Killing in reverse – the power of Healer Supports

In this blog I’m going to present to you the advantages and disadvantages of supports with healing spells. They are Sona, Nami, Taric and Soraka. One of them might be your new best friend! I am not talking about Lulu and Janna in this guide because they are not consistent healers, due to their healing powers being tied to their Ultimate.

Why would you want to heal instead of just have pure damage and aggression spells?
Right now the flavour of the past months is Thresh and Sona. There is a very high chance of seeing one of them chosen as a support in the LCS. While I am not going to discuss such a high degree of play, the thing I do want to discuss is this: Why should I choose Sona instead of Thresh, or any other support with heal over one who can't heal? Well, not really only Sona, but Nami, Soraka, and Taric.

In this blog I’ll mostly focus on Sona, Nami, and Taric, and less on Soraka. Right now she’s barely being played at all, and I think there are some inherent issues with her kit, but it is up to you if you choose to play her.

About the phrase ‘killing in reverse’ – you really do kill in reverse as a support with heal. Adding a second or two here and there to someone’s life may be the thing that wins you the fight, because they just needed that game-changing ability and they survived long enough for it to come off cooldown. Because of you.

But you can prevent your teammates from dying by landing important CC spells on the enemy carries, right? Well, yes, you can that, but there is a higher chance of something going wrong and missing/miscasting your CC spell than your healing spell. Sona’s W is auto-targeting the person with the least % of HP, Nami’s heal can heal up to 2 targets AND deal a bit of damage at the same time, Taric’s heal is also an easy to land single-target heal spell which also heals you. Soraka has two big heals, one being a global Ultimate ability that almost instantly heals all team mates and needs no targeting at all.

In contrast, a lot of the big ‘I’m in your face and I’m here to kill you’-supports like Thresh and Leona, and ranged supports like Zyra and Lux (yes, seriously, she can be a support too) have their big playmaking abilities tied to landing a skill shot.

By now you might have arrived to the conclusion that I’m saying ‘supports with heal are easier, they are for noobs who can’t hit with their spells’. Absolutely not. This guide is not aimed at players in Bronze or Silver specifically; it’s for everyone, from Bronze to Diamond. It's obvious that you might know a lot the things I've laid out below, but it's my hope that you may learn something or gain another point of view on supporting. It’s not about ‘this champion is easier than that one’, it’s about saying ‘how many thing can go wrong, and what chance is there for this to happen’. It’s about risk-management, and healing supports are great at it. Let’s be realistic, nobody can say ‘I am 100% sure that I will land every hook with Leona/Thresh’ because it’s not really 100% up to you – the enemy can dodge a skill, no matter how perfectly casted by you. In high-level play, and very disputed late-game matches, healing supports are your best pick (personal opinion), they have a lower risk/reward, but if played to their fullest capacity, they pay off big. Now let’s look at our options.

If I had to rank these four supports I’ve been talking about it would be like this:
Sona > Nami > Taric > Soraka.

So lets take a look at Sona first.

Sona

For a full rundowns of her skills, check her page on leagueoflegends.com

There is a reason why. In my opinion, Sona has the biggest potential of these four champions to be a playmaker, and also has the biggest map presence and threat due to the specifics of her kit.

Sona is a very versatile champion after level 2, and even more after level 6.
She has two main skills - Q and W. Start with her Q on Level 1 if you want to be aggressive, or W if you expect big pressure/attempt for first blood on bot. Try to max Q and W first and then her E (speed aura).

You can take one level of E on Level 4/7 to use it with her passive as a slow, but you don’t have much else need for it in early game. Always remember to spam your chosen spell at level 1 at the fountain while buying your starting items. This way you’ll charge your passive for free.

Sona’s Healing spell - Aria of Perserverance:
Sona has one of the best heals, if not the best, in the game. It might heal for only 120 on Level 5, but it has one advantage as a spell – a low cooldown of 7 seconds (I’ve had fights in which I’ve saved a carry twice in a row from death due to having my W available again so quickly), plus the short boost in armor and magic resist and the persistent aura. Sona can open the fight by casting a passive auto-attack charged with W to lower the enemy’s damage, Q (also on a 7 second cooldown) to help your carry with damage and then heal him/her again. By this point you have 2 charges on your passive and you can use it again with Q for damage, or E (if you have skilled it by this point) to slow a target if you have trouble finishing it off. Sona’s consistent casting of Q and W in a fight is a monster combo, considering you not only heal and dish damage out very quickly, but you can also do additional harm with your passive in different ways as needed.

Range of Sona's Heal.

For this reason, Sona LOVES Cooldown Reduction and Mana Regeneration. For this reason, I consider a Chalice of Harmony an essential part of her kit. Later on (or early, depending if you have gained an advantage) you can build a Glacial Shroud (and finish it later into a Frozen Heart), or buy a Kindlegem and decide later if you want it to be a Shurelya’s Reverie or a Zeke’s Herald. If the game is going well for you and your carries you can turn the Chalice into a Mikael’s Crucible to ensure said carries stay alive and healthy, plus the Magic Resist and Mana Regen are a nice bonus! Cooldown Reduction also ensures you have your Ultimate (by default it has a 140/120/100 second cooldown) up faster and more often, for that devastating 1.5 second AoE stun, and you can also spam E (7 second cooldown) in a sticky situation to run away or zip around the map and ward/counter-ward with less danger of getting caught.

Nami

Nami is my next favorite champion after Sona. She has even stronger CC than Sona, but a bit less direct damage and higher cooldowns.

For a full rundown of her skills, check her page on leagueoflegends.com

I almost always start with Q at level 1. It can be a HUGE pain in the butt for an enemy team who is stupid enough to stack at the same spot in a bush while invading you. Catching 3-5 people in your bubble at level 1 is almost a sure first blood, and possibly more kills. Assuming your team can respond to the threat and your stun accordingly, Nami can halt an invade dead in it’s tracks and turn it into a nightmare for your enemies in a second.

Nami’s Healing spell – Ebb and Flow:
Nami’s healing spell is Ebb and Flow (her W). It’s a bit more complicated than Sona’s heal because it also deal’s damage and can heal/damage multiple targets (with diminishing returns). Ebb and Flow has a 9 second cooldown by default. You have to judge yourself how you want to cast it depending on the situation, but here are a few examples:

Bush Warfare: If you are sitting in a bush, and the enemy support is in their bush, but you have vision on him/her, cast W on the enemy and then it will bounce to you and heal you. If the enemy ADC is close enough, it will bounce again to him, but it won’t deal much damage.

Running away: Due to Nami’s passive, if you are running away, cast W on yourself/an ally. It will heal, give you or an ally +30 Movement Speed and will probably jump to an enemy if they are close enough, and might even heal another target if they are in range. If you can complete a W cast with all jumps, cast it on the higher-priority target of your allies who are being chased – one of the carries. It will not help your team much if you survived, but your teammate gave a shutdown gold bounty.

Engaging with your jungler: Again due to Nami's passive, if your jungler has managed to sneak to your lane unnoticed, cast W on him/her if that jungler does not have a hard gap-closer (like Malphite’s Ultimate or Kha’Zix’s jump). This applies the same way to a straight-up 5v5 team fight. Use Your W on a beefy melee hero to get him to his target quickly.

This is the range of Nami's heal. The outer ring shows the range of the jump from one target to another.

We covered how Nami’s heal works. Here’s a brief explanation on how and when you can best utilize her other spells.
Nami’s E: Tidecaller’s Blessing (11 second cooldown). It’s a simple buff to an allied target which gives magic damage to their auto-attacks for their next 3 attacks. Always try to cast it on your ADC or a strong engager/assassin who can get to the enemy high-value targets easily (the enemy ADC and APC). You can also cast E on an ally to give them the short speed boost and help them (or you) run away.

Nami’s Ultimate, Tidal Wave (150/130/110 second cooldown), has a monstrous range, that’s why it is best to cast it through your team to engage/disengage with the speed buff and then knock up and slow the enemy team. The farther the wave travels, the longer the slow is, up to 4 seconds, and a minimum of 2. Your Ultimate chains extremely well with your Q, due to the enemy team being slowed and much easier to hit. If you want to go crazy with speed buffs/debuffs and come down on the enemy team like an avalanche, you can combine your Ultimate with items like Shurelya’s Reverie, Shard of True Ice, and Twin Shadows.
I personally build Nami the same way as Sona, stacking a bit of CDR and Mana Regen on top of team utility items like Locket of the Iron Solari and the Ruby Sightstone.

Taric

Taric is the only support of the four who is melee. Also, he doesn’t have a spell which he can use to harass by himself, and this is why he differs most from the other three champions we are looking at today. Although Taric by himself is not very dangerous, he compensates the lack of attack range and movement speed the other supports have with pure tankyness. Taric’s kit revolves around a more persistent presence in a fight and this can be seen especially in the late game. A Taric who has been successful in racking up gold from assists and gold per 10 items will have the bank to become a surprisingly hard target to kill, considering he is a support, and not a champion you would call ‘the team’s main tank’. He excels at surviving in lane. Let’s see why:-

For a full rundowns of his skills, check his page on leagueoflegends.com

Taric’s Healing spell – Imbue:
Taric’s healing spell is a two-man heal like Sona’s heal, but it heals for more HP per cast and is on a substantially longer cooldown (20 seconds at level 1, 16 seconds at level 5). If Taric casts Imbue only on himself, the heal is increased by 40%.
A very important thing to note is that every basic attack lowers Imbue’s cooldown by 1 second, and if you attack an enemy champion, it’s 3 seconds off cooldown per attack. A nice way to utilize this is to attack some of the minions in your lane a few times, but this also exposes you to harass, might mess up last hits for your AD Carry, and could also push the lane too much. You have to judge for yourself when and if it is suitable to lower your Q cooldown by auto-attacks.

This is the range of Taric's heal.

At Level 1 you should put the skill point in Dazzle – your E. Dazzle is a 1.2 second stun (1.6 at level 5) and a 14/13/12/11/10 second colldown. The spell has a 14 second cooldown (10 at level 5) and also deals more damage the closer you are to your target. Due to Taric having a stun at a relatively low cooldown, he is an awesome combo with AD Carries like Vayne, who can use the time of your stun to get in position to push your target into a wall for a second stun, or other champions with slows like Graves, Ashe, or Varus. Another great way to combo Taric is with Caitlyn’s traps.

A big reason why Taric is a survivor is because of his W – Shatter. The passive part of Shatter is that Taric increases armor for him and his allies by 10 – 30 for himself, plus 12% of his total armor for his allies and himself. Taric can choose to use Shatter, dealing damage in a small range and reducing enemy armor by 10-30 depending on the level of the spell. While Shatter is on cooldown you lose all the passive bonuses.

Next up is his Ultimate – Radiance (60 second cooldown and all levels). Taric slams his hammer into the ground dealing 150/250/350 in a small range around him, while also giving allies near him a bonus 30/50/70 bonus AD and AP for 10 seconds. Although not dealing direct damage to enemies (it’s a bad idea to flash into a 5 man kill-squad just so you can ult them :D ), you are giving everyone on your team bonus AD and AP, while you also give them a nice chunk of armor, you heal them and you stun anyone who comes too close to your precious AD Carry. This is why a well-played Taric is a true beast in a teamfight and why he really shines after the mid game and into the late game. By then you would have built some nice items that boost your tankiness even more, like the Ruby Sighstone, Locket of the Iron Solari, Frozen Heart and so on. Any of these items help Taric become a force to be reckoned with. Taric, a Locket, and a beefy tank like Shen, Malphite, Singed, or Nasus makes for a very, very unhappy enemy team.

Soraka

Well, we arrived at Soraka. I'm really not sure where she fits right now, because she has a lot of disadvantages compared to all other supports with heal, and pretty much all of the rest, too. She heals in huge chunks, but her W has a flat 20 second cooldown at all levels, which is quite a lot. Her Ultimate, although having a huge impact, is also on a big cooldown. Her Q in theory is very nice, because it deals damage and lowers the enemy's magic resist by 8 - 12 for 5 seconds. The debuff stacks up to 10 times and every stack refreshes it, so theoretically you can eat away up to 120 Magic Resist from your enemies. It also helps that it has a 2.5 second cooldown. But here lies the problem - for Soraka to truly have a big effect, especially in the late game, she has to be on the front line and spam her Q. It really doesnt help that it has a relatively short range. You can play Soraka as a back-line support that heals and gives mana, but her heals are too far apart due to their big cooldowns and in late game a heal every ~15 seconds is really not a game-changer, where a single critical hit from an AD Carry can deal more damage than your W and Ultimate combined. Because of that, Soraka fills a small niche as a reactive support, unlike most other (if not all) supports who can be a lot more proactive. I really can't say that Soraka is unviable, but it's hard to find her full potential, especially in a long game. Let's see how you can make most of her kit:

For a full rundowns of her skills, check her page on leagueoflegends.com

Soraka's Healing spell - Astral Blessing:

As I said above, Soraka's heal has a large cooldown - 20 seconds. Some of that is compensated by the fact her heal also gives armour to the target for 3 seconds - 25/45/65/85/105. You really have to know when is the right time to heal, because it won't be available again soon (enough). That problem is alleviated a bit when Soraka gets to Level 6 and gains her Ultimate, which is the heal with the most global presence in the game.

This is the range of Soraka's heal.

Another obvious problem you have to deal with is that Soraka has no hard CC. Again, her kit allows you to work around that, due to her E - Infuse. Cast on an ally, the spell gives 40/80/120/160/200 mana, which is awesome for a spammy AD Carry like Ashe, Varus, or Graves. An enemy cast results in damage and a 1.5/1.75/2/2.25/2.5 second silence. No matter if you cast on an ally or enemy, the spell has no mana cost, which is why you should always use it when it is not on cooldown. A great way to utilise your E is to sit in a bush in lane and silence any enemy in range. This gives you a way to prevent enemy casting (for example, Ashe's Volley, which is very annoying when she wants to kill a bunch of creeps) and deal damage at the same time for absolutely no cost. Infuse also has a flat 10 second cooldown, which ensures that your AD Carry will not be mana-hungry (and because of that your lane partner will be able to dominate through spell-spamming) and the enemies in lane will constantly take damage from you. In a team fight, you can use the silence to stop channeling spells like Katarina's Ultimate.

Due to how Soraka's Infuse works, I don't really bother spending skill points for Q, because of the toll it can be on your mana pool and the danger it puts you in due to its relatively short range. You can instead level up Infuse, helping you provide more mana to your AD Carry and deal more damage/silence your enemies for longer.

Here is Soraka's ace in the hole - her Ultimate, Wish. Wish is a global heal on all allied champions for 200/320/440 HP. Because of it's huge impact on any early/mid game fight, it has a large cooldown period of 160/145/130 seconds. Getting Cooldown Reduction for Soraka is essential and impacts all of her skills, especially her Ultimate. A nice item combo for Soraka is Shurelya's Reverie and Locket of the Iron Solari. Those two items help you and your team survive by providing HP (to you), resists, the ability to engage/disengage and the much-needed Cooldown Reduction for Soraka to be a bigger presence.

Summed up, Soraka has a lot of disatvantages which can be exploted by the enemy team, but she can also work around them by timing her spell casts just right and on the right people.

Tips, tricks and summary

A big part of these supports' ability to fight and sustain is their heal (obviously :D ). A disadvantage this presents to you is that, in a fight in which you rely on your healing abilities heavily, you are very susceptible to CC. You might be able to win a 2v2 fight in bot lane, but a huge chain of CC from the enemy team, like a Thresh and Vayne might do, may leave you unable to heal at all, which in turn leaves your lane partner without his biggest advantage of having a healer support. So, short version: do not overestimate your ability to heal and sustain your allies.

Another thing you have to keep in mind is that healer supports are not the solution to all problems. Supports without heal have one more spell slot which might be CC and/or damage. Healer and non-healer supports balance each other out, because while you are able to reverse damage done to you and your allies, an enemy bot lane duo without a healer support in turn has more tools for aggression. Compensate this by smart engagements and assert your lane dominance by zoning, harrassment and smart use of the spells at your disposal.

Summed up, healer supports provide a different way of doing things. It really isn't better or worse than any other support style of play. Healing provides it's own unique capabilities, advantages, and disadvantages, and you have to be able to understand what they are in any given situation so you can get ahead of the enemy team. Like any other type of champion and role, your kit is best used in certain ways and in ceratin times. Now go try a support with heal, learn it and have fun!

GL HF!