User blog:Bashfrog/Apc Supports- Cause You Can

Well, I've been very timid about my next post, so here it goes, regardless of critisism.

Though some people enjoy the support role, I myself dislike it a lot. That and building tanky. The reason for this is I completely hate not being able to get kills. Maybe not lead the charge, as my top three champs are all squishy mages, but getting the kills, and if I'm Ahri, assasinating people like there's no tommorow after destroying my likely fizz and kass-free lane. (unless it's free week, or there's an influx.  Then I cry.)  So, despite the fact that I do like some of the supports designs, I will likely never invest ip in getting them because of this issue. However, I found an incredibly obvious solution that people who aren't sub-30 (ok, 26, but let's not get ahead of ourselves) probably alredy guessed: Playing a support in an apc role. This combines my favorite lane (mid) with my favorite pastime (wreaking enemy teams) and it's easy to do if you already know your way around, in this order:

1.Find a support whose design you like- For example, I picked soraka specifically, mostly as I like her abilities and in part her design (*cough* low priced and I lacked ip *cough*), though I am also partial to Janna and Lulu's designs and kits as well.

2. Figure out the best way to level their abilities them offensively- For me, this was leveling either starcall or infuse first, though I find infuse to be insanely powerful when not used for infinite mana, so I leveled that the first time I tried it.

3. Learn the best way to build them- Like most supports, soraka really needs cdr, and she already has a very spammable q. At the same time, she runs through mana insanely fast, even with your no mp OP infuse (mostly because her strategy is to spam starcall until they stop hitting you.) So you might end up using an item like Tear of the Godess combined with Athene's Unholy Grail or Morellnomicon (If you realy, really want to play the assasin Soraka)  Rylai's will be needed, as despite her support role, Soraka is almost all raw power/healing, with various debuffs and buffs that will not slow your enemies. You'll also want to build something like Liandry's and Rabbadon's/Deathfire, because you're an apc. Lastly, the boots you want are CDR boots, always. Starcall peels MR anyway, so magic pen. is really a waste in my opinion.

4. FInd their best strategy- As a apc Soraka, you'll want to be very, very selfish until you're strong enough to fight with your team and not get focused to death before you can kill. This means going in and getting those ganks off even if they might have gotten caught anyway, using your heals on yourself to secure your survival and the kill, and escaping as quickly as possible if things go bad, because remember: '''YOU HAVE NO ESCAPE. '''Always remember that Soraka is usually a support because she's so squishy that a quick glance will burst her down to half health (Ap Sion is no joke, not being able to use half his abilities or not.)  You are playing someone so insanely squishy, and with such horrible escapes, that gettng Rylai's is a reqirement if you want to do anything alone, and you get beat out of your lane if you take a few hits (you won't have the healing power or the mana early game ti sustain hard unless you play really passively.)  However, Soraka excels at 1v1s. This allows her to hold her own, as 1.She's not getting focused like she will be in teamfights and 2. Infuse basically destroys mages. Soraka is basically a textbook mage killer, being one of the few with a silence that has both range and needs no targeting. Though she doesn't have a true burst, an infuse followed by a succesion of starcalls, which shred the MR that the mage you're stomping likely was building if they're playing someone like Anvia or Swain who needs that Athene's early. Not only that, but since you don't really have much to do but infuse, spam starcall, and heal if you need to, you can spend more of your effort not on aiming your attacks, but dodging theirs. Plus, she has her own extra mr as a passive. She may be squishy, but against a mage 1v1, you won't notice her complete lack of armor and obvious escape weakness, as they'll be too bogged down by all your debuffs to do much else but run. She can even take down many ad champs, by the same logic as the mages, though more complicated, as they can actually fight back most of the time. She infuses, they can't gap close, spam q, use the w for extra armor and to knock off any damage taken, follow, and if you have Rylai's, likely have the kill secured if nothing goes wrong, as your starcall is spammed so many times it's almost like a permaslow. However, this doesn't mean that she can do this to ever ad champ, and it won't work on one that doesn't rely on abilities. For example, Yi (though before rework, though I've killed him after as well) tends to die a horrible fate to Soraka 1v1 at times if you're fed, because he needs his abilities to trigger to do the superfast damge he's known for, and his Alpha Strike, now one of his greatest boons (and I mean op), gets stalled until it might be too late. Also, the heal armor works in your favor now due to that. But now I'm just rambling.

Closing- Soraka Apc is playable, but her tendency to fall quickly to focused bursts of ad damage before she can respond can make her seem weak, as well as her inability to escape without item or team intervention. (Oh, and a weak early game that forces her to leave a lot due to mana loss if you're an offensive player)  At the same time, she excels outside of team fights, hunting down lone ability based ap champions, and even ad champions, and leaving bannanas protruding out of the enemy teams' corpses before they can even run.