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PBE Sona

OHminus··3 votes·749 views
Surrender at 20

Sucks. Scroll down to Sona.

Tldr: Auras ranged got buffed from 300->400 No longer increases duration of aura by 2 if it tags an ally Q damaged lowered at later ranks, cooldown increased at earlier ranks W has a slightly better base heal and shield, removed the percent missing hp E no longer gives ms to Sona, and instead gives a range buff for a few seconds R no longer empowers Power Chord's effects but now decreases base cooldown of abilities.

What the changes mean: Sona's levels 1-3 are basically unchanged. With the change to the E, Sona now can't speed herself up to reposition or to get away from enemy champions. Instead, she gets a range buff, which is nice if you want to poke someone down, but becomes utterly useless in any other situation. The base cooldowns getting lowered with each ult rank sounds nice, but now Sona's power chords are nothing late game and she becomes a spambot that NEEDS to build mana regen (even more so than she does now).

The E change absolutely sucks because Sona was already immobile and squishy. Now she's even more immobile. Great. Speeding yourself to reposition in teamfights and get good ults off felt great. Now E gives ms to her allies but no ms to Sona. That makes so much sense.

I hope to God that the E change gets reverted because that is literally the worst change to a champ I've seen in ages (and yes, I'm counting the Morde rework).

9 Comments

Athenes Lulu3 votes

The E changes just seems so random and out of place.

So instead of actually rotating buffs with spells with good positioning, you use E as a selfish buff to gain extra range for your passive that can be done without the extra range? Whoo, great, less actual counterplay for things Sona counters lmfao xD!

HaloDragonX2 votes

The E change is great, her E allows her Passive POWERCHORDS to be useful and usable at safe distance. Sona's E powerchord sucks because of it's low range, not anymore. The problem is now his E scales so hard with levels it's useless early-mid game.

Puddytat1 votes

I have no idea how this new E is supposed to work. Does E AA have a bigger AA range, and is the current special effect for E AA lost, or can you E Q AA to give your Q AA a longer range?

As for the loss of speed for Sona, I hope this is some misunderstanding. It makes no sense that you'd try to retreat with your allies and thus end up being the slowest member on the team...

Abyssphere1 votes

You get the aura speed boost, so you're the same speed as everyone else on your team.

Puddytat1 votes

That would make much more sense indeed.

chipndip11 votes

She doesn't get the selfish buff. Only the team one.

Swiftstrike41 votes

E typically is the ability I max last as Sona when I am support if the game is even or we are behind.

But if we are ahead I only put a 2-3 points into heal and then I start maxing E for the mobility to move around the map and ward.

I am not fan of the change and I hope it does not go through. Sona has terrible base movement speed and very poor base stats leaving her very susceptible to ganks.

The slight mobility boost from E sort of put a band aid over her terrible mobility, but you could still be punished if you mis-positioned.

I know the motivations of Riot: they have stated in the past pretty frequently that they think player mobility has been too high in the game. They have changed most movement speed increases to be more marginal. This includes the several nerfs to Boots of Swiftness, the change to the movement speed mastery to be mobility to out of combat instead of flat speed, the cloud drake buff is mobility out of combat, and tier 3 boots removal from the game.

The change to Sona's E is simply a reflection of them trying to keep players movement speed at a reasonable level. And since Sona grants an Aura she can buff the speed of an entire team to pretty high levels with enough AP.

If they are going to to reduce her damage scaling slightly, buff her heal, and change her ult slightly with the CDR that's fine. But I think if they are going to change the E almost entirely they need to buff her base stats (health, armor, MR, and movement speed). I am tired of playing her the entire game "if you get touched you die" and the E at least offered something to outrun a pursuing enemy. Sona at the present moment can only enter the fray if her ultimate is up, she has flash, or she (or an ally) does enough damage to make the enemy disengage.

I would prefer if riot did not change her kit at all since she is not an oppressive support after the mid-late game.

Itadaki Seieki1 votes

Have you actually tired her on PBE? If not, you have no real way of saying if the changes suck. For all you know it'll make her more viable, but how would you know? You just read some numbers and thought about the impact.

Sightless661 votes

Sona's levels 1-3 are basically unchanged. With the change to the E, Sona now can't speed herself up to reposition or to get away from enemy champions.

Two things. First, if you were taking E at level 4, you were almost definitely making a mistake. That should not be taken until level 7 at the earliest unless you're really getting dicked.

Second, that's not actually what it means. Sona still gets the movement speed buff that she gives her allies. She just doesn't get the extra 3% movement speed that she gave her self before. So, when you say "E no longer gives ms to Sona, and instead gives a range buff for a few seconds", that is just plain wrong. You're losing 3% movement speed and gaining the range instead.

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