Soraka/Strategy

Skill usage

 * is extremely strong in the laning phase. Getting one point in while laning allows for powerful harassment, denying creep farming. Using  to harass and restoring mana allows for a strong push and constant spell casting during laning. 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 grass) within range they can be targeted.
 * Don't forget that reduces enemy magic resist. The stacking 8 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.
 * 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.
 * If you are playing an arranged team, can be extremely useful due to her ultimate.
 * Be careful when playing against champions that can reduce your healing ability, such as and.
 * is a powerful ally in battle, using to heal and  as mana restoration as well as silence spells to keep the party moving forward.
 * 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. It also helps you push a lane, but sometimes you don't want to do that.
 * 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.
 * 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.
 * Leveling up early is probably the most balanced aproach. Infuse has both offensive and defensive uses for Soraka.
 * You should level up if you or your teammate are constantly running low on mana or if you are laning with a champion who would appreciate the ability to cast spells constantly such as.
 * 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.
 * lanes well against AP champions (casters), and  will allow you to have more control over your lane.
 * 's laning with an ally is the most viable lane choice because is known to be a support.

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 which makes or  her "offensive" boots of choice over.
 * 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 5 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 5 or 6% from masteries, , , and.