What pisses me off about the Sona nerfs is that you can't even make a correct context for it

RedCyclone·Jan 15, 2015·97 votes·5,051 views

"her earlygame is too strong"

Proceeds to nerf her...SCALING!? Makes no fuckin sense

Scaling, it's in the name Scales with AP

What does Sona not have much of in the earlygame? AP! like EVERYONE!

it's not the nerfs itself or that you look at the champions who are in 90% of games, it's the crap excuses when they were on the PBE and the crap excuses now that you actually put these changes through You could easily use the excuse "Her lategame too powerful" AND IT WOULD MAKE MORE FUCKING SENSE

60 Comments

Koala FrenzyJan 15, 201531 votes

Riot balance strategy: nerf all champions made before 2013 into the ground, so only the cool new ones are played.

L7xLoTekJan 15, 20156 votes

Hehm, well, Lee Sin release date happens to be 2011-04-01.

But it feels quite often that they'll happily nerf a character down if they're not sure what to do with them. And if a character is unpopular, well, it's less impactful on the game's health so it's lower in priority to fix back up. That said, they did do a great job on Sion, eventually.

BITE ZA DUSTOJan 15, 20152 votes

[{quoted}](name=Koala Frenzy,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=crZ9G4Jz,comment-id=0000,timestamp=2015-01-15T14:33:11.050+0000)

Riot balance strategy: nerf all champions made before 2013 into the ground, so only the cool new ones are played.

LeeSin

Jungle Lux GodJan 15, 201513 votes

Context: early game is too oppressive.

Gets nerfs to base movement speed so more champs could deal with her in the early game and to power chord damage amplification with Hymn of Valor so she deals less damage in the early game.

Not saying Sona needed nerfs (I thought she was pretty fine, and other supports needed nerfs more), but WHERE DO YOU SEE LATEGAME SCALING?

CaelerJan 16, 20151 votes

{quoted}

Context: early game is too oppressive.

Gets nerfs to base movement speed so more champs could deal with her in the early game and to power chord damage amplification with Hymn of Valor so she deals less damage in the early game.

Not saying Sona needed nerfs (I thought she was pretty fine, and other supports needed nerfs more), but WHERE DO YOU SEE LATEGAME SCALING?

My thoughts exactly. I don't recall seeing any scaling nerfs at all. I'm also curious as to why OP has so many up votes. Did that many people really not read the patch notes?

DiostukosJan 16, 20151 votes

{quoted}

My thoughts exactly. I don't recall seeing any scaling nerfs at all. I'm also curious as to why OP has so many up votes. Did that many people really not read the patch notes?

I think by scaling people mean it affects both her early and lategame.

10% off powerchord takes away a lot of late game damage

CaelerJan 16, 20152 votes

{quoted}

I think by scaling people mean it affects both her early and lategame.

10% off powerchord takes away a lot of late game damage

I wonder.

{quoted} Scaling, it's in the name Scales with AP

What does Sona not have much of in the earlygame? AP! like EVERYONE!

Proof OP thought it was a scaling nerf rather than early game nerf.

I'm not really a Sona player, so I don't know how much AP the average Sona ends up with, but let's do some math here.

Assuming Sona has 400 AP and is level 18, power chord will deal 192 + 80 magic damage. Adding those together gives 272. 10% of 272 is 27.2 magic damage. I personally don't think that's a lot of damage, but others may disagree.

This IS technically a lategame nerf as well, but I think it's negligible.

Jungle Lux GodJan 16, 20151 votes

10% power chord with Hymn of Valor. It's an early game nerf because Sona doesn't deal any sort of relevant damage in the late game unless you go for a mage-ish build, and it's too risky for Sona to apply the power chord in the late game.

DiostukosJan 16, 20151 votes

{quoted}

10% power chord with Hymn of Valor. It's an early game nerf because Sona doesn't deal any sort of relevant damage in the late game unless you go for a mage-ish build, and it's too risky for Sona to apply the power chord in the late game.

Tbh I only ever go full AP on her because support-Sona is useless besides her Ult late game.

Wînter FoxJan 15, 20159 votes

They already destroyed my Soraka . It's your turn now.

DrCyanideJan 15, 201525 votes

Soraka's still a great pick, and a pick that works as a support.

They forced Sona into this odd place where she's more about her damage than her support abilities, and then get surprised that she is doing damage. They them proceed to nerf the new strength they gave her, wanting her to be only weaknesses and liabilities.

SaiannaJan 16, 20151 votes

{quoted}

Soraka's still a great pick, and a pick that works as a support.

Yes, she is, but some of us enjoyed old raka. For just us she isn't as viable as before.

About Sona, I enjoyed playing her few years ago, now she's just meh.

Miku Lv99Jan 15, 20154 votes

{quoted}

They already destroyed my . It's your turn now.

Same for me. Now I feel like I'm not going to be able to play ranked for a few months until I can do decently as someone else. Or maybe just accept that I'm going to have to lose my next 50 games until I'm at the mmr I need to be at in order to actually play games again.

And to whoever said it's a small nerf, you're wrong. 5 movespeed is a lot. I always get ganked like 10 times during the laning phase since I bully the enemies so much they always cry for tons and tons of ganks whenever they're losing and having trouble csing. Lower movespeed means she can't get away from the ganks as well so you have to be super passive. As in, you basically can't snowball at all in lane thus making her a garbage support early game. And then she still doesn't have the best end game, either. So she just sucks now.

LeadpaintchipsJan 15, 20151 votes

you're pushing the lane too hard, you need to focus on the harass. . .

RainbowgasmJan 17, 20151 votes

{quoted}

you're pushing the lane too hard, you need to focus on the harass. . .

sona harass pushes lane through collateral damage, and if you do a good job, by pushing the enemy adc away from cs.

Subject 5Jan 16, 20151 votes

http://puu.sh/ezTwT/ddec623909.jpg

It is all about positioning and an active mind, Raka is an extremely good pick if you have a good tank team and an aggressive adc.

RikariJan 15, 20152 votes

Soraka is pretty strong if they don't go and get themselves focused.

Rock RockburghJan 16, 20153 votes

Soraka is insane right now. All these Sona nerfs? They should be going to her. (And this is from a Soraka main!)

The issue is probably that you're just not playing her right; I'd guess you still have an old-raka mindset. Get your coin/spellthief, then sightstone, upgrade support item to T2. Buy boots. Start stacking AP. Have all the heals. Have all the damage.

She's an absolutely amazing harass support because of Starcall's low cooldown. If you get an Athene's or Morello's, mana becomes very little of an issue. (I like to buy an early Chalice for this.) Just start throwing stars at people any time you get a chance. Either they move (and probably miss CS) or they take a fairly sizable low-CD nuke. Once you hit level 2, it even heals you on top of that. (And for a LOT, once you get some AP up.) It's worth noting that she has at least a 0.4AP ratio on her self-heal. It's not too hard to get ~150HP per champion hit.

Equinox is used primarily as a gank-stopper, in my experience. Throw it down a little bit in front of whoever's coming at you (so they don't get hit right when it appears) and they'll probably have to either walk around or dash. This will either give you time to back off or use up one of their abilities.

I honestly can't see why people complain about new-raka. She's way stronger than she used to be, and I guarantee there will be nerfs coming in at some point. (Well, maybe. She's flashier now.)

Wînter FoxJan 16, 20152 votes

My problem is the support role is meant to be flexible. When I choose a support, I have no idea what I'm going to buy until we're 10+ minutes in the game. If I'm Braum and Zed is getting fed mid? Looks like I'm getting item 3110 this game. If I'm Morgana and we're dominating bot? Time to rush item 3157 If I'm Nami and feel like being a beast, I'll build item 3116

They completely destroyed Soraka's flexibility. You can only build one way every game, and that's squishy healer that can't heal herself (without poke). They discourage you to build health. They restrict her ratios to prevent mid Soraka. It's sad how small the cage Riot made for her is.

Now maybe in those (rare) games when there's not stuff like Zed mid, Riven top, and jungle to wreck you in 0.1 seconds- Soraka could be useful. Maybe. But then again I could just grab Thresh and a item 3031 and go 10/0, and Riot doesn't seem to have a problem with that flexibility.

maikokkJan 16, 20152 votes

you can go tanky raka fairly easily and still pump out massive amounts of healing. as long as you dont build too much health, that is.

item 3083 for regen between heals, health is wasted as you have a %health cost, but its more effective than you might think as a whole, as long as you can keep the passive up

item 3110 is an obvious pick for obvious reasons

item 3065 synergy with warmogs, and helps mitigate your self heal/percent health cost difference without building AP

item 3222 duh

item 3026 extra MR and armor, no health, insures focusing/not focusing you is a lose/lose situation

freeformlineJan 16, 20151 votes

I mained Sona before her rework, then mained Urgot top lane, then returned to supporting with Soraka, who was then promptly reworked. I've learned to play both of the poor healers again, but I miss their old kits.

When playing Soraka, I usually try to build her a little tanky after laning phase, typically rushing an Ardent Censer after my gold item and Sightstone for mana and its passive. I typically finish that a little into the mid-game, and start building resistance to survive team fights. I tend toward item 3110 and item 3191 for armor. For MR, I often take item 3105 for the team boost, despite the bonus health. I am also trying out using item 3512 and item 3026 for mixed resistance, gold permitting. There are a lot of builds out there, even for pigeon-holed champs, you just need to look for them. I find a squishy Soraka is a dead Soraka, so I build a little tanky, while you build as a squishy mage. All we can do is try to have fun with it (and cry for our lost mana battery).

RaptameiJan 16, 20151 votes

{quoted}

They already destroyed my . It's your turn now.

You're supposed to play Thresh. Big plays and stuff.

Ash LockheartJan 15, 20154 votes

Rip sona. My old main.

Gank in ProgressJan 15, 20156 votes

cmon you can still play her, that small nerf will not do too much. dont let this bad balance team take your main away

Rinky DinkyJan 15, 201521 votes

Not really dude. They already took her away with the rework, flat out destroying quite a bit of her playstyle.

Now they are nerfing the only thing she has left.

Sona is a free kill right now. Whether it be from a Taric E, Leona E, or a Jungle Gank, Sona is a sitting duck right now.

Want a good generalist Supp? Take Nami, the better version of Sona.

This is coming from a Sona main btw. Sona is being removed from the game one patch at a time.

TheGrayBuffoonJan 15, 201511 votes

[{quoted}](name=Quality PIayer,realm=EUW,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=crZ9G4Jz,comment-id=00020000,timestamp=2015-01-15T15:20:17.691+0000)

cmon you can still play her, that small nerf will not do too much. dont let this bad balance team take your main away

The thing is it is a PERPETUALLY bad balance team. I have learned that Riot really doesn't care what the community thinks -- except the Lee Sin mains. They will do what they want to do and they have us by the proverbial balls because we will keep on playing the game and every time a new champ comes out or a new skin a ton of players will spend the cash while complaining. Also, there is a significant number of the community that see Riot as being able to do no wrong.

Gank in ProgressJan 15, 20155 votes

i can only agree. they balance out the game for gold/silver players more than for pro players or experienced players. yes, they do make changes for towers etc so that competitive play looks more awesome, but the champ balancing remains the same. there is a reason why orianna is top mid tier for 3 years, and lee sin the unmatched jungle king for many years. and if someone like reksai roflstomps someone like lee sin, they get instanerfed. this game is getting boring for me because i know that my good plays as f.e. nautilus wont matter as long as some noob plays lee sin or zed and just gets away with every mistake he does for free.

fuck LeeSin

Samflash3Jan 15, 20153 votes

they balance out the game for gold/silver players more than for pro players or experienced players.

Ok. It's not like the majority of their playerbase are bronze - gold. Normally, I'd stop here.But then you typed this comment

because i know that my good plays as f.e. nautilus wont matter as long as some noob plays lee sin or zed and just gets away with every mistake he does for free.

fuck

Where pro players aren't having problems dealing with these champions and it's mostly bronze - gold. Do you see the irony in what you're saying?

Demonsolder21Jan 15, 20151 votes

What? The majority of the playerbase doesn't even play ranked. As a matter of fact only a small percentage plays ranked.

Samflash3Jan 16, 20151 votes

Even so, if the majority would play ranked, there is a good chance that they won't all be in platinum or higher. They'd still be spread about (maybe more in Silver and Gold).

Although this is just my speculation. What I'm trying to say is that gold, silver, and bronze players give a good view of what unranked players views are. If the game was just balanced for the pro players, then we wouldn't see much overall nerfs. Champions like Release Darius/Diana would remain the same. Elise and Evelynn would still be nerfed, Master Yi would still have been reworked, Lee Sin, Kha'zix, and Zed wouldn't be touched because pros have the coordination to combat their potentials.

Demonsolder21Jan 16, 20151 votes

Fair point.

AxestsJan 15, 20153 votes

As someone who's played a lot of lee I was fine with the huge nerf they were throwing at him earlier as long as he kept more utility (such as e AS slow)

SammystormJan 15, 20152 votes

What are you basing this on? not everyone agrees on what makes sense balance wise. You just don't see the opinions here on boards because most people won't even post because the majority of people who come to threads like this are like minded people who just spam down vote any one who disagrees

Demonsolder21Jan 16, 20152 votes

Tbh the forums doesn't even represent the whole playerbase. Maybe a small percentage but thats about it.

SammystormJan 16, 20151 votes

Yeah and I would also argue the majority of people that attempt to suggest balance propose things that would make the game worse.

Demonsolder21Jan 16, 20151 votes

Well than we are in a agrement.

Meep ManJan 15, 20153 votes

They nerfed the bonus damage on her passive on-hit after using Q, they didn't reduce her scaling by much at all.

MrSc0ttyJan 15, 20152 votes

Yeah it doesn't make any sense because they didn't nerf her scaling.

Just because it's a percentage doesn't mean it's a scaling.

Champion SkinJan 15, 20156 votes

Well her scaling on Q Power Chord was 30% of ap Now it is only 28% of her AP so theoretically it was a scaling nerf

AnonTwoJan 15, 20152 votes

ARAM nerf?

???

FantasySniperJan 16, 20151 votes

The problem will be solved when people finally stop building her maximum AP as a "viable build route". One way or another...

Until then, they're going to be hitting what's causing issues until they feel satisfied with the solution enough to begin compensating.

RedCycloneJan 16, 20153 votes

that is just dumb, Sona players build full AP because it's their only option her bases are god awful

FantasySniperJan 17, 20151 votes

"AP being her only viable build" is just a scapegoat. It's weighing her down because that's the only thing people want to do on her, so they have to balance for it.

The best builds use Mikael's, Ardent Censer, and an Aegis of the Legion. In fact, you never see a pro building Spellblade or Rabadon's unless they're going Mid.

Rinky DinkyJan 18, 20151 votes

That is incorrect.

Sona not building AP makes her useless. Literally, she becomes the worst supp you could have if you do not build AP on her.

The real scapegoat is claiming the Sona has any real form of Sustain or has unfair poke.

Her w heal is garbage, and she WILL run oom after 2 casts. Maybe 3 if you have good utility masteries.

All of her damage value's are lower than Nami in a full rotation. Nami does more damage unless Sona buys a sheen. Nami heals more unless Sona builds AP. Nami is and has a better speed boost unless Sona builds AP.

If you are not building AP on Sona, you should not be playing Sona.

I would also like to ask that you stop acting like you know what you are talking about. You are very much talking out of your ass.

Just because you get wiped by Sona in lane due to you not knowing how to fight her is your own shortcomings, not the champion being OP.

Also, before you try to mention from your experience, you are in silver. I am as well. I have watched various Sona mains and players in high elo. In fact, the current best Sona player in NA, himself has said that Sona is very much a lesser champion than Nami. Her only benfit is that she is more constistant in her damage, but Nami has 100% more potential.

Literally any supp in this game besides Janna can easily set Sona up to be nuked from the botlane. Sona is not popular in high elo for a reason. Sona is only useful as a poke supp who scales into a secondary ap carry. Her heal is only good mid-late game with AP, as well as her speedboost.

And before you say that is Toxic, Annie, Zyra, Vel'Koz, and Fiddlesticks are used as supp's for the same reason.

Sona has less damage and cc than them, and also less mobility.

Her heal seems to be people's reason for saying she is op, when it is not reliable in any way in lane. Using your heal to constantly heal your adc will cause you to go oom and be useless. 3 w's will restore only 200 hp at the most at rank 1 (If your adc is at 1% hp for each heal). That is 240 mana for a 200 hp (Going to be way lower in normal circumstances) heal. That is garbage.

The only reason to play Sona is to have a secondary AP carry who can provide utility in the form of buffs to her allies. She cannot go mid due to awful sustain and even worse waveclear.

So before you go spouting off nonsense about how "Good Sona's built utility. Sona does not need AP", you should do some research. Know what you are talking about before making yourself look like an uneducated "Bronzie".

FantasySniperJan 18, 20151 votes

I guess 99% of competitive players are worthless Sonas, then. Did you even click that link?

You build her utility because she is a support with crap AP ratios for everything but her damage output, and more often than not won't be getting that much gold if you're in a decent Elo thanks to a lack of deaths.

Sona's speed boost has the superior scaling (For every 100 AP, Sona is guaranteed 11.375≤ MS bonus over Nami's 10) and will begin to outweigh Nami's by at least level 6 with the minimum MS and a combination of T2 boots. By the time you've leveled it out completely, there's at least a 34 MS difference before AP values. It also applies to every teammate with ease, while Nami has to spend important spells to accomplish even one person getting the bonus.

Actually, her pick rate rides along 7-9% in Master tier, which is a respectable pick rate considering that it has been super-consistent and still better than Lulu's, Zyra's, Soraka's, Karma's, Alistar's, and Taric's. Her win rate is also noticeably higher than Nami's - who doesn't win more than half of her games at that level and is merely picked out of habit - but lets set that aside.

Sona's heal is incredibly reliable. Press [W], both you and your carry get health and even a shield to block people trying to counteract it. Namie's not even guaranteed to get health to both players, let alone one if she tries to poke at the same time. Soraka has to use another spell just to keep her own health up. Only Alistar and Taric then have heals, but they're picked for different reasons.

Do your research, mate, and actually read what I'm saying instead of putting words in my mouth that aren't mine.

AFK PushJan 16, 20151 votes

http://matchhistory.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/#match-details/NA1/1698319890/49620597?tab=overview

Even after the nerfs I still find her to be playable. She isn't a poke or sustain pick, she is a utility pick, and seems to be overshadowed by Lulu and Nami . The problem is that these two do what she does more reliably. Nami heals better, lulu pokes more consistently and overall has better utility. If it wasn't for her having a heal and her awesome ult then she would indeed be crap. At least she fits better in wombo combo teams, imo.