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I Got This to Say to Everyone About Sona's Current State

chipndip1··70 votes·5,492 views

This doesn't go to just Riot. This doesn't go to just the players. This thread addresses everyone, cause I got a bone to pick with, well, everyone commenting on Sona's current state. Making this intro short cause I got a lot to say. If you don't want to read the whole thing, jump to the part that addresses you, either Riot, Sona mains, or everyone else.

@Riot: Like, honestly, I can't sugarcoat this at all. You guys have made repeatedly horrible decisions in regards to this champ ever since...well...that initial rework. Now, that initial rework is forgivable since we know by now that many of your early reworks were more like "targeted solutions" more than "general champ improvement". Yi, Evelynn, Nidalee, Sion's massive ap ratios, and so on make good examples. So, when Sona has 1k range auras that toss out tons of gold value from forever away, Riot reworked her with that specific problem in mind. However, unlike Sion's rework, Sona got off more like Evelynn and Yi where many other poorly aging elements of her kit weren't even thought about. That said, Riot comes out saying "We're gonna give Sona and Leona some touching up" after Sona players kinda got sick of the shit...and all Riot did was make the issue worse. WAY worse.

See, the issue is that Sona's kit is fully automated with no counter-play. You guys dealt with the range issue, but her kit still has no counter-play and still automatically aims everything for you, save one button. When announcing that mini-rework, if you guys weren't going to make a real, lasting solution like you did with Xin Zhao and Rek'Sai, why do it? You guys gave her this cdr gimmick, and now she stomps low elo even harder when she's decent in high elo because she balanced even more around mindlessly mashing buttons and pumping numbers into your face. The mini-rework was horribly misguided and I stand by that. Nothing about it pushes for smarter, more rewarding play of the character, and it actually reduces the gap between more and less skilled Sona players.

But even if we move past that, you guys STILL didn't have to go through with the entire Q nerf. Like, everyone on the Sona mains Reddit was calling it after the W nerf that you guys were going to nerf Q later, and OF COURSE you guys played into it. If Sona's Q is the issue, why did you nerf the other shit? If you aren't reverting those nerfs why not tone down the Q nerf? We were vocal. I made a ton of threads on it. Sona's stats were already dropping as we grew nearer to the patch date. The hell was up with that nerf? Like, seriously, this type of shit lets me know that my posts on this forum mean jack shit. I even take the time to make sure I'm citing sources so I'm not spreading misinformation, as I've seen how it negatively effects you guys on here, but I can see that it's more productive to feed into mass hysteria than to actually try to post responsibly on here. Will take note.

@Sona Players: Now for YOU GUYS. YOU guys have this issue where you want to have your cake and eat it, too. You can't have a kit as fully-automatic as Sona's feel as impactful and powerful as someone like Rakan's or Taric's. You can't have a kit that hyper-scales also be a lane bully early on, either. I don't know why on Earth Sona players are so attached to the worst parts of Sona's kit, but if you REALLY want to get out of this loop of getting nerfed like any other champ, but hating it more than any champ's mains, with this MASSIVE victim complex even when Sona's doing pretty decent in a meta (as far as solo queue goes) you guys gotta accept that this champ's kit is all kinds of bonkers given what she's supposed to be doing.

Sona's a support, right? The problem is that she has no thing she's really supposed to do in this game. She's got no real niche, and this hyper-scaling one is Riot's piss poor attempt at making one since her kit doesn't allow for one. Scaling aside, Sona's Q sucks for strong offensive plays (it's literally nothing but damage. No secondary effects). Sona's W sucks for strong defensive plays (doesn't when you have items, but we're disregarding that cause I'm making a point). Sona's E sucks for strong re-positioning options. Sona's R honestly only works pretty well for defense without Flash, but many supports do this better with stronger tools for defensive purposes. So...wtf does this champ do? You guys are SO IN LOVE with a champ that functionally does jack shit unless she hoards a small fortune. For what? Literally what about this kit are we fighting for? I love the design and concept of Sona herself, but her kit just doesn't get anything accomplished unless the enemy lets that happen. There's no point to picking Sona outside of being broken or abusing people that can't fight her well. Her only thing is "If your opponent lets you, you become super strong". IT'S JUST LIKE MASTER YI. Why are Sona players complacent with that? If the point is "She plays music" or "She has aoes", I imagine there's plenty of other ways for that to be done without having Sona be "Stat Check: The Champion".

@Everyone Else: To everyone saying "Sona's fine" as she is now, I'ma have to say "no". Sona is very easy to play decently well with. That said, in a balanced solo queue, you should expect Sona's win rate to be higher than 48% in Diamond play. That's FIORA AND YASUO'S "balanced". Champs like Amumu, Sona, and Janna have "balanced" win rates around 50 to 52 percent, with some variation. Janna, in this hard-engage meta, has a 52% win rate on Lolalytics. Sona has fucking 48%, and loses more than she wins against almost any actual support champ. Then again, Sona got rapid-fire nerfed for 3 patches while Phreak was telling us "You guys shouldn't even max Q anyway". Now hardly anyone deemed a high elo Sona main by Lolalytics hasn't touched her in forever since the nerf landed. These. Nerfs. Were. Not. Fair. And yeah, I get that some champs get it worse, but Sona didn't have to be put in this state in the first place. She was already calming down. Riot was already prepared to nerf her itemization and rune setups. WHY NERF HER Q, TOO?

Just needed to get that off my chest. Also, even if Riot does a 180 on the nerfs, I'm STILL gonna advocate for a game play overhaul for Sona. There's so much you can say about it that just furthers the question of "Why on Earth did you leave it this way for so long?".

91 Comments

Kubox20 votes

I somewhat agree with pretty much everything you said. I also have one answer for one of your questions, although that answer is personal and am in no way saying "This is why"

"You guys are SO IN LOVE with a champ that functionally does jack shit unless she hoards a small fortune. For what?"

I love the transition she goes through. Whenever Sona's relevant, the one thing she does best has always been this high-damage/potential bully early game that slowly transitions to a lot more traditional support centered around shielding healing and making picks. To me, this is basically the best of both worlds : I get to play the fun poking role in the lane phase then switch to the more teamfight-oriented one when the time arises.

I don't think it's a wrong or impossible to balance thing. But Riot's stance on keeping her extremely easy to play doesn't fit in there. And for some reason, it often feels like even though the vast majority of Sona lovers and haters both would prefer her requiring skill to play, Riot is pretty set on not making that a reality.

PokladnicaZla3 votes

BUT, RITO did show with WW's rework that can leave champions easy,but still have ways for skill expression. I might regret saying this,but CertainlyT the designer for Sona's rework WITH OUT the full designer liberties he had with Yas and Zoe, (as with WW) ,Sona could actually be pretty amazing to play as and against.

Miku Hime sama3 votes

I concur and I know several others that do as well. There've been several people suggesting for a CertainlyT Sona rework for a relatively short while now. Considering the massive failures both of her reworks were, we're eager to see what CertainlyT's interpretation would be.

PokladnicaZla4 votes

CertainlyT has great ideas for mechanics and ability,but can easily go over-board with it. Tho, the WW rework is one of the best reworks we had to date,which is pretty impressive since the competition is pretty good with Eve,Urgot,Taric etc.

Teridax684 votes

I very much agree with this, and while I think the OP's point is similarly excellent, this adds important clarification to why Sona's mains like her, as she does do things that are fun and could be healthy.

I think part of the problem with making Sona require more skill to play is that Riot is good at injecting mechanical difficulty, but hasn't done nearly as much to make champions more tactically or strategically challenging. I'm not a Sona main, but imo, she's a tactical champion more than a mechanical one, because her gameplay boils down (in theory, at least) to selecting the right effect for your team at the right time. In practice, though, she tends to spam everything she's got all of the time, particularly with her ult reducing her basic ability cooldowns even further. Making her slightly more dependent on positioning helped make her auras somewhat clearer, but in the end didn't really entirely address the core of what can make Sona interesting to play. What she needs in her future is tactical variance to her abilities, so that using the right effect at a given time and place can have a much more significant impact than if the wrong effect was used, or if the effect were timed wrong, or if the enemy team reacted in accordance to her to outplay her. Sona right now doesn't really have the best playmaking potential, but she similarly lacks much outplay potential, and I think it would be to the benefit of everyone if she had more of both.

Tomoe Gozen1 votes

Then Riot can probably make it so that her auras can switch her kit between repositioning/supporting/damaging skills when in those specific forms. Which would mean that Sona herself can't have all 3 at the same time and depending on the teamfight, a player can choose to be in any of these forms but it takes time to change and all 3 forms have separate CDs on skills.

Salamencę12 votes

{quoted}

@Sona Players: Now for YOU GUYS. YOU guys have this issue where you want to have your cake and eat it, too. You can't have a kit as fully-automatic as Sona's feel as impactful and powerful as someone like Rakan's or Taric's. You can't have a kit that hyper-scales also be a lane bully early on, either. I don't know why on Earth Sona players are so attached to the worst parts of Sona's kit, but if you REALLY want to get out of this loop of getting nerfed like any other champ, but hating it more than any champ's mains, with this MASSIVE victim complex even when Sona's doing pretty decent in a meta (as far as solo queue goes) you guys gotta accept that this champ's kit is all kinds of bonkers given what she's supposed to be doing.

Most respectable thing a Sona player has ever said. You are the 1% of Sona players that understands her problems and are able to admit she is strong, unlike most who NO MATTER WHAT will argue with you saying she's balanced even with a 56% winrate and 20% pick rate. Sona mains are some of the most biased mains of any champ and that says a lot (Yasuo mains I'm talking about you). To further prove my point, I guarantee this will be downvoted to shit, but that will only show what I'm talking about.

Harden Stepback9 votes

sona had her time... let her be trash for a bit.

chipndip115 votes

[{quoted}](name=Setsuna F,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=jKKizJGR,comment-id=0000,timestamp=2017-12-23T00:41:02.916+0000)

sona had her time... let her be trash for a bit.

Which one?

The one patch right after runes got reworked?

The Ardent meta where it was really Janna's time to have a massive 57% win rate for almost all of it?

GayFluffyUnicorn5 votes

Don't act as if sona wasn't sitting on 55%+ the entire time up until preseason. Face it, your egril supps have always been busted.

chipndip14 votes

{quoted}

Don't act as if sona wasn't sitting on 55%+ the entire time up until preseason. Face it, your egril supps have always been busted.

She wasn't exactly, but I was clamoring for a rework for like a year now so do you think I cared either way?

RedCyclone7 votes

You make decent points

I was one of the people who advocated for more skill to be integrated with her kit, we got holy shit urf Sona instead what really made the skill expression part of her kit even worse, because it literally incentivizes overspamming your skills and not thinking about it

But we adjusted to the changes, I too would like Sona to get reworked properly (emphasis on properly) but as said before, don't want Sona to be in this shit position for all the time it would take to get a rework rolled out on her

Care2Share7 votes

Personally, she needs a re-work. I love my aura caster Sona and they can probably find a way to keep her that way. She still is just a Walmart version of Nami (who out classes her throughout the game btw) who just can't catch a break. Literally any other support would be better bot lane.

Soraka's heals put Sona's completely in the dirt, her Q functions as a slow, and her E is an AoE silence that becomes a root.

Janna is Janna, queen of peel. Her Q, W, and E are excellent tools to disengage an all-in.

Lulu has her Q,W, and E to also help stop a dangerous all-in.

Nami has a little bit less than these others, but she still has her Q, and her W has a heal to it as well.

Hell, even Karma has the proper tools in her abilities to dissuade all-ins/ganks, with AoE slow, shield, and hard CC pre-6.

Taric has his Dazzle, and while his laning might be underwhelming, he's bulkier than Sona and comes with hard CC before level 6.

Martyrofsand5 votes

Most, read literally every Sona main I have seen post on these boards, absolutely hates the rework of Sona and do not want her to exist in the state she exists in now. Most, read literally every single Sona main I have seen post on these boards, want Sona to be a true aura champion like she originally was, a champion who's focus was on buffing healing and utility via move speed with decent poke and a strong ult.

It isn't what Sona is that Sona mains love, it's what she WAS that they still love and want back. As for the issue of the automatic kit frankly I wouldn't care if Riot decided to make her Q a skill shot or projectile that could miss, I wouldn't care if the reworked her W to work like Lux's W in that you have to shoot it at your team mates, and I couldn't give a crap if you had to target who gets the move speed buff of your E like Lulu does her W. These mechanics don't mean jack to me when it comes to what I want from this champion. What I want from this champion is the aura mage fantasy that Sona promised when I first bought her way back when as the first champion I ever bought back when I started playing in season 2.

If this means her Q becomes a skill shot that only procs an aura if you land it then sure sign me up. If this means her W heal has to be targeted on an ally and only provides bonus aura effects when specific requirement are met bring it on. If that means her E has to fundamentally change so the speed boost actually requires more than mashing the button then fine. I don't care about how the mechanics work as long as the aura mage fantasy is fulfill and frankly Riot took a big shit on that fantasy with the abomination we where given in her rework.

GinoSoldier5 votes

I'm a bit of an exception; I liked the base idea of her rework. I like seeing the impact of Sona's current oneshot buff auras far more than i did looking at an ally's stats going up by 10-20. It has a feel-good effect that old auras didn't give to suddenly see an ally go up by 40% MS late game, or seeing the powered up shields go up.

I'm also a bit of an exception in that as far as i'm concerned, we can ditch the entire idea of Sona being a support and make her a mage like she deserves to be. I'm fully aware it's unlikely to be a thing, but hey that's my thing. I love bards, and i love music, but Sona's lore and character thematic lend themselves very poorly to the support role, kit be damned.

If it takes a rework that makes her require a lot more skill, so be it, i'll adapt and learn to play it. Even better if it manages to make everyone happy about the aura thing. I just want her to be able to thrive in the midlane.

Martyrofsand3 votes

Honestly I wish Riot could get even a single music themed champion right. I mean we got Sona who was originally decent in that regard but has been butchered. Then we get a champion literally named Bard but all his kit really has to do with music is picking up chimes.

As much as I really wish for Sona to be an aura mage I would honestly concede that if they could deliver on the musician element of her kit. That might be really hard, how do you capture something that can be soothing and gentle one moment, rhythmic and driving the next, followed by a crescendo into that lingering feeling of damn near euphoria as it resolves? Would be really hard to do something that complicated with a kit that involved all of 4 buttons. Might be one of the few times CertaintlyT's creativity could be put to some actual good use as even though he tends to break the holy hell out of everything he touches his champs deliver better on their themes than any other designer at Riot.

GinoSoldier1 votes

As one of the 'STACK ALL THE AP!' people, there's a thing i noticed about how her gameplay works, and one of the reasons behind my saying that she feels better as a mage;

Epic instrumental music (Two Steps From Hell and others) usually start slow, and rise through a progression that takes time. While fairly okay, often the music doesn't really get going before 2-3 minutes in. Comparatively to a League game, that would be midgame. A midgame where you've built up some amount of AP and the efficiency of Sona's kit really starts to become apparent (pre-nerfs anyway). This ties in with her ultimate's passive, as she 'plays faster' every time she boosts Crescendo. And, the crashing finale where she's stacked so much AP and her music's become so strong that the only way to stop her 'performance' is to all-in her because her team is overboosted by her tunes.

A kit about music can't be designed for the likes of one spell rotation, i think. It has to encompass her performance as the game goes on, which really, it makes a fair attempt at right now. Think of every spellcast she makes as 1-2 notes in a grander song. In that regard, her lategame spam aspect makes perfect sense. The song does not pause halfway during the finale.

It doesn't excuse the fact that she can't currently stay viable/strong for any amount of time or she becomes an oppressive stat-check champion that requires practically the least skill in the game, and her gameplay could and should be made much better across her entire kit, ease of play and new players be damned.

As for the auras, they're unavoidable, i think. At least in some form. To me they represent the place where her music is most impactful, where her allies can get the best beats.

Here's a basic idea of mine for a rework, that would keep the progression, simplicity, and spam aspect of her kit but add skill requirement (and probably would'nt work for some reason, as these things usually go);

Every spell Sona casts creates a ring that extends outwards from her in all directions, think like a soundwave. Every 2/1.75/1.5? seconds (reduced with levels ONLY), a weaker note is struck automatically, with diminished(or diminishing?) range and effect. These notes would repeat 3-4 times before stopping. Rings deal the appropriate effect to the appropriate targets. (Q damage to enemies then lesser damage, and maybe ally damage boost. W Shields then heals allies. E either speeds allies and slows enemies or just speeds allies. (or something else entirely?) There's also the option of turning her ult into a fourth regular (like udyr?) spell that would stun then slow, maybe with damage, but lower than Q.

Every time a spell is cast within .25(less?) seconds of another note, an additional effect is granted for the spellcast. Boosted effects should be the same going from Q to E or E to Q, for simplicity purposes. The CD of her spells itself would go down normally but she'd still be power/skill-gated by the rhythmic aspect of the kit. Is it worth to skip the beat to do something immediately and lose the added effect, or do you wait and time it right? It would solve her playing mid issues as Q would be waveclear, but keep the support aspect intact as a support would be more inclined to level W/E (maybe the new R?)

As for her powerchord mechanic, i simply think whatever last spell she used should give her a smaller, varied buff to her AA, if we really wanted to keep it, but ultimately i feel it's not particularly necessary as her musical mechanics would be enough gameplay to handle.

What'chu think?

Martyrofsand1 votes

I think the design and mechanics of a champions kit should reflect their design and their power scaling with items and such should be a secondary aspect, not something integral to their kit.

If they want to make her an out right mage who uses music to wreck shop then sure that's fine as long as they get the kit design down. Honestly I feel a better way to make Sona if you are going to do something like this would be to remove the CDs from her QWE abilities and create something like a rhythm mechanic where her spells gain additional or stronger effects the more she activates them on rhythm. This wouldn't be to say she couldn't activate them without the rhythm just that they wouldn't have the impact, perhaps the spells get a base effect and the aura's only happen if she keeps the rhythm going. Would be hard as hell to keep the beats going while navigating a team fight which would shut up all the "sona takes no skill" ignorance we keep seeing. As for what the spells effects would be or what the aura's would be well who knows.

Also it's possible you could get some ability to control the rhythm in her kit, perhaps ultimate resets the rhythm or something. Several possible ideas really.

Morgan le Fey2 votes

So here's a really weird, possibly too-complicated concept for Sona: Make her a combo champion. Beware that what is below is extremely conceptual, with no actual details at all.

Make it sort of like improv music. You know your options, you know where you can go from what, but how will you get there? What order will things go in? You don't plan it all out ahead of time, but do it as you go with a full knowledge of what your options are, what "direction" you can go, and what might affect your decisions. You can't just panic and change from a gentle bit to OH GOSH RENGAR IS EATING MY FACE HEAL STUN SPEED UP RUUUUN. If you know what you're doing, you can do things that might sound like that, but it has to be planned ahead of time. Imagine a slow fade-away that creates anticipation before a louder bit. Imagine a moment where all the sound drops away right before the drop. You can't just do that out of nowhere - you have to plan for it! Imagine picking what key you play in, knowing what chords and notes you can play within that key and having some idea of how to do key shifts into and out of it. Imagine following the beat, a set pace, knowing how to speed it up or slow it down but also not being able to do so immediately. Yes, this is all ludicrously complicated, but it's about getting you into the mindset of a character design.

Instead of traditional abilities, imagine three "notes"/"chords" (QWE) and a modifier button (R) to change meta-level things. Each "spell" would be a combination of notes in a given state. R would let you change this state, whatever you want to call it, not necessarily across a binary, but scrolling through a list, or with the ability to shift into a different set of states based on the one you're currently in (so if you're in CM, you could press R-R to shift to Am, R-Q to shift to Cm, R-W to shift to something else, R-E to shift to something else, details don't matter right now). Probably limit the number of states so it's not actually as complicated as music, and name it things that won't freak people out, but it's the same concept. You'd probably want to overlap things so you could, say, play song 1, 2, and 3 from C, but play songs 1, 5, and 6 from Am.

Or maybe you could incorporating timing. Set up her R to allow you to pick between different speeds, and she'll shift to the new speed in a couple measures. Each measure, you can play up to four notes, and at the end of the measure she'll cast the spell, but you have to play each note before its time in the measure (so you don't have to be perfect, but if the spell is Q-W-Q-E, you have to input them in that order and you have to use W before halfway in the measure - most of the time I expect people would just spam them all at the start of the measure, of course). Mana is drained not by spell, but by how fast the music is going. At the end of each measure, regardless of if you played anything or not, you lose mana. If you keep it slow, like you would in most of the laning phase, she'd slowly regen mana. If you sped it up to get more casts per second, it'd start draining very fast. If you don't have enough mana to pay the cost, or if you mess up a measure, you'd get a brown note, with some sort of negative effects - maybe a brief silence or stun or something? Other options could be weird meta stuff - maybe a song that transitions you suddenly to a faster beat in three measures, giving your foes less warning, or maybe a combo that's a silence that takes the form of an actual in-game self-Silence but also lets your mana regen quickly for a bit. Lots of options!

There are lots and lots of these super-complicated combo-based thematic things you could do. However, if you are a party-pooper and want it to be simpler, you could just make R a true modifier that swapped between two "sets" of notes for 6 notes total. Each spell would be a combination of some number of those notes strung together. For even more simplicity, you could make R a normal ult and make each spell a sequence of Q/W/Es strung together. I think that's most realistic, but also really far divorced from the original concept and not nearly as interesting.

Regardless, I'd still prefer it if all of her spells were positional. For instance, instead of shooting bolts of music or whatever her Q is supposed to be, she could create an aura or GTAoE of damage over time. Instead of healing with bolts and shielding everyone else, she could separate those into a healing song and a shielding song. She could have AoEs that gave bonus on-hit damage, AoEs that gave spell vamp, AoEs that gave speed boosts or slows, AoEs that negated crits for a very brief time, or what have you - but no direct targeting like she has now!

Martyrofsand2 votes

Honestly what you are making me think of are the different clefts that exist in music, C, F, and G clefs specifically and how the musical notes differ based on which clef you happen to be playing in, the line for the A note in the C clef for example is a completely different note on the F clef.

Turning her into a stance dance, or really clef dance, type of champion and opening up her QWE to change depending on what stance you are in and how well you play is actually a pretty solid idea. You could even add a passive that get a different effect based on the combination of clefs you have been in, so say if you combine C and F clef you get a more damage oriented passive but F and G may be more utility based and perhaps C and G would be healing or something. She could start out with her R from the beginning and would then effectively have 1 abilities at level 1 up to a total of 9, if you are going all out.

You could see real potential with that but lord would it be insane to code, play, and keep track of. Fun as hell to. Sadly I don't think riot gives enough of a damn about Sona to ever do something that cool with her.

Hymphonics1 votes

This is basically the hero Invoker in Dota

D357R0Y3R5 votes

For now i didn't see a single sona main that was against a rework to be honest so you're kinda talking for nothing

i also want to add that riot gave to xin a skillshot in his mini rework but didn't know what to do with sona mini rework

sona mini rework was actually cancelled 2 times, she had a lot of different mini rework

i remember one gave her scalling bonus Range on auto-attacks to not make her that squishy low range no escape/defensive mechanic enchanter

Cavesloth5 votes

I've said it before and I'll say it again. MAKE HER Q A SKILLSHOT. Mini-rework Xin style. Boom done. Max effect minimum effort.

Ben Sharpio5 votes

{quoted}

I've said it before and I'll say it again. MAKE HER Q A SKILLSHOT. Mini-rework Xin style. Boom done. Max effect minimum effort.

First we should let her be trash for a bit longer, and let the playmaking supports have their time. Deal?

Murl0ugh3 votes

I dunno why you are being downvoted. God forbid characters that take effort to play aren't outshined by the character that almost literally plays the game for the player.

Even Garen requires more character knowledge than Sona.

RedCyclone2 votes

Because it's retarded logic maybe?

Just because a champion is simple, doesn't mean that they should be weaker, if we have it your way then we have the same 10 champions in every game

hoyohai1 votes

Well then what's the point of using a non-simple champion?

I'm genuinely curious. I don't know much, being level 16 and all

RedCyclone1 votes

They do still have higher caps that do reward being really good with them

Also this is a game that has counters to virtually everything, so obviously that leads to different matchups

And don't get in your head that playing a simple champion in low elo is the same as playing a simple champion in high elo, simple champs have simple counters and you have to anticipate that, I often play against Blitz/Leona a lot when I pick Sona and that's not exactly a "simple situation" for the one playing Sona

hoyohai1 votes

Well if being really good with Yasuo helps me climb only as much as being really good with Sona, why would I pick Yasuo over Sona? Apart from fun, there is no reason.

Also, if easier champions have simple counters, doesn't that make them weaker?

RedCyclone1 votes

Because of preference? Yasuo mains want to feel like a badass who goes balls to the wall and can 1v5, they probably are a weeb Sona mains want to either (based on playstyle) play a chill champion and help the team out, or play a support who's scaling allows them to become a support monster later, they are also probably a weeb, or a girl

A lot of people tend to have a champion they consider a "main", most people are drawn to a champion and enjoy their general character and playstyle enough to put the time and effort in to consider it your main

hoyohai1 votes

Apart from fun

RedCyclone1 votes

This game has variables

EpicSaxGandalf1 votes

the experienced yasuo has more tools available to him that allow him to pull off things that no amount of skill on sona would be able to given similar circumstances in high elo. Low elo doesn't normally pressure the individual in ways where it would matter which champion you are playing given a good amount of experience on both.

Morgan le Fey3 votes

{quoted}

Well then what's the point of using a non-simple champion?

I'm genuinely curious. I don't know much, being level 16 and all

Options.

When you play a simple champion, you bring very little to the table. You have something you do, and while you do it well, everyone knows you're going to do it, because it's Your Thing.

Garen runs at people, shrugging off damage and CC, then briefly silences someone and spins until he can finish them off with an ult.

Warwick runs someone down from across the map, picking them out in the middle of their whole team and pouncing on them, slowly tearing their face off while everyone else watches powerlessly.

Alistar becomes neigh-unkillable and knocks people up, healing allies slightly while he does so.

Annie summons Tibbers and stuns large groups of people. She also has a defensive tool.

Pantheon shrugs off AAs and turret shots and pokes people until they die. He also jumps across the map and stuns people.

My own main, Morgana, lands a long root on someone and drops a field of death under them, and, if it's a teamfight, she then stuns everyone. She also has an anti-CC shield.

I'd say Sona is very slightly more complex than this. Sona focuses everything around positioning. She positions well to poke hard in lane, she provides minor positional mobility and damage buffs, she offers provides massive team-wide positional shields and heals late-game, and with proper positioning and/or Flash makes AoE stun picks or even larger plays in teamfights. Personally, I think she should be focused much much more heavily on #2 there while keeping her positional nature, and that all of the others should be made secondary at best, but I'm not a Sona main. I do play her a lot (she's my second-best after Morg), but I'm not a main.

Compare these to someone like Ekko. Ekko pokes with Q, but it also can be used to slow and apply stacks of his passive. It fires twice in a set pattern, and telegraphs its return very heavily until the last possible moment. It is AoE, and can be used to clear wave or - with clever positioning and aiming - to put down damage and stacks on multiple enemies. It gives him a ranged tool to finish people off, too. Ekko stuns with his W, but it can also be used to zone, to slow, or to give himself shields. It's timing and prediction-based, giving him loads of outplay potential and other minutia. His W's passive is used to finish enemies off, but it's also good for last-hitting. His E gives him two very strong repositioning tools, both of which can be used aggressively, defensively, or for any number of other uses. It also gives him a strong melee attack from extended range, useful both vs players and PvE. His ult gives him a repositioning tool based on prior positioning, an emergency heal, a way to activate his W without entering it, a "safety net" so he can take risky plays, and a massive AoE burst of damage. It also causes Ekko to play differently based on whether it's up or down, and shows everyone - friend and foe - where he'd reposition to if he used it right now, giving loads of outplay potential. It can be baited by someone with hard CC, since he often waits to use it until he's low and can't use it while locked down. His passive makes him play around landing his Q, E, and autoattacks on one target a certain number of times, giving him major bonuses and at times making him rely on landing both the out and in of his Q. It gives him a speed boost, handy for either diving harder or getting out or just repositioning within a fight, and it deals a large spike of damage, making it critical for him to proc for assassination. There's even more than this once you realize he builds Lich Bane and two active items, and this isn't even one of the most complicated champions!

You see, then? Nothing Ekko does is nearly as strong as one of these simpler champions, but there's so many options, and they're just as strong in aggregate (assuming all else balance-wise being equal and no meta and all that). It's much harder to learn, and definitely a bad idea if you don't know how to play the game yet (use a simple champion to learn the game, even if you don't want to stick with simple champs long-term, because there's a ridiculous amount of core fundamentals that are easy to miss if you're too distracted by your champion's mechanics!). That said, it gives a lot of room to grow, and creates a more complex and nuanced role within the team than "that guy who runs at stuff". "That guy who runs at stuff" can be super-strong and a core part of the team. Straightforward isn't bad! But it's also not for everyone, and can definitely be very limiting.

Murl0ugh2 votes

I didn't say they should be weaker. Annie and Azir both should be equally balanced if possible.

Don't start with the "your way" nonsense. You don't know my opinion on balance as a whole besides the fact that I don't want Sona, one of if not the easiest character in the game, to sit at a 54% winrate for patches on end because her mains will throw a hissy fit if she falls off a little.

If she hit 50% I wouldn't say a word. Fair enough. She's a simple character that can perform her job effectively and have average results. But when she wins lane constantly while also being braindead, yes braindead, I have a problem.

A character that rewards players for thinking, at most, half as hard as someone else playing a tougher champ and still winning more often is a champ with a toxic design. (I worded this poorly but I've ranted enough after 12 hours of work and you probably aren't gonna bother attempting to see my PoV anyway so fuck it.)

To end this dumb rant, please do not go on about "lower elo this" or "higher elo that." I know things change the higher you climb. It doesn't make Sona any less depressing or infuriating to play against. She needs a rework. For both her opponents and players.

RedCyclone2 votes

You act like actually playing Sona grants you free wins when she is decent to play

I'd like to see you play Sona into a M7 Leona at diamond level Sure Sona is easy, and to it's credit I dislike her simpleness because I lothe her passive playstyle and much prefer the aggressive one (I even quit playing during the Ardent meta because it was such a shitty environment to play AP Sona in) that you have to put work and effort into You don't seem to understand that not all Sona players play her passively and prefer the high risk high reward of the AP playstyle, there is much more room to fuckup with AP Sona and a lot more to gain out of it, tell someone new to Sona to build her hard AP and just watch how hard they feed

Also yes, she needs a rework that defines her skill and puts more action into her active abilities, pretty sure 99% of Sona players out there WANT a rework like this

Murl0ugh1 votes

I don't act that way at all. I act as if playing the easiest character in the game shouldn't be as rewarding as it has been.

Obviously if anybody could just go Sona and be Challenger than everyone would have already done it. I never made any such claim. Player Skill is always a factor and if you're good enough than to a certain extent character choice doesn't even matter.

"You don't seem to understand..." you don't seem capable of reading comprehension if you actually think that. Nowhere did I say anything like "Sona's just sit there and heal spam. No skill." As a matter of fact most low elo players go the AP style route so actually I'm very well aware and I understand it requires more risk. This little side point of yours literally changes nothing about what I've said up until now.

If someone new to the game plays anyone who knows what they are doing they are going to feed. Terribly point if you can call it one.

I don't understand. You bring up points that sound defensive as if I've insulted you because I dislike Sona's current kit but then you say most Sona players want a rework anyway. Like what? Aren't we on the same page then? Aren't we in agreement? What is happening rn.

RedCyclone1 votes

Just think of it like this, we do want a Sona rework, we don't want her to be shit for the long while before that rework

It just seems that you would rather keep her in the crappy position then the under the radar 52% position, attributing that her simpleness should make her not a good pick anywhere over silver level play, calling her a champ where you don't have to think gives that impression

TotalJerk2 votes

You just turned her into a variation of Soraka.

flibitydoo3 votes

wouldn't that make her more like karma? except she'd completely outclass karma if her Q was in any way shape or form equal in power to karma's Q(or RQ) because sona actually has direct healing that does not require any enemy champion contact to cast (as well as being healing for targets beyond herself).

General Esdeath 3 votes

I made a ton of threads on it. Sona's stats were already dropping as we grew nearer to the patch date. The hell was up with that nerf? Like, seriously, this type of shit lets me know that my posts on this forum mean jack shit. I even take the time to make sure I'm citing sources so I'm not spreading misinformation, as I've seen how it negatively effects you guys on here, but I can see that it's more productive to feed into mass hysteria than to actually try to post responsibly on here. Will take note.

Welcome to why people make posts like that. It's better for Riot to see the raw number because some of them don't open them, and those who do (best people btw) aren't in the power position to make sure we're heard.

Ayanami3rd3 votes

As a guy who has ~150k mastery points on Sona, I agree that she needs to be looked at again.

In S7, she was fairly strong compared to how easy she was to play. I always wondered why you would pick Karma when Sona does comparable things, but without skillshots. Still, she had weaknesses, and she was overall okay-ish.

In pre-season, Sona just got ridiculously strong because of Kleptomancy and how Riot was too incompetent to give champions decent base MR although it had been pointed out by players for a long time. Hell, I had more kills than my ADC half the time without even intending too.

Now, after all these nerfs, Sona is really in a weak spot. And all this not because the champion wasn't healthy (it was in S7), but because Riot changed runes and base stats, and instead of fixing their changes, they decided to nerf champs like Sona, Leona, Ezreal etc. Which is an irritatingly bad move, because now we have badly designed runes/base stats AND imbalanced champions at the same time.

As someone who started out LoL in S7, I enjoyed that Sona was mechanically easy to play, and I agree that her skill cap is not very high. Then again, the support role itself is not very popular, and if there weren't any easy champs to play, autofilled players would feed even more (no offense, but you get the point). So maybe it IS a good idea to keep a point&click aim support champ around.

In my opinion, there is no way around giving Sona her old stats from S7 though. You could then either remove Kleptomancy (which I personally would love, since RNG elements in a competitive game are a cringeworthy thought anyways), and/or buff MR for everyone a bit (we need this anyways). It might also bring a new touch to Sona reworking her just a little bit, maybe one skillshot more, or raising the skill requirement in other ways just a little bit. That would be interesting and shift her balance too, but don't turn her into a clone of an existing champ and keep her unique style.

Darkeus5 votes

I think the missing MR and Armor people took with the old Rune system is a MAJOR contributor to the issues Preseason is having right now.

Thilmer2 votes

Sona needs a full rework. Period.

Such an emblematic champ shouldn't be in this horrible state.

Darkeus2 votes

Yeah, I am starting to come to the conclusion that a re-work is the only way to solve all this. The past started it and the Runes broke it...

SanKakU2 votes

I've had some ideas for Sona kit reworking, but yeah...I agree, she's just a boring champ and has been one for a while now.

Dead Anime Dad2 votes

Tits can get a character far my dude. Plus it's a champion that anyone can easily pick up. Though true she may not have deserved heavy handed nerfs, playing against her is boring as sin.

Azadethe2 votes

I'm sorry OP. What I say's going to sound harsh.

You basically described almost every champ in the game in your post, and applied it to Sona.

Every champ when played correctly feels analog, and has debates over whether one trait or another is OP or the one to focus on.

Every champ when played in high elo has win/lose scores which fluctuate, with a couple exceptions (Kha, Zed)

Every support generally when played correctly is perceived by different definitions by different players of what should be acceptable support play.

Every healer generally walks the line of where their kit should land in self reliant damage vs their sustain (I'm glad they moved Janna to where she actually has to rely on playing instead of just Barrier spamming an ADC and "Win," Doing appreciable damage now that her autos scale with move speed).

The truths (yes plural) are:

-Every champ is supposed to feel an individual niche, not to be a copy of a different champion and USUALLY not even an amalgamation of a few champ's skills (Sona's niche is low damage non target spam which increases as she gains points in her Ult, mid range heals and barriers that get more reliable the more she builds up her Ult, and mid range speed boosts that increase as she invests in her Ult. She's basically an "average of all worlds" which is what makes her dangerous, because if she at least focuses on one attribute, she will get strong)

-Champions aren't always played as intended (For example, Soraka is often built on Warmog's to exempt her from actually having to hit Q' to sustain her health. Any Soraka can abuse that). Sona specifically is played wrong at high elo, which is what attributes to her diminishing win rates (Q is NOT how you build in a meta where your range is only 550, and Adcs can punish you every time you try to poke. You build the heal, and time it for incoming attacks so you don't waste the barrier).

-Skill levels make balancing any champion impossible. Low elo to mid elo is why Q building Sona had so much success. They create pauses for autos, don't understand her range, and don't punish the cooldowns, which allows her to mage poke a lane to death. Higher elo knows exactly which way you are building Sona by level 3..... by how hard your Q hits or how high your W is healing. If they see you Q build, they will begin to mercilessly zerg you, because they know you can't heal out.

-7.24 wasn't a Sona Nerf. it was more or less a wash. Her end game contribution went up, while her early game suffered slightly. It's technically a scaling Buff, not a nerf. It expects you to..... like other healers who scale well to AP.... guess what? BUILD AP (You don't have to build a 700+ AP build, but an AP support build with 300-400 AP is fine. (This is what annoys me with other Nami mains too: Healing/Shield passives were never supposed to replace AP; they were put in to COMPENSATE for taking specific active items. If you do the actual math, Passive builds do almost exactly the same heals as AP builds, yet literally EVERY skill on those champs (Rakan, Soraka, Nami, Sona, scale to AP, and some of the skills getting throttled by NOT building AP, are game changers with it; Nami's passive and W particularly scream: BUILD AP, NOT ACTIVES.)) Once people decide to make Sona AP again, she'll be winning in surpluses again. They're losing because they haven't adapted yet.

-Sona does indeed have counterplay. If you want a champ with very little counterplay: Zyra. Leona. Those two are arguably the best supports although they have lower representation than Sona. Zyra can both win lanes and win games, even with toxic teams who feed significantly, because her skills clear minion waves so fast that she can save bases. Leona's Passive adding damage onto everyone's attacks is also carrying, especially with her CC kit. There's very little skill involved in a Leona, and she creates burst instances without much risk.

I personally think Sona is fine. I've maintained a 70% with her for 4 years, and that wasn't building just standard meta "Support" items.

chipndip12 votes

{quoted}

You basically described almost every champ in the game in your post, and applied it to Sona.

I mean, I guess you can play that mind game if you're biased or not thinking objectively.

Every champ when played correctly feels analog, and has debates over whether one trait or another is OP or the one to focus on.

Blatantly untrue. Many newer designs have a mix between low and high variance abilities. This is fine. Zed is justified in having his targeted ult and aoe E since his Q and W are very high variance skills. Ekko's entire kit is high variance, save his E. Veigar and Syndra have low variance burst ults that are justified through high variance basic kits. Sona has low variance on every possible action she can take. Big difference.

Every champ when played in high elo has win/lose scores which fluctuate, with a couple exceptions (Kha, Zed)

...why the hell are those two exceptions?

-Every champ is supposed to feel an individual niche, not to be a copy of a different champion and USUALLY not even an amalgamation of a few champ's skills (Sona's niche is low damage non target spam which increases as she gains points in her Ult, mid range heals and barriers that get more reliable the more she builds up her Ult, and mid range speed boosts that increase as she invests in her Ult. She's basically an "average of all worlds" which is what makes her dangerous, because if she at least focuses on one attribute, she will get strong)

Sona has no actual niche. You can't just throw a few words together based on what she does and "make" one.

If a niche is a strategic function or role that correlates to in-game success, Sona has no niche outside of the hyper-scaling gimmick Riot pushed onto her one year ago. Example: Vayne's niche isn't "Tumbling" or "Stunning people on a wall". Vayne's niche is being a hyper-scaling marksman that's extremely good in 1v1s and small skirmishes. Details about her, like her lack luster wave clear, her ability to turn invisible when tumbling during ult, her 2 steroids, her hard cc, her general speed, help define her specific niche in contrast to other marksmen who may have better wave clear, better team fight tools, and so on. Like I said in the post, scalings aside, Sona's tools don't get jack shit done, so what niche is she supposed to ACTUALLY have? She can be a team fighting support, but she doesn't provide all that much to a team fight as she is in comparison to a Rakan, a Taric, a Nami, a Janna, or whatever.

-Champions aren't always played as intended (For example, Soraka is often built on Warmog's to exempt her from actually having to hit Q' to sustain her health. Any Soraka can abuse that). Sona specifically is played wrong at high elo, which is what attributes to her diminishing win rates (Q is NOT how you build in a meta where your range is only 550, and Adcs can punish you every time you try to poke. You build the heal, and time it for incoming attacks so you don't waste the barrier).

No, high elo players had BEEN caught on to maxing W. There isn't some super secret we all don't know about.

-Skill levels make balancing any champion impossible. Low elo to mid elo is why Q building Sona had so much success. They create pauses for autos, don't understand her range, and don't punish the cooldowns, which allows her to mage poke a lane to death. Higher elo knows exactly which way you are building Sona by level 3..... by how hard your Q hits or how high your W is healing. If they see you Q build, they will begin to mercilessly zerg you, because they know you can't heal out.

And? The point is to design a kit that isn't so polarized between different skill levels. It's the same reason Riot's been reworking Ryze over and over.

-7.24 wasn't a Sona Nerf. it was more or less a wash.

Literally BS. "At 300 ap you finally output similar Q aura damage in comparison to before now. Also, the mana nerf is never compensated. This is somehow not a massive nerf."

If 7.24 wasn't a nerf, how'd her win rate drop from 52% to less than 49% on Lolalytics when filtered for Diamond, even when her play rate dropped from 9% to 3%? Oh, right, because it's a fucking massive nerf. Even Korea, the region heralded as the best region, sees Sona at less than 48% win rate on a 4% play rate on Lolalytics.

-Sona does indeed have counterplay. If you want a champ with very little counterplay: Zyra. Leona.

This post is actually disgusting and I have a serious fear that I'm taking the time to respond to someone that doesn't know a single lick of what they're talking about at this point.

Robeon1 votes

You're butthurt is all. It isn't automated, you need to stack auras, you are forced to sit with a dumbass dps, half the support items dont work as well as a lich bane, and I could go on. You want a change? siggest edits. Design her on your own tine and process it ti Riot. They WILL look at it at least. They have 15 thousand staff or so by nao

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