Can you beat graves and soraka in lane?

[quote=Wayne3100][quote=The_Nameless_Bard] [[Kayle]] isn't a common pick, but she can push the two around because her Q has such good early game damage. [[Soraka]] can heal, sure, but her longer CDs and higher mana costs will make it so Kayle can push [[Graves]] around a bit. [/quote] I'm actually working on learning some of the more uncommon / less viable supports right now, and [[Kayle]] actually seems to be a much better pick against supports that [i]don't[/i] have sustain. I haven't actually played [[Kayle]] yet (just read a lot of guides and looking for opinions from people who play her on a high-ish ELO), but so far I've found pretty much everyone saying picking her against [[Soraka]] is not great :P[/quote]

[quote=brownwabbit]Just wanted to thank everyone for the great feedback. I really appreciate that I can come to these forums with an issue and within a few hours have multiple great replies with a variety of useful information. Much <3[/quote]

[quote=The_Nameless_Bard][quote=Wayne3100] [quote=The_Nameless_Bard] [[Kayle]] isn't a common pick, but she can push the two around because her Q has such good early game damage. [[Soraka]] can heal, sure, but her longer CDs and higher mana costs will make it so Kayle can push [[Graves]] around a bit. [/quote] I'm actually working on learning some of the more uncommon / less viable supports right now, and [[Kayle]] actually seems to be a much better pick against supports that [i]don't[/i] have sustain. I haven't actually played [[Kayle]] yet (just read a lot of guides and looking for opinions from people who play her on a high-ish ELO), but so far I've found pretty much everyone saying picking her against [[Soraka]] is not great :P [/quote] I agree that's true, but she also works well against passive supports. While Soraka can deal with Kayle's damage, she can't really deal the sort of damage to help push Kayle off (because you build Kayle pretty tanky) and Graves is unlikely to have enough MR to just shrug her off. This means Soraka has to constantly heal him and will run herself out of mana or have to B pretty constantly. I'm not saying it's a perfect pick, because it's not, but you can't guarantee you'll get the best counter either.[/quote]

[quote=GrimmFate][quote=Anandre] That said, I ban Soraka if I'm captain. Fuck that bitch, all of her lanes are stupid. [/quote] I lol'd pretty hard... Anyways, I've always been able to deal with Graves fairly easy with Caitlyn. However I kind of feel the same way about Soraka as the guy I quoted does. Just plain annoying. Just try to have a support with a stun or some cc on your team, Alistar is a lovely choice imo.[/quote]

[quote=lifebaka][quote=GrimmFate] Just try to have a support with a stun or some cc on your team, Alistar is a lovely choice imo. [/quote] As a frequent Soraka player, I have to say that Alistar is extremely easy to lane against. Ali's most effective combo is to walk out of the bushes, corner the enemy carry, Q them into the air, then walk behind them and W them further into the lane. As Soraka, screwing up this combo is really easy: just silence Ali when he gets near your carry. If your carry is Graves, he then dashes away and gets three or four free hits on Alistar while taking nothing himself. Ali is still able to deny chases effectively with W, but against Soraka he is really unable to set his carry up for easy kills.[/quote]

[quote=GrimmFate][quote=lifebaka] [quote=GrimmFate] Just try to have a support with a stun or some cc on your team, Alistar is a lovely choice imo. [/quote] As a frequent Soraka player, I have to say that Alistar is extremely easy to lane against. Ali's most effective combo is to walk out of the bushes, corner the enemy carry, Q them into the air, then walk behind them and W them further into the lane. As Soraka, screwing up this combo is really easy: just silence Ali when he gets near your carry. If your carry is Graves, he then dashes away and gets three or four free hits on Alistar while taking nothing himself. Ali is still able to deny chases effectively with W, but against Soraka he is really unable to set his carry up for easy kills. [/quote] More people should play soraka like you then ): Most of them don't do this, but I'm derping around in low ELO/normal games atm so I guess I shouldn't expect them too.[/quote]

[quote=PsiGuard][quote=lifebaka] As a frequent Soraka player, I have to say that Alistar is extremely easy to lane against. Ali's most effective combo is to walk out of the bushes, corner the enemy carry, Q them into the air, then walk behind them and W them further into the lane. As Soraka, screwing up this combo is really easy: just silence Ali when he gets near your carry. If your carry is Graves, he then dashes away and gets three or four free hits on Alistar while taking nothing himself. Ali is still able to deny chases effectively with W, but against Soraka he is really unable to set his carry up for easy kills. [/quote] Don't forget the W-Q combo which is much more difficult to stop. Since you should be sustaining Graves' mana, the Alistar player might time their combo to be when your [[Infuse]] is on cooldown.[/quote]

[quote=lifebaka][quote=PsiGuard] Don't forget the W-Q combo which is much more difficult to stop. Since you should be sustaining Graves' mana, the Alistar player might time their combo to be when your [[Infuse]] is on cooldown. [/quote] It's difficult to stop the W, but a silence still takes care of the Q that follows it. This isn't as punishing, though, since it's much harder for Ali to get into position for the W for this combo. Since bottom lane is usually about farming, it's infrequent to find players that spam their skills so that I need to use every Infuse to restore their mana, especially after the recent buff. I also tend to skill E before W, freeing up a lot more Infuse casts to be directed at the enemies. As long as you use the heal properly to make use of the armor buff to mitigate damage, it's perfectly workable to keep it at rank 2 for a lot of the game.[/quote]

[quote=PsiGuard]Alistar's W-Q combo is not just using W, then using Q. It's where you Q immediately after connecting with your target with your W so they go straight up instead of away from you. It's pretty hard to get your silence off in time since there's only a split-second window before you or your carry is up in the air. I prefer to max E as well, but unless you're laning with someone like Vayne, your AD carry is probably going to need the mana. This doesn't mean you won't ever be able to silence, my point was that Alistar can time his aggression for when your Infuse is on cooldown.[/quote]

[quote=Temzilla]Graves+Soraka is hard to lane against, because if you try to play a "hey we can trade with you" lane, she levels up Q and destroys you.[/quote]