Can we know why Sona is getting repetedly nerfed while worse offenders are being handled carefully?

RedCyclone·Dec 2, 2017·93 votes·3,512 views

Currently on live Sona has been at a 52% winrate for a week now, I doubt many people are claiming that she is anywhere as broken as she was at the start of the preseason, but apparently NOW a 52% winrate is too good for Sona even though she has had a pretty constant 52-54% winrate ever since her rework over a year ago, Sona's a simple champ and it's not unusual for her to sport a decent winrate while not being overpowered, just like many simple supports usually average around the same 52-54% winrate

Somehow Sona is still a major offender in games? She gets destroyed by tank supports, and all games now are feast or famine before 10 mins and the nerfs proposed are going to make those crucial 10 mins absolute hell for Sona and whatever unfortunate ADC has to lane with her

Meanwhile we have Leona rolling over botlane getting a tiny love tap, Ezreal being Ezreal with still no significant nerfs in sight, Miss fortune nuking at low levels like a 60min Viegar, and just about every AD assassin killing people in 0.01 seconds

For the sake of quoting Riot they say they are being slow with the major offenders because of how much the new runes have effected them and wanted to see how they would perform with rune adjustments, even though Sona has been nerfed through runes getting nerfed (Aery) Riot are not treating Sona like she has dropped in power from those nerfs and had queued up some sadistic nerfs already for her on the first PBE patch

We are gonna have an advent of "better nerf Sona" threads if this goes through

97 Comments

LostFr0stDec 2, 20178 votes

Currently on live Sona has been at a 52% winrate for a week now, I doubt many people are claiming that she is anywhere as broken as she was at the start of the preseason, but apparently NOW a 52% winrate is too good for Sona even though she has had a pretty constant 52-54% winrate ever since her rework over a year ago, Sona's a simple champ and it's not unusual for her to sport a decent winrate while not being overpowered, just like many simple supports usually average around the same 52-54% winrate

Lets take into account win rate for # of games played on the champ. Normally champs sit between 48 and 52. Sona is sitting at 54...

She needs more skill expression added to her kit so that they can keep her power while nerfing first/tenth time Sonas.

Meanwhile we have Leona rolling over botlane, getting a tiny love tap

hmm... 20 damage at all ranks is considered a "love tap."

Ezreal being Ezreal with still no significant nerfs in sight, Miss fortune nuking at low levels like a 60min Viegar, and just about every AD assassin killing people in 0.01 seconds

Pretty sure they nerfed Ezreal last patch and hotfixed him the one before. MF and Veigar are currently being looked at. They aren't being ignored.

RedCycloneDec 2, 201714 votes

1 - http://na.op.gg/champion/sona/statistics/support

2 - 20 damage is a lovetap nerf, if you don't consider it at lovetap nerf then what do you consider a lovetap nerf? 20 minus bonkers is still bonkers

3 - Just saying, Sona is getting focused by nerfs much more then those champions, and I didn't even complain about Veig, it was a metaphorical comparison

LostFr0stDec 2, 20176 votes

1 - http://na.op.gg/champion/sona/statistics/support

https://lolalytics.com/ranked/worldwide/platinum/plus/champion/Sona/ http://champion.gg/champion/Sona/Support?league=

Lets use more than one site so it's less biased.

2 - 20 damage is a lovetap nerf, if you don't consider it at lovetap nerf then what do you consider a lovetap nerf? 20 minus bonkers is still bonkers

These are the Sona changes: Sona Hymn of Valor (Q) Mana cost increased from 45/50/55/60/65 to 60/65/70/75/80 Bonus magic damage lowered from [20/30/40/50/60 (+20% AP)] to [10/15/20/25/30 (+30% AP)]

She lost 15 damage on base Q and 10-30 on the scaling. The scaling was also compensated with an AP ratio increase.

The ratio makes it so seasoned Sonas who get Lich bane and don't buy the cookie-cutter Support build will do more dmg. It's a start for balancing Sona; they can tweak it more when they need to.

3 - Just saying, Sona is getting focused by nerfs much more then those champions, and I didn't even complain about Veig, it was a metaphorical comparison

She hasn't really been looked at since patch 6.16. She has only had bugfixes unil Runes Reforged hit.

Runes Reforged was favourable to Sona in many ways, so they need to tune her properly before season 8. They have been slowly doing that over the past few patches instead of Sejuaniing her with the Summon Aery nerfs.

MysticDreams12Dec 2, 201710 votes

{quoted}

Runes Reforged was favourable to Sona in many ways, so they need to tune her properly before season 8. They have been slowly doing that over the past few patches instead of Sejuaniing her with the Summon Aery nerfs.

Thats the problem, they needed to nerf the runes, not nerf runes and Sona together. One, not both!

LostFr0stDec 2, 20172 votes

They did nerf the runes, twice. They also nerfed Sona a tiny bit so far (because she was sitting at 58+%). At this point her performance is still over the others using the same runes, so she needs to be nerfed directly.

MysticDreams12Dec 2, 20175 votes

This will nerf her to the point that her winrate will be worse than last year (what I'm expecting will happen, at least). She doesn't need the nerf bat just because she's doing a teensy tiny bit better than others.

It's honestly very frustrating.

LostFr0stDec 2, 20172 votes

I'd rather they whack her with a good nerf and buff her back a bit than keep giving her little nerfs as people slowly get used to Runes Reforged.

Daedric EtwahlDec 3, 20174 votes

This is Riot we're talking about. They won't buff Sona back when this puts her in the trash.

Besides, how is it at all fair for them to treat Sona like this with nerf after nerf, while folks like Ezreal, Leona, MF, and Malzahar have gotten away relatively scot-free this whole time?

WinterwingsDec 2, 20175 votes

These are the Sona changes: Sona Hymn of Valor (Q) Mana cost increased from 45/50/55/60/65 to 60/65/70/75/80 Bonus magic damage lowered from [20/30/40/50/60 (+20% AP)] to [10/15/20/25/30 (+30% AP)]

She lost 15 damage on base Q and 10-30 on the scaling. The scaling was also compensated with an AP ratio increase.

The ratio makes it so seasoned Sonas who get Lich bane and don't buy the cookie-cutter Support build will do more dmg. It's a start for balancing Sona; they can tweak it more when they need to.

How convenient of you to only look at the damage rebalance part of the change and completely ignore the 15 PER RANK increase to the mana cost on her Q because that would instantly throw your argument out the window. The 10% AP ratio compensation is probably only relevant in 30+ min games, because you will now need to build even more intently onto AP (on a supports budget lol) to bring it back to pre nerf values before even taking the increased mana cost into any consideration... She needed one or the other of these nerfs... not BOTH at the same time and for sure not after...

Runes Reforged was favourable to Sona in many ways, so they need to tune her properly before season 8. They have been slowly doing that over the past few patches instead of Sejuaniing her with the Summon Aery nerfs.

Okay, so they toned down Aery and hotfix nerfed Sona on the exact same patch because she was abusing it along with Scorch to cheese-win lanes early, and now here we have even harsher follow-up nerfs AFTER Aery has already been nerfed...

All this means is that now, any other Rune build that doesn't involve Aery+Scorch cheesing becomes significantly less optimal for her since she is getting her base numbers rebalanced around the existence of those two runes...

LostFr0stDec 2, 20172 votes

[{quoted}](name=Azure Northwing,realm=EUNE,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=OmG6N8rE,comment-id=0000000000000001,timestamp=2017-12-02T17:42:29.022+0000)

Sona Hymn of Valor (Q) Mana cost increased from 45/50/55/60/65 to 60/65/70/75/80 Bonus magic damage lowered from [20/30/40/50/60 (+20% AP)] to [10/15/20/25/30 (+30% AP)]

How convenient of you to only look at the damage rebalance part of the change and completely ignore the 15 PER RANK increase to the mana cost on her Q because that would instantly throw your argument out the window.

Yeah, maybe that's the case. But both Klepto and Manaflow band are a thing. They might need to buff her after, there's still the b patch if it's numbers.

The 10% AP ratio compensation is probably only relevant in 30+ min games, because you will now need to build even more intently onto AP (on a supports budget lol) to bring it back to pre nerf values before even taking the increased mana cost into any consideration...

Support budgets don't suck anymore. This isn't pre-Season 4. Support items are cheaper and more efficient than most other classes' items (maybe ADCs or tanks can compete on cost efficiency)

She needed one or the other of these nerfs... not BOTH at the same time and for sure not after...

Hotfixes for numbers are a thing. Riot isn't afraid of heavy-handing numbers for nerfs anymore because numbers can be re-tuned within a day or so.

Okay, so they toned down Aery and hotfix nerfed Sona on the exact same patch because she was abusing it along with Scorch to cheese-win lanes early, and now here we have even harsher follow-up nerfs AFTER Aery has already been nerfed...

Yes, because she still needs nerfs.

All this means is that now, any other Rune build that doesn't involve Aery+Scorch cheesing becomes significantly less optimal for her since she is getting her base numbers rebalanced around the existence of those two runes...

Celerity, Manaflow band, Biscuit Delivery, Magical footwear, Cosmic insight, Celestial body, and perfect timing all have better WRs than Scorch. Future's Market is chasing Scorch too.

With Scorch secondary, it is beaten by everything in Sorcery except for Nulifying orb and Waterwalking (the latter of which has no data so Scorch wins by default.)

WinterwingsDec 3, 20172 votes

Alright, fair points...

However, let me just raise this :

The ratio makes it so seasoned Sonas who get Lich bane and don't buy the cookie-cutter Support build will do more dmg. It's a start for balancing Sona; they can tweak it more when they need to.

vs.

Support budgets don't suck anymore. This isn't pre-Season 4. Support items are cheaper and more efficient than most other classes' items (maybe ADCs or tanks can compete on cost efficiency)

These two statements kinda contradict eachother... Why exactly is Sona, a support champion, being balanced around building a non-support item? ( item 3100 at a stunning cost of 3200 gold...) Irrelevant of if the support budget sucks or not, it CANNOT and SHOULDN'T ever compete with a solo laner's budget, when you have a support who is being intently balanced around purchasing a AP Mid item there is something wrong with said support champion...

There is also a bunch of contradicting design in her kit as well as Riot's approach to balancing her...

You get stacking spell CDR with your ult ranks but max rank Q W E cost a heck ton of mana ( 80 Q 100 W 65 E ) for it to be relevant with her spam fantasy while still having a minor impact spread across multiple people (when compared to other support abilities)

It legit feels like Riot doesn't exactly know what they want Sona to be...

This sort of thing is the exact reason why i don't bother with Sona anymore... I used to play her during my climb through Plat but since she's basically been reduced to a Nerf-magnet whenever something she can abuse pops into the game, yeah... no thanks...

Maybe one day CertainlyT will be in charge of her rework but then again... seeing how he has a tendency to make kits that are only fun to play but super unfun to play against, yeah not so sure...

LostFr0stDec 3, 20172 votes

[{quoted}](name=Azure Northwing,realm=EUNE,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=OmG6N8rE,comment-id=000000000000000100000001,timestamp=2017-12-03T13:14:48.078+0000)

Alright, fair points...

However, let me just raise this :

vs. Support items are cheaper and more efficient than most other classes' items (maybe ADCs or tanks can compete on cost efficiency)

These two statements kinda contradict eachother... Why exactly is Sona, a support champion, being balanced around building a non-support item? ( at a stunning cost of 3200 gold...) Irrelevant of if the support budget sucks or not, it CANNOT and SHOULDN'T ever compete with a solo laner's budget, when you have a support who is being intently balanced around purchasing a AP Mid item there is something wrong with said support champion...

That was two separate points. The Lych bane point was about riot compensating (but still nerfing) AP Sona. When she does build it she rolls people. Yes, my wording sucked, I should have re-read it.

Sona inherently doesn't build normally. She gets piece items like item 3070 and item 3057 and sits on them, upping her mana pool and base damages through skill uptime and they don't end up on the analytics sites due to her rarely finishing the items.

There is also a bunch of contradicting design in her kit as well as Riot's approach to balancing her...

You get stacking spell CDR with your ult ranks but max rank Q W E cost a heck ton of mana ( 80 Q 100 W 65 E ) for it to be relevant with her spam fantasy while still having a minor impact spread across multiple people (when compared to other support abilities)

It legit feels like Riot doesn't exactly know what they want Sona to be...

Yeah, that's probably the main problem. She gets pulled in so many different directions. It's like Udyr; they have no clue how to balance them. When they do look at Sona it causes an upheaval in the playerbase like Karma so a lack of discussion happens, they bandage it up, ship it and then ignore it again.

There's a lot of stuff they could try. Her global cd used to be longer than 0.5s wayyyyy back in the day. If they went back to that they could adjust her overall cds and power budget accordingly since it would give opponents more leeway after she has used W or E. R rankup would decrease the lockout timer.

This sort of thing is the exact reason why i don't bother with Sona anymore... I used to play her during my climb through Plat but since she's basically been reduced to a Nerf-magnet whenever something she can abuse pops into the game, yeah... no thanks...

Maybe one day CertainlyT will be in charge of her rework but then again... seeing how he has a tendency to make kits that are only fun to play but super unfun to play against, yeah not so sure...

That would be hilarious. WW is really cool, and I think once Zoe's bubble is tuned to not be so... everything at once... she'll be more fair to face.

RedCycloneDec 2, 20174 votes

Lolalytic is displaying 52-53% Champ.gg has not updated the stats very well and that whole page is a mess, look at that "most common build"

The damage nerf isn't what bugs me, it's the mana part, it's going to make laning impossible because you can only cast 5 spells before you are forced to buy a Tear

Sona hasn't been looked at because she hasn't been a problem, even though during the Ardent meta she had a 54% winrate, she wasn't a massive offender mainly because Sona sucks at safeguarding ADC's, she just amplified the team in general and was extremely easy to use

AirKingNeoDec 2, 201714 votes

Who gives a shit about AP ratio? You need over 300 AP to make that back.

LostFr0stDec 2, 20174 votes

The change isn't intended as an overall buff. It's more than likely to help compensate those that don't just stack HP/Mana regen on her.

Daedric EtwahlDec 3, 20174 votes

But it IS a nerf to those that DON'T stack AP on her.

I want to build my support items and be a support to my team.

If I wanted to play another APC I'd play an actual Mage support like Zyra.

LostFr0stDec 3, 20172 votes

Yeah, it's MEANT to be a nerf. That's what a nerf is.

When she just stacks HP/HP regen/Mana regen she generally takes less positioning risks since she just spams. If they overnerf they can just buff it back with a hotfix or 7.22B.

You should be able to roll people on Sona, someone who just picks her up should not.

Daedric EtwahlDec 3, 20174 votes

Even if she can spam she's still squishy as heck, if someone gets onto her.

I want to support my team in the lategame by providing them with healing, shielding, and buffs.

The thing is Sona is already very weak during lane ohase, poke is all she has. These nerfs make her even worse during those first 10-15 minutes, which right now are the most important part of the game. How can I expect to properly reach the lategame if I can barely do anything in lane without eating up an entire fifth of my mana with one spell?

I build Tear, yes. I use Aery, yes. I take Spellthief's, bwcause I hate using Coin. But I don't want to be FORCED to use certain things. Sona has always been very versatile in what she can use, and being railroaded into certain things just feels awful, especially if those things end.up being big AP items that are just prohibitively expensive on a support's income budget.

LostFr0stDec 3, 20172 votes

So, let me ask you then:

Is is ok for her to have a baseline 53% WR just for picking her? Is it ok that with the right runes that climbs to baseline 55% without being a Sona player?

I don't think that's OK, and I think Riot needs to stop ignoring the real problem and add more skill expression to her kit so that the higher-elo Sonas can tap into it without her being more of a pubstomper.

Daedric EtwahlDec 3, 20176 votes

Sona is and has always been an easy champion. You shluldmt see instant siccess on an easy champion, but it's fine that they're, yknow, EASY.

The damage nerf is mildly annoying, but acceptable. But tacking on an asinine mana nerf on this already-mana-hungry champ on her single laning tool is just completely ridiculous.

LostFr0stDec 3, 20172 votes

There's a difference between an "easy champion" and a flat champion.

WW is an "easy champion" but he's got tricks up his sleeve. MF ---also easy-- but has stuff that makes her better after getting used to her kit. They even added skill expression to Amumu and Rammus for the same reason.

RedCycloneDec 3, 20175 votes

Dood just called Sona flat

chipndip1Dec 3, 20173 votes

{quoted}

So, let me ask you then:

Is is ok for her to have a baseline 53% WR just for picking her? Is it ok that with the right runes that climbs to baseline 55% without being a Sona player?

Her baseline Diamond win rates are comparable to Nami right now. The hell is all this?

I don't think that's OK, and I think Riot needs to stop ignoring the real problem and add more skill expression to her kit so that the higher-elo Sonas can tap into it without her being more of a pubstomper.

They won't. I've been saying this for a year or two now. They won't.

LostFr0stDec 3, 20171 votes

{quoted}

Her baseline Diamond win rates are comparable to Nami right now. The hell is all this?

I think Leona is a better comparison personally, but Nami will probably take Sona's place next patch you're right.

They won't. I've been saying this for a year or two now. They won't.

I wouldn't want to touch her kit either if I was them. Not good for their health. I take one peek at the rage reaction posts from the 6.14 rework attempt and cringe.

chipndip1Dec 3, 20172 votes

{quoted}

I think Leona is a better comparison personally, but Nami will probably take Sona's place next patch you're right.

I wouldn't want to touch her kit either if I was them. Not good for their health. I take one peek at the rage reaction posts from the 6.14 rework attempt and cringe.

The rage for the 6.14 mini rework?

Because, as I was saying time and time again, it did nothing to fix the issues that are causing unrest in the first place?

Sona takes way too much gold. Rework makes her more dependent on gold.
Sona needs exp way too much. Rework makes her more reliant on exp.
Sona has no skill expression. None added.
550 range is too dang close for someone to just be perpetually floating around at 325 MS. They had a build where her E would increase her AA range for a bit, then scrapped it.

Meanwhile a bunch of nobodies go "Man I want to play like URF SONA" and the moron made that the final build. Of course I'm fucking pissed at Riot for it. They listened to the lowest common denominator of players instead of people that actually wanted to move forward from that point and make the champion actually feel better and more rewarding to play.

LostFr0stDec 3, 20171 votes

{quoted}

The rage for the 6.14 mini rework?

The rage for even attempting a rework. Before the changelist was posted.

Because, as I was saying time and time again, it did nothing to fix the issues that are causing unrest in the first place?

Sona takes way too much gold. Rework makes her more dependent on gold.

Sona needs exp way too much. Rework makes her more reliant on exp.

Sona has no skill expression. None added.

550 range is too dang close for someone to just be perpetually floating around at 325 MS. They had a build where her E would increase her AA range for a bit, then scrapped it.

Not going to disagree there. Nobody has posted better yet though; something posted by Sona players that they would be able to unite behind I mean.

Meanwhile a bunch of nobodies go "Man I want to play like URF SONA" and the moron made that the final build. Of course I'm fucking pissed at Riot for it. They listened to the lowest common denominator of players instead of people that actually wanted to move forward from that point and make the champion actually feel better and more rewarding to play.

I don't know if it was actually the lowest common denominator or not. Maybe the number of Sonas that prefer the urf version now outnumber those that remember her "back in the day version;" If that's the case then yeah they should cater to them. We just don't have that data (us as players).

btw I think the boards broke now. Your reply may need to be linked to one of my earlier comments for me to get it.

Daedric EtwahlDec 3, 20172 votes

What's wrong with not building a lot of AP on Sona? I personally don't like building a lot of AP on her, I dont like taking Klepto either. The playstyle does not mesh with me at all. So instead I play a bit more safely in lane, only going for strong power chord pokes every now and then. I trade off some damage for my own safety.

The closest I come to building AP is Gathering Storm. I like having the choice of my rune instead of being deadlocked into Klepto and Scorch.

I don't want to be the one walking into auto range to try and burst down a squishy. My build hits plenty hard enough for me, and Sona's lategame fantasy of giving her team something to rally around and keeping them going through onslaughts is something I adore. By six items yeah I will have a Seraph's but that's just a little bonus that I get for.building Tear, which I get early. Now that Tear is going to be mandatory with those absurd mana nerfs.

DurzakaDec 2, 20172 votes

20 base damage nerf on a class that relies on base damage is fucking MASSIVE.

Zac lost 15 on his W during his rework, and it nearly gutted his clear time.

RedCycloneDec 2, 20174 votes

Leona isn't a jungler, her combo will still nuke you

DurzakaDec 2, 20171 votes

My point still stands.

20 damage nerf for someone who relies on base damage is a BIG fucking nerf.

20 damage early game is a solid 10% of her damage at level 3 just gone (less if you manage to proc 3 marks instead of 2 which is more likely).

If anyone else lost 10% of their combo potential, you would bet your ass that would be a big nerf.

101100111000Dec 3, 20174 votes

It's 20 base damage off of her W, don't act like they cut off 20 base damage off every single ability individually.

But if you seriously think that base damage is a big deal, then Sona losing 30 base damage on her only damaging ability must be a total gutting, right? Her Q officially has lower base damage than her autos.

Weiss GuertenaDec 3, 20174 votes

30-150 based on how many teammates you affect, actually. So way worse. And that's even without getting into crippling mana nerfs.

wolfiemanDec 2, 20177 votes

the other thing is u have to realize what her role is supposed to be, support, but when shes out damaging, healing, and can outrun anyone, she becomes overly strong in a lane that has no defense runes and usually the lowest hp champs. she often is solo carrying lanes and out damaging their own carry and end with more damage that most champs in the game.

RedCycloneDec 2, 201727 votes

That's just how Sona works, but you have to also realize that Sona takes time to kick in where most other supports have their kits potential work well earlygame, Sona has a pathetic heal and ms boost early, all she has is her poke that leads her open to getting bit back Take that poke away and you have nothing left to even attempt to get into scaling

chipndip1Dec 2, 20173 votes

{quoted}

the other thing is u have to realize what her role is supposed to be, support, but when shes out damaging, healing, and can outrun anyone, she becomes overly strong in a lane that has no defense runes and usually the lowest hp champs. she often is solo carrying lanes and out damaging their own carry and end with more damage that most champs in the game.

This post is actually horrible.

Z3SleeperDec 2, 20179 votes

That post is actually how my support main friend made Diamond. Fuck the ADC, YOU ARE the APC.

chipndip1Dec 2, 20172 votes

{quoted}

That post is actually how my support main friend made Diamond. Fuck the ADC, YOU ARE the APC.

If you're that brainwashed, go right ahead. You gotta pick your battles on the boards, ya know?

Z3SleeperDec 3, 20175 votes

https://imgur.com/YvoC3im

Brainwashed by what? I just told you this is an actual person that I am actually friends with that made it to diamond last season playing AP Sona.

All his other support winrates were ~45-55% winrates, nowhere near his Sona's 65% winrate.

You gotta pick your battles on the boards, ya know?

I nid a leeschDec 2, 20177 votes

Dude ,upvote that "those crucial 10 mins absolute hell for Sona and whatever unfortunate ADC has to lane with her" cracked me up good.

HikageyaDec 3, 20175 votes

Sona was in the top winrate supports since her recent rework.

Daedric EtwahlDec 3, 20172 votes

And nobody is asking for Riot to keep her overpowered, we just want to have an actual, playable lane phase.

The Yetii RiderDec 3, 20172 votes

Alright, I'm going to answer the question. I hope you actually listen instead of just behaving like your question was rhetorical all along.

The reason why Sona is getting nerfed swiftly and other champions are not is because with Sona the problem is very easy to identify. Sona is dealing too much damage with Summon: Aery. This has a lot to do with the reliability of her kit. Sona has always been a numbers kind of champion, and her numbers before the rune rework were tuned to basically make her appropriate to play against for most players. However, Summon: Aery has simply added damage to her kit, so she needs to have that damage lowered. This is why I am in general against the idea of base damage being in the game outside of kits (items, runes, etc) because then you have to balance around that damage combined with the kit and if the player chooses not to use the item or rune they end up with less damage than they are "supposed" to have.

So why doesn't this apply to the other champs? Let's take a look:

Leona - This one is tricky. Leona's buffs a while back were meant to help her actually successfully all-in champions who were out sustaining her with Windspeaker's Blessing. The removal of Windspeaker's from the game has impacted the early game of shielding champions a lot more than anyone was expecting, and Leona's bases were tuned around the existence of MR runes but not around Leona running penetration marks. So when everyone else who deals magic damage early lost penetration, Leona didn't, and everyone around her lost MR.

She's not entirely out of line, it's just been quite a while since she was strong and people have forgotten how to play against her. I do think she's dealing too much damage, but it's not the same as with Sona because with Leona you have to go in, commit, you can miss, etc.

Ezreal - The problem with Ezreal is not something that a nerf can fix. Ezreal is able to deal on-hit effects with his Mystic Shot. That is necessary for his balance, it is a huge part of his character. You can't have him deal 50% on-hit or 75% on-hit, it's either all or nothing. (Riot has recently introduced the idea of partial on-hit effects with Urgot's W, but I have no idea how that coding actually works or what it would look like with the Spellblade ability).

So Ezreal gets more gold early, he hits his power spike earlier, and then he is able to build more items quickly than other champions. But he's giving up damage to do this. Ezreal does not have Press the Attack, he does not have Electrocute, he does not have Summon: Aery or Lethal Tempo. So it's a fair trade. Honestly, considering the champion basically has 3 abilities instead of 4, this is an appropriate power level for him when he is played well. But more importantly, how do you even nerf this? Do you nerf the gold on Kleptomancy? That reduces the effectiveness of it for other champions. Do you increase the cost of Trinity Force? That hurts everyone else. Do you increase the cost of Manamune? Ezreal will build something different. It's not something that's easy to fix like "too much damage".

MissFortune - I feel your pain here, this one honestly feels like total bull shit. I was level 3 at 10 minutes in a game as a support against MF. I got fucking murdered by her every time I got close. I don't know why Riot is dragging their feet on this one, they were probably waiting to see if she would be more balanced after the Aery nerfs. It's probably about time for them to do something about her.

Assassins killing everyone quickly - That's their job. Literally days before the preseason people were bitching about marksmen being immortal. Now they're not. This is good for the game.

Daedric EtwahlDec 3, 20175 votes

I would really like to believe that the nerfs are just because Sona does too much damage with Aery, but then why in the micropatch at the start of the season did they nerf several things EXCEPT her damage? Her base armor, both her W bases? Sure her AD dropped slightly but that was barely the issue

The Yetii RiderDec 3, 20171 votes

I'm not sure why Riot nerfed Sona's armor.

As to why they nerfed her W bases, it's because of all the supports, Sona was the only one who was actually BUFFED by the replacement of Windspeaker's Blessing with Summon: Aery. Windspeaker's functioned as a percentage of a base, while Summon: Aery is a flat amount. In most cases, Windspeakers is significantly higher, but for Sona that was not the case because her bases are split in four, essentially. She got 10% healing on herself, 10% healing on her target, 10% shield on herself and 10% shield on her target, but each of those was only 120 barely at max rank. So she ended up getting around 48 effective health to two targets at max rank. Not very impressive.

Summon: Aery is a lot better for her, so her healing and shielding are more effective than previously, and they needed to be nerfed as a consequence.

Zone of EndlessDec 3, 20172 votes

[{quoted}](name=The Yetii Rider,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=OmG6N8rE,comment-id=000a00000000,timestamp=2017-12-03T01:31:38.313+0000)

I'm not sure why Riot nerfed Sona's armor.

As to why they nerfed her W bases, it's because of all the supports, Sona was the only one who was actually BUFFED by the replacement of Windspeaker's Blessing with Summon: Aery. Windspeaker's functioned as a percentage of a base, while Summon: Aery is a flat amount. In most cases, Windspeakers is significantly higher, but for Sona that was not the case because her bases are split in four, essentially. She got 10% healing on herself, 10% healing on her target, 10% shield on herself and 10% shield on her target, but each of those was only 120 barely at max rank. So she ended up getting around 48 effective health to two targets at max rank. Not very impressive.

Summon: Aery is a lot better for her, so her healing and shielding are more effective than previously, and they needed to be nerfed as a consequence.

I would love if they revert the mana nerf on PBE. I wouldn't mind the dmg nerf so much if it didn't cost her half her mana to do 2 spells.

Daedric EtwahlDec 3, 20175 votes

This exactly, Riot clearly has no clue what they're doing.

Weiss GuertenaDec 3, 20174 votes

To answer your question the only way I know: Riot has no fucking idea what they are doing with Sona, as they have proven repeatedly.

waiting for WoWDec 3, 20171 votes

The patch was already finalized days ago that means no matter how much you disagree, Riot won't revert previous changes without an extremely good reason to.

Sona deserves every change she is getting. No other champion has been allowed to consistently sit at 52-54% for an entire season and then get even more obnoxious throughout the next preseason.