Should you build Warmog’s Armor on Soraka?

I play a whole lot of Soraka. Hold your tomatoes, I know. She is broken. She is frustrating. She’s the absolute worst thing to play against because your enemies will never die. Regardless, the question remains. Should you be building Warmog’s Armor on Soraka?

The short answer is “probably not,” unless you’re in a really long ARAM.

After being questioned about my lack of Warmog’s on Soraka many times, I have finally jumped into practice tool to do the math.

So, if you’re playing Soraka, you want to max out those heals, along with cooldown reduction. You want to heal for as much as possible, as often as possible. To max this out, I go ham with support items. I typically build the following:

• Ninja Tabi or Mercury’s Treads (No cooldown boots, since you max out later anyway.)
• Remnant of the Watchers or Remnant of the Ascended, depending on the match-up
• Ardent Censer
• Redemption
• Mikael’s Crucible

These items max you out on cooldown reduction and also include all the Forbidden Idols possible. (Forbidden Idol’s passive gives you five percent more healing power per item!) Mikael’s is pretty situational and can be swapped out for a Locket of Iron Solari, as your job is to be the Ultimate Ambulance.

Riot Games

“Okay, well. Do I build Warmog’s or not, Julia?”

Here is where things get a little bit tricky.

That build gives Soraka and extra 400 HP from the warding items and the Redemption. She will only get around 2,200 health from both of them at around level 16. If you only build one, she’ll hit that at level 18. If you build neither, she will never have enough health to proc Warmog’s unless you are building other HP items. (Which ... shouldn’t happen. Why did you not buy a warding support item, you weirdo?)

So yes, after all these conditions are met, you totally can buy a Warmog’s Armor for Soraka, extremely late in the game.

If you branch out from the Ultimate Ambulance build above, that’s fair and fine, as sometimes an enemy Zed or LeBlanc might force you into buying some defensive items first. (After all, a dead Soraka is of no use to the team.)

At level 18, Soraka’s W heals 271 with all three Forbidden Idol items. Without the items, it heals 232. Similarly, Soraka’s R will heal a whopping 415 HP with the three items, not including the bonus for low-health allies. Without the items, it heals 379 HP.

The question becomes whether or not it becomes worth it to sacrifice better heals in exchange for the ability to heal more in end-game.

Soraka probably won’t be activating Warmog’s passive early, even with a handful of HP items.

I personally like using that last slot to buy some actual armor or magic resist to defend against the enemies, instead of flat health, but ultimately the choice is up to you and it’s heavily dependent on how your game is going.

Does the enemy have a lot of poke? Sure, grab a Warmog’s to help keep your team super healthy.

Are you getting obliterated by an assassin or mage? No, you should probably pick up some resistances instead.

Is your team going all-in constantly, causing a lot of team-fights to happen? No, your Warmog’s isn’t going to help you regain health to give if you’re constantly in combat.

So in the end, the answer is: maybe you should build a Warmog’s, but only in late game, as your last item, depending on the situation. But in most cases, you probably shouldn’t build a Warmog.