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@Fearless: After giving the Sona rework some time to sink in . . .

ratcharmer·9/2/2014, 11:22:39 PM·47 votes·24,402 views

Earlier when I expressed doubts about the Sona rework Fearless asked me to give it a couple of weeks. I tried to see the positives in this rework man, I really tried.

First off, yes, I'm gonna cite statistics about post-rework Sona. Don't take my word for them, look for yourself http://www.lolking.net/champions/sona&region=all&map=sr&queue=1x1&league=diamond#statistics

Here's my major take-away points about the rework:

  • After the dust has settled Sona's win % is significantly down from what it was before. Especially at higher-level play.
  • Every time a champion has a major change there's a massive spike in the amount of play that champions sees (as people test out the changes). In this case, however, the change-induced popularity died off really fast. To my mind this means that people tried out the rework and, in most cases, quickly decided they did not like new Sona.
  • Unless I've missed something (I may have, I don't follow esports very closely), Sona is still not seeing any play at all at a competitive level.

On some slightly less objective notes:

  • New Sona is even more team dependent than old Sona was, and causes a lot of awkward/frustrating situations where the Sona player is sitting there going "we could be doing so much better if my ADC would just take one step closer to me!" This feels terrible for the Sona player--the outcome of most of his/her plays is more dependent on the skill of the rest of the team than on Sona's skill.
  • Some of Sona's skills are now really unclear/awkward on how to optimally use them:
  • Her heal/shield. A shield is generally best when put on early in an engagement (so it absorbs the max amount of damage) but her heal is clearly most beneficial when used late in an engagement (increased heal by missing hp %). But Sona always procs the heal before (or simultaneously) the shield. Thus you can never get the full benefit out of the skill.
  • Her speed boost. It seems like this would be good to use so you can "tag" others with auras more easily, but you can't easily use the other auras and the speed boost at the same time. Awkward.

Changes I would suggest:

  • Buff her base move speed. This will make 'tagging' allies easier and generally make her less team-dependent.
  • Return at least some of her early damage.
  • I would be willing to give up the passive ability on her ult. It's a great skill without the passive. Right now she just feels like half a character pre-6.
  • Please, for the love of all that is cute and fuzzy, do NOT create 'tank Sona'

Naturally not everything is bad, and not everyone dislikes it as much as I do. I'm still quite happy to see Sona's ult now has a graphic that actually matches the hitbox. I'm sure that if this topic generates discussion we'll see at least one person weighing in to say they like new Sona.

110 Comments

HowPlayGAEM9/3/2014, 2:16:03 PM15 votes

Its not just her winrate, her pickrate at all levels, not just the pro level, has been steadily declining after the rework.

No surprise really, she feels awful to play for various reasons, the most annoying ones which you stated; Her W and E.

Like you said, W's dual purpose is awkward, because its both a sustain and clutch spell, and those two are direct opposites of each other. It doesn't increase Sona's decision making, its just bad design. The heal is 1k range, but the aura is 350. So you can heal someone at range, but you can't shield them. On top of that, the shield effect is incredibly weak for a late-game spell; 150 health shield at level 18 for 1.5 seconds is laughably trivial. The increased cooldown also hurts.

E is also bad, and it was a massive nerf. Yes they improved the early levels, but at what cost? it used to be a 1k range speed buff, now its 350. The cooldown was increased by a whopping 5 seconds, but the ability itself still only lasts 1.5 seconds.

Additionally, Sona is very fragile both in-game and thematically, so it is against her design to have only a 350 range effect. A significant part of my frustration stems from the fact that many times when I was tagging allies for speed to run away or to give them a shield, the enemy decided to kill me first instead. So I'm forced to build tanky on a non-tank champ.

Also yes, her speed. Tagging moving allies is stupid, so I'm usually forced to get the boots of swiftness with the alacrity upgrade.

After seeing Riot ignore all the PBE feedback, plus the Live feedback thread, I don't even feel like suggesting anything just so Riot will ignore it. They only care about their own ego; if they didn't think of it, then it simply won't happen, regardless of balance or game health.

**TL;DR ** - Sona needed a rework, but this one sucks, as proven by declining pickrate across all skill levels and nearly nonexistant pickrate in pro play.

RiotFearless9/4/2014, 5:23:14 AM15 votes

Hey all, just wanted to hop in here and say that I have read this post and have been thinking about what next steps Sona needs or can support. Initial thoughts are that while Sona is slightly less successful, she's still very much on the winning side, so justification for straight buffs is pretty weak.

Usability changes are still something I'm very much interested in attempting, but finding ones that don't increase her power dramatically may take some extra time. I can't commit to anything, but I did want to let everyone know that we've still been talking about Sona, and we do want to make sure she's satisfying, even if she's not in need of straight buffs.

Sonaring9/4/2014, 3:41:10 PM11 votes

Ever since the change I have been less motivated to play her for several reasons.

#1. Her damage output is less satisfying than the previous Sona #2. Her cooldowns have completely ruined Sona #3. Other supports just outclass her by far. (Nami's W, Thresh hook, Leona initiate) #4. There just seems to be no use for her at this meta. She gets outsustained, outdamaged, outganked. #5. Her range on her Q have been nerfed and it is stupid to be poking the opponent adc/support without getting punished.

The pickrates and the winrates clearly show what an utter failure this change has come to.

I am really dissapointed by these nerfs. She is even more of a weaker character pre-6. By the time she hits 6 there's already action going on but there isn't much Sona can influence.

Her ult damage is weak, her Q damage is weak, powercord is weak.

The only thing that's worth mentioning is maybe her boobs got a buff.

Sir ArmaMalum9/3/2014, 12:39:50 AM10 votes

I barely played Sona pre-rework and have yet to play her post, so I cannot in good conscious weigh in with my own opinion.

But I do want to thank you for a genuinely constructive and well-explained opinion, and on top of that you provided ideas for solution that didn't include "change everything back" or "just....do it better". While I know you're not the only one to do this, it's always refreshing to see and I always want to give praise for that. Thank you.

Klubhouse9/3/2014, 12:53:38 AM9 votes

Hello!

So I can't really say anything specific about Sona because I've only played her a few times when I was just starting out, and I haven't even picked her up post-rework.

but that doesn't mean that I don't know anything about Sona. I've read quite a bit of posts by players and lots of feedback regarding this rework and I see a common thread among them. The idea that the range on Sona's aura's puts her an awkward spot where she has to get too close to her teammates in order to contribute to a fight. Getting too close puts her in prime range for an assassin or to be bursted down seeing as how she's so squishy. (That I do know about Sona.)

I have an idea, one that I encourage people to chew on. The concept of Echoes.

She's all sound based right? using her notes and songs to empower her teammates to fight harder in the battle? Why not enable her chords to "Echo" out? This would dramatically increase her aura range at the cost of diminishing returns over distance. Want to give a teammate a powerful buff? run right up to them and jam it out. Behind in the game and need to hang back? That's okay, you can't get off any powerful chords but you can still float around in the back line, letting the echoing chords still apply a buff (albeit, weaker)

I feel that this would offer a nice risk/reward aspect to Sona.

She could risk running up to the front lines to try and tag her teammates with a powerful buff at close range. Or she could choose safety and let the echoes reach her teammates. Either way, it also solves another common problem that I see with the feedback: That Sona's feel utterly useless when the aura's don't land. Echoes would make landing aura's "easy" but landing them "well" would be a different story and allow skillful use of "snuggle" zones and "Echo" zones.

feedback is welcome, I'm not going to suggest specific numbers because I'm not qualified for that but I hope I got the imagination tanks flowing

Origami Kaiju9/3/2014, 8:05:13 PM3 votes

I've been playing Sona 4 or 5 times a day (leveling up a LAN account) since the rework. I think sona could use several buffs -

Hymn of Valor - It's still possible to do good damage with this spell early game, but the range was decreased from 700-650. It doesn't sound like a lot, but it actually is problematic for a few reasons. You have to get close to the enemy and therefor a lot closer to their minion wave. If you want to poke, you will almost surely have to follow q with a w just to negate the minion aggro. Also, it is a lot harder to get the Hymn of valor to hit both enemy champions. Mostly it will hit 1 enemy, and a minion (or worse, just hit minions ). The cooldown was increased by 1 second, which isn't that bad.

Aria of Preseverance - The early heal was nerfed to 25 from 40, but it's supposed to be redeemed by the fact that the more wounded you or an ally are, the more it will heal. Although given Sona's incredibly low base health (and the general squishyness of most adc's) you don't want to be sitting around bot lane with 1/3 health. The mana cost at rank 1 is 70, which is really high, considering the base heal is only 25 for you and an ally. The cooldown was increased from 7 to 10 seconds. The biggest problem with the heal is it's active shield duration. !.5 seconds, it's one of the shortest shields in the game.

**Song of celerity **- To be honest, pre-rework you wouldn't take this until after 6, but now you might want take it at 4. Positioning is now more important for sona than ever, but her base movement speed is among the slowest in the game. Granted, late game once you get cdr or mobi boots (plus lichbane or ardent cencer) you feel okay from a mobile perspective, but this ability does not feel very strong for speeding up allies.

**TLDR **I think the following buffs are necessary for Sona to be up to par with top tier supports -

**Increase the range of Q back to 700 from 650. Lower cooldown of W to 8 seconds from 10, lower mana cost to 65 from 70, and increase shield duration to 3 seconds from 1.5 Increase Sona's base movement speed from 330 to 340. **