koella

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Favourite Champion: Diana

Region: EUW

Team Name: Arcane Rebirth Posts: 9

Quote Soraka - The next uprising Botlane champion? supertramp likes this Post by koella on Hello everyone!

LoLKing profile End of S3-Teamranking



Since this is my first post I might as well introduce myself really quick I am Koella, main AP player from the Team Arcane Rebirth, who finished Season 3 as the Rank 1 Team in EUW. I can play toplane-bruisers at the same level, too and sometimes, however not really competitively, I also jungle. My Team is and was always using the Support Meta since it's creation.



Now when we as a Team were rising to challenger in the later stages of Season 3, Karma found a way into competitive play. Many challengers started playing her and you could find her in Godtier in practically every Tierlist that was out at that time. She was practically know as THE best botlane champion that is banned or picked in every single high-elo-game.

The reason for that was mostly due how strong Hextech Sweeper was as an item. Now, due to the season 4 changes on Hextech Sweeper and Blackfire Torch plus players figuring out how to specifically counter her, she has fallen off a lot and is not seen often anymore.



However, we might have a new uprising top-tier-pick that noone has really realised yet. Some have picked it up and played it on tournaments, but in most of the scene she's still mostly unknown: Soraka.

Now why is she so strong nowadays? First off obviously because of the buffs she had for Season 4, but what did they really make her able to do with those?



1. Her early laning is insane. She can decide if she wants to push or be pushed. Noone can outduel her from lvls 1-5. 3 Q's on lvl 1 basically clear the whole minionwave and on lvl 3 she can jungle extremely well without losing any health due to picking W at lvl 2.

And lasthitting under your own turret couldn't be easier than with Soraka. You can even pick E at lvl 2 for extra mana-free single-target damage if you already know youre going to want to be pushed to your turret.



2. She deals a lot of sustained damage in a rather huge AoE radius in teamfights while she practically cannot die herself. Her W and R allow her or one of her teammembers to survive a lot of damage from the enemy team while usually remaining at (relatively) high health. Her E-silence has a good range which can stop enemy spellcasters from doing damage or even stop them from escaping (remember, while you're silenced you can't flash!). And since you want build Rylais ASAP she also has great utility in terms of general CC.

Sidefact that many people don't know: Hitting your Q on enemy champions reduces the cooldown of your W!



3. When building her correctly she basically becomes an AP-tank that stands in the middle of the enemy team and just makes the enemy want to run away from her. Instead of the usual Meta-backline-bursty-mage you now have a huge unkillable unicorn that deals a ton of damage to everyone around her, that heals your teammates, shreds your enemies MR and silences them.



So will Soraka be the next God-Tier "best 3v3 AP" champion? She will definitely be a lot higher than Tier 3 in our next Tierlist that we publish! If she really gets as popular as Karma was, who knows? Time will show



Build



I'd now also like to go into the build a little bit for everyone who now wants to try her



Starting Items: Dorans Ring, Boots, 2 Healthpots, 1 Manapot

Why? In the early laningphase Soraka is extremely strong anyways, she just needs to get in position for her Q. Unlike other casters she doesn't need the extra early strength from a second Dorans. I prefer to have the extra bit of sustain and mobility to keep farming as long as possible until you go back for the first time. However Doubledorans is also a completely fine and valid start.



Core Items: Morellonomicon, Sorcerer's Shoes, Haunting Guise, Rylai's Crystal Scepter

Why? Morellonomicon gives you the extra bit of CDR and Manaregeneration you need on Soraka. It also provides a good amount of AP and a possibly very strong passive healing-reduction and you get everything for a really cheap price! Build this as soon as possible!

Sorcerer's Shoes are obviously there for the extra magic penetration, as if your Q wasn't enough, and the extra mobility!

Haunting Guise gives you EVEN MORE magic pen and some extra health to be able to stand in the enemy team without any fear! I often choose to buy a Ruby Crystal after Sorcerers Shoes, then build my Rylais, and only then finishing my Haunting Guise, which is then often immediately upgraded into a Liandry's Torment.

The Rylais adds a lot of Utility to your kit! Your Q becomes a 15% PERMANENT slow for the entire enemy team and suddenly you cannot only use E as a silence, but also use it as a 35% slow that helps you get into Q-range of the target or that helps your team catch up if you're chasing.



Lategame-Itemchoices:

Liandry's Torment: Synergises really well with your Rylais for a lot of extra damage over time and makes you quite tanky as well! In most games you will choose to build this right after finishing your Rylais.

Moonflair Spellblade: Makes it a lot harder to CC you, gives you some nice extra AP and adds all the resistances you need to the high health-total you arleady have. In most games I will choose to build this over either Wooglet's Witchcap or Voidstaff.

Voidstaff: You probably won't really need it since your Q, Sorcerer's and Liandry's already give you a ton of magic penetration. However, if your enemy decides to build a lot of MR, you will probably feel a need to buy this to still deal enough damage.

Wooglet's Witchcap: Adds a ton of AP and a good amount of armor to your stats. Really a good item overall. You probably won't need the active part of it, but it could be nice to have in certain situations.



The End



I hope I was able to interest you at least a little bit into Soraka and if you tried her out for yourself be sure to leave a comment on how you feel about her!

Feedback is definitely appreciated!



messiah

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The swag master 420 blazer 360 no scope donger

Posts: 8

Quote Soraka - The next uprising Botlane champion? Post by messiah on Wow really really nice guide. I'll definitely try her out when me and rfsupertramp next play!

I really didn't want to give any criticism seeing as the guide is so great, but as you asked for it:



- Maybe some details on who she synergies well with

- Who's she bad with (both ally team and enemy)

- Around when does she get her biggest power spike & peak



I realise these are all questions people could answer themselves by just playing her a few times but it's always nice to save some time by getting told from a professional ^^



5/5



azridkatt

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Favourite Champion: AP Corki OP

Region: EUW

Team Name: Team 1V RG Posts: 13

Quote Soraka - The next uprising Botlane champion? Post by azridkatt on Well rounded discussion and an interesting topic, personally i've been looking into it too and find her very viable, but id like to here your opinion on soraka against high cc/burst combs since i find her scaling off against them cause she simply isnt allowed to heal up properly in early/mid.

And have you tried a tear or athenes on her both work wonders and tear will give you a extra defensive option when turned into zeprahs embrace in the mid/late.

Ofc both of those would be a substitute for a morello

pdodd

Gold





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Quote Soraka - The next uprising Botlane champion? Post by pdodd on great guide! i just ran a few games using your suggestions. first few observations:



1. CS'ing with Soraka is super easy, and it is nice having so much control of the lane's wave.



2. In the past, I really underestimated her MR shred. After one or two starfalls, it really begins to add up!



3. Once you've purchased a Rylai's, you can really catch folks off guard by being much tankier than they thought you were.



Overall, I'd say that an important thing to keep in mind is to not be afraid to get into the fight! You can have a much greater impact than you may realize as Soraka. She's no feeble SR Soraka! Haha.

koella

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Favourite Champion: Diana

Region: EUW

Team Name: Arcane Rebirth Posts: 9

Quote Soraka - The next uprising Botlane champion? Post by koella on Well first of all thanks to everyone for the feedback, questions and ideas! Gonna try to comment on everything in particular below



To Messiah: (why cant I make at's here? xP the curly Q-things for eMails, you know what i mean! xD)



Synergies: She synergizes quite well with both the support- and the junglermeta in my opinion. For a supporter you can pick something that can keep people alive even more than Soraka alone (Lulu!), and since if you run a Jungler you will want a strong early botlane Soraka can fit that Meta quite well, too. And I think she synergizes extremely well with assassins, who are normally rather unviable on this map, but since they can be kept alive even after their initital burst rotation by Sorakas heals and then have a potential to jump in a second time makes them way stronger than they are on their own. Also, Soraka provides a lot of sustained damage and stands in the middle of the enemy team to deal damage, which is practically a bruisers role. That means you don't need to necessarily have a tanky bruiser anymore since she can now fulfill that role.



Anti-synergies/Counters: I've recently found out that Sion is a really really bad matchup for her She loses all of her early pressure since her Q's just go into his shield and he pushes just as fast while also being able to deal a lot of damage to Soraka. So that would be a hardcounter to Soraka I'd say. Other champions that are good versus her would be for example Ziggs or Syndra, who can easily push from quite a good range early on and even poke Soraka in the meanwhile. However, those matchups are still managable by Soraka in my opinion, they are only "slight counters" Other champions that Soraka suffers quite a bit against, but more so now in teamfights, are Morgana, Udyr, Shyvana and teamcomps that aim to lock and burst down a single target.

I wouldn't say she's bad when played with specific other champions or teamcomps, but if you really want to make her viable in the highest elos you have to specifically build a team that she works with and that fits the roles. In my opinion she could work in either a Supportmeta with Lulu and an assassin top or generally the Junglemeta as long as your bruisers have some CC and at least a bit of AD burst. So she's definitely more versatile when playing in a Jungler-comp



Her Power Spikes in the very earlygame are mostly when she gets to lvl her Q. I'm always impressed how much damage i suddenly do in comparison to before when i lvl up my Q at lvl 3 or 5. After those early spikes I think her next big spike is when she finishes her Rylais, but then it's more in terms of Utility and Survivability^^ She's also a really great lategame champion and I think that's where she gets kind-of a "permanent" spike pretty much as soon as she hits 5-6 items^^ Practically unkillable and SO much damage it's not even funny



To azridkatt:



Yeah those are the comps she has the hardest time dealing with! Really the best advice to give here is just to try and not get caught before the fight starts and be very careful of the exact timing when you actually try to run into their lines. To win against those camps it's often good if your bruisers/assassin can kill a target that's offguard before the fight starts. If you can't do that you're gonna find yourself and your team needing a lot of synergy and micromanagement to come out ahead in such teamfights xP That's why if you're trying to play Soraka in ranked's its good to not firstpick her and see what the enemies pick, OR ban all the champions that you really struggle dealing with



The tear sadly doesn't give you the cooldown-reduction that you REALLY need on Soraka And that's really all there is to it^^ Oh and it also makes your earlygame-build a lot slower and you dont transition into midgame that well. Buying a tear would basically mean choosing to only go for the lategame xP



Athenes is definitely a possibility, I didn't even think of that, yes! I should probably consider building it if the enemy team is rather AP-heavy or if their AP has some sort of advantage (kills, an unusual amount of cs) xP

The problem with always building Athene's though is that it costs 400 gold more than Morellos, and that gold is gold you practically only spend on the MR and that will delay your Rylais or other tankiness. Morellos gives more AP than Athenes and the passive is stronger than the manareg-passive on Athenes, since you have manareg on 3s anyways and the bit you get from Morellos should be more than enough to be able to manage your mana

So in most cases I would probably still prefer building Morellos, but there are certainly some enemies and situations I will now consider buying Athenes against, thanks for the suggestion!



To pdodd:



Glad to hear youve had some success with her!

Really nice to see when people realise that she really has some great strengths and is not to underestime when you have to play against her

