Actually kinda liking the look of those Sona changes

It's moving power from a more obvious place (early game damage and harass) into a less obvious place (team-wide auras)

It's almost certainly going to lead to Sona feeling weaker relative to her winrate.

More like let's hope this doesn't get reverted because people cry too much.

I'm not sure about the aura nerf but the rest is pretty awesome, the thing is that in order to keep power this high she needs a drawback, and no, being squishy is not a drawback, specially not with that shield/heal. I'd say they don't need to nerf the size of the aura but maybe the amount of damage her ult can do or the speed of it.

They look pretty garbage to me personally. I'm just looking at them from an early game standpoint and they are not good.

You don't gain anything on your W until you rank it, so that does literally nothing until 8 and almost nothing until 13. Your Q is weaker until level 7. Early game Q on a 12 sec CD is going to be worthless.

Maybe her late game is stronger now, but how the fuck do you get there? Sona already had an abysmal lanning phase post 1 and now it's far, far worse. How do you justify picking a support who has no earlygame at all?

What sona changes?

I don't see how the changes on PBE will affect her at all. She get a massive movespeed for herself to land an ult but that's about it. The number on shield change is negligible and i'm sorta indifferent to that Q CD change.

Her "aura" might as well not be there anymore.

So the most important thing to talk about right now is, Sona is performing very well on live. Statistically, over the last several months, she's had win rates hovering several points over 50%. Most Sona players don't feel like she's a top tier support, even though the stats suggest she is. Why is this?

Why Sona is Strong

The current live meta is very very important to the success of a support, synergy and match-ups are very very important things to consider when we look at the role most dependent on their team. A lot of Sona's current success, doesn't necessarily come from Sona herself, but rather what her Teammates and enemies are choosing to play in Champion select, as well as the masteries they are bringing to the battlefield. Lets talk about a few things in the meta that are artificially bolstering Sona's stats:

Synergies: For this month, according to lolking, looking at all elos and all regions for ranked play, there are 4 adcs in the top 10: Lucian, Ezreal, Vayne, and Caitlyn. All 4 of these champions synergize very well with Sona's Q aura. All 4 of these champions can self-peel and reposition, something Sona cannot provide. 3/4 of these champions can play a poke/lane bully pattern. Historically, supports win ratios have always followed closely alongside how well they synergize with the most popular ADCs. In addition to ADCs, there has also been a rise in the popularity of the beefy front-lines, allowing Sona to hide farther back, where she can potentially get off several rotations of spells later on in the game.

Match-Ups: Lets talk about the current most popular supports, the "Big 5" if you will: Alistar, Janna, Braum, Soraka, and Bard. (arguably morg, but she's much more popular in NA.) All of these champions are peel-oriented. None of them can match Sona's early lane trading. And most of them lack the capability to simply all-in and kill Sona every time she tries to Q like Leona, Blitz, and Thresh have done in the past. The more passive trends in Supports, have let some utility supports like Nami and Sona rack up impressive win rates on Live, simply by virtue of them being able to survive lane phase and position safely in team-fights. In addition to bot lane, we can also sees trends in other lanes affecting Sona. It was several years ago during the height of the assassin meta, during some world tournament, when I remember a caster infamously describing Sona as a "meat-bag" and that description could not be more true. During that tournament, the enemy team dove the Sona player at level 2, then again at 3, then just began to pick her off between towers before she could even get to lane. It was the last time i saw Sona picked on the big stage. With the decline in the popularity of the assassins, and less tower diving, Sona can survive lane phase a little more reliably now.

Itemization, totems and Masteries: Windspeakers Blessing, combined with Runic Guard on the champions she is healing, allow Sona to be very very effective with her W. In addition, She synergizes very well with frost fang, and the Aegis items. When the mid to late game rolls around, the prevalence of Farsight wards allows Sona to not get picked off quite as frequently, historically, one of her biggest weaknesses was how easy she was to kill in transition. So with all these things going for her, and her win rates at huge high points, why does Sona still feel terrible? Well, much like the reasons why she is succeeding in the current meta, much of the reason Sona feels terrible can be attributed to things outside the realm of the game, like champion select, build paths, and her current kit.

Why Sona Feels Weak

So you que up for some ranked, intent on playing your favorite Support, The Maven of the Strings. Sadly for you, you've landed high in the pick order. Sona players, more-so than any other popular utility support, need to stress over picking blind. Things like Leona, Thresh, Kalista, Blitz, and assassins come out of the woodwork to ruin your entire game. She simply has nothing in her kit that can answer those champions, and games against them feel more like a survival-horror game than a MOBA as you struggle to stop being tower dived. Unlike other Utility supports like Nami, Janna, and Soraka, Sona needs to be on top of her allies, and playing forward to contribute anything at all to the game. An extremely squishy, immobile champion with only an Ult for CC (which is subject to tenacity, unlike knock-ups and knock-backs) being forced to play forward, whilst also being forced to build AP in order to feel useful is not a good combination. Trying not to get massacred in lane carries over into team-fights as well. Often, Sona players are more concerned with not getting decimated by AOE abilities, or getting picked off than what they are going to contribute. Sona's need to be on top of carries in the fray and be AP-oriented means dying to AOE without even being the target. Teamfights with Sona often boil down to: "Stand in the Middle, Press 4 keys, hope you win, hope you live"

The Death of Flash-Crescendo: While Sona can still make big plays, a telegraphed ability like this just isn't as impactful as a flash tibbers, or Flash/Alistar Q, or Braum Ult. Unlike the other supports who can flash forward to make the big engage plays, Sona is easier to dodge, and much easier to punish. A Sona who flashes into a fight, likely will not be leaving alive.

Lets talk about Aura-support and Healer fantasy. Aura supports and Healers have been around in gaming for a long time. They are high-priority, big impact over-time characters that seek this fantasy: "My team won, because I survived." cough, hello there Soraka Unfortunately , when the impact feels small, and you are forced to position in a certain way, you lose control over this fantasy. If your positioning is decided for you, you get this fantasy instead: "I survived because my team won" This is much less fun.

Big auras. low cooldowns, let Sona players choose their own positioning, and let them feel like they are contributing over time, thus rewarding them for staying alive with good positioning.

Suggestions for fufilling Sona's fantasy

Smaller auras with bigger impact, aren't going to solve the problem of Sona players being forced to position poorly, on top of teammates to feel useful. (hello brand rework). Sona needs more freedom to position and play her auras. Her ultimate is a good place to play with this. Letting her ult serve as a time where Sona plays a concert upping her intensity, giving massive increases on the range and decreases on the cooldowns of her Auras, all building up to a...wait for it...Crescendo, is what I would love to see. Letting her fire her ult only after surviving the duration of her ultimate, would fit thematically, move enough power out of it to open up space to fufill her fantasy as a teamfight, aura support, and fit well with the current ability-delay trend in Newer champions. If Taric can have 2 AOE kayle ults after a delay....

Yeah, but Rito cares about the overall state. I've already mostly purged her from my own champion pool in Plat because of her weaknesses against smart, skilled players, and couldn't imagine trying to survive on Sona effectively in Diamond.