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Sona

Tik115·4/9/2016, 11:16:12 PM·10 votes·897 views

So hey Riot, we're only 2 months from the 2 year birthday of the Sona rework!

You guys remember Sona right?

Maven of the strings? was pretty much THE posterchild for supports back before Thresh? You remember how the rework has killed her off? Yeah can we talk about her again? I figure since Taric is getting his rework and is impossibly more practical then the Olaf'd mess you left her in that it would be smart to address you know the first support you reworked (Well second rework for the Karma support mains) being a disaster?

So as a Sona main back in ye olde Season 2-3 this is what I felt Sona was.

Sona was a utility poke support, she uses her powerful early game damage to protect the carry to begin with but as the game went on she would move further and further back to be a back line support with her auras only coming forward to flash ult, she had flexibility in her build, she could build AP to increase the poke making her suitable in poke comps, she could build tank allowing her to change the stats her team needed for longer or (and by far the most popular) she built auras applying more buffs and becoming an aura bot, and that was her main appeal, her auras, in teamfighters she wasn't a Thresh locking down the enemy team, she wasn't a Janna peeling for her carries she wasn't even a Bard poking from afar, she was about positioning herself to give her team her auras while also rapidly changing them depending on the battle, hard focusing down a champion? Attack aura! friendly being focused down? Defensive aura? Having to chase or retreat? speed aura! and like any good support she could work with low gold income, Riot even said 2 years ago she wasn't too strong or weak.

And then they reworked her

_"...her kit clearly lacked high moments and overall satisfaction. We wanted to keep her theme as it was and retain her awesome Crescendo while giving her basic abilities a more visible and tangible impact. Oh, and if we could sneak in some fancy texture updates in the process (and we could!), then all the better.

So what’s changed? Well, Sona’s gameplay now revolves more around moments of power. Instead of hanging back and winning a war of attrition during laning, Sona’s now got the kit to power up her allies and save their lives when a fight turns against them. Auras are smaller and more visible now, so getting the most of them requires great positional awareness for Sona and coordination with her allies. This allows us to reward great play with much more impact for each of her songs. You’ll be able to make plays as Sona, earn your team kills and save lives with clutch ability casts and smart positioning. At the same time, the enemy team has larger windows to fight back in thanks to her longer cooldowns, adding in clarity and counterplay to Sona’s kit. We can't wait to see what players can do with her update. "_

This is the exact quite Riot made during to Sona update and to some of us we thought "Yeah! We'd love to have a more practical role outside of a ward/aura bot!" but here's where Riot messed up every aspect of the rework

For one they made her playstyle more akin to a tanky support but didn't give her stats the same treatment, out of all the traditional supports (So champions that didn't get booted down from mid lane Annie Brand Zyra ) Sona is the squishiest, she doesn't have scaling MR, she has the 5th lowest health at level 1 out of ALL the champions, pre-rework it was the risk of picking her, if you got grabbed in the early game you were dead but this was counter balanced by her late game safety as a back like support, but then the Aura changes happened and suddenly she has to be close to the front line to maximize their ability, well now she's easy pickings, she's always in range of an assassin to chunk her out the battle.

Ah the auras let's focus on this for mess up number 2 yes? Pre-rework she would provide up to 20 AD/AP to nearby allies on the blue aura, up to 10 AR/MR (doubled for 3 seconds after initial cast) for the green and up to 20 movement speed for the speed aura these were constant, now Riot thought "well that's not fun having her team win by hanging back and using those auras to win by attrition" (Hey Riot Soraka Janna called, they want you to stop calling the kettle black) and while they were costly (Up to 80 mana for each meaning without any mana items she would have around 13-14 casts at level 18) The persistent aura made up for it allowing her to build more flexible? now? her auras are so weak you can only make use of them building pure AP which as the hallmark of a support is to be effective with low gold income makes them an outright failure straight out the gate before even if you were 0/13/0 you know your auras are helping, which again fits in with say Janna and Soraka, her fellow back line supports but now, the next AA does 60 magic damage at rank 5? so spook, the shield and heal being 115 at rank 5? That will save somebody I'll bet, 17% MS at rank 5? so speedy it is not.,second is their not persistent, in fact they're down longer then their cooldown is which makes her core strength THE THING that made people pick her and play her THE MAJORITY OF HER IDENTITY (I don't know WHAT Riot was thinking when they basically implied her identity was her Crescendo, that's like saying Annie's identity was her molten shield) is gone, You might as well Play Nami cause with those lack of persistent auras Sona is basically a weaker version of Nami.

The final one was after the rework, the mistake Riot has done time and time again, the complete disregard of the feedback from players and especially the mains of lesser champions and listening to the cries of their favorites

Karma, Sona, Cass, Mords, these champions were reworked, all feedback from the mains ignored, they were spat out and sure some of them are doing good now (Karma) or for awhile had their time to shine (Mordes) But Riot have completely ignored any negative feedback involving the reworks that wasn't their favorites, I could go into a rant about them reverting the Lee and Riven reworks because of clear favoritism or how they have STILL failed to fix Cass despite near constant changes and feedback (You know instead of doing the easiest fix in the world being revert the rework) but this thread is about Sona.

So what do I think needs to be changed with Sona? well the first one is this, She need's her identity back, she needs those persistent aura's and before you all jump on me saying it's hidden power and it's unfair cause she hangs back yadayadayada let me say this

First most we have SORAKA who is BY FAR the most unfun support to face off against who just sits back and wins by healing healing healing and more healing, having Sona give some small stats to teammates sounds a lot better then burning everything on a carry only for Soraka to keep her alive and then get healed to full health again in a few seconds

Second this hidden power? it really isn't that much, at rank 5 her damage aura gave the equivalent of (by today's items) gave 2/rds of a Doran rings AP and a Doran blade + 2 AD so about 600gp in power per person on that aura. 80% of a null magic mantle and cloth Armour + 5 AR (Double it for 3 seconds) so that's around 760gp per person or 80% of teir 1 boots, 240gp per person, now sure you might argue that's multiplied by the number of people (so up to 2.4k, 3k and 960gp respectively) but the thing is back then? that's all she could do without building pure AP, and truth be told if a Sona back then could build full AP you were almost certainly gonna lose, her kit had no power outside of her ult, which required her to burn her flash to use it anyway, now lets look a Thresh, the power in his kit would far surpass Sona's Auras from even back then, 3 bits of CC 2 of which being hard CC and one of the best if not the best ability for getting an ally to safety and if we want a more backline support? Bard, the best ability for maneuvering around an enemy a powerful heal with benefits, he hurts a lot late game and his ult when used right can win a team fight by it alone, sounds far better then Sona's now and even back then, abilities. With pre-rework Sona you were getting a 4 v 5 with a buff bot as your 5th player just like with Soraka you get a 4 v 5 with a heal bot or Janna a 4 v 5 with a Peel bot (seriously why was Sona being a buff bot such a bad thing when these 2 can be X bots?)

Next is her stats, Sona is by far the squishiest support in the game, she has no escape, her shield is laughable her heal is useless and yet we have, Bard who has a strong heal, a semi reliable stun a powerful escape if he can get near a wall and is TANKIER then Sona he brings so much more to the table both by himself and to his team and yet Sona, who back then was all about the team and now is a 5th wheel is squishier then him, her base stats and hell maybe her late game stats need to be better.

or maybe since it's almost assured that Riot with stomp their feet and say they won't bring back persistent auras, make them actually worth while, make them work without needing to build items and make the auras bigger, given how 11 out of the 12 champions you've released since her rework all benefit from their team being clumped up which is what Sona's team needs to do in order to make use of her auras, actually scratch the mention of champions ANYONE would benefit for an enemy team clumped up together.

Or hell why not a compromise? Have her current snuggle zones be permanent with the effects perminant (EG anyone in the blue zone will ALWAYS deal the bonus magic damage untill they leave it, then it's the next AA only, the shield is on all the time untill it's depleted and only refreshes after X seconds of not taking damage and so on) This means Sona has to go to considerable risk instead of hanging back and buffing teammates AND means she can build anything other then pure AP

It's close to two years since you killed Sona Riot, 2 long years and while you're all celebrating patting yourselves on the back that the Taric rework is showing such promise you should maybe, just maybe go back and look at the failure of a rework that is Sona

I mean when the only good thing from a rework was the mana of the ult going down at later ranks I'm pretty sure it's safe to say it failed, you can say you succeeded in your vision for the champion but I can tell you, you vision being accomplished doesn't mean the champion is good

22 Comments

Sogreth4/11/2016, 2:03:33 PM3 votes

She is too squishy now. Any time I play against her, I just blow her up. Then she just sits back burning through all her mana trying to heal.

No matter who I play, Karma, Nami, even Soraka. I can out-poke and normally out-sustain a Sona.

GinoSoldier4/10/2016, 12:54:26 AM2 votes

As someone who adapts to change quite well, let me say this; the original Sona's gameplay style was shit. Standing back and letting your allies do all the work for you while risking nothing, and having the flash+ult combo be your only high moment in a game was bloody unsatisfying.

Instead of whining and crying about her rework, i've found over time that she's become much more of an utility oriented APC through her rework and that she belongs in the midlane rather than bot lane as support. Her gameplay is interactive, impactful and fun as hell when she's given the means to build for it, meaning the midlane.

It suits her thematic as a performer to take the center stage, and to build up in power to a point where her tunes carry her team.

I for one think the Sona rework is a success and while some things like her base stats, E and W/E Powerchord attacks could use some changes/love, overall I like her just fine as she is and would be beyond pissed if they returned her to the horribly drab thing she was before.

lightdragoon884/9/2016, 11:21:04 PM2 votes

I missed playing Sona in summoner Rift and I missed seeing her in LCS.

Tik1154/11/2016, 1:55:33 PM2 votes

up

Mokkun4/19/2016, 2:13:56 AM1 votes

I remember when Sona was ubiquitous because she filled 2 parts of the support trinity (poke and sustain). Nothing should do that. The problem is, she's designed to exactly do that, so altering that would piss people off even more. The only thing that made up for it was her being squishy.

Now, she's a tad more durable, but her rework combined with the support rework was a death knell. She lost the invisible power, and then had her visible power tied to AP-Utility scaling (which may still be the all-time dumbest things Riot's done in class balancing).

As a support main I don't want Sona back to her heyday. Her heyday helped cause a support meta because she was that strong. I'm just not sure what the happy medium is without rather large changes.

Dionesus4/10/2016, 12:52:27 AM1 votes

I main Sona and I love her. She isn't perfect but you make it seems she is unplayable. The issue isn't sona but is that we are in the tank meta. I feel the mage update will benefit her with some of the new items coming out.

I would love some buffs tho...like when you use power cord...it procs the last two auras. Damage reduction with slow in one auto attack would be nice.

Tik1154/19/2016, 1:45:15 AM1 votes

more up cause of Taric champion spotlight

Athenes Lulu4/19/2016, 2:05:58 AM1 votes

Another one of those threads?

Mmmmm upvote farming at its finest.

Penguin Eclipse4/10/2016, 3:51:30 AM1 votes

{quoted}

Ah the auras let's focus on this for mess up number 2 yes? Pre-rework she would provide up to 20 AD/AP to nearby allies on the blue aura, up to 10 AR/MR (doubled for 3 seconds after initial cast) for the green and up to 20 movement speed for the speed aura these were constant, now Riot thought "well that's not fun having her team win by hanging back and using those auras to win by attrition" (Hey Riot Soraka Janna called, they want you to stop calling the kettle black) and while they were costly (Up to 80 mana for each meaning without any mana items she would have around 13-14 casts at level 18) The persistent aura made up for it allowing her to build more flexible? now? her auras are so weak you can only make use of them building pure AP which as the hallmark of a support is to be effective with low gold income makes them an outright failure straight out the gate before even if you were 0/13/0 you know your auras are helping, which again fits in with say Janna and Soraka, her fellow back line supports but now, the next AA does 60 magic damage at rank 5? so spook, the shield and heal being 115 at rank 5? That will save somebody I'll bet, 17% MS at rank 5? so speedy it is not.,second is their not persistent, in fact they're down longer then their cooldown is which makes her core strength THE THING that made people pick her and play her THE MAJORITY OF HER IDENTITY (I don't know WHAT Riot was thinking when they basically implied her identity was her Crescendo, that's like saying Annie's identity was her molten shield) is gone, You might as well Play Nami cause with those lack of persistent auras Sona is basically a weaker version of Nami.

So what do I think needs to be changed with Sona? well the first one is this, She need's her identity back, she needs those persistent aura's and before you all jump on me saying it's hidden power and it's unfair cause she hangs back yadayadayada let me say this

First most we have SORAKA who is BY FAR the most unfun support to face off against who just sits back and wins by healing healing healing and more healing, having Sona give some small stats to teammates sounds a lot better then burning everything on a carry only for Soraka to keep her alive and then get healed to full health again in a few seconds

Second this hidden power? it really isn't that much, at rank 5 her damage aura gave the equivalent of (by today's items) gave 2/rds of a Doran rings AP and a Doran blade + 2 AD so about 600gp in power per person on that aura. 80% of a null magic mantle and cloth Armour + 5 AR (Double it for 3 seconds) so that's around 760gp per person or 80% of teir 1 boots, 240gp per person, now sure you might argue that's multiplied by the number of people (so up to 2.4k, 3k and 960gp respectively) but the thing is back then? that's all she could do without building pure AP, and truth be told if a Sona back then could build full AP you were almost certainly gonna lose, her kit had no power outside of her ult, which required her to burn her flash to use it anyway, now lets look a Thresh, the power in his kit would far surpass Sona's Auras from even back then, 3 bits of CC 2 of which being hard CC and one of the best if not the best ability for getting an ally to safety and if we want a more backline support? Bard, the best ability for maneuvering around an enemy a powerful heal with benefits, he hurts a lot late game and his ult when used right can win a team fight by it alone, sounds far better then Sona's now and even back then, abilities. With pre-rework Sona you were getting a 4 v 5 with a buff bot as your 5th player just like with Soraka you get a 4 v 5 with a heal bot or Janna a 4 v 5 with a Peel bot (seriously why was Sona being a buff bot such a bad thing when these 2 can be X bots?)

Nearly every persistent aura on champions has been removed from the game at this point. Soraka's is gone. Taric's will be gone with the rework. Janna's has been changed drastically and is close to being eliminated entirely. I agree, I don't really consider it a hidden power nor do I see a problem with them. But Riot does. They are not coming back anytime soon.

I expect there to be a support rework in the future. Maybe end of 2016, early 2017. I assume Sona will get some attention then. A lot longer than any of us would care for but that's Riot for you.