As the title says: Why doesn't Riot help Soraka?

Granted, I am relatively new to the game. I just started towards the end of October, but since then I have played League roughly 5+ hours a day and have watched every tournament hosted in that time to get myself more acquainted with the game, so I feel I do have a fair bit of insight in the champions and how the work. I main as support and frankly, it's the only thing I really enjoy playing. It feels rewarding and exhilarating in my opinion and Riot's variety of supports has excited me to no end.

That said, my favorite support to play is Soraka. She is one of the only supports who really feels like what a support is supposed to be. With that in mind, I normally only play her in bots and in groups I really trust because Soraka is NOT viable in PvP. Her cool downs are too high for very little result and anyone who knows anything about League knows that Soraka should not be played competitively. This is shown by the fact that characters like Zyra and Nidalee are used more in tournaments as support than Soraka. In fact, I have yet to see a professional player pick Soraka at all in my month and a half here.

So, back to my question: Why doesn't Riot help Soraka? They can help her in a multitude of ways without overpowering her or changing her drastically, though I do think she needs a total rework.

Option 1:

Change her Starfall. Most Soraka players pick Starfall late in the game. I've seen some wait until level 5-8 to pick it up and then rarely use it afterwards. It does minimal damage and the magic resist deduction is not that great. I would advise increasing the magic resist a bit, increasing the damage a bit, OR changing Starfall all together. It could be changed into a team buff, a shield, or even a debuff that actually helps, like a slow.

Option 2:

Change her heal. This is my favorite option because really it is what Soraka is here for, dish out the heals. As she is, her heals are useless due to healing little every 20 seconds. This means that you can heal a bit and then you are useless to the team for 20 seconds. My suggestion would be to drop the cooldown of her heal to 5 seconds. To keep it balanced, you would cut the amount she heals to about 1/3rd the original amount. This would both buff her heal and make it spammable, allowing you to use the heal as a utility much like a shield. This would make her far more useful in more ways than I could even list.

Option 3:

Change her ultimate! For god sakes, please Riot change her ultimate. As it is, Soraka has one of the most useless ultimates in the game. Is it nice? Absolutely. Is it a game changer? Absolutely not. Sona's ult is a game changer, Taric's ult is a game changer, even Lulu's ult can be a game changer if used in the right situation. Soraka's ult not so much. Instead of it being a global heal (Which doesn't heal much considering it's an ultimate), this could be changed to a global buff and it would be much more useful. You could also make it a stun or even keep it a heal but reduce the cool down. Do anything with her ultimate except for what is done here. When I use my ultimate on any other character, I feel like it matters. When I use it on Soraka, it feels like I'm using just another skill.

Anywho, these are just some ideas I had to go with my question. Maybe get the creative juices at Riot going if they see this. It's just Season 3 has all these changes and I think changing Soraka should be one of those changes. If you have any ideas on how to make Soraka viable again or if you even have an answer to my question, please leave it here. Heck, if you think she is just fine the way she is, let me know and tell me why you feel that way. Maybe I've just playing her wrong. If so I'd like to know! ^.^

Soraka is actually very good. She is not a sustained healer though, you need to time your bursts of heals at the appropriate moment to give someone enough health and armor to save them.

Starfall does pretty damn good SUSTAINED damage at early levels. And her ultimate IS a game changer, you can save someone on the other side of the map, you can negate a LARGE chunk of AoE damage.

I think you just need a bit more practice with her and you will see she is awesome.

She is a little bit UP but doesn't need all these changes just maybe put her heal on a 15 sec CD.

morello actually said he doesnt like soraka. i cant find the quote

As some one who's played a lot of Soraka, I'm surprised she wasn't picked in the last tournament. Her ability to passively contribute magic resistance, spot heal low health champions, and instantly place a long silence at a safe range is as close to a perfect counter to Katarina or AP Yi that you can get, but she wasn't picked, even against Karthus.
I think it will take time, but people will realize how powerful she can be. Team fights in tournaments these days can last for several minutes. Having a healer for that amount of time is quite beneficial.

Morello didn't say he hated soraka. He said he hated the idea of a dedicated healer.

the issue is riot doesnt want a champion who doesnt do much besides be an afk heal bot for a carry in bot lane

that is pretty much exactly what she does

I feel like Soraka doesn't play as interactive of a role as, say Sona, Lulu, or Nami. Though i initially resisted the idea, as Soraka was my first Support, after playing some more i feel like an entire rework of her kit would be nice.

I've come to really enjoy having abilities that do different things for allies than they do to enemies XD

Soraka's fine. Her q doesn't seem like much, but if the enemy team doesn't focus you and you get max q stacks, they'll be down 120 magic resist.

Her E is great for mana sustain, which is good on champs like MF, Tristana, Sivir, and possibly Corki. Her W heals for 70 / 140 / 210 / 280 / 350 per cast, which is actually a huge amount- It'll keep your carry full as long as he/she has good positioning.

The armor buff is also nothing to be laughed at, as it can make you damn near invincible.

Also, her R is arguably one of the best heals in game. It's just big enough to save allies when they're stuck in sticky situations, and nothing more. If your ally is getting dived halfway across the map, press R and your ally should be picking up the kill.

The problem with her now is that the meta has shifted towards early game aggression, and Soraka doesn't have the kill potential that Leona/Taric/Alistar have. There's nothing wrong with her as a champion, however, and she's definitely powerful in solo queue.