Sona, How Is She Viable?

Whenever I play support, I tend to think which support would be the best option. While looking at different champions, I think how that champion can help, like Thresh and his hooks, Braum and his ability to stop projectiles, and so on. Looking at the different options, there is one I REALLY want to play, but I can't play them, and that's because their playstyle doesn't help much ingame. I'm talking about Sona. While her kit can be useful, ingame, she has it hard in a sense that if ahead she is great, behind, report Sona. Even though she can buff her teammates, it is up to the player to decide when it is a good time to buff her teammates since without cooldown, she ends up wasting her abilities for nothing.

Looking at her kit, she does fit in the role as both a harass and utility champion. Sad thing is, even with so much that she can do, there are other champions with a much versatile kit that completely outshine her. Her ult can stop the enemy team for 1.5 seconds, but using it and missing it can cost a fight. Also, her 'stun' can be replaced with using a different champion. Annie's passive allows her to get many opportunities to aoe stun the opposing team, Thresh can hook and lockdown a single player in just a few seconds, Braum can be tanky and use his passive to stun and deal more damage on his autoattack, Morgana can move while using her ult to stun the enemy, Alistar can knockup and knockback the enemy on a short cooldown, and many more that makes Sona's ult look weak. The main thing that is supposed to make Sona shine is that when using her abilities(minus her ult), she buffs surrounding teammates with her spells. While her Q can buff teammates, it only helps their autoattack, that while making the marksman do more damage, makes champions who rely on spells a wasted effort. While Sona's Q can shoot out 2 projectiles that prioritizes champions nearby, she is forced to be in a position that can make her extremely vulnerable to ganks if she steps too far away from her minions to hit with Q. Her W gives a shield to teammates and heals the Lowest health. While it sounds useful, the heal isn't strong, the cooldown is long, and the shield is somewhat weak. The shield can easily be replaced by a Locket of the Iron Solari. Even the heal, you can't control who you heal, champions like Alistar, Soraka, Janna, Nami, their heals are much stronger than Sona's. Between using Sona and another for heals, other champions are a better priority than Sona. Although Sona could use Ardent Censer to buff her team more, it's useless if her team are more caster than autoattack based.

What's supposed to make Sona a viable pick is how you use her passive to deal bonus damage and add an effect to her autoattack based on the last spell she cast. Q does more damage to her next hit, W lowers damage output on the target, and E slows the target. One issue that can hurt players is using which one to hit the opponent with. Also, if she uses her spells and accidentally hits a minion, her long cooldown to use 3 spells to get her passive up again takes time and mana, making a small accident a waste of time. Even after one is able to understand how to use her, the next big hurdle to playing Sona is item build. It can be tough to play Sona when she is one of the weakest champions in League, but building defensively can put her behind if you forget to build cooldown on her for fights, whereas building ultility and power can make her spells stronger, but still be very easy to kill if she fails to ult properly.

To put a long story short, Sona as a champion is just a champion that while she seems to do so much, she contributes so little when a mistake is made using her. When looking for utility, Thresh, Morgana, Leona and Braum provide more while being able to stay alive longer. Looking for heals, Soraka, Alistar, Nami and Janna heal so much more while also having a rather much more useful kit. Building more damage, just don't. Before her rework, Sona had a constant aura that gave nearby teammates a buff based on which spell she used last. Now, she has to use her spells and spend time to give her team the buff before her aura wears off. Between choosing having a constant buff and using her spells to buff her team, it cost so much from Sona to use a spell, touch everyone, spell, touch everyone, spell, touch everyone, hit an enemy with her passive, and wait. Looking at Sona now, her utility is weak compared to other supports, making Sona not be such a viable pick ingame. While she can be played in normal matches, in ranked, other champions are a much better option than Sona. Besides, when was the last time people played Sona, oher than just for her DJ skin? Maybe there are some who are higher ranked than me who use Sona on a daily basis, I personally believe the majority of players would never play Sona.