing REALLY awesome, you are a low priority target. (Unless, of course, they have an Evelynn, Shaco , Twitch, Akali, Vayne, Wukong, or Teemo and you have Oracle's Elixir then you pretty much become target #1 as they just HATE being seen, because they are all anti-social jerks. So unless there is one of those champs on the enemy team, you are not going to be focused (not likely, anyway) and you'll want cool-downs for more Heals and silences.

For Quints, get the BEST THING IN THE GAME
This, along with your allows you to buy Sight ward, and nut just one, but a metric TON of em. It also allows you to buy more Gold / 5's and in turn, means more money for more gold / 5's!

Alright, lets take a look at masteriesTHE ONLY amount of mana regen you need. This mastery here WILL keep you at full mana at all times pre level 9 (if of course you are using your abilities correctly)

Scout Have my tons of wards see EVEN FURTHER?! OH GOD YES PLEASE!

Greed If you dont get this, uninstall, nuf said.

Wealth This here allows you to buy the Health pot at the beginning of the game. And trust me, you WILL use it (maybe)

Awareness Unfortunutly, you are going to fall behind in level's. this is because you are placing COPIOUS AMOUNTS OF WARDS, which, you kind of have to leave your lane to do. So this will at least allow you to keep up.

Sage Read above and insert this into your logic: 21 assists per game

Intelligence In lamen terms: Mo@r He@ls pl0x kthxby

Mastermind Again: Allways flash NEVER DIE

This here is your escape tool, you use it to... escape... from the bad guys...

Your Ad carry likes to get kills, the ENEMY ad carry usually does NOT like this and attacks your ad carry. So use this nifty spell here to make sure they do less damage AND cant run away!

If your Ad carry already has exhaust for some reason get this

Or this, but realy, your carry SHOULD either have this or ignite (With flash, of course, and if your AD carry DOES NOT have flash que dodge, trust me, it will SAVE YOU TIME.

Before we go into the reasoning of the sequence, lets take a look at your skills themselves.

Consecration This here is your passive, and while it may not sound like much it helps your team quite a bit, if you are at about 80% of team battles the enemy mages have to work through 31 extra magic resist (The other 15 is comming from [Aegis of the legion].

This, of course, means less damage from them.

Calls down fancy glitter from the sky to tickle your enemy's and lower their magic resist. Wait... LOWERS THEIR MAGIC RESISTS?!?! Your AP Carry will for some reason deal an extra 99999999 damage to enemy's after just one hit of your Starcall (Who needs math? Just use it in team fights dangit)

Heals you or your allies and raises their armor resistance for a short time. The big thing here is that IT HEALS YOUR ALLIES. And you can cast it for free (If your using it correctly) The Extra armor resist is nice, but 3 seconds of 105 armor is not a very long time. Try to strike a balance between healing near death allies and allies that are taking damage.

Gives your ally free mana. FREE. MANA. This allows your ally to use more spells without consequence, doing more damage for free, and then eventually getting the clutch last second ulti JUST because you gave them the mana that they did not have to cast it before. You can allso use it to silence enemy targets and tickle them with light. Use it on high priority targets that use allot of skills like Akali or a Master Yi that builds AP.

Heals your entire team, allowing you to get free assists from top lane and stuff. But keep in mind that her cooldown for it is epic long now since the recent nerf to global ult's. Use this skill to save near death allies early - mid game and for late game use it when there is a team fight. and if an ally asks you "WHERE WAS YOUR WISH?!?!?" Just say "200 second cooldown for an ability that heals you for 300 HP YAY" Dont ever tell your allies what your wish actually heals for, they will never want you to play Soraka again

This here is your standard ability sequence. Max Astral Blessing followed by Infuse with points in Wish when available, pick an early point in Starcall for a bit more damage output but max it last.

You could also delay starfall until you have maxed both Astral Blessing and Infuse this lowers your damage output (Which, lets be honest, is almost nothing at first) for more mana given with Infuse i would only do this if your AD carry is reliant on their skills, such as Sivir or Kog'Maw otherwise, just use the standard build order.

This is your build, you never deviate from it... EVER

Start with a Faerie Charm one Vision Ward two sight ward and one Health Potion

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EARLY GAME:
You want to be frugal with your starting wards, If the enemy team has a support, get the above listed items. If, for some unknown reason or act of god the enemy team DOES NOT have a support, or has a kill lane bot then get 4 sight ward instead of the one Vision Ward and two sight ward This allows you to use a ward at the ganking locations and the bot lane bushes (explained latter)

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FIRST BACK:
When your lane gets a kill, go b and buy your philosopher's stone and two more sight ward

If you end up even on your lanes, you cant go back until you have about 800 gold, when you do, convince your ad carry to push as hard as possible so you can go b, when you get back, you should (hopefully) be level 4+ and can defend the tower with Starcall while your ad carry goes b for his / her items.

If you end up behind on your lane you are going to have a tough time of it. you NEED to finish your philosopher's stone as fast as possible, and you need to be extremely frugal with wards. Only one sight ward is nececery, but does not defend against lane ganks, so be VERY careful.

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THE WARD THE BOOTS AND THE DRAGON PART 5: THE MOVIE

If Ahead: Go b and grab Boots and 3 sight ward use these wards to cover the area around dragon (Explained elsewhere) and convince your team to get an early dragon, to secure your position as the ones on top and to demoralize the enemy team

If Even: Go b when your lane is pushed enugh to grab your Boots and 2 sight ward place one of the bush just below mid lane.

If Behind: Go b when it is safe for your Ad carry to farm and grab your Boots and 2 sight ward Use one of the wards in the standard area (explained elsewhere) and the other to cover the entrance of dragon. If your team is still behind at this point you need to SPAM THE GTFO BUTTON (Yellow ping) when you are sure there is a bad situation (you will know them when you see em) You also need to call mia's for your lane and try to keep everyone generaly safe.

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YOUR SECOND GOLD PER 5 ITEM

If Ahead: get your kage's lucky pick and Oracle's Elixir followed by as many sight ward as you can afford. Feel free to roam around from bot to mid in the river to get rid of enemy wards for free $$$

If Even: Get kage's lucky pick and three sight ward, try to get an advantage for your team by warding the enemy's red / blue buff and pinging like crazy when the enemy jungler is there. if you can get your team to get a kill here it will be crucial to your win.

If Behind: Not going to lie here, this is NOT going to be a fun game for you at this point, if you are behind at this point ONLY BUILD ALL ITEMS in the "If behind" section of all following sections from now on, its the only way your going to win. Anyways, Rush a Heart of Gold.
The reason you go for a Heart of Gold instead of a kage's lucky pick is the fact your going to need more health. Also, be frugal with your 2-3 sight ward Try to cover important area's such as buff's and dragon while keeping you and your team safe.

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YOUR THIRD GOLD PER 5 ITEM

At this point, you need to switch your warding style, ward your teams and the enemy teams buffs / dragon and worry less about any particular lane getting ganked, and more about which lane is most pushed vs which lane you need to protect. Allso, if you died with oracles dont buy another one till listed latter, or if nececery based on team comp of the enemy team.
If the enemy support / jungler has oracles then get your team to focus them as a high priority target.

If you are ahead: Get your Heart of Gold and as many sight ward as you can possibly afford without breaking the Geneva convention on warding. Cover the map with wards and chat /all gg, got wards

If even: Same as above, but use wards a bit more tactically, cover their red / blue buffs and walk ways, try to get a kill and get your team to snowball to victory.

If behind: kage's lucky pick is your option here, since you built Heart of Gold first. Use your sight ward defensively, covering your blue / red buffs and dragon. Keep at it, but you still might loose =( BUT NEVER SURRENDER!

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BOOTS LEVEL 2: TROLL CAPACITY, REACHED, BARON AND YOU

At this point Baron is starting to become a more likely objective for you or your enemy team, keep this in mind as you ward.

If ahead: Mobility Boots with as many sight ward as you can afford, totally bad manner the enemy team with a random ward in the middle of the lane and /all chat "yeah, i placed a ward in the middle of the lane, im so rich i can afford it"

If even: Mercury's Treads will be a better choice. Keep important targets sufficiently warded.

If behind: Ionian Boots of Lucidity and as many sight ward as you can get, use all the wards to cover baron (Explained elsewhere) and pray to god the enemy team gets stricken with a random bout of deadly, deadly cancer.

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YOUR FINAL GP 5 AND ENDGAME

From here on out, its all teamfights, your going to want your team to have the advantage of superiour positioning based on wards so place them pretty much in ALL of the locations listed below, in the section "Wards and you, the how to." Feel free to buy new Oracle's Elixir when you die.

Anyways, If your ahead: Get your Avarice Blade and /all chat "Soraka full build, GG" Place wards in irrelevent locations and bad manner as much as possible by stealing all the kills, Your team will THANK you. (But in a serious note, just do what you have been doing normally, your going to win.)

If your even consider rushing a Shurelya's Battlesong over your Avarice Blade for better team fighting, and keep baron and buffs warded, only dedicate one or two wards to dragon at this point, its not as important as you think.

If your behind: Dont build Avarice Blade you cant afford it and you damn well know it. Rush a Aegis of the Legion ASAP dedicating only one ward to dragon and baron each, Keep one ward on you AT ALL TIMES and use it if you need to check baron / dragon / a suspicious bush.

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lul

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WHY IS THE GAME STILL GOING?
Oh and as a side note feel free to sell Avarice Blade to replace it with either Shurelya's Battlesong or Aegis of the Legion whichever one you have not bought.

Seriously? you haven't won yet? well okay, i guess

IF YOUR AHEAD: Thats impossible, if your ahead you already won, just push the towers and win.

IF YOUR EVEN: Ahh, a stalemate eh? Its probably time to finish out your build to lvl 2 troll capacity. So a Aegis of the Legion is going to be your go to item. Oh, and MOAR SIGHT WARD

IF YOUR BEHIND: Buy Shurelya's Battlesong... add prayer or something. Idk, you have probably been loosing the entire game because they had Blitzcrank

Remember, your core item is sight ward

In here i will have a detailed guide for those of you who want to play Aura Soraka instead of Ward Soraka. Also known as Auraka! Work in progress

In here there will be a build for Pure AP. APAKA! Work in progress

Okay, you just picked a support. What is your job as the support? Assisting your AD carry at bot lane and making sure the other jerks on the other team leave him / her alone so they can farm in peace. Apparently you are also responsible for 99.9999999999999% (repeating) of warding. NEVER count on your jungler, top, or mid to ever ward their lane. They will ALWAYS blame you when they towerdive a Blitzcrank Singed Alistar Volibear Poppy, who all had their respective grabs / push's / flips. and 5 levels on them because you did not leave bot lane to travel to top lane to ward their lane. And im not even joking. So, you need to ward, and cover the most area with your wards per ward so that you don't have to get too many (but lets be honest, you can have the map lit up like a Christmas tree and always know where everyone is at all times.

So where is a good location? Read the following chapters to find out!

Guarding your Lane:
When you first get to your lane (after the minion's get there) place your Vision Ward
HERE:
Now what you want to do is wait on the enemy support, to place their Vision Ward try to stick near the bush and as soon as the place it, dps theirs as fast as possible, if they dont have a support, or the support does not have any Vision Ward and places a sight ward in the normal location, all chat "$$$" as you take down their ward without consequence.

With your final two wards, place one in the bushes in the lane itself, either towards the enemy if you are in a stalemate most of the time / they have your mortal enemy Blitzcrank
or place it in your side of the bushes when its a kill lane or they have someone with serious poke IE. Nidalee Lulu Blitzcrank Blitz is your mortal enemy, use your second ward in the bush where he likes to hang out.

with your last ward, wait till your Vision Ward dies and place it HERE:
Note: its in the weird rock formation thats in the river.

Now what if the enemy support was able to destroy your Vision Ward with theirs?
you need to carefully cover your lane with your two wards, Note here, i have a Vision Ward as far up in the bush as i can get it, look at where the sight of it ends (with, of course, the Scout mastery:

Notice how the vision drops of near the small triangle formed by the rocks in the river, you want to place your ward there:


And your second ward Here:

With these two wards your lane will be completely safe from outside ganks, but will be vulnerable to lane ganks, so be careful.

At this point you should almost always come back to your lane with three sight ward
You can be less worried about lane ganks and more worried about protecting your blue / dragon

You can your three wards here:

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Here:

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And Finally, one behind the dragon wall:
These three wards Cover your lane, Cover a small part of the enemy's Jungle, Cover's dragon, and allows your mid some good warning if the enemy jungler heads from his red to mid! (If you are on the right side of the map, if you are on the left side, substitute the ward behind dragon for a ward on at THEIR Blue Buff

Here you are going to start worrying less about your lane and more about the entire map, Hopefully you either have Boots or Mobility Boots but if not, at least boots one will suffice.

Assuming you are still only able to buy 3 sight ward at a time still

Place wards like So:

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While these wards are not focusing on a single specific target, like dragon or red buff.
It gives you a wider area of sight, allowing your allies in mid to quickly react to the situation (In my experience, mid is almost always the first tower to go, but there are some exceptions. If the enemy mid tower is down skip this section, If YOUR tower is down use wards defensively, Covered in a separate chapter.

This is going to be a shorter chapter, since i am actually not going to post any pictures here.
In the late game, depending on your situation, you want to either ward Baron, Defensively ward, Offensively ward, Or Scatter ward.

Warding baron Involves 5 wards and has an entire chapter for it found below

Defensively warding means to put your wards outside of your base in the key locations (Again, listed bellow) With only one ward a baron and dragon

Offensively warding means you put wards in THEIR jungle and outside of THEIR base. Waiting for the best time to catch one of their carry's out of position allowing you to win the game. It also usually has one to two wards near baron and only one ward at dragon.

Scatter warding uses all of the above as evenly as possible. This is VERY Situatinal and depends more on personal skill and ability to read the situation more then anything.
Only use this teqnique with probably 10+ games under your belt... And you have won them all in a row i guess.

No more words are necessary, you should know what these are for so here is some pics

When warding offensively or defensively it all depends on the situation
Did the enemy team just get baron? You need Defensive wards.
Are you keeping the enemy team in their base almost constantly?
Use offensive wards.

These locations here are defensive or offensive depending, of course, on which side of the map you started on.

And if you want to, you could also place wards at the buffs and high traffic area's. To further demoralize the enemy team. (oh and to keep track of your / the enemy's red buff / blue buff.

High traffic areas are VERY good locations for wards, you will be able to alert your team to that juicy ad carry that thought it was a good idea to go get YOUR red without any protection.

These here are good locations.
You can also put a ward at blue buff or red buff, as always.

I have a gallery for you guys to look at in case i forgot to post any particular image.
Check out http://imgur.com/a/fLzLA

With everything listed above, you now have the knowledge to be the best warder you can possibly be. Hope you read through everything and did not downvote because it was "Too long, did not read"