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OK a lot of people really don't like this champion, they say she's borked or useless or whatever just because her spells are terrible and she has no real damage or utility of any kind.
Don't let that stop you. In order to be properly feared as one of the unicorn overlords, I have devised a Soraka build to dominate the lane, get every creepkill, and then dominate the lategame.
Masteries: 21/8/1. You need the offensive masteries to contribute to your enemies' fear of you. Strength of Spirit gives you some much-needed (your heal is not enough) regeneration in the lane. Anyways, max crit%, 1 point in AP/lvl, and basically everything after that except the ignite mastery, the lasthitting mastery, and crit dmg% mastery.
Summ Spells: Ghost/Exhaust. Both let you stay close to the enemy. He doesn't like this, because he is scared of you and wants to run away. Do not let him run away.
Runes:
QUINTS: Flat AD RED: Flat AD YELLOW: Flat Armor BLUE: Flat Magic Resistance
Items: Longsword or mana crystal opening (recommend long sword), get a sheen as quickly as you can. Boots of Swiftness (or mercs if enemy team has lots of CC) and Triforce (prioritize phage) next. After that, it's basically discretion: probably either build tanky or build a GRB or Hextech Gunblade or something.
Skill order and playstyle: Open Q if there is action, because it is fucking imbalanced in a level 1 teamfight. But if everyone peacefully goes to their lanes, open W because Q is pretty much useless in the lane until a bit later. Prioritize E>W, getting your ult at 6,11,16, and start ignoring W and maxing Q after E is maxed.
Harass with your auto-attack and E combo at every opportunity in the lane. If you run low on mana, obviously just E yourself until the situation is remedied. After you get sheen, just hit E on someone, then whack em with your auto-attack for infinity damage. Later on in teamfights, basically stay back and hit whoever you can while healing your team and providing mana support. Once you are tanky, stand in the middle of it starcalling constantly like a MOTHERFUCKER and hitting the fuck out of whoever has the hubris to be lowest health.
Carry the game.
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Soraka wouldn't be so bad if starfall wasn't so badly designed. Her W, E and R suggest staying behind and stacking AP or CDR and supporting, but the only way to do anything with starfall is to stand close and spam it but that means you have to build tank and have a weak W and R. She has really really low base stats as well considering she's already a weak hero it seems unfair.
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ololol soraka guide btw it's still more efficient to get armor pen on quints OR reds, early game. why not dblade? you are theoretically starting with ~400 hp? ..
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On January 31 2011 14:16 HeavOnEarth wrote: ololol soraka guide btw it's still more efficient to get armor pen on quints OR reds, early game. why not dblade? you are theoretically starting with ~400 hp? .. dblade works too
and no it's not, especially on soraka who has about 0 base dmg
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Valhalla18444 Posts
points for correct use of the word 'hubris'
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On January 31 2011 14:57 Odds wrote:Show nested quote +On January 31 2011 14:16 HeavOnEarth wrote: ololol soraka guide btw it's still more efficient to get armor pen on quints OR reds, early game. why not dblade? you are theoretically starting with ~400 hp? .. dblade works too and no it's not, especially on soraka who has about 0 base dmg lol.i meant either or. like AD quints, armor pen reds > both AD quints+ reds. Also AD quints + armor pen reds > AD reds + armor pen quints. It's been tried and tested way before you made this thread. notably on champs like pantheon , ezreal.
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I just used this in a game last night to mess with people, went 15-10-20. Lots of minion kills, couple of tower kills. Pissed off a Kassadin royally when I rushed sheen and poked with E->autoattack. We ended up winning. They must've been the worst scrubs imaginable. Thanks for the fun idea!
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putting the ad build aside >.>
i am hoping with the regen nerfs she will actually be viable champion in ranked
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The infamous Blastra on EU wanders the fields of justice hoping that one day he will achieve a pentakill.
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She's ok now. I really think the armor buff on astral blessing will help a lot since she needs a little help staying alive mid game. The ap ratio nerf is irrelevant until soraka had 200 or more ap. Late game wish is better than any other support ult, even jannas cos that instant spike healing is mad useful.
What I would do is
Flat AP Armor pen reds Scaling hp yellow Flat AP blues
21 9 0
Ghost cleanse
Doran's Ring first
Play aggressively at level 1 with starcall, infuse at level 2 if you can hold the brush, otherwise heal. Starcall at level 3 and then go harass their jungler. I don't think any of them can beat you 1 on 1 at this point with boots and starcall kiting, especially since starcall even targets those in brushes. After that I would max heal then infuse and then starcall last cos it's kind crappy after early game.
Make cdr boots, deathcap and blue lixir and wards as core. You don't need anything else and your runes, passive and heals make you not completely squishy. That late game wish really is ridiculous when you have 260 ap.
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any new ideas for runes that don't focus on AD?
I'm curious and want to start playing her
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Okay, here's a quick and dirty real Soraka guide for you if you plan on playing her as a support.
Runes
Quints: Flat AP Marks: Doesn't really matter, ArPen is good, AP/Level is good (although the runes themselves are horrible, Soraka loves more AP) Seals: Flat Armor, Scaling HP Glyphs: Flat AP, AP/Level
Masteries: 0/9/21
Summoners: CV/Flash
You can start a few ways:
Faerie Charm + Wards + Pots Boots + Ward + Pots Doran's Ring
Skill build is going to be:
WEWEWR R>W>E>Q
You can take Q for some level 1 fights, but make sure to get a level in it at level 8 or 9.
You're going to want to end up building something like this:
Philo/HoG/Kage's Pick (or all 3!) Wards+Oracle (repeat forever) Deathcap
You may also want to consider Reverie or RoA, but you want to squeak by with the barest amount of survivability possible while stacking as much AP as you can with your spare gold. The gold/10 items help a lot with that.
Figure out what you need based on your lane and your jungler. The first few levels, focus on sustain. You have a decent autoattack range, and with the armor buff on your heal, tanking minions isn't too much of a problem. Mostly, though, you should focus on keeping you and your lane partner full on mana and HP and letting them farm.
After that, it's learning about how to move around the map and play as a support through the mid and lategame. It's not too difficult, but you'll pick up the intricacies as you play more.
Fun tip is at later levels, when a tank minion goes up to a tower, heal the minion to let it tank some more shots. 80 armor ain't nothing to fuck with.
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On July 14 2011 16:40 TadH wrote: any new ideas for runes that don't focus on AD?
I'm curious and want to start playing her
I run ap quints, and then ap/level on everything else. I run 0/21/9 or like 0/9/21
a lot of people run ap marks or something, health quints, armor or health/lvl seals, flat mr or scaling mr blues.
I personally go Philo Stone, HoG, then a mixture and variety of items. You want CDR, AP, Survivability, and Oracles/Auras, AND WARDS. I usually buy tons and tons and tons of wards.
Item's I like getting :Wards/Oracles always, Kages sometimes Reverie(aoe speed boost to team) almost always, Soul Shroud, Aegis, Frozen Heart, Abyssal Scepter, Deathcap, Zhonya's Hourglass. You usually only have money to get like 1 big item, so Deathcap usually. For some reason I've been really rich before.
Also I've done Philos, Mejais, Survivability before. You can get random assists with your R everytime you see someone fighting. It's probably not optimal but it's worked for me.
Soraka is currently the only support I like AP on, if games go long the ap really makes you useful in team fights, but you have to position way in back. VS some comps or some games going bad you have to just go for 40% CDR + Survivability, otherwise you instantly die.
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I disagree with 0 21 9. Soraka really wants everything in the utility tree. I cant imagine a lane where you'd want the 21 defense.
Imho Soraka is about 2 things: Big AP item lategame (deathcap) and CDR. That's most of the reason she's the support I love to get all gold items on if somehow possible.
I think any item that distracts away from the two goals just mentioned (like Frozen Heart, Abyssal, etc.etc.) is a bad choice since you're so damn close on gold anyway.
If possible at all I also like to shift that oracle and also part of the warding to someone else, partially because you will lose a "ward-/oracle war" vs Janna/Taric and also because you don't have the same survivability and/or roaming possibility of those two.
Shifting Aegis to someone else is something that's great on Soraka too, unless you really need the survivability or you're the only possible carrier at all (rare).
When I'm Janna/Taric and a Soraka tries to win the war for mapcontrol she will a) be completely useless lategame and b) lose it anyway since she's so much worse/more vulnerable at it.
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Post patch soraka discussion
I'm trying to figure out what items to get. i think glacial shroud is necessary for cdr... Aside from deathcap and building tanky I also think rylai's would be really good if it procs, permanent aoe slow in a huge range.
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I get glacial shroud as well. I like Rylai's but it's tough to go for if you're playing pure support (babysitting carry), as for Deathcap I don't think it's productive building pure AP anymore (am I wrong?)
Build tends to be: Philo stone, CDR boots, Frozen Heart, Banshees (MR), Gold caps close to there, busy buying oracles/wards and such. If I went mid / top lane Soraka I'd definitely go with a different build though.
Side note, I've been playing Soraka for a long time now (~year), initially I tried to play offensive (mid/top lane solos) but eventually went the standard pure heal / support route. I think it's cool they've strengthened her poking abilities, but I've definitely been feeling weaker while playing her as pure support.
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On August 27 2011 00:13 cordlc wrote: I think it's cool they've strengthened her poking abilities, but I've definitely been feeling weaker while playing her as pure support.
I play support Soraka and have been for at least a few months now.
While I agree with everything you said, I actually think the changes made her stronger. Yes her heal doesn't stack as well as it used to, but it's actually stronger in the early game when it is most important for babysitting your ad.
Also (some theorycraft) the changes to starcall I think are going to alter the way she plays, since now it is encouraged to harass with that ability, which will change her builds, skill order, and how she plays in lane in terms of positioning, etc.
I'm excited to watch MLG this weekend, and see how the top supports play her, if they play her at all.
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On August 27 2011 00:32 KiLL_ORdeR wrote:Show nested quote +On August 27 2011 00:13 cordlc wrote: I think it's cool they've strengthened her poking abilities, but I've definitely been feeling weaker while playing her as pure support. I play support Soraka and have been for at least a few months now. While I agree with everything you said, I actually think the changes made her stronger. Yes her heal doesn't stack as well as it used to, but it's actually stronger in the early game when it is most important for babysitting your ad. Also (some theorycraft) the changes to starcall I think are going to alter the way she plays, since now it is encouraged to harass with that ability, which will change her builds, skill order, and how she plays in lane in terms of positioning, etc. I'm excited to watch MLG this weekend, and see how the top supports play her, if they play her at all. yeah this is more what i meant. i max Q first now. but this is only in normals, and im not that good
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What I've been doing my last few games have been to start with a Dorans Ring -> CDR boots+philo or amp tomb if I'm doing well i get a soulstealer later on deathcap+ rylais and whatever other game dependant items u need.
She can actually kill stuff now and she farms so well.
In my last few games I Raped a nasus top 7-0 Took mid from a MF in like 10 minutes Solo'd an udyr and won at level 14 Raped an annie mid 5-0
And I'm not even that good, but I think her Q will get nerfed, I max it first and I try to solo top because she can out farm even morde now, it's ridic.
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On August 27 2011 00:32 KiLL_ORdeR wrote:Show nested quote +On August 27 2011 00:13 cordlc wrote: I think it's cool they've strengthened her poking abilities, but I've definitely been feeling weaker while playing her as pure support. I play support Soraka and have been for at least a few months now. While I agree with everything you said, I actually think the changes made her stronger. Yes her heal doesn't stack as well as it used to, but it's actually stronger in the early game when it is most important for babysitting your ad. Also (some theorycraft) the changes to starcall I think are going to alter the way she plays, since now it is encouraged to harass with that ability, which will change her builds, skill order, and how she plays in lane in terms of positioning, etc. I'm excited to watch MLG this weekend, and see how the top supports play her, if they play her at all.
Will they be on the most recent patch at MLG? I thought tournaments were usually played a couple patches behind.
I built the standard 3x gp/10 items as a babysitter bottom lane, and transitioned into rabadons and a bunch of AP stuff like DFG. Was pretty sick, my score ended up better than our brand's score. She feels REALLY weird as a caster, almost like ryze, but I enjoyed it quite a bit. Starcall is just hilarious in teamfights of a decent duration.
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