I’ve never been much of a support player. It just doesn’t appeal to me. I like to farm. I like to take buffs. I like to gank. I like to set up champion kills. I don’t like to stand in lane watching my Clairvoyance cooldown tick away. But there’s no way to deny that support can make or break a game, and playing against a good support can be extremely frustrating. Lucky for anyone matched against me this week, I’m not a good support. I bring you this week’s Champ of the Week: Soraka.
Soraka is probably the most straightforward support champion in the game. She doesn’t have any crazy AoE disables, any shields, any CC other than her silence. She just heals, and heals for quite a bit. I have two problems when playing Soraka that I’m hoping to remedy this week. First, I put too much faith in her early healing. That cooldown is long and without any AP the heal is fairly weak at lower levels. As mentioned above, I really like action, so standing in lane and waiting for my carry to get farmed gets really boring. That’s when I tend to overextend or try to harass too much and get my ass killed.
I also need to work on her build. I know a lot of players like to get an Aegis, but I often feel like it comes too late in the game to be truly useful. It’s a good item, I just hate looking at my spells 25 minutes into the game and seeing the base heal amount on all of them. That said, an AP rush usually isn’t in Soraka’s (or her team’s) best interest. I’m going to focus on playing builds that maximize my team efficiency and maybe one or two that can add a little flavor to her playstyle. I see a Deathfire in my future.
Check back later this week for more reports on how I fail as a support. If you have any suggestions, drop them in the comments. I will need them.
Ahhh… supports. I think you already know the awesomeness of Gold per 10 items, such as Philo or HoG, then you can also get some aura ones like Soul Shroud. If you’re going pure support (and you’ll most likely have to with Soraka) get Shurelia’s Reverie. It upgrades from Philo
and if you’re willing to, get your Randuin’s going. But you should only get rid of your gp10 items when you don’t need em, or you could be in a problem (for a little while, they’re cheap)
YEEEES!!! It’s….SORRAAAAAAKAAAAAA.
Try DPS Soraka, Rageblade Soraka, tank Soraka…be creative.
So many self-healing, high DPS, exceptionally tanky toons in play right now (ugh.), you throw in Soraka, after she’s done babysitting a squishy for 15 min and the laning phase ends, she can really clean house.
She’s damn fine support, however. Curious as to what summoners you’d pack, and if there’s variability in that.
I was messing around with her and had very good luck with her this week. I basically built her kind of like a strange singed tank. rushed two ROA (yes two with merch treds somewhere in there), then FON and then tanked her out depending on the needs and even sometimes built a 3rd ROA or I would give her a nice hat or hourglass. It was lots of fun and massive heals. I ended one game 6/0/10, and another 1/2/30.
forgot to mention playstyle though. Hitting your ult during teamfights is so important. I tend to do it shortly after or about halfway after the teamfight started. That said after I turn 6 and everyone is still laning I keep an eye out for engagements and usually my teammate will win it because I’ll ult for him/her. Her ult makes a huge difference in teamfights. also, didnt lose a single game with her out of 5 this week.
Tr3mor, that is a huge farm for Soraka. I tried getting a RoA in a game yesterday but it took a while. I don’t think I had it finished until the 25 minute mark, which means it wasn’t done stacking until 38 or 40 (I don’t remember, does it cap at 13 or 15 minutes). I can’t imagine building 2 plus a deathcap, though it does sound like it would be a lot of fun.
G, I’ll be checking out some crazier builds with her since I don’t know her as well and I think she could have some interesting variability. DPS Soraka? Not so much, but the others sure.
once you get her timing down you can last hit very easily. I don’t put any points into astral call until the end (which then allows for crazy farming). I stay champion focused and we get good kills.
I’d try, for partial or full premade
Ionian boots
Philo stone #2
shuerelias (built from first Philo stone)
Hog
Aegis of legion
Remember stones don’t stack so be sure to get your second stone after you buy shurelias
For solo que I tend to farm some gold
Dorans ring
Ionian boots
Philo stone
Needlessly large rod
Aegis of legion
Tr3mor, at the moment, the support is not supposed to grab any last hits. Since supports mostly, well, support a carry at bot lane and are usually not so farm dependant, you’ll have to do with gold/10 items and assists for the income. I’d go the way of a HoG, Philo and Kage Pick. Pick up wards and eventually an oracles and buy an item for either ap or survivability from time to time and you’re golden.