Boards›Gameplay

Revisiting Sona... Again.

Solbane Suzumiya··6 votes·636 views
So lemme get this straight...

So here we are, two mass number tweaks of Sona later on the PBE, and both the "Let's make the auras really small" and the "Let's make Sona have pseudo-URF late game" have gone back into the shop to be "revisited". I'm sure I'm not the only one who's sitting here, wondering why Riot wants to keep whittling away at Sona and slowly making her into a balance nightmare. The link I have posted is Meddler's comments on Sona from 8 months ago, and let's have a quick look at it.

1: Sona's unsatisfying. Yes, yes she is, because nothing she does feels impactful enough. Sona's power is so terribly split that all you do is be a morale booster for your team. With her current live status, at level 18, her Q is a 400 base + 100% ap scaling with a 500 base and + 100% ap scaling aura, and her W is a 220 + 40% ap heal to a 330 + 60% ap heal with a 775 + 100% ap shield. These numbers for a "click the button and it happens" kit are BROKEN. Yet, with these high bases and scalings, why is she unsatisfying? Her q proc goes to 2 RNG'd people, prioritizes champions but you better be standing near who you want to hit, her q aura is split on 5 people of the team and we all know in soloQ that even in the rare occurance you tag the 5 man aura, it isn't all going to hit the same champion, so why bother with that? The heal forces half of itself onto Sona, which is a waste if she's full health, and the shield is split 5 ways as well. Yeah, my Shen desperately needed that 155 + 20% ap shield when Zed was diving our Lucian.

2: Sona's kit makes her not playable in competitive because if she's LCS worthy, she's soloQ broken. Well Aphromoo picked her TWICE, still waiting for those nerfs. I think Sona has one kneecap that's halfway healed, need a baseball bat to borrow to finish the job?

3: Sona's power is too split to feel good. So then why are you constantly trying to force this divided kit? To me, this sounds like unofficially admitting Sona's rework was a mistake, and yet, you aren't actually making plans to rework her and make her more than an easier to play Soraka/Karma. Especially considering Karma and Soraka aren't that hard to play, it's just a terrible spot to put Sona in.

4: Sona is consistent so she can't have high highs because her lows aren't that low. Have you ever been jungle camped while playing Sona? We're talking hard camped, tower dove every minute. It's horrible. Why? Because there is literally nothing you can do to defend yourself. Yeah, you can ult, but with how tanky tank supports are they'll just live the tower anyways and you're just warmup fodder for the enemy ADC before he kills your adc. If you've never experienced this, go play Sona until it happens to you. Trust me, her lows are just as low as most champions, and can potentially go lower since she's practically the only support who NEEDS AP for her utility to exist outside of her ult. This makes traditional locket/FH/mikaels builds terrible on her because the amount of AP she gets is minimal.

5: If solo lane Sona works, duo lane Sona is broken. I feel like this can just fall back to the whole "Sona's kit is terribly designed and feels like a painting made by a few hundred people all adding a single brush stroke". There are plenty of supports who work solo lane and aren't oppressive in a duo lane, like Lulu, Braum, Karma. There are also some solo lanes who can support and aren't oppressive such as Lux, Shen, etc. If someone is unable to exist in a solo lane because it'd make their duo lane broken (besides Kalista), then maybe they need to be revisited. As much as we hear about not wanting to force a meta, you sure seem to like keeping certain champions in "their place".

6: We can cut out some parts of Sona's kit and make it less reliable. It's been 8 months, and it seems that this hasn't even been tested. Which is sad really. For how League's design and balance is, auras are proven to be obnoxious as hell, no matter what. It's why Sona got gutted reworked in August 2014, and yet they decided to just slap new auras on her instead of removing them altogether.

Now onto the two major changes since then. The first being the "auras are really tiny" "rework". This rework felt relatively good for Sona, and honestly I feel the best bet is to just strip Sona's auras off. The problem with that is that she ends up with a very VERY simplified kit, so she likely needs a rework that makes her aura-less. It shouldn't be that hard to do, Riot, since I've personally written 3 or 4 by myself with ~3 hours spent on each. Granted, number tweaking takes some time, but if Azir's release and forward shows anything, it's that shipping a rework/new release live and minimal testing fixes things tremendously.

The second is the pseudo-urf mode Sona, and I honestly feel like this is literally just another bandage onto the problem instead of fixing it. At the rate Sona's getting bandaged, you might as well ask H. G. Wells if using The Invisible Man as her new title is fine. All I see coming from this is Sona becoming a top tier pick/ban in URF, since she'll have 88% CDR with no mana costs. As for real summoners rift, this isn't a fix for Sona. It's nowhere NEAR a fix for Sona, because all this will do is force mana heavy builds onto Sona just to spam late game, or go OOM in half a second. On top of that, anytime the CDR cap can be adjusted (like URF) it created potential balance nightmares for this new Sona.

If there's a lot of sarcasm here that offends anyone, I'm deeply sorry. I'm running short on sleep and it's starting to really frustrate me how Sona's being "fixed", instead of Sona actually being fixed.

On the one in a million chance that a Rioter actually sees this post and takes the time to comment, if you're interested in some of the potential reworks I've drawn up for Sona just PM me I guess.

6 Comments

Yrzen1 votes

Preach

It's time for an impassioned rant expressing my enormous discontent with Riot's handling of Sona, my apologies.

What I loved about Sona was her ability to be extremely aggressive and come out on top after trades. She dished out significant damage, healed off her own damage, and could afford to hold onto her power chords until she got a chance to safely get them off.

The rework came and she ate a Q base damage nerf and got an on-hit bonus, which, and I don't care if someone is frustrated at full AP Sona because of it, it was a nerf. Not being able to hold onto her auto attack every time she pokes was a huge, HUGE hit to her safety, which is extremely bad for a champion whose primary counterplay is being one of the most fragile champions in the game.

Her Q aura? It's more valuable than this stupid on-hit nonsense.

The rework came and she ate a W base heal nerf and got a %missing health boost, which was just a horrible decision in my opinion. Sona relies on staying healthy to prevent engages. Her solution to her weakness was to discourage the option altogether. You can talk about healthy gameplay all you want, but overall this was a straight nerf.

Her W aura? A million times easier to get use out of than her 1.5 second shield. Importantly, this stupid shield was what she ate a heal nerf for. What is a shield with such a duration good for? The heat of the moment of course. THIS ABILITY IS TIED TO A HEAL.

When you are low on health, YOU DO NOT WANT TO GET INTO THE HEAT OF THE MOMENT. You want to play it safe and heal up to a amount higher than where the %missing health boost breaks even. Actually, to be specific, Sona is so squishy that having health lower than where her heal bonus would break even is usually too dangerous. What were they even thinking with this one???

Her E aura? It still sucks. It provides hardly any boost until the game is practically over, which is why the former aura, which granted a permanent but minor speed boost was so nice. It helped much more for getting back to lane or rotating, and its additional range on the active made it better for speeding up allies when fights arise or people need to split up.

What did she get in exchange for these changes? HIGHER COOLDOWNS AND MANA COSTS.

Sona is so unbelievably mana hungry, it blows my mind. It feels so incredibly awful when I feel like I'm building her wrong if I don't buy two or three mana items. ...NOT EVEN INCLUDING LICHBANE! And yes, I'm talking about now, not the PBE where she'll be even more mana hungry, where she's trading spell efficiency even more for lower cooldowns.

Onto her new changes. You are so right it hurts. It may make her better, but it's a band-aid fix that doesn't solve her underlying problems. Her kit is so unbelievably contradictory it saddens me to play, knowing what she once was. I'm happy they're removing the %hp missing health heal bonus, but coupled with no compensation to her healing and even more power from it being shifted into her shitty little shield, along with more Q base damage nerfs, I just can't this turning out well. What is the goal here, turning her into a Support Swain?

Sona was my main. My very first main in fact, and I feel very strongly on this topic, considering Nami outclasses her so thoroughly Sona was recently played by Aphromoo, but what irritates me is that she seemed to just be an ult bot. Before, it was Riot's reason for why she needed to be kept weak, but god dammit, just remove it already if it's such an obstacle.

Please Riot, just respond. Tell us our ideas are shit and why, but god fucking dammit, don't leave us hanging like this while Sona is so completely outclassed by Nami.

Teridax681 votes

[{quoted}](name=Solbane Suzumiya,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=luJM9zsr,comment-id=,timestamp=2016-06-25T10:30:38.507+0000)

honestly I feel the best bet is to just strip Sona's auras off.

I personally feel the opposite should happen. If nothing else, Sona's identity is that of an aura support (which is partly why she's been so difficult to design and balance around), and if you were to take that from her you'd be making a lot of her core fans extremely angry. What's the least interesting about her right now is her basic ability actives, which you kind of mentioned: her Q double bolts are boring and alternate between being not too useful at waveclearing and too reliable at poking enemy champions, her W heal is often wasted on her, and her E movement speed boost is barely above that of her aura (it's getting changed to an autoattack range boost, though, which I think is also not a good idea, as it doesn't do anything unless you combine it with a Q or Power Chord). Considering how she has literally ten different effects going on right now, many of them redundant (e.g. Q damage + Q aura + Q Power Chord), taking out those actives, which offer minimal gameplay, and instead putting a lot more work into her auras to make them feel powerful and interesting could go a long way in giving her a proper niche, and making her feel good at it.

A big ongoing conflict with Sona, one that her changes are likely to muddle even further, is between her aura-based supportive gameplay and her personal burst and poke. It's impossible to make her both a great aura support and a great burst mage, and so far attempts to keep those two playstyles have rendered both mediocre. It's also why there's no one thing Sona really does better than anyone else, because she does a bit of everything. Objectively speaking, her burst mage playstyle does not really have all that much gameplay (her Q damage is all point-and-click, her ult is pretty reliable too, and in solo lanes she still has access to sustain on top of that, and therefore risks winning lanes by attrition), and I think it would make more sense to remove that than to remove her auras, which now have at least some gameplay and could let her do things other champions can't.

Solbane Suzumiya1 votes

{quoted}

I personally feel the opposite should happen. If nothing else, Sona's identity is that of an aura support (which is partly why she's been so difficult to design and balance around), and if you were to take that from her you'd be making a lot of her core fans extremely angry. What's the least interesting about her right now is her basic ability actives, which you kind of mentioned: her Q double bolts are boring and alternate between being not too useful at waveclearing and too reliable at poking enemy champions, her W heal is often wasted on her, and her E movement speed boost is barely above that of her aura (it's getting changed to an autoattack range boost, though, which I think is also not a good idea, as it doesn't do anything unless you combine it with a Q or Power Chord). Considering how she has literally ten different effects going on right now, many of them redundant (e.g. Q damage + Q aura + Q Power Chord), taking out those actives, which offer minimal gameplay, and instead putting a lot more work into her auras to make them feel powerful and interesting could go a long way in giving her a proper niche, and making her feel good at it.

A big ongoing conflict with Sona, one that her changes are likely to muddle even further, is between her aura-based supportive gameplay and her personal burst and poke. It's impossible to make her both a great aura support and a great burst mage, and so far attempts to keep those two playstyles have rendered both mediocre. It's also why there's no one thing Sona really does better than anyone else, because she does a bit of everything. Objectively speaking, her burst mage playstyle does not really have all that much gameplay (her Q damage is all point-and-click, her ult is pretty reliable too, and in solo lanes she still has access to sustain on top of that, and therefore risks winning lanes by attrition), and I think it would make more sense to remove that than to remove her auras, which now have at least some gameplay and could let her do things other champions can't.

While I do understand your sentiments toward aura Sona, if Riot wanted her to have auras why did she need a rework in the first place? As of right now, even simply calling her an aura support is controversial because there's a lot of gamers who would say that Sona does not have auras, but spammable single use buffs. The term "aura" usually implies the following:

  1. It is an AoE spell centered on the caster.
  2. It is instant cast, with no cooldown.
  3. It is infinite duration, should the target be within the caster's range and the caster is alive.
  4. It is not able to be removed by any means besides pushing the caster far away or killing the caster. When Sona had her AD/AP, Armor/MR, MS auras, they held true to these. The only real issue was that they had a pseudo cooldown as they were tied to her spellcasts, but her cooldowns were so much lower then. Now, they violate almost every rule of being considered an aura. They have cooldowns, as in times they are inactive. They are not infinite duration, and they are able to be removed just by being expended. Were Sona's current kit to be turned into auras, it would be on hit magic damage for being near Sona, a shield that blocks x damage per hit (making her ridiculously OP against attack speed builds), and free perma MS. This is not a kit Riot wants in the game, and right now they're just lying to us about Sona even having auras. All she has is single use buffs with low cooldowns after you get cdr and mana, and they're going to basically try and push high uptime on these buffs by giving Sona mini-URF mode in norms. This isn't how champions should be fixed. They need to accept that Sona NEEDS a new identity, even though that won't be until DJ Sona is as clunky and outdated as Pulsefire, and as forgotten as Yorick and Urgot.
Teridax681 votes

That's true, the term "aura" has changed for Sona, and I didn't clarify on it. I agree, Sona's old permanent stat auras were impossible to render truly interesting, which is why she needed a rework to turn them into her current temporary snuggle zones. However, her current mini-"auras" aren't as interesting as they could be, and I also agree with you that making her super-spammy in the late game is unlikely to make her feel truly strong, which is her main issue (if anything, it's going to make her spells feel even more diluted, particularly since they're getting nerfed alongside that effect). Because of this, I also dislike her current changelist, and I agree that it doesn't really approach her kit or identity as it should.

With that said, I think rendering Sona's old auras smaller and temporary has benefited her, and the effect in itself carries interesting positional gameplay and has the potential to offer really interesting team buffs. I could be wrong in wanting to stick to her current circular PBAoE model, but more generally Sona does deserve to be the best champion at empowering her entire team at once. I think you're completely right in that she needs a proper, in-depth rework with all the time and resources she needs, which may not necessarily have to reach full VGU levels but definitely shouldn't try to apply a quick fix to her, which is bound to fall short. At the core of Sona's problems is a problem with a lot of other supports, and it's that her ally buffs don't feel nearly as interesting as they could be, or as powerful as they truly are, which is why she often feels weak or boring despite being statistically quite powerful. If Riot manages to make the team buff champion feel truly fun and strong, it could revolutionize support design as a whole, and attract a lot more people to the role.

Solbane Suzumiya1 votes

{quoted}

That's true, the term "aura" has changed for Sona, and I didn't clarify on it. I agree, Sona's old permanent stat auras were impossible to render truly interesting, which is why she needed a rework to turn them into her current temporary snuggle zones. However, her current mini-"auras" aren't as interesting as they could be, and I also agree with you that making her super-spammy in the late game is unlikely to make her feel truly strong, which is her main issue (if anything, it's going to make her spells feel even more diluted, particularly since they're getting nerfed alongside that effect). Because of this, I also dislike her current changelist, and I agree that it doesn't really approach her kit or identity as it should.

With that said, I think rendering Sona's old auras smaller and temporary has benefited her, and the effect in itself carries interesting positional gameplay and has the potential to offer really interesting team buffs. I could be wrong in wanting to stick to her current circular PBAoE model, but more generally Sona does deserve to be the best champion at empowering her entire team at once. I think you're completely right in that she needs a proper, in-depth rework with all the time and resources she needs, which may not necessarily have to reach full VGU levels but definitely shouldn't try to apply a quick fix to her, which is bound to fall short. At the core of Sona's problems is a problem with a lot of other supports, and it's that her ally buffs don't feel nearly as interesting as they could be, or as powerful as they truly are, which is why she often feels weak or boring despite being statistically quite powerful. If Riot manages to make the team buff champion feel truly fun and strong, it could revolutionize support design as a whole, and attract a lot more people to the role.

However, auras themselves are something that Riot hates. Riot hates invisible power, hence Sona lost her stat boosting. Fiora's rework specifically targetted that her old W was a one point 15 ad wonder for the early game to snowball. They removed that, because it was hidden power nobody really knew/expected. They want to remove as much hidden power, and auras are the definition of that. Frozen Heart, Abyssal and Aegis are the only aura items (Locket/Banner included but they count toward Aegis). As for champions, Heimer has an HP regen aura, Janna has a situational MS aura, J4's E is an aspeed aura, Lulu's ulted target has an MS slow aura, Sivir's ult is a MS aura, and Warwick's w is an attack speed aura (according to the wiki). This is all from the League wiki, and you can see I excluded Sona since she isn't technically an aura like the other champions/items. As you can see, we have 3 base aura items and 6 aura champions. The champions that have auras are all outdated as hell (I think either Lulu's release or Heimer's rework was the most recent update that featured an aura on a champion (Not counting Sona's "rework", since they aren't auras)) and the most recent aura on an item was changing Banner of Command to be built from Aegis. The Banner change was on patch 4.20, and Heimer's rework was 3.13. Riot seems to have no plans of making new aura items or champions, and the longer I see people want Sona to be an aura champion, the longer it will be until she actually gets fixed.

As for a better idea for her, perhaps she can be more of a double edged enchantress. For example, q an ally to give them a damage boost, q an enemy to deal damage and give them a damage reduction. W an ally to heal them and remove grievous wounds, w an enemy to do some damage and add grievous wounds. Things like that, to choose buffing an ally or damaging/debuffing an enemy. This way, she plays as a jack of all trades, giving each individual skill versatility, but she could still not be the best at everything.

Teridax681 votes

I agree, auras in the traditional sense are terrible, which is why switching to temporary, non-stat-based zones with more visible bonuses was a great move for Sona, and I think she should stick to the latter model or someting similar. I am well aware of the aura effects you mentioned (though many of the aura effects you mentioned aren't "true" auras, since they're temporary, and Warwick's W only buffs nearby allies on cast whereas Sivir's ult functions a lot like Sona's E), and I think they need to either disappear or change radically in order to introduce proper gameplay, and Sona could potentially also present an answer to that.

As for the idea of a "double-edged enchantress" I feel that sounds, at best, fairly similar to Karma's theme of duality, and at worst completely distant from her current playstyle and identity, which is really focused on boosting allies and only incidentally good at dealing burst damage to enemies. Sona's a jack of all trades now, but that design isn't healthy, since in practice that means hyper-versatile champions tend to be overly present whenever they're too strong, because they get to compete with specialized champions and do more than them (e.g. Lee Sin and Elise in previous seasons), or absent whenever they're balanced or weak, because there's always at least one champion who's better at whichever aspect of what they do. Even before getting into whether or not Sona should have enough versatility to have a lot of personal power, she's already too versatile in the buffs she gives, which spread into offense, defense and mobility without really focusing on any of those. She's the original do-everything support, and needs to be condensed into a much stronger brand of supporting she can excel at above everyone else, which I personally thing should be offensive team buffing.

More from Gameplay

3 Refunds per season, upvote if you want 3 refunds per season.
Gameplay764 comments
7,167
votes
3 Refunds per season, upvote if you want 3 refunds per season.
Gameplay156 comments
3,510
votes
UPVOTE FOR URF
Gameplay606 comments
2,440
votes
Yes plz.
Gameplay456 comments
1,721
votes
3 Refunds per season, up vote if you want 3 refunds per season.
Gameplay114 comments
1,716
votes
When is ANYONE at riot going to address the awful new player experience?
Gameplay634 comments
1,383
votes

More by Solbane Suzumiya

Plz update Poro Ryder Sajuini Wit Sekret Inturactshun
Concepts & Creations2 comments
3
votes