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AP Support Sona...

JudasX8 Silver··4 votes·776 views

Not sure if this is just a low ELO problem or something that happens will into Gold or Plat....

Building 21/9/0 or something like 28/0/2 on a support and taking nothing but Ability Power runes shouldn't help the team in the long rune, but yet Sona manages and win team fights like nothing because of her pure AP damage builds.

Something has to be done about this. All she has to do is survive lane phase long enough to build straight AP items and get a few wards here and there and he team will win.

I just did my very best in my last game but I still lost. I was support Naut, I build plenty of Armor, HP, and MR. I warded more times than I can count. I made all the Dragon and Baron calls, as well as any picks on over extended champs. I zoned when needed so we could get drag. I got Righteous Glory to rush at them as a whole team and it seemed to work well. Every time it was a 4v4 without Sona we would stomp them even some 3v4s played out well for us when Sona wasn't there, but as soon as Sona joined a fight things changed. We got 5 dragons and Baron and they had nothing, but yet they could roll over us when grouped because of Sona. I feel like I keep getting these same match ups where their Sona doesn't build like a normal support and doesn't get punished for it later on.

The problem is with her kit. Simply put she does too much damage for the amount of healing she can do. I don't mind that she can heal, I don't mind her ult that makes people dance. But what I don't like is her doing 70%+ my total HP in half a second. It's like she has the best of both worlds when it comes to a support. She gets Soraka's healing powers, but is far more consistent with it, and she gets Annie's burst damage, who in all reality is a Mid Lane champ.

8 Comments

GinoSoldier2 votes

Well, as an AP Support Sona player (though i go 9/0/21), i can point out flaws to this; Sona's real weakness is really the laning phase and then later on Assassins, to an extent, and she also tends to do really badly against Bruisers who have some measure of MR. Yes, she does have insane poke damage, more than often I abuse this to my advantage. However the range isn't that high, and the strike tends to be predictable. Ideally what you want is a high-ranged ADC who can strike her back every time she does her Q+AA combo. You might say that Sona is a Vayne counter if nothing else.

Sona is squishy as hell, and punishing her for her attacks severely hampers her capacity to attack because she has to heal, which costs more mana by far, and is less efficient by far. Focus either her or her carry, not both. Having two people to heal is no issue to Sona as there's no increased costs for her, however as weak as her early game heal is, going from 30% to 100% health is likely to deplete/damage her mana stores highly.

TL;DR, focus her ass every time you can. If you can catch her out, then all the better, if you can assassinate her, even better. A thing that happens is that people tend to underestimate a Sona building AP (same goes with most AP supports actually, looking at you Annie) until it's too damn late, while in truth she's pretty easy to shut down as far as that goes. If she gets a Sheen/other AP items and does well, warn your team and work together to punish her, and CC her to death.

Ser Garland2 votes

1.) I like supports who aren't bound to build sightstone+full tank. 2.) everyone else has only claimed that Sona feels weak. (Assuming they're playing with sightstone tank Sona builds.)

Let the full ap sonas supports have their fun. Not everyone likes to support, and for those times when you have to, there's Sona. <3

Cloud Potato2 votes

Sona is intended to build AP. If she could function properly without AP she would be OP since she is a force multiplier for the team with instant AoE CC to stuff enemy initiation. The only reason why she doesn't obliterate teamfights is because she is squishy, and she is squishy because she's buying AP items instead of Tank items.

Pika3101 votes

That and the fact her numbers are so pathetically low they wouldn't matter even in an ideally perfect scenario.

Cloud Potato1 votes

Well if she's balanced around perfect teamfight play then she's gonna suck in lane. That's why pretty much every teamwide boost gets nerfed or removed (incoming RIP for item 3050 ). But nah, making Sona do what every good squishy champion does and make them pay attention to their positioning is a good enough for a rework.

Pika3102 votes

A few problems though:

  1. Riot did balance her around perfect teamfighting, so she does in fact suck in lane. With perfect coordination, the proc of Hymn does an ~equal amount to 1 second of Hymn's old aura granted. The difference being, the aura didn't force teammates to play in an unnatural manner solely to cater to the support. Assuming you already have max CDR, you then have 3.8 seconds of downtime where you aren't helping your team at all. So Hymn's team-fight damage has been reduced to almost 20% of its original strength, at best.
  2. item 3190 item 3110 item 3001 Gangplank Heimerdinger Janna Maokai Taric Zilean Warwick I should also mention, not only do all these team-boosts still exist, every last one of them has a wider radius that Sona's current not-auras. The ones with durations last far longer than hers.
  3. Pre-gutting Sona already required perfect positioning, being amongst the squishiest champions in the entire game. On the other hand, the gutting has made players pay attention to bad positioning. "Should I walk into melee-range of the front-line tank to give them this 30 point shield that'll disappear in half a second?" The positioning of a Sona attempting to optimize this failed kit is far worse and more haphazard than a Draven catches axes.
Abyssphere1 votes

You realise you were getting to build the tank items that make you stronger (because you are a tank, and your shield scales off your HP) while also being a strong support, right? The difference here is solely that Sona scales with offense rather than defense.

If tanks can build tank items and call themselves supports then so can AP mages.

Pika3101 votes

Not sure if this is just a low ELO problem or something

It's just a low Elo thing. She doesn't work outside of bronze, where players don't realize they can click on things. Don't take my word for it though, just listen to the player that was the uncontested best Sona player in the world for 3 seasons:

[{quoted}](name=A Wild AP Sona,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=lGqOpxEQ,comment-id=,timestamp=2015-01-24T18:42:25.728+0000)

the only place she still works is in low elo where people dont know how to right click on a champion

http://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/gameplay-balance/lGqOpxEQ-sona-was-overnerfed-and-now-has-a-38-50-win-ratio-in-real-elo

[{quoted}](name=A Wild AP Sona,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=OE5Ew9HQ,comment-id=00070000,timestamp=2015-01-15T01:57:52.299+0000)

like I said it wouldnt matter I would flash

the only way sona is safe level 1-4 vs a player without down syndrome is if she doesnt go into lane at all and afks at nexus this "sona lane dominance" is a figment of bronzies imagination sona will -never- be in control of the lane if you play with your balls dropped instead of like a prepubescent child

you know what counters sona? right clicking on her

http://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/gameplay-balance/OE5Ew9HQ-sonas-pattern-lacks-significant-counterplay?comment=00070000

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