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A Suggestion for Balancing the Maven of the Strings

Leonde·1/15/2015, 10:27:41 PM·6 votes·1,079 views

An idea that I think would ultimately work well for everyone; Sona lovers and haters alike. (because right now, only one of these parties is being appeased.)

In all honesty, I completely understand why people hate the new Sona from an opposing standpoint. I can tell when I play her that she is an obnoxious champion to play against. But balancing her will take more than number changes. Her rework made every game she was in a stomp or a stall. A lot of this stems from her strong, yet vulnerable laning phase. This is the source of a lot of people's frustration with Sona, and leads into my proposal.

  • Attach Power Chord to Sona's Ultimate as a passive, and give her a new passive (although I have not yet thought of what this new passive could be).

This would remove the frustration from her enemy laners, and further accentuate her identity as a strong, but fragile support, that scales with her team, rather than by herself. With some tweaks to her abilities base effectiveness, and the removal/nerfing of their AP ratios (specifically Q, in this context), we could move her Power Chord scaling into Crescendo ranks, making her less of a one-woman-show, and giving all supports a chance to either survive the lane, or more reliably get a kill when Sona messes up hard.

Sona's Power Chord would be unlocked at level 6, and only improve in effectiveness at ranks 2 and 3.

This would also discourage reliance on her Q Power Chord (stemming from the fact that you max it first), and allow all of her Power Chords to be equally powerful simultaneously. What Power Chord's to use and when to use them will become a much more important and situational decision, removing reliance on whatever Power Chord is innately going to be the strongest (Hymn of Valor). AP would become a less effective of a stat, as Sona will scale better with champion levels and team-oriented items.

Sona's laning phase success would be less ensured, but her decision making and teamplay later in the game will shine much brighter, and add a lot more depth to playing as and against Sona.

Mere number changes are not enough to balance Sona. Her rework is, to put it bluntly, a failure. But we can learn from our mistakes, and bring her to a more healthy place.

I'd love to hear some of your thoughts. Thanks for reading... :) Sona

10 Comments

LankPants1/16/2015, 11:33:05 AM1 votes

In all honesty, I completely understand why people hate the new Sona from an opposing standpoint.

The weird thing is I rarely see people who hate Sona. When ever anyone gets aggravated at a bot lane Sona's in in any of my games it's always aimed at the ADC and not at Sona herself. I think it might just stem from every other common support and most less common supports having far greater impact than her. Seriously, every single support who is played at the moment can outrade her, out sustain her or just straight blow her up. She's in a bad place at the moment an Riot should not have just nerfed her at all.

Kamai1/16/2015, 9:01:57 PM1 votes

She's a poke support that has to go into everyone's auto attack ranges to be able to put damage that sticks. Giving her numbers that would balance out Power Chord not being accessible 1-5 would put her in a state of either being really weak or forcing another whole kit rework. As you're saying this, remember that the Power Chords as they are right now don't scale off the ranks of the skills, but instead off of Sona's level, with the current skill giving a Power Chord bonus.

This change would also remove in-lane CC (Power Chord E) before 6, which is already a problem when you compare to Lulu and Nami, who both have damage mitigation/sustain, both have pre-6 hard CC (with Lulu's being point and click), and both already give a decent early game AA steroid that lasts more than 1 attack.

Edit: If I saw this change, I feel that I would have no choice but to be done with Sona. The amount that the kit would have to change to not be weak or unfair would almost compare to Karma's rework.

Dingding1231/16/2015, 9:12:28 PM1 votes

+1 me likey

Erockandroll1/16/2015, 9:20:03 PM1 votes

The biggest Problem with this is that your attacking the only thing that gives her any power at all. her main problem was crowding out anyone who isn't a direct counter to her. AKA hard engage, all in champs. All she needed is a riskier lanning phase, and I think the MS nerfs did that.