I was going to make a thread on this, but it's probably better to keep feedback in one place, so I'll put this here.
If even after all this ideation and experimentation the passive still proves to be a dud, we would can it. It's true some people really don't like it, but I think that's exacerbated by a general distaste for the rework, how ive been poorly engaged with the community, and Cassiopeia's overall weak state. So im trying to solve all those problems first and isolate the passive as the only variable, while simultaneously trying to improve it.
But yes, while we have high hopes yet, we won't keep something in the game thats universally hated.
This is a comment from Stashu from his "Latest on Cassiopeia" thread. This is the comment that I think really needs to be held to with regard to Sona.
From the Sona rework summary:
Essentially, we took Sona to the update board because we saw a unique opportunity to make her more rewarding and more fun. She wasn’t terribly strong or weak, but her kit clearly lacked high moments and overall satisfaction. We wanted to keep her theme as it was and retain her awesome Crescendo while giving her basic abilities a more visible and tangible impact. Oh, and if we could sneak in some fancy texture updates in the process (and we could!), then all the better.
So what’s changed? Well, Sona’s gameplay now revolves more around moments of power. Instead of hanging back and winning a war of attrition during laning, Sona’s now got the kit to power up her allies and save their lives when a fight turns against them. Auras are smaller and more visible now, so getting the most of them requires great positional awareness for Sona and coordination with her allies. This allows us to reward great play with much more impact for each of her songs. You’ll be able to make plays as Sona, earn your team kills and save lives with clutch ability casts and smart positioning. At the same time, the enemy team has larger windows to fight back in thanks to her longer cooldowns, adding in clarity and counterplay to Sona’s kit. We can't wait to see what players can do with her update.
To start I'll ignore the more fun business because that's subjective. Personally I thought she was a lot of fun before. More rewarding is easy to touch on though. If she's more rewarding, similar actions should have more effect. To counter that, the actions were made more difficult to accomplish. (350 range aura instead of 1000 and shorter effect durations) So, are Sona's abilities more rewarding?
Power cord scaling is identical. Both per level and the AP ratio is the same.
Q:
The base ability damage took a nerf, staccato damage took a massive nerf (It's even getting nerfed again in the current PBE cycle), and the break even point for the on-hit damage assuming max rank Q and R is 5 auto attacks, but that ignores the fact that it no longer boosts ability use at all. So AP and AD casters don't get benefit to their abilities anymore. Only AAs. It also ignores the difficulty of use. It's nothing to fit your whole team in 1000 range, I don't even think it's possible to fit a whole team in the 350 range aura, in practical play. Additionally, R2 Q used to be worth a full set of AD marks, which would help ADC last hitting a great deal. Current Sona doesn't have that potential.
Summary: All effects are lesser, while additionally being more difficult to actually utilize to their fullest potential. There is no possible way this could be considered more rewarding.
W:
Heal is stronger at ranks 4 and 5, and more effective on damaged allies. Shield can provide similar effective health points, with high AP, but has half duration. At max rank W with max R and assuming 320AP (Generous I think) Shield will give 209 x (1 + (Target armor/100)) EHP for 1.5s Activating old W would give Target Health x .2 EHP for 3s and Target Health x .1 EHP for as long as Sona stayed in that stance. Meaning old W's mitigation scaled more with champion levels and ally items then Sona's items which was great for a gold starved support.
Summary: The healing could be either way, old or new. Yes you can currently "Make plays" with a boosted heal, but the mitigation trade is definitely not in Sona's Favor. Similar mitigation values at high AP, requires strong itemization from Sona to be as effective, and drastically lesser duration on the full effect make this another ability that cannot be considered more rewarding. Looks flashy, but provides dramatically lesser effect.
E:
Buff to Sona, nerf to allies and minions. Tempo is identical. Necessary change to allow Sona to tag allies with other auras. Basically just lets her become a race car and escape trouble or lengthen aura durations by tagging. Is what it is. Though fast minions was cool.
R:
Same, but scales other abilities as well. More rewarding for that fact, but then there's Nami, who's ult also hard CC's (Unaffected by tenacity), also soft CC's, Same base damage but better AP scaling, and 100mana at all ranks vs 100 +50/rank for Crecendo shorter cooldown at earlier ranks, and it's got about 6x the area. Tidal wave may be slower, but if I can land a Morgana Q or Blitz grab, Imma hit a Tidal Wave with 10x bigger hurtbox. Too much of her power budget is tied in this ability without respect for the relative power of similar abilities.
Basicallly her Q and W have less impact than the old versions which is contrary to the stated goal. Her E has a larger impact to herself, but less to her allies which allows her to attempt to tag allies with other auras, which is needed due to their tragically short range. Her gameplay is flashier, but mostly due to GFX buffs. She doesn't feels stronger than she used to due to the fact that even her activated abilities are weaker or nearly the same, not just the auras.
It's interesting to see a much weaker kit get nerfed as often as Sona has been lately, considering the original kit "...wasn’t terribly strong or weak". To me that statement reads balanced. Amazingly she went from a balanced kit that was seen as too boring, to a weaker kit that's flashier, but incapable of being strong in a healthy way, and drawing repeated nerfs.
The current kit isn't as strong as the old kit, but from my observation, it can be more oppressive. Which is strange. The old kit "wasn’t terribly strong or weak". It had a base power floor in the non-scaling auras, that was perfect for a gold-starved support. The power ceiling was high though, due her kit having a strange scaling mechanism through her power chord/lich bane path. Her support build and lane build were sufficientally different enough that lane Sona didn't dominate as a support. It's exactly what they're trying to figure out how to do with Morgana. Right now, Lane and support Sona are too similar as both her Floor and ceiling scale with items.
IMO the best thing to do would be to combine the efforts. Take the new GFX and mix them into the old kit. Flashy presentation with a stronger and healthier kit while showing that Riot learns from and fixes their mistakes. This rework was a mistake. It rewards Sona less than the old kit for the same actions while being more obnoxious to use. Some people liked the more passive playstyle, let them have it, especially when it's an overall healthier kit, and similar kits exist that are less passive (Nami).
Sona was the first champ I got, and I'd hate to see her kit weakened over and over, and all because of a kit rework she didn't need, ends up making less healthy, and wasn't even well received.
What's that? Can't hear you over my insane engages, disengages, poke, hook, lantern pull, way to scale without items, single target and AoE hard/soft CC. Too bad I make too flashy plays to get meaningfully nerved, unlike Sona.
