Lolalytics has Sona and Nami at just about the same stats for 7 days of Diamond play (about 52%). LeagueofGraphs has Sona at less than 51% win rate in Diamond for this patch. Also, there's no big, repeated swings at champs like Malzahar, Ezreal, and Leona, so what the hell gives?
Just a reminder that that Q nerf is whack as hell.
RedCyclone44 votesThis topic is probably going to get downvoted to hell because people are adamant that Sona is in the same state when she was at the start of the pre-season, totally not realizing that tank supports roll over her
Her hotfix nerfs and Aery nerfs have clearly toned her down from her insane state and it's obvious Riot intended to dole out even more nerfs before assessing how Aery nerfs would effect her, considering the proposed nerfs in the current PBE are much more devastating then the other nerfs (no basic ability will not take 1/5th of her mana early), it will litterally make Sona a useless pick because you are going to be a huge liability in a role that is supposed to have impact early
I would call it blatant overnerfing
Remlap12232 votesIt's Season 4 all over again. Except there's not a tolerable metagame or comeback potential to balance the return of the "Better nerf Sona meme.
Xonra5 votesAs someone who loves Sona, it doesn't feel good to play her right now (partially because the matchups are almost all bad coughs Leona coughs). These nerfs are gonna make me go back to not even bothering with her, cause you will have NO good matchups unless someone is troll picking a support.
But this is what I have come to expect from Riot. Introduce b.s. that makes champions strong, but only specific champs. Ignore 50% of those VERY FEW champs...and nerf the hell out of a few others completely ignoring the thing or things making them strong.
Tomoe Gozen3 votesYou do realize that Riot sometimes hands out nerfs to champions just to see where things break for them? Some of them will never come through. The problem here is that the moment something is being done to PBE, people overreact and think it's 100% over with.
RedCyclone8 votesSona has a history of never getting nerfs pulled from PBE, plus they have been on there for over a week Also the dedicated champion base is very vocal on these, but not everyone is the same
Notice how there was hardly any pushback when they announced the hotfix nerfs for her, most of us recognized she was overpowered then and were okay that she was going to be nerfed, but this...this is too much
Abyssphere3 votesThe Sona nerfs have been on the PBE for the best part of two weeks. This is well past the "the moment something is being done to PBE" stage and given that they've already reverted changes for other champions, but ignored Sona, it's at the point where things are concerning.
Ghazter14 votesYeah, the current PBE nerf needs to not go through. She'll be even harder to do well with the early game.
Daedric Etwahl12 votesSadly Riot dosn't seem to really care what happens with Sona :/ Like you said, they'll nerf her repeatedly until she's useless, but will take forever to barely touch other serious outliers.
Xonra4 votesAnd just like last time, it will take 2 season before they even remember they nerfed her, and won't even realize that no one plays her anymore.
Daedric Etwahl4 votesTo be honest they could actually ruin her and I'll still play her, I adore Sona so much. Thing is, I just dont want to get flamed because Riot ruined my favorite champ on me.
Swarovsko10 votesThey cut in half her lore too what are you expecting? It's Riot you're talking about. It literally took a year for them to nerf Twitch and this alone tells you something. I actually stopped playing Sona for the simple fact that Riot has always treated Sona VERY badly ruining her rework after rework and overnerfing the shit out of her whenever she was problem.
warpenguin5557 votesMalzahar's losing 30% AP ratio on his ult. In what way is that not a big swing?
Auz the Ripper2 votesAnd 50 base damage
chipndip13 votesMalzahar's losing 30% AP ratio on his ult. In what way is that not a big swing?
Didn't they revert that nerf on PBE?
warpenguin5553 votesThey reverted the base damage nerf. As far as I know the ratio nerf is still there
Linna Excel6 voteshttps://lolalytics.com/ranked/worldwide/platinum/plus/champion/Sona/graphs/
Considering her banrate is dropping, that would suggest players really don't hate playing against her. Probably safe not to nerf her again right now.
Xonra3 votesWhich means they will do it anyways most likely :s
Linna Excel4 votesProbably. Still I don't see why they would if a champion isn't pick/ban. She's got a pick rate of about 10% which is dropping in all elos but bronze and a ban rate of about 3%.
Realistically the players know she's not a problem.
Sasogwa5 votesSona being meta for the first time in ages. Better nerf. And let's just ignore other champions are much more gamebreaking
Mimr2 votesSona being meta for the first time in ages. Better nerf. And let's just ignore other champions are much more gamebreaking
"First time in ages"? She's been the only viable support during the Ardent meta together with Janna, Soraka and Lulu.
ªTeemo4 votesSona could have a 60% winrate and would still be considered literally unplayable by sona mains, not worth reasoning with them
RedCyclone5 votesLets keep harping on at totally false accusations
Mimr2 votesLets keep harping on at totally false accusations
Well, Sona being meta for the first time in ages is a damn false statement as well. She's been meta ever since Ardent was overbuffed.
RedCyclone4 votesI never personally said she wasn't ever meta, I just hate the comments coming through being "NO MATTER IF SHE HAS A HIGH WINRATE SONA MAINS WANT HER BUFFED"
parrot66324 votesLaughs in Janna
1Maza4 votesI'm fine with Sona being unplayable. Needs a rework. I'd rather lane against literally any other support, even Janna or Leona, before I have to deal with Sona taking a quarter of my hp every 5 seconds by pressing Q.
Xonra7 votesI'd rather lane against Sona any day right now than fucking Leona.
RedCyclone3 votesWhat can be more fun then the constant invitation of 3-4 man botlane dives
What's more hilarious is that the nerf for Leona is pathetic, 20 damage off Zenith blade at max rank...meanwhile Sona is suffering a 30damage nerf on the ability she actually maxes first alongside the redic Mana nerf
ªTeemo2 votesMaxing q to half health an adc and calling yourself support lul
RedCyclone3 votesYou act like Sona hasn't been doing this for YEARS
Yes, Sona does good poke damage, what a shocker!
ªTeemo3 votesAnd you act like I've been fine with it for YEAAAARSSSSSSSS She also provides a lot of the utility. She should have one or the other, this is my point.
RedCyclone6 votesMissing the point of Sona, she's a generalist and always has been a "Jack of all trades, master of none" support Also you speak as if there is nothing you can do against it, if Sona is poking you then you can hit her incredibly fragile base stats back...
...Well if she is only supposed to have one or the other then either one you pick she needs to be buffed hardcore in those areas
Her damage isn't as great as other AP casters that go botlane, and her utility is a LOOOOONG shot away from being anywhere as good as Janna/Lulu/Soraka
AND also, I find Yasuo's kit shit to play against, FOR YEAAAAARS, and Zed's, and Fizz's ECT...So have many others, Sometimes it just happens that some champions have parts of their kit that people don't like playing against, so for you to say "gut Sona's Q cus I don't know how to attack her back" then the same should be done for any kit I myself personally don't like...
Azadethe2 votesThey are also adding 10% to Sona's AP scalings.
RedCyclone3 votesSweet! it would only take 450 AP to go even...
Pika3103 votesExcept she's A FUCKING SUPPORT. She shouldn't be stacking fucking AP items.
Rito is intentionally trying to further encourage the **flaws **in her failed design, rather than moving away from them. So that Meddler will have another excuse to nerf her again in another 2 patches.
Azadethe1 votesSo you don't buy an Archeangel's/Censer/Athene's on Sona? asfaik, almost every Sona I know does. She's been a mana guzzler for 4 seasons and people learn to build a tear, and the other two are just common sense.
It Hertz When IP3 votesDepends on ELO, maybe. Down here everyone rushes Lichbane and spams Q+AA bursts.
Daedric Etwahl6 votesAnd what about those of us who have always built utility Sona? The most AP I get is upgrading Tear, and that doesn't happen until I have my 5 other items.
I don't want to build full AP Sona, I absolutely hate doing it on support. Why should I have to build all these expensive as hell AP items on this support income just to be able to do things I used to be able to do?
This is a huge nerf if you don't play a lot of AP, and trust me, we do exist.
RedCyclone3 votesEnjoy the "more worthless then ranking up E" Q i guess
Azadethe2 votesOh cry about Q getting nerfed and then tell everyone you build utility.
I'm sorry but no champ should ever be balanced to have both free damage AND Utility, because players grab on to that, to build a "best of all worlds champ" I'm personally against the fact AD "Juggernauts" can just build full tank and still have tons of damage right now, simply by running transcendence.
And, you need to learn a little something about Archeangel/Goddess.... you do realize they buffed Archeangel's but left Tear pretty much where it was on mana charging, right? Tear is 4 per skill/attack. Archeangel is 8. You now have a direct incentive to just rush the Archeangel and build other items after, because you can stack Mana twice as fast and evolve it 6 min + earlier.
And that build literally isn't full AP. It's support items with an Archeangel, and all are CORE Sona items.
For what it's worth, I'm a 71% Sona at Plat III. I rarely get enough damage anyways to make it worth trying to whine about Q's Empowerment. In Higher tiers you just can't auto attack as much because people punish the autos. Sona at higher tiers is about the heals anyways and the cc, and the mobility. Your Utility/Active item build is fine for that. But if you want damage...... or to help your team with damage.....
Daedric Etwahl3 votesUm, Archangel's8 stack per spell has been like that as long as I remember, probably at least since I started League I would guess. But they also recently buffed Tear so that you can do that up to 3 times per 12 seconds. I don't need to rush that upgrade because Tear stacks plenty quick on its own now. The upgrade is a nice little bonus if I make it that far, but I build it so I dont run oom in seconds.
If the nerf were just the empowered q damage, I wouldnt have that big of an issue, but they're nerfing the mana cost on it too. Now eveyr one of your spells is going to eat nearly a fifth of your mana at the start. I grab Tear as early as I can, right after Frostfang, and those early levels are going to be even more painful than they already are because of how expensive and yet weak all of your spells are.
Gubaguy3 votesEnemy team takes sona? Just grab blitz or thresh, now sona is done, might as well AFK becuase if she stops to Q she dies.
Xonra2 votesMore like Leona right now.
Then again "enemy team take any support. Pick Leona". Sona was already dropping down after nerfs to her and that Keystone. Both her winrate and banrate went down. Literally no point to nerfing her AGAIN while ignoring the much bigger problems right now.
Jack Garrus3 votesCy@ next rework Sona, I'll miss you af [sona-playing]
LostFr0st2 votesSona has a super high WR for low games played (so do Leona, etc.) so they are nerfing it.
It would however be nice if they'd add some way for high-elo players to have extra power on her through skill expression to compensate for the nerf.
Ideally that would be added the same patch they nerf the baseline. :/
chipndip14 votesSona has a super high WR for low games played (so do Leona, etc.) so they are nerfing it.
It would however be nice if they'd add some way for high-elo players to have extra power on her through skill expression to compensate for the nerf.
Ideally that would be added the same patch they nerf the baseline. :/
There's no skill expression to do balance that around in her kit.
LostFr0st1 votesThere's no skill expression to do balance that around in her kit.
That's exactly why they need to add some :P (other than positioning, which doesn't get punished nearly as hard in lower elos).
Pika3101 votesHow, per-say, would you suggest they go about doing so? Make her Q a skillshot? Provide better decision-making in Power Chord? Give her E a reason to be ranked-up past 1 point?
With her current kit, she doesn't have to decide which spell to cast when. That was removed along with her auras in 4.13.
Mayhaps you've got something new to contribute?
LostFr0st1 votesI once had a very long discussion with a high-elo Sona main about this exact thing. We went through a lot of iterations and stuff right down to small combos Sona could do with her skill orders.
Long story short, you hit the nail on the head. The order of her casts should matter more then just the last one; re-writing the powerchord shouldn't be so easy and should have real disadvantages for prepping the wrong one.
With her current kit, she doesn't have to decide which spell to cast when. That was removed along with her auras in 4.13.
I both agree and disagree here. She didn't really have to chose with the old kit either. She was a walking stat buff.
Pika3102 votesI vaguely remember that discussion. I also remember a suggestion of "super-charging" her Power Chord. After 3 charges, it could be further charged (to a cap as was agreed infinite-charging shouldn't exist.) Something along the lines of "after X additional charges, it combines multiple Power Chord effects or gains an increased effect."
On the other hand, if you're suggesting she become Invoker, that idea has been decidedly shot down by both players and Rito on every occasion it came up.
Power Chord weaving is an interesting concept, but right now the correct fix to the "Staccato-spamming" playstyle is to fix Sona's cooldowns. The reason players spam Staccato, the **main **reason, is that Hymn of Valor simply has the highest uptime. Staccato has the easiest accessibility for players. Fearless knew this would happen if he gutted Sona's cooldowns, but he did so anyways. It happened, players pointed out why it happened, he ignored us and nerfed Sona rather than fixing her. Players became angry. Nerfing Sona's cooldown, not allowing her 3 spells to have the same cooldown, directly negatively affected Sona's skill expression.
Sona's original kit had more decision making than "cast every spell every time they're off cooldown" like her current kit is. Sona literally doesn't do anything without casting spells, all of her Power is trapped in activating spells, so her playstyle is cast everything always. This mindless spell-spamming became more mindless when her R passive was changed from trapped power into trapped power a'la URF-style in patch 6.14.
People **CLAIM **Sona was a "walking stat buff," but Sona was never **PLAYED **as a "walking stat buff" except literally in Bronze games. Which explains why Fearless fabricated that fallacy, since he was Bronze 1/Bronze 2 when he was busy reworking her. No Sona player Silver+ would be caught dead being a walking aura bot. This isn't how you utilized Power Chord, this isn't how you utilized the +20 AD and AP you gave yourself with Hymn. This was merely an excuse for Fearless to create a failed design, which isn't even my biggest problem with the kit, nor the real reason it failed.
Patch 4.13 was a failed design, solely thanks to her trapped power in R-rank passive. She was gutted because power was trapped in R ranks. She's still unbalanceable because of trapped power in R ranks. Trapping power in R ranks inherently contradicts basic support-champion design. Once Rito dumps her passive on R, she can finally become a healthy character again, but not before that.