Bringing back Sona
I am not here to bash on Riot or yell and complain. I am here to say a couple things on Sona. Sona is a nice champion, easy to use, great to learn support on. Riot even made DJ Sona, which I paid $30 Canadian for, I think it was worth it. I took a break from playing as much support. I decided I would play more jungle and top lane. Then in champion select I saw a good comp for Sona on our team. When I played her she felt so useless.
Passive Powerchord To use this passive well you have to been within auto attack range of your enemy. Sona has a auto attack range of 550. That is the same auto attack range as a Vayne. The biggest use on Sona's passive is that it is an auto attack reset. So you can get 2 stacks then lay down a small combo. All you have to do is Auto attack -> Q -> Auto attack. This means you have to be within 550 range for a short period of time. The amount of damage you can deal with this is pretty good. Only one downfall. How is a Sona, one of the squishiest supports supposed to get within 550 range? Yes you can hide in a bush and do that. Except you'll be revealed and then get blown up.
Q Hymn of Valor This is what makes Sona a great poke champion. Her Q can provide amazing poke in early levels. It puts out great amounts of damage. This ability has a amazing range and isn't a skill shot. This is what makes Sona an easy champion to play support or learn support on. This ability has only 40 base damage, but does scale pretty well. It has a good AP ratio for a support. Except it has a very high mana cost. 45 mana isn't a lot. Except it has a very low cooldown. The point of this ability is to Q then run back. All you have to do is spam this ability and the enemy will be poked out of lane very fast. Sona only has a 341 base mana pool. If you think about her as a champion that isn't much. She needs to spam abilities all game. 40% cool down reduction on sona is amazing because you can get that E up all the time and chase/escape. Also 40% cdr is great since your Q only has a 8 second cool down all game.
_Power chord - Staccato _ if you have ever played against a good Sona that built sheen. This is the bane of your existence. If the Sona uses this an auto attack reset she can get an extra 50 damage in this. So now you are hit with an auto attack, the Q, then the enhanced auto attack with a sheen proc. Keep in mind that this passive scales with AP as well. So come end of laning phase if you have a sheen and even one AP item you will hit like a train.
There is a huge downside to this ability. it has a tiny, tiny range. If you get within 550 range you are risking being CC'd, or jumped on. Being a squishy Sona that means you can easily die. If you do get in this range and hit the passive and sheen proc with a q, your enemy will be chunked down in HP.
W Aria of Preservance This is the biggest reason I find that Sona doesn't have the impact she used to. She is known for being a poke, sustain support. Except with this abilities stats she is not the best at sustaining. In this ability it says you heal more for the percentage your ally is missing. If your adc is at 200 HP and you heal them. It still isn't doing a whole lot. This ability heals for a minimum of 30 plus 20% of ap. This means you're healing for what? 75 health? This also has a 65 mana cost. So if you use it 3 times in a row you have now healed an ally for a decent amount of health, except used almost 200 mana. Sona has a small mana pool to start with. Now look at soraka's heal. A base of 120 plus 60% of her AP? Yes it does cost her Hp. Except her Q can heal her very very fast with a spirit visage.
Power chord - Diminuendo This passive is one of the weakest points in her kit. If you hit this passive (while getting in auto attack range) the person deals 20% less damage + 2% of your AP. I find one big point for this. If you can auto attack -> w -> auto attack -> Q -> ult you are going really all in. This is the biggest reason i see this passive useful. You can reduce the enemies damage for an all in. Except its only 3 second while your ult is 1.5 adding in your q they now only deal this reduced damage for what? .75-1 second. You would be better off using your Q passive and doign more damage. The other reason I see this useful is if someone is going to peel your adc like a zed. You can use this to reduce his damage vastly.. This ability has its ups and downs. Most of its downs being in lane.
E Song of Celerity This is my favourite part of Sona in my opinion. You can use this to chase down enemies. Sona + Ashe for example. YOu can speed ashe up so she can chase them down with her slow. This movement speed buff is great for chasing or escaping. In the mid/late game in a 5 v 5 everyone knows to bundle up around sona for all these buffs. If you put down your E or W everyone is going to go in it for the movement speed or shield. Now think about this. Her E has a 350 range, if 5 people are clustered into this tiny range what is going to happen. The nemy is going to start throwing skill shots or AOE abilities at you. Imagine if you're an Orianna and saw 5 people in one small circle. That is yelling 5 man orianna ult! This ability is still amazing for rushing to objectives, chasing people down, running away from people, etc.
Power chord - Tempo Going back to the Sona + Ashe dup. You can stack your 40% base slow onto them as well Ashe's base auto attack slow of 5%. Then in the late game you now have an 85% slow. This means they are sitting ducks for the rest of your team to finish off. If someone has an 85% slow on them they are going to be hit by every skill shot in your team. This ability is not AOE though. Also you only have a range of 550. So unless someone gets caught out you have to give the tank this slow. Which a lot of tanks, or all. Have tenacity.
Crescendo This is the best thing in sona's kit hands down come team fights. 350 magic damage plus 50% AP scaling. So not only does this do a good amount of damage for a support. It is a very large aoe stun. Also he fact that when you stun them they dance is pretty funny. As an AOE comp and a 5 man stun. THis lines up an amazing team fight. Her stun doesn't last that long. It is long enough for anyone to channel abilites, throw skill shots, peel the adc, etc.
DJ Sona Riot made the infamous DJ Sona skin which is an amazing skin. There are also the expensive skins for Ezreal and Udyr. Ezreal and Udyr have always been useful to a degree in solo que. Sona has her DJ Sona skin. Except isn't as good as she used to be. I think with touch ups on her costs, damage, stats, she could be the Sona she used to be. I paid 30$ for that skin and now I don't play her a lot. I remember having sona games going 7-2-40!
Leveling Order If you max your Q first you do good amounts of damage and are doing your job as sona. Except this leaves you with an ADC on very, very low HP. Now if you max your W first you are left with you doing 0 damage, except your heals are decent at best. So you are left with 2 orders, q or w. One leaves you alive the other makes you useful.
Health and stats Sona is one of the squishiest supports. She is so delicate because she has such a high range. Now you go into range to use your passive and get blown up. This leaves you building items like Rylais. She has so little defensive stats that you have to build them. Once you do this you are losing your damage from your lack of base damage. Sona has pretty good base damage. Except you need to build damage to utilize all of your scaling. If you build defensive items you aren't being as much of a use, you just aren't dying.
Bring her back Sona used to be good, she used to be in pro play (Long time ago). I do not expect to see her in pro play what so ever in the near future. I think if this champion got touch ups in things like her mana pool, her health, her ability costs, we would see her much more often.
Link I added a YouTube link that a friend sent me. This what inspired me to play more Sona. Once I realized how strong she was I bought a skin. Now I can't even play her...
If there are any mistakes with spelling or grammar my bad
