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An idea for a soft Sona rework

Koechophe··2 votes·503 views

Goals:

  1. Make her kit feel less "Spam abilities mindlessly" and more dynamic
  2. Bolster unified gameplay between Sona and her allies
  3. Help Sona stay relevant in the late game beyond her ult or a fed AP itemizaton
  4. Give supports without hard engage windows to better respond to Sona in lane
  5. Unify her identity around music.

Passive: Chord Progression Harmony: Sona's basic abilities all have additional effects if used in harmony with the actions of allies. Every time an ability correctly harmonizes, Sona gains a stack of Harmony specific to the ability used, up to four stacks. Each stack is represented by a ring surrounding Sona, colored to match the ability that generated it. If Sona generates an additional Harmony stack while full, its effect replaces her oldest stack.

Dissonance At 4 stacks, Sona's next basic attack expends each of them to deal 10 - 150 (based on level) (+ 20% AP) bonus magic damage and silence the enemy target for 1 second, as well as additional effects based on the abilities used to gain stacks. **Hymn of Valor: **25% additional damage per Harmony stack Aria of Preservance: .25 seconds of additional Silence duration per Harmony stack **Song of Celerity: **75 additional range on the auto attack per Harmony stack Dissonance resets Sona's auto attack timer

Q: Hymn of Valor Cost: 45/50/55/60/65 Cooldown: 10

Sona plays powerful hymn that sends out two musical pulses, dealing 40 / 80 / 120 / 160 / 200 (+ 40% AP) to each enemy hit.

Harmony If Hymn of Valor hits an enemy that has been damaged by an ally champion within the last 1 second, Hymn of Valor harmonizes with the last ability or basic attack that champion was struck with, dealing 10/14/18/21/25% of the ability/attack's damage again and generating a stack of Harmony. Hymn of Valor prioritizes enemy champions that have susceptible to Harmony. If Harmony damage kills an enemy, the kill is given to the ally who damaged them.

W: Aria of Preservance Cost: 80/90/100/110/120 Cooldown: 15

Sona plays a soothing Aria that heals herself and the most wounded ally in range for 40/60/80/100/120 health

Harmony If Aria of Preservance heals an ally who has taken damage in the last 1 second, Aria of Preservance heals for 20/23/27/30/33% of the damage they have taken over the last 2 seconds and generates a stack of Harmony. Aria of Preservance priortizes allies who have been damaged in the last second.

E: Song of Celerity Cost: 65 Cooldown: 7

Sona plays a riveting melody that grants nearby allies 4/6/8/10/12% movement speed for 1.5 seconds

Harmony The first ally that damages an enemy champion during the movement speed bonus of Song of Celerity harmonizes with the music, slowing the target by 25% for 1/1.5/2/2.5/3 seconds.

R: Crescendo Sona plays an irresistible cord in a line, dealing 150/250/350 (+50% AP) magic damage in a line and stunning all enemies for 1.5 seconds, forcing them to dance

Crescendo drains all stacks of Harmony, adding .125 seconds to the stun duration per stack.

Overview Sona's abilites are all still very basic, but to optimize, they need to be used relatively quickly in response to allied actions, the idea being that Sona is literally harmonizing with her allies. Her Q requires quick reflexes, and can't work if Sona's zoned out of range, but has the potential to increase damage done by a lot, provided it's used after a powerful ability and not a weaker one. Song of Celerity is a hard-counter to bursted damage, but is gated by a longer cooldown, so is ineffective at "topping people off", used more as a combat skill. Song of Celerity is meant to be the easiest way to gain Harmony stacks, but is objectively the weakest effect when added to Dissonance. Her kit has a lot more staying power for end-game usefulness, but much of it takes skill to access, and her base damages and cooldowns have be increased as a result. Over all, the skill floor is still pretty low, but the skill ceiling has been increased.

Notes: -The numbers are subject to change, it's more the core idea that I wanted to put out here -I would think the range on Sona's q would need to be decreased to make it balanced. -With this kit, the global cooldown would hopefully be restored -The original kit wanted to incorperate music through the form of auras. Since, generally, auras are too much passive and hidden gameplay. This kit removes them completely, and instead using the Harmony mechanic to make her gameplay feel fluid and musical. -She was given a silence on her passive because 1) the duration is extremely limited and 2) silence fits well with her identity better than pretty much everyone else (she manipulates sound). -I'm not a Sona main. If I've desecrated something core to her identity, let me know.

So what do you guys think?

14 Comments

Arakadia2 votes

I really like this idea. It would also make less Sona's just go lichbane and damage. The idea of aura's is kinda boring tho imo...

Gypsyleeboy1 votes

Read my reply ^^, but yeah it's not that hard cause she's a support. support's shouldn't (and cant) be too much of problem to play. You don't see any supports with difficulty like lee sin or zed because it SHOULD be that way. Though, that's an idea of a new champion!? High difficulty support? challenge accepted!

Koechophe1 votes

uhm, hello? Bard? IMHO he's one of the hardest champions in the game to play, if not the hardest.

Zilean, Nami, etc, are all super difficult. There should be hard supports to play. The problem with Sona is that she's so easy to play, counterplay feels weak.

Arakadia1 votes

Exactly!! I love my Bard McBaloon tho! Hes my top 3 fav supp.

Arakadia1 votes

I disagree, supports can be very hard. Theres no reason they should be easy/meduim difficulty, or hard. Thresh: Play making support. Bard: very hard support. Zilean: Pretty hard and unforgiving. Etc.

I would like to see more high difficulty supports. Not just supports with high skillcaps like Nami or Braum (kinda), but hard to learn support. Post me your concept if you make it :D.

Gypsyleeboy1 votes

But none are as complicated as some of the none support difficult champions. 3 Years and i still can't perfect leesin, zed, cass, and a few more

With the exception of ONLY bard, and maybe karma, (but i don't own her) all other supports are very easy or at least quickly learned.

Gypsyleeboy1 votes

no. As a pro sona player, i find it VERRY Fun to "Spam abilities mindlessly" But it's more than just that. You usually ARE spamming 'W' during team fights, but also knowing when to use 'Q' the give allies the aura bonus and when to help weaker allies get away with your 'E'. It takes precision, and isn't exactly 'spamming mindlessly', but more 'spamming strategically'

Kudos for the idea though, i can tell you put a lot of work into the idea and wouldn't mind seeing changes for her in the more 'mild' area

Koechophe2 votes

Not trying to insult you or anything, but you shouldn't say "As a pro XXXX player" if you're ranked bronze. I'm not saying your opinion is unimportant; I value the critique. I just wanted to point that out, unless this is a smurf or something.

I personally don't find Sona's playstyle terribly dynamic: provided your team members are attacking, using Q is a good idea, and it's never a bad idea to spam W provided you have mana. E should sometimes be saved, yes, but again, not much strategy there. Personally, I like that her kit is simple, but think it needs more dynamic levers so that players can really invest time in it and find it rewarding, AND so that opponents can outplay her well, instead of just surviving her in lane and outscaling her later.

Gypsyleeboy1 votes

i don't mean as a PRO PLATINUM, just as a verryy good sona. I don't play ranked.

I see what you mean by the dynamic levers, I feel working up the passive is the only real challenge (like annie's stun) you have as sona. Perhaps making her skills more unique by adding extra effect to her aura's per player in it, beside just the time extension. and perhaps nerfing aura just slightly but making it even better when more allies are in it during team fights.

Sona can thrive as the CC support with that, but fail as a laner. I'd be okay with that though.

Man I should try to get my GED and try to work at riot. I like giving input.

Arakadia1 votes

Meh, its not that hard to plan out when to use your abilities.

Arakadia1 votes

I think you like the idea to spam. Which can be fun, but is for some people and not others. I don't think it is healthy for gameplay tho.

Vesarixx1 votes

There are a few problems here, the first being that the harmonizing effect is very reliant on team mates, taking a lot of autonomy away from the person playing Sona, if your team mates don't know how to utilize the effects you aren't going to do as well. This also doesn't really address any of the problems with Sonas current kit, her Q is incredibly reliable and her damage output is extremely binary, and the fact that she has both poke and decent sustain on top of that makes it a challenge to balance her properly, if her heal is buffed she can take bad trades and just heal up over time, making it a net win, if her Q is buffed she has access to almost guaranteed damage with very little room for counter play. Replacing power chord and removing her auras seems like more change for the sake of change than an attempt to balance her.

Here's a suggestion that could alleviate some of the problems she has, changing Q into a skill shot that works on the volley system, on the first activation she fires a beam in a line that damages the first enemy hit, retaining the aura effect, after the first activation Sona can activate this ability an additional 2 times, this does not refresh the aura but does reapply the basic attack modifier to Sona herself and resets the auto attack timer. Cool down starts upon the first cast. This gives the enemy some room to try to avoid the damage and makes Sona need to take more risk in order to get her damage off, it also makes her damage pattern more dynamic and allows more potential power to be put into her kit.

Koechophe1 votes

The harmonizing effects on Q and W are common enough that they're not too team reliant. As long as your team 1) damages the enemy champs and 2) takes damage, you can get harmony relatively easily. But yes, the intention is to make her more of a support who accentuates what her team mates do, because that means that you have more counterplay; if you avoid damage from sona's ADC, she herself is less powerful in poking you down.

Changing Q to a skill shot is actually WAY bigger of a playstyle change than anything proposed here tbh.

Vesarixx1 votes

Making Q a skill shot is definitely a large change, but reliability actually does use up quite a bit of a champions power budget and limits balancing options, it's definitely not the only option for Sona, I've actually made quite a few very different suggestions for Sona in the past balance wise aside from that, just using it as an example. Generally though having a champion move more towards team reliance is not really a healthy change, how well you do should be representative of your own skill not random factors like who you get paired with, I've seen way too many ADC that don't even auto attack during fights. Also if you are holding a lane for someone while they back or participating in a skirmish with a melee champion who is prone to kiting you now introduce automatic disadvantages to the person playing Sona that would be nearly impossible to balance for, if Sona is laning with an Ashe she might be perfectly balanced, but suddenly if she needs to go help out an Udyr fighting the enemy kindred in the river her power could potentially plummet based on the inability to generate stacks since the udyr is likely to get kited and not be able to harmonize. It's a similar issue to what people have brought up with Sona's auras, they add strength in team fights that is spread out across an entire team, but if Sona is alone she gains a lot less benefit, which is one of the things that is keeping her from being more viable as a solo laner in the way Lulu and in the past even Soraka have been, there are a few Sona players I've come across that play her mid quite frequently and probably would not like the idea of her being more reliant on the team to be effective.

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