[Lucid:]

Soraka was much stronger when she had stronger heals. Heals were her only strength and those got nerfed. I used to play a lot of Soraka back in the day but I almost never play her now because Sona or Nami provide adequate sustain while also bringing zoning potential and cc to the lane. I wouldn't agree that "every" other support is a mage/bruiser either though. Janna is a strong defensive support and a mediocre mage. Sona is terrible at being a mage and so is Nami. If anything, Lulu was one of the supports more capable of being a mage. Even though Leona wasn't designed to be a support, she's pretty terrible without teammates around to proc her passive.

Old Karma was terrible at supporting ranged carries. She was really great at supporting melee bruisers or melee carries or anything melee. I miss her team heal but I think that she's improved as a support somewhat. The spammable slow on Q is much better than the hard to manage slow on w was, and the new root on w is pretty valuable. The speed boost on her e helps a lot in securing a fleeing enemy as well. She feels a little weak early game, but with max CDR mantra seems to be up once per spell rotation which is nice.