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How to build the Sona rework?

It Is I Emoto··2 votes·900 views

I'm quite of confused, I don't know how to build the rework Sona. she's incredible squishy, mostly without her bonus armor + magic resist aura that gave +10 armor/mr her new heal might be great, but it's ap scaling is extremly low after the rework, and her q powerchord is quite weak for now. She got also weaker with pushing: Her old Hymn of Valor Aura gave bonus attack damage/ability power. That helped alot with early game pushing, while her new q don't proc on turrets. Her new W gives a small shield buff, but that lasts just for 1.5 sec, and that's actually not much. It's quite hard to time it right, mostly if it's burst damage. And since she has to stay really close to combat, she needs alot of health, armor, and magic resist. I already got tons of defensive runes and I played with defensive masteries as well, but it doesn't help much.

So I'm asking myself: what is the most benefiting way to build the Sona rework? Her new auras scales on ap, but without defensive items, you'll dead or will feed most the time. And if you build defensive items, your new auras won't be benefiting at all.

I was always tempted to buy a Rod of Ages on the new sona, and I got either some real good, or real horrible results. mostly it depends on how fast I bought the Catalyst, since it gave me strong sustain in lane. Sona benifits alot from all the stats, mana, health, and ability power, they gave her strong sustain and boosted her auras very well. But.. that's like the only item I've found to be good on Sona.

What are you guys building? What do you think would be the most benefit way to build Sona?

4 Comments

Mialee3 votes

First you gotta pray they will give her some of what was taken back to her. As for items I build same things I built before because that is what I know how to do http://na.op.gg/summoner/userName=mialee. New Sona is not that satisfying to play but what can you do :(

A2ZOMG3 votes

Tank Sona is probably the most viable Sona. Sona theoretically has some really stupid base numbers with her auras factored, but you have to have really awkward positioning to take advantage of them.

To an extent, this annoys me because I already started to have fun with the previous iteration of Sona when they actually encouraged the player to build glass cannon AP on her instead of the old S2 meta where Sona just built almost entirely tank with mana regen. But now because E sucks and has way too little range, that's not worth it anymore and now it's basically back to S2 where you build tank, and funny enough range ADs are also more dominant coincidentally.

Pika3101 votes

I play the new Sona in the ADC role, because the easiest way to guarantee your tiny abilities tag the ADC is if you yourself are the ADC. No, I'm not trolling, this is how I personally view the new Sona is optimized, it's my personal opinion and how I've been playing her, so I'm gonna cover how I play it.

Anyways, I rush Tri-Force first item, then start stacking BF-sword items for raw AD. The 2nd item can be IE if you want that 1/3 crit chance. If you vie for sustain, BT has tons of LS and can stack more shields on your shields. Reaver is good too, Sona's mana costs and CDs are quite oppressive, yet completely necessary for procing Tri-Force and it'll mitigate both of those drawbacks slightly. For boots, Zerkers are always an option, but Sorcerers are also great for extra damage from Hymn and Last Whisper will be picked up as normal. Sona's new kit favors singular bursts of damage from individual AAs and not sustained DPS, so I try to avoid attack speed and even BoRK is only picked up when necessary against tanky teams.

To summarize, her itemization feels similar to Corki and she plays like a defensive sustain-type burst ADC with a mini AOE Ashe ult and mild kite capability.

ShadowGlaive2131 votes

I've been rushing Sightstone into Frostfang and then tabi boots, then Ardent/Randuin's/Locket. After Sightstone and Frostfang if you can afford the Giant's Belt get it. If you have to back before 400g grab the Cloth Armor or a Faerie Charm. I usually end up going Randuin's, Ardent, then Locket but not always. If I'm ahead I get Ardent first. For a 6th item I usually sell Frostfang for w/e I need but I've only had one game where I've been able to get a 6th item so far and I ended up getting Frozen Heart cuz there was a fed Jax on the other side.

I've been learning things q, w , e, q maxing r when possible and then q, w, e.

I've played 16 games on team builder so far 10-6 win-lose with this build so far. I'm considering getting Merc treads instead if possible, but tabi helps me get through laning w/ the cloth armor. If I get around to trying merc treads I will likely change my runes and bring flat armor quints and see if I don't lose too much poke.

atm I'm running 7 flat hybrid pen marks, 2 flat spell pen marks, 9 flat armor seals, 9 flat mr glyphs, and 3 flat AP quints. Masteries 0/14/16. idk if any of this is necessarily ideal or not, I don't think anyone knows what's ideal yet, but it's something to try and see if you like it.

I can see why RoA would look beneficial, but your support items should take priority, which puts off your RoA stacking time by too much. I find building tanky to survive throughout fights to recast a lot more helpful than building AP cuz the ratios aren't worth. The on-hit from your q aura is dealt in magic dmg and most auto attacking champs are AD, and that magic damage has to go through any mr the enemy has so it's really only helpful early game, especially since it doesn't work on turrets. The shield from w aura is mostly just to proc Ardent, and in a fight e aura really isn't going to do much since everyone is gap closing or kiting, which is limited more by atk spd than ms. As for actives your q will do w/e since you don't really have room for pen and your w already heals by % health and your e is % ms boost, both stats of which your allies raise for you with their own items and abilities. This is all just my opinion take it as you will.

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