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The Sona rework is a step in the right direction.

LetsHarmonize··5 votes·799 views

I LOVE that Riot did away with her old auras. They were so invisible and no one but the Sona player realized she was using them (I say this from my experiences playing as Sona and playing with an ally Sona). Her new spells are now able to be more visibly powerful since they aren't so...invisibly powerful.

The new spell effects are a step in the right direction, but they need a few improvements:

  1. The empowered auto attack from Q needs to work on towers. Old Sona's pushing power was something I greatly appreciated. The new Sona is pretty lacking in this department since she can no longer buff the damage that allies do to towers.
  2. The shield on W needs to last a little longer. I don't need to explain this, do I? I think 2.5 seconds or even 2 seconds would be much more practical than the current 1.5 second shield she gives.
  3. Sona's E should work on minions, as it did pre-rework. It made me feel pretty useful to get the minions to the turret early enough so we could destroy it just before the enemy team showed up to defend.
  4. That's all I got. What do you guys think could be improved about the Sona rework? :)

As a sidenote, can we PLEASE make Sona slightly tankier? It's hard to compete with Morgana's/Leona's/Thresh's threat of "get hit by one skillshot and you die" when your lane presence DEPENDS on persistently getting in range to Q-AA.

16 Comments

Angry Monster4 votes

Been saying sona needs to be tankier since 2012

Pika3102 votes

I politely disagree to some extent. Yes, the basic concept behind the initial changes were a singular step in the right direction, but they have taken multiple steps back during its actual execution. You've suggested a few amongst a myriad of buffs that will be required solely to bring Sona back up to par with her original self. A few others I can think of off-hand:

  • Unnerfing Staccato's damage
  • Increase (non)aura range by another 100-150 units at least
  • Unnerf the cooldowns
  • Apply Hymn's active to abilities, perhaps only doing 1/3 on AoE spells; and increase its bases by ~50 by Rank 5
  • Increase Aria's base amounts at ranks 1 and 2; and unnerf the mana costs
  • Reapply Celerity's 1000-range passive flat permanent aura, cause let's face it. There's no other possible way to fix this without turning it into Sivir's ult.
  • Make Crescendo's cost 100 mana at each rank
  • Make Sona immune to silences
YouLostMe2 votes

Staccato's damage was nerfed because it was too good of a zoning/bullying tool. Sona could just keep blue aura up and stop you from ever coming near for fear of the damage she deals. Not a good thing.

The aura ranges should definitely not be buffed, because tagging people is super easy already.

Cooldowns should also not be nerfed, because the boost they gave to her abilities would have to go down and that would suck.

Hymn's active is surprisingly easy to use on a mage. They have autos too.

I agree with you on buffing the heal on Aria. It doesn't seem to be effective until you're healing someone at 20% HP. Mana cost nerfing is a no-go.

Celerity is currently amazing, both for Sona and tagged allies. Giving it a 1000 range would force them to nerf the move speed and then it loses a lot of tactical depth.

I agree with the Crescendo change. I don't think the buff is too much, but it will let Sona build something other than Ancient Coin -> Sightstone -> Chalice.

NO WAY on immunity to silence. Other than killing Sona early in a teamfight (which means diving the backline hard) there is no other way of shutting down that enormous ultimate.

Pika3101 votes

Sorry, on Celerity I meant the passive flat-amount she used to give. I edited it to clarify a little better, since it apparently wasn't obvious. Also, if you've ever miraculously been able to tag somebody with it, I sincerely congratulate you, you're amongst the elite.

Doesn't seem fair to me that a mute be constantly mocked for it by having silence applied to them. It's illogical and insulting to her. On a related note: make Lee Sin immune to blinds.

YouLostMe1 votes

It's not that hard to tag people if you're all running down a lane, but I'll agree that it's not that great in teamfights. Of course, tagging someone with move speed in teamfights is secondary to using it to position your ult. I still wouldn't want that flat aura unless it were a straight-up buff because they'd need to sacrifice power somewhere and I am a really big fan of how big the move speed buff is.

And if we do go for consistency of effects (making Lee Sin immune to blind, Malphite immune to being turned to stone, Twitch's poison proc'ing Cass's Twin Fang reset) then Silence immunity would be cool.

Pika3101 votes

No power was lost in the first place, the team MS matches what it was pre-nerf, it just disappears completely now, rather than holding on to a flat amount afterwards. That was sacrificed so that Sona could selfishly give herself a larger boost. A rather anti-support concept, but whatever. She's probably better as an ADC anyways.

YouLostMe2 votes

It matches what it was pre-nerf? Hold on, I think you need a fresh dose of math.

For most of the game, old Sona grants 4 move speed + 4% with her active. With your average ally (330ms) using T2 boots (+45 ms) that comes out to 1.04 x (330 + 45 + 4) = 394 while the active is up. When the active isn't up, they instead have 379.

For most of the game, new Sona grants +10% move speed with her active. That comes out to 1.10 x (330 + 45 + 0) = 412. When the active isn't up, they instead have 375. Sona obviously gives bigger power spikes and the move speed definitely does not match its numbers pre-rework.

Let's go to lategame. Old Sona grants 20 + 12%, while new Sona grants a flat 20%. 1.12 x (330 + 45 + 20) = 442, while 1.20 x (330 + 45 + 0) = 450. Larger numbers here too. It appears you have been duped.

EDIT: I forgot new Sona's ult gives a 6% bonus at lvl 16 as well. So that's 1.20 x 1.06 x (330 + 45 + 0) = 477. Well beyond old Sona's move speed bonus.

Now the power new Sona gets is somewhat countered by the consistency that old Sona gets. No flat movespeed aura means no bonus movespeed. But of course, normal Sona players don't actually keep their purple aura on regularly -- usually they cycle between Green/Purple to get Power Chord stacks, so that move speed boost is less effective as you think it would be.

And let's not forget her stronger AP scaling, greater duration on the large move speed buff (minimum 2 seconds if you tag 1 ally), and the stronger personal buff with double AP scaling. There is no way Sona's E has gotten anything but buffed.

Pika3101 votes

Whelp, you can put your fancy dollar-store calculator away, because it doesn't matter which version gave more MS. Because tagging an ally with the new Celerity is as difficult as getting a Pentakill, it'll happen maybe 2 or 3 times in an entire week, then not again for over a month.

People love falling back on scaling when their points starts floundering as though FQC wasn't gutted and like she doesn't have to build utility or tanky in over 95% of games. Same as every support, you're almost always working with base numbers, your skills rarely deviate from those by any more than a negligible amount. You're not the mid-laner, if you aren't building Sightstone, then you don't understand what a support is.

YouLostMe1 votes

My friend, you said the numbers matched. I proved they didn't. There's really nothing more than that.

And tagging an ally with the new Celerity is actually really easy. It happens in lane regularly, and I can get 2-3 people per cast in teamfights. I really recommend you try it out before you knock it.

And I'm certainly not "falling back" on the scaling. It's one of 3 bonus points I had in mind after showing you that the math proved your point wrong. FQC is still great stuff on Sona despite FQC being "gutted" (just like Sona and Rengar were gutted, amirite?) and there is more than one AP item available for supports now that we're in S4.

Pika3101 votes

Since it's clear you have a personal grudge against me and refuse to listen to my words and in-fact attempt to discredit them, I will instead borrow and quote Kynami in regard to Celerity's new and old versions:

For a final parting reason why its a nerf take an ally with 335 base MS. Take a pair of T2 boots (+45 MS), take her passive (+20 MS), and then toss in the percent bonus (+18%) You end up with 472 before speed cap adjustments.

Take the new version. Same 335 base, add the T2 boots (+45 MS), take the percent bonus (+24%). 471 before speed cap adjustments.

Meaning the boost speed is the SAME DARN THING at similar AP levels, but has completely lost the passive speed useful for kiting without spending MP during down time on the buff and has additional CD time on top of that. Now for some contemplation... why do most junglers hate the new version of Mobi boots? Because it loses 20 MS in combat and has an additional amount of time before you can get your speed back. Now why the heck would most Sona players really hate this change to E? Hmm.

YouLostMe1 votes

For someone who has played 300 games with Sona, I assume you would notice the large discrepancy in Kynami's post. His old Sona move speed buff is listed as 18%, when it's actually 12%. To make matters worse, he gets the new Sona's move speed bonus wrong too! He lists it at 24%, when it's actually 26%.

So let's do that math again, eh? I'll use all his assumptions (base 335ms and no AP):

OLD SONA: 1.12 x (335 + 45 + 20) = 448

NEW SONA: 1.26 x (335 + 45 + 0) = 479

That's 30 more move speed. Definitely not insignificant.

Pika3101 votes

His post was assuming ~250 AP, both numbers are rounded to a modest even number for ease of calculation. I don't know where you're getting 26% from, rank 5 on the new Celerity gives 14%. Anyways, after further extensive calculations and double-checking of these numbers, I can personally attest as a mathematics major(and criminal justice minor) that these numbers are indeed correct to an inconsequential margin of uncertainty. Frankly, your continued unjust and misinformed attacks are severely throwing this thread off-topic and are becoming harassment. I'll finish this post with a quote of an even earlier post of Kynami for further reference:

E - Song of Celerity

Cooldown increased to 12 seconds Initial cast grants Sona a boost of 13/14/15/16/17% + (7.5% AP) Movement Speed that decays down to the ally boost Aura now grants allies 10/11/12/13/14% + (3.75 AP) Movement Speed that lasts for 1.5 seconds. Aura lasts 3 seconds, extended by 0.5 seconds for each ally tagged Sona's Movement Speed buff is also extended by 0.5 seconds for each ally tagged

Talisman Unique: Grants nearby allies +40% movement speed for 3 seconds. 60 second cooldown. (600 range)

So it lasts half as long, realistically is only ~24% MS boost at 250 AP at full five ranks, which as much as most supports can ever manage to get without being fed to high heaven or the game dragging on past 40 minutes. And additionally recipients have to be tagged with the aura within a couple seconds. Its initial power in lane? 12% MS boost for a second and a half at a single rank and ~50 AP. Don't forget that it costs 65 MP per cast either.

Current version while realistically only granting a ~18% boost under most circumstances at max rank by comparison tags all allies within 1000 units. No playing tag required, not to mention it also grants a flat 20 MS at the same time. And with CDR can be re-activated within 4.5 seconds.

An additional three seconds of downtime at max CDR, only effects allies within 350... sure doesn't seem those additional downsides are balanced for just an extra 6% MS on average that also doesn't have the flat MS on the side.

End result is that Sona is actually more prone to being ganked and caught out because she can't just keep smashing the button every four and a half seconds for another speed boost. More gap-closers will catch up and utterly annihilate her.

YouLostMe1 votes

Oh yikes, so first off it's "people always fall back on scaling as if FQC wasn't gutted" and now it's "assuming ~250 AP". I'm noticing some hard inconsistencies here.

Now if I recall correctly, Patch 3.14 changed Sona's move speed boost to 4 / 6 / 8 / 10 / 12% (+2% per 100 AP), so the cap is in fact 12% and not 14%. Assuming 250 AP, that's 12% + 5% = 17%.

New Sona gets 14% + 6% + 10.5% = 20.5% at 250 AP.

OLD SONA: 1.17 x (335 + 45 + 20) = 445

NEW SONA: 1.205 x (335 + 45) = 458

That's still different by a significant amount! And we're assuming all sorts of weird things now like hyper-lategame AP Sona, which doesn't actually have any real bearing on the support Sona that will playing for the first 45 minutes of the game and it completely ignores Sona's boost of movement speed! Frankly, your continued unjust and misinformed attacks are severely throwing this thread off-topic and are becoming harassment.

I'll just finish this off by saying that I've shown the speed boost to be greater for your allies under every single circumstance provided without even considering the power granted by Sona's personal move speed buff (demonstrating this to be a buff to the spell) and that Kynami completely fails to take into account Sona's personal bonus movement speed after he failed to demonstrate the math properly, indicating he's probably not fit to draw conclusions on Sona's capabilities.

Khmera2 votes

I have no complaints except her E range being so short and maybe maybe an increase in her aura range. Considering Janna's passive, Taric's aura, and Soraka's old passive were 500 - 1000 range. I just want it at 500 range. That would be nice.

YouLostMe1 votes

From playing Sona, I've noticed she's actually very strong. I'm not a fan of applying her Q to towers and the E buffing minion move speed, because that just makes her a super-strong push machine (especially lategame, 5 people getting the bonus damage and super minion bonus speed is no good).

I would like the shield to increase in duration, but it's actually in a pretty good spot since her W is basically designed for trades. More could be overkill, She is absolutely better when people engage on her now, because the heal is stronger and she gets her shield.

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