I dont't understand why Riot's idea of nerfing Sona is messing with mana costs

Sona's mana usage has simply gone up and up since the rework to add CDR for her base spells into her ult.

Since that change was made :

W cost went up Q cost went up The missing % mana regen mastery was removed (mana band is nowhere near as good for someone as spammy as her)

so she now has higher mana usage from lower CDRs while also having higher costs and less regen. Any amount of mana regen you build on her comes nowhere near close to sustaining her mana costs. She needs a mana pool item, and is the only cheap one that works.

This way of balancing sona is basically saying "Sona is too good when she gets to use her spells constantly, so instead of nerfing her spells we're going to make her unable to use her spells constantly", which sounds good but doesn't work in practice. In lategame with a tear, you have no mana issues, but her lane feels absolutely awful in comparison. Her heal is so BAD early game for sustain compared to its cost, and now her poke is garbage too. This nerf hit Sona where she was already weak, and did nothing to address why she's strong. She will never be properly balanced if that's how you do it.

What should be nerfed is a lot of her invisible lategame power (sounds like her old auras doesn't it?)

Her e and w's shield hitting multiple people, e lasting 6 seconds on her, those things make her disgusting lategame, the scaling of her heal with grail and ap makes it insane later on, while it's garbage in lane.

THIS IS WHY SHE IS BROKEN IN GAME MODES THAT GIVE FREE GOLD

SHE HAS INSANE LATEGAME SCALING

Her problem is getting there. Nerf her lategame and then you can tune her lane phase.