Champions focused on mainly healing like Soraka? (New Player)

[Squaddles]

Hey everyone! I very recently got into LoL (I know a little late to the party), and I really enjoy healing. Any game I play that has a dedicated healer (or as close to it as possible) I play the hell out of (WoW being one example) . I was recommended Soraka as a champion to start out with that'd fit my playstyle and I absolutely love her. I do pretty decent in beginner bot matches, usually getting 1/1/10+.

I was wondering if there are any champions that play similarly to Soraka, or are more or less dedicated healers like she is. Thanks!

[Axethor]

Soraka is the only true healer in LoL. There are other champions with healing abilities, but it's not their main focus like Soraka.

First, we have Sona. Her W is a heal, but she is focused on pokes with her Q, auras, and initiation with her ult (or disengages).
Next, we have Taric. Also has a heal, but he's more concerned with stunning the carry, getting in their face with some burst damage, and providing his really awesome ult aura.
Then there is Kayle. She might be the closest, but she is also really heavy on the poking and harassing aspect with Q and E.
Lastly there is Nami. She probably has the worst of the heals, since it is also used for damage, but her role is quite similar to Sona's. Poking and harassing people, with a good ult for engaging and disengaging fights.

[Alusen]

First things first, welcome to LoL!

Since it seems like you are interested in the support role, I would suggest trying out Janna, Sona and Taric, while none are as much a healer per-say as Soraka, they all are very much designed around keeping your teammates alive.

If you want to compare to WoW, Janna is similar to a WotLK Disc Priest in that her main sustain utility is a shield and her passive movement speed increase that she gives her allies. In addition she has a long range knock-up and a single target slow to make sure that you can keep your teammates alive or to help them get kills. Her ultimate is a large AoE heal that also pushes all enemies away from you allowing more area control and support for your team.

Taric on other hand is less similar to any of the WoW healers but has a mixture of strong abilities that provide durability for yourself as well as your alies. With a heal that heals yourself and one other target you have sustain, his 2nd ability gives an armor aura to yourself and nearby allies with an option to remove the aura from yourself to shred your enemies armor allowing your team to deal more damage. His third ability is a stun that allows you to peel enemies off your team or to start fights against the enemy. His final ability is an aura that for a short period of time gives buffs your teams ap and ad.

Finally, Sona is probably the most similar to Soraka of the three I have mentioned. Her 1st ability does damage to nearby targets while her 2nd ability heals yourself and a nearby ally. Her third ability is a move speed increase aura for surrounding minions and teammates. Her final ability is an aoe stun giving her a very strong teamfighting presence.

Out of these three champions I would suggest start by picking one of them to learn alongside Soraka and then slowly branch out and learn them all as they are all very good champions.

[The Ogdru Jahad]

Sona and Taric are your best bets for dedicated healers really. Sona is more of a utility support than a straight up healer. But I think she's really fun and brings a lot.

[Duronos]

Soraka is a bit meh in terms of healing champions, granted she will probably heal the most from what I've seen but there are better champions that heal and can still do more. Try Sona out, she has a heal, an attack, and a movement speed increase (3 separate moves that also provide aura's afterwards), her ultimate is an AOE Skillshot stun.

[Farolok]

Unfortunately there's a lack of dedicated healing champions in LoL due to the fact it would drag fights out far too long etc., however all of the champions with targeted healing spells are (If I remember)

Soraka
Taric
Sona (not targeted, but heals nearby allies)
Nidalee
Nami
Kayle

Nidalee can be played elsewhere but support, and has the shortest cooldown heal with the highest healed amount. If you want someone for the support role though, I'd stick with Sona, she's a beast. Support does seem as though it's your ideal role though, and there are a lot of extremely fun supporty champions out there!

Edit: Actually not the shortest CD/strongest heal now that I think about it.. However, for champions as pure support your best options are Soraka, Sona, Taric and Nami. They are designed for the support role whereas Nida and Kayle are much better elsewhere. Even if you find another champion you like playing that doesn't happen to have a heal you can always pick up Mikael's Crucible. Great support item, just very costly on the gold side of things and the heal has an insanely long cooldown, but it's more useful for the fact it's a targeted cleanse.

[Squaddles]

Thanks for the recommendations everyone =) I went ahead and bought Sona. Hopefully I'll like playing her as much as I do Soraka. Her abilities seemed the closest to what I was looking for. Has Riot said anything about releasing anymore champions that're more healie like Soraka by chance?

[Fenlnir]

We find out about new champs a few week before they get released. There's no line up where they say who will be what.

[Squaddles]

We find out about new champs a few week before they get released. There's no line up where they say who will be what.

Oh alright. I wasn't really sure how that worked. Thanks =)

[Deleted]

Has Riot said anything about releasing anymore champions that're more healie like Soraka by chance?

You have to understand that there is no "healer" role in LoL, there is the support instead, which won't necessarily be able to heal. The playstyle is similar to being a healer in other games in that you enable the rest of the team to do their job at full capacity while sacrificing the ability to deal or take damage (this varies game by game and champion by champion).

What I'm trying to say is, if you're in the healer mindset, you may actually enjoy more than simply the healing-capable champions. There are all kinds of support champions with differing playstyles: passive, very aggressive, focused on defending their team-mates, focused on crowd-control, or combinations of the four.

Also, somebody forgot to mention Alistar in the healing-champions. He has a small AoE-heal and is focused on setting up kills or defending his team via crowd-control abilities.

[Axethor]

Thanks for the recommendations everyone =) I went ahead and bought Sona. Hopefully I'll like playing her as much as I do Soraka. Her abilities seemed the closest to what I was looking for. Has Riot said anything about releasing anymore champions that're more healie like Soraka by chance?

I can actually answer this one, because Riot has mentioned their dislike of dedicated healers. You will most likely never seen another healer like Soraka. It will be more along the lines of Sona, Nami, Taric, etc. They have a heal, but it's more of a complement to their kit than the focus of their kit.

[coprophage2]

I'm pretty new to League as well, and coming from playing a healer in WoW (longtime holy paladin) it was weird not having any dedicated healing champions. Eventually you'll find that you can bring tons of utility to your team/lane partner without just being a babysitter/heal bot. CC, shields, utility from item builds, even just straight up aggression (Leona stunlock wtf) and really good map awareness and positioning (and wards) can all go a really long way, usually further than just straight up healing (especially with life steal and spell vamp items being common on many champs).

[Sergar]

Kind of disappointed no one mentioned Lulu when they mentioned all the ally-healing champions.

Yes, according to her tooltips her ult isn't a heal. But really, since it increases your health and max health when it's cast and when it falls off you only lose the max health, it's a fairly big heal that can't overheal you until it falls off.

She's very fun, and she's a support, but she isn't healing based for the obvious reason that it's ult only.

Oh, and the reason LoL doesn't have much healing is that it made bottom lane a snooze-fest because the AD carries would poke each other and then Sona/Soraka would just kiss it and make it all better. Usually, people just free farmed because unless a jungler came there was little you could do.