For a champion with basically no skill curve, the only way for her to be "balanced" would be as a champion who's generally weak most of the time but pulls ahead in certain identifiable match-ups that favor her. If she's just generally a good pick without requiring any effort, then she crowds out the role.
Martyrofsand1 votesProblem is she isn't just generally good. She is an ok poke support with decent healing should you get the right items. Her issue though is that she is completely out shined by other champs. In terms of champs who can proc ardent and protect the carry while poking in lane you have both Nami and Lulu who out poke her, provide more CC and utility. In terms of kill supports blitz/thresh/leo/etc crush her and in terms of healing supports Soraka/Nami again top out. If it's just straight protection you want Lulu/Janna/Braum/Tahm tend to do it better as well.
Sona is a jack of all trade master of none type of support who also has the unfortunate element of being squishy as wet tissue paper, legit early levels a canon minion takes more AAs to kill than Sona. She isn't bad but she is certainly fallen from grace when she was the best support in the game, now she is passable and even preferable against some specific match-ups if she can position correctly, which frankly is a perfectly fine spot for her.
Darkeus2 votesProblem is she isn't just generally good. She is an ok poke support with decent healing should you get the right items. Her issue though is that she is completely out shined by other champs. In terms of champs who can proc ardent and protect the carry while poking in lane you have both Nami and Lulu who out poke her, provide more CC and utility. In terms of kill supports blitz/thresh/leo/etc crush her and in terms of healing supports Soraka/Nami again top out. If it's just straight protection you want Lulu/Janna/Braum/Tahm tend to do it better as well.
Sona is a jack of all trade master of none type of support who also has the unfortunate element of being squishy as wet tissue paper, legit early levels a canon minion takes more AAs to kill than Sona. She isn't bad but she is certainly fallen from grace when she was the best support in the game, now she is passable and even preferable against some specific match-ups if she can position correctly, which frankly is a perfectly fine spot for her.
I agreed until that last sentence. She is not in a good spot at all. League is really snowball orientated right now. Games end by 20-30 minutes these days.
You know what Sona's win rate is in that time period? 39%. She has no early game AT ALL now. This is not a fine spot and she is losing to people she COUNTERED before the nerfs.
Martyrofsand1 votesLeague is really snowball oriented right now, that's how preseason pretty much always goes, and if you are trying to judge a champions worth based on something that is going to change, and is changing, it's a little silly.
Instead I'm judging her based on her actual position in bot lane, IE the roll she fulfills compared to other supports. It's a fine roll for her, although balance might be another issue.
Also not sure what you mean by Sona having no early game at all, right now with Aery mastery she goes to lane and lands her Q+empowered AA on the ADC and most lose like 1/3-1/4 of their HP depending on if they have Doran's shield or not. Her early game is fine if she can position to avoid engage from opponents, if she does get hard engaged on though she is toast.
Darkeus2 votesLeague is really snowball oriented right now, that's how preseason pretty much always goes, and if you are trying to judge a champions worth based on something that is going to change, and is changing, it's a little silly.
Instead I'm judging her based on her actual position in bot lane, IE the roll she fulfills compared to other supports. It's a fine roll for her, although balance might be another issue.
Also not sure what you mean by Sona having no early game at all, right now with Aery mastery she goes to lane and lands her Q+empowered AA on the ADC and most lose like 1/3-1/4 of their HP depending on if they have Doran's shield or not. Her early game is fine if she can position to avoid engage from opponents, if she does get hard engaged on though she is toast.
I think you have forgotten about her nerfs. That is why she has no early game. Any Sona main will tell you that it is really hard to consistently do that damage AND W your ADC. She has extreme mana issues now early game. Aery was nerfed. Scorch was or is going to be nerfed. Sona's Q cost 15 more mana to use AND her aura damage was nerfed. Her W was nerfed two patches ago.
She has a 39% win rate between 0-25 minutes into the game.
YES, she has no early game. If you happen to survive all of the damage she CAN'T take before mid game then you can win.
Good luck doing so. And her winrate Plat and above only reinforces this fact.
Her early game USED to be alright. Now you have to buy Tear and take Manaflow band to even have a chance.
The facts are easy to look up man. Go on Lolalytics and check and how fast she has dropped with recent nerfs.
To say her early game is okay is laughable to be honest. I don't think many Sona mains would agree with you at all.
Martyrofsand1 votesYou seem to have an odd version of what early mid and late game are. By the 25 minute mark you are well into the mid game, in this meta late game honestly. She falls off hard at higher levels because at higher levels we don't sit around eating free poke, we get into the minion wave denying her minions to block with and then we land CC on her and watch her die. Most people below gold think she is oppressive and don't abuse her squishy nature.
This fact doesn't take away from the damage she does with her poke and her damage isn't the issue with her early game. Tell me what do you think a Sona does against a Leona/Blitz/Alistar/Thresh at level 2? If she attempts to poke any of them she will get locked down and killed, provided they know what they are doing. In a snowball meta what do you think that does?
Sona's issue isn't that her damage isn't good enough, the only bot lane supports that out poke her are the mage ones like Xerath/Vel and possible Nami/Lulu. Her issue is she has absolutely nothing to protect her or her ADC from early game hard engages. Those damage nerfs didn't break her, yes they had an impact, but as long as you keep placing blame on her damage, which is literally the strongest thing about her, and ignoring her biggest and most glaring weakness of any champion in the game, that fact that she is the squishiest champion in the game to have zero CC or ability to survive pre-6, than everything you keep going on about with her is irrelevant.
Chessoms3 votestbh, her lack of cc has never been the BIGGEST problem for her early. She's always been able to work around that by having strong trading potential by making use of her q and w.
The problem is, both of these have been nerfed substantially. So now, she doesn't have enough pressure to warrant not having early cc. The other problem is that her abilities are multiplicative by how many allies she can tag. Because of this, they're scaled in a way that makes her weaker when she can only apply it to herself and 1 other person. If her abilities were strong enough to out perform other supports when she only tags 1 person, she'd be way too broken.
Idk, Sona's has a long history of being a hot mess. The community is divided between people who want her to stay a very low skill reliant champ, and those who wish for her to be given opportunity for skill expression.
Martyrofsand1 votesThe idea that Sona is a low skill champ is flatly false and only perpetuated by ignorant people who know absolutely nothing about how to accurately judge skill in this game. Sona's skill isn't measured in big flashy plays or high mechanic skill. What she doesn't require in that regard she makes up for by having positioning requirement so oppressive ADCs facing a team of Kha/Zed/Talon count their blessings. There is literally no champion in this game punished for poor positioning worse than Sona and it all comes from her literally being the only champion who starts the game off squishier than a canon minion.
At low levels this doesn't matter because they have no clue how to punish you for it. At higher levels where people know how to deny safe positioning you are a free kill. Sona's only answer to keep people from punishing her for poor positioning is by doing so much damage to you that you can't engage on her. The problem is she has 1 damaging ability and the rest of it comes from auto attacks which forces her into dangerous positioning, so a good player eats your 1 poke ability and immediately engages on you while it's on CD and you proceed to die.
Now if riot ever decides to actually give durability to Sona to the point she doesn't insta-die to anything then perhaps you could make the argument she doesn't require a lot of skill, but as long as she continues to have the most oppressive positioning requirements of any champion in the game then no that is not a fair argument.
In terms of issues with Sona her problems isn't the design she originally had. The problem was she got remade by someone who admitted to not giving a damn about Sona or caring how her reworked ended. They proceeded to ignore ALL feedback provided by the community, and have since ignored the champion almost all together outside of a few tweaks hoping it would placate Sona mains and then nerf her anything they change an item/mastery that allows her to start to show relevance. There was literally zero reason to rework Sona originally other then Riot suddenly deciding they hated auras, and by extension Sona, even though she was already falling out of favor when the likes of Thresh started popping up. So what do you get when the company that made her decides they don't like her design and hands her off to someone who doesn't give a damn about the champion themselves and half asses the job? You get the hot mess that Sona is now.
Darkeus1 votesWait, why are we debating anyway? It seems we agree and have unfortunately had a misunderstanding somewhere. I think you overestimate her damage. I have seen myself and others wiped out so fast to know her damage doesn't mean squat until after Laning... Her early damage used to mean something when it costs 45 mana to cast and her W healed and shielded more. Now she cannot put out that damage enough for it to matter at all.
So that is why she is bad EARLY GAME. She has WAY LESS WAYS to make it out of lane without having 4 deaths and game being pretty much over, even WITH vision you are nothing but a cannon minion that can heal.
I was not here for Sona's rework. It seems I started playing Sona RIGHT after it. So I only know one Sona. So I can only talk on how she was when I picked her up to main her to now, where she has been nerfed into the dirt.
Martyrofsand1 votesBecause what we are disagreeing on is the reasons why her early game is tough, and why her win rate tanks the higher up the ladder you go. When I was climbing last season I played Sona a number of games in high silver and low gold and I crushed with her specifically because those players did not know how or where not willing to hard engage on me. Soon as I got to mid gold though I would see a Tristana jump on me as soon as I was in jump range just to hit me with her E 2 AAs and then ult me away and watch me die as she jumped away from my carry at around half HP.
It wasn't that my poke was irrelevant or not strong enough, it's that I had zero way to keep Trist from jumping on my face and blowing me up, BTW this was through W power chord just to emphasize how squishy Sona really is. The biggest reason she falls off so hard isn't because her poke doesn't do enough damage it's because there is literally nothing she can do when hard engaged on. Sona isn't a champion with individual agency really, outside of her ult, pre-6 she literally just had to hope opponents don't know what they are doing and exploit that fact, but if they do she is 100% defenseless with little to nor recourse. It isn't that she lacks damage she lacks it's that she lacks everything else, survivability/CC/relevant defenses/peel/etc.
My point is if you where going to fix what is wrong with Sona damage is the wrong place to focus because her damage is literally the only part of her kit that isn't massively under tuned.
Darkeus1 votesYeah, In actuality I agree with you. I know how other champs that have been dumpstered.... I know how their mains feel now. It sucks to have a champ you love become worthless.
I am of the opinion now she needs a full rework on the lines of Evelynn, Galio and Warwick....
Darkeus1 votesShe can barely get that damage off because SHE GETS KILLED.
Plus, do try to read the whole comment.
"If you happen to survive all of the damage she CAN'T take before mid game then you can win."
I acknowledged that she is squishy right there. So We can't continue to talk if you don't come in honestly my friend.
I have facts. And I know exactly what Early game is. I am doubting your game knowledge though, as are most people in this thread.
rtbf2216514121 votesLet's see.
Squishy? Check. Has to be in the middle of a fight to be useful? Check. Has very bad heals, even considering they are AoE? Check. Has to be in auto range to use her passives? Check. Has to basically be in danger to use her Q? Check.
Yeah, I see nothing wrong with her. Nope. Not at all.
Colton1471 votes
's heals are trash and you are pretty much forced to build full AP. (Sona Player)
Her ult is a skill shot.
