Boards›Gameplay

Why Do People Oppose Buffs For Sona?

Pika310··8 votes·2,521 views

Let's take a moment to use logic. Many people are livid about the Sona "rework." They make well-thought suggestions for changes and calmly request buffs for her. At every turn, people continuously appear to oppose said buffs. What do they gain from this? Nothing. Why go out of their way to mock, libel and propagandize in an attempt to sabotage players making an earnest effort and heartfelt plea? They have better use of their time, intentional toxicity is a blatant waste of that time. So why do they do this? There are no legit answers to this, no benefit. These individuals revel in discord, it matters not who they insult, what cause they attack. These people's intentions are perverse, their actions disreputable and unbecoming of this community as a whole. These "people" do not respond to reason, you can't conversate with them, for this is not their intent. It does not matter how much proof you provide, how much logic and how many statistics you grant, these are irrelevant. By inherent fact, any person who would unjustifiably set aside their own time just to blatantly attack threads of players advocating sensibly, is undoubtedly a troll. They don't need to use their own private time making such aggression, choosing to do so is nothing less than trolling. They all gather around the easiest excuse they can use and spam it to justify their assailment, regardless of how flawed or how often and greatly it's disproved, it's merely a means to an end for them. They care not how invalid it be.

Now for something truly constructive, let's take a moment reiterating a few utility buffs that have been previously suggested for Sona:

Staccato: Power Chord does 50% more damage(unchanged) and applies a mark to Sona's target for 4 seconds. Damage from an ally other than Sona detonates the mark for 75% of Power Chord's damge.(New)

Hymn of Valor: "Aura" - Sona tags allies to have their next attack or ability do 20/30/40/50/60 (+20%AP) (+2/4/6/8/10% of that allies AD OR +.8/1.6/2.4/3.2/4% of that allies AP) magic damage to an enemy unit or structure. (reduced damage on multi-target spells)

Aria of Perseverance: "Aura" - Allies tagged by Sona are shielded for 35/55/75/95/115 (+20% AP)*** (+1/2/3/4/5% of that ally's max HP) for 2/2.25/2.5/2.75/3 seconds.***

Song of Celerity: "Aura" - Allies that Sona tags gain movement speed for 2/2.5/3/3.5/4 seconds, rapidly decaying after 1.5 seconds.

Crescendo: Passive - Sona's "auras" gain increased strength and 100/200/300 range (Crescendo itself does NOT gain any range from this passive) Mana Cost - 100 At all ranks

In addition to these utility buffs suggested by multiple players, I also **highly **suggest the following changes as well:

  • Aria's mana cost returned to 60/65/70/75/80
  • Aria's % scaling returned to 1% per missing 1%
  • Aria's and Celerity's CD reduced to 8 seconds to match Hymn

76 Comments

City of Toronto10 votes

In fact, let's take a step back and think about this logically.

You are the one claiming that Sona needs a buff, and anybody opposing this idea is mistaken. Thus, the onus is on you to prove it.

Why does Sona need a buff? I'd like to hear it from your own mouth if you're so confident.

City of Toronto9 votes

You want to buff the 6th highest winrate champion in the game?

Pika3104 votes

They all gather around the easiest excuse they can use and spam it to justify their assailment, regardless of how flawed or how often and greatly it's disproved, it's merely a means to an end for them. They care not how invalid it be.

I sincerely thank you for helping prove my point.

Winrates are meaningless. High winrate champs are used near exclusively by players highly familiar both on that champ and in that role. Being on a comfort pick improves their performance and increases their rate of success. If a Lucian main and an Ashe main met with equal skill and experience on their champs, the edge would usually fall to Lucian. If an Ashe main met a jungle main inexperienced on Lucian, they table turns and Ashe gains the upper-hand.

On the other side, top picks like Thresh are default choices for players inexperienced both on the champion and the role. They tend to have poor performances and poison that champ's win-rate with their increased chance of failure.

Earl Eulrich7 votes

that´s a nice anecdote, but far from being anything close to an argument. empirical evidence however suggests that Sona´s far from needing a buff.

Pika3104 votes

By inherent fact, any person who would unjustifiably set aside their own time just to blatantly attack threads of players advocating sensibly, is undoubtedly a troll. They don't need to use their own private time making such aggression, choosing to do so is nothing less than trolling.

I sincerely thank you for helping prove my point.

Sire Hippington8 votes

I guess u refer with 'they' to your self in your op. All u do is attacking other players for no good reason and lable them as trolls while u don't bring any valid reason for why Sona should get buffed at all, while you show ignorance for a valid argument of evidence...

All i can see here is someone who simply wants his main to become even stronger, not careing for the games balance or reason, just for selfish purpose.

and your winrate thesis is only true for low pickrates, but sona got both, a high winrate and a high pickrate

If the winrate is high but the pickrate is low, it's cause a champion is mostly played by 'mains' and/or a nich pick that is strong in certain circumstances.

If he winrate is low but the pickrate is high, it's usually cause a lot inexperienced players play it, and the winrate gets eveb lower depending on the champions skillfloor

If winrate and pickrate are low, it's a strong hint that a champion is to weak

If winrate and pickrate are both high, the champion most likely is to strong, with the winrate beeing higher the easier to play the champ is. Sona is not the hardes champ, so a somewhat high winrate still suggest she may be balanced, but in no way is she in need of a buff

City of Toronto8 votes

They all gather around the easiest excuse they can use and spam it to justify their assailment, regardless of how flawed or how often and greatly it's disproved, it's merely a means to an end for them. They care not how invalid it be.

I sincerely thank you for helping prove my point.

Winrates are meaningless. High winrate champs are used near exclusively by players highly familiar both on that champ and in that role. Being on a comfort pick improves their performance and increases their rate of success. If a Lucian main and an Ashe main met with equal skill and experience on their champs, the edge would usually fall to Lucian. If an Ashe main met a jungle main inexperienced on Lucian, they table turns and Ashe gains the upper-hand.

On the other side, top picks like Thresh are default choices for players inexperienced both on the champion and the role. They tend to have poor performances and poison that champ's win-rate with their increased chance of failure.

And you on the other hand are considered a pompous ass. You disregard any voices of reason that speak out against your cause and irresponsibly label them as troll, even if they hold a good point. You refuse to see anybody opposing you as right.

Sona has a 9.3% pickrate. That's above Nami, Alistar, Lulu, Annie, Soraka, Taric, Zyra, Karma, and Zilean. She's only picked less than Thresh, Leona, Braum, and Janna. Even, then she's only slightly behind Braum (11.5%). Sona is about as comfort-pick as it gets for supports, even for inexperienced players.

"Exclusively by players highly familiar" my ass. Sona takes very little skill/knowledge to play. If we're to follow your example, we would look at even more niche champions that may actually qualify for "exclusivity to highly familiar players", such as all the aforementioned, less picked champions. All of whom share lower winrates ranging from slight 2-3% differences, to nearly a 10% difference. Sona is a steady 53-55% across all elos, meanwhile Alistar is sitting at 45% in Bronze to 43% in Diamond.

City of Toronto6 votes

And you on the other hand are considered a pompous ass. You disregard any voices of reason that speak out against your cause and irresponsibly label them as troll, even if they hold a good point. You refuse to see anybody opposing you as right.

I sincerely thank you for helping prove my point.

SmokingPuffin7 votes

Your proposed buffs are completely nuts. In particular:

  1. I don't think you realize how big that shield is. It will trivialize poke damage and make sieging way too easy.
  2. Aura range buff lategame is totally broken too. The whole point of the cuddle zones is to give Sona difficult positioning decisions. If she can reliably tag her team with each aura, they're really strong effects.

Sona is already quite strong. The big reason she isn't seeing much competitive play is that much of her power is in laning phase and the other team can arrange 2v1 lanes to dodge her.

Pika3103 votes

They aren't my proposals. As I stated, they are a reiteration from multiple Sona players. I'm just passing on their ideas.

SmokingPuffin4 votes

Ok fine. They're still totally bonkers.

AtheosisX6 votes

Sona is really strong right now. This thread is dumb.

BabyMickers5 votes

As a Sona main I oppose any 'buffs' she's currently one of the most over powered supports in the game especially late game.

Drew Sole6 votes

As a Sona main I oppose any 'buffs' she's currently one of the most over powered supports in the game especially late game.

I usually dont comment on these threads.....but comments like these I just have to post for...... so youre telling me shes stronger then braum....thresh...nami....even leona...... EVEN LATE GAME.......you do realize she has to be in your opponents face to do anything right., and on top of that not doing any damage....which makes her very easy to blow up.....this is why youre stuck in bronze.....bronze logic OP.

It Is I Emoto4 votes

I'm a Sona main, and I simply can't agree with that, her basic abilities get easily outscaled by every support right now, the only thing that makes her right now strong is her Ultimate, wich has nothing to do with her pre-6 and as well nothing with times where she don't use it. I usually have to flash into a teamfight to hit an crescendo, because I can't even go through the front line, since everyone's blocking me. Other supports simply give more utility, like Thresh who can slightly knock up up champs, and is pretty much a baby from blitz and leona, Nami and Braum can stun and knock up champions, as well not to forget that Nami outscales everything that Sona does right now, without having any AP. They're all strong picks that also synthesize well with Yasuo, wich allows him to activate his ult without doing a knock up.

Drew Sole1 votes

[deleted]

It Is I Emoto4 votes

I do hate to always flash to hit the crescendo. People say it's "hard" to miss, yet it's easy to predict if a Sona is moving forward to the frontline, she'll ult. Since I can't go through the front line most the time, I usually buy the distortion enchantment, so I have my flash up everytime when we have a teamfight. It's not a bad thing, but my ult is the only thing I can do in a teamfight, since the nerfed heal won't save anyone anymore, the attack boost from her Q is barley notice able, and her E only works for 1.5 seconds. Champions with strong cc will probably just keep up till they have Sona and her almost dying ally. You need AP to have stronger auras, but they won't help you with utility. If you rush utility items, you'll lack of aura power as well. And hybrids does not work. Sona really needs some buffs in my opinion, she can't keep up with most of the other supports :/

A Wild AP Sona4 votes

I do hate to always flash to hit the crescendo. People say it's "hard" to miss, yet it's easy to predict if a Sona is moving forward to the frontline, she'll ult. Since I can't go through the front line most the time, I usually buy the distortion enchantment, so I have my flash up everytime when we have a teamfight. It's not a bad thing, but my ult is the only thing I can do in a teamfight, since the nerfed heal won't save anyone anymore, the attack boost from her Q is barley notice able, and her E only works for 1.5 seconds. Champions with strong cc will probably just keep up till they have Sona and her almost dying ally. You need AP to have stronger auras, but they won't help you with utility. If you rush utility items, you'll lack of aura power as well. And hybrids does not work. Sona really needs some buffs in my opinion, she can't keep up with most of the other supports :/

anyone that says sonas ult is hard to miss obviously doesnt main her

it has ult travel time and people can literally outrun it if they are in the last 20-25% of the effect

City of Toronto4 votes

Need for buff aside, your suggestions aren't even "buffs". They're changing the fundamentals of the spells themselves. What makes you think you can handle champion redesigns better than Riot's design crew?

City of Toronto4 votes

Also your power chord buff... let me get this straight... you want powerchord to do 262.5% of the live version's damage?

Pika3103 votes

Learn basic addition, it would do 150% + 75%. That's a total of 225%, only 25% higher than old Sona's of 200%, but with significantly greater team-coordination for justification.

City of Toronto4 votes

Learn basic addition, it would do 150% + 75%. That's a total of 225%, only 25% higher than old Sona's, but with significantly greater team-coordination for justification.

Still the pompous ass eh? You should havr omitted the 50% more damage part if you're making no changes to it for consistency's sake. I saw it as you saying 50% more damage than live values.

Pika3103 votes

You can see that specific text is bold and italic. That's not for decorations, those are the changes to the abilities. Everything else is what they already do. I'm having great difficulty understanding how this wasn't blatantly obvious to people, yet multiple seem to have made this mistake.

Legostrike4 votes

Despite being infuriated at you for not understanding how supports work and even more infuriated at the first paragraph that holds nothing more then blatant attacks on unidentified people for no reason, I continued to read...and found that there were a couple good points, actually.

Staccato: Power Chord does 50% more damage and applies a mark to Sona's target for 4 seconds. Damage from an ally other than Sona detonates the mark for 75% of Power Chord's damage.

Meh, I'd prefer if it worked with the auras instead of being like an extended Quinn, and I also believe that the mark should only do around 35% damage at the moment, as she already does a goodly amount with her Q. This buff may also end up going overboard as well.

"Aura" - Sona tags allies to have their next attack or ability do 20/30/40/50/60 (+20%AP) (+2/4/6/8/10% of that allies AD OR +.8/1.6/2.4/3.2/4% of that allies AP) magic damage to an enemy unit or structure. (reduced damage on multi-target spells)

as I said, she does a goodly amount of damage with her Q so I'd like to see the AD or AP part reduced but scale up with rank so Sona's more viable late-game (her weakest point, in my experience). Having it apply to structures is fine.

Aria of Perseverance: "Aura" - Allies tagged by Sona are shielded for 35/55/75/95/115 (+20% AP) (+1/2/3/4/5% of that ally's max HP) for 2/2.25/2.5/2.75/3 seconds.

needed, her shield is so weak.

Song of Celerity: "Aura" - Allies that Sona tags gain movement speed for 2/2.5/3/3.5/4 seconds, rapidly decaying after 1.5 seconds.

seeing as this ability is not particularly viable atm, I'd prefer to see it just straight up buffed instead of changed in any way (the decay). It doesn't really help in chases and it only mildly helps in mobility, but other then that it's fine in the concept. (It does help in escapes, i'll give it that.)

That concludes my evaluation of the changes.

But dude:

Why go out of their way to mock, libel and propagandize in an attempt to sabotage players making an earnest effort and heartfelt plea?

They have better use of their time, intentional toxicity is a blatant waste of that time.

These individuals revel in discord, it matters not who they insult, what cause they attack. These people's intentions are perverse, their actions disreputable and unbecoming of this community as a whole.

By inherent fact, any person who would unjustifiably set aside their own time just to blatantly attack threads of players advocating sensibly, is undoubtedly a troll. They don't need to use their own private time making such aggression, choosing to do so is nothing less than trolling. They all gather around the easiest excuse they can use and spam it to justify their assailment, regardless of how flawed or how often and greatly it's disproved, it's merely a means to an end for them. They care not how invalid it be.

Have you ever considered that they may just disagree with you? Launching such an attack does nothing to improve your credibility, quite on the contrary, it makes you look like the troll and makes many people instantly ignore any good points you may have whatsoever and focus on the fact that you just are plain being a jerk. For future reference, don't try to defend your points by attacking the people against you, just continue using logic and reason and stating your opinion on the issue at hand and just roll along with the opposing points. If you must debate them in the comments but again, logic and reason>Ad hominems. And also realize not everyone will agree with you, and that's not because they're trolls it's because...well, they don't agree with you for their own reasons.

TL;DR: You're being a jerk but you have good points.

Pika3103 votes

[deleted]

Legostrike4 votes

If you want to make a point, then ignore them. Their words don't impact your arguments.

Pika3102 votes

Sound logic, but it would be a lot less mentally stressful if the forum moderators would stop enabling them by allowing their toxic behavior to exist. Profanity, obvious disinformation, blatant harassment, these actions are going completely unpunished.

As proven by the forum mods' bias and blatant misuse of power above, we're not even allowed to call out individuals no matter how obscene their behavior.

Legostrike2 votes

There's a report button bottom left. If you're really that frustrated with them then use it.

Pika3102 votes

I have been clicking it. Sadly the forum moderators are biased, simply refuse to do their job or both. As is evident by their choices for the continued allowed existences of posts like this and many others:

http://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/gameplay-balance/8pvGKtop-why-do-people-oppose-buffs-for-sona?comment=0010

It Is I Emoto4 votes

Staccato: Power Chord does 50% more damage and applies a mark to Sona's target for 4 seconds. Damage from an ally other than Sona detonates the mark for 75% of Power Chord's damge.

I think that the 50% increased damage on her staccato powerchord would be not bad, but I think the detonate thing might be nice, it seems like that she would synthesize well with carries who know how to work together, but it might get out of control.

Hymn of Valor: "Aura" - Sona tags allies to have their next attack or ability do 20/30/40/50/60 (+20%AP) (+2/4/6/8/10% of that allies AD OR +.8/1.6/2.4/3.2/4% of that allies AP) magic damage to an enemy unit or structure. (reduced damage on multi-target spells)

Heh I really like this one, since it'll scale on Sonas allies AD and AP :p I had the same idea, but I'd say, it would be better to remove Sonas additional ap ratio for it and make it also scale for her own ad and ap. This would give Sona players who don't start with ap still have some power in lane. I also had the idea to make it scale for allies 0.2 ad + 0.2 ap, and this bonus should be increased by 50% for sona, wich means 0.3 ad + 0.3 ap for Sona, many people disagreed with it, but this means that the ratio of the staccato powerchord should stay as 50% increased damage, so Sona players can go either big or home. Either you cast her Q and throw the next auto attack on the next enemy with doing alot of damage, or waiting too long and do barley damage to them.

Aria of Perseverance: "Aura" - Allies tagged by Sona are shielded for 35/55/75/95/115 (+20% AP)*** (+1/2/3/4/5% of that ally's max HP) for 2/2.25/2.5/2.75/3 seconds.***

This is intresting, letting it also scale on allies max hp, wich makes the shield also worth for tankier champions like Shyvanna! I also approve the shield duration buff.

Song of Celerity: "Aura" - Allies that Sona tags gain movement speed for 2/2.5/3/3.5/4 seconds, rapidly decaying after 1.5 seconds.

I like the duration buff.

Crescendo: Passive - Sona's "auras" gain increased strength and 100/200/300 range ; Mana Cost - 100 At all ranks

I kinda dislike this one, the additional range don't seems to be needed in my opinion. it's range is already about 1000, wich is alot in my opinion. Yeah, Leona outranges Sonas ult, but hers is harder to hit, while Sonas ult is a line, wich is harder to avoid than Leonas ult. Though I agree with the mana cost, it's extremly expensive now.

In addition to these utility buffs suggested by multiple players, I also **highly **suggest the following changes as well:

  • Aria's mana cost returned to 60/65/70/75/80
  • Aria's % scaling returned to 1% per missing 1%
  • Aria's and Celerity's CD reduced to 8 seconds to match Hymn

I like them too.

That's my opinion so far. Sincere!

Pika3103 votes

I think you misunderstood 2 parts, Staccato would do the same amount of damage, but apply the mark as well.

Second, the range buff listed on Crescendo refers to her "auras," not to Crescendo itself. Crescendo would remain unchanged by that.

This is about the 3rd time I've had to clarify this and I'm not sure why...

It Is I Emoto3 votes

Oh I misunderstood that! (the aura range) I think the aura range increase is a great idea! Though, I think It'd be better if the range increase would be 50/100/150, because the aura range would be gigantic.

And about the powerchord thing, then it's alright too. Though I thought that the "50%" is actually 50% damage increase to make the powerchord deal base damage+75% damage from it. Otherwise I like it.

Meep Man4 votes

Her ultimate is too powerful to buff her. It is a ranged AoE stun with decent damage. Decent positioning with Sona makes for both a sustain generator and a godly initiator.

Toothless Lion4 votes

To answer your question: She's a boring 1 dimensional champion with an already high winrate.

This is just like when the idiots begged for Janna buffs when she wasn't played but had a 52% winrate. Like seriously do you want your braindead, button masher champ to get nerfed? Because that's more likely than buffs at this point, so drop it.

Pika3103 votes

Leblanc Nerfed despite having low win-rate Yasuo Nerfed despite having low win-rate Thresh #1 support despite having low win-rate LeeSin #1 jungler despite having low win-rate

Win-rates are almost never an actual calculation of a champion's strength. Matter-of-factly, strong champions more often than not have low win-rates and the weaker ones tend to lean to the higher side.

Toothless Lion4 votes

Leblanc Nerfed despite having low win-rate Yasuo Nerfed despite having low win-rate Thresh #1 support despite having low win-rate LeeSin #1 jungler despite having low win-rate

Win-rates are almost never an actual calculation of a champion's strength. Matter-of-factly, strong champions more often than not have low win-rates and the weaker ones tend to lean to the higher side.

You just listed 4 dynamic champions that take some degree of skill to use effectively. Sona does not. Hence her high win rate and average pick rate. Sona mains are not prodigies. Sorry.

She isn't getting buffed. If anything your braindead champ needs a rework.

Pika3103 votes

Sona takes more skill than, let's say Renekton or Rengar for example. Rengar especially is just walking into the bush repeatedly and pressing R every time it's up. He doesn't even have to worry about mana.

Sona has to watch her positioning, manage her mana resources, decide on the appropriate Power Chord for the situation and much more. Considering Sona dies in 2 autos, there's no room for error. First mistake is an instant Flash AT BEST. Second mistake is automatic death.

Her heal got nerfed, she can't heal as much incoming damage, her shield blocks less damage than the old Armor/MR boost and her MS disappears after 1.5 seconds, no more passive. Sona is the easiest support to gank against and die on since her survivability and mobility have both been nerfed.

Toothless Lion3 votes

Sona takes more skill than, let's say Renekton or Rengar for example. Rengar especially is just walking into the bush repeatedly and pressing R every time it's up. He doesn't even have to worry about mana.

Sona has to watch her positioning, manage her mana resources, decide on the appropriate Power Chord for the situation and much more. Considering Sona dies in 2 autos, there's no room for error. First mistake is an instant Flash AT BEST. Second mistake is automatic death.

Her heal got nerfed, she can't heal as much incoming damage, her shield blocks less damage than the old Armor/MR boost and her MS disappears after 1.5 seconds, no more passive. Sona is the easiest support to gank against and die on since her survivability and mobility have both been nerfed.

Oh you can lolking? I didn't know they did that in bronze .5

Apparently Renekton is too difficult for you because you lose more than you win with him.

Pika3103 votes

Dang, an ADC main has a below 50% win-rate on a top-laner. You got me there. What was he, like my 10th most played champ or something? Half of those games being in 3s too. Whatever propaganda it takes, I guess.

Since you've resorted to personal harassment by stalking me and my profile, you already know my rank isn't bronze. That's just overly obvious, blatant unadulterated libel.

Fed by Snu Snu4 votes

Asking for buffs in the LoL community is in vain. Apparently every champion is toxic and they don't deserve any love.

Sona has to choose between having strong poke or strong heals in lane, apparently toxic. Nami levels up both within a single skill, apparently most balanced support ever!111!

Bunch of hypocrites.

LongFur Fox3 votes

Sona is not currently meta which is why she is not picked by professionals. This then means she won't be played by people who don't like/main her. This does indeed buff her winrate but it is impossible to say by how much as that value can change from person to person (I would argue that the difference between a garen main and a random garen is smaller than the difference between a cassiopeia main and a random cassiopeia). Considering that i find it hard to see a reason to buff her. Do please enlighten me on why she should be buffed.

While your buffs certainly look nice and all i wonder what are the benefits of using them compared to just stat changes: Note that i am not against buffing her if you can give me a reason. Right now i just do not see why. I ask that same question multiple times during this analysis and if you ever find yourself not being able to answer then there just might be a point to take from it in that instance.

Staccato: Power Chord does 50% more damage and applies a mark to Sona's target for 4 seconds. Damage from an ally other than Sona detonates the mark for 75% of Power Chord's damge.

Increases her burst in all ins which is never really the good part of sona in lane. I can agree to the 50% more damage as it increases her ability to do what she already does but the second part i don't like.

Hymn of Valor: "Aura" - Sona tags allies to have their next attack or ability do 20/30/40/50/60 (+20%AP) (+2/4/6/8/10% of that allies AD OR +.8/1.6/2.4/3.2/4% of that allies AP) magic damage to an enemy unit or structure. (reduced damage on multi-target spells)

Aria of Perseverance: "Aura" - Allies tagged by Sona are shielded for 35/55/75/95/115 (+20% AP)*** (+1/2/3/4/5% of that ally's max HP) for 2/2.25/2.5/2.75/3 seconds.***

This increases snowball potential for sona's team and while they look ok i see no reason to have them scale with the respective champs stats to just giving them base stats. A pitfall in this is that those spells might suddenly end up being very high value when you are ahead but feel very bad when you are behind.

Song of Celerity: "Aura" - Allies that Sona tags gain movement speed for 2/2.5/3/3.5/4 seconds, rapidly decaying after 1.5 seconds.

Seems ok. I doubt she really needs more chase potential though.

Crescendo: Passive - Sona's "auras" gain increased strength and 100/200/300 range ; Mana Cost - 100 At all ranks

A sacred thing with spells is their range. Very few champions have scaling range on any ability or even basic attack. Yes there are a few like syndra, kogmaw and tristana but for the last two that is kinda "their thing" and for syndra it only happens once and it is hardly noticeable since you are anyway in range of her other spells. With a high impact spell like crescendo this is all the more true. If you want to buff it buff the duration or cd but not the range.

In addition to these utility buffs suggested by multiple players, I also **highly **suggest the following changes as well:

  • Aria's mana cost returned to 60/65/70/75/80
  • Aria's % scaling returned to 1% per missing 1%

Did you read their reason for nerfing this spell? If so why do you think it is wrong? (no "sona is weak" is not a good argument here. Riot stated a specific reason to nerf this spell if you think it is unjustified then tell me why)

  • Aria's and Celerity's CD reduced to 8 seconds to match Hymn

I can understand this one but i would not be against it going the other way with increasing hymn cd and then buffing the spell in some way.

Pika3103 votes

As a first note, the bold/italic parts are new, everything else just states what her abilities already do.

Staccato: This was blatantly nerfed from +100% down to +50%. The mark makes up for the discrepancy and adds team-reliance for just a little extra power.

Hymn/Aria: These are both another player's suggestion. It mimics her old auras' to a lesser degree to make up some of the damage/mitigation she lost when it was changed. Personally, I would just as gladly take simple number buffs to the bolt's and "auras'" base numbers, as you mentioned.

Celerity: This spell's current iteration has no logical justification for extra early ranks or any extra ranks at all. Riot designed it as a "one-point wonder" and inherently admitted it's flawed. Increased duration mimics the old passive that was blatantly removed and the rapid decay prevents it from being broken.

Crescendo: You missed Caitlyn on your list. This is another player's idea too. Sona's current "aura" range is essentially melee-range. It's a massive 65% lower than her old range and the lowest range of every champ in the support-mage class without contest. The closest in terms of low-range is around 550 and matter-of-factly the average range is closer to ~900. Putting the range boost on level's 6/11/16 brings her back up to par at the intervals of the match where they become especially necessary to avoid OP AoE like Orianna, Yasuo, Ryze, etc. Btw, this only increases the "auras'" range, not Crecendo's itself. I'd rather just flat-out give the aura's themselves more range, but other players seem keen to the idea of them growing in Forte overtime as she reaches her "Crescendo." Pun intended.

Crescendo's passive is not a part of the skill itself, it's placeholder text stating, "At levels 6/11/16, *this *happen." Crescendo itself needs no buffs other than a standardized mana cost.

Aria*: Patch 4.20 was completely based on win-rate propaganda. Fiora, Sona, Rammus, etc. were all nerfed based on falsehood. Note in the past LeBlanc and Yasuo were nerfed because win-rate doesn't matter. Riot will say whatever is necessary to justify their actions without giving logical reasoning.

Sona has the weakest heal in the game, Nami heals more without bounces than Sona's combined amount, Taric heals double of Sona and even Alistar heals for more than her, whilst Soraka heals an ally for 4x what Sona can and Starcall heals herself for ~the same amount. All the meanwhile, Sona's heal also has the unrivaled highest mana cost amongst the sustain support class, despite having the lowest numbers.

Aria**/Celerity: Sona used to have 7 second CDs across the board, this made it possible to decide on the proper Powerchord for the situation as they remained the same as each other and low enough to not have to hesitate and endlessly second-guess your action. Originally, the "rework" was to nerf all 3 CDs to 10 seconds for zero tradeoff. Fearless decided that Hymn is the only spell that matters and thus lowered its damage and CD while increasing Celerity's CD. That was 3 nerfs for 0 tradeoffs. Now the Power Chord most often up will be Staccato, despite its damage being cut in half. The increased and varied CDs have been a blatant indirect nerf to Sona's passive. Eight seconds is still a nerf, but at least it won't be as overbearingly stifling as 10 and 12.

LongFur Fox1 votes

As a first note, the bold/italic parts are new, everything else just states what her abilities already do.

Staccato: This was blatantly nerfed from +100% down to +50%. The mark makes up for the discrepancy and adds team-reliance for just a little extra power.

Hymn/Aria: These are both another player's suggestion. It mimics her old auras' to a lesser degree to make up some of the damage/mitigation she lost when it was changed. Personally, I would just as gladly take simple number buffs to the bolt's and "auras'" base numbers, as you mentioned.

Celerity: This spell's current iteration has no logical justification for extra early ranks or any extra ranks at all. Riot designed it as a "one-point wonder" and inherently admitted it's flawed. Increased duration mimics the old passive that was blatantly removed and the rapid decay prevents it from being broken.

Crescendo: You missed Caitlyn on your list. This is another player's idea too. Sona's current "aura" range is essentially melee-range. It's a massive 65% lower than her old range and the lowest range of every champ in the support-mage class without contest. The closest in terms of low-range is around 550 and matter-of-factly the average range is closer to ~900. Putting the range boost on level's 6/11/16 brings her back up to par at the intervals of the match where they become especially necessary to avoid OP AoE like Orianna, Yasuo, Ryze, etc. Btw, this only increases the "auras'" range, not Crecendo's itself. I'd rather just flat-out give the aura's themselves more range, but other players seem keen to the idea of them growing in Forte overtime as she reaches her "Crescendo." Pun intended.

Crescendo's passive is not a part of the skill itself, it's placeholder text stating, "At levels 6/11/16, *this *happen." Crescendo itself needs no buffs other than a standardized mana cost.

Aria*: Patch 4.20 was completely based on win-rate propaganda. Fiora, Sona, Rammus, etc. were all nerfed based on falsehood. Note in the past LeBlanc and Yasuo were nerfed because win-rate doesn't matter. Riot will say whatever is necessary to justify their actions without giving logical reasoning.

Sona has the weakest heal in the game, Nami heals more without bounces than Sona's combined amount, Taric heals double of Sona and even Alistar heals for more than her, whilst Soraka heals an ally for 4x what Sona can and Starcall heals herself for ~the same amount. All the meanwhile, Sona's heal also has the unrivaled highest mana cost amongst the sustain support class, despite having the lowest numbers.

Aria**/Celerity: Sona used to have 7 second CDs across the board, this made it possible to decide on the proper Powerchord for the situation as they remained the same as each other and low enough to not have to hesitate and endlessly second-guess your action. Originally, the "rework" was to nerf all 3 CDs to 10 seconds for zero tradeoff. Fearless decided that Hymn is the only spell that matters and thus lowered its damage and CD while increasing Celerity's CD. That was 3 nerfs for 0 tradeoffs. Now the Power Chord most often up will be Staccato, despite its damage being cut in half. The increased and varied CDs have been a blatant indirect nerf to Sona's passive. Eight seconds is still a nerf, but at least it won't be as overbearingly stifling as 10 and 12.

Honestly beside from "this is another players suggestion" all i hear is revert the nerfs. While it seems you have thought about what i questioned the all important question of "is she balanced currently?" still remains unanswered. If you want to buff her you would need to give a reason she needs the buffs. On a side note comparing part of kits to other is a bad idea (like comparing heals).

Pika3103 votes

Balance can only be found by doing comparisons. Trying to whilst avoiding them creates a paradox. Let's say you had a tree in a vacuum. You want to know if the tree is taller or shorter than average, but you're in a complete void with nothing to compare the tree to. You can't balance a champion without comparing them with the 121 others.

I've already compared 5 broad categories of the entire support class in another thread. Sona comes in last place in every category: base damage, healing, damage mitigation, mobility and CC. Meanwhile, Thresh, Nami and Morgana are near the top, matching current trends. The validity of comparisons is self-proving.

Sona's full damage trade with ADC cooperation is lower than all, but Braum. Alone, even he almost doubles it.

I already discussed her heal, her 2-man shield has a combined HP less than every single-target shield and Thresh's 2-man shield is almost twice of Sona's.

She is roughly tied for lowest MS boost, but even other supports with roughly equally slow boosts have considerably longer duration or more frequent up-time.

Sona is one of the 2 supports in the entire class lacking hard pre-6 CC. The other being Zilean, he has a stronger, longer-lasting slow that is easily more accessible than hers.

Before the "rework," Sona was roughly average in every category, but her versatility made her viable. With blatantly weaker numbers in every change, her versatility does not make up for being the worst support in every comparison.

LongFur Fox3 votes

I saw that thread and it is also just another comparison by skills to skills. If you want to compare two champions you need to compare whole kits not just part of it. I remember you had alistar in that list too so let me give you an example:

Pokewise sona is by far better. Sure alistar can headbutt someone and walk away for poke but he becomes at danger by doing that and the opponent support will harrass him for it. Baside this they are roughly of equal base numbers and scaling (including only sona hitting alistar with her q aa thingy) but alistar has 100 more range and sona can hit two targets at once. Alistars heal is better on himself but worse on allies as it then has the same numbers but not the shield. Sona also has far more range. Alistars heal however pushes the wave and has a conditional cd that can be longer or shorter depending on the situation. In teamfights Sona's shield wins out since it has higher values than his heals but only if it gets used.

Beside this we want to compare the fact that sona has movespeed, need flash for long range ult (alistar has a bit longer range with headbut+pulverize) but sona then still has 3 skills while alistar only has 2, the fact that alistar has an ult that gives him ad and makes him very tanky. However sona's passive is much better....... i could mention more things but i think you get the idea: It is a bad idea to compare kits which are not very similar and in your tree analog i would say your comparison is equal to: "This tree has longer leaves than the others, therefore it must be taller". I'm not saying that it bad to compare champions just remember to note everything both champions do.

BLU Medic3 votes

Let's destroy ARAM further by buffing Sona!

Sukishoo4 votes

as if ARAM really matters.

Zen Fury1 votes

Sona is easy to gank if she doesn't ward and has no map awareness. But then again, a number of champs are easy to gank if they don't ward and have no map awareness.

Sona's main poke has a 700 range. If you're making mistakes that allow you to get jumped on or significantly harassed, it's not the champion's fault.

Pika3103 votes

Indeed you could stay at max range, but you minimize your damage by doing so. Hymn's bolt damage is only 40 now, as opposed to 52 pre-nerf. By doing this you lose the on-hit damage from Hymn and you can't apply Staccato. The new Sona is all about high risk and low reward. If you play it safe and don't take that risk, you essentially get negative reward, or rather you get punished.

More from Gameplay

3 Refunds per season, upvote if you want 3 refunds per season.
Gameplay764 comments
7,167
votes
3 Refunds per season, upvote if you want 3 refunds per season.
Gameplay156 comments
3,510
votes
UPVOTE FOR URF
Gameplay606 comments
2,440
votes
Yes plz.
Gameplay456 comments
1,721
votes
3 Refunds per season, up vote if you want 3 refunds per season.
Gameplay114 comments
1,716
votes
When is ANYONE at riot going to address the awful new player experience?
Gameplay634 comments
1,383
votes

More by Pika310

@Colt "Ezreal" Hallam - Sona Needs You
Gameplay76 comments
71
votes
Hashtag Better Nerf Sona
Gameplay129 comments
45
votes
Yet Another Pool Party Request Thread
Concepts & Creations54 comments
43
votes
Sona Buvelle, the New Irelia
Gameplay96 comments
42
votes
The Decline and Fall of the Sona Empire
Gameplay64 comments
39
votes
Proposed Sona Rework
Gameplay38 comments
33
votes