Sona PBE changes sum up

Solari Fortune··23 votes·3,109 views

Passive: Has remained untouched Hymn of Valor (Q) Cooldown increased to 10 from 8 Active Damage lowered to 40/70/100/130/160 from 40/80/120/160/200 Aura range increased to 400 from 350 Proc Damage increased to 20/35/50/65/80 from 20/30/40/50/60 Less Damage out put from the 2 shots she fires out from activating the skill, The Aura Size increase allows for her to tag more teammates with the Auto attack Buff. The proc damage going up allows her to out put more damage through her teammates Aria of Perseverance (W) Heal lowered to 40/50/60/70/80 from 30/50/70/90/110 Aura Range increased to 400 from 350 Shield changed to 30/55/80/105/130 from 35/55/75/95/115 No longer increases healing based on target's missing health Although the heal was brought down, the late game shield was brought up. Same point with the Q, the Aura Size increase will allow her to tag more allies with this shield. The % Missing health will be missed however Song of Celerity (E) Cost decreased to 50 from 65 Self movement speed increased to 28/31/34/37/40% from 13/14/15/16/17% Aura range increased to 400 from 350 Ally movement speed increased to 12/14/16/18/20% from 10/11/12/13/14% A buff all the way around for Sona's more lacking ability, the amount of move speed you will be able to give your team will very much extremely help her. Crescendo (R) Passive effect now reduces the base cooldown of Sona's basic abilitiy by 20/40/60% instead of increasing the potency of Q/W/E This is a pretty big change to her playstyle. With it effecting the Base Cool Down of her basic abilities it will combine with normal CDR to give her ridicuously low Cool down spells With 45% CDR and you Ult at Max Rank this is the Cool Downs of your abilites: Q: 2.2 Second CD W: 2.2 Second CD E: 2.64 Second CD Bring Mana Regen items accordingly item 3174

TLDR: They are taking power out of Sona's damage and lane healing, and putting it into her Utilty and team aid. Overall a Net Buff imo

EDIT: Ricklessabandon on the Sona changes https://twitter.com/ricklessabandon/status/742866822689488896

6/15 UPDATE Several additional changes in here vs yesterday. Here's a complete change list from ricklessabandon. The below list is relative to current live values, not to the last set of changes.] Hymn of Valor (Q) Active damage changed to 40/70/100/130/160 from 40/80/120/160/200 Aura range increased to 400 from 350 Proc damage changed to 20/35/50/65/80 from 20/30/40/50/60 No longer extends aura duration by up to 2 seconds when "tagging" allies Aria of Perseverance (W) Heal increased to 40/60/80/100/120 from 30/50/70/90/110 Aura range increased to 400 from 350 Shield changed to 30/55/80/105/130 from 35/55/75/95/115 No longer increases healing based on target's missing health No longer extends aura duration by up to 2 seconds when "tagging" allies Song of Celerity (E) Cooldown increased to 16 from 12 Mana cost decreased to 40 from 65 Self movement speed increased to 22/24/26/28/30% from 13/14/15/16/17% Aura range increased to 400 from 350 Ally movement speed increased to 12/14/16/18/20% from 10/11/12/13/14% Ally movement speed duration increased to 2.5 from 1.5 No longer extends aura duration by up to 2 seconds when "tagging" allies Crescendo (R) Passive effect now reduces the base cooldown of Sona's basic abilitiy by 20/30/40% instead of increasing the potency of Q/W/E

80 Comments

Miku Hime sama16 votes

I feel like they're trying to change her back to the "team-wide effects always up" type of kit she's was known for, but in a really bad sort of mana-per-second deal. If she were a real mage, this would have a better chance of working, but she's not a real mage. She's a support. She can't go Tear -> RoA -> (Ryze build) that this kit demands; this was already clearly pointed out when this was suggested months ago. On her own manapool without stacking mana items, she sure as hell can't sustain this kit: she has the ~3rd-lowest mana out of all mage supports.

They may as well revert her to pre-4.13, cause they are just repeatedly butchering her with poorly designed "reworks."

CasterGilgamesh6 votes

riot might as well just bring back the old sona honestly much better IMO

HowPlayGAEM15 votes

[deleted]

Duhpope2 votes

This is a decent tweak for a support Sona i guess, but it's gonna make Mid-Sona's early and mid-game really tough...

1000angrybees9 votes

Mid sona is largely irrelevant now. Bad sustain, bad poke. If these aren't adjusted I won't even bother in support, never mind mid.

Solari Fortune1 votes

Well now her heal is better

1000angrybees10 votes

honestly I'd rather have to build CDR than to have it built in and sling even shittier spells (except E now I guess)

Titanium706 votes

That's the point, you dont have build in CDR, like Heimer! You can still go for full 45% CDR build! The Ult-Passive just decreases the base CD of your spells! =D

At 16 with NO Items and 0%CDR your Q will have a 4s CD! With CDR Items you can reduce this to slightly above 2s.

Sire Hippington5 votes

exept that it's a base cd reduce, so it still scales with cdr.

zlumpy9 votes

{quoted}

honestly I'd rather have to build CDR than to have it built in and sling even shittier spells (except E now I guess)

Don't worry you'll be at every fight...so you can sit there an watch/play background noise to the deaths of your allies. Seriously when the game is becoming super burst focused how can they justify an even smaller heal with a _tiny_buff to her shield.

oh i shielded you but you still died in 3 hits due their skills doing like 400 overkill damage but no thats cool.

JUST GIVE US BACK THE ORIGINAL SONA ALREADY!!!__

Emmy Cha0s10 votes

Is it just me, or is Riot trying to kill off Sona with these nerfs? Rather than fixing her problems, they're just making them even worse.

Linna Excel4 votes

I don't think riot is trying to kill her, but I'm not sure what is going on in their minds.

Vistha Kai9 votes

So basically she gets a shittier heal for the same mana cost?

Morello+Athene the new core on Sona? Who needs a support anyway?

Solari Fortune5 votes

This is only the first iteration of the Sona changes we still got 2 weeks for the PBE so a lot can happen for her

Vistha Kai10 votes

"A lot" is an overstatement.

Most PBE changes go live without any edits.

Solari Fortune6 votes

Well if you look at the tweet Rickless likes to start changes in the extremes then tone them from there

PopCorn Chick3n2 votes

LOL, and then you got to late game. URF SONA to VICTORY. Everyone here seem to think they are nerfs when they don't even play the champion on pbe yet.

LankPants8 votes

Don't bring mana regen items, bring a large mana pool. Mana regen doesn't cover extreme spam, if you have 1.2K mana and your spells cost 80 you can cast 15 spells, you then need to wait for your mana regen to let you cast more. Alternatively you can invest in Tear and Morello's and have 3k(ish) mana and your spells now cost 65. That's like 45 spells before you OOM, which is far better than what Athene's does.

You also want to bring a lot of AP, because your D per (APxsec) and H per (APxsec) are both way up. It's going to be even worse to build Sona with items like Locket now since if you don't build AP your abilities are on a shorter CD but also do far less, I'd say their about 70% of their old effect (except E which is always better) but every point of AP you build mitigates this. I'd say at 500 AP your abilities are about 95% as powerful as live while having 60% less CD, which is pretty good.

Lichbane is also huge. You can proc LB on CD every time it's up. It was already pretty much core, now it is unarguably core.

You also no longer need boots on late game Sona. You can just spam your E and have a huge MS steroid at all times, at least assuming you have the mana pool to upkeep it. Assuming you built Tear mana pool isn't a huge issue here however, since Tear makes E cost 55 mana, which is basically taking a drop from an ocean if you build Tear/LB/Morello's which I'm fairly sure will be what Sona builds for after EotW.

Kynami1 votes

Small correction with this PBE build her E is reduced to 50 base mana cost, with the 25% refund on Tear items that comes out to about 38 mana per cast.

LankPants3 votes

That's better but Tear us a 15% refund, so it would be 43 mana. Still not really going to hurt your mana pool ever.

Anu3isII1 votes

Doesn't Archangel's Staff give you a 25% refund?

LankPants4 votes

It does but you'll probably be sitting on Tear for a lot of the game since AAS is an expensive item.

Anu3isII3 votes

True, but I think that Sona should most probably start to spam in the mid-game, when teamfights start and you need to use all your abilities on CD everytime you can.

By that time, your tear is almost stacked (assuming you rushed it after the gold generation item), and if you fully stacked it, I think it can be worth to buy Archangel's.

I'm not sure how difficult it will be manage her Mana, but I enjoy the fact that they want to make Sona more active and reliable at the cost of higher Mana costs. I think this changes will make her more powerful late-game, even if she won't go full AP.

shadowlordkiro7 votes

.8 secs on q in urf

Melledoneus6 votes

That's all we care about.

Pika3107 votes

So her damage is getting nerfed, despite already having the lowest damage output of the entire support class. She'll continue spamming artificial numbers to compensate for her lack of damage. item 3100 item 3285

Her healing is being gutted, despite already being the weakest healer in the game. Her shield's duration still makes it blatantly unusable.

She still doesn't have auras in her kit, yet Rito still insists on mislabeling her secondary actives, which are still melee-range. You're still lucky if you EVER tag one person other than yourself.

Despite being a support, a large portion of her power is still trapped in ranking up R. As a support, she'll always be the lowest level in the game and a support's significance is in lane, not in late-game.

Celerity is slightly better, but all of the above nerfs vastly overshadow this singular improvement.


This is just another gutting, probably the biggest one since 4.13. She's losing damage, sustain AND utility all simultaneously, whilst refusing to answer any of her current existing problems, short of Celerity's primary active and rank-up. She'll remain just as unplayable after this as she already is now.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v636/pika310/Sona%20Meme%2029_zpskuqfz9gu.jpg

Blåbæret4 votes

Lowest damage? Lol.

Solari Fortune6 votes

Lowest damage? I been seeing Sona's solo bullying bot lanes while her adc farms. Her Q powerchord dishes out a lot of damage

zlumpy11 votes

{quoted}

Lowest damage? I been seeing Sona's solo bullying bot lanes while her adc farms. Her Q powerchord dishes out a lot of damage

at which point you gotta wonder why the enemy team doesn't use braum, leona, blitz ( insert tanky initiating champion here) and just kill her in 2 seconds.

Zenima2 votes

Maybe the Sona was last pick?

zlumpy3 votes

[{quoted}](name=Z Grade,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=1yHOW6Xb,comment-id=0009000100000000,timestamp=2016-06-15T16:08:09.280+0000)

Maybe the Sona was last pick?

Which is the only safe time to play sona sadly.

Sire Hippington4 votes

Lowest damage? Statistics beg to differ: http://champion.gg/statistics/#?roleSort=Support&sortBy=general.totalDamageDealtToChampions&order=descend She's has the highest average damage dealt outside of mage-supports.

She'll remain just as unplayable after this as she already is now.

Beeing constantly at above 51% winrate and also beeing succesfully used at msi doesn't seem 'unplayable' at all to me.

Ulquiorra9954 votes

Of course that she has highest average damage dealt - because damage is all she has. Her heal is crap, her E is laughable, and her CC is nonexistant outside of her ult. Even mage supports beat her in utility; Zyra has two sources of AoE CC and better zoning, Annie has hgher burst, safer AA harrass, AoE cc not tied to her ultimate and an ablility to clutch-tank a combo with her shield.

Sona's rework was one of the worst - with only Karma being worse as it completely deleted a character. It made her literally unbalancable. Only viable way to play her is to rely on every possible source of artificial scaling as a crutch to make your only trick actually work.

She's going to be crap with these changes. First - her early game is getting shafted. Good luck on getting to late game. Second, she requires mana and mana regen in order to sustain her new playstyle. Which means she isn't getting AP. Which means her spells are, again, complete crap because their bases suck ass and you aren't getting items to remedy that.

...unless, if by some wonder, you get to late game and enemies ignore you, and you are able to afford both mana and heavy AP. Then she WILL hurt with insane Luden's and LB procs. Feast and famine scenario. In which support champion will rarely work because they can't rely on a fallback pattern of passively farming.

Witch of Babylon7 votes

I really was thinking they would reduce her W mana cost instead of her E considering the massive heal nerf and their attempt at making Sona more spammy.

DreMLoK7 votes

with these changes reminds me of ryze, which is never a good thing

Sona FemBoy7 votes

Sona is so oppressive in lane phase with her predictable play patterns and 325MS. Jhin, Cait, MF, Zilean, Karma were pretty good at keeping her zoned but Zyra does it passively now and Soraka is now a better lane bully who wins every trade with Q, a damage spell that restores health, boosts your speed, AND slows your enemy (can throw in 1-2 AA for free as the slowed enemy turns away!) Don't even get me started with the tank support class and their Relic Shield, it simply isn't worth risking, but I guess you could call that balanced / a skill matchup. You land 50 q's to chunk them, they land 1 q you have no chance of survival except Flash, but you're a champ with 400HP so you're probably dead before you can hit F.

Sona needs help and purpose in the early-mid game, give her an influential presence during this time. She was always a late game teamfighting monster and these "changes" only help her achieve that fantasy all the more. I don't get it.

Çhåryzård7 votes

Her laning phase is going to be trash now...why should I bother playing her anymore when I have supports like Nami and Soraka who will heal better, poke better, and overall have better laning phases than Sona now..

No support should have to wait until very late game buffs to become relevant when your adc needs you relevant in lane.

Linna Excel6 votes

So why does riot think sona's issue is that she doesn't spam enough in the late game and needs to get off more power cords?

That's what I want to know.

Profirix5 votes

I like it, just concerned that her mana gating will be so horrible now. They are effectively turning her into a spam-skill champion without mana compensation. Lower effect per cast, no change to mana costs except on Song of Celerity, much faster cooldown. On a side note, Athenes will be a must-buy item with how powerful it will be on her :)

Erockandroll1 votes

[{quoted}](name=I Blame Adam,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=1yHOW6Xb,comment-id=0000,timestamp=2016-06-15T05:59:00.504+0000)

I like it, just concerned that her mana gating will be so horrible now. They are effectively turning her into a spam-skill champion without mana compensation. Lower effect per cast, no change to mana costs except on Song of Celerity, much faster cooldown. On a side note, Athenes will be a must-buy item with how powerful it will be on her :)

I wouldn't worry too much about that. Support itemization is pretty flushed with Mana regen, Eye of the Watchers + Athene's + Censor. That's probably what I would use.

Also, I think it's too early to say that her damage is directly nerfed. Her Early game Burst is getting nerfed, but the extra CDR is going to mean more powercords. And her high AP options like Lich bane, might become even more effective.

Profirix2 votes

I'm pretty sure her ultimate is unaffected by the passive 'cdr' granted with each rank. It just affects her basic abilities.

Sire Hippington5 votes

I played her on PBE, and imo it increases the already existing issue: She's way to item dependent for an support. If she ever gets enough mana and some ap, her lategame is seriously broken beyond a 1000stack veigar. With fullgear, i reached a near perma 50% speedbuff for the entire team, with a ~300 heal+shield in 2.2sec cd and 500damage+200on aa from Q every 2.2 sec

If you get the mana to sutain the spam(needed tear, grail and ardent censer witht manareg seals to really use the perma speedbuff and still spam q+w every fight), it's just rediculous, especially if paired with some ap. The early therefor feels a bit lackluster. Shifting so much power into her late when lategame already is her strong point seems a bit wierd.

Kynami3 votes

Mana regen doesn't cover that considering casting off CD at that rate eats mana very fast. You're going to have an early priority rush on a Tear so that by mid game you can actually pull off the fast casts without running out of mana within a matter of seconds.

DevlinCrow2 votes

Thanks for this but the formatting was still a bit difficult to read :)

Solari Fortune5 votes

Was my first ever long post

Terminus Edge1 votes

I feel like Cassiopeia's original passive would go well with this sort of kit for Sona, or a variant of it. The one that reduced her mana costs on successive spellcasts.

TheUltimateSpear1 votes

[{quoted}](name=Terminus Edge,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=1yHOW6Xb,comment-id=0003,timestamp=2016-06-15T06:34:31.896+0000)

I feel like Cassiopeia's original passive would go well with this sort of kit for Sona, or a variant of it. The one that reduced her mana costs on successive spellcasts.

I agree, the original Cassiopeia was the best champion in League of Legends a variation of Cassiopeia's old passive could be useful on this new Sona. It would also make her less passive (if that's even an issue with her) as she'd need to be active to keep it up.

Audiomancy1 votes

Eh, I'm not a big fan of these changes. It seems like they're trying to weaken Sona's laning power in exchange for a tiny bit more power in her auras. Q base damage lowered and base cooldown increased will probably screw her early game over. The +20 to the proc might be nice, but it's also a nerf at level 16 without Crescendo's current +40 boost.

I'm starting to think Sona shouldn't have a heal anymore. With the current mana cost of Aria of Perseverance and how many times that aspect of the ability has been dumped on, I'd rather have no heal and a strong shield than a crappy heal and a crappy shield. The +15 is really not worth it.

E is just an overall buff and thank god for that. I cringe every time I have to put a point into this thing.

The problem with lower cooldowns is the need for additional max mana, which means you'll need to drop Athene's for a Tear (though you might get away with Morello's if you're lucky and end up with Ocean drakes), meaning you'll lose out on CDR, so the bonus 20/40/60% might not be as great as it sounds.

Sona FemBoy1 votes

I already tell my ADCs half the time, "just wait for lane phase to be over. It'll get better I promise." Yes some matchups I can still abuse in lane, but matchups now more often are about me not doing anything and just surviving to post-6 because it simply isn't worth the risk of falling behind.

I'm glad these changes are encouraging just that.

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