Solo Carry Soraka - Introspective guide to carry. {Master Approved}

[alimuncher]

Since i didnt found anything about this guide on this forum, i started to think that i should share it with the community considering it helped me to reach Master Tier, even tho its from the L# forum, this could help lots of players to climb the ladder and achieve their "dreams" of reaching higher elo peaks!
This guide is oriented on using L# as a tool to perform high elo mechanics.
So enjoy, and remember to UPVOTE if i helped you somehow. It doesnt cost you nothing

• • Guide Summary​
  Soraka is THE most strongest support right now in game, we can easily say that without any exaggeration!
  Soraka has the most broken healing capabilities this game has ever had in it's history. Soraka pick works in every elo, any server, any teamcomp making her a perfect champion to take up as your main!
  In this guide I will be showing you everything that a basic and an advanced support Soraka should know. Soraka's learning curve is a lot more friendly than most other champions but she will still be challenging through your whole climb on the ladder!
  I don't give empty promises and with this guide I can promise you a climb in ladder!
  Without further talks lets dig into this guide. Remember, you need L# for this and some assemblies.
  • ​The assemblies kit
  Here we will talk about the assemblies you want to use to execute this guide at his 100%. All the assemblies are basically utilities except the main one. This will help you to make your life as support easier.
  

  https://imgur.com/tVpQ2SO

  I suggest to disable global ult and use it manually in the settings.
  • Summoner spells
  Flash and Exhaust 100% of the cases. If you think you can run ignite (not suggested) and you feel confident enough, go ahead.
  • Masteries

  https://imgur.com/APq5p3Y

  You are aiming after more sustainability and more AP. I don't like defensive tree because Soraka does not need HP and offensive tree can also be used defensively by having higher heals on yourself.
  Reason why I don't take Expanded Mind and Inspiration is simply because there are bad masteries. You wont be stacking mana on Soraka so % regeneration is useless and Inspiration is as good as Runic Blessing.
  • Runes
  ​x3 4.95 Ability Power
  x9 +1 Armor
  x6 - 0.83% Cooldown Reduction
  x3 +1.19 Ability Power
  x9 +0.91 Armor
  With these runes we are aiming for maximum lane survivability while trying to reach exactly 40% CDR as soon as possible.
  Having high armor is very important on lane as Soraka since you are the carry of the bottom lane, if they don't focus you, they wont win 2v2s. If you get ganked, then most of the time you will be recieving AD damage simply cause junglers are generally AD.
  • Skills Levelling Order
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  2, 14, 15, 17, 18.
  
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  Level 1, 3, 5, 7, 9.
  
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  Level 4, 8, 10, 12, 13.
  
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  Level 6, 11, 16.
  You will never start with Q because you will always need heal level 1 for either taking a camp with your ADC or to heal your jungler once he is at ~90% HP when doing his first jungle camp.
  Q is your self-sustain spell, the lower your HP is the more you heal and the closer you cast it to yourself, the faster it will land down. Always try to make the Q cast in the center of an enemy when chasing/escaping as it will slow the target(s).
  Get W at level 3 again if you feel like you wont be getting any ganks until level 4. The lower your Ws level is the less you will heal while no matter what level you are, you lose 10% HP per heal.
  This is why you NEVER build ANY hp on Soraka, not even sightstone.
  If you feel like you will be getting a gank from jungler or will be ganked yourself, level E as your level 3 spell.
  • Items and Build Paths
  ​
  
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  Absolutely every game. Coin might give you extra sustain on lane but more ap = more heals and frost queen is a lot better for locking enemies down in your E.
  Core Items
  
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  Rush frost queen. Always have a pink down as early as possible. Upgrade your trinket as soon as you get level 9. Always have 1-5 hp potions with you.
  
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  With these or less items you will be finishing 90% of your games. All that you need on Soraka is AP and since elixir gives you extra mana too it's a great purchase for mid-/endgame. You normally don't need more items.
  Situational Items
  
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  You can sometimes buy zhonya before rabadons if enemies detact that you are the only problem for them, which you will be 90% of the games. Abyssal when you are against 2-3 AP champs and atleast 1 of them is assassin.
  I will not get into detail why I am not building the things that you see in other guides and in LCS. I actually don't even know why LCS supports have not adapted this style, it is EXTREMELY effective with little to no downfalls.
  The most important thing to remember is that you are playing soloQ and soloQ is poor in communication and decisionmaking, that is why Soraka is so insanely powerful with this build.
  The goal of this whole build and masteries/runes is to get 40% CDR as fast as possible and then simply stack AP. The more AP you have, the more you will heal and you will heal A LOT.
  You buy zhonya when enemy AD assassin is constantly having success killing you (Rengar, Zed and Talon).
  The only assassin that Soraka can't deny always is Rengar, everyone else can be outplayed with simply using skills correctly. I actually build zhonya very rarely or as 4th item vs full AD team I always want to build highest reward build.
  Abyssal can be bought if you are noticing that enemy AP assassin is constantly trying to kill you. If they have only 1 AP champion that is bothering you, try to outplay him/her with your spells until you have finished Rabadons and then buy magic resist.
  • Soraka in general
  ​
  Before getting to Soraka there is a huge misconception to be explained!
  Support does not mean you have the least impact in the game. Without exaggerating, support is one of the highest carry potential role next to jungler. If support would not have any impact on the game. I would not be maining Soraka on such a level.
  Soraka is not the most mechanics requiring champion in the game but probably one of the highest risk, highest reward when it comes to decisionmaking. You never be afraid to pick Soraka into any matchup in any game. Soraka fits everywhere because her healing ability can be used very universally - you can be aggressive and defensive at the same time with your heals.
  If you are against a poke comp, you can heal the poke up with very low cost. That is something that Soraka is extremely effective against.
  If you are against a dive comp, you can simply zone people with the silence and with your heals, you will sustain a lot longer under the tower (Sorry to all you alistar players ).
  If you are against a kite comp, you can keep healing your bruisers/tanks up with almost no effort while picking up easy heals on yourself with your Q.
  If you are against an assassin comp, your E is insanely strong against anyone squishy and if you are capable of placing ults / Ws between their combos, they have no chance of killing anyone squishy (I love playing against kata mains )
  Soraka's strenght lies in her AP heals scalings which are ABNORMALLY high. With a 25-30 minute build that includes Rabadons your healing capabilities are:
  W: 450 health every 1.2 seconds.
  R: 440-660 x 5 every 95 seconds.
  An ADC around that time has roughly 1600 HP meaning that if you use all your spells at once, ADC can heal from 20% hp to 100% within 0.1 seconds but it does not stop there. Teamfights lasts for 10-30 seconds often, meaning that you can pump out 3600 HP on your ADC alone every 10 seconds if your are fingers are fast enough (yay for scripts) and he is capable of kiting correctly.
  It is not rare for me to win an equal gold teamfight at 40 mins with absolutely everyone surviving while enemy team gets aced.
  • Mindset and Gameplay
  The most important part of your mindset is to NOT BE LAZY EVER. If you are lazy and wont put effort in the game, you will not learn, you will not advance. I can GUARANTEE you that. Every time something happens on the map or in the game - THINK how it happened and what could you have done to avoid it or play it better? You died = see if you could have warded somewhere earlier to avoid it or maybe used skills differently? Or maybe should have rushed Zhonya first? The list goes on forever with endless situations. The more you focus on the game , hte faster you climb and learn. Your absolute number 1 goal all the time is keeping your team as healthy as possible in every situation. If you see that your jungler is passing you with 80% HP, you spread your heals. ADC takes 3 autos on lane = you heal. Your number 2 goal is to keep the locations warded constantly and have 1 pink ward + 3/3 wards down since you have reached level 9. Number 3 goal is obviously staying alive yourself to the best of your capabilites. If you feel like you cant do much with your ADC on lane or you see that you are losing the game WAY too hard on other lanes, let your ADC know that you are moving out to help other lanes. That should be always done after level 6, you can could support your ADC over hte map with your ult. You can help others out by simply healing them up on lanes, ganking or even simply placing a ward which can have a lot more influence on the game than you could expect. As for ganking - a 1.5 second silence into a 2 second snare should be more than enough to kill an opoonent. Soraka can do all that simply becuase she is the least ADC reliant support in the game, your skills work as good on anyone else. Even if it happens that you are not winning the game and you are 20 kills behind, a good Soraka CAN win games and I have won SO many games with a very great disadvantage. Once you see that your team is demotivated by the deficiency of early game success - do your best to convince them that you can still win easily, because you can! That's the reason why I like Soraka so much. There is not a single other support that can have that much game impact.
  • Warding
  ​
  Eventhough your build path shows no sightstone, you should still try to have minimum 2/3 wards around the map constantly pre 9, using 75g to buy Stealth Wards because 3x the duration of a trinket ward is VERY worth. Every single death that you allow by limiting your teams vision can be the reason for your loss. Once you hit level 9 you have to upgrade your trinket, which will give you 3/3 wards - the same as a sightstone. Pink Wards are something that you should again have on the map as soon as possible and if destroyed, placed again as soon as possible. What I very often do is that simply after my first back if I can squeeze 100 gold from somewhere, I place a pink here, no matter which side I am on. Always as against the wall and as far out as possible. That ward has always lasted longest for me in every elo, in lower eloes very often til the end of the game. It is a great position because the brush is curved and the ward cant be seen from the other side of it and often no spotted fast enough because it goes out of vision quick.
  

  https://imgur.com/LF3jbv2

  Here are my top warding spots - you always want to have a triangle of vision for the objective that you are currently trying to control, this is something that has to be done before any fighting begins. Standard wards are something that you can always place if you currently have no plan. Standard wards in mid lane represent placements after a tower is taken down, make sure this becomes your habit on every champion/support. Mid lane wards are the BEST wards in the game since most traffic goes through there. I often place even 2 wards in mid lane so our team can predict enemies movement. You can see exactly by their autopathing if they are going towards a buff/camp/baron/dragon. Once you have made sure what their goal is, place a ward or two where you can have most vision on them there. GREEN = STANDARD BLUE = POSITIONAL
  

  https://imgur.com/1sbwYmm

  On lane it is your job to ward against enemy junglers ganks and ADCs job to ward the lane brushes to have over enemy support. It is most optimal to have warding set up this way because otherwise your ADC wil lose CS by moving out of lane. Keep in mind to remind your team to buy pinks too, they are a very cost effective purchase no what role you are in. 100 gold investment for permanent vision is something you simply cant miss out on!
  • Laning
  ​
  Your laning phase is very straight forward: 1 - Keep your ADC and surrounding allies constantly at 100 % HP. Don't use heal when your ADC is 90% HP, you will be healing ~5-10% of your heals into nothing. As soon as a 2v2 skirmish is initiated your first spell is always W followed by E + Q on a position where you are expecting enemies (Mostly ADC) to move. 2 - Don't get caught and stay in long distance from possible CC/Damage. You can test at level 1 how enemies react to your autoattacks - if they retaliate quick then don't try again. The more HP you have on lane, the longer you will sustain on lane and less potions you have to purchase on your next back. 3 - Try to use your Q always from a safe distance. If you can always hit your Qs, your laning will be extremely easy and you don't have to use any potions. Always try to throw your Q behind the enemy ADC because that is the way people generally juke. Try to predict enemy ADCs and supports movements to land a Q which will heal you twice as much. If you know that a jungler is not close you can combo your Qs with your E if enemy has a gap closer or a spellshield. This can also be done if you are sure that you will hit both laners with both spells. 4 - Help your ADC CS under the tower. Try to calculate how much damage a minion needs more and do your auto attacks accordingly. A full HP spell caster minion can take 2 auto attacks from a dorans blade only ADC meaning you should do 1 auto before the ADC finishes the creep off. If you are solo CSing, you have to use 1 auto + Q on the minions.
  5 - Do everything written in the "Leading the team" and "Map awareness" sections to your absolute best.
  • Diving
  As mentioned beforehand - aggression can also be used defensively but it also applies the other way around. You can have extremely long towerdives with Soraka because of your immense healing capabilities. The key factors for a succesful towerdive is that you never tank the turret more than 1 shot. Your HP can be used a lot more efficiently in the forms of heals. A good towerdive should look like this: Ganker/tankiest member does the first hit > you position your E in the center of your main target or their escape path and put a Q on top of it to slow them > while the damage is applied to the targets you keep healing the tanker > opponents die, you try to lead your team out to safe positions or if someone takes a wrong path, do your best to save/heal them BUT do not go if you know you will die yourself. ADVANCED
  If you are experienced enough with all match ups, you can set up ganks and dives on other lanes too. If you are confident enough that enemy laner can be dived and your teammates will survive with your ult, let them know. Always use your ult before the killing blow on your teammate unless you are sure they will get ignited.
  • Consumables
  Because you will not be buying any HP items the whole game you will be on very low MAX HP the whole game. Reason why are not buying HP is because your heal is by your % HP. The higher your HP is, the more you will lose - simply not efficient. Because of your low HP pool, you can put cookies into very good usage and you should always have 1-5 cookies throughout the whole game, even at 40 minutes. Once you drop to 80% HP and you feel like you cant throw any SAFE Qs on enemies, you pop a potion. Once you teamfights starts and you throw down your first heal, you eat 2-3 cookies which will consumed during the teamfight. You will NEVER buy mana potions, they are simply a waste of gold. If you run out of mana, you go back. If you are having constantly issues with it, take a look at your gameplay and try to see if you are throwing Qs / Es with no reason. You don't need much mana because your main goal is to heal and heal is very low on mana cost.
  After reaching Rabadons, try to grab Elixir of Sorcery every time it runs out and put extra effort on having your pinks and cookies up more. If you see that you can build other items instead, as an example Needlessly Large Rod into Zhonya then skip buying the elixir.
  • Teamfights
  Before the teamfight you have to set up a plan and imagine in your head how it will most likely go through. Guide your team how they should position and who they should watch out for. Maybe LeBlanc should burst the 400 armor 50 MR Maokai who has been causing trouble the last 2 teamfights? Try to use your wards around the place where you think the conflict will happen. Make sure you are not flanked by any assassins, if you know you are, try to ready your mind to counter their movements. Predict enemies possible initiation paths and ping your team / position yourself for it. Remember, once enemies realize you are the biggest problem for them, they will focus you hard (this happens 80% of all games you play as Soraka) and you are relatively easy to catch. You are 90% of the time in the furthest of your backline, once a teamfight begins and higher cooldown spells are on cooldown you can run more front and assist frontliners. If you are constantly being hunted down or you are zoned from the teamfight, it is not a problem. Simply wait til your main assassinators have showed up and use your ult at a time where you see that everyone will profit from it. Once the coast is clear - hop in and let the W tapping begin (scripts op). Try to find the most impactful carry on your team and position yourself in a way where you could have quick access to him/her. There is no point of pumping heals on a demotivated 0-6 Caitlyn while your Yasuo has a rocking 15-2 score and has a strong will to win the game. When doing that do not forget others too, if your main target is 90% HP, try to drop 1-2 heals on someone not as healthy and return to your main carry once she/he has lost some HP.
  • Leading
  As mentioned before - you are the eyes and the informatic of the team, meaning that you will have to analyze and share as much information as possible. Junglers usually fulfill the same role since they have a lot of time to check the map and use chat while clearing jungle or moving around. Since the early game you have to be the one who times flashes and other summoner spells if nobody else does it. If you notice the enemy midlaner used heal, then write down in chat when it is coming up again. This is very important because it allows your team to take advantage of unused summoner spells and take lower risk fights / more secured kills. Thing that you should constantly inform your team about through chat: - Enemy ward placement - Dragon / Baron / Buff possible timers - Timing your and enemies summoner spells - Counting your and enemy team champions before a teamfight - Counteritems bought by enemies - Enemy champions possible locations, especially before a teamfight - Enemies mental state - State of your lane
  • Credits
  • Ghostcrawler
  This is it boys. The most complete Soraka guide with scripts (and not) you will ever find around the web. Hope you enjoyed and good luck on the fields of justice!