I don't really see Sona being overpowered, but even else seems to, and I'm really interested into hearing why.
EDIT : I'm asking a legit question, I don't see reason for downvotes.
7dTmfTn8nw10 votesSona is the definition of glass cannon. She doesn't have an escape after engaging other than her R -> E -> run combo. She cannot turn untargetable/invisible like some champs. She will always be there for your to farm.
Because people love to keep pushing against poke champs down in bot lane, Sona gets to poke you down to hell. Playing passively (I mean lasthitting but not pushing) and thus NOT letting her poke you down will cause their lane to push. Ask for a gank and viola! Sona is too squishy; she has to back off using Flash against a good gank because in bot lane against a Sona, you don't focus the enemy ADC but on Sona because it is much much easier. She will die before her ADC can deal a decent damage to anyone. Farm her for some free gold and take advantage of the difference in numbers to push minions into tower.
Many people think Sona is too dangerous to engage on but it is the opposite; Sona cannot escape from a good engage. You could even engage with a squishy support to end up by killing her, but not dying as well.
Junkο1 votesVeigar
LastNameIceCream8 votesStep 1.) Use high move speed to get in max range of enemy Step 2.) Bash your face on keyboard Step 3.) Use high move speed to get out of max range enemy Step 4.) Profit?
Pika3106 votesShe's not OP, this is just the propaganda that Riot and specific individuals who don't play Sona want you to believe. Just look at the numbers and 21 nerfs yourself and anyone with basic understanding of this game will be disgusted at how trashy and under-tuned her entire kit has become.
She has the shortest spell range amongst the mage-support class at 350 units, 2nd lowest being 500 units, 43% longer and most spells sitting around ~850 range, give or take. Being tied with Taric's 2 damage spells and Leona's Q for lowest base damage at 40, Sona has the 2nd lowest max potential trading damage amongst the support class, 2nd only to Braum. The heal and shield are the weakest, most expensive and lowest duration in the game. She lacks a dash and is tied for the weakest MS boos and has the lowest base MS in the game at 325. She has the least pre-6 CC of the support class and is only 1 of 2 lacking hard pre-6 CC. All whilst being amongst the top 10 squishiest champions in the game and being forced to rely on average attack-range at only 550.
The fact that Crescendo isn't 100 base mana at all ranks, whence every other support was generalized to this well over a year ago is inherent proof Riot biasedly hates Sona and intentionally wishes for her failure. They purposefully created a bad rework and are following it up with repeated nerfs since her pick-rate hasn't dropped to 0% yet. In total, Sona's current number of nerfs since July 30th to date stand at 21 and counting.
Byrnes5 votesWhile @LastNameIceCream's analysis is quite - for lack of a better word - simple, it I think pretty much describes the essence of it. She has decently high lane poke on top of a short cool down heal/shield. Yes she can be countered, yes she has weaknesses, but overall her play style is high rewards for high safety.
Usually the counterpoint here is that "well if you jump on her..." and when should that be done, because unless you engage and beat her at level 1, she is now in control of her lane at level 2. There are a good many things that can be done to reduce her effectiveness in lane, but the matter of fact is it shouldn't be a "find a way to counter her or die trying" situation. Every other aggro support the solution is just to position well and poke down upon failed aggro, but with Sona doing that means you've now lost up to 25% of your life.
AquariusGine5 votesWhile @LastNameIceCream's analysis is quite - for lack of a better word - simple, it I think pretty much describes the essence of it. She has decently high lane poke on top of a short cool down heal/shield. Yes she can be countered, yes she has weaknesses, but overall her play style is high rewards for high safety.
Usually the counterpoint here is that "well if you jump on her..." and when should that be done, because unless you engage and beat her at level 1, she is now in control of her lane at level 2. There are a good many things that can be done to reduce her effectiveness in lane, but the matter of fact is it shouldn't be a "find a way to counter her or die trying" situation. Every other aggro support the solution is just to position well and poke down upon failed aggro, but with Sona doing that means you've now lost up to 25% of your life.
Everything you said makes sense. Does that essentially mean her rework failed?
Tin Tarantino2 votesIt's more like the rework was only done half way, her passive should have been updated to better fit her updated kit, here is a suggestion for that http://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/gameplay-balance/abXPdY0E-riot-an-open-letter-on-fostering-a-healthy-playstyle-for-sona
agbudar4 votesthen your tea, fucks up and she will be useless for the rest of the game.
BallisticMouse3 votesHigh Rewards for High Saftey...
That does sound familiar
But yeah lets nerf Sona!
Byrnes3 votesEverything you said makes sense. Does that essentially mean her rework failed?
Like many have said, it really does feel like they shifted her power into Q and then left her with a huge safety net for when/if she overextends in lane. I personally like the way they changed her up, but yeah I think she still maybe lacks direction. W, E, and R are all lack luster utility based skills, meanwhile she has a overtuned (to use @Rebonack's phrasing) Q which when paired with AP or Lich Bain becomes just stupid.
then your tea, fucks up and she will be useless for the rest of the game.
Right, yes, but I could argue that is the same result we'd see with any mage-based support. Perhaps this is increasingly true of Sona though, since her kit is so utility based.
High Rewards for High Saftey...
But yeah lets nerf Sona!
I think this falls under Riot's inability to make a proper display of the information they are giving us. It would mean less to everyone if the PBE notes read more along the lines of "we understand particular assassins are coming across rather strong right now, but as of right now we aren't too sure which direction we should take the changes we intend to make for them. So, for the time being, please understand that we understand" and then ALSO they had to do some minor balancing tweaks with champions who aren't as much a problem. I don't think the problem is that Riot doesn't know particular champions are problematic, I think the problem is that they do but they don't know how to fix them...but they can't just halt the rest of game balancing in the meantime.
VDc0zCqe0w5 votes"high rewards for high safety", what the fuck...
poke champions are never high rewarding, the highest reward you would get from poking is winning lane by +30 cs at most if the opponent was playing with 2 hands, but you won't get to kill them
in fact, all-in champions are "high reward", Sona and Soraka are "low risk, low reward", Leona is "high risk, high reward"
then there's broken Thresh wich is "low risk high reward" but that's another story
it's like saying that Ziggs is safe and rewarding, lol no, he won't oneshot you putting himself at risk, he will poke you slowly and get objectives, that's not high reward
Byrnes1 votes"high rewards for high safety", what the fuck...
poke champions are never high rewarding, the highest reward you would get from poking is winning lane by +30 cs at most if the opponent was playing with 2 hands, but you won't get to kill them
in fact, all-in champions are "high reward", Sona and Soraka are "low risk, low reward", Leona is "high risk, high reward"
then there's broken Thresh wich is "low risk high reward" but that's another story
it's like saying that Ziggs is safe and rewarding, lol no, he won't oneshot you putting himself at risk, he will poke you slowly and get objectives, that's not high reward
I'll wait until you're done being condescending and angry :)
VDc0zCqe0w4 votesshe is simply not high rewarding, i don't understand why you say she is, she doesn't oneshot people or all-in them as hard as let's say, Leona
Byrnes1 votesshe is simply not high rewarding, i don't understand why you say she is, she doesn't oneshot people or all-in them as hard as let's say, Leona
Leona can be kited back and ultimately avoided. Sona takes two steps forward, shields herself, presses Q, and then the enemy adc has lost a chunk of health. For free. Yeah, she can be punished, but not nearly on a 1-to-1 ratio as she just punished you. Which, mind you, will happen again in only a few more seconds. And if you did punish her through poke, she will have healed it back by the next go around. I realize this isn't a huge advantage, like you said at most it is a 30 cs lead at high level play, but also at high level play we're talking 30cs X 20g = 600g lead for just their adc, not even including whatever money Sona got from the consistent harass. That's a big number at higher ELOs to be behind with.
VDc0zCqe0w2 votesproblem with all that is that she doesn't scale hard into lategame, you don't need to win lane vs Sona since she got terribad AP ratios, bad cooldowns, and her skills aren't high reward
she got the ult, but that's it
she is the strongest laning support along with Nami, but post-lane she is not that good compared to let's say Janna who scales really well
i mean you're basically complaining that a support that is made to win lane...wins lane
Byrnes1 votesproblem with all that is that she doesn't scale hard into lategame, you don't need to win lane vs Sona since she got terribad AP ratios, bad cooldowns, and her skills aren't high reward
she got the ult, but that's it
she is the strongest laning support along with Nami, but post-lane she is not that good compared to let's say Janna who scales really well
i mean you're basically complaining that a support that is made to win lane...wins lane
Well, I'm not complaining at all. OP asked for an analysis and I gave one, the one that I'm assuming Riot is going with because that is what makes sense. She is strong in lane. One of the strongest. But past that she is nothing. I believe Riot wants to tweak her laning, which is what I'm assuming a small decrease in her MS does since, let's face it, late game that 5 MS means nothing between her upgraded boots and activated speed boost. Does she need tweaking? I think the answer is ultimately yes. Should she be a top priority or one at all? Probably not. But I'm not trying to prove that she is broken, because she isn't, but it is a harder time than it is against most supports in soloQ because she doesn't require as much adc interaction to get her job done, compared to say Leona or Thresh. Personally I think they need to siphon power off of her Q and give her more utility shifted towards mid to late game presence.
OJ1914 votesbut with Sona doing that means you've now lost up to 25% of your life.
and then you fight back and do 50% or more of her life, because if you're playing a tanky support she has half your health, and even if you aren't she's squishier than you are.
I say this as someone who has never played sona and hardly plays bot lane, but every single time I have been sent to adc we just do one rotation and she loses half or more of her health.
Raptamei1 votesWhile @LastNameIceCream's analysis is quite - for lack of a better word - simple, it I think pretty much describes the essence of it. She has decently high lane poke on top of a short cool down heal/shield. Yes she can be countered, yes she has weaknesses, but overall her play style is high rewards for high safety.
Usually the counterpoint here is that "well if you jump on her..." and when should that be done, because unless you engage and beat her at level 1, she is now in control of her lane at level 2. There are a good many things that can be done to reduce her effectiveness in lane, but the matter of fact is it shouldn't be a "find a way to counter her or die trying" situation. Every other aggro support the solution is just to position well and poke down upon failed aggro, but with Sona doing that means you've now lost up to 25% of your life.
She has no use past the laning phase other than to press R unlike Thresh etc. Lane is not all that matters.
Rebonack5 votesShe isn't overpowered.
I like saving the term overpowered for champions that are actually warping the game in a negative way.
Sona is just overtuned (lol music pun).
Check how much damage her Q OnHit deals when you take into account the fact that her whole team gets it.
BallisticMouse2 votesShe supports the team, I like it.
I am speaking as a Sona main though, she could definitely use tweaking but the word nerf scares me of what they'll do to her.
Vesarixx2 votesHoping they take this as a consideration http://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/gameplay-balance/abXPdY0E-riot-an-open-letter-on-fostering-a-healthy-playstyle-for-sona
Diostukos5 votesShe isn't overpowered.
I like saving the term overpowered for champions that are actually warping the game in a negative way.
Sona is just overtuned (lol music pun).
Check how much damage her Q OnHit deals when you take into account the fact that her whole team gets it.
To be honest, a lot of her kit is only good on paper. Her auras are extremely short for the bonuses they provide; a lesser sheen proc and a tiny shield that is only good if you build ap (still, it only lasts 1.5 seconds). Unless you want to be wombo'd easily, it's better not to have your teammates surround you at 350 range.
But in my opinion, Sona's the least of Botlane's problems, even if her poke can seem annoying if you get scared of her and don't try to trade back.
------------------------------Pick Rate / Win Rate / Ban Rate
-----------------10.06%----- 52.78%------ 0.22%
------------------22.1%---------52.1%----------2.96%
-----------------26.2%---------52.94%-------0.68%
-----------------15.75%--------54.01%-------17.34%
As you can see, a lot of supports are able to have much higher pick-rates/ban-rates while maintaining the same or greater winrate than Sona.
f00G3MxfPP5 votesImo she was not very good before the nerfs. Riot just doesn't like early game poke and has been nerfing all of them. I don't really understand why early game poke is op, why there isn't any compensation for the early poke nerfs, why they are giving the reason that the nerfs are for reducing anti-fun and snowball (when all-ins are much more effective than poke for early game snowball), or why they decided to nerf sona even more. I'm honestly not sure what riot has been thinking these few couple of patches. Sona, mana regen, not touching assassins, indirectly buffing resourceless, making jungle an inconsequential role, etc. I'm not a sona player myself as I think she sucks. There's only so much utility you can bring as a support when your only hard cc is your ultimate (kat ulti is not on cooldown but mine is, 30 seconds later... pentakill!) and you have no hard melee peel (besides a little extra movespeed for your adc). If shields or heals or slows or move speed is needed, there are item actives for that, but no item active gives hard cc.
Junkο4 voteseverybody else =/= Riot
balbraaksel4 votesI think the perfect opponent against Sona is Nunu support. Hit a snowball, speed up yourself and the ADC, for as long as she's slowed you move closer. If the slow has ended, use ultimate. And she's just dead, if done right not even a flash would save her.
PrinceOfStorms3 votesIt's not so much that she's overpowered, and more that there isn't a whole lot of skill potential in her kit.
A Wild AP Sona7 votesIt's not so much that she's overpowered, and more that there isn't a whole lot of skill potential in her kit.
wrong
FatesDefiler2 votesthe smartest thing you can do most of the time in the game is to sit back, play safe, and subtly help your team as much as possible. sona is the easiest character who does that the most effectively.
SmokingPuffin2 votesI'm not super sold that Sona is OP.
Sona is strong because she has really impressive trading power in lane and an awesome ultimate for teamfights. In particular, if you get good at using Sona's AA reset on power chord, you can absolutely chunk people. Sona's new W is quite powerful in scramble situations where everyone in the lane is low. She can sustain up from 20% to 60% quite quickly. Combine these two effects and you have a champion that can reasonably expect to win almost every lane.
In teamfights, Sona is still mostly a walking ult, but her new E does enable easier catches.
Jeddy0171 votesI don't know why she's "overpowered",but apparently the tools & data Riot has says she is & that she provide no room for counterplay. I don't know,she doesn't seem overpowered (when I run into a Sona).I should know,Sup & adc are my most played roles.Sure she can be annoying,but it's not like she controls the lane (unless they are winning lane).
This was just my experience with a support Sona.There could be issues with mid Sona or ARAM Sona.I imagine ARAM Sona is a problem when they got a poke comp,though that's more like the "team comp wins the game " problem rather than a "Sona is OP" problem.
Done251 votesQ - Long range undodgeable poke with a fast cast. W - The perfect lane sustain with a sheild to counter burst. E - Speed boost means she can engage and disengage at will R - If she and her partner are ahead they can kill you everytime this thing comes up.
7dTmfTn8nw5 votesQ - Long range undodgeable poke with a fast cast. W - The perfect lane sustain with a sheild to counter burst. E - Speed boost means she can engage and disengage at will R - If she and her partner are ahead they can kill you everytime this thing comes up. [{quoted}]
Her Q pushes lane. Don't stay within its area and itll be just fine. W - Did you ever check the mana costs? When Sona needs to use this, you are winning lane. By large. E is probably the most annoying with low cost and its aura letting the team roam efficiently. It also means Sona will overextend and reach your killing range faster. Don't miss it and you get a free kill rather easily. If you followed instructions and let her push, Sona will never get to earn an advantage on you.
FantasySniper1 votesIndividually for her abilities: Her [Q] is undodgeable and won't care if you burn flash or dashes trying to not get hit by it. Her [W] makes it difficult to trade and out-poke her. Her [E] gives a fair amount of MS and that can be used any number of ways. Her [R] is almost instant and thus practically undodgeable, capable of stunning a whole team. Her passive's utility is strong, especially since it will be up so often. She becomes stronger and stronger as the progresses, so her early phase barely compares to her power in the late game. Her auras scale with AP and CDR, making them even more effective in team situations, and there is no limit to how many benefit.
Let's move on to her item synergy: Ardent Censer lets her [W] proc the attack speed for the entire team, on top of the initial heal. Lich Bane makes her [Q] pack a wallop, and will make building her as an APC hurt. Aegis of the Legion makes her [W] more efficient.
Due to her playstyle, her only counters are to pick the hard-engage tank supports Thresh, Blitz, Leona, or go with Braum and block all of her damage. Annie can maybe punish her, too, but that's more of a skill-matchup. Trying to counter her alone doesn't really help since her greatest strength is working with her team, and a smart Sona does not stray from her team for too long, so picking her off is difficult without wasting everything only to have to deal with her carries right afterwards.
When directly comparing her to another support, they likely have to land skillshots or manage a more convoluted method of using an ability. At 100% potential and accuracy, Nami and Karma can and will surpass her, but since you can't land all of your skillshots or always proc off the secondary effects of your spells and make it worthwhile because of the enemy team's reflexes or through your own error, Sona's consistency and simplicity stays superior.
Need it any more in-depth? No, I will not be providing a tl;dr.
