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Soraka Build Guide by SwelteringMuffin

Support Support Soraka - Outhealing Your Enemies DPS | Season 11 WIP

Support Support Soraka - Outhealing Your Enemies DPS | Season 11 WIP

Updated on June 10, 2021
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League of Legends Build Guide Author SwelteringMuffin Build Guide By SwelteringMuffin 4001 212 14,231,570 Views 607 Comments
4001 212 14,231,570 Views 607 Comments League of Legends Build Guide Author SwelteringMuffin Soraka Build Guide By SwelteringMuffin Updated on June 10, 2021
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Runes:

Sorcery
Summon Aery
Manaflow Band
Transcendence
Gathering Storm

Domination
Ghost Poro
Ultimate Hunter
Bonus:

+8 Ability Haste
+9 Adaptive (5.4 AD or 9 AP)
+10% Tenacity/Slow Resist

Spells:

LoL Summoner Spell: Exhaust

Exhaust

LoL Summoner Spell: Flash

Flash

Introduction



Hello I'm SwelteringMuffin and I welcome you to my Soraka guide. In my guide I will go through the most important things you need to know about Soraka to make you an overall better player at League of Legends and Soraka, while trying to keep it as short as possible. Have any questions after reading my guide? Feel free to leave a comment in the discussion section. I recently started streaming aswell (2018, January) you can find me on https://www.twitch.tv/swelteringmuffin

Why should I play Soraka?
Soraka is the type of support champion that brings amazing heals and prevents the enemy team to unleash all their skills on your team with her great crowd control skill. You're the champion that keeps your team sustained and able to keep on fighting to siege turrets and secure objectives. So if you like healing your team, have sustained teamfights and preventing your team from dying then Soraka is the champion made for you.

The key to success
Teamfights aren't always coordinated therefore you'll have to keep your team together. It's your job to be healing your allies frequently, healing the right ally at the right time and hitting your Starcall now and then. Eventually you're outsustaining the enemies and you're ready to secure objectives. To play Soraka like a god it's definitely important to know your positioning, but most importantly have fun playing Soraka and outhealing your enemies dps!

Check out the chapters, Items for reasonings and Tips & Tricks for useful information on Soraka gameplay.

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Pros / Cons

Every champion has it's strengths and weaknesses, Soraka's biggest weakness is her squishyness. The key to deal with her squishyness is to master your positioning. In teamfights this would mean your tanks are in the front, your damage dealers are right behind your tank and you're in the back untouched.

Pros

+ Very high sustain
+ Cross map plays
+ Strong crowd control
+ Increased movement towards low health allies
Cons

- Squishy




View on pros
View on cons
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Skill Sequence

R>Q>W>E
Ability Sequence
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18

Q at lv 1 Starcall pokes enemies, slows them, gives Rejuvenation which heals yourself and gives a disengage speed buff.

W at lv 2 Astral Infusion heals teammates, makes them stay longer in lane and copies Rejuvenation buff to ally when cast right after Q hits enemy.

E at lv 3 Equinox silence enemies or root (immobilize) for crowd control, zone enemies away from objectives. R at lv 6, 11 and 16 Wish stronger heal and lower cooldown.

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Runes

Soraka is a champion based on healing other allies, therefore you opt for the keystone mastery Summon Aery.
  • We choose Summon Aery because it further helps you protect your allies with the shield it provides aswell as poke enemies harder when you damage them.
  • We choose Manaflow Band to gain some extra mana regen for more early game pressure.
  • We choose Transcendence to convert the excess cdr into AP and to get the 40% cdr powerspike faster.
  • We choose Gathering Storm because the AP scales insanely well and the average game length is long enough to get a great value out of it.

The remaining points are put in the Domination tree, this will grant you alot more utility, AP and safety.
  • We choose Ghost Poro because it grants more utility in the form of vision aswell as upto 30 AP.
  • We choose Ultimate Hunter because your ult can be reduced upto an extra 25%, providing more heals for the team.

Rune Stats
We choose 8 Ability Haste (8 AH) in the first row because it's a flat amount (level 1), attack speed won't help us, the AH is worth more than the AP.

We choose 9 Adaptive Force (9 AP) in the second row because it's another flat amount (level 1), the armor and MR are not as valuable (about a third amount less).

We choose 8 MR in the third row because we want to avoid getting HP. Choose the armor option when against heavy AD teams.
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Summoner Spells

Summoner Spells are spells that influence the pace of the game by alot. Burning someone's Summoner Spells can set your team up for a big play in the next couple of minutes. It is important to note that you as a team should keep track of which Summoner Spells are being used by the enemies during fights. You can tell your team by opening the scoreboard (usually tab) then clicking on the enemies champions Summoner Spells that have been used. Even better is if you time when they'll be back up again.

So what Summoner Spells do I pick?
Get Exhaust and Flash, no discussion. Both can get you out of sticky situations but can also get your allies to kill the exhausted person really easy as it reduces their movement speed and damage dealt for a good 3 seconds.

Reducing cooldowns of Summoner Spells
By buying Ionian Boots of Lucidity you will get 12 Summoner Spell Haste. Now think of all the possibilities you have when your Summoner Spells are slightly earlier up than your enemies Summoner Spells, your options are limitless because you can use it in so many ways, both defensive and offensive.

Cooldowns of Summoner Spells with 12 Summoner Spell Haste
Before
Flash has a cooldown of 300secs.
Exhaust has a cooldown of 210secs.


After
267.86secs.
187.5secs.
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Items

Item Sequence

Shard of True Ice 400
Imperial Mandate 2250
Staff of Flowing Water 2250
Ionian Boots of Lucidity 900
Banshee's Veil 3000
Zhonya's Hourglass 3250

Starting items
Spellthief's Edge
Health Potion x2
Stealth Ward*

You start the game with Spellthief's Edge and 2 Health Potion's. Spellthief's Edge is a gold generating item that gives you some AP and MP regen early on which is useful since all of Soraka's abilities scale off AP. It also gives a tiny bit of HP. The Health Potion's will keep you sustained throughout the laning phase.

The Stealth Ward is self explanatory, you get it to place wards in brushes and prevent any possible early ganks if your lane is pushed.

*Swap to Oracle Lens upon quest completion, this is great for denying vision and preventing tp flanks. Keep track of the cooldown so you can use it as soon as it's available, whilst active try to cover as much map as possible.

Early game
Shard of True Ice
Imperial Mandate

Ability Haste is a very important stat on many champions, especially early game (it has diminishing returns), some champions need it more than others. Soraka is a champion that works very well with AH, because it will also reduce your global ult Wish and you can spam Astral Infusion super fast during teamfights.

We opt for these two items because Soraka scales very well with AP and Ability Haste, allowing you to heal higher amounts and more frequently whilst still dealing great amounts of damage. These items are cheap but very effective. They provide great AP, AH, MP regen and HP sustain due to the AP, early game and even better mid to late game. The items also provide a bit of HP. On top of that your gold generation will be better. Ofcourse you'll also have four wards to get vision of dark places. Having knowledge of where enemies hide gives you safety and the possibility of surprising the enemy champion with your team.

Mythic: Abilities that slow or immobilize enemy champions will take some damage, marking those enemy champions. These will take even more damage whenever allied champions deal damage to these marked enemy champions, which then grant both you aswell as the triggering ally bonus movement speed for a couple of seconds, you will also get a nice amount of AP per legendary item that you have. The damage when applying slow/immobilize aswell as allies triggering the mark is bonus magic damage, therefore becomes even more useful if your team is lacking magic damage.

This being said, Soraka's Starcall is an aoe slow which can mark many enemy champions in teamfights aswell as possibly marking them with the aoe root on her Equinox.

Mid game
Staff of Flowing Water
Ionian Boots of Lucidity

Once again, AP and AH goes very well with Soraka. Both items are cheap and very effective on Soraka. They provide extra buffs when healing which make your heals pretty epic alongside the heal and shield power that you get. You also get some MP regen which is nice and useful.

The boots help you reduce your Summoner Spells cooldown for more epic plays and your movement speed will help your positioning by alot.

The amount of AP and AH these two items give is great. Mid game it's great and it gets even more amazing late game, many enemies don't expect such OP heals by building heavy AP with the right Ability Haste items. The AP build makes you get your HP back real quick aswell.

Late game situational items
Chemtech Putrifier
When against many champions with alot of healing, self healing, runes with increased (self)healing, ocean drake buffs or soul, items with lifesteal or active items with healing.

It's a great anti heal item that can apply Grievous Wounds to many opponents due to you being able to empower many allied champions, whenever you heal or shield an allied champion, your and their next instance of damage within 5secs. will apply 60% Grievous Wounds.

Ardent Censer
When you have 2-4 allies that auto attack alot.

It's a great healing item and gives huge buffs to your allies, your allies get a whole lot more attack speed and some more magic on hit damage, which can be nice when your team is lacking some magic damage aswell.

Banshee's Veil
Zhonya's Hourglass
Elixir of Sorcery

After the first four items you mainly focus on AP items with resistances. As mentioned before all of Soraka's abilities purely scale off AP therefore we opt for these two items whilst also providing some ways of keeping ourselves safe from hard engages. The passive and active on these two items will do exactly that.

Both of the items will result in OP heals, OP damage from Starcall and getting HP back real quick. Aside from that you will also get some resistances, a spell shield passive that blocks the next ability and an active that puts you in stasis for 2.5secs. making yourself untargetable and invulnerable for the duration if you get jumped on in teamfights.

So whenever you get into late game determine which one you're going to need first, focus on building the Fiendish Codex (and Stopwatch) components first. You want to build Verdant Barrier and Seeker's Armguard as the last component before completing the items since you're playing in the support role and you're not going to be stacking the passives.

Note: You can choose to purposely delay Zhonya's Hourglass if you have 1.7k gold aswell as a Fiendish Codex and a Stopwatch by purchasing the Banshee's Veil instead to have the passive aswell as a working Stopwatch. You can continue building Zhonya's Hourglass if you have a Broken Stopwatch or you've purchased a Stopwatch to be more defensive and be able to deal with all the hard engages and used it but there's 3 AP and 2 AD on the enemy team so you purchase the Banshee's Veil first with the 1.7k gold.

When the game you're in doesn't want to end don't forget to buy an Elixir of Sorcery.

Optional items
Moonstone Renewer
This is a mythic item that you can replace your Imperial Mandate with when you're new to Soraka. It's alot easier to work with and more forgiving to use because you can affect your allied champions with abilities aswell or when you're against an entire team that is long range where applying Imperial Mandate's passive becomes harder.

Pro: easier for newer players.
Con: gets countered harder by anti heal.

Mikael's Blessing
When against 5 (or 4) AP champions with alot of cc and you're being targeted alot you can purchase this item to heal higher amounts, more frequently and deal with your allies getting hard cc'd whilst not taking too much poke damage from the AP champions.

This item has similar purposes to Banshee's Veil for Soraka but may be more difficult to use efficiently because of the item's active. Banshee's Veil puts more emphasis on your Starcall and Equinox to deal more damage and gives more self protection with the spell shield passive, whereas Mikael's Blessing is more effective when not being as experienced on Soraka with Starcall and Equinox allowing you to still heal a good amount and not losing too much of your own HP when healing allies. The one big difference is the active: instantly removing crowd control, to keep your allies (aswell as yourself) extra safe.

Possible replacement for Banshee's Veil or buy alongside Banshee's Veil if there's 0-1 auto attacking allies and thus no need for Ardent Censer and your allies already have anti heal on the team and therefore no need for Chemtech Putrifier.

Pro: very defensive.
Con: long active cooldown, gets countered harder by anti heal.

Redemption
When not against any (or only 1) assassins, to heal your entire team more in big teamfights aswell as deal some true damage against opponents.

Pro: very defensive.
Con: long active cooldown, 2.5secs. delay for active is bad for mid game and even worse for late game, requires team to be coordinated for maximum heal potential, gets countered harder by anti heal.
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Tips & Tricks

  • Wish is a global ult. When it's safe look around the map or at the health bars of your allies icons. Use your ult in situations where you can save allies from dying or assist them to turn the fight around and get them a kill. Don't just use your ult if someone is low, make sure there is a chance your allies may get away or atleast finish an important target before dying.
  • Your ult heals 50% extra when allies are under 40% HP, wait till your allies are below 40% but make sure they don't get bursted, so react fast. Sometimes you can bait the enemy team by using your ult when your ally is around 5-25% HP rather than 25-39%, make sure you don't bait yourself by reacting too slow.
  • Starcall slows and damages all enemies inside, hitting atleast one enemy champion activates Rejuvenation.
  • Rejuvenation lasts for 4secs, while Rejuvenation is active Soraka gets healed every half a second and gets a 10% bonus movement speed when not moving towards enemy champions, meaning the speed buff only applies when you're disengaging.
  • Healing allies with Astral Infusion while Rejuvenation is active will copy it's effects to your allies. You can copy the effects to multiple allies with one Starcall hit.
  • Starcall gives sight of the area before it lands, use it to check brushes/dragon/baron if the enemy team is missing.
  • Astral Infusion uses 10% of your health to heal allies, avoid building health items, exception for the items mentioned in the guide.
  • Top up your allies HP to around 95-99% with Astral Infusion, don't waste your own HP by overhealing your allies (more than 100%).
  • Know how much you heal your allies, don't get too low on HP yourself, since you're already squishy you may get focused and die.
  • Be careful with how much you heal your tank as they have alot of HP, if the enemy team has atleast three magic damage champions suggest Spirit Visage to your tank/bruisers, this will increase your healing on them by alot!
  • At low HP (20-50%) you may want to stay at longer range and try to hit your Starcall, don't recall if you have MP left. Once you get better on Soraka you'll notice you won't always have to leave the lane at 5-10% HP, unless your adc is recalling aswell, due to your high sustain from MP/HP regen items and Starcall.
  • If you're confident that you're safe, top up your allies health before recalling.
  • Use Equinox to silence enemies and root/immobilize them if they stay too long in it. Also useful when doing objectives such as drake to zone enemies away/keep them at distance.
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Vision & General Gameplay

Before I start talking about where you should exactly place your wards as a support or any role for that matter, I want to give some insight about certain topics that alot of players forget or are not aware of.

I will go through the following topics:
  • Vision
  • Map awareness
  • Team compositions
  • Minimap
  • Pings
  • Wards, functions and efficient use
  • General

What is vision and why do we want it?
Vision is information of the map that your enemy team may not know about, therefore you're talking about advantages. Having vision around objectives means you have more control over the situation.

Vision examples

Once vision is obtained you need to make use of these advantages, the placed wards will help you with your map awareness.

What is map awareness and why do we want it?
Map awareness is nothing more than being aware of your surroundings:
  • Knowing in what situation you are
  • Realizing how far up in lane you are
  • In what kind of dangers you may be getting
  • What you're risking

When you're aware of your surroundings enemy ganks/roams will be less effective because retreating in time will result into less deaths. Having map awareness will not only reduce your amount of deaths but it will also help you make the right decision.

Map awareness example

Team compositions
It's important to note that you should be aware of what the enemies team composition is, aswell as your own team composition. This means you should know or have a general idea what the enemies are capable of doing and what your team is capable of doing.

Team composition examples

Minimap
Now that you know what map awareness is, why we want to be aware of our surroundings and the team compositions, you'll understand that the minimap is an important tool and by looking frequently at it you'll become a better player.

Minimap example

Pings
When you check your minimap you must immediately think about certain things and inform your allies in an efficient way. Use your ping functions on the minimap, when enemies are missing for about 5 seconds, to inform allies quick and safely.

Ping options

Ping example

Using pings frequently to communicate with your allies is a great, fast, efficient and safe way to get on the same page with them. Now let's talk more about wards, how you should use them and ward efficiently.

Wards, functions and efficient use
First of all, let's look at the possible options to get vision:
All of these options are used in a different way.

Stealth wards have a limited use, each player can have a maximum of three stealth wards placed on the map at a time. Therefore you should use them wisely and efficiently.
  • Don't place two wards on the same location or near each other, try to spread them around.
  • Place them in brushes so that if an enemy goes in a brush you or your team can still attack them.
  • When being pushed in, place wards for protection.
  • Try to get some deep vision, when pushing waves, around the objectives (turrets/drakes/dragon/baron) that you're going for without risking to die.
  • When alot of enemy turrets are destroyed you can place a ward in lane (usually in mid lane) depending on the situation because the lanes will be very long. The ward is also great for tp flanks.

Control wards are wards that give vision but are visible to enemies if they spot them. They last forever until destroyed by the enemies, they reveal and disable enemy wards and reveal camouflaged enemy champions. You can only have one of these on the map per champion.
  • They aren't free so try to protect them by attacking the enemy.
  • They are used to deny vision and clear enemy wards, thus giving you control over that part of the map.
  • The best way to use them is to place them in brushes where they will last long and give good information.

Farsight Alteration are wards that give vision but are visible to enemies if they spot them.
  • Keep track of the cooldown and spam these in any brush for deep vision.
  • Sometimes you want to place them in brushes of your own jungle, they are more likely to last longer and you can spot enemies invading your jungle.

Rift Scuttler
  • Take these with your allies whenever you can, to prepare a possible drake/dragon or baron.
  • This vision cannot be removed, not even with control wards, sweeping lens or oracle alteration. Enemies that start drake/dragon or baron will be spotted unless they enter the pit from the back.
  • Besides vision it also gives a nice movement speed buff that may help you win teamfights if the objective is contested.

General
The following two things are important to note:
  • If there are three enemies in the top lane it means there can only be two enemies on the rest of the map. Therefore you're more safe to make plays in other lanes, play more aggressive, try to push out waves, get a turret and take jungle camps whilst retreating if you're in the position to do so. Otherwise your team should rotate to other lanes to save turrets in the top lane.
  • When you ward be careful, it is not worth dying to place a ward. It is also not worth going halfway across the map to place a control ward, you lose too much time running around and you'll fall behind on xp/levels/gold. However it is worth if your team is about to make plays on that side of the map.

Dealing with the living jungle:
  • Blast cones are used to hop over walls, when you're in the enemy jungle destroy these to deny a possible advantage.
  • Scryer's blooms are used to scout enemies and enemy wards, note that when enemies get spotted they'll get particles around them meaning they know someone destroyed it.
  • Honeyfruits are used to top off your HP and MP. Use them when you need them. Denying them from enemies will deny them from your allies too, only deny from enemies when they are nearby with low HP and wanting it.

Placing control wards when on blue side:
*The darker coloured square is optional.

Placing control wards when on red side:
*The darker coloured square is optional.

Recommended Stealth Wards when doing drakes/dragon:
*Blue squares are Stealth Wards placed by blue team, red squares by red team.
*The darker coloured squares are optional when doing dragon.

Recommended Stealth Wards when doing baron:
*Blue squares are Stealth Wards placed by blue team, red squares by red team
*The darker coloured squares are optional.
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Soraka gameplay

Champion select

Every game starts with champion select. Are you playing ranked and want to increase your chances at winning? Then ban the most broken champions so your opponents can't pick them.

Don't know what's broken?
Check out my tierlist: https://www.mobafire.com/edit/tier-list?tier_list_id=1681

Also check the Mental State chapter for more useful ways to increase your chances at winning your ranked games by having the right mindset and being in the right conditions.

Pick something that your team may or will need, but not at the expense of you not knowing how the play the champion or not being able to perform as amazingly as you could on another champion.

Do your runes as soon as you know what you're locking in and then adjust if necessarily depending on what your opponents lock in.

Check your and your teammates Summoner Spells and confirm the Summoner Spells whether someone meant to take certain Summoner Spells or forgot to take Flash or Smite.

Once everything is locked in and the enemy champions are revealed, immediately start thinking.
  • How much magic damage vs physical damage does the enemy team roughly have?
  • What items are your opponents most likely building?
  • What are your teammates most likely building?
  • What am I most likely building to counter my opponents builds aswell as synergize more with my teammates.
  • What order am I building my items in if x physical or x magical champion on the enemy team gets fed?
  • What are the most important skillshots you need to be aware of during laning phase and what can I do to position better against them?
  • What is the enemy jungler aswell as the rest of the enemy team playing and what are their ways of ganking and engaging onto you?
  • Can I get ganked from behind my tower?
  • Are there any (semi) global ults that I need to be aware of?

Loading screen

Once in loading screen, check what Summoner Spells your opponents have, what their keystone mastery is and what they may possibly have for the rest of their (secondary) runes. You might want to use op.gg or other apps to fully know for sure.

Continue thinking about different scenario's and what you can do to prevent bad things from happening.

Determine whether it makes sense for your team to invade at level 1 to create an early game lead for your team and possibly tilt your opponents from the get-go. Does your team have:
  • Hard cc?
  • A good amount of AOE damage?
  • A good way to follow up?

Pre-laning phase

Once loaded in the game purchase your starting items as soon as possible so you can be quick with invading if it makes sense for your team. Don't put a point in an ability immediately, figure out what makes more sense once you encounter a situation. Is your team walking in on a few enemies and do you take Starcall to slow and poke all of them down burning multiple enemies Summoner Spells? Or is someone on your team hard cc'ing an enemy (or multiple enemies) and are you in range to follow up quickly with a silence into a root with Equinox for some possible takedowns.

Try to keep track of the Summoner Spells burnt by your enemies and ping the ones that have been used, also check if and which Summoner Spells your adc has used so you know whether you should play the laning phase safe or not. If your adc is playing too aggressively whilst at a Summoner Spell disadvantage ping that they're on cooldown.

If invading is not an option for your team or your team simply doesn't want to, then try taking defensive positionings by covering all the entrances of your jungle as a team to see possible invades happening or even denying them. Be extra careful of enemies with long range hard cc abilities, don't get caught especially if your allies are still afk at base or you don't have your team closeby to back you up.

If on blue side you can also rush to the pixel brush (usually bottom side of the map) and place your warding totem in it then immediately run back down behind the dragon pit to the tribrush (also be careful for a possible rush invade through here, you can check brush with Starcall for split second vision).

Defensive positionings at the start of a game
Make sure to path to the blue/red buff at around 1:20 so you're there in time (spawns at 1:30) to leash if needed. After the leash go to your lane, figure out what your pathing will be whilst you're leashing and let your adc know (don't path through tribrush if your opponents have a good level 1).

Don't leash too long to a point where you miss out on minion xp, no further than 1:38 this is when your minion wave meets the enemy minion wave and begins attacking each other. Be aware that if you see your opponents in lane whilst you're leashing they might drag the minion wave and make your minions focus one of their minions resulting in their minions dying off faster. Your adc and you miss out on xp which delays the lv2 powerspike.

When you see your opponents in lane while you're leashing, immediately alert your adc and go to lane or make sure that atleast your adc does so that xp is not wasted. Otherwise you start your laning phase with a disadvantage.

Early game laning phase



Mid game



Late game
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Mental State

A mental state is a state of mind in which states are a combination of mental representations and propositional attitudes. One can have various states such as: love, hate, pleasure and pain, and attitudes like: believing, conceiving, hoping and fearing. In other words the mental state is a mental condition which is affected by feelings/emotions and result into having certain attitudes.

Lower ranked players tend to allow their emotions to get to them more often than higher ranked players. Bad plays or teammates can cause anger and frustration which swings the mental state into a negative one. Higher ranked players tend to neglect emotions more often or don't allow the emotions to affect their mental state, they stay focused on the game and look for opportunities.

Ego
Alot of players blame others because it's easy or they have a big ego.

What even is an ego?
The origin of "ego" comes from the Latin word meaning "I". It's how the conscious mind deals with the unconscious parts and the world around us.

Having a big ego is basically a high belief in ourselves (high self image) for example our abilities/skills to do something (make an outplay), our importance to people and our place in society (being the image for your viewers as a streamer/guidemaker). Having a big ego is just a self perception which doesn't necessarily mirror the truth. We as humans can be very ego centric and our minds can often look for ways to boost up our egos to feel good about ourselves. There is nothing wrong in us feeling good about ourselves. Having a high self image and self worth is more beneficial than a low self image which could lead to conditions like depression. Having a low self image or suffering from depression is obviously a bad thing, it's life limiting and potentially harmful.

However having too big of an ego can lead to arrogance and hubris (excess of confidence/thinking you're better than others), these are generally unlikable character traits. When a person seeks to boost up their ego they often target other people to accomplish it. Insulting them directly or indirectly in order to make themselves appear and feel good. They may put down other peoples achievements for the simple reason of gratifying their own egos.

Big egos can also lead to a delusional way of thinking. They may say things like "I am always right" or "I am never wrong", they may never admit when they are wrong, their egos won't allow it. Understand that seeking a quick ego boost is a very limited and short sighted method of feeling good about oneself that will probably do you more harm than good in the long term. The same way an elo boost works.

Note: understand that the need to boost up your ego could just be a compensation for a low self image.
So next time you bump into someone arrogant/delusional in your solo queue games, just pretend they have a low self esteem. XD

Quick recap
Having an ego is good and important, but don't overkill it. It just has to be balanced and controlled with enough self awareness to prevent a healthy self belief turning into harmful delusional thinking.

Improve
There are better ways to feel good about yourself. For example the feeling you get from helping somebody or generally doing good is far better than a simple ego boost that comes from putting somebody else down. So instead of blaming others, self-reflect on your own gameplay. The most straightforward way is to look at replays of your own games. Analyze your decision making and use of abilities.

Analyzing examples



Now obviously you can't self-reflect every single game you play (well you can but it's too time consuming, exhausting and we just want to play more games right?), but the more you analyze, the more you will learn about the game and thus become better at it (that's what you want!).

Note: don't blame yourself for every single ability you miss during a game, you can't land them all. But the more you do land, the more consistent your games will go. Try to understand which ones are crucial so you can distinguish them from the ones that wouldn't have made a big difference.

"I can't always land skill shots. I'm only human." - GorillA

Fun vs competitive
Some players have a more competitive drive than others, some want to have more fun than others. Determine what the case is for you. What is your goal? Do you want to mostly have fun or climb?

Fun or off meta champion picks are not necessarily the strongest picks, however can add a surprise factor and throw your opponents off when played perfectly. If you have a desire to climb pick champions you're very good at and consider learning newer/reworked champions with a very solid/strong kit. The combination of the two, being good at the champion aswell as it being overtuned (AKA balanced LUL), increases your chances to win games.

Note for players with competitive drive: If you're (super far) ahead of the enemy team, your goal is not to just stay ahead but to further increase your lead and to close out the game with a victory. Winning and being ahead is fun, some players fool around and have fun when they are ahead, however this opens up opportunities for the enemy team. If you queue up to climb don't mess around and take that LP while you can. Why only think about your LP when you're behind but not when ahead?

If you're more of a player that wants to have fun. Do whatever makes you happy, just keep in mind you're also playing with other players (unless you like playing bot games), don't have fun at cost of other players mental state.

Note for fun players: I'd recommend to keep the fun in normal games/ARAM. Ranked games are for players with a competitive drive and a winning attitude. There are points on the line afterall, not just any points, but League Points. I know that keeping fun out of ranked games may be hard for some regions knowing that NA is a 4fun4 region. hehe xd

Ranked games
Some general tips to increase your chances at winning your ranked games:
  • Play when you're focused, energized (after a meal), avoid playing tired after a long rough day of work/school.
  • Have a great mental, be optimistic and positive.
  • Only play champions you're very good at.
  • Play overtuned champions (only if you're good at them).
  • Pick champions that synergize with your team composition (only if you're good at them).
  • Avoid making crucial mistakes/deaths.
  • Don't focus on teammates/own mistakes, focus on opportunities instead.

Stay focused
Even when playing focused players can make mistakes.

"Mistakes are opportunities, ya know." - Reignover

Mistakes definitely open up new opportunities, however the counter-argument would be that making too many mistakes will put your team too far behind.

Example


Counter-argument example


Avoid making crucial mistakes/deaths and try not to focus on the mistakes that are being made during a game but instead the opportunities which progress the state of the game for your team.

Optimism, pessimism and realism
When you're optimistic, you tend to see the brighter side of things, believe in people, and you're convinced that things are getting better. The opposite of the optimist is the pessimist, who sees everything as negative as possible. The pessimist believes that things are bad, and that they're going to get worse. The realist tries to see things as they really are, and expects the future to act according to probabilities and tendencies.


This is another one of those you want to keep balanced. Being pessimistic won't make your mental state feel good, thus winning games may become harder. Being optimistic is positive, you may win games from behind that others may already given up on, staying optimistic and focused throughout the game will help you find the opportunities to swing the game in your teams favor. However being too optimistic when the game is long gone isn't good either (e.g. top lane is 0/5, mid lane is 0/5 and adc is 0/5), that's when you need to realize the actual state of the game, start to be more realistic and move on to your next game.

Note: in pro play teams pretty much never FF anymore compared to earlier seasons, not necessarily because they're too optimistic, they may already have realized the game is a loss, however they keep playing to gain more experience and get better at playing from behind. Sometimes they'll even grab the win surprising themselves.

Last but not least, risk-taking tends to come easily to optimists.
So next time you have a too optimistic teammate trying to do something crazy mission impossible, tell them to get real. Realistic that is.
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About SwelteringMuffin

General
This is my first ever guide, if it helped you in any way make sure to up vote the guide. If you have any questions/feedback feel free to comment in the discussion section.

I play on the NA server with the username SwelteringMuffin.

Main role
I mainly play support. Beside the fact that it's the fastest to queue with, it's also a really easy role. For example you don't really have to worry about last hitting minions. It is an easy role, but to be great at it you have to do alot for the team. I also like to play unusual support champions, because people don't know what to expect and how to react when you change a champions standard role/lane/build. The element of surprise can be beneficial for your team and unfavorable for the enemy team.

Other roles
I have also played alot of jungle. It gives a good knowledge on when to exactly gank and how to bait your enemies perfectly into death as a laner. Since I play alot of squishy supports I've learnt how to bait enemies very well, provoking them or sometimes showing that champion mastery is enough to get them greedy.

Because of how much I've played as a support I have a good understanding on how the bottom lane and synergy between AD and support works. This is one of the reasons I like to play AD aswell.

Support throughout the years
Aside of all that, maining support has taught me how to efficiently ward, bringing the most vision to your team. This is something that I've transferred to other roles aswell, warding efficiently, because vision is not only the supports job, it's a team job. Once you get the hang of warding efficiently you will automatically work on your map awareness. Having map awareness made me know very well how to rotate around the map and when to take turrets, drakes, dragons or barons.

My guides


Milestones
2 June 2015: Creation of guide (Soraka)
24 July 2015: 100k champion points on Soraka, wooooo!
28 August 2015: Creation of guide (Sona)
9 October 2015: Creation of guide (Tahm Kench)
14 November 2015: 100k views on Soraka guide, aww yeeaa!
14 November 2015: Creation of guide (Nunu)
2 December 2015: Creation of guide (Kayle)
6 December 2015: 100k views on Tahm Kench guide, woop woop!
6 December 2015: 100k views on Sona guide, double woop woop!
18 December 2015: 500k views on Soraka guide, keep on healin' keep on healin'!
24 January 2016: 500k views on Tahm Kench guide, don't stop licking :P
1 February 2016: Creation of guide (Jhin)
3 February 2016: 100k views on Nunu guide, let's build this snowman!
12 February 2016: 100k views on Kayle guide, keep on smackin' with your sword!
10 March 2016: 1M views on Soraka guide, a small loan of a million views.
13 March 2016: 100k views on Jhin guide, load, aim, headshot!
31 March 2016: 500k views on Sona Guide, heal, speed, burst, repeat!
16 May 2016: 2M views on Soraka guide, that's quite a bit, but we heal more with one W! >:D
9 July 2016: 500k views on Nunu guide, stay frosty.
16 August 2016: Creation of guide (Bard)
24 August 2016: 1M views on Tahm Kench guide, Lickitung would be proud of this.
3 September 2016: Lv7 mastery on Soraka!
29 September 2016: 500k views on Kayle guide.
29 September 2016: 100k champion points on Sona.
2 November 2016: Lv7 mastery on Sona!
2 May 2017: Lv7 mastery on Bard!
5 May 2017: 200k champion points on Soraka!


Champions I play
Support:
Alistar
Annie
Bard
Blitzcrank
Brand
Braum
Fiddlesticks
Galio
Janna
Karma
Kayle
Leona
Lulu
Malphite
Malzahar
Maokai
Morgana
Nami
Nunu
Orianna
Ornn
Rakan
Shaco
Shen
Skarner
Sona
Soraka
Tahm Kench
Taric
Teemo
Thresh
Viktor
Zilean
Zyra
Jungle:
Kha'Zix
Warwick
Xin Zhao
Zac
AD bottom:
Jhin
Miss Fortune
Varus
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League of Legends Build Guide Author SwelteringMuffin
SwelteringMuffin Soraka Guide
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Support Soraka - Outhealing Your Enemies DPS | Season 11 WIP

League of Legends Champions:

Teamfight Tactics Guide