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On August 11 2015 06:00 Gahlo wrote:Show nested quote +On August 11 2015 05:55 Purge wrote:
I dont see how Soraka survives in a professional game with an Alistar on the other team specifically. Early she just gets outroamed in the laneswap - what exactly does soraka do in a laneswap? At the very least she cannot make solo plays like Alistar and has to work with her jungler to gank and even then she has a high chance of getting counterganked. And in the teamfight phase she just gets flanked, cced and then cannot do anything against Alistar's control. Or at least thats how i see it playing out. Couldn't she be a real pain in the ass in invades? Especially if you pull the jungler with you and just drop the silence/snare field on them while they're taking gromp?
Sure. Like a Reksai and Soraka combo, or Elise/Soraka. Im just saying soraka is just stupidly vulnerable [Edit: in skirmishes] early on, and then later on shes at the mercy of anyone on the other team that can hard engage at all. that being said, I think that if you can pick her outside of those situations (like against a Janna or something) then you have a very strong champ on your hands.
I just dont think if the other team has like Reksai/Ali, or Rek/Braum, or sommat similar you should pick her at all.
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On August 11 2015 07:23 Caiada wrote:
What's she do when Sivir Rs her whole team into your face? When Janna disengages any time your top or jungle try to engage? When Viktor drops ult and laser on your ADC and he's dead before you get a heal off? When Alistar's roaming in the 2v1 and you're useless for 15 minutes?
She's fantastic in soloq. I've said as much since she got reworked, actually. But in competitive? Not until someone counters 2v1 and Sivir gets nerfed.
Basically thats what I meant. Not Alistar in a 2v2 or even alistar specifically, but a meta where Alistar and champs like him are really highly contested.
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I think there's a way to make her work and it's not as hard or devastating as people make it out to be. I think she works in juggermaw, she works against poke, and works on teams with a tanky jungler/top laner.
No, she won't gank lanes in a lane swap, but she has strong counter gank potential. One of, if not, the best counter ganker. Not only does she have the hard to land slow and the silence/snare field, she denies the kill better than any champ. Not only does she deny, but she keeps the champion in lane while she backs.
To avoid ganks she has to ward properly and have good map awareness. Simple as that.
Her engage is shit. There is no engage. Her disengage is not. All she has is a hand to land slow and silence/snare. It's unreliable. Her counter engage is pretty good. She can land her slow easier and make sure the snare lands along with one potential. Her zoning is top notch. If you're good with timing the snare on the silence field.
2v1 consideration is a bit tricky. If you want to freeze the lane all she has is her silence field and autos, but she doesn't have that because it's also her disengage ability. If she's good with her Q or doesn't care about pushing the lane she's an incredibly strong lane bully. Especially if you level up the Q first or put a few points in it early, like a man.
For these caveats she can completely counter poke. You'll never have to back when Soraka is on the team. You'll never lose a baron or dragon because of getting poked out. She also wins every team fight with her heals.
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Janna does everything in Juggermaw Soraka does but better. Prevention is much stronger than reaction on a squishy target. 50 AD. Much more peel.
Counterganks, yes, which, if you're in a 2v1 lane shouldn't really happen at all unless their jungle is a moron, especially if you're Soraka.
She's weak to burst and sustained aoe damage, which are much more prevalent than poke in the midlane right now. She does not 'win every teamfight' vs a Viktor, or a Sivir in a full engage comp.
The enemy team picks Olaf or Maokai or Fizz and singles you out every single fight with TP. You're now an ult bot and will never be in range for Q or E.
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yeah soraka excels more with bruisers and such, guys with high damage and resistances but get focused, soraka doesn't have cc so she isn't ideal for peeling someone everyone is jumping on. If you have damage split between front and backline you can keep backline alive or frontline or both
yeah she has no answer to HG TP either
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On August 11 2015 08:36 Slayer91 wrote:
yeah soraka excels more with bruisers and such, guys with high damage and resistances but get focused, soraka doesn't have cc so she isn't ideal for peeling someone everyone is jumping on. If you have damage split between front and backline you can keep backline alive or frontline or both
yeah she has no answer to HG TP either
Then it should work out great in NA.
Hue.
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On August 11 2015 05:11 nafta wrote:
Zilean is the only champ in the game that has made me go "this shit is too hard not worth".Like seriously those bombs really need a buff.
The real hardcounter to soraka is laneswaps and junglers.
I love playing Zilean and hes my main for ranked alongside Yas but goddamn do those bombs frustrate the shit out of me sometimes. The way they're coded without priority for a unit with a bomb already has lost me fights by costing me a multiperson stuns. Just too unreliable man.
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On August 11 2015 08:23 Caiada wrote:
Janna does everything in Juggermaw Soraka does but better. Prevention is much stronger than reaction on a squishy target. 50 AD. Much more peel.
Counterganks, yes, which, if you're in a 2v1 lane shouldn't really happen at all unless their jungle is a moron, especially if you're Soraka.
She's weak to burst and sustained aoe damage, which are much more prevalent than poke in the midlane right now. She does not 'win every teamfight' vs a Viktor, or a Sivir in a full engage comp.
The enemy team picks Olaf or Maokai or Fizz and singles you out every single fight with TP. You're now an ult bot and will never be in range for Q or E.
Yeah, she has strengths and weaknesses.
A lot of what you're saying is quite one dimensional and silly. For instance, Because Viktor exists he will 100 to 0 your carry if you play Soraka. I'm not following that logic. Viktor exists regardless and Soraka has a silence field to deal with him and counter engage. Because Sivir can ult, the support has to deal with the disengage 100%. Talisman doesn't exist, Gragas doesn't exist or our buddy's Viktor's gravity field doesn't exist. Because divers exist all you can do is ult because they might dive you, regardless of the fact if they hold onto their spells in order to dive the support. A support has completely negated a top laner's presence in a team fight.
Overall, I don't think you've done a remotely competent job explaining Soraka's weaknesses. I think you came up with overly simplistic scenarios while disregarding the fact allies and items cover up weaknesses of individual champs.
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Soraka isn't weak herself, it's just to hard to draft a team comp that works around her (can cover her weakpoints, which are accentuated in team play and this meta).
The point about AOE damage is true though, her heal cost is more balanced around a 2v2 scenario rather than a 5v5.
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The point was that she was so easily counterable by things extremely prevalent in the meta that there is no reason to pick her over Janna/Nami/Alistar/Thresh/Naut. She has one niche that is *not* good right now.
Fuck it, I'm going to go over actual competitive comps because I have no life. TSM/GV spoilers ahead.
+ Show Spoiler +http://na.lolesports.com/na-lcs/2015/sumplayoffs/matches/quarterfinals/gravity-vs-team-solomid
Game one: TSM is running an obvious dive comp. Already established that dive shits on Soraka because Olaf/Sivir will kill you while AoEing your whole team thanks to Sivir QW. This was a lane swap game, already established why Soraka sucks at that. Nidalee is about the only thing here Soraka does decent against, but that's basically 3 targets, one of which you can't silence. Good luck Talismaning out of the TP initiate by a Lulu/Sivir ulted Olaf, to say nothing of all the incidental AoE damage Lulu Q and Sivir QE put out. Shen is basically a splitpushing CC bot, neither of which is really supportive of Soraka.
You don't want Soraka in a dive comp, so TSM wouldn't pick it either.
Game two: TSM comp is bad, but it's more Olaf/Uti Mid. See above. They really didn't have enough engage, and Ori over Lulu when Bjerg's Ori sucks (hindsight and 20/20 and such) and Lulu worked makes no sense, but that actually makes it worse for Soraka anyway, because incidental high-range AoE. Not sure if they 2v1'd. A big problem with Soraka is you basically have to guarantee the 2v2 and not be vs a potent roaming support. They have Thresh. Dots, connect, etc.
Game three: Third game, same as the first game. If you pick a Soraka/Ashe lane in competitive into Olaf, you deserve to lose though.
Game four: TSM has Alistar and one source of hard engage. What's the best counter to that combo? Did you guess Soraka? I hope not, because it's Janna. Urgot's good with Soraka (classic) but that means nothing here, because Urgot's bad with the whole rest of the team.
Synergies you harped on so thoroughly:
Tops that are played right now: Maokai/Shen/Gnar/Naut. Only Maokai and Gnar are decent with Soraka because the other two are not primary targets. Maokai is nice because of ult. Average synergy. Gnar's decent. Not ideal because he wants a team to engage with him.
Jungle: Elise/Nid are pick-oriented and don't fit with Soraka. Gragas is a CC bot, not a primary target. Tank Rek'sai is a lot like Gragas. Ekko is probably the most interesting fit with her, as is maybe bruiser Eve. Not a fan of Eve, but hey, somebody picks it. Eve doesn't bring engage though. Better hope your team's got Sivir or Mao or you're a god at using Talisman.
Mid: She's good both with and against poke, but poke isn't played that often. It probably should be, because Kog is my personal pick for best mid right now, but yeah. Viktor goes well with her, but a) what support doesn't go well with Viktor right now, and b) who doesn't do her job (safety for Viktor) better? Similar for Ori/Azir/TF. This is an era of safe mids and Viktor. Though, TF splits, so not ideal for Soraka again. Provides no safety for Soraka. Ahri dives and gets picks; no particular synergy with Soraka's low range heals and provides her no safety. Even with the two best poke champs in the game (Varus and Kog), Soraka provides nothing over Janna or even Lulu.
ADC: Sivir/Kali. Sucks with Sivir, decent with Kali, worse than others with Kali. Maybe if Cait or Twitch or somebody else with high range not named Kog got played, there'd be something to talk about here. They don't though.
So that's the quick and dirty of why Soraka's not picked in competitive right now. Apologies for errors.
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First, obligatory TSM TSM TSM TSMMMMM
Second, new Urgot is pretty crappy with new Soraka.
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Eh, I like Urgot with her. He builds/gets a ton of resists and minimal health, has long range, counterengage and pokes hard. Pretty much ideal synergy in a mid laner for her.
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No wave clear though, which makes siege hard
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Uh...
Scale her spell damages or cooldowns non-linearly, with the later ranks giving more value than the first. This is unconventional, but there's no reason we really can't do it. For instance, if Tumble's cooldown was only reduced by .5 seconds at early ranks, and 1.5 in the last few (or something like that).
I know it's just an isolated dev saying that, but I made a mention a few days ago (about Garen) on Riot using skills passively improving at some levels, independantly of how much points you put in them, and how it's a weird way to balance when you could instead have them get stronger once maxed (for example, and although I know it'd walk over Syndra's turf in Riot's eye), or in the later skill levels.
So, if they really don't have some design point against using such a method, why not do that, when it's much smoother than arbitrarily improving a skill at some levels? :/
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does any1 knows who benefit from the mastery Spell weaving? only me or my whole team?
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On August 11 2015 19:04 justiceknight wrote:
does any1 knows who benefit from the mastery Spell weaving? only me or my whole team?
Spell and blade weaving help only you. Expose weakness used to help both you and your allies but it was fixed to help only your allies like a year ago or something.
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On August 11 2015 18:25 Alaric wrote:Uh...Show nested quote +Scale her spell damages or cooldowns non-linearly, with the later ranks giving more value than the first. This is unconventional, but there's no reason we really can't do it. For instance, if Tumble's cooldown was only reduced by .5 seconds at early ranks, and 1.5 in the last few (or something like that). I know it's just an isolated dev saying that, but I made a mention a few days ago (about Garen) on Riot using skills passively improving at some levels, independantly of how much points you put in them, and how it's a weird way to balance when you could instead have them get stronger once maxed (for example, and although I know it'd walk over Syndra's turf in Riot's eye), or in the later skill levels. So, if they really don't have some design point against using such a method, why not do that, when it's much smoother than arbitrarily improving a skill at some levels? :/
They should just do both.
About why vayne is too strong early game - because poke is dead in bot lane.Vayne was never bad vs all in champs since she has 2 disengage abilities.A common mistake a lot of people who don't actually play bot lane think shit like leona is a big problem for vayne when the hardest shit to handle is nami/sona/zyra+cait/kog/ashe or similar duos.
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Aside from being slightly unintuitive, there's no reason why they can't design skills that improve based on level. Passives have done it basically forever and it's a way to lock away power from, for example, something very strong like Garen's E that he levels first most of the time. Garen with the same E he's got at 16 at level 9 would probably be a lane terror. Nothing wrong with that imo, but it's the direction they're going trying to give him a lategame that matters.
It's not really the same at all as ramping skill levels, which usually just take away from a champ's pre-9. That looking cleaner overall doesn't mean it's better, and people think way too much of how 'clean' a kit looks. See Ekko. The reality is that as long as it makes sense and accomplishes what they need (in Garen's case, making judgment much stronger lategame in a way not dependent on items), it's fine.
Theoretical champion that's really monstrous in the lane phase right now but has a strong lategame too. Middling midgame. Riot wants to tone down the early game. Makes theoretical Q scale nonlinearly, significantly worse at 1-4, same at 5. Or champion is fine in lane and midgame, but needs a better lategame and is melee and not a splitpusher so you can't just tell them to build damage. (Interesting implications here for future design, but anyway) So hand them a bunch of power on their core skills at 13 and 16 through shit like what Garen has.
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So I know it was brought up recently, but Brand support is pretty legit. He's got a built in level 1 cheese with 8% hp burn (which also conveniently burns all your spellthief stacks). His Q/W/E also gives you a lot of flexibility: you can W first and get the benefit of tons of damage, or E first for a super easy stun.
You can detour through Zeke's or go straight AP. If you go straight AP, you'll have enough AP to blow up their team (I've consistently been able to 1v1 an enemy carry when I get the jump on them). You can split push because W->E murders waves as well.
Definitely squishy, not the best at avoiding ganks since he's got the one stun (his idea of avoiding a gank is to do stupid damage). I personally haven't run into mana problems. You can probably outpoke him with Nami, beat him with a couple other supports, but haven't had a problem. Janna requires a little coordination, but when your AD's trade you just WE Janna when she goes in to shield cuz it's insanely predictable. He really feels like the best of Lux and Annie rolled into one.
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EPT
