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Sona -- Yes, she's in a bad place

SarcasticShepard··4 votes·674 views

So, pre-ability rework, Sona was a positioning-based poke/utility support with a decent balance of skills. (I might be remembering with bias, as she was the champ who got me into the support role, but then I'm also the guy who never bought Thresh). At the time, her numbers were high enough to step up as a solo lane if needed, alongside Karma, Annie, Thresh, Zyra, Soraka and Lux (Note that this was only before the rework, don't roast me for thinking its the current state of affairs). Personally, I am disappointed that she has been nerfed to this level after all the other changes that have been made across the the roster.

Sona's update essentially put a greater focus on her now active-but-shorter time and range auras in exchange for reduced numbers across, and reshaped her ult for reduced width and longer range. Over the patches/updates since then, the numbers have since been chipped at to where she is today.

Now, she isn't in a terrible place, but her position is far from ideal. So, lets take a look at the state of her abilites.

Passive: This has been mistakenly been called reliable CC in the past, but the "charge up" nature forces spamming abilities, which never endears you to the ADC, and a unnecessary mana drain. Even then, the CC is locked to the autoattack, making it less reliable and much shorter range than the slows of most other supports and many other solo lane champions.

Q: This ability has been mostly untouched. Its her primary poke and what the more generous-minded call waveclear. It has a generous ap ratio of .5 but low base damage, meaning you want to build ap to avoid tickling enemies to death. The aura also boost the next attack of you and whoever enters the aura. The only painful thing here is the low base damage, which essentially forces the ADC to do all the damage early to mid game, beyond the pitiful pokes as you build support items, which also means that the damage amp aura is also very lackluster.

W: In theory, this sounds like a nice ability; a heal that heals more when the target is more injured and grands a small shield. The reality is that it's closer to slapping a band-aid on a severed limb. Number-wise, the base heal and ratio is tied for lowest between Alistar's mass heal. With the increasing ratio, her heal beats out Alistar's but still remains lower than any other ally-healing ability. The shield is a mitigating factor, being the only other mass shield besides Karma's enhanced shield, but has the lowest base and ratio of all other ally-shielding and self-shielding abilities in addition to being the shield with the shortest duration of all shielding abilities.

E: This ability was actually improved by the rework, giving a boost to all those who entered in addition to extending the duration on Sona. This ability is pretty good as is, which is the problem, unfortunately. This falls to two reasons; first, only one skill point is needed to make the ability useful as the speed boost doesn't increase too much per level (which is good, as it's already at a good level) and the duration does not increase.

R: With the exception of the new shape from the rework, this ability has remained mostly unchanged for a while, though the ap ratio has been dropped to .5 (which makes sense--she's no APC). The bonuses given from its passive are handy, though there is matter of opinion on whether they should be better off moved into her passive.

So, with all that above, we see one overarching weakness, primarily between the poke and heal: a great need of AP for relevance in any part of the game. For a non-support champ, this isn't much of a problem but Sona is a support, meaning that she has to build 2-3 items before she can really influence a lane or game beyond warding and tickling the other team with her pokes. This is further compounded by the fact that her auras drive her to stay very close to her adc, but her poke/AA range is short, putting a easy bullseye on her squishy frame (lowest base health for a support).

That said, I actually like the idea of her being an aura-based support, though that would require some fiddling with numbers.

As it stands, Sona only has her E and R to set her apart from other champions, due to her high relaince on AP and very lackluster heal ("worst heal in League" is accurate but hurts too much to say directly). Even then, her E has too long a cooldown for anything less than dashing and warding or disengaging and reengaging. Her R on the other hand is a powerful tool with a decent CD and damage across all ranks but i have yet to see a team pick a support based purely on ult (with a one-time exception with a Soraka vs. Karthus).

This is where I'll make my suggestions about what could be done and probably where I'll garner the most hate/agreement.

Health: This could stand to see a small boost, especially as with her short ranges.

Passive: Not much to see here, as I would only recommend upping the base damage a bit to improve her low damage potential.

Q: The ratio is nice, but the poke base damage at early levels could use a bit of a boost. Alternatively, to skew her in favor of her auras, boost the damage for next autoattack both at base and ratio and reduce the poke ratio.

W: Not gonna lie, this one just hurts to look at in base form. Thing is, it looks like it wasn't decided whether its a heal or a shield, and that's bad. My personal take is to boost the base amounts of both heal and shield to reduce the AP reliance and buff the bonus healing ratio to a higher level to curb the current trend of topping off health. The most interesting case would be if the heal ratio were also applied to the shield, but that is unlikely unless the shield is made the focus of the ability. There is absolutely no reason that a mass heal (Alistar) should be able to heal more than a two person heal.

E: I'm not entirely sure what to do here to make this less of a one point talent, which may or may not be a good thing. Here, improvements could range from reducing CD at later ranks or reducing the base at early ranks and have it increase more rapidly to the current amount at max rank.

R: Not much I would want to have changed here, apart from maybe moving the passive bonuses for Power Chord to the passive for clarity.

All things said, I still like Sona as a support even though she lacks consistent CC because of her buffs to the ADC and holds a nice balance between her strengths and shortfallings on paper. Like all supports however, she is matchup and highly skill based.

Well, that's about all I have to say on the subject, so thanks for reading and leave your thoughts!

5 Comments

Erockandroll2 votes

So much wrong with this. where do I begin?

Sona's update essentially put a greater focus on her now active-but-shorter time and range auras in exchange for reduced numbers across, and reshaped her ult for reduced width and longer range. Over the patches/updates since then, the numbers have since been chipped at to where she is today.

Your first statement is True, but you really need to look at the update in terms of feeling. Aura's are inherently Uniteractive, and you really can't buff those without them becoming over bearing. The update was largely a QoL change to make Sona feel more rewarding to play, while supporting a Burstier kit. You also didn't read the patch notes clearly enough to understand what happened to her ult. They changed the Particall effects to better represent the actual AoE while leaving the numbers unchanged.

Passive: This has been mistakenly been called reliable CC in the past, but the "charge up" nature forces spamming abilities, which never endears you to the ADC, and a unnecessary mana drain. Even then, the CC is locked to the autoattack, making it less reliable and much shorter range than the slows of most other supports and many other solo lane champions.

This is for the most part true, but you have neglected to mention the damage from the passive itself. Which is amp farther with her Q. And because you can poke and heal, with your abilities, her passive is far from being an unnecessary mana Drain.

W: In theory, this sounds like a nice ability; a heal that heals more when the target is more injured and grands a small shield. The reality is that it's closer to slapping a band-aid on a severed limb. Number-wise, the base heal and ratio is tied for lowest between Alistar's mass heal. With the increasing ratio, her heal beats out Alistar's but still remains lower than any other ally-healing ability. The shield is a mitigating factor, being the only other mass shield besides Karma's enhanced shield, but has the lowest base and ratio of all other ally-shielding and self-shielding abilities in addition to being the shield with the shortest duration of all shielding abilities.

Your probably underestimating the effectiveness of her shield. If you had combined that with her old heal values it would be broken. Also consider the %HP missing component, it's been made slightly more situational. And while the Ratio seems a bit low, Remember that she heals herself + one ally. Your not playing her right if your only healing your ally. (that's Soraka's domain) Also comparing it to Karma's shield is a pretty poor example since karma needs to ult to shield a bunch of people.

So, with all that above, we see one overarching weakness, primarily between the poke and heal: a great need of AP for relevance in any part of the game. For a non-support champ, this isn't much of a problem but Sona is a support, meaning that she has to build 2-3 items before she can really influence a lane or game beyond warding and tickling the other team with her pokes.

Stop kidding yourself. No support needs to build Galuptious amounts of AP to be effective. Considering that her Highest AP ratio is 50%. (remember when they put AP utility scaling on Lulu? is she still a support?) And Even if you are going full AP on Sona, you won't want Death cap for damage. since she has so few offensive spells. You would get lich bane instead. And to say sona has no damage because of her ratios, means you are not taking things like CDR into account, which probably scale better on her, because of her passive.

If you want to trade as sona early game. Level her Q first. This is because, with the LS nerfs in patch 4.10, Having any amount of healing is going to give you a leg up against non sustain supports, who can't heal their poked ally. The other Reason is because the on hit damage from the Q aura scales with rank, making the actual increase on your damage combo two fold.

her full damage combo would be Q active + Q(on hit) + Q(power cord) one spell, on auto, and that AP ratio prior to the most recent nerf was 100% AP and that was in the frame of less than a second if done correctly.

Also your suggestions don't really fall inline with riot's goals.

They are not going to buff damage on her passive, they just got done nerfing that. Also their may be no right answer on the Q delema with her Q damage.

They removed the topping off health part of her heal with the update. Riot says they don't really support Burst heals. So I really can't see them buffing her ratios their.

Moving the passive bonuses elsewhere really would be a nerf. Considering that putting passive on an ultimate gives more intensive to level ult when it becomes available. While having predicable power spikes. And considering that it effects all of her auras, it makes her a better Jack of all trades, with less reliance on what ability gets leveled first.

SarcasticShepard1 votes

{quoted}

So much wrong with this. where do I begin?

Your first statement is True, but you really need to look at the update in terms of feeling. Aura's are inherently Uniteractive, and you really can't buff those without them becoming over bearing. The update was largely a QoL change to make Sona feel more rewarding to play, while supporting a Burstier kit. You also didn't read the patch notes clearly enough to understand what happened to her ult. They changed the Particall effects to better represent the actual AoE while leaving the numbers unchanged.

I concede the the points on the original change being QoL and the changes to her ult (having only found the ult notes after making the post). However, with the steady hits of the nerf bat over the past patches, her auras are more or less the only thing intact (minus the effectiveness of what they do). Also related to the nerf bat is how the actual QoL has gone down (my humble opinion) as she no longer possesses anywhere the impact on lane as she did initially after the QoL changes.

This is for the most part true, but you have neglected to mention the damage from the passive itself. Which is amp farther with her Q. And because you can poke and heal, with your abilities, her passive is far from being an unnecessary mana Drain.

Yes, I did neglect the passive damage, though it becomes negligible into late game without high AP and her Q being up. When I spoke of it being a mana drain, I meant that it drains mana if you want to have the passive up regularly--essentially, you need to spam abilities to bring up the passive and the abilities cost mana.

Your probably underestimating the effectiveness of her shield. If you had combined that with her old heal values it would be broken. Also consider the %HP missing component, it's been made slightly more situational. And while the Ratio seems a bit low, Remember that she heals herself + one ally. Your not playing her right if your only healing your ally. (that's Soraka's domain) Also comparing it to Karma's shield is a pretty poor example since karma needs to ult to shield a bunch of people.

The shield lasts for 2 seconds, while the grand average among ally shields lasts for 5 and the shortest shield belongs to Rumble, who can buff it. for raw numbers, the base shield is very low and the long cooldown does not make it better. As for the reminder that she heals two, Alistar heals everyone in range for twice the base amount. I do concede the point on Soraka and her healing, though the minuscule heal increase for wounded allies is still much too low for the tiny heals she dishes out.

Stop kidding yourself. No support needs to build Galuptious amounts of AP to be effective. Considering that her Highest AP ratio is 50%. (remember when they put AP utility scaling on Lulu? is she still a support?) And Even if you are going full AP on Sona, you won't want Death cap for damage. since she has so few offensive spells. You would get lich bane instead. And to say sona has no damage because of her ratios, means you are not taking things like CDR into account, which probably scale better on her, because of her passive.

I agree that supports do not need to build like a APC, but the problem is that you only looked at the top ratio. 100 AP deals 50 extra damage, but only heals 20 health. While I haven't seen a Lulu in weeks, your point about Deathcap is moot since it has been removed. Furthermore, I agree that Lich Bane and CDR are essential for an aggro Sona, but CDR is essential for every support. Finally, I have to point out that in the current support meta, non-tank AP supports are more or less expected to buy a fair amount of AP and champions like Soraka, Janna, Karma, and Nami all help their ADC with more AP and CDR.

If you want to trade as sona early game. Level her Q first. This is because, with the LS nerfs in patch 4.10, Having any amount of healing is going to give you a leg up against non sustain supports, who can't heal their poked ally. The other Reason is because the on hit damage from the Q aura scales with rank, making the actual increase on your damage combo two fold.

The first four levels, Q-Q-W-E are set in stone. All that comes after is based on the situation.

Also your suggestions don't really fall inline with riot's goals.

Unfortunately, that "goal" of removing a style of play (I assume you refer to Phreak talking about passive play not being the optimum mode) is counterproductive to the job of the support; protect the ADC, wait for the other team to initiate, initiate on the ADC's go. The average support is built to be passive until the ADC needs or wants otherwise. If that isnt Riot's goal, then my internet search was inaccurate and please clarify for me.

They are not going to buff damage on her passive, they just got done nerfing that. Also their may be no right answer on the Q delema with her Q damage.

The buff pad and nerf bat are fickle gods, who givith and taketh away. Riot has done some unexpected stuff over the seasons. As for Q, I would be happy for a reduction to the ratio if the base is increased.

They removed the topping off health part of her heal with the update. Riot says they don't really support Burst heals. So I really can't see them buffing her ratios their.

I agree with the stance against burst heals (despite my actions as AP Soraka), but buffing the bonus heal percentage would greatly discourage topping off if it was higher, as the current heal doesn't really change enough to reward clutch heals.

Moving the passive bonuses elsewhere really would be a nerf. Considering that putting passive on an ultimate gives more intensive to level ult when it becomes available. While having predicable power spikes. And considering that it effects all of her auras, it makes her a better Jack of all trades, with less reliance on what ability gets leveled first.

Currently, the extra part of Sona's passive looks and feels like having the lv 11 and 16 changes to Garen's passive attached to his ult: it's not clear to the people trying her on free week and feels awkward. Essentially, it's for clarity. For a comparable case, how confusing would it be if the increases/changes to Garen's passive were attached to his ult?

Erockandroll1 votes

A few more counter points.

Unfortunately, that "goal" of removing a style of play (I assume you refer to Phreak talking about passive play not being the optimum mode) is counterproductive to the job of the support; protect the ADC, wait for the other team to initiate, initiate on the ADC's go. The average support is built to be passive until the ADC needs or wants otherwise. If that isnt Riot's goal, then my internet search was inaccurate and please clarify for me.

The thing about this is that if you want support to feel rewarding, they Really need to reinvent the Support class. also, Saying that you should just play passive waiting for the ADC is kinda false. The support is the one with the CC, the tankyness, and if they die, it's less of a loss than if the ADC dies. Really it's the support that initiates first. (at least in the laning phase.)

to say protect the ADC as your primary job description, probably means that your playing someone like Janna who has natural disengage while stacking utility. You really can't compare that to sona who's style is probably described as extended trading. It's an Over Generalization where the Support role is more diverse that that.

Protect the Carry? wouldn't your rather feed the Carry?

As for My appeals to Riot's goals, I actually quite enjoy watching the LCS, Balancing the game towards the flashy big play does make it fun to watch and quite frankly, fun to play as well. this is why I Generally Trust Riot's Judgement, with few questionable cases.

I agree that supports do not need to build like a APC, but the problem is that you only looked at the top ratio. 100 AP deals 50 extra damage, but only heals 20 health. While I haven't seen a Lulu in weeks, your point about Deathcap is moot since it has been removed. Furthermore, I agree that Lich Bane and CDR are essential for an aggro Sona, but CDR is essential for every support. Finally, I have to point out that in the current support meta, non-tank AP supports are more or less expected to buy a fair amount of AP and champions like Soraka, Janna, Karma, and Nami all help their ADC with more AP and CDR.

First of all, It's death cap, not Death fire Grasps. Rabadon's death cap is still a thing and it still give you the 30% AP as it always did.

Second, using AP and CDR comparing it to other Supports. Sona Probably still takes the cake. Nami is not nearly as powerful as sona in terms of Poke, without any real utility scaling. Janna, while has a fair amount of defensive abilities, I would argue don't directly affect her primary focus. (which is disengage.) I have no Idea where Soraka is, I feel like she would be the real troubled one. This makes Karma the only real exception. and yet her damage is balanced around a support's kit. (higher base, lower scaling) Karma would need more than just AP for damage. though I find sorc shoes and Haunting guise to be good additions. Or if the Enemy is really building defensive, you could try Void staff.

SarcasticShepard1 votes

{quoted}

A few more counter points.

The thing about this is that if you want support to feel rewarding, they Really need to reinvent the Support class. also, Saying that you should just play passive waiting for the ADC is kinda false. The support is the one with the CC, the tankyness, and if they die, it's less of a loss than if the ADC dies. Really it's the support that initiates first. (at least in the laning phase.)

I agree that the support class as a while does need a significant amount of work to beat away the meta-lovers, but I think we can agree that it won't happen as it would rock the boat too much for the entire game. The support is not always the lane punching bag (that dubious honor goes to the minions) but I agree on the lines that the support should generally take the bullet for the ADC. As for initiation, like I said above, the supports initiates in lane, but does so at the behest of the ADC or after warning them. Not doing so has led to my deaths more than once.

to say protect the ADC as your primary job description, probably means that your playing someone like Janna who has natural disengage while stacking utility. You really can't compare that to sona who's style is probably described as extended trading. It's an Over Generalization where the Support role is more diverse that that.

I actually end up as Leona (usually) when I support (unless I go as Vel'koz for the huge pokes) and neither of those is comparable to Sona as she has no niche with her low numbers across the board.

Protect the Carry? wouldn't your rather feed the Carry?

Depends on the matchup. Since ten creeps is about one kill in terms of gold, I base the feed/protect ratio on that and whether first blood is on the board.

As for My appeals to Riot's goals, I actually quite enjoy watching the LCS, Balancing the game towards the flashy big play does make it fun to watch and quite frankly, fun to play as well. this is why I Generally Trust Riot's Judgement, with few questionable cases.

I'm all for the flashy big plays, but when only 15-25 champs see use at the upper tiers (with very rare exceptions) all the games start to look the same. But that's a debate for another thread.

First of all, It's death cap, not Death fire Grasps. Rabadon's death cap is still a thing and it still give you the 30% AP as it always did.

And once again, I misname something else, thanks for pointing that out. Still, it leaves a hole in the already anemic AP category while the AD has 4-5 high-damage items.

Second, using AP and CDR comparing it to other Supports. Sona Probably still takes the cake. Nami is not nearly as powerful as sona in terms of Poke, without any real utility scaling. Janna, while has a fair amount of defensive abilities, I would argue don't directly affect her primary focus. (which is disengage.) I have no Idea where Soraka is, I feel like she would be the real troubled one. This makes Karma the only real exception. and yet her damage is balanced around a support's kit. (higher base, lower scaling) Karma would need more than just AP for damage. though I find sorc shoes and Haunting guise to be good additions. Or if the Enemy is really building defensive, you could try Void staff.

Well, every support needs CDR and every ap-based support sees nice benefits from building ap.

Nami actually has higher ratios on her W and equal ratios and higher base on her Q, plus that all three of her abilities are capable of dealing damage.

Soraka can heal 250+ health roughly every 3.5 seconds if shes built for AP+CDR, can heal with her Q--both of which already put her ahead of Sona's poke and heal and that's before her silence and ult. Currently, she works well with squishy champs and teams ans shoring up fighters who dont go too tanky.

Karma has a .5 or higher ratio for ALL of her skills and that's before her ult tacks on more power, meaning that she can easily outscale the other side even if she isn't ahead. Sona, on the other hand, need to be ahead to break even.

Janna, with enough AP, becomes an uncatchable pain in the butt with a nasty slow and some impressive power to her shield, peel and ult.

At this point, Sona wants to be a jack of all trades: cover all the bases combining utility and damage. That idea falls apart at the point where Sona's numbers are low to the point where she can't fill any role her kit has unless she's ahead.

Erockandroll1 votes

At this point, Sona wants to be a jack of all trades: cover all the bases combining utility and damage. That idea falls apart at the point where Sona's numbers are low to the point where she can't fill any role her kit has unless she's ahead.

Just one quick critique. I notice that you continue to point at her numbers. Numbers arn't enough to paint a champion's position in the Balancing, less you missed the endless QQing prior to the most recent nerfs. And I have to point out the QQing, since she was not (for the most part) competitively viable, their was no reprocuctions in the LCS when Riot caved in to the QQing. And Arguably being a pub stomper in solo queue while not being competitively viable, (hi akali) is not really a favorable position to be in.

You can say that that nami has a higher ratio on her W compared to sona. but you also have to consider when and how these abilities are going to be used. If Nami uses her W for poke, she can't use if for healing (not as effectively anyway) and vise versa. while Sona can Heal and Poke independently of each other. And sona can afford to do so.

To truly balance her, you have to understand how she is currently being played, and whether said play style is worth perusing. This isn't to say that Riot always knows what their doing, but that the nerfs are not random.

E.x. I play sona with a poke a kite style of game play. Maxing her Q first, sustaining better than non sustain supports, and widding down the opponent with quick in and out movement. My item builds included mobi boots, Censer and morrello's giving me large amounts of damage and utility while also giving me the MS to successfully kite the Opponent w/o relying on more defensive items.

Her recent nerfs were to her Q powerchord. and her MS. What does this say about my play style? Does Riot not support how I tend to play sona by targeting her MS? Maybe not, or even if they do support my play style, it's just a bit over tuned. for the style.

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