Hey Guys, Im M1sh0 and welcome.............(lost in the shadows)

ALL OF THIS GUIDES INFORMATION HAS BEEN MOVED TO MY "ULTIMATE SORAKA GUIDE"

Please check it out as it has more info than this guide.
Guide Link

Why Soraka???

Soraka is mainly a Support Champion that encompasses the world healing in her. She brings incredible heals to the team fights which can turn the tide of the game. She is the great healer in my opinion and if you love spamming heals, being annoying and changing the tide of the game, Soraka, is for you.

Starting Items!!!

		The best starting item for Soraka.
		With all the healing you're going to be doing Health Potion really help you.

First Back Lvl. 3-4

		Building into Shard of True Ice, +70 hp and a bit AP.
		With all the healing you're going to be doing Health Potion really help you.
		Mana Regen. cause Raka pokes a lot and her mana depletes pretty quickly and now which Patch 9.23 there is no mana regeneration on Frostfang ur gonna need it.
		An escape item and faster getting back to lane.

First Back Lvl. 5-6

		Building into Shard of True Ice, +70 hp and a bit AP.
		With all the healing you're going to be doing Health Potion really help you.
		Mana Regen. cause Raka pokes a lot and her mana depletes pretty quickly and now which Patch 9.23 there is no mana regeneration on Frostfang ur gonna need it.
		An escape item and faster getting back to lane.
		Building into Redemption (First Item) and more Mana Regen.

First Item: REDEMPTION!!!

		Great for fight in bot lane, Teamfights, Healing ur allies and damaging ur enemies. Also a boost in HP and -10% cool down reduction. Redemption would most likely be used for team fights along with an item you will use later in the game Locket of the Iron Solari.

		Shard of True Ice: Your new warding tool. With the new season 10, Eye of the Watchers is no longer available so we use this. It gives a major boost in health, ability power and still grants the use of 4 wards every time you return to fountain.
		More SPEED and -10% cool down reduction
		Building in Ardent Censer and I bit of mana regeneration since you will probably be spamming heals on your team.
		Oracle Lens: For Spotting out wards and being able to replace the with your team's own wards. A great way to clear wards and obtain vision in the jungle.
		Building in Ardent Censer and an extra buff in AP.

FULL SEND RAKA!!!

		In this part of the you are the saviour to all. You have enough healing, mobility, and AP to be the true support icon. And with the help of Redemption you are able to get a boost in healing. Once a team fight breaks out be sure to do 2 things. 1, throw in an Equinox to mess up the entire enemy team and 2 throw down your Redemption and wait a couple of seconds to use your Wish as Redemption acts like another ultimate to Soraka and because of just these 2 things you are able to win team fights.
		HP buff, YOUR NEW WARDING TOOL, a LOTTA AP and HP.
		More SPEED and -10% cool down reduction
		Ardent Censer: AP time and guess what more Cooldown reduction.
		Shurelya's Battlesong: -10% cool down reduction, MR and AP boosts. And a great way to builds stacks in the late to be even more of an influence. Also with this item it gives bonus healing power and a great disengage item.
		Locket of the Iron Solari: MR and Armor for you and all ur allies and a great way for MORE healing and shielding to your allies and yourself.

These are common support choice in which I believe that I can explain how to play against them and or lane against them.

Hope you enjoy!

Although it is a lot of reading I believe you should only read for whatever champion you are facing in the bot for this present game or future games to come.

Difficulty:

1 (Easy):

Taric: Taric's entire gameplay is getting up close to you. He has very little range when it comes to any of his abilities he only has his Dazzle and Bastion which can let him double stuns you. But as Soraka, you can mess with a Taric entirely as you have your Equinox's Silence which will cripple any Taric Supports. Also with the fact the he doesn't have many escape options if you get the root from Equinox it can lead into a Starcall and a free kill for you or your ADC. (If he doesn't use his ultimate)

Alistar: Like Taric, Alistar is a close range ability usage charcter. Alistar is less of a healer compared to Taric but is offensive, his Pulverize and Trample can be easily countered by Equinox's Silence but if we hits you with a Headbutt and Pulverize (W and Q) Combo. Also like Taric he cripples when you get the root from your Equinox which usually sets up into a kill or a forced ultimate.

Braum: Braum is basically just some big shield with some crowd control. His Unbreakable ability can be annoying at some times but if you are able to hit a Equinox before he dashes to his ally with his Stand Behind Me then you will be able to focus the ADC and grab a free kill.

2 (Minor Difficulty):

Sona: Sona is the type of charcter with includes engages with her ultimate Crescendo and her Hymn of Valor and is also able to easily disengage using her Song of Celerity and her Aria of Perseverance. She is a generally strong charcter and has good poke. With this though you have your Starcall to leech away any dmg she deals to you and for offensive and defensive purposes you can drop an Equinox which could lead in a root and a free kill. (You want to drop the Equinox behind the enemy to possibly get the root)

Janna: Janna is the type of charcter in which is able to poke at you using her Zephyr and her Howling Gale. She is overall more annoying then Sona but her main usage is her Eye of the Storm, a massive shield which can help her or any ally. When laning against her you have to spam Starcall which will pressure her to use her shield. And since her has a 8 second cooldown at Lvl 1 Eye of the Storm take this opportunity to pressure the lane and hit her with an Equinox to further engage is possible.

Poppy: Poppy although a melee support champion is able to be very annoying. She is able to dash towards you since you usually play near bushes near terrain, she is able to use her Heroic Charge and stun you for a couple seconds. Not fun. With this she can also use her ultimate, Keeper's Verdict and can knock you back away from protection which leaves you vulnerable to attack and you will probably die. But with that Poppy also has a shield which adds as a projectile as her passive, Iron Ambassador. But a point that makes Poppy a very low threat is because of your Equinox silence and your slow from your Starcall which makes it easy to collapse, backoff or disengage from her and whatever ally accompanies her.

3 (Some Difficulty):

Vel'Koz: With the many support champions I do play I have played about 35 Vel'Koz mid and support games. Vel'Koz has many combos and can kill you from full health if he gets level 6 and his ultimate before you he is able to kill you with his W > Q > W > E > R combo. This may looks confusing but Vel'Koz's Q Plasma Fission is his main damaging move before level 6 and does around 243 damage w/ Arcane Comet (6 - 8 less damage with Summon Aery), Next his W, Void Rift has 2 charges in which their is no animation which allows him to cast this ability and Plasma Fission at the same time which stacks up to 3 charges of his passive, Organic Deconstruction to deal even more damage to you. Then his E is Tectonic Disruption which puts you airborne and allows him to lead into his ultimate ablity Life Form Disintegration Ray which is a giant laser which will shred through anything and everything in its path and is deadly for teamfights so make sure to save your ultimate Wish for this exact situation. Your Equinox will be your saviour when it comes to Vel'Koz's Deadly Combo Potential. And since Vel'Koz abilities use a long of mana be sure to poke him a lot with your Equinoxs and your Starcalls to get that missing health back.

Brand: Brand like Vel'Koz is a very poke like champion. His move set is primarily focused on damaging you or ur ally until he tosses at you his ultimate to kill you both. Brand, using his passive with first of all try to set you Blaze to let his affects on his abilities come into play. With his Sear while you are Blaze you will be stunned for 1.5 seconds, with Pillar of Flame you will an additional 25% damage, and with his Conflagration's damage will spread to nearby enemies. But the one thing that makes Brand such an annoying champion is his ultimate Pyroclasm which bounces off nearby allies which causes a lot of damage to them. As a Soraka to need to be able to dodge his skill shots and primarily try not to get stunned by side stepping and silencing his and running away with your Equinox and Starcall. But for teamfights you need to see when Brand's ultimate is bouncing around and need to know when you hit your Wish.

Bard: Bard like Thresh is a more utility based champion that is great for ambushes, engages, disengages. Bard's abilities like his Magical Journey, Caretaker's Shrine, and Tempered Fate are all great moves defensively. Magical Journey heals an ally champion to Bard, Magical Journey allows yo to disengage very easily, and Tempered Fate acts like a Zhonya's Hourglass but within a circle radius. And can be used to stop enemies their tracks. But aggressively Bard is also a force to be reckon with, with his Cosmic Binding which will stun you or you and an ally, with his Magical Journey which allows for easy ganks and with his Tempered Fate with can also stop large objectives like Dragon and Baron from being taken. As a Soraka, Bard is a very tricky champion to kill. But one tip I do have is that when you see his Magical Journey incoming drop an Equinox right at the wall where it is coming in and then lead up to a burst down them with your ADC followed by a couple Starcalls.

Nami: When it comes to the Nami vs Soraka Matchup, this will be a lot of poking, healing and just being annoying overall. Each champion will be able to heal an heal and/ or themselves, Soraka with Astral Infusion and her ultimate Wish and Nami with Ebb and Flow. To me, Nami is just a more aggressively built Soraka but with a bit less CC. Compared to Soraka, Nami is a lot more mana reliant with her and is worse than within the early stages of the game. For any champion laning against a Nami the scariest thing about her is her bubble aka Aqua Prison which traps you in a bubble and stuns you for about 1.5 seconds. With that you get caught with another champion she will use her Tidal Wave which covers up about 2/3 to 3/4s of mid lane and knock up, slows and damages her enemies. Nami also has great engage and disengage potential as when see casts an ability on an ally champion including herself, she or they gain movement speed.

4 (Visible Difficulty):

Leona: Leona is the type of support to completely focus you with her roots, stuns and slows. I have recently got into Leona and realized how fun she actually is, but not for a Soraka Main. Leona's "hook" is more of a stun and dash device and has a much shorter range than Pyke, Blitzcrank, Nautilus or Thresh. Leona is also a lot less of utility and more of an engage and CC support. From my experience Leona is only useful after Lvl. 3, once she gets once point on all 3 of her abilities she may try to all in you if she has the health advantage and an ADC with good early game so make sure to be on the watch out for that. She is able to hop onto you with her Zenith Blade which stuns and roots you, then activates her Shield of Daybreak which stuns you for another second and uses her W, Eclipse to gain MR and Armor. With that she may her ultimate Solar Flare which can either stun or slow you by over 50% depending if her accuracy is good or no. She is an overall not fun champ for Soraka but you are able to space her out with Equinoxs and Starcalls. A little tip if she gets to close for comfort use you Equinox on yourself so she will get silenced after her Zenith Blade and rooted in which you can engage on her with AAs and Starcall for a nice kill.

Lux: Lux is an overall good shielding and mostly an AP heavy support from the damage from her Light Binding, Lucent Singularity and especially known from her ultimate Final Spark. Lux also has her Prismatic Barrier which lets her shield herself and her allies. This is overall good for engaging and/ or disengaging. She will always try to poke you out with her Lucent Singularity as it covers a large area and if caught inside it you will be slightly slowed. Be sure to try not to feed Lux as she is able to carry a game to a victory because of her massive AP boost and damage overall. For Lux you need to be able to skill shot your Starcall pretty well and follow up with an Equinox positioned behind her to possible get a root and a kill.

Morgana: Morgana is a very good utility and set up support. She can use the power of her Black Shield to be able to shield her allies from any sort of silence, slow or root the Soraka can provide. Soraka's disengage tools also become useless when trying to run away if it is possible to apply those effects onto the enemy. With her defensive tools, she also has her offensive abilities, her Dark Binding which has a root which can last up to 5 seconds and her Tormented Shadow which does damage over time and with that root their ADC will be able engage and collapse on you and you could die from that. Although her root can hit minions you still have to be weary of its range and root time. Like other champions they rely on them to hit there skill shot that will root or stun their enemies.

Zyra: Zyra like Lux is a large AP based champion with roots, and a lot of damage. Zyra has her Grasping Roots which are able to go through multiple objects, minions and champions and can double root your bot lane. With her amazing root she also has her passive Garden of Thorns and Deadly Spines to add more damage towards you. Even with that she has her ultimate, Stranglethorns which is just more dmg. Zyra has massive poke potential, enough to dodge your Equinox and still be able to poke. But as a Soraka your main priority when laning against her would probably her root/ Grasping Roots. You can win the match up against Zyra is she is overaggressive, you manage to get an Equinox silence and then a root, or you and your adc can both destroy her.

5 (EXTREME Difficulty):

I'm sorry if you have to lane against one of these people.

Pyke: Pyke, my most hated support champion. He is very good overall, with his Ghostwater Dive cloaking ability and his Bone Skewer which if you get pulled towards him, he will be able to Phantom Undertow you and you will be stunned. And boom you're dead. Pyke will always try to get to the back lines and be a very aggressive support. For this matchup you must always ward middle of your side bush incase he ever goes for a cheeky Bone Skewer. In my matchups against Pyke is stay behind the caster minions and mainly use my Equinox more than my Starcall as it comes out quicker and is possible that you can catch him in the middle of a set up. This character for me is that one champ you always want to ban.

Thresh: Thresh, another very annoying "hook" support champion. Thresh can great utility and help set up kills for the enemy team. He is able to easily disengage with his Dark Passage and his Flay. In this matchup you also can really pressure him to much as he can also hook you in with his Death Sentence and then dash towards you and Flay you backwards. And then you're dead. Compared to Pyke he is as deadly but if you get caught out you will be severely punished. You won't be able to kill the bot lane or even 1 of the 2 in the lane, but if you do be grateful. Its a difficult matchup but possible to keep at neutral if no one gets caught by his Death Sentence.

Blitzcrank: Blitzcrank, the robot of knock up and you're dead, never a fun match up. Blitzcrank's "hook" has the longest range (at 1079) of all "hook" from champions including Pyke, Thresh, Leona, and Nautilus. Blitzcrank is really a force to be reckoned with as with his massive Rocket Grab he can grab you from the other side of the lane and combo you into his Power Fist with knocks you up for a short period of time and then also into his Static Field ultimate if he has reached level 6 at the time and point. But like most "hook" champions' hooks they hit minions and when playing against a Blitzcrank, you are going to want to be behind your caster minions for most of the time and try to poke out the enemy ADC or Blitzcrank with your famous Equinox and Starcall.

Nautilus: Ahh Nautilus another of the most disliked hook supports. Nautilus has 3 abilities in with are very annoying to deal with when fighting in bot lane or team fights. When it comes to bot lane Nautilus has his anchor and Dredge Line which pulls you into him and then knocks you up for a period of time, from there he will usually bring out his Riptide which slows you down and degrades your Starcall Movement Speed Buff. If you get hit by Dredge Line its most likely over for you. But now Nautilus also has an even more annoying ability in which if he targets you, you are dead and almost useless to the team fight. With his Depth Charge he is able to put you airborne for about 1.5 seconds which means in Soraka time that you could've hit a Astral Infusion which could've change the tide of the team fight. Make sure to always use your Equinox on Nautilus whenever an engagement begins. This is your most helpful tool to poke and silence your enemies, but still use your Starcall to sap away your enemies' health and slow them down.

Maokai: Maokai like Pyke takes the top position for my most hated support champion. Maokai has bush coverage, amazing crowd control, and if the jungler is ganking you, you are for sure dead unless you Flash away. Maokai can use his Sapling Toss ability to cover all 3 bushes like wards and can section Soraka off from anywhere near there. So no poking expect for Equinox. Maokai's Ultimate Nature's Grasp is also one of the most scariest things when play Soraka. When Maokai hits his R, you better run and hope you can get a Starcall to grab that increase in movement speed. If you get hit by Maokai's R then the enemy jungler might be there to clean up the bot lane and grab 2 easy kills. Also since you get rooted from his ultimate you will probably get bursted down and die. Although Maokai is a more uncommon support and made surprise some of you I believe I have my reasons to place him as my number one threat with Pyke.

Early Game!!!

• Try to gain vision on the enemy jungler's buffs to see where they have been or not, to get knowledge of their activity and to see if they go for any early ganks. • Try to ward near Dragon pit around the junglers lvl. 4 or 5 as after securing a kill in bot lane you should be able to take the Dragon • Try to ward near the entrance to river on Red Side, about 40% way to Mid Lane. • If there is a "hook" champion on the other team (like Thresh) be sure to ward one of your lane bushes • If playing very aggressive with jungle already warded place a ward in enemies' bush

When you upgrade to Frostfang.

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After getting Frostfang you should switch from Stealth Ward to your Oracle Lens as you are able to get 3 free wards every time you return to fountain. Now you should be placing wards more often then before this time

Mid - Late Game!!!

• Do not go alone to go warding unless you have a lot of vision around the surrounding area (for example: you have a lot of vision on top side jungle and you want to ward around Baron) • Always be sure to watch your enemies' movements to see if they are invading or are taking objectives (like Dragon or Baron or even Scuttle) • You should have Oracle Lens by now so ward around Baron and take an extra ally with you so you and him can ward and sweep enemy wards around objectives. • If you require any sort of assistance be sure to place a tactical ward for a ally to Teleport onto it and help you out

• Never engage when you don't have vision around the area or else you could get ambushed. (For ex. chasing a low hp champion and a Rengar just happens to be in a bush, they will counter attack you and kill you). • Try to move around as a team, as if you went alone you could easily be killed, but in a 2 v 5 its just not possible. • Always check your minimap and see where the enemy's carries are currently at.

This is an example is you are on blue side

Red - Aggressive Wards, These are wards you place when you are winning your lane and are able to gain vision on the enemy's jungle

Blue - Defensive Wards are used when your jungle is constantly being invaded and you are being ganked or camped and you should also tell your jungler to start warding top side jungle if you can get vision bot side jungle

Light Green - Situational Wards. These wards are mainly used when you are either playing super aggressive or defensive, use your wards in a smart way as you only can place up to 4 wards (One Control Ward and 3 Warding Totems)

Roaming

Because Support Champions like Soraka do not get as much gold compared to other roles, farming when left alone in a lane is not as helpful as could be so we have roaming

When should you roam as Soraka...

• In the First 20 minutes • When your ADC is dead or has backed to grab a important item (for example: B. F. Sword) • Your ADC has a secure and/ or frozen lane • Your mid laner has asked for assistance so you can go to help them with heals and CC. • You have just gotten the Tier 1 Tower in Bot Lane. • Any time you just left the fountain • If you know where the enemy jungler is (for example: he just ganked top lane) • If mid is feeding and in need of a shutdown on the enemy mid laner • When you have a lot of vision over the enemy jungle

I want to expand on when you just backed or died and are in fountain. Instead of taking the route straight down bot lane. Go through the jungle and come out of jungle into the river and near the Dragon pit. From there you have many oppourtunities.

You Can:

1. Gank Mid lane by yourself. 2. Gank Mid with Jungle help. 3. Invade the enemy jungle and... 3. 1. Help your jungle steal a buff from the enemy 3. 2. Place wards around and behind Dragon Pit 3. 3. Place deep wards in and around their jungle to gain vision on the enemy jungler 4. Assist your jungler with Scuttle or Dragon 5. Gank bot by yourself (only if the 2 enemy champions have 15% - 25 each and your ADC has more than 65& health 6. Gank bot with the help of your jungler Basically you have a lot of opportunities to play off of fountain

Soraka Support Guide: Created: Oct. 19, 2019
Soraka Mid Guide: Created: Oct. 20, 2019
Nami Support Guide: Created: Oct 23, 2019
Aurelion Sol Mid Guide: Created: Oct. 27, 2019
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Soraka Support Guide: Lost in the Shadows and now Outdated: Feb 4, 2020