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Sona's current balance state - One week after the rework

JimmynatorB··8 votes·2,332 views

So it's been a week now. After trying her in a few teambuilder matches and some ranked matches as a support, I've come to the following conclusions:

  1. The most successful build I've used is the next one: item 3303 -> item 3098 -> item 1001 -> item 2049 -> item 3057 -> item 3092 -> item 3020 -> item 3504 -> item 3100 -> (item 3023 or item 3222 ) -> item 2045. The reason I don't pick Mikael's Crucible early (or even pick it in some cases) is that you loose too much gold on it while getting no offensive value off of it, and Sona NEEDS AP to be able to help her teammates. There is a big power spike once you buy Sheen, that lasts ultil you complete your boots.
  2. As I said before, she gets a big power spike once she gets her Sheen, but she is overall helpful all over the game. In many games I ended up dealing more damage than most of my teammates, and that's not counting the heals, ults and overall utility she has. This is what makes sona powerful, so I don't know if this deserves a nerf, but she definitely DOESN'T NEED BUFFS on her damage or heal/shield.
  3. She is way too squishy early on, like dangerous levels of squishy. I've had problems in almost every match-up where I got nuked in half a second at levels 1-5. Later on, she being squishy is not really a big deal, because you can pop your ult and let your teammates follow, and you are not being focused most of the time. Blitzcrank was outright unplayable. Alistar was a real pain if he stunned you. Leona could almost kill me without her ADC. Morgana hit me with a Q and I died before even being able to flash. Thresh is the same as morgana. Lulu deleted over half of my HP with one E-Q combo. I didn't get a chance yet to go against the other supports, but I suppose it will be the same: they get you with their CC/poke, and you have to recall or die. She desperately needs a buff in her early defenses, specially considering she has no escape but her E.
  4. Her E has started to feel a bit better than when I first tested her. I think this is because of the build I'm using, as builds that had no AP in them (typical crucible rush build) made her abilities feel underpowered, her E being the most affected spell of all three.
  5. Overall, I feel like her abilities are in a good spot (or even a bit on the OP side), but her stats need a boost, as she is WAY too risky to play. Most of the time I ended up having too many deaths and feeding the opposing ADC in the early game, even though I could recover many times in the mid game.

51 Comments

Pika3106 votes

Well, countless mathematical calculations done by a multitude of different players, numerous 1st-hand accounts and her continuously declining win-rate all say otherwise, but we should definitely ignore all of that and take your singular opinionated word at face-value.

I will say this though, her role as an ADC has gotten stronger. Since she is her own ADC, she never has to worry about anybody's positioning in relation to her melee-(non)auras other than her own. Her abilities will always apply to the ADC since that's already herself. The best way I found to do this is starting Trinity Force into either BT or IE then the other later, probably picking up Sorcerer Shoes and LW when needed. Focus on singular large hits and not attack speed, since her new kit doesn't favor sustained DPS. Crescendo is an amazing tool for peeling assassins off yourself while you blow them up. It was a fairly resounding victory as seen here:

http://matchhistory.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/#match-details/NA1/1480290631/205261518

Micavity Cat6 votes

how are you just going to shut him down like that. he obviously put some work into this post and you are just going to put him down? lol cold blooded. i liked the post man

The5lacker6 votes

Her winrate is declining because people are trying to play her like Old Sona, I.E. as some passive aura-totem occasionally flash-Ulting into the enemy team.

Kitsuki054 votes

Yeah, Sona is a lot stronger now, but has to be played more intelligently

ModUlanopo3 votes

My friends and I had trouble because we were playing her like Karma (aggressive poke) both before and after the rework, but now she's supposed to be played like Janna.

JimmynatorB5 votes

I'd like to know where do you get that her winrate is declining. I don't want to sound rude, but her winrate is sitting at 52% overall, with almost no difference in winrate between diamond and bronze. Her winrate hasn't changed a bit from pre-rework Sona to my understanding.

EDIT: I've noticed someone is mass downvoting every post. That's just nonsense.

ratcharmer2 votes

On LoLking etc her net winrate has been slightly lower post rework than pre-rework. Initially she had a pretty massive drop, but then it came most of the way back up.

Win rates normally bounce around a fair bit, even without changes, so it's hard to say anything definitive. It looks like overall new Sona might be a little bit weaker, but generally similar to where she was before (usable, but clearly outclassed by some of the more popular supports).

JimmynatorB3 votes

http://www.lolking.net/champions/sona#statistics By looking here I can't see any of those things you said. I can't see neither the drop you talk about nor the slightly lower winrate. Even then, she is sitting at a really good winrate, actually higher than 90% of the supports.

ratcharmer2 votes

Her winrate climbed slightly more since I made the post, so it's now up to about the same as it was before.

As I said in my post, winrates normally bounce around enough that it's hard to tell anything from just looking at the graph. The large drop I was refering to was on the 28th and 29th.

Sona has always had an artificially high winrate. In the past this was because even an absolute bottom-of-the-barrel terrible Sona player was still a big ball of stats for the team--thus even though she went roughly even with skilled players she would win in unskilled players.

I'm really not sure what her current winrate means.

AbiwonKenabi3 votes

Just ignore Pika, he's been going through practically every Sona thread (at least all that I've seen) and being a close-minded Debbie Downer in all of them. He's pretty determined to HATE new Sona.

I like your analysis and I think its what I've been feeling as well--she's punished way too hard for her squishiness. I haven't settled on what build I like on her, but I've been using item 3069 item 3117 item 3174 item 3089 item 2049 item 3023 I like all the movespeed you get from this build, it makes it easier to tag her auras on most of the team and can make up for mistake in positioning. I also like having Chalice for the mana regen (she's as mana-hungry as ever). I might try building Lich Bane instead of Deathcap though, as I hadn't tried it yet, and it seems really strong. I'm undecided on the power of Ardent Censer however, and the build above already has max CDR, so...yeah not sure. Still experimenting.

Edit: Derped and forgot that I buy sight stone like a good support. >.<

Crescive5 votes

I actually agree with the OP. Having been skeptical of the Sona rework at first, I have also been successful using a similar build. Currently in Plat 3 I am 13-4 with Sona post re-work. From my experience Sona is really risky, but strong especially when her lead is snowballed.

Sona is now a character of extremes even more-so than before, and I set my rune page accordingly. I figure since I will probably die from one mistake anyway, that I might as well go AP heavy with magic pen. I still play the same way pre-rework. Blitz/Leona is as impossible as ever. Thresh/Morg are doable in that their skill shots are slow enough for Sona to have a chance.

Even though she lost a lot of her tower pushing strength (though that is somewhat rectified by ardent censer), I believe she has another niche now that I'm not sure other people have completely addressed and that is pick/skirmish. Sona is better now at roaming the map picking off vision-starved enemies heading blindly into areas with objectives because her burst damage with allies plus sheen is so high. No need to worry about teammates wasting empowered Q auto when they're all waiting in a bush. She has really strong synergy with other Champions who build sheen items, she can easily help TwistedFate Fizz Irelia pick someone off in the mid-game.

I don't think asking for buffs to base-stats for survivability is too much to ask. Sona's only competition in lane as a sustain support right now is Nami. Alternatively, make her so that she isn't so skewed toward building AP to be moderately useful.

Pika3103 votes

Blitz/Leona is as impossible as ever.

In season 3, when I played Sona in over 90% of my games, I would bully every single Leona and Blitz I saw completely out of lane. There is no such thing as "impossible". If you're going to go around waving the word "plat", take a few seconds to consider that any individual lane match-up can be heavily influenced both by a player's individual familiarity with their chosen champion as well as previous experience with or against their opponent. Everyone here should logically know not to claim otherwise.

JimmynatorB6 votes

So you're trying to say as a Silver V to a Platinum II how to play the game? I know it comes down to skill, but the more skilled you are, the more they know how to exploit your weaknesses. A good leona/blitz is not going to let you poke them. Leona in particular will just kill you if you try, and you can try dodging Blitz's hook, but if he gets you you're probably dead.

MistroChainsaw3 votes

You where in s3. And prob not playing skilled supports.

Crescive2 votes

I'm not trying to wave around the word plat like I'm playing personally playing with gods or whatever. I can destroy bad Leonas and Blitzcranks who I can tell are picked because they're forced into supporting just fine. There comes a point though where I actually have to respect that the Leona or Blitzcrank is good enough to capitalize on my poking. Assuming that you can simply bully every match-up as Sona is just asking to die.

MyraKai5 votes

Has anyone here tried a lvl.1 five man gank on the enemy jungler with Sona's new Q yet? I'm currently unable to play, but just thinking about it makes me giggle with evil.

Pika3102 votes

Agreed, I've suggested this a couple times. As the only potential use Hymn has now for her team, I'd like to hear if somebody pulled it off successfully.

Crescive2 votes

It doesn't have to be limited to a level 1 gank! Put a pink at an objective or sweep a brush and sit in it with your team in the mid-late game. Think of all the enemy supports being pressured by their team to face check and ward baron for instance.

Pika3103 votes

Except Hymn of Valor's damage gets outclassed any higher than rank 1. Almost every other support by mid or late game will have double her CC as they'll have access to more than a singular ability.

Coot Coot3 votes

[deleted]

Mialee1 votes

I was so angry when someone got the last hit in team fight after i got the sona quadra :P

Akariii3 votes

D1 here and I'm playing her relatively the same as she was before the rework. Obviously her spells require you to be more aware of your positioning. I run a weird 8-8-14 in masteries taking flat armor reds, flat hp yellows, flat ap blues and quints. Generally building item 3303 ->item 2049 ->item 1001 ->item 3098 ->item 3158 ->item 3092 ->item 3028 -> item 3222 -> depending on enemy team

The masteries and runes still give her the strong burst early and I lean towards cdr for mid-late game and the game ends usually about the time I get a mikaels.

By doing this I have strong early laning pressure, but instead of building more AP I go for more spell rotations for mid game.

If you're going to be playing against any hard initiators as Sona, you're gonna need to assert some dominance early with your burst before they can use their initiating spells.

Against Blitzcrank Alistar Leona positioning is key. Playing vs Thresh Morgana should be relatively simple as you stay within/near the wave and q harass without risk of getting caught in a bind or hook. And you should be able to counter burst against Lulu especially when you're favouring an AP build.

tl;dr

I run early AP in runes and masteries to control the lane, and then build heavy cdr to quicken spell rotations. New Sona positioning is even more important than before.

FaerKhan2 votes

Have you faced a Pantheon support yet? Something tells me you would pop before you even got to lane...

LeBestAsheNA3 votes

play sona with defense masteries

Binxy Prime2 votes

Am I the only one who thinks she is really strong now? Her level 1 through 4 is crazy good then you have a slight slump for level5 then at 6 she's insane again then kinda teeters between average and way too strong based on teamfight positioning.

I run 0 9 21 with hybrid pen reds and armor quints and do a standard fang stone CDR boots Michaels build

Pika3103 votes

You're not alone, many players that are trying her for the first time are saying the exact same thing. Comparatively, she does a lot less damage now, but people are only noticing her burst and harass due to her influx of play time thanks solely to the update. Her teamfight presence is lower as well, but the flashing lights make it more noticeable.

MEMEME6704 votes

Her potential when played correctly is much, much higher than before.

However, her potential to screw up is also much, much higher than before.

Level 5 Hymn of Valor, if you hit everyone with aura, does 950 + 2.25 AP damage. (With 1 rank in Crescendo)

Compare that to Drain, which has a total base damage of 900 + 2.25 at level 5.

Now obviously, hitting everyone with the aura can be difficult, and all the damage isn't always focused on one target. But her potential right now is through the roof, so it's expected her win rate goes down for a while.

As for comparatively to old Sona, her bolts do 250 each, so that's 500 + 1.0 AP. And she gives 20 AD//AP in her aura. You need either 25 autoattacks to go down in this aura, or a combined 25.0 AP ratio of spells. Or some mix, of course. (for spells with an AD ratio, every 1.0 counts as one autoattack). And, you need 1 extra autoattack // AP ratio for every 16 AP Sona has.

Now, this looks to me like a very clear cut buff to her damage output. Sure, the cooldown went up by a measly 1 second but that's nothing.

You said something earlier in here about...'countless mathematical calculations done by a multitude of different players'. But I just did the math...

Pika3105 votes

And Janna's Q does ( 800 + 1.75% ) + [ ( 175 + 0.5% ) x 3] for a grand total of 1,325 + 3.25 AP AND knocks up the whole team for 0.75 seconds. I guess by your "logic" Janna is almost 50% stronger than Sona. Also, it's only 2 seconds longer, "but that's nothing".

MEMEME6703 votes

Except, the enemy team is actively trying to avoid Janna's Q, while your allied team is actively trying to get inside your auras when available.

That comparison is horrible.

Pika3104 votes

That comparison is horrible.

That is hypocritical. So the things you say are good, but everybody elses' are all horrible? Thank you, I understand your line of thinking.

Next, I'd like to calculate the damage from Janna's E when applied to a Kayle with max AS and Hurricane.

[(50 + 10%) + (25 + 5%) (2) + (20 + 10%) (5) (3)] (2.5) (5) = 5000 + 21.25 AP

Wow, Janna's E is broken, it does 5000 damage and scales her AP over 21 times. Not to mention, it has the same cooldown as Sona's W. Better rework.

Elemon1 votes

Well Janna's Q is extremely difficult to land with any real knockup and damage (predicting your targets' positions in 3 seconds when they know that you're aiming for them and can see your tornado?), and her E is supposed to be really powerful on high AS champs, but it's not extremely difficult to take out just with damage. Sona's Q, however, is extremely easy to hit because your targets are actively trying to get hit, and their boosted attacks can't miss (because they're autos).

Pika3103 votes

Except Sona's old Q was also really powerful on high AS champs. When your ADC can get off AT LEAST 5 or 6 attacks in the span of 4 seconds landing 2 or 3 critical hits, the damage used to be easily at least double what she donates now. Not to mention it was a lot easier to apply, you just had to be in the general vicinity. It wasn't necessary to run up into melee range of your ADC and press your bosom against them just to apply the buff.

Elemon1 votes

I don't play Sona, and I don't have the numbers to calculate everything, but logically, this indicates that the old Sona was much better in teamfights (when everyone is just sitting there and attacking), but new Sona is better in laning (Why would anyone attack constantly for 4 seconds when poking?). New Sona brings out a better burst (and poke), but doesn't necessarily give out as much damage in sustained fire.

MEMEME6703 votes

No, as in your comparison is purposefully horrible in order to be a hyperbole to mine, which while understandable isn't proving your point here.

What (it seems, because you won't actually write down what you're trying to say) you're trying to say is that my calculation is based off of absolute max instead of reasonable max, and I can understand that. A lot of characters, when calculated off of absolute max look broken.

The thing is here, Sona's absolute max isn't nearly as unreasonable as most other champions. Sure, hitting everyone with your Q aura may not happen very often, but hitting 3-4 people with it does, and you still have very good damage output if you do that.

Hitting a fully charged Janna Q on 5 members of the enemy team happens more rarely than poppy being picked for a ranked game.

Your second comparison purposefully doesn't deserve attention, as I doubt it's ever happened in any League game ever (barring custom games where both teams are trying to test Kayle's dps or something similar.) Kayle spending 5 seconds purely autoattacking in her E is rare enough, but Janna's shield being on (and not broken) the whole time? Cmon.

If you want to make an actual argument (Which I feel your first example is, and my response may have been a little short//nondescript), I'd prefer you actually type out your point instead of brashly putting numbers anywhere with no text support.

Pika3103 votes

So you're allowed to use absolute max in your calculations, but I'm not even granted that courtesy? Very well then, I understand the double-standardized hypocrisy.

MEMEME6702 votes

Yo, the math is very easy to calculate for the average use case (in teamfights) of about 3 people getting the buff.

You just remove 180 + 0.5 AP. And you get 770 + 1.75 AP, which is quite high also.

Of course, this means comparatively you only need 16 Autos or 16.0 AP ratio to catch up, but there's also the situation of...

New Sona ALWAYS gets full value out of her spells, that is, once you cast them the aura is up, and it lasts as long as it lasts regardless of what form you're in.

With old sona, you didn't have this benefit.

Pika3104 votes

No need to keep reiterating, I already get what you're saying. You're right and anyone who says otherwise is wrong. That and you're the only person allowed to use your line of thinking, it's not allowed to be used by the opposing side against you.

MEMEME6703 votes

I mean, yeah I believe I'm right, and yes this means that people who believe otherwise are wrong imo, but that doesn't mean I'm right. That's the point of a discussion, is it not? I am ready to accept being wrong if I'm proven wrong.

Secondly, I already conceded an absolute best scenario, and dialed it down to a much more reasonable one. So why are you stuck on that?

FaerKhan4 votes

New Sona doesn't always get full value out of her spells. She only gets the value if her teammates play perfectly. Since that never happens (otherwise she would be picked in pro games coming up at worlds. Mark my words that won't happen), then she's weaker than before.

MEMEME6702 votes

What I mean by full value is, relative to old sona, you always get the same stuff with the new one.

Like, If I cast Q > W > E > Powercord with old sona, I'm going to get very little value out of Q and W's auras, (although I will get 1.5 seconds of each of them.) whereas with new sona I'm going to get the same value of Q and W compared to if I had just cast that one spell and nothing else.

Pika3103 votes

Which is exactly why old Sona would never cast her spells in that order, it would go E > W > Q OR E > Q > W depending on whether you wanted to land on offense or defense and if you wanted either Staccato or Diminuendo. With the first, your team still got the exact same MS boost duration, followed by the healed player getting a defensive buffer double the duration of her shield and then finally maximizing her team-based DPS by sitting on Hymn during CD. Matter of fact, you don't even need to choose the 2nd route if Power Chord is up by the 2nd ability. You could apply Diminuendo during the half-second CD in-between swapping auras and still sit on Hymn afterwards for maximum stat-efficiency. In comparison, her new abilities would give only slightly more lingering effect and far less DPS.

MEMEME6702 votes

Based on the math above (3 allies getting new sona's q buff). You need about sixteen autos to get equivalent damage to new Q with old Q.

Sixteen autos is about 2-3 per second, depending on how much cdr you have. And yeah, I would say that old Q gives more dps if you only need 2 aa/sec, and the same or slightly more if you need 3.

However, with 40% cdr Q has a cooldown of 4.2 seconds, and you need 4 autos per second to match it, which starts to favor new Q. Adding into this that as Sona gets more AP the amount of aa/sec required to match the dps will also go up (1 extra auto during the whole duration for each 25 ap), and I would definitely say that by the time you get to teamfights, it favors new Sona.

Also of note is that during general teamfight scenarios new Sona W is better, because the effect is present on everyone in the aura (and at least somewhat relevant regardless of whether they're being hit or not) and weaker during pick // burst scenarios (might not be able to reach the person getting bursted, and old W gave double resistances.)

Thirdly, even in your scenario you are getting less survivability than new Sona will, in general (unless someone takes a HUGE amount of damage during the 2 seconds you're on W aura). This is why I think new Sona got buffed.

Pika3104 votes

You don't seem to know that attack speed maxes out at 2.5/second. It seems rather narrow-minded that you don't value the damage the old aura used to give abilities, not just auto-attacking.

Regardless, I'll put down some numbers of old Sona for contemplation. Let's assume an ADC has an AS of 2, we'll use a duration of 4 seconds, which may be a handicap and the average ADC will have ~50% crit. Thus your ADC has launched a total of 8 attacks, 4 being critical hits. Each normal attack was worth 20 damage, whilst the crits doing 50 apiece. ( 20 x 4 ) + ( 50 x 4 ) = 280 damage. Each proc of Sona's new Hymn on-hit will do 110 before AP. The math has proven that pre-nerf Sona's Hymn passive granted enough damage/4 seconds for the ADC alone to proc enough for 2.5 allies, completely independent of both her CDR and AP. New Sona requires max CDR and with a .25 scaling then needs 240 AP to match this on 2 teammates or 680 AP to break even completely.

After seeing these numbers and how 40% CDR is now a mandatory stat in 100% of Sona games just to reach a pale shadow of her former self, it's nigh impossible for me to believe she's had anything, but nerfs done to her kit.

MEMEME6702 votes

You don't seem to know that attack speed maxes out at 2.5/second.

This stood out, so I'm going to respond to it first and then edit in the rest of my response later.

The X aa/sec is in the whole aura. Which means, anyone in the aura autoattacking counts, hence why numbers that are greater than 2.5 are achievable.

EDIT: Well of course the ADC is going to use the damage the best, that's what the ADC is designed to do. New Sona actually gets to use her Q buff, whereas old Sona did very little with it.

Also, in your comparison, Old Sona's W and E are much worse than their current iteration, because they aren't really being used (probably toggled on and then immediately off for passive charges and non-aura effects), which I think is extremely relevant.

Also, a lot of things aren't being taken into consideration (what happens if the ADC gets stunned while old Sona is in Q form? New Sona wins comparatively. What happens if only the ADC can attack during a fight? Old Sona wins) because it's not realistic to try and compare all the possibilities due to how her new Q works.

Abilities work the same as AA's essentially, (you need X.0 total AP ratio to match damage, where X = the number of AA's you need over the total duration). but mages work in such varied ways (what if you have Ryze? or it's Veigar but his damage is already enough to instakill the dude anyway?) that it's much harder to compare them, akin to the paragraph above.

In conclusion: Sure, old Sona could get more damage overall out of her kit if she wanted only damage, and didn't build any offensive stats. However, new Sona both scales very well with offensive stats, and, played competently, gets a fair amount more use out of the skills that old Sona wouldn't be sitting in. The fact that at all stages of the game she gets maximum value out of all her skills (not as in 5 people, but as in she doesn't get more value out of being in the stance, so her W and E have MUCH higher bases than old Sona)

FaerKhan3 votes

I still haven't seen a new Sona not feed in a SR match. Your argument appears to be contradictory to the evidence.

Flemman2 votes

Maybe she is not so bad now (even if it's the AoE year and that's one of her weakness >-<) but damn she is no more fun to play anymore if you don't go full premade.

Trying to put your buff on your team when they act like a scared ant line all over the map is so annoying.

Rundus11 votes

Okay, this is gonna sound crazy, but bear with me here for a second. I saw this on a video and thought it was stupid until i tried it a bit, but has anyone else tried Sona mid? I have played three games to test it out (and i'm a support mainly, so I farm terribly), and I was able to keep up with a Yasuo from Gold 3 easily, even matching him for kills and beating his damage output. I stayed even with an Ahri until her jungler Urgot just camped mid (they were both in silver though) and could easily kill her if I fired first using my W passive, EQR, Q passive combo. In the third, my laptop crashed, and I came back to a lv 10 Lucian mid, who I caught up to from lv 1 (thanks to a Fizz that was top for my team helping) and was able to kill him with the same combo as Ahri the moment I hit 6 and had an AP item built. It doesnt always kill full health, but it does enough damage to pose a pretty nasty threat. As for farming, she has her issues with it, but with her Q able to almost guarentee two minions dying from it and a third taking a buffed AA (once you level your Q) every few second, you can get enough to contend easily while (f positioning right) getting off some Q's and Q passives on the enemies, all from right under or next to your tower, with E (i get it at lv 4) to retreat with and W to heal up and survive ganks. Of course, she suffers against a lot of ranged champs who can play her game better than she can, but she can shut out melee and all-in champs with her W and it's passive pretty nicely, and (if under turret), just hold them there with R,Q,E e passive until they die. For last hits, she can just use Q and Q passive. Anyone else try this? When I play her mid, I run AP Quints, Armor marks and seals, and MR glyphs with 21 0 9 masteries. It's weird, odd, strange, and not as efficient vs agile champs, but it was so much fun finding the enemy Ahri or Yasuo trying to gank my bot lane and just W passiving them and wailing on their mid laner and ADC. In team fights, I had a ball as a support-APC nuking monster. P.S.: I'm not looking for someone to say I'm playing her right, I wan opinions (Whether or not they agree with this) and I want to know what people think about this (Advice, criticism, stories, logic, etc.)

Pika3103 votes

Sona mid isn't new, but it's more difficult to farm with now if anything. The bolts from Hymn do a lot less damage, you'll be killing fewer minions with it than before. The on-hit will make last-hitting a singular additional minion easier too, but this is a non-sustainable strategy if you need to rely on Q every time you go for farm, mana will disappear quickly. In comparison, the bonus passive AD she used to have made last-hitting doable without having to drain your mana bar. This meant you could hold on to it for casting Aria, which is now weaker at ranks 1 and 2 anyways. For mid-Sona, Celerity got a substantial buff during laning. 1.5 seconds of a massive MS boost is more than necessary for escaping enemy ganks and chasing down a fleeing enemy, both due in large part to mid being the shortest lane distance-wise. As for stunning and slowing people fool enough to turret-dive you, this is a tactic she already did and does regardless of where she is, no changes were made to either of these abilities.

As with any mid or top, if you know your enemy laner for certain, you can drop either armor or MR runes in favor of HP, AP, pen, etc. to give yourself a further edge in the match-up. You can also hold on to your generic runes if you wish to be additionally cautious of ganks from either the jungle or other lanes.

An item I highly suggest prioritizing as soon as possible is of course Sheen eventually into Lich Bane. Sona only has 2 offensive spells at her disposal as opposed to the 3 or 4 of most mages and this gives her one more AP scaling to take advantage of, especially considering you'll be AAing to apply Staccato and now Hymn anyways.

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