Board Thread:League of Legends discussion/@comment-2112140-20140211084940/@comment-24055932-20140318233145

After playing her on every lane as every type, I got the conclusion that Soraka can be counted as many, but not as troll pick. She can perform as Mid- or Toplaner or as Support, though in every case you should either have a fitting team or an enemy you want to counter with your abilities.

As laner, Soraka is extremly versatile due to her silence, consistent damage and heals aswell as being able to build depending on the team compilation either Full AP, Sustained AP or Full Tank. If you got some experience, you easily can First Pick her, as nobody will be able to tell where you are going, and as nobody got experience playing vs. Soraka, nobody will know how to counter her.

So, when Soraka comes down to be a usefull pick?

1. You got a hypercarry, who, if he just survives long enough, will make your game a win.

2. The enemy team got multiple assassins/nukers.

3. The enemy team got a champ you can fully deny - both on- and off lane.

An easy pick to learn Top Lane Soraka is Darius - he got a high burst, strong poke - but you do everything to deny him: Your poke outranges his poke, he can't combo you, as you silence him once you get pulled to him, and your sustain counters his burst. Once laning phase is over, you still are incredibly more usefull than him, especially since you can deny his ult with a timed heal or deny him chaining his abilities.

Generally, Soraka counters all top laners with 2 of the following attributes:

a) limited consistent damage

b) no sustain (be aware that lifesteal/spellvamp from some point of the game act as sustain)

c) AD-Abilities

d) low mobility that allows kiting

Counterpicks for Soraka Top are: Aatrox (++),Dr. Mundo (+),Irelia (++), Jax (+), Jayce (+), Kayle (+++), Malzahar (++), Mordekaiser (+++),  Rumble (+++), Zac (+), Zed (+)

Legend:                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               (+):     You will outscale her, though, the first levels will still be a pain. (++):   You will have no problems in laning, though it is not certain if you will grab a kill or outscale her. (+++): You are both on- and off lane for the major part of the time at advantage.

For Mid Lane Soraka it is highly important that you got a Full Damage Champ on the top lane, else in most cases your teams lack of damage will overcome your utility and cause your team too lose lategame. Too learn her I'd advise to pick her into an LB pick, as you got all the tools you need to deny her: Excellent poke and waveclear, the ability to disrupt her combinations (and as well, later in teamfights the power to trap her in a teamfight by silencing her right after she uses her dash) and the sustain to overcome her strong burst. As there is a quite high amount of champions you won't be able to do that much against, I won't advise it as Blind Pick.

Generally, Soraka counters all Mid Laners that:

a) Scale terribly into the game and mainly abuse their Early- to Midgame to carry on later

b) Got a high burst, but low to no consistent damage

Counters therefore are well scaling champions, e.g. Orianna,Mordekasier, Karthus and Cassio.

When to choose which build?

Full AP: Generally only usefull if you want to throw out extremly high heals and are certain not to get focussed. The finished build would be like: Archangel's Stuff, Morellonomicon, Lichbane, Rabadons, Zhonyas

Explanatory Situations: You got a fed Yasuo in your team; You yourself are extremly fed; Teamfights will result to be fought in two fractions: Your frontline vs. enemies high priority champs and Enemies Frontline vs. your high priority champs.

Sustained AP: In most cases the preferable choice. Rod, Rylais, Sceptar, Rabadons and a Randuins and if you got a full tank in your team, you can stand in the middle of the fight, being able to let stars shower down on the whole enemy team while being in range to heal up any of your team members.

Full Tank: If your team really needs a Tank, then you can fit in this role aswell. 40 % CDR and the CD-Reduction from your q will extend your HP by a significant amount as you will be able to heal yourself propably twice or more before you die while being able to spam your q onto the whole enemy team. The finished build would be like: Spirit Visage, Frozen Heart/Unholy Grail, Randuins/Thorn Mail, Warmogs, Liandrys/Guardian Angle

An aspect on support Soraka that often overlooked is her power in non-meta bot lanes, e.g. Leblanc & Soraka. As she provides high amounts of HP and Mana this fixes the common problems an AP Carry experiences on the bot lane and allows the most of the AP Carries to perform on the bot lane, as they got in exchange for their lack of sustain higher damage values, which for usual compensate or even surpass the damage done by the hostile supporter. This enables some kinda interesting champion rotations or even special non meta compositions.