Boards›Gameplay

Been a while since we've had a real Sona discussion

Nagoh Shan·2/7/2016, 2:15:16 AM·15 votes·2,551 views

With the new Sona skin coming out, I've been thinking about Sona again, while trying to decide if I want to get the skin. I don't really play her much anymore unless it's a featured game mode and I want to abuse how her kit works now to get an icon or something. But my thoughts drifted back to her rework.

Basically The rework has failed to accomplish every stated goal, and created even more problems. It has done this while removing a unique kit that was enjoyed all in the name of making it more fun. Sadly enough, despite her players being happy with her kit, and enjoying it's unique offerings, these players were told that it wasn't enough, and her play was changed despite negative feedback and dissatisfaction. If it were a trope it would be called Implied Enjoyment, because players were told it was more fun, despite them not finding the enjoyment over the old kit.

The stated goals for the gameplay changes:

  1. Make her kit more rewarding and fun
  2. Improve her high moments
  3. Increase engagement and interaction
  4. Reduce time allies are effected by her abilities, creating exploitable moments of opportunity for enemies

I already touched on number 1 in that the removal of a playstyle for one that is very different, especially when removing the only choice in that old playstyle, doesn't make the kit more rewarding or fun, it makes it a different entity. People may find the new entity enjoyable, but when it comes at the expense of something else it's immediately off-putting. "I'd like chocolate ice cream please" "Sorry sir, we removed chocolate because we feel that butterscotch would be a more enjoyable ice cream for our patrons" "I butterscotch can be good, yes, but I would like chocolate why not have both?" "We saw a unique opportunity to make chocolate more rewarding and enjoyable; so we changed it to butterscotch"

With number two, her high points already existed, and didn't change from the previous kit. However, they are no longer appropriately segregated. Transitioning to the issue with goal three, no new actions or opportunities were created, instead she was allowed to perform all of her strong actions regardless of whether she was solo lane or support.

With number three, they moved much of her flat utility into scaling, and converted her aura effects into actives. This was done in the attempt to create new high moments by giving Sona more condensed effects, but it also created a separate issue. The static effects that were removed for intermittent effects were her flat utility. When I say flat utility, I mean something that is not gold dependent. Think a Jana tornado or CC like you'd find with Thresh/Blitz/Naut/Leona. She lost a ton of base effects, and it was moved to scaling. This made AP the build for Sona, regardless of where she is. She got both her mage damage and support utility no matter where she was, once she got gold to spend.

She became gold-dependent, but couldn't her old effects at base, which is not a good trait for a support. It was mitigated by the gold-gen items making supports surprisingly well off in solo-queue, so she could scale above her old utility, but it was a non-starter in pro play where rotations and roams by supports are key, and without the flat utility, she has little to offer in them. Also because her passive stance effects were replaced with active PBAoEs she lost the safe fall back she had in her laning phase, meaning that she couldn't even offer a safe stall lane like you would see now when pros play an Ezrael, Soraka, or Jana.

Her moments of opportunity goal is the one that stings the most. While this one could be claimed a success, it was the one that changed what she was as a champion. In the early game she lost her ability to influence without spending mana. She no longer had the ability to look at the lane and decide if she was going to help farm with Q, or did she need to mitigate harass with W, and it really hurt the feel of the champion as well as her options. Now you max Q. The extent of her build decisions now is whether you need E at level 4 or 8? Which is usually 8. A champ that had two distinct and separate build paths (mage and support), with options within each, got homogenized in all roles and builds.

Worst of all, and not related to goals, but is a consequence of compounded bad decisions is: she can't be strong. When this Sona is strong, her utility scales past her old utility, and she has her AP burst mage damage at the same time, because both scale with AP. While her base utility is lower, her scaling utility ceiling is higher, and because both her damage and utility are tied to the same stat, she becomes a disgusting monster when her effects are strong. This is something we saw immediately after her rework, and has popped up from time to time due to item and meta changes which results in her getting nerfed. Despite this, even when she's disgusting, she's only viable in solo queue, and is unsuited in coordinated play as a support while the base utility of non-support champs like Trundle and Poppy exceed hers to the point where they're viable as support or solo laners both in solo queue and pro play.

It's been frustrating as there really has been little actual discussion on Sona, and any attempt to discuss her must be predicated by an acceptance of the rework, and moving from the rework forward. There is no willingness to discuss whether she and the game were better off pre-rework. I would really like to see her made healthier and more to what she was, with the unique kit that brought something to the table that no other option had, and now no option has. Right now however, her kit is unbalanceable, unhealthy, and missing the feel that Sona's old kit offered.

It also doesn't seem like that's ever going to be fixed.

27 Comments

Pika3102/7/2016, 1:34:25 PM7 votes

I have to say this took a lot of time and consideration to consolidate all of this into a single thread. I really can't think of any corrections to add, everything you've said is straight-forward and accurate, even if you probably undersold a few points that are even more severe than what you made them out to be. Which says a lot considering.

However, Rito won't respond. They almost never do and I put the odds at about 50:1 being generous.

Kubox2/8/2016, 11:37:23 PM3 votes

The one argument that hit me the most is how, as she currently stands, she's never going to be allowed to be strong. And it's true. As she is, she's either this carry-killing monster who can basically kill a carry faster than a fed Tahm Kench, or this slow-ass support who's too squishy to tag her allies in auras and pretends like any other ability than her ult is helping the fights.

And then I look at other supports : Nami can pull some more juice out of her abilities by stacking some AP but is she no way useless if she chooses not to head down that route, same with Janna (let's face it, we all love building Mejai on her). I've seen Blitzcrank go full AP and other times full tank.

When you pick Sona you either stack AP or regret picking Sona. There's no middle ground. There's no "Hmm, I think I'm gonna go tanky this game cause someone picked an assassin" because at this point you picking Sona is a mistake. If you're not buying AP on Sona support you'd be better off with Annie : Same ult potential but more utility with no AP (and should the assassin get shut down, you can still go full AP and nuke carries).

You know what would be interesting? Scrap her scalings. Buff her base effects (maybe not Q as it's already being maxed). Or giver her more mixed scalings so she doesn't benefit solely from AP (HP, missing HP, even movespeed. A lot of experimentation could be made here). It should almost make people wonder if it's better off building her as a tank. But make AP extend the range of her Auras. Build tank and you can sit closer to the front line, possibly regularly putting out effects like Iceborn gauntlet and being able to affect the enemy's backline with either damage or debuffs. Or she can build mage, sacrificing her power to debilitate the enemy team's backline but gaining in support power, benefiting from slightly stronger heals but mostly being able to shield more people instantly, or buff their movespeed and/or damage. And lastly, she can still build support. Maybe some players will like to go down a more hybrid role, either with semi-tank items vs assassins or semi-mage to get bonus range so she can still stay a bit farther back.

The question is how do you do this without straight up destroying lane Sona. Personally I don't like bringing her to a lane so of course I'd vote "to hell with it!" but that doesn't mean some people wouldn't complain. Keep in mind my idea is just that, an idea. I'm not saying "If this isn't done she'll suck forever". Rather "Hey, you know what could be cool?"

Cloud2732/7/2016, 2:27:59 AM3 votes

I feel like no matter what they do to Sona, she'll always be the same. You just press all your buttons and get a ton of free stuff (healing, MS, poke, etc). And you ult when you need to. They need to make her so it's less about button smashing and more about using your abilities at the right time.

Quepha2/23/2016, 4:44:57 PM2 votes

Wow, this post is actually well written. Usually Sona posts are nonsensical crying with nothing to back up their claims.

Darkslayer852/7/2016, 1:08:18 PM2 votes

DJ Sona is the best skin ever. It even gives you new music.

Remlap12232/9/2016, 12:04:35 AM1 votes

I tried pitching a Sona rework to the boards once. It got bricked immediately.

Nevermind the fact that it was everything that these "Sona Mains" said they wanted, alongside with making it something that Riot actually wouldn't mind implementing. But what was I expecting from the boards.

Abyssphere2/9/2016, 6:24:56 PM1 votes
  1. Make her kit more rewarding and fun
  2. Improve her high moments
  3. Increase engagement and interaction
  4. Reduce time allies are effected by her abilities, creating exploitable moments of opportunity for enemies

I don't think they really failed on all of these fronts. Personal opinion:

  1. Happened. I like tagging people, it's more satisfying than just floating and being pretty sure you're hitting everyone. And active helping > passive helping.
  2. Eh, not sure on this. I love Sona but she's still not really a champion about "highs". It's nice when you pick out a tanky enemy member and you tag everyone with your Q aura to help melt them down I guess, and hitting everyone with the W shield while sieging is nice, but meh otherwise.
  3. I think this is objectively improved, though the only real change here is that her Q poke involves a following auto attack now. Still a positive change though.
  4. Objectively improved. She has longer cooldowns as well as shorter effects, so it works.

There are possibly some problems with the rework but it achieved its aims pretty well. #2 is questionable and #1 is highly subjective, but the ones you can properly measure were achieved.