League Of Legends

I do really like her, because you practically win every trade automatically. What I mean is, if I auto+silence their AD and take twice as much damage in return but then heal back up, they lost health and I didn't. I can grind one/both of them down by myself this way and they have to recall while my AD gets a free farm wave or two. Then, if I'm warding well to avoid jungle ganks, which I generally am, they are a level (or two) and a full item ahead by the time we are level 8-9. If they really, really suck, that might not be enough to carry, but in most games it is.

The only time it doesn't work is if they have a very high CC support, an early game ADC (like draven/leona, caitlyn/blitz, etc) AND they are better then us. Like, I can't fully zone out a caitlyn/blitz as I need to use minions to block blitz grabs and caitlyn's Q is harder to dodge when you are stuck in minions, so you are in trouble either way. But, timing my E when I see a bad blitz telegraphing a grab on one of us, often makes him take a bunch of free damage. Bad players get silenced and keep trying to do what they were going to do anyways.

I rank E, then W, pretty much ignoring Q till after lane phase is over. Occasionally, I'll get it at lvl 4/5 if I'm not having to use heal as much as normal and/or my ADC does a fair amount of magic damage (corki/varus/etc.) that they benefit from the MR reduction. Also, using heal every time it's off cooldown, I still never run out of mana before I'd have to hit base for wards/items anyways. My ADC never runs out of mana due to infuse either, so if they listen to me and are patient enough to wait till enemy duo is oom or I've harassed one really low, we win an all-in too.

If I'm duo Qing with an ADC friend, I rarely ever play her as we can communicate and time our harass/all-ins much better. It's generally sona or taric at that point. Soraka is sort of a 'retarded ADC' buffer/handicap for me when yolo Qing basically. Plus, when it comes to full on 5v5 teamfights later, Soraka is pretty shitty, I admit. The idea is that we win early game enough to snowball into our team being fed overall so it negates her weakness in teamfights, though. Having an aegis, reverie and heals gives your team enough survivability/disengage/repositioning to make up for a few small misplays in teamfights.

Add Elise jungle. Drop nasus.

Raka is a good support for Caitlyn, MF, Ashe, Varus and Kog'Maw because they are champions that use mana to deny farm with poke. Other ADCs she doesn't pair well with.

Soraka lanes will win vs poke but most bot lanes know that when they see a Soraka against them they want to play all in. Soraka is incredibly weak in an all in since she has no hard cc, is squishy and all together doesn't contribute much of anything to those situations. Play vs a Thresh/MF lane or something similar and you're pretty much hosed.

WhatsAmmataU_sl said:

Add Elise jungle. Drop nasus.

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Why would you drop Nasus? I agree Elise is very strong right now, but Nasus is as well. While not a hyper carry coming out of the jungle like he is in top lane, he still provides incredibly useful shutdown for an enemy ADC, good jungle clears, good ganks, a good armor shred in teamfights a great ultimate... Nasus is still considered one of the top junglers right now.

And enzie, adding someone with very strong ganks like Eve or very strong counter jungling/dueling like Udyr or Lee would be great. I currently jungle Zac, Nasus and Eve and am working on adding a duelist. One of my strengths as a jungler is timing their buff camps and counter jungling so I would really like to add Udyr or Lee Sin to my gameplay.

Elise, Udyr or Shyvana are all very strong snowbally champions. Elise and Udyr you can build Ancient golem into bulwark and still be a nuisance in team fights because you're very tanky and still bring good CC. With shyvana start with a bork and depending if you're snowballing build a bruta next followed by usually tanky at that point. She gets free Armor/MR from her passive and those passive stats double while she's in dragon form, so even without tanky items she's pretty resilient early game due to just her passive.

As for supports, definitely grab Leona. Assuming you're ADC isn't retarded and will follow up with you the amount of CC and damage she brings is insane. Plus you can easily catch the squishier supports out of place and snowball your lane. If you get ahead in your lane, grab early mobo boots and oracles and then roam middle a lot. If we get far enough ahead bot lane and my ADC is pretty much safe to 1v2 for the most part, I'll ward up bot then roam mid and try to snowball mid lane as well. The range on her ult is very long and if you lane the stun on your ult then you easily follow up with a QE which should be a dead mid, assuming your mid helps as well. Snowball both lanes and it better be an easy victory.

Thresh is obviously the most overpowered support at the moment but he should be banned almost 100% of the time. Although I guess I dont know how bans are down in bronze/silver so maybe he's left open? But at least up in low plat he's 100% ban rate.

Edit:
Here's a Shyvana video.

lindz_sl said:

Soraka lanes will win vs poke but most bot lanes know that when they see a Soraka against them they want to play all in. Soraka is incredibly weak in an all in since she has no hard cc, is squishy and all together doesn't contribute much of anything to those situations. Play vs a Thresh/MF lane or something similar and you're pretty much hosed.

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I don't agree with your broad statement for one and for two I think you missed what I was saying. Soraka is good when she's played with a poke champion, not against a poke lane, although obviously she shines there too. It's her mana replenishment that is her strength, not her heal.

Not yet 30 so just unranked and yeah, thresh has been banned 100% of the time in my games as well. I really wanted to buy/play him(I still will eventually), but I don't see much point in having one of the first champs I really learn how to play be one who is banned the majority of the time.

The problem I have with Soraka is there's too many 'if' statements to make her a good support. Thresh and Leona, for example, don't really need any 'ifs' to make them a good pick, they're just always going to contribute to laning and, probably as importantly, to initiating and team fighting later. Yes Thresh is banned a lot, but that's still the kind of support you should focus on, one that doesn't need a certain situation to make them a good choice. Alistar is more useful a lot of the time as well, although he seems fairly unpopular right now unless you're Madlife. Nami is like a more skill reliant but potentially better Janna, you might like her more than Janna (I hate Janna myself too), and she again can be useful in way more situations than Soraka.

Janna is better than Nami, hands down, but her ult is very, very skill reliant.

Yeah, it's weird that Alistar fell off as much as he did. He is definitely one of the most annoying supports if he just plays purely defensive. Trying to get on the enemy Vayne while an alistar is sitting right there is just about impossible. Gap close in, headbutt away. Get close again, Pulverize. Get close again, vayne knock back, get close again vayne tumble. It's one of the most frustrating experiences lol. Although you can play him purely offensive as well (like madlife) and still zone somebody out of the fight by knocking them away or flashing Pulverizing multiple people etc etc etc.

Alistar is too easy to fuck up and get punished with imo. He's very good, but very risky, so I tend to not like him unless you're really, really comfortable with him.

Amzin_sl said:

Nami is like a more skill reliant but potentially better Janna, you might like her more than Janna (I hate Janna myself too), and she again can be useful in way more situations than Soraka.

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I haven't had a chance to play nami at all yet, I must have missed her the last time she was free. I do want to try her out.

Honestly, the reason I dislike janna is because I play on a shitty laptop that averages 20fps, and sometimes drops to 5-10fps during teamfights or at random moments. It makes timing her shield reactively hard to pull off a lot of times. Without being able to shield incoming damage, alot of her power is gone. I love the rest of her kit, and have pulled off great monsoons before.. it's just that during laning I'm a split second too late on the shield half of the time, so I suck with her.

I agree with everyone's assesment of Soraka for higher tier play. But, at bronze/silver levels, your skill and familiarity with a champion trumps almost everything. I know how to combat most bot lane duos when I play soraka, and I often dominate when they have a melee support with a lower range AD just from auto attack harass. I love seeing taric, blitz or leona with a vayne, for example. I only have the skillshots from blitz/leona to dodge, which I can do, and taric's stun range is lower then my silence. If he comes at me to stun, I silence+auto him and step away from his AD and closer to mine so if he keeps coming after silence wears off, he's out of position. The armor buff on her heal is similar to Janna's shield in damage mitigation, but can be done after damage has hit to undo the damage. It gives me a bigger margin of error for the occasional framerate drop.

I don't play her all the time, obviously, but I think she's more than viable at this level of play, especially with how comfortable I am with her.

So far, I'm debating thresh or leona for support. Thresh might be banned a lot, sure, but if enemy team bans thresh, they probably leave blitzcrank open.. or one of my junglers. Knowing how to play all the champs that normally get banned, means that when one is left open I can play it well and own. Well, that's the theory anyways.

I appreciate the elise recommendation, for some reason I overlooked her in my choices, which is why I posted in the first place I played a game yesterday where the elise jungle was very good. I was nunu, trying to counterjungle at lvl 1, but her top jayce helped defend blue while she took red with help and my top laner herp derped on coming to help me kill jayce till I was too low. Set me back a bit, let her get double buffs early and start ganking. With her cocoon and that execute ability, she's pretty good at ganking. Her % based damage lets her build tanky and still do good damage, which is always nice since most people don't like playing tanks or building defense items. Any time I can be a 'carry tank' I try to do that. That's a main reason I like nasus so much.

edit: OH, and the shyvana suggestion.. I liked her a lot before the changes, just from her objective control from clearing so fast. Haven't played her since that. Sounds like she might be even better now?

What I was saying about Soraka, is that if you like her she is completely viable with certain champs. No less viable than any other support. However, she is only viable with certain champs. She is a shit choice for a Draven or a Vayne for example. If you pick her with one of them you are disadvantaging yourself. People talk about Thresh all the time because he provides something to every single ADC in the game, but since he's perma-banned I don't really know why everyone always likes to bring him up.

If you are looking for another support Leona has a really low skill cap and brings a lot to the table. Sona is a good choice for an amazing support with a low basic skill requirement but a huge skill ceiling. Janna is a great support with a high skill ceiling but a bad Janna can really fuck up her team.

I wish I had bought Elise last time she was on sale.

Oh yea, totally. I wouldn't play soraka with draven or vayne, unless something really weird happened, like an enemy double melee bruiser bot duo, with only one gap closer/CC (jarvan/udyr or something odd). Possibly against a taric/urgot if I was with vayne so I could heal the long range harass/silence the stun AND she said beforehand she just wanted to passive farm as long as possible, but more likely sona or alistar even then.

I just started playing ranked and I main Elise. She's almost never banned, she can play four out of five roles so pick order is rarely an issue, her damage stays relevant all game even if you build pure tank and/or support, and if you get ahead and start building damage she snowballs like crazy. Plus her kit is really good and her roam potential is through the roof.

lol.. been awhile since I had a super troll in a ranked game. I'm jungling nunu, he's top khazix, he pings for assist every 30seconds-1minute for the first 10 minutes of the game. Even 30 seconds after I just ganked for him, he'd do it. Or, after I said I gotta secure our buffs first then I'd head that way, he pinged again 10 seconds later before I'm up there. He was asking for assist at weirdest times too, like when he's actually winning the trades against his opponent and doesn't even need a gank. Eventually, everyone else told him stfu.

Then, despite him losing lane and noobing it up, we're starting to snowball and win. Had stolen blue buff lvl 1 and shut down enemy jarvan jungle, and continued to steal big monster from camps whenever I saw jarvan somewhere else. Was up 4-5 levels on him at one point. He (troll khazix) then starts trying to steal buffs from me when I'm jungling.. TRIES TO STEAL BUFFS FROM A NUNU! lol, he didnt think that one out.

Again, we keep dominating despite him, so he goes into super saiyan troll mode and starts AFKing for a minute or two at a time, generally right when we think he's about to join us to teamfight, and each time we lose a bit more and more because of it. Slowly, but eventually, jarvan catches up in farm and I fall off late game, so once they finally ace us with enough people up to push, we lose. Everyone on both teams is lvl 18, khazix is lvl 15.

I've had trolls, feeders and noobs in games, but it was as if this guy actually had a bet placed on the other team to win and wanted to throw the game no matter what. It's been awhile since I saw that. Literally, the better we did, the more he tried to troll the game.

The Ancient_sl said:

Janna is better than Nami, hands down, but her ult is very, very skill reliant.

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That sounds like personal preference to me. Janna scales better but that only matters 45+ minutes into a game typically, otherwise Nami is just as good at least, if you're skilled with her. Ever since Nami showed up in the LCS Janna has made like 1 appearance. Janna's Q and W just aren't very good compared to bubble and a heal. Janna's shield is better than Nami's E in a lot of situations, but that's 1 ability, and until late game I would argue Nami's is as good or better since it helps you punish people for getting bubbled more (due to the slow).

Their win rates are statistically nearly identical and both above 50% either way, looks like Nami is better in premades than solo so probably better with a duo partner bot for maximum bubble + e murdering.

Edit: Besides, if he doesn't LIKE Janna, it's moot anyway, Nami fulfills a similar support role (disruption/buffing) and may be more enjoyable.

I just get frustrated that I can't play her correctly. Some day soon.. I'll upgrade my computer and move somewhere with better internet (normally playing on a laptop, internet at home is satellite) and I'll start playing champs that require better twitch skills. I don't think my reaction times are that bad, but combined with framerate drops, it causes me to miss stuff I would have otherwise hit.

p.s. @Sidian: thanks for linking that shyvana jungleology vid. It helped me understand her changes a bit and her current strength/weaknesses. I think that might be who I pick up, considering I really liked her even before the change due to her fast clear times and buff/objective control. Seems she got a bit better at that and tankier overall with her passive change and ult charging so quickly. I gotta farm some more IP before I can get her, so I might change my mind, but currently that's who I'm leaning towards.