I did not ignore time, the whole argument was time. The 20 second cooldown of Astral Blessing against the 6 second cooldown of Glitterlance. At lv 2 this gets even worse, because Astral Blessing is still Rank 1, while Lulu now has Help; Pix too. I'd like to see you go from 1~3 in 20 seconds in normal circumstances.
in the time it takes lulu to get into position to hit 3 glitterlances, soraka will be level 3 and heal all of that damage in one spell
And 100-0 is not hard in botlane. That's the entire aim of any lane with Leona, Blitzcrank, and to a lesser extent, Taric and Alistar. Draven can kill easily pre-6, as can Miss Fortune and Graves. Sona is the squishiest champion in the game, and Soraka is up there.
i said pre-6. the only way to get 100-0'd bot lane(with no jungler assistance of course) is to make a bad play. 100-0ing literally does not happen with good players pre-6.
I am not ignoring the armor buff on her heal. It also only lasts three seconds. You just wait it out, and bam, 17 seconds of useless Soraka.
you... you know that soraka's lanemate can force an engage, take initial spell burst, get healed, and then put themselves in an advantageous position because they win the auto war with the armor buff, right? you can literally force people to be in positions where they can't just "wait it out". or, you can just use it when they won't have an opening to do damage for that long anyway. it's easy.
Meanwhile, as Soraka gets levels and CDR, the armor buff gets larger, the heal gets larger, the silence and mana restoation both grow and Starcall shreds more. With CDR she can do all of these drastically more often as well. Soraka is a lot more effective when she can throw out a 350 HP heal with 105 armor every 12 seconds as opposed to 20, with 70/25, and throw out a 2.5 second silence every 6 seconds as opposed to 1.5 every 10.
And that's ignoring Wish. You know, 2,200 burst healing at max rank. That dosen't even exist at pre-6.
it's almost like champions get stronger as they accumulate levels. i am not sure what point you are trying to make.
As a Zyra support player, this is what happens when I fight a Soraka:
I land an early snare.
oh. so the soraka you're against is bad.
good sorakas won't stay in spell range because they know they can't straight up win fights that early. if they are within a range where you can easily hit grasping roots every time, they are doing it wrong.
The damage from me and my AD forces Soraka to heal. We back off because of the armor buff.
12 seconds later, another snare lands on Soraka. Soraka dies because she has no heal, and is made of paper.
so basically your argument is 100% centered on the enemy soraka being bad and putting herself in disadvantageous positions so you can kill her.
This applies to Leona's Xenith Blade as well.
once again, why is soraka ever in range for that to be an issue
Soraka also struggles to cope with poke lanes like Caitlyn/Lulu, because she can't keep up with the damage.
soraka dominates these lanes provided she and her carry position correctly. sustain > poke
She can't fight burst lanes.
all sustain in the game loses against burst. no news flash here.
She can't fight poke lanes.
poke lanes are virtually useless against a good soraka
She's pretty much useless after the first three seconds in all-in situations.
situational. early on, starcall can stack up decent damage. late game, it's pretty crappy unless you have a rumble or anivia or some other sustained magic damage on your team.
If a gank comes she's useless, be it ally or enemy, unless someone dives and she can armor buff them.
um being able to silence people with blinks (FUCK YOU EZREAL FUCK YOU SO HARD I HOPE YOU DIE FOREVER), giving the jungler time to close in and apply cc(or have your carry do it if they have any) is incredibly strong.
Meanwhile, in teamfights, her passive is more effective due to more targets, her armor buff and passive are more effective due to larger HP pools, she can use her heals more, she has far, far larger heals, she has wish, she can spam silences a LOT more.
she brings less to the table for teamfights than any other support. wish is nice, but overall weaker in low resist meta. her w is still pretty good but only if utilized correctly. starcall's usefulness depends entirely on your magic damage. silence's strength is also reliant on who the enemy team is.
also with max cdr, you still only get one w off a fight. maybe two es. it really only has any effect on starcall in that regard.
Soraka is multiple times better in a teamfight than in lane. In lane she is undoubtedly the worst support atm, besides maybe Karma. MAYBE. Karma has more ways to save and aid her ADC than Soraka does earlygame, with her shield, heal, and speedbuff/slow, as well as some burst.
you pick soraka for laning phase. you pick soraka so your carry can definitely make it through laning phase alive and with farm. you pick soraka when you have a hypercarry like vayne or to compliment a bully like graves. you do not pick soraka for her teamfighting ability, as every other support can teamfight better than her.
also alistar is the worst support right now.
Honestly if I see a Soraka pick right now, I just go hyper-aggressive and take advantage of the 17 seconds it's a 2v1 lane.
badrakas
i really wish i had screenshotted that 10 win streak i had with soraka. every game was against gold-diamond players and we won lane every game. it would be the perfect citation for this
