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The State of Sona: mk 2

Pika310·10/10/2015, 11:36:56 PM·31 votes·6,567 views

It's been 6 months since I did the last compilation of Sona's problems and community suggestions for fixing her. It's overdue these be reiterated and discussed. Please bring your own ideas into light as well, most of these were already given by countless players like yourselves.

Problem: Low base stats -

  • AD: Discluding Lulu and Thresh who both have on-hit AA modifiers, Sona is tied with Soraka for lowest AD amongst the entire support class.

  • HP: Sona has the 5th lowest base HP stat in the game and 2nd lowest of the support class to Zyra by only 3 points.

  • Mana: Sona has the 3rd lowest base mana of mage-supports after Lulu and Zyra. 5th lowest if you wish to include Annie and Vel'Koz, but that still leaves 8 or more with greater base mana than herself placing her firmly in the lower half of the spectrum.

  • MS: She sits in the lowest tier of MS in the game, despite being both highly immobile and completely lacking pre-6 hard CC or any reliable pre-6 CC for that matter. This despite certain other mage-supports possessing both of these traits and still having a higher-tier of MS.

Solution: Simple number buffs.

Nothing difficult to understand here, Sona lacks suitable base stats to fulfill her job, so just give them to her.

Problem: Short range/Lack of auras

Amongst the 4.13 nerfs, the most devastating was undoubtedly the removal of Sona's auras, her most defining trait, being replaced with weak single-use effects. Alone, Sona holds the 1st, 2nd and 3rd shortest-range spells amongst mage-supports at 350 units apiece. Whereas the 4th lowest is a massive 43% jump all the way to 500 units and 5th+ are all 550 or higher. Blue is roughly ~67% weaker, green is somewhere over a staggering ~83% weaker and purple just blatantly ceased existing entirely.

Solutions: Return Sona's auras -

  • Full return: Basically a full revert. Put Sona back the way she was and start over from scratch or leave her alone. If starting over, this time appoint a different employee, somebody with a PROVEN track record for success, somebody actually competent who knows what the phrase "public relations" means. Somebody like Colt Hallam.

  • Partial return: Bring back weaker versions of Sona's original auras, somewhere from half to 3/4 their previous strength. ABSOLUTELY DO NOT nerf her snuggle zones, they're already unreasonably weak as-is. Rather, re-tune their effects/numbers and INCREASE THEIR RANGE.

Problem: Power Chord

Staccato's damage has been repeatedly nerfed, unjustifiably and w/o compensation. Awkward and long CDs have made both Diminuendo and Tempo difficult to use and thus in-turn underused.

Solution: Compensation and/or reverts

  • Part A: Return Sona's cooldowns to 7 seconds each. This solves multiple issues, the first of which being fixing her passive. Additionally, it returns a piece of her lost identity and some of her spells' lost power.

  • Part B: Staccato -

    •     Revert Staccato's scaling back to its original value.

    •     Slightly increase Staccato's scaling and it now debuffs Sona's target, a few suggestions being: a mark to be detonated by ally damage; defense shredding; damage amping; applying Silence

Problem: Weakened spells

  • The 2nd lowest damage output of the whole support class after Braum, Sona's lone damage spell, Hymn is tied for lowest base amongst support damage spells at 40 with a meager 3 others.

  • The absolute weakest heal in the game, the weakest/shortest-duration shield of the support class and the highest mana cost for both of these. The value of each cast of Aria is so absurdly low(less than a 5% return from previous), Sona is metaphorically injuring herself with each cast. Ironic...

  • No value in ranking up, Celerity is a boring, unrewarding, one-point wonder.

Solutions: Usable spells

  • Part A: Increase Hymn's base damage. To compete with other supports, it needs at least it's original value. It may be necessary to grant it a new bonus effect of some sort.

  • Part B: Increase Aria's healing, increase shield strength+duration and lower the mana cost. The standard amount that 4 of the 6 other healers have or are close to is 60, with Soraka being double that and only Nidalee being lower at 45. The heal needs higher base, perhaps additionally with either a return of the 1:1 % scaling or a return of the bonus Arm/MR. The shield requires a higher max rank and its duration at least doubled. Return the mana cost to its original value.

  • Part C: Celerity requires an additional effect that can improve through rank-up.

    •     Increased duration with a decay.

    •     Removal of CC: Rank 1 slows; rank 2 roots; etc.

    •     Tenacity.

Problem: Lack of CC

With the exceptions of rare and off-picks, Sona is the only support in the game lacking hard CC pre-level 6. Worse, her only slow is both short in duration and unreliable/difficult to access.

Solution: Add CC

Simple, find somewhere on her kit to place CC and add it. Perhaps overcharging her passive adds a stun; casting 5 or 6 spells or something. Or change Tempo from a slow to a root. The possibilities are endless.

Suggestion by Emmy Chaos:

I'd like to expand more on that idea of song-weaving with my own take of it.

  • Encore: Once Power Chord is active, in addition to the passive based on Sona's most recent spell, casting a 4th and 5th spell different from the ones already cast will apply additional CC to Power Chord. This includes the spell that activated Power Chord, a second different spell cast after reaching 3 stacks and then the 3rd spell for the final effect.

    • Blue+Green: Power Chord will silence Sona's target.

    • Blue+Purple: Power Chord will root Sona's target; if Tempo is applied, they will be slowed for half the duration afterwards.

    • Green+Purple: Sona's target will be unable to perform basic attack actions.

    • All 3: The target will be stunned and forced to dance; if cast using Diminuendo or Tempo, their effects will apply for half of their duration after the stun ends.

http://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/gameplay-balance/Is5dKpVZ-so-now-that-fair-is-finally-fair?comment=0005

A lot of these are suggestions I've compiled from many players Sona. I still didn't even list them all, like moving the % on Aria from her heal into the shield. Point being, the more suggestions the better. Statistically, the more ideas are thrown out, the higher the chances some will eventually stick.

http://smg.photobucket.com/user/pika310/media/Save%20Sona%202015%201_zpsu7qxtzkh.jpg.html?o=5

TLDR: http://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/gameplay-balance/ZIwweXqL-the-state-of-sona-mk-2?comment=0012

215 Comments

Emmy Cha0s10/11/2015, 1:09:13 AM11 votes

Let's just face facts:

  • Riot hates Sona
  • Riot wants Sona removed from League
  • Riot does not care about players
  • Riot does not care about Boards
  • Riot only cares about #LC$BIGPLAY$

It's been over 14 months of wasted effort, Fearless killed Sona's identity and viability for a reason. She'll never be playable ever again so long as he continues to be employed for Rito Game.

manbearswine10/11/2015, 1:27:09 AM11 votes

I doubt this will get anywhere.

Yes sona is trash,yes every good support player knows it,no it won't get any attention because there are too many morons thinking winrates know better than people who actually play the role.

As far as riot goes,yes,they are aware that people think she's garbage,they don't care too much,as they too would rather listen to winrates than to people who actually play the champion/the role.

She'll either get another rework(at least to some of her abilities) or more nothing,at least that's what I'm guessing that will happen.

Yrzen10/11/2015, 11:17:21 AM9 votes

I was a Sona main. The "rework" made what was my favorite champion feel downright outclassed in every aspect. She just wasn't fun anymore because she couldn't play the way she used to, despite what was said (exactly the opposite of what was said) when the rework rolled around. Her identity of a lane bully who kept her and her adc healthy enough to discourage engages while she poked her opponent out of lane was destroyed. Soraka doesn't fit that; she doesn't have enough damage. Nami doesn't fit that unless she has a Yasuo or other aggressive melee champion for an adc so that she can bounce her heals constantly; she had cc to make up for when Sona wasn't useless. Now it seems Vel'koz or other high-range high-damage mages of all things is usurping the niche Sona left behind, and that's saying something considering he/they doesn't/don't even have any heals.

Something that should be added is that the biggest thing the rework killed was her safety: Q effectively took a huge range nerf since the damage was reduced unless you got an auto attack off after every use. Her W took a huge nerf as well (mana cost AND effectiveness) since its usage for sustain will drain your mana too much for it to be worth using. Instead, it's delegated to critical moments.

The biggest use for Sona's E, faster travel, was nerfed as well, all in exchange for "moments of power". SONA WAS NEVER ABOUT MOMENTS OF POWER. THE LONGER TEAMFIGHTS WORE ON THE MORE DANGEROUS SHE BECAME. Even then it could have been forgiven if the huge-ass cooldown and new mana cost didn't make slowing power chords, half of her cc, impractical for all but emergencies, assuming she even has the mana for it. She was about continuous, sustained harass. The changes make it so that she can't harass safely, and if she gets punished for it she can't bounce back. Now she's just about harass, and this is why she gets enormously outclassed.

I suggest removing the "buff" changes to her Q and W. Trading effectiveness for a terrible shield that is useless more often than not or trading either a lot of safety or damage (HER ONLY NICHE NOW) just both go against her playstyle so completely. They do not work well together; such enormously small "snuggle zones" do not fit her champion design; (Is everyone on the rift hard of hearing?) I got a survey asking about champions in my email and Sona would tick off every single box of shit gone wrong.

Seriously if the Q buff ALSO granted her an extra 300-400 range-literally what she'd need to land it after a Q without compromising her position, I'd be fine with it. If she didn't need to land the auto every time like she did before with power chords because the charges were consistent, I'd be fine with it. (although she'd need some number tweaking on mana costs for her slowing chords to be made practical again) As it is now though it just forces her to play completely differently, and with the new style of play you might as well play Master Yi support or something. Why not? After all, Alpha Strike has more range.

Basically what I'm saying is that if we're pitching suggestions to fixing her, keeping her Q damage dependent on a following auto attack from 550 range would be unacceptable.

Keeping her heal usefulness dependent on being used in emergencies is also unacceptable, but priorities.

pxst10/11/2015, 4:04:40 AM6 votes

As a support main I could say sona is definitely the weakest support right now unless you play nidalee support(seriously not even viable anymore) , sona is suppose to be a poke support , using 550 aa range is kind of risky as she unless she vs short range adc like lucian , ashe or caitlyn can ez return the Damage you deal, also sona q damage falls off hard if she's even or behind since she need to take sheen to be dealing effective poke , sona heals a bit less but it have a shield so i think it's still ok but the mana cost is just too high (i thought it's even shit then tank support with relic shield) , her e just sucks hard as hell , sometimes i just don't upgrade e until lv4-5 becoz it sucks , because it aura i too small to buff a full team and the base ms buff is too small , I often feel desperate as sona cause you can't escape cause you were not fast enough unless you were chasing by some immobile champs such as viktor or darius , garen probably q run faster than u . The aura just can't buff all since every champs get different speed often run faster than u aura goes off , slower than you , she can't keep up with u . lastly teamfights just can't maximize the aura well cause you need to get really close to gain the aura =perfact for wombo combo you just can't stay to close to each other . The w shield goes off ezly and sona is too squishy to stay close frontline ,to get her aura works on teamates. your idea of buffing is quite gd i would say i love the can't aa for 1s for a particular combo spells but it will be over bearing if you give her silence and stun as well in a kit not even count her ult she will got 4 cc which is quite a lot. Keep working ! Cheers for sona mainsSona

Kingopants10/11/2015, 2:40:14 AM6 votes

You say this like she is a dumpster 40% Win Rate champion that she needs straight buffs across the board. Have you seen her statistically? She is Pretty goddamn good.

SecretAgentHulk10/11/2015, 1:37:01 PM5 votes

Kinda jumping in here. I think it's important that Sona be "the easy support" like Garen is "the easy bruiser", so I would oppose complex interactions like Emmy Chaos suggests. That said, I think Sona is in a good place, but I'm also in Bronze, where champion strength means nothing if you know how to play the champion. In other words, my opinion that she's in a good place is worthless.

However, I miss the 7s CDs on all QWE. There was a rhythm to playing old Sona that just isn't there anymore. Personally,* I'd love it if Riot would bring it back down to that (or even 8s like current Q) and normalize everything so there is the same damage/heal/movespeed per second.

So, e.g. 1pt in W would become 21 (+14% AP) (from 30+20%AP) base heal with a 24.5 (+14% AP) (from 35+20%AP) shield every 7 seconds (from 10s).

*This is my personal wish and does not have to invalidate your own personal wishes. I realize I am in Bronze and Sona faces different challenges in higher ELOs.

lightdragoon8810/13/2015, 5:58:25 PM5 votes

I missed the aura buffs... :(

Miku Append10/11/2015, 4:15:37 PM4 votes

How about they just revert Sona to pre-rework? We had no problem with her before.

RedCyclone10/11/2015, 4:31:12 AM4 votes

Great post Shame it's going to go to waste as Riot are just going to ignore this thread and others like it

TNHA Baritone10/11/2015, 4:13:59 PM3 votes

You either have to build Sona AP and get one shotted by their team but have subpar auras or you have to go utility / tank and have weak auras

I miss old Sonas persistent auras.

Red Ryu10/14/2015, 12:31:16 AM3 votes

Anyways I'm out, not worth my time when I'd rather spend it with something else in mind.

I'm done being baited by this thread.

http://i.imgur.com/hWtgt3c.gifv

See ya.

Valrun10/13/2015, 7:14:47 PM3 votes

http://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/gameplay-balance/rQZBzMWA-sona-rework-possibility

Your thread reminded me of an old idea I'd had on my work tablet so I posted it to forums.

Booriin10/11/2015, 2:13:45 AM1 votes

I noticed that most people who said Sona is fine or OP mostly from gold tier and below.

But when they argue with Sona main who are Diamond+, they said something like "I don't care about your rank, I play her quiet a lot and she can deal insane amount of damage, you are bad, learn to play..... then they show something like this --->item 3100 item 3157 item 3285 item 3089 item 3135 item 3027 item 3165 ..."

Booriin10/11/2015, 3:11:12 AM1 votes

Sona mains who play SUPPORT Sona: Sona need help!!!

People who play MID Sona: Sona is fine!

People who hate Sona or don't take Sona serious: Look at that win rate