Sona

WillHealForHonor·May 31, 2015·1 votes·533 views

She does insane dmg and has sustain in lane.. but does she fall off late game?

how do i counter her with janna?

why isnt she played so much competetively?

12 Comments

TarynMay 31, 20153 votes

Hello Jamenfar! I'm a very avid Sona main and would love to help you out.

Before continuing however realize that I am not high ranked so I suppose take what I'm gonna say with a grain of salt.

Let me start with your first statement. Sona is very strong during the lane phase and quite honestly that's all she brings to the table. It's very easy to dominate the lane as Sona and give herself (and her adc) a lead. On that note however, you have to understand that Sona is only going to control the lane if you allow her. That's the biggest mistake I find players make when my friend and I are duoing bot lane. Sona is basically as squishy as a caster minion, but instead of abusing that weakness people allow her to poke them down and then cry that Sona is too strong. Work with your adc and when she comes in to harass then please turn and punch her in the face. I promise you that you'll come out ahead. Sona's biggest weakness is when people are aggressive. Step up and don't let her push you around.

Now you're asking how to beat her as Janna. Unfortunately Janna is one of the few champions that actually will have a hard time against Sona. This is because Janna is very much a disengage support. This isn't to say that you can't play Janna aggressively, it's just that most players don't and this feeds into what I mentioned earlier. By not playing aggressively you're giving Sona what she needs to be successful. In my opinion picking Janna into a Sona comes down to who your adc is. As Janna you don't have the damage to scare Sona away, but you do have the CC. Work with your adc and get Sona caught in a Q>E while shielding your adc and you'll come out on top. However if you're looking for actual counters to Sona then pick up Leona, Thresh, Naut, Morgana, Blitzcrank, or Annie just to name a few.

As for your question about her use in competitive play, that's pretty simple. Sona doesn't bring as much to the table as the pros want/need. Her Q and Powercord have both been nerfed beyond reason, her W (heal) costs more mana than it's worth, her E (speed buff) is essentially useless. Her aura's are shadows of what they once were. Her Ult is definitely a gamechanger but the downside is it's on a squishy support that probably will die before she can use it in a fight.

Why take Sona when you can take Leona and get a kill everytime your Q and E are up without risk of dying? Why take Sona when you can take Thresh and have everything a support would ever want in your kit? Why take Sona when you can take Annie and 1v5 their team? Why take Sona when you can take Morgana and get a kill everytime you hit a Q? Or Nautilus? Blitzcrank? I mean why take Sona when they already made a Sona 2.0 when they released Nami? The list goes on and on.

Really, the only people still playing Sona are those like me that are simply in love with the champion. I've stuck with her since the day she was released, and that does make it harder if you happen to be facing someone who REALLY knows their champion.

Hope I helped a little bit, my post kinda got a little long winded but I wanted to fit in as much as I could related to your questions. Let me know and I'll answer anything else I might not have covered. Best of luck!

SEKAIMay 31, 20151 votes

why isnt she played so much competetively?

She got too many bats in the face so people just don't get their hands on her now.

WillHealForHonorMay 31, 20151 votes

dafyg.. didnt understand one word

WickedfatesMay 31, 20151 votes

he means she has been nerfed a lot

LucentileMay 31, 20151 votes

How do you counter her with Janna? Shield the Q/Power Chord combo, or try and catch her with tornado to the face when she moves forward to poke and all-in her if you've got an ADC that can burst her out.

WillHealForHonorMay 31, 20151 votes

i do those things and i win the trade.. but then she just heals.. but i guess maybe i need help from adc.. cause they often seem to get scared and doesnt harrass back..

ProvengreilMay 31, 20151 votes

Sona's heal, especially in lane, is one of the worst Mana>HP conversions you get. if she keeps needing her heal she'll be so low mana that her normal poke cannot continue. However, the real way is to all in her, seeing as she's one of the easiest to kill champs in leauge. no CC pre-6, one small heal, no hp, no defenses. she'll be gone fast. Janna's bad at that, so it's a poor lane counter, but even if sona gets a good ult later on, janna has to be killed while stunned or she'll just reset the fight, minus sona's most threatening move outside of lane.

LucentileMay 31, 20151 votes

Yeah. You need help from the ADC to counter Sona, because you can't out poke her. You need to all in and force her to B/die.

AbyssphereMay 31, 20151 votes

Sona is quite good against Janna in general but a clever Janna shield can block a lot of Sona's poke, so it's not a dead lane. You have to get kinda lucky with tornadoes because if you land one and your ADC follows up, you will genuinely take off about 60% of her health even when she uses her heal.

Janna is better late imo. You do a lot more in teamfights, so against Sona your job is just to survive the laning phase.

GinoSoldierMay 31, 20151 votes

As an aggressive AP Sona player, people here are right. If you want to counter me, try to force me to either heal my ADC or myself. Try not to spread your damage on both Sona and her ADC since she can heal both. Sona's W mana cost is much higher than her Q's, so it limits Sona's options REALLY fast early if she has to heal a lot.

I would argue against Janna being better than Sona late game, but then my opinion is really skewed in favor of straight AP or tank supports. Sona has some pretty sweet AP ratios that allow her to one-shot squishy ADC or mages (oh all the Leblancs I killed...) or close enough, and the W and E power chords are not to be underestimated with AP boosting them up. Sona can heal more by far than Janna ever could with her ult and doesn't have to put herself in danger to do it efficiently, and I'd say her late game E matches Janna's passive and W passive well enough.

Janna on the other hand has much better combo potential, and therefore is much more reliant on her team to operate, i think. Still very good though.

WickedfatesMay 31, 20151 votes

like the rest of these sona mains ( Sona <3)

i love her and play her but she has many weaknesses.... as these good people have told you, she is squishy... she dies very easily, she has vry low movement speed, it is hard to dodge skillshots, her utility from her heal/shield and movement buff are very high mana cost on a spam champ with mana issues.... if you are healing in early game with sona(outside engages which shouldnt happen too often early) you are prob losing

she falls off late game because of how incredibly squishy she is, if she comes near the front line she should be targeted by the enemy team, and will prob die... her ulti is powerful, however there is a casting time, its not instance, and it telegraphs it, so a good enemy player can react before it is cast.... think dashing from in front of her when u hear it and u just avoided it.... also i die sometimes before i can complete my cast 100-0 before the ulti goes off.... prob bad positioning on my part...

countering her with janna is all about your shield... sona has to get vry close to use her passive poke q, auto range, otherwise its just a small magic poke, not so big a deal, its the charged auto that does the damage, so if she gets close your adc HAS to auto her, as ur adc is aaing her, you shield your adc, this give the increased damage from janna's shield, + your adc's poke + you are attacking her, sona will either back off fast while hitting a heal and maybe a mov buff wasting mana, or she will lose half her hp (not really exaggerating)

also, a huge thing about sona is she pushes lanes with her poke to force them to farm under tower... this should be when your jg is looking to help out bot lane and kill a sona/adc... kinda easy as even if sona sees the jg, if she is too close to tower she dosent have the speed to make it back to her own tower... this results often in at least a sona death if she trys to protect her adc and allow them to escape... 2 kills if the adc dosent run or is unable to win the 3v2

sona is a lot about positioning atm, a bad engage which janna can create as she is vry defensive oriented can secure a sona death.... here is a vry familiar example...

enemy adc is farming near their tower, ur adc and u are in the bushes/ backline... sona moves up around the rvr to flank the adc farming in the back, after the poke which is obvious because she has to rush in close, your adc is either shielded, or was protected from the damage because of the shield, sona is moving back to tower/adc, you tornado her/slow her/auto her, your adc + minion are attacking her because she used her auto on the adc, she cant escape fast enough while taking the damage, if the adc comes up to help her (which many wont) u exhaust them, if they dont, they will either run or do minimal damage, finish off sona as she will fall fast, get your double or some time to free farm with a scared enemy adc

edit: as a side note, you will find a great many people still play her because they like her.... best thing you can do imo... have fun, its a game... and to me, sona is fun

WillHealForHonorMay 31, 20151 votes

Thx all.. So i will try out what u said.. or maybe i will just pick naut into her if i can do it..