Boards›Gameplay

Here's a Sona kit that's actually healthy.

Aryogaton·11/28/2015, 5:30:54 AM·1 votes·859 views

Problems with pre-rework Sona:

  • Auras feel incredibly unimpactful no matter how powerful they really are.
  • A "Jack of trades" kit that does everything and excels at nothing.
  • Powerful, low-interation sustain.
  • Outside of Crescendo and using the right Power Chord, Sona's kit is mechanically uninteresting.
  • Her kit forced her to have some of the lowest base stats of any champion.
  • She can feel oppressive and unhealthy during laning.
  • She's too reliable, which makes her have low counterplay in general and prevents her from being allowed to have a higher skillcap.
  • Sona contributes 3 auras, with active and passive effects, plus 3 variations of Power Chord, plus Crescendo to her team. That's potentially 8 different things (3 auras, 3 actives, 1 Power Chord, Crescendo) that Sona's contributing to her team at any one time, and it forces any one element of Sona's kit to be extremely weak.

Problems with post-rework Sona:

  • The "Snuggle zones" mechanic isn't as interesting as hoped; teammates move very erratically and it is extremely difficult to actually "tag" teammates unless Sona has much higher movespeed than her teammates.
  • She's still has the "Jack of trades" kit that prevents her from being the best at any one quality.
  • Sona players still feel gimped.
  • The "Aura master" fantasy is downplayed.
  • Still not very mechanically interesting.
  • Still keeps many of the problems of pre-rework Sona.

Things that are iconic about Sona and that Sona players love:

  • Auras. Riot really wants to remove them (for good reason), but Sona players really want to keep them.
  • Crescendo. This is a truly iconic spell and should be kept no matter what.
  • Power Chord. Fairly healthy and has some interesting gameplay.
  • 3 basic spells = Sona plays 3 songs = 3 stances. One is damage, one is defense, one is movement speed.

Goals for any new Sona rework:

  • Keep the things that are iconic about Sona.
  • Find a way to make auras feel impactful without being overpowered.
  • Make Sona more mechanically interesting than "Press every basic spell on cooldown"
  • Make Sona into league's premier something instead of a jack of trades, master of none.
  • Make Sona fulfill her fantasy better.

So. Here we go.

Passive:

  • Sona's basic spells generate an aura that empowers her allies in a **large **radius.
  • Power Chord: After casting 3 abilities, Sona's next basic attack has a new effect based on her current aura.
  • NEW: Sona's auras persist indefinitely, but if Sona changes auras, **all **benefits of the previous aura are removed **immediately **(as opposed to lingering and overlapping).
  • NEW: Sona's basic spells put themselves on a 6-4 second cooldown and the other two basic spells on a 15-10 second cooldown. These cooldowns scale with champion level and CDR.

This new passive is all about commitment. With this passive, Sona gets to have extremely powerful and impactful basic spells, at the expense of not being able to benefit from her entire kit at once or in rapid succession. Every time she casts an ability she commits to one aura and one basic spell for a longer cooldown, which is an intended weakness that is exploitable by her enemies (counterplay!). Sona can still spam one spell on a short cooldown for its effect and Power Chord stacking. The "Snuggle zones" mechanic is completely removed and the radius of Sona's auras is greatly increased, with the intended purpose of reinforcing her core fantasy as a music-based support: Udyr changes his own stances; Sona changes the stance of her entire team.

Hymn of Valor (Remade):

  • Persistent effect: Sona grants her allies a very small amount of magic damage on-hit (scales with AP) and marks enemies for 1 second. If a different ally hits a marked enemy, they deal bonus damage.
  • Active: Sona produces a wave of sound, emanating a bolt from Sona and every allied champion in Sona's aura that hits the closest enemy in a moderate radius, prioritizing champions. Multiple bolts can hit the same target.
  • Power Chord: Deals a large amount of bonus magic damage, scaling well with AP.

Be in sync. This ability is Sona's core damage ability and aura. ALL of Sona's damage, other than Crescendo, is now on this spell, and it can potentially deal an incredible amount of damage with a lot of allies around. Her solo poke pattern is now reduced in order to let the multi-hit deal more damage, making her healthier for laning. Her aura gives her entire team a mild Kalista W passive effect (or an inverse MF passive effect), rewarding being in sync. Using Hymn of Valor makes Sona one of the highest damage supports in the game, but also commits her to damage, causing her to contribute no utility or defensive power for some time other than Crescendo. Sona should use this spell when her team is ready to unload damage or make a pick, and Sona's enemies should exploit her momentary lack of utility and defense by just plain dealing damage to Sona's team. This spell also has decent AP ratios, keeping AP Sona a thing. Maybe not an extremely strong thing, but a thing nonetheless.

Aria of Perseverance (Remade):

  • Persistent effect: Every 4-2 seconds, Sona grants herself and all allies in her aura a shield that decays over 2 seconds.
  • Active: Sona grants herself and all allies in her aura a strong shield for a very short amount of time.
  • Power Chord: Lowers the target's damage output for a few seconds.

Move back and forth with the music. This ability is Sona's core defensive ability and aura. ALL of Sona's defense is on this spell (notice a pattern?). Note that the healing is removed (!), but the passive shield functions as a form of sustain, only it rhythmically becomes more and less effective, is immediately removed upon changing auras, can't sustain a champion to full health. Some might argue that the heal is iconic to Sona, but frankly, if you want to spam W and top up allies, you should be playing Soraka. While this aura is active Sona provides no combat stats, utility, or damage for her team. Sona should use this ability when she is expecting her team to get engaged upon, and enemies should exploit this by poking through her shields at the right time into the meaty health underneath, holding teamfight spells, and generally doing anything except hard-engaging.

Song of Celerity (Remade):

  • Persistent effect: Every 4-1 seconds (scaling with champion level), Sona grants herself and all nearby allies a 20%-40% (scaling with ability level and AP) movement speed bonus that rapidly decays over 0.5 seconds.
  • Active: Sona grants herself and all nearby allies a 40-60% movement speed bonus that rapidly decays over a short time.
  • Power Chord: Slows the target for a few seconds.

Dance to the music. This spell makes Sona's entire team an insane, rhythmic ball of kite and chase, at the cost of all damage and defense. Sona should use this ability to make her team run really fast, and Sona's enemies should exploit this by hard-engaging and forcing fights.

Crescendo:

  • Unchanged. Maybe some mild number tweaks to keep Sona's power budget the same.

Sona is now the true DJ of Teamfight, dictating the pace of entire fights with skilled play. Sona's kit is now all about rhythm and being in sync, with target focus on Q, rhythmic engage and disengage on W, and rhythmic kiting on E. If Sona chooses the right stances at the right times and her enemies don't respond, her team can dominate the fight. If she chooses wrong, Sona will contribute nothing and the fight is practically 4v5. Every time one of Sona's spells come up, she must choose whether to continue committing to the same aura or forgo using an active in order to keep her options open. Every time Sona's spells all come up, there is a deep decision as to when to commit to which aura. Every time Sona uses a spell, the enemy team has a window of opportunity to exploit the weakness of the spell that Sona had just cast. Even through all of this, because Sona's power is now concentrated in teamfighting, she is generically countered by splitpush, pick, and poke compositions, enabling counterplay outside of the teamfight itself. Sona's auras are now all extremely visible, feel extremely impactful, and still feel like passive auras. Sona still keeps the elements of her kit that Sona players love, and fulfills the fantasies that Sona players want even more. Even AP Sona is still there.

The first of a series of rework brainstorms. Remember that this is just an idea, it doesn't have to be a final kit, numbers don't matter, and that this is only meant to foster discussion how to make Sona healthy (not overpowered, healthy and fun to play as or against)!

2 Comments

Vesarixx11/28/2015, 6:05:43 AM2 votes

You started with a good base by stating the problems of her current kit, but the suggestiongs you made just introduce further issues without addressing any of the ones brought up, only allowing one spell withing a considerable window of time is extremely uninteresting and makes game play too static, a well designed kit needs to provide options to react to the situation, and should have synergy between abilities, weaker abilities that either have more utility or work well together are far better than stronger abilities without synergy. Sona does have a strength that is lacked by just about every other support, flexibility, if she is in a poke match up she can heal while returning poke of her own, and play the attrition game, vs all in lanes she can poke and reduce damage with diminuendo, with so much in her kit she has an answer for almost everything. What might help Sona is the ability to specialize during the game, for example, Sona could start the game with a unique item similar to Kalista, which would allow her to enhance a part of her kit, using the item would enhance one of her basic abilities, Q for more damage, W for more sustain or E for more CC, the other abilities would remain usable but not as strong in comparison. Enhanced Q powerchord could once again double the damage of powerchord or ignore resistances, W would get a higher base heal and AP ratio if it was chosen and a bigger shield, as well as diminuendo reducing attack speed, E could reduce the effect of slows on allies and tempo could apply not only the slow but a stacking debuff similar to braums passive that would cause an enemy to become stunned if it was enhanced.

Yrzen11/28/2015, 8:26:20 AM1 votes

I'm a (former) Sona main, and thought I'd contribute my two cents on a couple of non-balance points.

{quoted}

Things that are iconic about Sona and that Sona players love:

  • Auras. Riot really wants to remove them (for good reason), but Sona players really want to keep them.
  • Crescendo. This is a truly iconic spell and should be kept no matter what.
  • Power Chord. Fairly healthy and has some interesting gameplay.
  • 3 basic spells = Sona plays 3 songs = 3 stances. One is damage, one is defense, one is movement speed.

I wouldn't mind healthy alternatives to auras. It's kind of needed for her E to be a travel ability though. (Unless it got a significant buff) I wouldn't mind a new ult if it meant her heal could be made more efficient or her poke less auto-attack reliant. Or her supporting abilities had better range. Or if it could give her decent base stats. Or if it could give her some other form of cc...

etc. Sona's ult is only so necessary because she has no other hard cc. It gets the job done, but isn't all that special.