This is something I've been wondering about but really hit home in a past couple bad matches I've had.

How do you counter a bot with infinite sustain ie Soraka as an AD Carry?

Now before we get into a pick/counter pick discussion I'm talking in context of a Normal Blind pick match. Just you and a couple friends playing champs you enjoy and BAM there's a Soraka ruining your day.

You can't trade harass and if you can't trade harass I can't engage. I'm left taking what Creeps I can and calling for ganks. But if the jungler lacks hard CC then Soraka can just out heal the gank and we're left running away, tail between our legs.

There has to be a real way to win a 2v2 bot against a Soraka but I'm just not seeing it.

 

In my experience (which is fairly limited), I have usually won against Soraka with a highly aggressive lane. My friend and I run a pretty mean Corki or Tristana with Nunu/Alistar support. You play a bit carefully and then jump on them the instant they make the slightest mistake. (Note: this is almost impossible to pull off in PuGs, since you don't have the same coordination)

You have to burst their faces off fast so that the Soraka sustain doesn't become a lane changer. In the same vein, coordinating with a competent jungler will also do the trick.

The only other way is to out farm them. Soraka support is a bitch to try and push out of lane, so your only other real option is to play better than the opposing Carry.

 

You don't trade. You go balls deep.
That's pretty much all to it =/

 

This.

/10char.

 

That, or just harass them consistently enough(without missing farm or taking too much damage back), that Soraka is forced to burn her mana on heals...

If she stays around at no mana, then her sustain is no longer a threat, and if she recalls to restore her mana, then she can't really provide that precious sustain either.

 

Yeah, now that they changed Infuse so that she can't use it to restore her own mana, draining down her mana pool is actually an option.

 

There are two ways that I've found to work.

1) Have the Bot Lane AD carry pick up some sustain early game and go with a very pokey support champion (I.E: Gangplank, Nunu, Kayle) and poke until the enemy support is out of mana.

2) Send the Top Lane bruiser bot with some offensive/cc support (Alistair, Blitzcrank, Leona) and create a kill lane designed to kill the AD Carry faster than the support can heal. Send your AD carry top or mid with either a cloth armour or a null magic mantel , depending on whether they are facing an AD or AP carry.

 

Run Alistair Zilean bot.

Desecrate what they worship as you spam headbutts and timebombs with a mana manipulator on Alistair and dorans ring on Zilean, knocking Soraka too far away to heal her AD Carry who is slowly ticking away. With Zilean's speed steroid, Alistair easily catches up to them for his pop-up-headbutt combo into your turret. Lane is never ganked, as both have relatively inexpensive builds, leaving much room for wards.

Run Leona Jarvan. Laugh at the enemy as they pitifully try to escape and are CC-ed for thirty seconds straight, shaving off health like fucking Sweeney Todd.

Run Alistair Vayne. Pin Soraka to the wall and have your way with her while her AD Carry struggles uselessly in the background, getting thrown around bot lane by an insane bull with no respect for cooldowns or mana problems.

Soraka is squishy. Ad carries are squishy. And neither have good CC. Run kill lanes and punish them for it.

 

Ali/Zil bot is a very interesting combination that I haven't seen before. The only problem I see is that those are two very lane push champions by nature, especially if they spam abilities. I feel a better choice is a pair with less of an aoe assault style. I love j4/ Leona comps and tend to run that when I que with my friends.

 

Or you can ward and tower dive with impunity as you have 2 ultis designed to sponge that damage.

 

There is one problem with all your guy's comments. Super aggressive can be a good thing, or backfire spectacularly against a Soraka. Obviously, if you kill them, you win and did well. But if you didn't kill them, (even if you did more damage then they did to you), you basically lost the exchange since, well they have a Soraka.

Beating a Soraka just depends on how the enemy plays. If they have a good AD carry, and constantly abusing his skills, pushing lane, and Soraka keeps it warded, you will have a pretty difficult time and just have to do your best farming under tower.

If the AD carry isn't as good, or has a lower range and you can dodge the skill shots (Sivir, Ezreal), then you can continuously poke them and just make Soraka run low on mana.

Against the aggressive Sorakas, the ones that comes up to silence + auto attack. The best way to get a kill is to poke the Soraka back when she hits you, keep your hp up with your health pots, and when Soraka heals HERSELF, then use your skills to attack the ad carry. If Soraka can't give that heal + armor buff to ad carry, it's basically a 2v1 at that point. (Make sure they don't have too many minions though).

Occasionally, if they are having something stupid like triple or Quadra heals bot, it's not a completely bad idea to grab an Executioner's Calling. Pretty cheap (like 1350?), active lowers heal by 50%, good DOT during poking stage, and allows you to not bother getting Bloodthirster until really late game when you want to sell the Exec Calling.

Ganks, Instant gibs are all obvious answers, but it's not always that easy to do so especially when lanes are warded or the enemy team can trade pokes. (Good Sorakas usually will keep lane bushes warded against aggressive lanes, e.g Alistar, Leona, Naut, Blitz, etc)

 

That's why you pick champs with CC or really high damage. An Annie + Garen will will stomp the crap out of a soraka + Carry lane since soraka can't outheal their damage or beat their CC.

Garen + Any ranged hard CC champ will usually crush Soraka and her carry regardless of wards.

 

You could, but I figured this would be playing with normal bot composition in blind pick. And while Janna and Garen, Alistar +Jarvan, is op at bot, it's not exactly common either.

Also, when I was mentioning killing the AD carry after Soraka heals herself, I already assumed there would be high cc involved to do that. Otherwise, a no cc/no sustain support, what is that champion doing there o,0

 

Besides double bruiser bot combinations, consider using highly aggressive support + AD lanes to blow them up early. Some good ones include

Leona
Taric
Alistar

Highly aggressive early ADs include

Corki
Tristana
Sivir
Miss Fortune
Ezreal
Urgot

 

Why can't you trade aggressively (but not go "balls deep") while her heal is down? It's cooldown is so long.

 

Cause, if the players are good on both sides, they will trade back. And while Soraka can heal the damage back, you can't.

 

So I've tried toning up the aggression and its hard mixed results. If the support/player can't get behind all out attack I end up feeding. An increase in ganks helps but I find it puts the jungler too far behind, jungler goes to initiate silence + heal they get away.

I think the problem is mainly the amount healed. Pre-6 I burst + ignite a Varus as Graves and one heal from her later and he's basically back to where we started. I'll need to keep trying different things but right now when Soraka pops up in the loading screen it means a very boring very passive first 15 minutes of the game.

 

Play Nautilus. Problem solved. You have 3 CCs and decent enough burst to go aggressive by yourself without the carry being involved. Your mana usage isn't that high either, so you can keep it up for a long time. Shield lets you mitigate a bit of damage, so you arne't as hurt in the exchange either.

The carry involved just means you get a kill.

 

If you aren't in sync with your support, just play passive and get lifesteal early.
One of the things about heal bot lanes is that while they counter aggression, they have limited aggression themselves.
Avoid fighting entirely or go balls deep, the key is just not to trade too much if you aren't going to go for the kill.