Sona has a 57% winrate

E102 Gamma Y·Nov 11, 2017·20 votes·1,661 views

The sona winrate is out of control, not even twitch has come this far and we all know how strong he is. From personal experience I can say it's probably because of her q + auto insane ap scaling which can chunk half your health with only a frostfang. She has the better of both worlds right now in her kit, lane bully potential with q, and also a heal for sustain. Having one ability that's just outrageously strong is lazy balancing in my opinion which is exactly what they did with miss fortune as well, her kit is mediocre but her double up does insane damage even without the bounce which is amplified by love tap.

Apparently there's a hotfix I didn't know about, My fault for not checking all the sources before commenting.

39 Comments

Death by GlamourNov 11, 201711 votes

The lane heal is a red herring, it's a non factor until she gets items as she simply lacks the mana sustain. Not to mention the health gained from one heal is pretty pathetic

The damage itself is the problem

e46 FanaticNov 11, 20172 votes

[{quoted}](name=Pink Leg Warmers,realm=EUW,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=EVNlAlae,comment-id=0000,timestamp=2017-11-11T14:48:46.339+0000)

The damage itself is the problem

Considering that more than half the time she is played, she is built like an AP Nuker, yes she needs a damage nerf.

Shuyin178Nov 11, 201710 votes

Funny thing is, she has been able to be played like this since forever, the adaptive stuff just helps a little with it early.

Death by GlamourNov 11, 20171 votes

It was always a weaker build with a lesser wonrate when compared to her standard support build

Would be interesting to see if things have fipped

Shuyin178Nov 11, 20171 votes

Well for the longest time we had Ardent as the big "Play this or lose 9/10 times" meta, so Sona was forced to either build it or lose. As such her aggro playstyle got pushed back some as a result into the more passive "I'll heal and shield you so you deal all the damage" style that sucked for her. Now that Ardent is pretty much gone and with these new runes, Sona can finally play the way she is suppose to be without restrictions once again. People have just forgotten how strong her passive can be because its been so long. x-x

Death by GlamourNov 11, 20171 votes

It wasn't that long time. It was only meta for 2 or 3 patches before it got gutted

Even before ardent censor was made the support build with locket mikaels ECT had a higher winrate

Pika310Nov 12, 20171 votes

This couldn't be any more true. Yet, her strongest iteration of AP Carry was pre-4.13. AP-Carry Sona didn't become a mainstream strategy until **AFTER **4.13, as a means to compensate for her gutted numbers.

Matter of fact, the math **PROVED **that, on-release, 6.14 Sona at level 18, with all the CDR and **EVERYTHING **calculated in, had **LOWER **dps **AND **lower damage mitigation per-second than pre-4.13. The spike in wr was a complete knee-jerk reaction that didn't justify nerfs. Likewise with 7.22, but Rito doesn't care, because Meddler has publicly stated multiple that he **HATES **Sona.

E102 Gamma YNov 11, 20172 votes

I agree, I wasn't saying that it was a problem, I was just pointing out that there needs to be some penalty for having BOTH healing and lane bully.

SkullgettiNov 11, 201710 votes

The healing is downright pathetic, even lategame . You only get to heal one target for an amount of mana that'd put you in a bad position after 1-4 heals, while it barely heals unless you put all your levels into it, which leaves you with very low damage from your Q

Death by GlamourNov 11, 20171 votes

Other things to note are she gives the shield aswell but you don't get to pick who you send your crappy heal too

Pika310Nov 12, 20171 votes

Let's not forget the shield is a melee-range ability with less than half the base & duration of any other support shield in the game.

RozzetaNov 11, 20172 votes

Basically the penalty is lack of CC pre 6, mana hungry (specially if spamming her W), and being very squishy. The main error most people make is trying to flee as soon as she bursts, which is pretty much the moment she's most vulnerable.

The "OMG SONA OP" thing will last until people stop playing ardent users she has an advantage against, and resort to kill lanes. Blitz specially.

Pika310Nov 12, 20171 votes

Ahem

Alistar Bard Nami Soraka Taric item 3302

SkullgettiNov 11, 20177 votes

Speaking as a lvl 7 sona, the reason she is so "strong" is because she needs to be dealt with and alot of people simply don't even dare to touch her. She has high poke damage and high burst but if you initiate with any type of cc at all, she'll usually be extremely easily dealt with, and if she falls behind she'll often be worthless.

SangreDeNocheNov 11, 201713 votes

{quoted}

Speaking as a lvl 7 sona, the reason she is so "strong" is because she needs to be dealt with and alot of people simply don't even dare to touch her. She has high poke damage and high burst but if you initiate with any type of cc at all, she'll usually be extremely easily dealt with, and if she falls behind she'll often be worthless.

This^ Her caster minion health at level one is widely known. They slowed her base movespeed to a crawl. Her W is only worth the mana (or close to it) if timed liked a barrier for the shield to soak up damage. She only gets that bursty Q+AA damage every 3rd ability. Her ult is a skill shot and her range on abilities and autos has been reduced over the years. People just need a little education and sona wouldn't be considered freelo anymore.

commit an heroNov 11, 20176 votes

{quoted}

This^ Her caster minion health at level one is widely known. They slowed her base movespeed to a crawl. Her W is only worth the mana (or close to it) if timed liked a barrier for the shield to soak up damage. She only gets that bursty Q+AA damage every 3rd ability. Her ult is a skill shot and her range on abilities and autos has been reduced over the years. People just need a little education and sona wouldn't be considered freelo anymore.

Do you know what shits all over Sona? Engage support like Leona/Alistar. What's wrong at the moment? Alistar/Leona.

SkullgettiNov 11, 20175 votes

Leona is actually quite strong with the new runes as well as alistar if played well, but i feel like new players or players who have only played long ranged poke/ Sustain supports have a hard time getting into tanks, as the game itself NEVER explains you how to play it whatsoever, whilst there's a tutorial for adc. If anything they should take on a progressive tutorial system that teaches you a bit on how to play every class (jungle, mid, supp, not just adc like we have now) but also rewards you with xp so it doesn't feel like a stupid tutorial grind

YoungFarmerNov 11, 20172 votes

[{quoted}](name=lexy chiu,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=EVNlAlae,comment-id=000500000000,timestamp=2017-11-11T16:43:39.247+0000)

Do you know what shits all over Sona? Engage support like Leona/Alistar. What's wrong at the moment? Alistar/Leona.

Leonas really good atm, take after shock and font of life, and just kill the enemy bot lane over and over and over.

FeathermaneNov 11, 20171 votes

{quoted}

This^ Her caster minion health at level one is widely known. They slowed her base movespeed to a crawl. Her W is only worth the mana (or close to it) if timed liked a barrier for the shield to soak up damage. She only gets that bursty Q+AA damage every 3rd ability. Her ult is a skill shot and her range on abilities and autos has been reduced over the years. People just need a little education and sona wouldn't be considered freelo anymore.

Yeah I hear that level 1 all in inside the enemy minion wave works really well. This is one area where bronze is ahead of the pack.

commit an heroNov 11, 20176 votes

After the hotfixes her winrate has dropped to a 52% winrate. Yes Sona was overbearing with the new runes. Don't use champion.gg as it uses average w/r where as lolalytics shows a daily winrate.

https://lolalytics.com/ranked/worldwide/current/platinum/plus/champion/Sona/Support/

E102 Gamma YNov 12, 20171 votes

Oh, thank you I didn't know about this.

xelakerNov 11, 20175 votes

if you back off and don't let her harass with the empowered auto attack she loses a lot of that damage, yea she still is gonna q a bunch but the empowered auto is the real meat.

Bronze 6 YasuoNov 11, 20174 votes

Sona it's just the meta. -Sona main

MuzétNov 11, 20173 votes

She just received some nerfs today.

E102 Gamma YNov 11, 20171 votes

All i know of, is she got some nerfs 5 days ago. Sadly, it's target is the healing factor and not the q damage factor which is unarguably the real problem.

Velzard of KozNov 11, 20171 votes

Not sure if it's what Muzét or you mean, but check surr@20, they discussed her state and there is list of changes prepared for her. Though I don't quite remember If they target her Q. I think they actually do try to nerf the heal.

SkullgettiNov 11, 20174 votes

the heal's already downright pathetic, any sona that knows what they're doing never even use it for the heal itself but rather for the shield, them nerfing it even more would mean they could as well remove the W entirely

Velzard of KozNov 11, 20171 votes

The nerf seems to be "just" -5 for both the heal and shield on all ranks, nerfs to her base stats will probably be harder but yeah, I'd rather them reduce the dmg too.

Pika310Nov 12, 20171 votes

Sona's Q has 40 base damage. It's the unmatched lowest-damage spell of anybody in the entire support class. That and it's her lone damage spell, whereas 80% of supports have 2 or 3 damage basic abilities. All of this and now, thanks to Gutting 7.22, she's tied for lowest base AD amongst supports, difference being Janna & Lulu both have **PERMANENT **auto-modifiers to compensate. Sona's AD was just gutted for no reason.

http://leagueoflegends.wikia.com/wiki/List_of_champions/Attack_damage

But sure. Let's continue deluding ourselves into further believing **DAMAGE **is Sona's "real problem."

#RevertPatch413

NekoniClawsNov 11, 20172 votes

Oh; Sona 's poke and healing is good, but Nami is just as good. They both synergize with "overheal"

Y'wanna' know the trick? Look at builds. Out of the two of them, Sona 's the one that can proc item 3504 on her full team~ IT'S BACK BABY!

item 3504 is VERY buddy buddy with the precision tree. They took the healing off the item- it's available on runes now. But if your adc doesn't feel like any lifesteal runes, they can break the attack speed limit instead, and their tank can just take "font of life", and BAM! These runes seem to be awfully popular no?

[slayer-jinx-wink]

Well that's my theory.

But I'm not complaining. The whole tier list is utter chaos. But nerfing Sona won't do diiillllydallydoodaddle.

ProvengreilNov 11, 20172 votes

Sona has been the best user of the item since it's release for that exact reason. She just fits the meta that well now.

Pika310Nov 12, 20171 votes

Yup, that's exactly why she was 100% pick/ban at worlds, where the entire tournament was literally focused around Ardent supports.

Oh wait...

NekoniClawsNov 12, 20171 votes

LCS =/= soloQ.

Sona has obvious weaknesses, players let her get away with murder. (and no, plat players aren't exempt)

Pika310Nov 12, 20171 votes

Those weaknesses are just **KILLING **her. Every time she walks up. Starting at level 1. She has no damage, no sustain, no mobility or CC. Literally half of the Sonas I lane against, I kill at level 1, when she goes for her "bust."

Enemies refusing to punish an unplayable character for being unplayable, does **NOT **make her playable. It just makes soloQ players just as braindead as the people who pick Sona. Any plat players you claim are guilty of this just as well, are almost guaranteed boosted. Misnomer Sona is nothing more than that: a misnomer.

#RevertPatch413

Ahri BakaNov 11, 20172 votes

I don't think she is op , but in most of matches , it's going Janna vs Sona , a shields bot stands nothing in front of Sona , especially with all of those nerfs , besides Sona can flash and ult 3/4/5 enemies which is what makes her win most of her fights , she doesn't need nerfs , it's just most of supports mains spams her , especially girls

ElipoNov 11, 20171 votes

Sona has always been a counter to Jana

Ahri BakaNov 11, 20173 votes

{quoted}

Sona has always been a counter to Jana

Yeah , and Janna is being played a lot , so Sona va Janna ? obviously Sona will have that much win rate , Sona isn't even worth banning tbh ,she is just being played a lot , besides op.gg says yorick has 58 % winrate , why why nerfing a support ?

ElipoNov 11, 20171 votes

They are gonna hotfix sona already, chill:

http://www.surrenderat20.net/2017/11/red-post-collection-balance.html?m=1

Btw they should also fix twitch