Sona

Bârd··2 votes·735 views

She just feels really weak as of right now.

Stats: Despite being immobile, she has 325 movement speed and one of the lowest health pools.

Passive: The Passive-Q used to deal great damage. Her rework lowered the bonus damage multiplier to 50% instead of doubling it, and it currently increases the damage by 40%. Passive-W is great: % damage reduction is always powerful Passive-E is Sona's only source of Crowd Control besides her ultimate. It is a mediocre single target slow.

Q: The initial damage is fine, but the aura is a bit underwhelming. Maybe if it gave everyone in the area damage on every auto, it would work a bit better.

W: A tiny heal for a massive mana cost. 105 health for 100 mana, with the multiplier bringing it up to 165 health for someone on the verge of death. The shield is pretty strong, though, just because of how she can use it on several people.

E: This spell is a joke. A low base speedup that only improves by 1% per rank. Cmon. It is a waste of Mana.

R: an AOE stun is always going to be powerful.

So, sona is pretty much a shitty Nami at this point

Nami speed: 60+20% AP (or 120 (+40% AP)) Sona speed: 13-23% (+7.5% per 100 AP) (for allies, 10-20 (+3.5% per 100 ap)) (The max speed requires max points in E and R) Nami wins

Nami CC: 1.5 second (admittedly difficult to land) AOE stun/suspension on a moderate cooldown , 15-35% slow (+5% per 100 ap) for up to 3 seconds if you time the autos correctly (or 1 second on 3 targets), and an AOE knockup+50-70% slow for up to 4 seconds Sona CC: 40% (+4% per 100 ap) slow for 2 seconds, 1.5 second AOE stun (Easy to hit, but long cooldown), as well as some damage mitigation Nami wins (Damage reduction is strong though)

Nami Heal: 65-185 (+30% AP) for 70-130 mana, but the heal can bounce to heal allies up to twice (fun fact, the more AP Nami has, the less the heal/damage decays on bounces, and once you get over 200 ap, the heal/damage increases) Sona Heal: 30-110 (+20% AP) to sona and an ally, increasing by 0.5% for each 1% the targets missing HP. Additionally shields nearbly allies for 35-155 (+20% AP)(max shield requires max ranks in W and R) Nami wins on the heal, but Sona shield is admittedly strong

Nami damage: max total for one rotation is 1325.5 damage (+262.5% AP) 295 (+ 50% AP)+ 230 (+50% AP)+ 195.5(+42.5% AP) +255 (+60% AP) + 350 (+60% AP) (note, the third value will have its base and scaling increase with Nami's AP) Sona damage: max total for one rotation (with no allies) is 1034 is (+148% AP), increased to 1434 (+228% AP) if she has four other allied champions near her who proc the onhit damage from Q. 384 (+28% AP) + 200 (+50% AP) + 100-500 (+20-100% AP) + 350 (+50% AP) About even, but Sona wins here due to how her damage is easier to pull off (R-Q-PowerChord compared to Q-W-E-Auto-R-Auto-Auto) and how her Q can be spammed.

Final score, Nami 3, Sona 1.

Tl;dr Can sona get a few buffs to her numbers? E is worthless right now and W costs too much for a small heal.

5 Comments

Cosmic Cocaine1 votes

I saw a Sona get a triple off an ult today.

Shikigami1 votes

I'm inclined to agree with your main point, sona's weak and nami is just a superior version of her. The biggest issue with your balance is the fact that sona is a "gimp" champion. Compare her with the old gangplank. His Q was his entire kit and a super powerful tool that does not miss and applies on-hit effects. To balance, riot couldn't buff any of his other abilities without making him too powerful. Reducing his Q damage would make him worthless, increasing his W and E after that would just require more time for him to actually do damage (Suppose an E AD increase, he would only have that small span of time to do meaningful damage).

Biggest issue with sona right now is that her Q requires little skill to actually land and does a metric fuckton of damage. Around mid-game, you could fire an un-dodgeable 1 shot to any squishy carry anywhere near you. Putting any more power in the rest of her kit (minus her ult, which is also pretty good), would make her way too powerful (and please, I'm an ADc main ... I don't want her to one shot me AND heal her allies to full hp in one ability AND let her have a free engage every fer seconds). They solved the GP problem by making him harder to play and skillshot.. but I think what people like about sona is her easy playability -- and I'm inclined to agree, we need some easy champions in the game (Warwick, Annie, Sona).

A Wild AP Sona1 votes

[deleted]

Shikigami1 votes

I don't think I'll be killing myself. Now let's talk about Sona some more. Sona players normally max Q first, that being said, let's do some math. On champion.gg, the highest win% runes contain AP Quints and AP Reds, considering the first item you buy is spelltheifs edge, that comes to a total of 30.11 AP = 30 AP. Since Sona Q has a base of 40 damage with 50% AP scalings, mixed with her powerchorded autoattack, it does 40(+20) + 13 +(6) = 79 damage, which might I remind you is level 1 and undodgeable AND not considering the added on-hit damage she gets from her Q.

I very highly doubt soraka and nami do that much damage with their entire kit at level 1, and all of their damage (minus nami E) is skillshot based.

I don't know why you're so apprehensive. I just gave my opinion, no need for you to ask me to suicide for it.

Kivolan1 votes

...I have like an 80% win rate as Sona support.

Honestly, I think she's fine... If anything I would like to see a bit more movement speed for her E, but all in all I don't seem to have many problems with her.

More from Gameplay

More by Bârd