Soraka

This Soraka has nothing to do with the modern version: her heal doesn't cost her own health and she has no root whatsoever. Astral Blessing heals and grants armor on the same cast, which makes it the best tool on the roster against a botlane that hits with auto attacks. Infuse costs nothing: on an ally it refunds mana, on an enemy it deals damage and silences.

Starcall rounds out the kit: a low cooldown area barrage that also shreds the magic resist of anything it touches, so it's a constant poke tool rather than a one-time burst. And Wish heals your whole team anywhere on the map, which steals fights she isn't even present in. Her weakness is simple: she's slow, fragile, and has absolutely nothing to stop someone from catching her.

Her lane sustain is overwhelming. Between her heal, the mana Infuse refunds, and her passive magic resist aura, the enemy botlane has to win trades cleanly or they win nothing at all. The silence is underrated: it cuts an engage, interrupts a channel, and costs nothing, so you can use it as often as it comes back. Her ultimate has map-wide reach, so a team that wins a fight by a sliver of health owes you the game.

The flaws are just as clear. No root, no shield, no way to peel a diver off your carry other than outhealing what they take. Her move speed and base armor are both poor, so any hard engage that lands on her kills her. Her heals are heavy on mana at high rank, and an enemy team stacking grievous wounds cancels a large share of what you bring.

Your job is to make the lane boring. Stay in range of your carry, save Astral Blessing for the real exchange rather than to top off a lost minion, and drop Starcall the moment the enemy support steps up: the short cooldown lets you land several in a single approach, and the magic resist shred amplifies whatever your carry does behind it.

Infuse is your most misused button. On a mana-hungry carry it keeps them in lane far past their bar, but in a skirmish it's worth more as a silence: cast it on the enemy support at the exact moment they commit, not after. Watch your own mana bar, though: at high rank the heal drains it in three casts, and a Soraka with no mana is just a slow target standing in the middle of the lane.

The first spike is your ultimate level, and it changes how your whole team plays the map: your botlane can take a fight they were losing, and your top laner survives a dive they'd never have escaped otherwise. Plenty of Soraka players hold it too long; it's a spell that should fire the moment it changes an outcome, not once everything is already lost.

The second spike is the item that fixes her income and her mana, because her entire kit depends on casting freely without counting. The third comes with cooldown reduction and the first team item: Soraka doesn't scale in damage, she scales in frequency and range of effect. Her curve is that of a pure utility pick, and she's better at forty minutes than at fifteen.

Stand behind everyone and off to the side of the fight, never in its axis: your heal range is decent, your ability to survive a dive is nonexistent. Your heal priority is whoever the enemy team has chosen to kill, and the armor from Astral Blessing matters as much as the heal itself when it's auto attacks doing the killing.

Save the silence for the enemy who needs to channel or the diver who just landed on your carry: it's your only disruption tool, and it's free, so forgetting it is a pure mistake. For Wish, the rule is headcount: firing it for a single ally is a waste unless it's what stops a death. And your passive magic resist aura only exists if you stay close to the group, which should shape your positioning even when you have nothing to cast.