What is Sona suppose to be?

only zhule·Jan 6, 2020·24 votes·12,535 views

I think Sona needs a rework, but first and most importantly, i think we need to get a clear answer as to what exactly she is suppose to be. Once we have this, i feel it's a lot easier to get an idea as to what her kit should be / what she should be doing in game.

Is Sona The Enhancer support? Is she suppose to be the champion you pick, when you want someone to make your lane partner stronger? The champion you pick to make your lane partner hit harder, take a hit better, just generally out attack your opponent?

Is Sona The Team Enhancer? The champion you pick to make your team stronger, the one who's abilities are designed to effect 3+ people per cast? Is she the champion who turns a 50/50 brawl into a 70/30, simply by existing near by?

Is Sona The Skirmishing support?

Is Sona a hyper carry? Then why the heck is she in the support role? Give her the tools to hyper carry.

Is Sona suppose to be a champion who "breaks" items?

If i missed anything please feel free to add it in your reply.

Is she the enhancer champion? If yes, she needs to lose some damage and get a metric ton of power into her enhancements.

Is she suppose to be the "Team Enhancer"? If yes she needs to be balanced around her abilities being naturally global (a champion who is "balanced" around effecting 3.5 or more targets, is going to suck when they only effect 2). Another option is that her abilities divide a large pool of power based off number of allies effected. 700 points of shielding is a lot less impressive when split 5 ways.

Is she suppose to be the skirmishing support? Give her the ability to actually get in and out of combat safely, while doing reasonable chip damage that doesn't run her out of resources before being able to kill her target.

Is she suppose to be the late game hyper carry? Guess that means she isn't a support and needs a way to get there, that isn't based around someone else getting a pile of kills.

Is she suppose to be the support champion who "breaks" items? Make more items that she can "break", that don't cost 2000+ gold

65 Comments

VonCesawJan 6, 202011 votes

Hatsune Miku

SuneJan 6, 20209 votes

An outdated stat stick who should have been on the list

chipndip1Jan 6, 20209 votes

Well, to pitch in and answer the question:

Sona should be a support that thrives in large team fights. This should drive her game play towards the mid and late game. That part is generally sound. After all, Rakan does just that and he's a pretty solid champion design.

The issue comes with how strong/weak she should be at each phase of the game. Her late game is TOO strong and her early game is TOO weak. Unless they want to legit design her as a carry of sorts, they need to introduce hard cc in her base kit somewhere. A lot of shit about the kit needs to change, honestly.

The real question, though, is if it's even likely it'd EVER happen. I haven't seen a single champ with an ultimate skin get a large scale game play update, and I doubt it's happening now. As much as I feel like Sona's probably one of the worst kits in this game rn (seriously works better as a carry than as the support she's supposed to be, and the only reason why it's not exploited is because she sucks at farming...like really...), I don't think they'll ever actually take a crack at fixing her. They can't even get their shit together on Karma...why would they get the pistons firing for Sona and her DJ skins?

Pika310Jan 6, 20201 votes

{quoted}

The real question, though, is if it's even likely it'd EVER happen. I haven't seen a single champ with an ultimate skin get a large scale game play update, and I doubt it's happening now.

Ezreal.

As much as I feel like Sona's probably one of the worst kits in this game rn (seriously works better as a carry than as the support she's supposed to be, and the only reason why it's not exploited is because she sucks at farming...like really...), I don't think they'll ever actually take a crack at fixing her. They can't even get their shit together on Karma...why would they get the pistons firing for Sona and her DJ skins?

There's no rule that the visual effects need to be completed at the same time as a rework. As a matter of fact, they already neglected special visuals once before in 4.13 when Arcade Sona didn't receive her special visuals for an entire 6 months after 4.13 was forced onto Live.

An ultimate skin is not a deterrent to reworks. That's just an outdated excuse from years past. It holds no weight in 2020.

chipndip1Jan 6, 20208 votes

{quoted}

Ezreal.

LARGE SCALE

Ezreal's was just visual changes and one ability.

Voluug13Jan 7, 20202 votes

There's no rule that the visual effects need to be completed at the same time as a rework.

Karma was released with incomplete and bad animations since her rework. There arent even plans to start considerating a completion of her animations.

LystratesJan 7, 20201 votes

Sona's early game really is TOO weak to the point of absurdity. Early game she is basically a glorified cannon minion with the health of a caster minion :P

I think its ok that she is strong late game. A lot of champions are strong late game.

I think that if they lower her early game CDs (and adjust mana costs accordingly) she will be a competitive pick again.

only zhuleJan 7, 20201 votes

{quoted}

Sona's early game really is TOO weak to the point of absurdity. Early game she is basically a glorified cannon minion with the health of a caster minion :P

I think its ok that she is strong late game. A lot of champions are strong late game.

I think that if they lower her early game CDs (and adjust mana costs accordingly) she will be a competitive pick again.

i'm going to have to disagree on the lower early game CDs. I'd rather see an uptick in her damage output. Make being forced to auto attack, as a squishy champion with no hard disengage or hard CC, worth the risk.

Hell small changes like E lets her avoid unit collision, and you can't be slowed while using it. Would likely go a long way to fixing that issue, and they don't transfer over to making your team stronger. Hell for a laugh imagine if all her buffs, became passives on her with the ability to activate to give them to your team (and maybe double dip with the on-hit damage). Would anyone really bat and eye is a support did +10-30 magic damage per attack? A support not designed around getting a bunch of Attack Speed items.

FakeGravityJan 6, 20208 votes

her empowered passive with E should at least root, right now she is so immobile and so squishy to anything while also having a terribly inefficient heal early game that she cant survive the early game and a lot of the time you want to ignore E just to get more points in Q and W, however she use to be able to deal a lot more damage early on with her Q and passive, so they nerf that part of her.

sona is a champion that is balance around the fact that once she get levels and mana stop becoming a problem she just spam her whole kit doing much more than most enchanters, but the base of her kit is never even remotely as good as the rest of champions, and for comparison you just have to look at nami

nami have a movement speed for allies and herself, a heal that is more efficient and she can max to also provide her with poke, CC before level 6 and a way of buffing on hit damage for allies while also giving them a slow, and a powerful ult, she can do all sona can but better

sona's power budged is depleted on her impossible to miss Q that deals pitiful damage compare to the mage "supports" and her crazy late game that this days she never gets to, not like old sona was any better as a walking "my team have stats while im around" but her auras arent that inpacful and they should completely reworker into a combo base music playing support that use her skills as notes for different "songs" that grow stronger the more she play them, even better make her current auras a dual cast skill like follow:

for example W, she cast W she start playing the song giving allies a small healing overtime while around and after 5 seconds or if she press W again the song ends with a shield base on how long it was playing

Baby GhoulJan 6, 20206 votes

Sona used to be a great pick because of how versatile she was.

If you needed AP damage, she could build AP. If you needed her to lean into the enchanter/protective role, she did fine with enchanter items. You could go either way depending on the match and what the team needed. Almost anyone could play her competently as well. It's not hard to poke with Sona.

I don't think what makes her bad right now is the fact that she's outclassed. That's not new.

Right now neither enchanters nor mages are in the best place bot lane due to the rise of engage supports like Nautilus, Leona, and Blitzcrank. It's causing more people to realize that her kit is mediocre. There's zero reason to pick Sona right now because she's not as good as others in either of those roles, but she's still quite vulnerable to all-ins. Moreover, they're trying to create new types of hybrid enchanters which is kind like what Sona was, except that these new hybrids are safe, do poke damage, and still provide strong utility.

FlemmanJan 6, 20205 votes

she is a worst version of yuumi, that's all

HirokikunJan 7, 20204 votes

All supports are just mid ap characters now. There is only a handful of support items in the game and most of the time you get 1 of them and then build damage. It's fucking dumb.

xDogMeatxJan 6, 20203 votes

shes a generalist like karma.

SmyrageJan 6, 20203 votes

I don't think that Hypercarry and Support are mutually exclusive. Afterall mages went to botlane as Support, because they didn't want to give up their Carry potential, at the same time they prefer to use this potential to help their Carry to get fed without giving up the possibility of carrying the game themselves if the ADC is underperforming/falling off. She is a hypercarry in the sense that her Empowered AA + Q combo really pack a punch in all stages of the game. However she is also a hypercarry in a sense that at late game fights she can heal an shield out her entire team. She is one of the best supports to main, because of her single target damage and utility. When she has enough CDR and Mana, she just basically spams spells like no end and can stack her passive insanely fast. As others said she is generalist, teamfight oriented support, who happened to be a lane bully as well. She was meant to be extremely squishy and easy to run and focus down due to how well she can perform. Her major weaknesses include being super squishy, really mana hungry early game and not having hard CC until lv6. However I would never underestimate her, not because of her auras, but because of her passive. When fully stacked her next AA will have an extra effect on the target:

Q: Self-explanatory: more damage
W: Target deals reduced damage, now this can be a life saver if she hits crucial targets
E: Target is slowed down: not only it is useful to prevent targets from escaping, it is extremely efficient as self defense either

Overall I think Sona is a good champion. Her power is gated by skill, because she is one of the harder supports to play, not because her kit is difficult to pick up, but because a lot of Sona players don't even use her passive correctly, moreover she needs an ADC level of positioning to perform properly due to her squishiness, and of course mana manegement. Riot is trying to keep her in check, because due to her hypercarry nature she can quickly spiral out of control even if she is given the slightest buffs. Remember that she is taken as a midlaner as well, and of course the Taric & Sona strategy.

only zhuleJan 6, 20203 votes

{quoted}

I don't think that Hypercarry and Support are mutually exclusive. Afterall mages went to botlane as Support, because they didn't want to give up their Carry potential, at the same time they prefer to use this potential to help their Carry to get fed without giving up the possibility of carrying the game themselves if the ADC is underperforming/falling off. She is a hypercarry in the sense that her Empowered AA + Q combo really pack a punch in all stages of the game. However she is also a hypercarry in a sense that at late game fights she can heal an shield out her entire team. She is one of the best supports to main, because of her single target damage and utility. When she has enough CDR and Mana, she just basically spams spells like no end and can stack her passive insanely fast. As others said she is generalist, teamfight oriented support, who happened to be a lane bully as well. She was meant to be extremely squishy and easy to run and focus down due to how well she can perform. Her major weaknesses include being super squishy, really mana hungry early game and not having hard CC until lv6. However I would never underestimate her, not because of her auras, but because of her passive. When fully stacked her next AA will have an extra effect on the target:

Q: Self-explanatory: more damage

W: Target deals reduced damage, now this can be a life saver if she hits crucial targets

E: Target is slowed down: not only it is useful to prevent targets from escaping, it is extremely efficient as self defense either

Overall I think Sona is a good champion. Her power is gated by skill, because she is one of the harder supports to play, not because her kit is difficult to pick up, but because a lot of Sona players don't even use her passive correctly, moreover she needs an ADC level of positioning to perform properly due to her squishiness, and of course mana manegement. Riot is trying to keep her in check, because due to her hypercarry nature she can quickly spiral out of control even if she is given the slightest buffs. Remember that she is taken as a midlaner as well, and of course the Taric & Sona strategy.

I think people vastly over state how much damage Sona is able to do, i think because everyone remembers her from years ago and don't account for the changes in the game.

She does moderate damage at best with her single offensive spell capping out at 160 damage + .5 modifier, she then needs to get into auto attack range (a point where basically EVERY champion can counter attack from), to do a single empowered attack for 30 + .2 modifier. So on a 8 second base cooldown you get to do 190 magic damage with a .7 modifier, MANY champion have something equal or better then this in their kits. Her "niche" right now, is that she is the only champion who get get 60%+ CDR. I'd much rather her kit be "good" then it be based around having 58% CDR at level 11 to compensate.

Let's not pretend that her passive is good. It looks great on paper, but her W and E are TERRIBLE garbage. The game is VERY bursty, so using the damage reduction as a reaction basically negates it's purpose since the enemy will have already dealt 70% or more of their burst. Trying to use it aggressively means that you have to run at an enemy/ group, as the squishiest champion in the game. Her slow is a joke, 40% slow for 2 seconds?! most champions with slows in their kits get stuff like 60% or better for roughly equal amounts of time. Not to mention that mobility is way up in game, and a 40% slow doesn't stop them from dashing away (which ALWAYS covers move ground then they would lose to your slow).

People say she is suppose to be a generalist, great that was fine 5-7 years ago. Now EVERYONE new is a bit of a generalist, on top of having a strong core thing they do. People say that it was unfair to have her effect the game without having to risk anything, and yet we have Yuumi who LITERALLY can not be interacted with, but gets to effect the game state.

FSRERJan 6, 20203 votes

She was specificaly made to be a jack of all trades. Little bit of healing, some poke damage, some speed up and some cc.

Linna ExcelJan 6, 20203 votes

Right now she's a poke and heal champ that scales as the game goes on. She also has terrible base hp, riot should up it so she's better than a minion. I'd say her biggest flaw is she doesn't have any CC until level 6 which makes it harder to gank bottom before then, especially with the dual lane XP nerf.

Before we think of anything to rework her, Sona is relatively easy to play. I'd really hate it if riot reworked her so that 99% of sona players wouldn't be able to use her any more because a #certainlyTwannaB decided to mess up her skill floor and ceiling. So whatever happens to her in the long run, she at least needs to be easy to play.

One thing I think riot should do is make her aura always on. Make E a toggle and let it switch between bonus damage, HP regen, and speed. Leveling it up makes is stronger. Maybe riot can move her passive to her E and let it decide which effect you get. Another idea to go along with this is when she ults, she and her team gets the benefit of all 3 auras for 4 seconds. This would give sona players an interesting decision of flash ulting or buffing the entire team and would also make her a good support option for a hypercarry ADC for both defensive and offensive reasons.

Pika310Jan 6, 20202 votes

I find it amusing that a lot of the suggested kits essentially turn out to be reverts back to her original kit or something functionally similar. I agree with what you said here, just feel I needed to point out that fact.

I'll get straight to the point. Sona is supposed to be generalist support. She's supposed to control the flow of the game by carefully selecting the passive buff for the situation. Her passive, Power Chord is meant to fill the opposite role of periodically hindering a selective priority enemy. This playstyle is assisted by having short, identical cooldowns on all 3 stances. The actives on her stances are meant as extra bursts of power to accentuate both her stance & her Power Chord further.

What Sona currently plays as, is a fucking URF auto-clicker. If she isn't spamming spells, she isn't doing shit. She's ENCOURAGED to cast shit off cooldown, completely devoid of thought or decision-making. Power Chord has been FUCKED by her spells not having identical cooldowns & her crap-bubbles are rendered worthless by their limited duration & being melee-range. She doesn't get bonus defense from W to compensate for being made of soggy tissue paper, she doesn't get bonus MS from E to compensate for being immobile and she doesn't get bonus AD from Q for her own being super low. Literally all the checks and balances that were carefully crafted and designed by Ezreal, Guinsoo & Shurelya during Sona's creation. Sona still has all the drawbacks from her original kit (in fact, even more so since they all got nerfed even further,) but all of the compensations were ripped away.

People can talk about how Rito was pushing a new champ every other week during the beta, but at least they actually cared back then. Sona's original kit is 1,000 times better-designed than the pieces of shit Fearless made in 4.13 & Rickless in 6.14.

JanakinJan 6, 20203 votes

Sona's been screaming for a rework for a long time. She should be the number 1 rework priority.

Ionian VulpixJan 6, 20202 votes

Big Tiddy Bard

NelsieLisnenJan 6, 20202 votes

in support terms she is one of the most useless, even Lulu outperforms her. Whenever I play an immobile marksman I pray that my supp will go anything but her

GinoSoldierJan 6, 20202 votes

Sona is a hard-scaling support that pays for her insane teamfight potential with a shitty early game. She needs an ADC who's strong or safe in lane like Lucian, Caitlyn or Draven so that they can play off of each other's strengths.

Playing Sona with a Vayne is basically like forfeiting botlane and the game unless you get help.

NelsieLisnenJan 6, 20203 votes

{quoted}

Sona is a hard-scaling support that pays for her insane teamfight potential with a shitty early game. She needs an ADC who's strong or safe in lane like Lucian, Caitlyn or Draven so that they can play off of each other's strengths.

Playing Sona with a Vayne is basically like forfeiting botlane and the game unless you get help.

Any tanky engage support can make sure a Sona cannot lane. She is basically a target dummy. There's not much worth in such a support since the enemy can out-lane you and scale faster. If I need a good late game support with reasonable damage output but far better utility I just go with Bard.

GinoSoldierJan 6, 20201 votes

That's exactly why she lanes better with either bullies or safe picks, and works in the carry role with a tank support, really. She wants a bully ADC against sustain lanes and a safe ADC against engage lanes.

The thing is that put simply, Sona is a walking stat stick. Her early performance will directly be impacted by how much the stats she gives out will help her partner.

I have to point out though, that Bard doesn't have NEARLY as much raw power in a full on 5v5 teamfight as Sona does.

NelsieLisnenJan 7, 20202 votes

{quoted}

That's exactly why she lanes better with either bullies or safe picks, and works in the carry role with a tank support, really. She wants a bully ADC against sustain lanes and a safe ADC against engage lanes.

The thing is that put simply, Sona is a walking stat stick. Her early performance will directly be impacted by how much the stats she gives out will help her partner.

I have to point out though, that Bard doesn't have NEARLY as much raw power in a full on 5v5 teamfight as Sona does.

She doesn't lane "better", she's just not as bad with ADCs that can fare without her and certainly not better than actual good supports in the same situation. Something like a Bard is infinitely more valuable since he can dish out all the damage his team NEEDS from a proper support, but his pickoff/engage/escape/and peel are godlike compared to Sona. Something like Yi hyperscales too, but guess what, he's the most useless jungler usually (autofilled Lee Sins take the cake) and his late game doesn't make up for him being unable to establish a real advantage for his team. I just cringe whenever I get a Sona as an Aphelios or Tristana and the enemy team has picked a Cait-Leona bot.

BrokenRayquazaJan 6, 20202 votes

She's a stupidly hard scaling support that's bad in lane but stupid in teamfights

only zhuleJan 6, 20202 votes

{quoted}

She's a stupidly hard scaling support that's bad in lane but stupid in teamfights

is she really? people keep saying that but her scaling isn't really that impressive. 160 damage on your single offensive core spell, with a 50% scaling. +30 damage on hit with 20% scaling. 20% scaling on your passive. None of these numbers scream "hyper scaling" to me. Even more so when you often are only getting her to like 200-250 AP. Her gimmick is that she is the only one who get get 60%+ CDR, and Riot admitted that she only has that because she felt like garbage in the late game with her kit working how it does.

What about her makes her a "hard scaling support"? Is it the fact that she use to build item 3100 ? We don't punish any of the other champions who use the Spellblade passive. Hell you ever run that thing on a Nami , it's a bit slower (since you lack the CDR passive), but damn you hit just as hard and still have access to a stun in your base kit.

BrokenRayquazaJan 6, 20201 votes

[{quoted}](name=only zhule,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=NABZzz0U,comment-id=000c0000,timestamp=2020-01-06T19:32:44.857+0000)

is she really? people keep saying that but her scaling isn't really that impressive. 160 damage on your single offensive core spell, with a 50% scaling. +30 damage on hit with 20% scaling. 20% scaling on your passive. None of these numbers scream "hyper scaling" to me. Even more so when you often are only getting her to like 200-250 AP. Her gimmick is that she is the only one who get get 60%+ CDR, and Riot admitted that she only has that because she felt like garbage in the late game with her kit working how it does.

What about her makes her a "hard scaling support"? Is it the fact that she use to build ? We don't punish any of the other champions who use the Spellblade passive. Hell you ever run that thing on a , it's a bit slower (since you lack the CDR passive), but damn you hit just as hard and still have access to a stun in your base kit.

She's hard scaling in that she has a teamwide heal plus shield on 2 people (both can activate ardent/aery/any other support item. She also has a speed up that is also teamwide (which is really good for rotations, especially with this meta) I will admit her q is kinda lacking but the damage it gives can be pretty good if you get some ap (which you mentioned is hard to get, unless you go ap) Her ulti is on the same levels of cock blocking that Lulu is on. It also has the nice addition of making them dance

only zhuleJan 6, 20202 votes

{quoted}

She's hard scaling in that she has a teamwide heal plus shield on 2 people (both can activate ardent/aery/any other support item. She also has a speed up that is also teamwide (which is really good for rotations, especially with this meta) I will admit her q is kinda lacking but the damage it gives can be pretty good if you get some ap (which you mentioned is hard to get, unless you go ap) Her ulti is on the same levels of cock blocking that Lulu is on. It also has the nice addition of making them dance

I think you accidently flipped the heal and the shield effects.

Her E has one HUGE ISSUE it's garbage to level. Like many champs have that one skill they level last, but they basically always levels fine. Sona's movement speed buff gets a pitiful +1% per level. No reduced cast time, no secondary benefit, no reduced mana cost; just +1% per level.

Even her scaling is pretty lack luster. 50% ratio on your poke, 20% ratio on your empowered attack, 20% ratio on your passive. None of these are impressive numbers (unless you balance around the possibility to hit 5 targets). I also have issue with the mini game you have to play as Sona with regards to your buffs. I do believe that Sona is the only champion with a mini game that makes you have to play around (against) your allies.

GinoSoldierJan 6, 20202 votes

Also; the issue is that the E level up is 1% MS but it's reallly up to 5% every level depending on how many people she tags. That's a lot given how accessible it is.

only zhuleJan 6, 20203 votes

{quoted}

Also; the issue is that the E level up is 1% MS but it's reallly up to 5% every level depending on how many people she tags. That's a lot given how accessible it is.

That is the worst balance concept. Like lets make the easy comparison, Nami needs to be balanced around the fact that she COULD give 120 ms off one ability. She needs to be balanced around the fact that she COULD stun 3 people with her bubble. Sure these aren't likely to happen 95%+ of the time, but it would be unfair to not balance the rest of her game play around the situations where she COULD do those things.

Someone else pointed to the same idea i had earlier. Let Sona's buffs be a net pool she divides between all allies effected. Her empowered attack now has a net pool of 50-150 bonus magic damage with 100% scaling. Same idea with ALL her buffs. It let's Sona have a reasonable lane phase with her lack of CC, while keeping her late game the same as it currently is.

GinoSoldierJan 7, 20201 votes

The difference is that Sona can literally have a 100% uptime on the buff on her whole team very, very easily so it DOES matter.

Nami can either single-target buff or get potentially everyone with her ult. Either way the uptime and chance of getting the buff to multiple allies is really not comparable.

only zhuleJan 7, 20203 votes

{quoted}

The difference is that Sona can literally have a 100% uptime on the buff on her whole team very, very easily so it DOES matter.

Nami can either single-target buff or get potentially everyone with her ult. Either way the uptime and chance of getting the buff to multiple allies is really not comparable.

Incorrect for most games she can buff her team 60% of the time, assuming she is perfectly timing the buff as the last one wears off. In the rare game she gets to level 16, that buff can be kept up 80% of the time assuming the same strict timing.

Also keep in mind that is probably a good 400-800 mana spent speeding up your team, and 400-800 mana you don't have to give damage buffs or healing, once you actually get into a fight (hope you weren't planning to cast more then 2 MAYBE 3 rotations of other spells.)

GinoSoldierJan 7, 20201 votes

Dunno, usually by the end of a game i have around 2000-2500 mana, so i'm not overly concerned.

She does run out fast, but that's what blue buffs are for.

only zhuleJan 7, 20201 votes

{quoted}

Dunno, usually by the end of a game i have around 2000-2500 mana, so i'm not overly concerned.

She does run out fast, but that's what blue buffs are for.

.... what level are you ending most games at? Also what items are you running? I'm assuming you get item 3070 early, maybe upgrade it into item 3003 . I'm trying to wrap my head around your build path, is great but the lack of CDR or mana regen in the early game is throwing me.

GinoSoldierJan 7, 20201 votes

I rush Tear and let it stack. If i somehow have a lead in lane, buy Sheen. If not, buy Chalice into Athene's. Then Censer/Lich's/Seraph's depending on what's going on. Then i go for either a Luden's or Rabadon's depending on whether i want more healing or more damage. If the game's not done anyway.

I do have low CDR early but i get masteries to help out, i'm all about playing for the late game usually.

only zhuleJan 7, 20202 votes

{quoted}

I rush Tear and let it stack. If i somehow have a lead in lane, buy Sheen. If not, buy Chalice into Athene's. Then Censer/Lich's/Seraph's depending on what's going on. Then i go for either a Luden's or Rabadon's depending on whether i want more healing or more damage. If the game's not done anyway.

I do have low CDR early but i get masteries to help out, i'm all about playing for the late game usually.

Ahhh so you go the Hyper ability power route instead of the support items route. I will admit that she's pretty decent at 400-600 AP, but still only a hair better then any other enchanter support you get to the same level of AP. Assuming she is indeed suppose to be a support, and builds into that. She's above average in the late game (if you went even or mildly ahead), just wish her early game wasn't terrible (not great, just less bad).

What rank are you playing that into? Feels like it's amazing if you can either get a constant pair with the right kind of ADC or are against people who don't understand how to punish Sona.

GinoSoldierJan 8, 20201 votes

I'm a filthy casual who only plays norms, but the MMR puts me regularly against/with silver/gold players, sometimes a bunch of diamonds when i'm on a good streak.

Essentially in Champ select i have three picks; Ashe, Leona and Sona. Once every 50 games or so i pick someone else for kicks. Only exception is Kalista support with Yasuo ADC because it's just that dumb. I pick whichever of those three seems to fit best with the team, roll with it and play for fun.

As for Sona, i've always found that going the support path cheapens the experience of going support. What's the point of choosing Nami, Bard, Janna or Sona when what really matters is the Redemption/Locket/Censer in your item list? I much prefer letting the champion's kit scale through AP and work better because it's amped up than rely on generic item actives/passives. Mind you i'm not blind enough not to build Censer/Grail, they're just too good to pass up. Similarly, my Leona builds tend to be Knight's Vow/Randuin's/Sunfire Cape/Warmogs/Spirit's Visage or some such. Sometimes i get Deadman's Plate just to go about my engages faster.

As for Ashe, i usually go tank Ashe with Guardian into assassin/burst comps and damage Ashe into tankier comps, mostly for kicks. Someone HAS to tell me why all three map-revealing skills are on ADCs and not supports.

BrokenRayquazaJan 7, 20201 votes

[{quoted}](name=only zhule,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=NABZzz0U,comment-id=000c000000000000,timestamp=2020-01-06T20:44:34.331+0000)

I think you accidently flipped the heal and the shield effects.

Her E has one HUGE ISSUE it's garbage to level. Like many champs have that one skill they level last, but they basically always levels fine. Sona's movement speed buff gets a pitiful +1% per level. No reduced cast time, no secondary benefit, no reduced mana cost; just +1% per level.

Even her scaling is pretty lack luster. 50% ratio on your poke, 20% ratio on your empowered attack, 20% ratio on your passive. None of these are impressive numbers (unless you balance around the possibility to hit 5 targets). I also have issue with the mini game you have to play as Sona with regards to your buffs. I do believe that Sona is the only champion with a mini game that makes you have to play around (against) your allies.

I did actually flip the shield and heal my bad. But my point still stands. Also your looking too much into the ratios when that's not why she is good, it's the effects she can give in mass quantities. (Ardent and to an effect Athenes for some examples)

Also her e is still pretty good, maybe not in the middle of a fight but it's very good when rotatating. Also her abilities get stupid low cooldowns late game which only increases her presence in teamfights

only zhuleJan 7, 20202 votes

{quoted}

I did actually flip the shield and heal my bad. But my point still stands. Also your looking too much into the ratios when that's not why she is good, it's the effects she can give in mass quantities. (Ardent and to an effect Athenes for some examples)

Also her e is still pretty good, maybe not in the middle of a fight but it's very good when rotatating. Also her abilities get stupid low cooldowns late game which only increases her presence in teamfights

They aren't good though, that WHY she has to cast them like 3+ times per fight. That's why Riot added the passive on to her ultimate, because she didn't do enough late game without 60% CDR. Ardent is great, but how often are you meaningfully buffing 2 or more champions? Because if you're not then it's no better on Sona then it is on Nami or Janna . And both of those champions have access to hard engage or disengage tools.

Her E still remains hot garbage. Or are you saying you would be ok with another champion having one of their core ability only functions "properly" 20+ mins into the game when you have your entire team around you? For that matter can you name ANY other champion that has an ability like that, an ability that is only good when surrounded by 3-4 allies? Can you name an ability with 1% scaling per rank?

BrokenRayquazaJan 7, 20201 votes

[{quoted}](name=only zhule,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=NABZzz0U,comment-id=000c00000000000000020000,timestamp=2020-01-07T19:23:50.748+0000)

They aren't good though, that WHY she has to cast them like 3+ times per fight. That's why Riot added the passive on to her ultimate, because she didn't do enough late game without 60% CDR. Ardent is great, but how often are you meaningfully buffing 2 or more champions? Because if you're not then it's no better on Sona then it is on or . And both of those champions have access to hard engage or disengage tools.

Her E still remains hot garbage. Or are you saying you would be ok with another champion having one of their core ability only functions "properly" 20+ mins into the game when you have your entire team around you? For that matter can you name ANY other champion that has an ability like that, an ability that is only good when surrounded by 3-4 allies? Can you name an ability with 1% scaling per rank?

Yeah sure they might suck on their own but Sona has always been a "spam support spells" champ, her healing is consistent and strong making her a late game champ but mediocre early due to mana and crappy ratios.

And her e is strong without even putting a second level in it. Maybe not for you or me but like I said rotation is key in this meta especially if it scaled even by 2% every level it would be insane. Also should mention it scaled with AP too. Yeah she's tied to her teammates kinda being around her but look at the bright side.

Kalista has to always be with her support to even think about doing damage

Pika310Jan 7, 20201 votes

{quoted}

Yeah sure they might suck on their own but Sona has always been a "spam support spells" champ,

Again with people throwing around the A-word. Pre-4.13 Sona didn't require "spell-spamming." Her main support tools were passive stances, she wasn't FORCED to constantly reactivate the same ability over & over just to not be worthless. That design fail was created in 4.13 when her auras were removed. Then it was built on further in 6.14 when they add the "URF Mode" passive onto her R and then gutted her already-gutted bases & ratios to make her skills extra suck.

Sona wasn't given her R passive cause her spells suck, Rito MADE her skills suck because they added the R passive. They did this twice: first in 4.13, they trapped base numbers in her R; then in 6.14, they swapped the trapped numbers for artificial cooldown. The entire R-passive fiasco has all been intentional to purposefully make Sona into the worst support in the game and they succeeded.

only zhuleJan 8, 20202 votes

{quoted}

Yeah sure they might suck on their own but Sona has always been a "spam support spells" champ, her healing is consistent and strong making her a late game champ but mediocre early due to mana and crappy ratios.

And her e is strong without even putting a second level in it. Maybe not for you or me but like I said rotation is key in this meta especially if it scaled even by 2% every level it would be insane. Also should mention it scaled with AP too. Yeah she's tied to her teammates kinda being around her but look at the bright side.

Kalista has to always be with her support to even think about doing damage

She wasn't always a spam champion, she use to be a stance champion. That aside, if you are going to make a champion spam to be viable, you have to give them the tools to spam without running OOM. If a kit is built around only needing to land 1-2 abilities, they probably don't need great mane efficiency. If a kit is built around landing a dozen+ abilities in 2-3 mins, it sure would be nice if you didn't burn through your mana after the 7th cast.

E is not strong no matter how many levels you put into it. 10% MS boost for 3 seconds is not strong, 14% MS boost for 3 seconds is not strong, a 4% scaling on your movement speed is not strong. The fact that the ability loses 53% of it's efficiency if you take or deal any damage is not strong.

Fun little math challenge, assuming no one gets caught on anything, how much time do you save going from fountain to fountain with Sona's movement speed boost? For added flavor, how many times did she have cast the spell to cover that distance? You can apply the same basic idea to any two points. The basic question becomes what is 1 second of "saved" time worth in mana?

I also noticed you didn't address the question i asked. Are you personally ok with another champion having an ability that only functions properly 20+ mins into the game? Are you personally ok with an ability that is only good if you have your entire team stacked on top of you? Can you name any other ability with >5% scaling per rank you put into it?

chipndip1Jan 6, 20202 votes

I find it funny that, in a thread about what Sona's supposed to be, I've found 3 different comments from three different people that say "She's basically a worse Nami/Yuumi/Bard", each champion reference being from a different person.

I keep saying it: This champ has problems. And I continue to keep saying it because hopefully a Rioter is paying attention. This is the only champ I see this rhetoric for to this degree. At least Vi was replaced by ONE CHAMP and not "dang near anyone with a heal".

AptestJan 6, 20202 votes

Sona is a short to mid range skirmishing champion that works partially through allowing allies to "power up" with her and partially through being herself a play-maker for her team. play style wise Her strong point is prolonged exchanges, and her win condition is a "death by a 1000 cuts" style overbearing of her opponents through multiple rotations of her kit. Timing wise she is a late game hyper-scaling champion that contributes both supportive abilities and damage to her team once her items are complete and as such she should pose a kill threat to opposing non support champions once late game is arrived. Composition wise she is biased towards larger engagements, rather than smaller skirmishes.

Sona is weakest to committed pushes and assassinations, and weakest in the mid game where her bases fall off and her kit is not complete.

only zhuleJan 6, 20205 votes

{quoted}

Sona is a short to mid range skirmishing champion that works partially through allowing allies to "power up" with her and partially through being herself a play-maker for her team. play style wise Her strong point is prolonged exchanges, and her win condition is a "death by a 1000 cuts" style overbearing of her opponents through multiple rotations of her kit. Timing wise she is a late game hyper-scaling champion that contributes both supportive abilities and damage to her team once her items are complete and as such she should pose a kill threat to opposing non support champions once late game is arrived. Composition wise she is biased towards larger engagements, rather than smaller skirmishes.

Sona is weakest to committed pushes and assassinations, and weakest in the mid game where her bases fall off and her kit is not complete.

"Death by a 100 cuts" doesn't work in a format where everyone else is playing by "Death by 2 big stabs". Even more so when you have no viable means to land your 100 cuts and they have many tools to land their 2 big stabs.

I will never understand why people say she is hyper scaling. She lacks the tools to solo lane, so your basically stuck building support items. So you generally end up with like 200-250 AP. Your single offensive spell has 50% scaling, your empowered attack has 20%, and your passive has 20%. You max out at 90% AP ratio on offensive abilities, that doesn't sound hyper scaling to me. Her base numbers aren't impressive either, max out at 160 on your single offensive spell, and +30 on your empowered auto attack (why is a squishy enhancer support auto attacking enemy champions). Sure she has the gimmick of above max CDR, but Riot admitted when they gave it to her it was because she was garbage in the late game with traditional max CDR.

It honestly feels like you responded to the title instead of actually reading the post.

ArammusJan 7, 20202 votes

big breasted?

ZephyrDrakeJan 6, 20201 votes

She is and always has been a generalist. No matter who her partner is she is always an ok choice. She is also a scaling support. One who trades early game power for late game strength. She is also a very simple and easy to learn champion whose mastery is more on how well you can position yourself to maximize ability to buff your team while also remaining outside of the enemy range.

only zhuleJan 6, 20207 votes

{quoted}

She is and always has been a generalist. No matter who her partner is she is always an ok choice. She is also a scaling support. One who trades early game power for late game strength. She is also a very simple and easy to learn champion whose mastery is more on how well you can position yourself to maximize ability to buff your team while also remaining outside of the enemy range.

I disagree with the "staying out of the enemies range" thing. You have to get painfully close to do almost everything on Sona.

I also think that she's not really a good generalist anymore. Your damage is low and rather self dangerous, so your not applying pressure. Your heal is very expensive for a little benefit, so your not sustaining through nearly as much as you use to. You lack meaningful crowd control or anti-crowd control, so you aren't setting up or ending a fight. Nami is a good generalist, because she has basically all the same tools as Sona, but she has a hard CC which allows her to effect the lane phase. The trade off of course being that she doesn't scale as well/ people don't build her with damage items like they do Sona.

Beyond that i feel you missed what i'm getting at. It's impossible to balance a champion who is capable of being a Hyper carry, a Skirmisher, a team buffer, and a single ally buffer ALL AT THE SAME TIME. If you balance around buffing 3.5 character per ability use, only effecting 2 makes the ability feel like garbage. If you balance around buffing two targets per ability use then suddenly they become team wide, you warp the game around your existence. Same with Hyper carry vs. Skirmisher. One is designed around steam rolling multiple targets, the other around slowly wearing down one or two.

Another way to look at it, might be to ask the question "is sona viable without the passive part of her ultimate?" I'd say no, if she can't effectively have 55-60% (level 11) / 64-67% (level 16) CDR her kit is a train wreck in the late game.

Penguin EclipseJan 6, 20202 votes

{quoted}

She is and always has been a generalist. No matter who her partner is she is always an ok choice. She is also a scaling support. One who trades early game power for late game strength. She is also a very simple and easy to learn champion whose mastery is more on how well you can position yourself to maximize ability to buff your team while also remaining outside of the enemy range.

She wasn't designed to be weak early game. Her lack of early game power is largely because of her Q damage nerfs. She used to be a terror early game. Definitely one of the strongest supports in lane in the early seasons.