Riot has just announced its list of changes for patch 4.17 for League of Legends. This new patch brings a lot of balance changes and tweaks to the champions, and also the game itself. One of the biggest in my opinion is that ranked players in Bronze, Silver, and Gold will no longer suffer from Ranked Decay. Meaning that if you are in these leagues and stop playing for an extended period of time, you will no longer slowly fall down the ladder, losing your rank.
Soraka also has seen a complete overhaul
In the past, Soraka has been seen as the lazy man’s support. Soraka was just a walking potion dispenser, as she never had any form of hard crowd control and her Q (Starcall) never did that much damage. Riot games is looking to change this, by giving her a different, yet similar toolkit.
Passive
Soraka gains significant movement speed when she moves towards heavily wounded allies.
This change is huge, before Soraka’s passive simply applied a stack bonus to her heal and mana restoring abilities. This change provides a much more entertaining buff, as you can actually see it and it isn’t just a boost in numbers.
Q: Starcall
Soraka calls down a meteor at a target location, damaging all enemies caught by the explosion and dealing extra damage and a slow to enemies directly under the impact.
Soraka’s Starcall has always just been a filler move, now it is something to be wary of. This spell now has to be aimed and finally gives Soraka the much needed movement control that she lacked.
W: Astral Infusion
Passive: Soraka heals herself whenever she hits an enemy champion with Starcall.
Active: Soraka sacrifices her own health to heal a nearby ally.
This change to Soraka’s heal is big, it’s no longer just a heal that is thrown out at the expense of mana. Now you will have to actively think if healing your ally is worth the cost of your health if you are already low. Also the passive gives Soraka more motivation to poke with Starcall. Not only will she slow her target, she will also help give herself a quick heal, without putting Astral Infusion on cooldown, allowing her to pass the healing benefits directly to her ally.
E: Equinox
Soraka briefly conjures a celestial zone at a target location. Enemies standing above the zone are silenced until they leave, while if they’re standing above equinox when it collapses, they’re briefly rooted.
Soraka needed a movement stopping ability and this is it. It is going to hurt losing the long silence that this ability had before, but forcing multiple enemies to move out of position, or possible rooting them to the ground is a very good trade for Soraka.
R: Wish
Soraka summons a global heal for all allied champions. Heavily wounded allies gain extra health.
This ability is mostly unchanged. It has always been a game-wide heal for all allies. It’s still too early to see if the multiplier for low health will be enough to notice a difference, but it looks like it could change things up, especially if you have an ally being attacked when you aren’t in range.
Published: Sep 24, 2014 04:04 pm