Soraka/Strategy

Skill usage

 * lanes well with and against AP champions (casters); and  will allow you to have more control over your lane against them and  debuff will help increase the damage of your AP partner and  will help mana constraints.
 * Leveling up early may limit your utility, but it can help you harass better than many other champions in the game and it lets you farm up money for items more easily.
 * You should level up when your team is completely in control of the lane and you want to keep the pressure on, or want to farm up a lot of gold.
 * is extremely strong in the laning phase. Getting one point in while laning allows for powerful harassment, denying creep farming. Using  to harass allows for a strong push. Since she can heal herself, playing aggressively can be rewarding, as long as you are not being overly reckless.
 * uses very little mana and has a short cooldown, which makes it effective for farming. It can only be cast when a target is in range. If there is a stealthed enemy (whether by ability or by being hidden in brush) within range they can be targeted.
 * Don't forget that reduces enemy magic resist. The stacking 8 to 12 reduction per cast will make a difference if your team has magic damage, but don't risk your life to get in 's short range. The magic reduction also increases your damage if you need to fight.
 * Keep the magic resistance reduction in mind because you never know when getting in a before  rather than after will just barely give you enough bonus damage to score a kill.
 * Cast before  to penetrate high amounts of enemy magic resistance and deal more damage.
 * Leveling up early will be the most taxing option for Soraka as far as mana consumption goes, but after a few levels, it allows her and her teammate to shrug off all but the most tenacious harassment.
 * You should level up when you and/or your teammate constantly find yourself at low health, or are constantly being harassed but you aren't having mana problems.
 * On the off-chance that you find yourself leading a solo push against a tower, consider using on a Siege Minion. These minions take half damage from towers, so healing it and buffing its armor can increase its longevity by a substantial amount.
 * Leveling up early is probably the most balanced aproach. Infuse has both offensive and defensive uses for Soraka.
 * You should level up if your teammate is constantly running low on mana or if you are laning with a champion who would appreciate the ability to cast spells constantly such as.
 * Take advantage of 's silence to further harass enemies with or to heal yourself with  so as to continue pressure.
 * Late game, should be used on enemies with channeling spells that deal a great amount of damage such as  for the silence rather than restoring allies' mana.
 * Using against champions that rely on spell combos or escape abilities is very effective. For example,  relies on a stun and burst. A well-placed silence between will let the stun victim escape without harm. This can also work "aggressively", silencing champions with strong escape abilities such as, , , and.
 * You can cast on your allies from across the map to save them from otherwise fatal events. Keep an eye on their health bars on the left side of the screen and cast when appropriate. This is also an effective way to grab assists, even if your allies aren't in absolute danger.
 * If you are playing an arranged team, can be extremely useful due to her ultimate.
 * It may also be pointed out that building with high amounts of ability power can make her an extremely aggressive champion.
 * Keep in mind not to get too greedy as 's abilities do have a somewhat low range.
 * Be careful when playing against champions that can reduce your healing ability, such as, , or . Similarly, watch for enemy champions with , as they can greatly reduce your heal's effectivness on low health allies.
 * lanes extremely well with for multiple reasons:
 * needs 6 stacks for it to be usable. can easily charge this because of its ridiculously short cooldown.
 * uses a lot of mana especially with its stacking mana cost., at full rank, can quickly restore it. can be used to silence your taget after the silence from  expires.
 * can help greatly because of his anti-mage nature.
 * The bonus armor and heal from can help  greatly since he is a melee mage.
 * Stay with your teammates. has no escaping abilities, and is little more than a gank without your team around.

Build usage

 * , and  give  assists when used on allies, making  a good choice if you play carefully.
 * is a great item on, because she can quickly return her health with using Starcall on large groups of minions also getting some AP and helping casters.
 * Getting items with effective auras, like a, allow her to further benefit her team.
 * All of healing abilities ( : 45%,  : 70%) have average AP scaling, so building her as a tanky-caster makes her a quite effective healer.
 * It also makes seemingly aggressive items like defensively potent.
 * Due to how spammable is, and the high AP ratios on her heals,  can be a great item to get early. The extra AP translates into extra survivability due to her heals.
 * Getting a not only is a great way to get AP and HP for Soraka, it also allows her to constantly keep the entire enemy team moving slowly with  and/or slow a single opponent to a crawl with.
 * The combination of slow from and silence from  is a great way to prevent a champion from escaping while your teammates kill him.
 * One option for Soraka in especially long games is since all the stats are very useful on her and she can use  to proc the on-hit effect to make her more potent in a team fight.
 * By late game, heals are so powerful, they can render much of her team nearly invincible. When this happens, the other team may start focusing Soraka, so grabbing an item like  or  can keep you alive long enough for your heals to come off cooldown.
 * Most of Soraka's base spell power and AP ratios are directed towards healing her teammates rather than damaging enemies. This makes or  her "offensive" boots of choice over, since they increase her ability to close into spell range and/or spam once there.
 * Starting off with, one and one  is one opportunity which gives Soraka the invaluable ability to place a ward close to her lane in the early laning phase, which can save her and her partner from early jungler's ganks. It also increases survivability by increasing movement speed.
 * A common tactic is to maximize cooldown reduction. This can be done very efficiently with 10 or 6% from masteries, depending on whether you go 9/0/21 or 0/9/21, 15% from, and 20% from . A less-AP-focused, more expensive method that is arguably more "supportive" is to take 10 or 6% from masteries, , , and . Alternatively, buying a and a  (in combination with CDR from masteries) will max out the stat, and leave you room to buy  or.
 * Now that can no longer self-target, mana regeneration is another key consideration.  unique passive will not only grant you the much needed mana regeneration but also grant you bonus magic resistance, synergizing well with your passive . it can later be upgraded into an  increasing its base mana regeneration, magic resistance, granting bonus cooldown reduction and high ability power providing you the highest possible MP5 rate when you have 0% mana making it an extremely cost-efficient item on .  unique passive synergizes well with, and its bonuses will not be lost if you evolve it into , which provides the second-highest MP5 rate. The third-highest comes from , which has the added benefit of being cheap and providing Tenacity.

Countering

 * is spammable and reduces your magic resistance whenever it hits you. Either try to stay away from her outright during laning phase so she won't be able to harass you, or wait for the magic resist debuff to fade before closing in again.
 * Always have an or  ready whenever you are going to engage an enemy that have  in their team in order to reduce the effects of her two healing abilities.
 * Also, Try to build a to counter her armor from her.
 * Even if is not nearby, consider using  or  on your target when they are about to die to reduce the healing they receive from.

Champion Spotlight
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJ6f1nsoUTs