Weekend at Sona's #2: And Zero Fun was had

ModUlanopo·Aug 3, 2014·22 votes·8,417 views

This is the first match where I have actually been angry with Fearless for the rework. I faced a tanky team with Nautilus support and was completely ineffective. I'm glad that Sona's early game was so oppressive that it had to be nerfed. I'm genuinely curious what I'm supposed to do against tanky supports. Am I supposed to stand in back and give my ADC "awesome power" by buffing one AA and helping push the lane?

Also, E was wholly unsatisfactory. I had three ranks in it plus tier two boots and I couldn't outrun anyone.

And... BaronReplays couldn't catch it because the server was acting up. Great.

You know, I was on the fence before this match, thinking that maybe I just hadn't given the rework enough of an opportunity. I don't think that way any more. I don't know who you had playtesting it, but I can tell you that it's completely awful for me.

EDIT: Fearless, if you're reading this, I really feel like the lane nerfs were a stupid idea and I hate using that word. Part of my job as a support is to help shepherd my ADC into the mid-late game and I don't feel that I can do that. I can't remember when I was angrier with League. These matches have been utterly frustrating. I may not be a great player, but I don't suck either and it feels like I can't do anything. At every turn I feel useless and like I'm a liability to my team.

140 Comments

Gaston du CoteauAug 3, 20148 votes

The lane nerfs were absolute insanity. How do Riot select their personnel for these reworks or what makes them think they're qualified to make such radical nerfs and changes in style to something that wasn't broken. They can't even claim they have experience in such a field or experience as a player or as that character. Nothing. Just "trust us it's our job, we know better even though we have literally zero qualifications". They can't even claim these changes are being made by high Elo players let alone by someone who has experience in that field.

If Fearless does have anything that qualifies him for this work, anything at all, I'd like to hear it. It seems like these jobs are just handed out through connections.

XXnIE66RuiAug 3, 201416 votes

Saying Fearless isn't qualified for his job is overkill. If you really don't trust Riot's staff and their ability, you shouldn't be playing their game.

Neo CyrusAug 3, 201410 votes

I don't see anything he said which was false. They have no experience dealing with anything like this in the past, they have no notable experience as players (and certainly not specifically as that character), they're not even high Elo players. Actually they're super low Elo players which is disturbing. Rank doesn't necessarily equal knowledge but it's still disturbing to see that all of them are actually terrible at the game itself.

This isn't a physical sport, knowledge is 90% of what makes a good player.

If he played the game he'd know how absolutely horrible this new Sona feels, how clunky it feels, how weak it feels, how weak it really is especially in early game. Blaming the meta or saying stupid things like being unable to buff her because of it is ridiculous.

He's playing a bunch of ranked games as the new Sona now. Too bad he can't play ranked games as the old Sona now to realize what trash the new one is in comparison and how infuriating it is playing as it. What's hilarious is that somehow he'll feel that has meaning, playing it in ranked against Silvers. I've been forced into playing Katarina, Syndra, Ahri, etc, etc as supports in Gold ranked games (trolls locked a second mid) and hard carried those, it means absolutely nothing.

I'm upset that my favourite support is gone, deleted from the game for no good reason at all and a shell with the same name replaced her. It wouldn't be upsetting if the "rework" offered something that justified deleting a character. It offers nothing and I've heard nothing but extremely weak and child-like straw-man arguments as far as defense of it goes.

XXnIE66RuiAug 3, 201412 votes

I've been vocally critical of the rework myself.

All I said was that calling Fearless incompetent is overkill, and that if they really don't trust Riot to employ competent people, then they shouldn't be playing their game. It's the exact same as people claiming left and right EA is the Worst Company Ever, yet continuing to consume their products.

If you don't trust Riot to employ competent people, if you don't trust Rioters to be qualified, don't play their game.

Think of it this way: if what they said is true, if Fearless is incompetent and Riot put him there through connections rather than skill or experience, that means Riot is a poorly managed company. However, people who complain continue to play, meaning Riot has absolutely no reason to change their poorly managed ways. This in turn means they'll continue to assign incompetent people to do poor jobs, and continue to annoy you and everyone else.

Don't play their game. Consuming a product is the most direct way to show that you support or don't care about what a company is doing. If you're treated terribly at that pizza joint two blocks down but keep coming back to eat there, you're just telling them that it's totally okay to be treated terribly, you'll stay a customer anyway.

Neo CyrusAug 3, 20148 votes

If it were only that easy. I would have left this game long ago for Smite or DotA 2 (which I do play) but every single one of my friends play this and won't try other games. I have a feeling I'm not the only one stuck in this situation. Despite that I am still considering quitting, it's nice having 30- ping in those games as opposed to 120 in LoL since there is no server on the east side of the continent.

XXnIE66RuiAug 3, 20143 votes

Migrating alone to a new game sucks, it's true, but if it's reached such a critical point that you can't trust Riot to make good decisions for the game anymore, then quitting is the only real option. Not just to show the company you don't support their decisions, but also for your own peace of mind. I feel like no hobby is worth stressing over. We get enough of that from commitments we're unable to break away from without negatively impacting our livelihood (e.g. jobs).

And dear god, going to 20-30 ping from 100+ is amazing. I started playing on NA then switched to BR and the server is close enough that I have 19-22ms ping there. I can't bring myself to play on NA anymore.

AbiwonKenabiAug 3, 20144 votes

You didn't see anything with his comment that is false? Do you really think he's sitting there with Fearless' resume all like "Hm, looks like he's not qualified." No. This is pure conjecture, and we don't know this poster's knowledge of how hiring works, let alone at Riot. Sure, Riot makes mistakes. Not always but oftentimes they own up to it. But to say they aren't qualified, implying that they haven't tested these changes themselves over and over or asked internal testers (who are of various ELO) about their experience with the changes is just bull.

I'll admit that I don't think the Sona changes are perfect, but you can't make it all personal and attack the designer's qualifications for it. Sure, criticize the changes. Make suggestions. Don't attack the person.

Neo CyrusAug 3, 20149 votes

How is it personal in any way? What did he say that was false in any way? Are you telling me this is someone who has much experience developing MOBA characters in games that have over a hundred characters and have competitive scenes? Are you saying he's secretly a pro or high Elo player and plays on a super low Elo account because he can? Are you saying he even had much ranked experience as Sona in the past?

Any one of those and other things could be considered a qualification. It doesn't seem any of those apply. But I'm not going further in this conversation. Think what you want but I'll always be disturbed that people who develop character kits and balance this game are actually bad at MOBAs and it's curious how they got their jobs.

And to refresh your memory their internal play testers have led to some of the worst decisions in LoL history which actually had to be hot-fixed rather than waiting for a regular patch because they were so catastrophic. Remember 70% win rate AD champs mid at all Elos? Remember when everyone in the public who tested it cried out it was horrible (including many high Diamond players) and they got ignored? I do.

This is another one of those cases, but in this case it's a champion's kit, so they won't admit their mistakes. That's one thing Riot are legendary at, saying they always admit mistakes when they never do unless it's something minor relative to the real issue that's a literal fact and can't be disputed.

For example: Fearless admitting he purposely didn't release any numbers, but ignores the larger issue of the rework itself being a disaster. He didn't even have the guts to admit they didn't put up the numbers so people have a harder time realizing it's a major nerf.

XXnIE66RuiAug 3, 20146 votes

Honestly, a developer doesn't need to be good at games. They need to be passionate about games and have a deep understanding of game mechanics, but they don't actually need to be good at games.

People play games in ways the developers never intended for a lot of the time. That's why there is strong internal testing before any game's release - a developer is completely, utterly incapable of predicting how something will turn out with 100% accuracy until it's actually been played. Experience can only take you so far as far as prediction goes, and people are always capable of surprising you with new ways to not do what you thought they would.

So it's not the developer who needs to be super good at the game. It's the testers - the ones who check things before they even hit the PBE - who need to be good at the game. (And who need to be bad at the game, you need to see how something will behave in both low and high elo.)

An even better example than Sona of something that was poorly tested before it went live would be Lucian and his changes in, I think, 4.12. That should have never left the PBE, yet it did, and it ended up being such a gigantic buff that Lucian was disabled in the LCS.

Testers are the ones who push everything to its limits. Who do unpredictable things to find bugs. A tester's objective is to try as hard as they can to break whatever it is you're trying to release. If they can't, and it goes live, and it turns out it was actually broken, that's not a product of bad development, but actually a product of bad testing. Unless of course the testers point out "hey, this is broken", but it gets released anyway. We can't know which is the case, however.

I wrote a book, I'm sorry.

ModUlanopoAug 3, 201411 votes

If Fearless does have anything that qualifies him for this work, anything at all, I'd like to hear it. It seems like these jobs are just handed out through connections.

That's not cool. I'm incredibly angry with the rework, but calling him incompetent accomplishes nothing and is incredibly rude.

RiotFearlessAug 3, 201420 votes

One of the coolest things about Riot is how awesome our support structures are so that we don't have to be experts at everything. I'm not a high elo player, though not due to a lack of love for the game. It's mainly due to the fact that for the last ten years, I've been building games. Throughout the entire process of updating Sona, I relied on the feedback from multiple Challenger and diamond players that work at Riot, many of whom have played a very large number of Sona games and identify as former or current Sona mains. Never did I imagine that my experiences as a player would be enough for this work, nor even my experience as a designer. The reason I could have faith in the Sona work came down to the fact that Rioters don't get in the door without being pretty awesome at something, and are really good about sharing what they know to make other people around them more awesome.

That doesn't mean we won't make mistakes, and it's entirely likely that Sona may still need some adjustments in the future. We don't have enough data to make that call yet, but I'll be very open when we do, and make sure you all know where we'll be going with her and why. I understand that the lack of communication at the end of the PBE time has really upset people, but at no time have I ever suggested that anyone should not question the choices we've made, or that anyone should just "trust me." I'm happy to explain every change we made on Sona, or at least point to where I've already done that.

Pika310Aug 3, 20141 votes

I'd like to pose a question about Sona, but completely unrelated to the rework. Lately, many champions have been having all of their ultimates' mana costs changed to 100 mana at every rank or already fell into this category. Even Morgana and Nami are both included in the count, so why is it this change has of yet not happened to Sona?

ModUlanopoAug 3, 20144 votes

Because Fearless believes that her ultimate is nearly too powerful to exist.

PryotraAug 3, 20145 votes

Because he feels it single handedly consumes the power budget, regardless of the fact that it is more reliant on flash's CD over it's own. Or at least hasn't really looked at 90% of the current roster for comparing the power of ults. It's either mistaken power budget management, or inattentiveness to the surroundings, and frankly I can't tell which. Last I checked, ults are SUPPOSED to be a noticeably more powerful, possibly gamechanging ability, not the ONLY powerful ability.

I seriously don't get this one. If you are in the process of standardizing champions, why not do it while reworking a champion who needs it? Makes 0 sense to me. Sona's ult is powerful, but no more than Nami's is, and I don't see Nami getting gutted for it. Why hold back the power budget so significantly when clearly you are already cutting into a borderline under-tuned champion's power? Range is a very powerful thing in this game, about on par with mobility. Taking it away from anything is a heavy loss, and frankly has not been compensated enough in this situation.

I really hope that the feedback displayed over this is considered, unlike the feedback from the Heimer rework.

SkernanAug 3, 20144 votes

Sona's ult lost no range. The old graphic didn't properly display its range, so the new one got resized to fit.

PokladnicaZlaAug 3, 20143 votes

One of the coolest things about Riot is how awesome our support structures are so that we don't have to be experts at everything. I'm not a high elo player, though not due to a lack of love for the game. It's mainly due to the fact that for the last ten years, I've been building games. Throughout the entire process of updating Sona, I relied on the feedback from multiple Challenger and diamond players that work at Riot, many of whom have played a very large number of Sona games and identify as former or current Sona mains. Never did I imagine that my experiences as a player would be enough for this work, nor even my experience as a designer. The reason I could have faith in the Sona work came down to the fact that Rioters don't get in the door without being pretty awesome at something, and are really good about sharing what they know to make other people around them more awesome.

That doesn't mean we won't make mistakes, and it's entirely likely that Sona may still need some adjustments in the future. We don't have enough data to make that call yet, but I'll be very open when we do, and make sure you all know where we'll be going with her and why. I understand that the lack of communication at the end of the PBE time has really upset people, but at no time have I ever suggested that anyone should not question the choices we've made, or that anyone should just "trust me." I'm happy to explain every change we made on Sona, or at least point to where I've already done that.

One of the most unsatisfying things about Sona right now ,is that her power in each of her abilities has been halfed(i mean the active effect and aura).The active should be ~75% of the ability and the aura ~25%. There many reasons for this. Her aura range has decreased.Now she has to put herself in a risky position to use it. Besides that issue,it hard to use her Aura to their full potetion while your tryng to dodge enemy assults(you wont get in range to buff your allies). In a fight you wont leave one aura long enought to proc it on many allies,instead,you will use another ability to her your team. And you guys stated that you dont like auras,they give alot of invisible power. You coudl also make her passive stack;stacking damage/damage reduction/slow...

BTW does anyone find her Q annoying,like you have to watch how you use it,so u dont take/destroy your ADCs farm. I know you wont probably see this,its just an opinion.

Pika310Aug 3, 20143 votes

Sona has always stolen farm from the ADC by accident, that's just the price of playing her. Sona players have accepted this, ADCs that lane with her have accepted this, it just comes with the territory. At least it prioritizes champions, but it would be a major nerf if it stopped hitting minions and monsters altogether.

Willahelm FulberAug 3, 20142 votes

Fearless, I know the rework wasn't -entirely- on your shoulders. You had feedback from other players to help you plan the rework. Your getting all the flak is because they put your name on it. People will calm down eventually, I'm here with ya through it all.

Thanks for making an extremely welcome champion to my roster! :)

FaerKhanAug 3, 20145 votes

You mean deleting a champion from your roster, right? Or are you one of those people who didn't play Sona at all before? (in which case, GTFO)

Willahelm FulberAug 3, 20141 votes

I played sona before, but she fell out of favor for me because I felt too squishy in lane against champions like thresh, morgana, blitzcrank. The update made her much tankier. I've escaped from a fed akali (who had rylai's and gunblade) several times.

XXnIE66RuiAug 3, 20144 votes

She lost base health and only evens out at about level 4 or so. She got a little bit of base armor, but the base HP nerf negates that buff. She also had bonus Armor and MR with her W aura before that she lost in favor of a small shield. She definitely isn't tankier, except for a bit of extra health in later levels.

Willahelm FulberAug 3, 20141 votes

Depending on how you build, bonus armor+mr is not as good as a shield. I usually end up with 120+ armor/mr and am pretty tanky. The health "evening out" is another example of rebalancing towards lategame: less hp early, more hp later. I believe you usually hit level 4 before 6 minutes, and most games end after 20.

XXnIE66RuiAug 3, 20143 votes

I'm only pointing out there's virtually no change to her tankiness. She is definitely not much tankier. ~150 more HP at level 18 isn't a whole lot tankier. She now has more tools to protect herself late game, but that's not tankiness, and her early game has suffered - you said she felt squishy in lane before, but she still does.

Willahelm FulberAug 4, 20141 votes

She's less squishy in lane now. Try maxing w over q and you definitely get more defense early on.

XXnIE66RuiAug 4, 20143 votes

A shield is not tankiness, just like a heal is not tankiness. Those are skills - they depend on cooldowns and mana costs to be used. Zyra has a snare she can use to protect herself, but that doesn't make her any less squishy.

SkernanAug 3, 20145 votes

It feels to me that Sona's skill floor took a big jump without providing extra power to compensate. She needs to keep her team coordinated and nearby, opening them up to AoE damage and Bouncing abilities (Pyroclasm, Dark Wind, etc).

With the loss of her heals Armor and MR bonuses, she's become very easy to kill with an All-In.

Q's new aura only provides a single boosted attack per approximately 8 seconds, and doesn't add AD for the sake of Critical Hits or Abilities. The old auras usefulness depended on your ADCs Attack Speed and Critical Chance. Additionally, the boosted auto attack isn't very useful to mages, making her less of a team player and more of an ADC accessory. The Power Chord nerf was appropriate, but it would be nice if it scaled back up to double power with rank or Crescendo to keep her relevant late.

The changes to E are absolutely fantastic and I love them.

RiotRiot SotereAug 3, 20146 votes

I think Sona was deceptively hard to play even before these changes. The kit told you to stay in the back and be safe, but you needed to get in the thick of things for timely Crescendos. Likewise, Power Chords were and are powerful enough that they entice you into enemy auto-attack range. Positioning was extraordinarily important and sometimes deceptive as to the best use case.

I do think you're right in that the skill floor has crept up. Also, because her power is more clearly being donated to allies, it's easy to see when you are unsuccessful with her new positioning. The purpose of updates is rarely to give a champion more power, so there is always the risk of disheartening people who have less success while learning new mechanics. If the problem persists beyond a brief learning curve, then we have to evaluate further and solve said problem.

FaerKhanAug 3, 20146 votes

Power being donated to allies is always going to make a champion feel terrible to play. In fact, that would be why you Rioters decided to make the support gold changes so that they weren't ward bots anymore. So why are you going back to this terrible design philosophy?

Sona would be better if she was played by a bot and had the player play another champion in lane with her. She's never going to be fun to play if this is the way her plays are going to be "impactful." I thought the goal of this rework was to make her power more fun for her summoner so that Sona players could feel more useful? Buffing teammates is fun, but being able to do nothing by yourself isn't fun. (which is why everyone hated the ward bot meta)

On top of that, you Rioters need to stop bashing old Sona mains' play of the champion that they know better than you do. Her skill floor is higher, which hurts players that knew her well more than the newer players who are just picking her up now. This whole rework process has been a disgrace. It's nice to see the rework team hasn't learned anything from the Karma rework.

/:end rant

Pika310Aug 3, 20144 votes

Power being donated to allies is always going to make a champion feel terrible to play. In fact, that would be why you Rioters decided to make the support gold changes so that they weren't ward bots anymore. So why are you going back to this terrible design philosophy?

Even worse still, they didn't even increase the power donated to allies, it's been severely lowered. She already gave AD and AP before which provided drastically higher DPS. Players will only benefit from Hymn if they're able to auto-attack and only if Sona can get close enough to press her bosom against them to apply the effect in the first place. AA-based champions prioritize AS, they won't care much if a singular hit does slightly more, especially if it's unaffected by crit chance. Skill-based champs will string in an auto here and there, but the main source of their DPS is abilities which gain no benefit at all. On the low-end of the spectrum, long-range mages that can't risk getting into AA range at all have lost all boosts from Sona entirely.

FaerKhanAug 4, 20145 votes

Agreed. I think that's why she feels so bad to former Sona mains because we were the ones who actually noticed and appreciated her invisible power. Now that her power is more telegraphed and less powerful than before, of course people will notice and hate it.

AkavaAug 4, 201411 votes

The more games I play, the more I feel Power Chord: Staccato is kind of useless. Sona's maximum single rotation burst went down but I can't see what she gained. Every time I go in with Hymn of Valor/AA poke, tanky supports like Leona Gragas Braum just shrug it off, especially if they're rocking a item 3302 . The only way I was able to keep supports like that at bay was that early level 1 damage and constantly keeping them afraid. I cannot do that now because not only is the damage weaker, my mana can't support it due to increased costs. This has all been said before but I have yet to hear the why.

Why lower Sona's personal damage output? Sona was all about smartly poking in the early game and you were rewarded with low health enemies and punished with death if you got caught. Now, you're still punished with death but your reward is an opponent at 75% health. That strikes fear into no-one. I recall a comment that you guys didn't want Sona to burst too hard, but unless she was building full AP in the early game, burst was never lethal, it still isn't. Yet, now her sustained damage is lower (prolonged fights early game).

Note: I'm referring to the loss of 50 base damage on Valor and -50% Power Chord: Staccato damage.

KynamiAug 4, 20144 votes

Its actually higher than that. Q's old aura also could feed into itself.

Willahelm FulberAug 3, 20146 votes

Alright I'm going to post what I remember reading fearless say and what I feel is really what they mean.

First off, League is a game about having strengths and weaknesses; no champ is great at everything. As far as supports go, there are 3 kinds in a sort of rock-paper-scissors match. Burst supports (kill lanes and hard cc / tanky supports in general) > Sustain supports (Heals and keeping them in lane as long as possible) > Poke Supports (Lulu is a great example of a poke support) > burst supports. I don't know how much of this paragraph is Riot's opinion and how much of it is mine, but it comes from a little bit of discerning how gameplay works.

Sona is somewhere between a poke support and a sustain support, but I feel she's more of a sustain support after the rework. As I said, bursty supports counter sustain supports. What is the current FotM / Meta for supports? Thresh. Morgana. Braum. Nami. All 4 of these champions are burst supports (perhaps a little less so with Nami). They would have to make Sona Game-breakingly broken to outplay the meta; that is the statement I read from Fearless's post somewhere.

Neo CyrusAug 3, 201412 votes

You have absolutely no idea what you're talking about. Do you even think about what you write? You called Thresh, Morgana, Braum and Nami "burst supports". Do I even need to explain to you that makes absolutely no sense? No, I'm not being dragged into this conversation.

This new Sona is outdone by every other support in the game at any MMR beyond Silver and it has absolutely nothing to do with the meta. It's her kit being an absolute joke and a troll job. It feels like Fearless did everything he could to piss off everyone who ever regularly played Sona. So the sheep who parrot out BS like "can't buff her for this meta or she'll be OP" can shut up.

And people pretend there isn't knowledge difference between ranks. What a joke. It's no surprise they decided to release no numbers at all to try and cover up how badly they destroyed Sona.

I'd bet anything now they'll just leave it to hang and be a miserable failure until everything else in this game is nerfed into oblivion 5 times over until she becomes a viable pick beyond trash Elo. That's precisely what happened to Karma. Reworked and left far too weak, insanely undertuned (realistically could have been allowed to have 2 stacks of Mantra), then became a semi-viable niche pick after a long period of time when everything else was nerfed. Naturally all the sheep toolboxes came out and proclaimed that they were right all along and that the rework was fine.

A rework is not fine if everything else in the game has to be nerfed repeatedly and therefore requires waiting months or years.

ModUlanopoAug 3, 20146 votes

According to League, I'm stuck in that game, else I would be going for round three.

It is worth noting that Willahelm said something that resonated with me. Sona isn't a poke champion any more and I should stop trying to play her as such. Instead, I should take W first and stand behind my ADC, waiting for something to happen. Sona's new lane role is to punish people who hard initiate on you. I should have seen the implications of the kit sooner.

Neo CyrusAug 3, 20148 votes

If you don't poke you offer almost no presence in lane as Sona, don't listen to him, there's a good reason why after hundreds of games he's still borderline Bronze.

That's precisely one of the major problems with the new Sona, her laning is now super weak early game, and weak in general. Too weak to poke and lacking the sustain to recover from an exchange which will never go in her favour.

There's a good reason why she wasn't an LCS pick before (and most certainly will never be one now). But at least before she was perfectly fine in solo queue.

ModUlanopoAug 3, 20146 votes

That's precisely one of the major problems with the new Sona, her laning is now super weak early game, and weak in general. Too weak to poke and lacking the sustain to recover from an exchange which will never go in her favour.

That's my point. Fearless seems convinced that she's borderline OP in team fights and he shows no signs of recognizing that her early game poke is too risky to be effective. That being the case, why shouldn't I adapt my play to the newly defined strengths?

Neo CyrusAug 3, 20148 votes

If you do not attempt to poke you simply will not have a winning lane as Sona. If you just sit back you're doing close to nothing for your ADC and if anything will just cause you to lose faster. If you did that against me and my duo your ADC would be zoned out of minion range immediately. You have to attempt to make trades and as nerfed Sona is it'll only work if you outplay them and take nothing back (and that's technically not even a trade anymore).

See why people are saying not to pick this new Sona? What's the point of a champion if the only way to win is to outplay the hell out of your opponent in order for it to work in lane. You could save yourself that pain and just play something else.

Don't get me wrong though, I'm not saying she's not viable at all. She most definitely is and can very easily work in low Elo and maybe even mid Elo. I'm saying the old Sona was far superior, far easier to use, and had a distinct role while being fun. This new one is literally infuriating to play as. That and they essentially deleted a character without a good reason to do so. Just because it looks the same and has the same name doesn't make it the same character.

EnvyDragonAug 3, 20141 votes

That's precisely one of the major problems with the new Sona, her laning is now super weak early game, and weak in general. Too weak to poke and lacking the sustain to recover from an exchange which will never go in her favour.

That's my point. Fearless seems convinced that she's borderline OP in team fights and he shows no signs of recognizing that her early game poke is too risky to be effective. That being the case, why shouldn't I adapt my play to the newly defined strengths?

Grab Spellthief's Edge, start Q, rush Sheen, and Q-Auto once. Then tell me her poke isn't effective.

Neo CyrusAug 3, 201412 votes

That's a straw-man argument, that could be done as any champion and requires gold to be built up before that can happen. That's like me saying X champion is viable because DFG exists to burst people. Good luck getting to the stage to be in a good enough situation to both have that item and use it effectively if your champion is demolished in lane due to being severely undertuned "because reasons".

Just because you ran around stomping bots as this new Sona doesn't mean it's viable against a competent player. It's mind boggling when people like you make such statements when you've never even had a single ranked game as that character, new or old. And it's not like you're in Diamond or something, your MMR is currently Bronze, so even if you had ranked games they'd still be meaningless.

EnvyDragonAug 3, 20142 votes

That's a straw-man argument, that could be done as any champion and requires gold to be built up before that can happen. That's like me saying X champion is viable because DFG exists to burst people. Good luck getting to the stage to be in a good enough situation to both have that item and use it effectively if your champion is demolished in lane due to being severely undertuned "because reasons".

Just because you ran around stomping bots as this new Sona doesn't mean it's viable against a competent player. It's mind boggling when people like you make such statements when you've never even had a single ranked game as that character, new or old. And it's not like you're in Diamond or something, your MMR is currently Bronze, so even if you had ranked games they'd still be meaningless.

That isn't a strawman argument. I don't think you know what a strawman argument is.
I played ONE bot game as Sona after getting demolished in ranked by a Sona who could chunk half my health with one autoattack at level 1. Just to see if I was seeing things right.
What the hell kind of free time do you have where you can look up someone's profile, match history, and MMR (I get matched with high silver/low gold, for the record, despite being unranked this season) just so you can tell them they're wrong?
Sheen is a 1200 gold item. Situation permitting, it's possible (unlikely, but possible) to grab it on your first back, even with support income. But you're right, maybe I should have just gone with starting items and stats.

Basic, level 1 Sona with no runes and masteries, and only the 5AP from Spellthief's Edge: 50 damage from regular AD at level 1 40 (+2 from AP) damage on the Q bolt, because if you're in range to autoattack, the Q activation will hit the champion 13(+1 from AP)(x1.5 from Q effect) damage from Power Chord 20(+1 from AP) damage from Q's aura effect 30 damage from Spellthief's Edge proccing 3 times, once from the Q bolt and twice from autoattack+passive effect (yes, it procs twice. I just checked it in that bot game to be sure.)

50+42+21+21+30 = 164 damage before reductions from ONE autoattack at level one. Without counting runes and masteries.

Granted, this requires you to prepare Power Chord before you hit lane (which is easy) and it also requires you to have 3 full Spellthief stacks armed. But for a level 1 engage, that's roughly a quarter to a third of a target's health.

Pika310Aug 3, 20146 votes

Congratulations, you can do math. Now let's calculate Sona's pre-nerf level 1 trade, keeping in mind the +4 AD/AP from Hymn: 50+4 AD at level 1 50+4.5 from Hymn's bolt activation (13+1.8)(x2) from Staccato 20 from Spellthief, since I believe it only triggered twice this way

This adds up to a total of 158.1, merely 6 less damage solely because Edge triggered 1 less time, which in all honesty may or may not be a glitch with her new ability. I hope not, because she needs all the help she can get at this point. If you start Coin or decide to just disclude Edge and use her base numbers, she did more damage pre-nerf. This is due to the 25% damage nerf to Staccato, but once you start comparing Hymn at ranks 2 and higher, the old version does more even without Staccato.

XXnIE66RuiAug 3, 20145 votes

If you did AA+Q+AA, that'd proc Edge 3 times: 222.1 damage (old) vs 214 damage (new).

MyAccountYouGuysAug 3, 20147 votes

On top of all this, ignoring any math or gold efficiency, if you have to follow a specific item build to make a champion not be bad, that champion is bad. I don't play Sona, but if the community is this loud over it then there is an undeniable problem somewhere.

SyvenonAug 4, 20142 votes

Why in the name of god are you building a sheen on Sona?

KynamiAug 4, 20142 votes

Probably because it hasn't caught up to them that with the changed spell cool downs she no longer has SOMETHING back up every few seconds.

SkernanAug 3, 20144 votes

That's terrible. That makes her even more boring to play. You sit there doing nothing until they think they can kill you. And since you're Sona, they're probably right.

Willahelm FulberAug 3, 20142 votes

Can't reply to all the marks of this topic separately; it would take too much time.

My Skill. So what? I've been playing enough to know what I'm saying. If you disregard an opinion because of a rating that might seem okay, but not in a generally accepted flawed system. If the ranking system is indeed un-flawed, maybe you can help me succeed at getting better by helping me see the way, oh wise one(s).
The rework. Sona's job is NOT early game power anymore; it's late-game power. The more champions she tags, the better her abilites are. She promotes grouping together, which is the counter to the current pro play meta of elise, thresh, morgana, gragas; lots of champions great at forcing champions away from each-other (morgana ult, gragas ult, thresh's ult can zone out a team very well) and hard-ccing one primary target to kill them off and force a 4v5 (elise, thresh, and morg all have single-target hard cc. That isn't just hard, it's borderline excessive.) Sona's weaknesses, which are extremely exploitable, are her reliance on snuggle-zones (making AoE CC that much easier to land) and her lack of early-game prowess.
"Burst" supports rely on their ability to kill you before you can react. Morgana, thresh, nami, and braum all excel at this due to their high amount of hard cc. A lot of other "burst" supports have fallen out of the meta due to the change in supports' gold mechanics and their reliance on gold. Anivia, Gangplank, and Xin Zhao are 3 great examples of champions that I have seen played as support extremely well but have recently fallen off due to the new gold items.
Karma. I miss old karma. :c Her mantras actually meant something besides r-q (nearly) every time. I have discussed this before.

OrinneAug 3, 20147 votes

Even as a supposed late game power house though, her aura tags aren't that great. The only one worth the trouble is the AoE shield, but you can't justify picking Sona based off a good ult (other supports get the exact same effect, sometimes not on their ult) and an AoE Shield alone. Worst yet, her other two auras have a lot of their power tied to ranks in her ultimate, which makes her even weaker because she's always going to be a level or two behind the team.

XXnIE66RuiAug 3, 20144 votes

Her aura tags are much better late game if you build enough AP (200-300), except for maybe Q which is largely only good for securing baron and dragon. E is exceptional with heavy AP. But of course, on a support salary, building that much AP is going to be... difficult, unless your team's ahead by a lot of kills.