Full transcript
0:00Most Soraka players are building her
0:02completely wrong and sites like OP.GG is
0:05one of the main reasons why. Many Soraka
0:08players have been copying builds from
0:10guides and having no idea if they
0:13actually work. The most common Soraka
0:15build is leaving 40% of your healing on
0:19the table, which actually sounds insane
0:22if you put it into numbers. As I'm
0:24recording this video, there is an
0:25upcoming patch with some notable nerfs
0:27to enchanter support items and runes.
0:30The good news is it won't change
0:31anything about Soraka's build and runes.
0:34Everything in this video stays valid.
0:36I'll be covering exactly what it does
0:38change in a separate video dropping very
0:40soon. Let's start with Soraka champion
0:43identity. Soraka is a lane bully. You
0:45bully your enemy with Q's, auto attacks,
0:48and E while out healing all the damage
0:50they deal back to you in trades. You out
0:53trade your enemies by consistently
0:55landing your Q's and out healing all of
0:57the damage dealt to both you and your
1:00ADC. Very good into short ranged ADCs
1:03that are weak in early game. For
1:04example, Kaisa, Twitch, Vayne, etc. They
1:08struggle to trade back effectively and
1:10your Q's are usually easier to land.
1:13Decent into engage supports and insanely
1:16good at denying enemy support roams with
1:18your silence and huge amounts of
1:20healing. [music] Great at being pain in
1:22the ass, canceling recalls, holding
1:25waves, denying enemy combos, and
1:27channelings with silence as well as
1:29baiting enemies into doing things and
1:31then making them regret it. You are the
1:34only support who can roam without
1:36physically roaming. At level six, your
1:38ultimate gives you a global presence no
1:41other support can match. That's why
1:43whenever you don't have to roam, just
1:46don't and get your level six ASAP.
1:48Literally no bad match-ups. Only some
1:50skill dependent ones that require good
1:52spacing, good silence usage, and
1:55following roams. Now, let's jump into
1:57cons. Like any other enchanter, very bad
2:00when there is nobody to play around. You
2:03are not play-making champion. Your job
2:05is to out-heal all of the damage and
2:08deny things. Yes, you will lose games
2:11when your whole team is terrible and you
2:13just have to accept that because games
2:15like this will happen. Very vulnerable.
2:18Assassins, only ADCs, and bruisers can
2:21kill you easily. To climb with her, you
2:23need to know spacing and positioning
2:26well. You need to land some of your Qs,
2:28at least in team fights, and know when
2:30to use your silence and ultimate.
2:32Otherwise, your one V9 potential is
2:34severely limited. Now, how to one V9
2:37with Soraka? You are the primary target
2:39for the enemy team in many games, and in
2:41many games, you will be hunted
2:44specifically because of how much healing
2:46you out. The better you are at spacing,
2:49dodging, positioning, using your
2:51silence, and landing your Qs, the more
2:53games you will one V9. Simply by denying
2:56enemies jumping on you and trying to
2:59kill you and out-healing their damage
3:01dealt to your teammates. In every single
3:04game, assume that you are the primary
3:06target. The bigger your heal output is,
3:09the more true this becomes. And we will
3:12cover how to maximize that heal output
3:14in a moment. The longer you survive in
3:16team fights, the more you can out-heal
3:19everything the enemy throws at your
3:21team. That's why spacing, positioning,
3:24and holding your abilities correctly and
3:26throwing them at right moment is so
3:29important on Soraka. Building correctly
3:31is also crucial, and we are about to
3:33cover that now. I know this might sound
3:37a little bit boring, but there really
3:39aren't many build variations on Soraka.
3:42In 90% of games, your build will be
3:45Moonstone into Dawncore into Redemption
3:48with your last item being 100%
3:51situational. Yes, I know that many of
3:54you prefer moonstone into redemption
3:57into dawncore instead. Let me explain
4:00why building dawncore second is
4:02significantly better. With dawncore
4:04second your healing is about 24% higher
4:07than with redemption second. Now put a
4:10stack dark seal on top of that and your
4:13healing is suddenly 40% higher. That's
4:17also why not buying on Soraka is so
4:19incredibly powerful as you can keep your
4:22dark seal at 10 stacks. That's why
4:24usually getting celestial instead of
4:27dream maker is better as well as getting
4:29swifties by default and tabis whenever
4:31enemy team is mostly ID since it's just
4:34easier to survive. Think about it this
4:36way. There is a Soraka player who builds
4:38moonstone into redemption and completely
4:42skips dark seal. Sounds familiar? And
4:44then there is a Soraka player who buys
4:46dark seal first, builds moonstone into
4:49dawncore and gets 10 dark seal stacks
4:52because they are good at spacing,
4:54positioning, dodging, roaming and map
4:56awareness. They almost never died also
4:59thanks to celestial and additional
5:01movement speed and kept their stacks at
5:0410 for the whole game. Now when you look
5:06at these two different builds add on top
5:08of that the enemy team buying at least
5:11three heal cuts, you missing every
5:13single queue during team fight, not
5:15pressing R when your teammates drop
5:17below 40% HP but when they are actually
5:20above 40% HP and also not taking
5:23revitalized and axiom arcana in runes.
5:26That might sound weird but Soraka is
5:28actually a very high skill ceiling
5:30champion that requires a lot of mental
5:33stacks to climb with. This 40% higher
5:36healing doesn't apply only to your W. It
5:39also applies to your ultimate healing as
5:41its AP ratio is also 0.5. And on top of
5:44that you heal with it for 50% more
5:48whenever your allies are below 40%
5:50health. For Q's rejuvenation passive,
5:53it's slightly different as the
5:55additional healing AP ratio is 0.3. But
5:58at maxed out W, you can apply it twice,
6:01which makes it overall a 0.6 AP ratio.
6:05And you don't need any additional
6:07ability haste to cast your W twice
6:10during [music] Q passive, which makes
6:12Ionian's not as good, transcendence not
6:15as good, and ability haste from
6:17redemption not as good as well. And
6:19that's why building dark seal and
6:21stacking on Soraka is so important. Your
6:24AP ratios are quite decent, and all of
6:27this 40% extra healing costs you only
6:31550
6:33gold more. Isn't that insane? I
6:35understand many of you love redemption
6:38purely for its active, but honestly,
6:40isn't that active not as important when
6:42you can heal your teammates for 30% more
6:45and one V nine team fights just by
6:47pressing your ultimate and healing for
6:49significantly bigger amounts throughout
6:52the game. Now, we will cover fourth item
6:54options, the situational items. All of
6:57these items you can build as third one
6:59as we have said already that redemption
7:01is not as necessary as you might think
7:03it is, but still gives you bigger
7:05healing output than these items. So, go
7:08redemption third by default if you don't
7:10need to build any of these situational
7:13items. For your last item, I will start
7:15with the risky but powerful option,
7:17Mejai's Soul Stealer. As you know,
7:19Soraka is one of the most targeted
7:21champions in the game, so finishing dark
7:23seal into Mejai's is only worth it when
7:25you genuinely believe the risk of dying
7:28is lower than usual. At 10 stacks,
7:30Mejai's also gives you a meaningful
7:32movement speed bonus, which is fantastic
7:35on Soraka. It's not expensive either, so
7:37if you somehow lose your stacks, just
7:40sell it and buy other support item. Yes,
7:43Mejais's fourth item might sound weird,
7:46but I really don't like to risk it.
7:48Shurelya's Battlesong is my other
7:50frequent fourth item pick, especially
7:52when there are enemies that love to
7:54chase you or your teammates, or when
7:57your team lacks engage, or when there is
8:00a Zera on the enemy team whose level 16
8:02armies will become very hard to dodge,
8:05and additional movement speed helps a
8:07lot. Against Zera of mid lane
8:08specifically, I will somehow build
8:10Shurelya's my second or third item
8:13because I know he will be targeting me
8:15with his ultimate constantly. Ardent
8:18Censer isn't great as a third or fourth
8:20item. 20 damage per auto and 25
8:23additional attack speed just isn't as
8:25good in late game. The numbers are quite
8:28low and even less meaningful when you
8:30are about to close out the game. Staff
8:32of Flowing Water, very good whenever
8:34your carry is AP and not AD, or overall
8:38a lot of your teammates are AP. Gives
8:40you a lot of AP whenever you proc your
8:42healing and stasis with your donk really
8:45well, so you can consider building it as
8:48third item instead of Redemption
8:50whenever your carry is AP. Locket is
8:52good if you are genuinely struggling to
8:54survive, but don't build it if you don't
8:57need to. The shield amount doesn't
8:59justify skipping another item that gives
9:02you more healing. If you are a locket
9:04fan, I would also suggest trying out
9:07Knight's Vow as your defensive item, but
9:09only if you have decent teammates to
9:11attach it to. Otherwise, you won't get
9:14any value from it. Mikael's Blessing is
9:16situational. I personally don't like it
9:19because I'm terrible at using the active
9:22at the right moment, and my ADC usually
9:24gets CC chained anyway. But if you are
9:27good at using it and the enemy team has
9:29heavy CC that your ADC struggles with,
9:32you definitely should build it. Just
9:34don't build it when you don't have to as
9:36it gives you less healing output than
9:38the other items. Zhonya's Hourglass, I
9:41never build it as it's too expensive.
9:43You can try it though as a last item,
9:45but never build it second or third.
9:47Banshee's Veil can be useful against
9:49hard to dodge long range stuns like
9:52Syndra for example or Nocturne's
9:54ultimate since it allows you to see
9:56during his ultimate. He'll probably jump
9:58on you anyway, so use your judgement if
10:00it will be as useful. I would also only
10:03build it as a last item since it's also
10:06expensive. Both Zhonya's and Banshee's
10:09have their cheaper components which
10:11makes both of these sound not as bad.
10:14Let's now jump into bad items that you
10:17should never build. Warmog's Armor, it's
10:20way too expensive and drops your healing
10:23output dramatically. I understand why
10:25some Soraka players would like to build
10:28it. Your W costs HP and Warmog's gives
10:30you infinite health regen, but your
10:32healing output will be so low that you
10:35simply will not be able to save your
10:38teammates the way a proper support item
10:42would let you. Warmog's was an
10:44acceptable but still bad item in season
10:4615 when you only needed 1500 bonus HP to
10:50proc the passive regen. Now you need
10:522000 which makes it even worse on
10:55Soraka. I wouldn't even recommend it in
10:58silver or below either, but if you truly
11:01want to try it, here is the build and
11:04the runepage. If you really want to
11:06build it, go Athene's into Warmog's into
11:08Moonstone. For runes you need HP shards,
11:11otherwise you won't have enough HP to
11:13trigger the Warmog's passive. I tried
11:16building Warmog's in bronze and silver
11:18lobby and even with the Athene's I had
11:21mana issues. So you'll have to take mana
11:23flow band. Gathering Storm is also
11:25recommended as you will have almost no
11:27AP. Echoes of Helia, you're not
11:30constantly dealing damage or buffing
11:32teammates to deal damage. It might be
11:34decent in some games where the enemy
11:36team has at least four melee champions,
11:39but I still wouldn't recommend it. The
11:41item it gives you very low healing
11:43amounts and not needed amounts of mana
11:45as Soraka is not as much mana hungry
11:48champion. It might be not the worst in
11:50quiet games where not a lot is
11:52happening, where you can make use out of
11:55this item's passive, but it's always
11:57hard to predict. So, overall it's a bad
12:00item on Soraka. Now, let's talk about
12:02boots. There are three boot options on
12:04Soraka. Ionian, Swiftness, and Plated
12:07Steelcaps. Never build Mercs as they are
12:10too expensive and when you get CC'd, you
12:12are probably dead anyway. I don't like
12:15Ionians on Soraka because as I
12:16mentioned, 28 ability haste is more than
12:20enough and both Swiftness and Steelcaps
12:22help you survive in different ways.
12:24Swiftness with movement speed and
12:26Steelcaps against heavy AD threats. And
12:29remember, you are not only building
12:31Steelcaps for the 10% auto attack damage
12:33block, but also for the armor. If the
12:36enemy has three AP champions who can't
12:39reach me that easily and only one AD
12:41threat, like Nocturne for example, I
12:43would take Steelcaps for that champion
12:46specifically. You can still build
12:48Ionians whenever you feel comfortable
12:51that you won't die this game, but
12:53overall I don't recommend them. Now,
12:56which support quest item should you
12:58choose? I build Celestial Opposition in
13:00almost every single game. I will be
13:02honest, there are some games where
13:04judgment
13:07in the lobby. If there aren't many
13:09enemies who can easily kill you or they
13:12are clearly underperforming during the
13:14game, Dream Maker is the right choice.
13:17But I see too many Soraka players
13:19building Dream Maker even when there are
13:21four enemies who can easily kill them
13:24and then they end up with 10 deaths and
13:27above. Ask yourself these questions
13:29every game in champ select. Is the enemy
13:32team going to kill me easily? Are they
13:34almost full AD? Should I build celestial
13:36and steelcaps or dream maker and
13:38ionians? Am I confident enough in my
13:41spacing and positioning that I don't
13:43need locket as a last item. The point is
13:46simple. If you are the one who will be
13:48focused, go celestial. If you are going
13:50to be safe, dream maker gives you more
13:53overall value. But let's also talk about
13:56sleigh instead of dream maker. The heal
13:58amount is small for Soraka's kit and you
14:01often can't proc it since it only works
14:04with your Q or E snare. Even when you do
14:07proc it with Q, Soraka already gets
14:09movement speed from Q. Yes, movement
14:11speed stacks in league so it's not
14:13completely useless, but when you want to
14:15peel your carry, dream maker is just
14:18better choice. You will see indeed this
14:20item many times on engage supports as
14:23they simply can't peel their carry with
14:25dream maker. Or sometimes on Nami for
14:27example as she can easily proc it with
14:30her E. Now let's talk about runes that
14:32you should take on Soraka. Soraka is a
14:34lane bully by default but there's still
14:37two different play styles depending on
14:39your rune choice. The first is aery
14:41where you bully the enemy as hard as
14:43possible. In the first three take axiom
14:46arcanist because it's simply too broken
14:48on Soraka. It meaningfully increases
14:51your ultimate healing and gives you
14:53reduced cooldown whenever you get an
14:55assist which makes additional ability
14:57haste even less meaningful on Soraka.
15:00That's it. Whenever you plan on being an
15:02aggressive lane bully or you know you
15:04will be trading heavily during the
15:06laning phase against enemy support, mana
15:09flow band is the better pick for the
15:11first row. I usually take it against
15:13Nami for example as I know that I will
15:16be probably trading a lot against her.
15:18But still, take axiom arcanist instead
15:21whenever mana sustain isn't a concern
15:23since it's simply too powerful on
15:26Soraka. [music] For second row, never
15:28take Transcendence. Movement speed is
15:30too valuable on this champion. Remember
15:33also that Celerity is taxed with your
15:35passive movement speed and Q movement
15:37speed, which makes it even more useful.
15:40If you run Aery, don't take Gathering
15:42Storm. You are lane bully and your Q and
15:45E base damage is so low that Scorch
15:48combined with Aery almost doubles it.
15:51Gathering Storm only becomes relevant 20
15:53minutes into the game and we will cover
15:56the scaling rune page in a moment. Yes,
15:59you can take Gathering Storm if you are
16:00very confident about winning the lane,
16:03but overall it will be way harder for
16:06you to be a lane bully without Scorch.
16:09In the second tree, always take Bone
16:12Plating and Revitalize. You might
16:14sometimes hear someone recommending you
16:16Second Wind over Bone Plating, but it's
16:19only decent against some poke champions
16:21and it loses all of its value after
16:24laning phase as you won't have enough
16:26time to make your HP regenerate. Bone
16:29Plating combined with Celestial and
16:31Tabis makes you almost unkillable
16:34against AD champions in melee situations
16:37and Revitalize is simply too good to not
16:40take. It increases your healing output
16:43by a meaningful amount. For shards, I
16:45always take ability haste since I don't
16:47build additional haste until my third
16:50item, making those eight extra points
16:52quite valuable early on. Movement speed
16:55as your second shard as movement speed
16:58is too broken on Soraka and scaling
17:01curve as your third. You can swap for
17:03tenacity occasionally if you feel like
17:05it, which is often a better choice than
17:07building marks or flat health if you are
17:10worried about getting stomped hard in
17:13the early laning phase. Don't take flat
17:15health by default as health amounts from
17:18scaling ones start to get bigger at
17:21level seven. The second rune page is the
17:23hyper scaling Soraka page with Guardian.
17:26Guardian is generally good when the
17:28enemy has an engage support paired with
17:30an early game ADC who can easily follow
17:33up here and engage. For example,
17:35Nautilus, Leona, or Thresh combined with
17:38Draven, Tristana, or Sivir, and so on.
17:41Also great at denying combos like Lucian
17:44plus Nami. It's also really good
17:46whenever your ADC picks a scaling
17:48champion that's vulnerable early on like
17:51Jinx, Ashe, or Smolder for example, who
17:54needs extra protection to get through
17:56the laning phase. It's also not the
17:58worst against poke lanes. Yes, it gets
18:01procced easily, but we'll talk about it
18:03in a second. In the first tree, take
18:05Font of Life, Bone Plating, and
18:07Revitalize. There's really not much of
18:09other choice here. You can try taking
18:12Unflinching whenever you know that you
18:14will struggle against engage support on
18:17enemy team, but you need to accept the
18:19fact that your healing will be slightly
18:22worse because of not taking Revitalize.
18:25In the second tree, you generally want
18:27Aery, Arcane Comet, and Gathering Storm.
18:29This is actually one of the main reasons
18:31I'm more of an Aery player. With
18:33Guardian, you are always missing
18:35something in the second tree. If you
18:37want to play more aggressively, you can
18:39take Manaflow and Scorch, but then it's
18:42not really a hyper scaling page anymore.
18:45And again, you lose the movement speed
18:47bonus as you can't pick Celerity. I know
18:50a lot of you don't like Guardian because
18:52it procs too easily. I understand that,
18:54but the key thing is that you control
18:57when it procs. You have to be near your
19:00ally for it to activate. It will not
19:02proc from low amounts of damage over
19:04time like Brand's burn early on, that
19:07fire touch, or Teemo's poison. One thing
19:09that I genuinely didn't know for a long
19:12time, Guardian procs almost 100% of the
19:15time regardless of distance and damage
19:18amount. Whenever you press W on an ally,
19:20it will proc during the 2.5 window after
19:24pressing W regardless of what deals
19:27damage, how much, or from what distance.
19:30So, if you don't want to waste Guardian,
19:33don't press W on your ally whenever they
19:35are taking minor poke damage because it
19:38will proc automatically. Proccing it
19:40with W can actually be very useful in
19:43team fights, but it's usually wasteful
19:45in laning phase against abilities with
19:47Deathfire Touch or low damage over time
19:50effects. Before we wrap up, I really
19:52want to show you the heal amounts I've
19:55personally tested on bots. Whenever you
19:57are wondering whether an item is good on
19:59Soraka and how much it actually heals
20:01for, just create a custom bot game and
20:04check the numbers by yourself. One note
20:06on testing, don't take Revitalize or
20:08Gathering Storm during your test as
20:10these runes can slightly mess up the
20:12numbers. I didn't take either when
20:14testing these values. These are numbers
20:17with a fully maxed out W and and without
20:20any Q regen. I have also put a link with
20:23download to this spreadsheet in the
20:25description if you want to check it out.
20:27Every single build and rune decision
20:29we've covered today comes down to one
20:32thing, maximizing your ability to stay
20:35alive and keep healing for as big
20:37amounts as you can. Dark Seal and
20:40Doran's Ring to maximize the healing
20:42amounts. Celestial and Swifties are
20:45still good to just simply survive. Axiom
20:48Arcane is to make your ultimate hit even
20:50harder. Soraka rewards players who
20:53understand why they are building the
20:55items that they are building rather than
20:57just copying a guide. Now you know the
21:00why. Subscribe for more high-level
21:03support tips and check out my stream.
21:06I'll see you in the next one.