Sona Rework Ideas
This is an entirely a discussion piece, conversation starter, and conceptional post. At no point is anything in this post any official final product whatsoever!
Disclaimer End!
Face roll and sometimes aim and press R. Not very skill intensive even for an introduction champion.
~ Sona should be completely redesigned, but keep her overall base original concept in place. She needs it and players will enjoy appreciate a huge change to Sona, some players will dislike it at first because it such a huge change, but they will like the change once they get their hands on her and play a new redesign for themselves.
~ Sona should be an introductory champion. For those new to the game, Sona should be a choice for new players, and for those that want to learn the support role should start off with Sona. This really just means giving her basic elements in her kit that showcases what supports can do, and have powerful moments in it as well that is more about aiding the team and protection of allies and not straight up killing enemies.
~ Sona should be very easy to play, but has elements that rewards those that go for mastering a champion. So as a base anyone can play Sona at a very basic level, meaning her abilities won't be hard to use, but has a real element of comboing, decision making, and mechanical skill that is only there for skilled players and not interfere with new player skill level.
~ A ton of people love flashy plays and being able to use Flash into a powerful crowd control ability, I do agree with this to an extent. Right now, it is not the most healthy for the game as it offers very little counter play and has Sona's powerful crowd control on a very long cooldown as a support where your main tool to make aggressive plays and protection is through things like crowd control rather than high damage or in the case of tanks of being a damage sponge.
~ Sona's Crescendo is supposed to be make people dance, even though there is a dance animation, it is super short so you cannot notice it and it just acts as a stun with an animation. So I think it be best to just remove Crescendo altogether and make it where Sona is actually playing a song and enemies are dancing to the beat, allows to adjust the crowd control to be available way more often, offer counter play, and make it unique and not a stun clone. ~ ~ General idea of something I am thinking of is Sona channels in place as one of her basic abilities, while channeling in place cannot attack or use her other abilities so there are plenty of decision making and trade-offs for using the ability, and in exchange you have an on-demand powerful area crowd control as a support. Back to the idea, Sona plays an upbeat song around here - ranks increases the mana per second cost and the effective radius around her - and every enemy nearby will dance to the beat unable to attack or cast abilities while dancing like a fear or charm, but they still have full movement and can freely move, so pairs very nicely with slows or immobilize. To stop dancing you need to interrupt the channel from an ally not dancing to the beat or move far enough away; moving or recasting the ability as Sona ends the song as well.
~ I hate Sona's current passive. When I was still new to the game, many many years now, I could not figure out how to use the passive to safe my life because it was too complicated for a new player to figure out, now it is just not a very fun or interactive passive at all that is just auto attack and something good that happens - not very much decision making goes down or thought process at all. Overall, Sona's passive is poorly designed.
~ This should be obvious, but Sona should be fun and rewarding to play. The other part is Sona should not be rip your hair out frustrating to play against. Something that should always be though about in player vs player games is fun to play as and not frustrating to play against; Yasuo is one of the worst case scenarios where he can be fun to play as, but no one likes playing against him or with him (just one example, also yes, he does need a rework).
Conceptional abilities below! They are wild brain storming ideas, so do not get antsy in your pantsy about anything, and feedback does help to create something we will all enjoy. Also please do not fixate on balancing numbers and such, this is not what this is about, it is about representing new and fresh ideas about an... honestly outdated champion at this point.
UNIQUE GOLD ITEMS:
QUEST 750 GOLD REWARD: Expending a charge restores 25 plus 10% missing mana.
Tear of the Shopkeeper: Recipe: 350g
Statistics: +10 Ability Power +2 Gold per 10 seconds. UNIQUE Passive - Bandit: Your basic attacks against enemy champions grants +3 gold, this can occur once every 5 seconds against the same champion. UNIQUE Passive - Awe: Refunds 15% of the mana spent. UNIQUE Passive - Mana Charge: Grants a charge every 10 seconds, up to 3 charges. Attacks and abilities against enemy champions and structures consumes a charge and grants +15 mana and +10 gold, up to a maximum of 1000 mana. Killing minions disables this for 10 seconds.
Eye of the Shopkeeper: Recipe: Tear of the Shopkeeper (350g) + Ruby Crystal (400g) + 400g = 1150g
Statistics: +15 Ability Power +200 Health +2 Gold per 10 seconds UNIQUE Passive - Bandit: Your basic attacks against enemy champions grants +3 gold, this can occur once every 5 seconds against the same champion. UNIQUE Passive - Awe: Refunds 15% of the mana spent. UNIQUE Passive - Mana Charge: Grants a charge every 10 seconds, up to 3 charges. Attacks and abilities against enemy champions and structures consumes a charge and grants +20 mana and +15 gold, up to a maximum of 1000 mana. Killing minions disables this for 10 seconds. UNIQUE Active – Warding: Consumes a charge to place a Stealth Ward at the target location, which reveals the surrounding area for 150 seconds. Holds up to 3 charges which refill upon visiting the shop.
Shopkeeper's Staff: Recipe: Eye of the Shopkeeper (1150g) + Fiendish Codex (900g) + 350g = 2500g
Statistics: +50 Ability Power +10% Cooldown Reduction +200 Health +2 Gold per 10 seconds UNIQUE Passive - Bandit: Your basic attacks against enemy champions grants +3 gold, this can occur once every 5 seconds against the same champion. UNIQUE Passive - Awe: Refunds 25% of the mana spent. Gain bonus ability power equal to 3% of your maximum mana. UNIQUE Passive - Mana Charge: Grants a charge every 10 seconds, up to 3 charges. Attacks and abilities against enemy champions and structures consumes a charge and grants +50 mana and +15 gold, up to a maximum of 1000 mana. UNIQUE Active – Warding: Consumes a charge to place a Stealth Ward at the target location, which reveals the surrounding area for 150 seconds. Holds up to 4 charges which refill upon visiting the shop.
Musical Embrace: Recipe: Shopkeeper's Staff (2500g) + 1000 Mana from Mana Charge = Automatic Upgrade
Statistics: +50 Ability Power +10% Cooldown Reduction +200 Health +1000 Mana +2 Gold per 10 seconds UNIQUE Passive - Bandit: Your basic attacks against enemy champions grants +3 gold, this can occur once every 5 seconds against the same champion. UNIQUE Passive - Awe: Refunds 25% of the mana spent. Gain bonus ability power equal to 3% of your maximum mana. Gain (+10% per 1000 mana) bonus Shield and Heal Power. UNIQUE Passive: Grants a charge every 10 seconds, up to 3 charges. Attacks and abilities against enemy champions and structures consumes a charge and grants +15 gold [and 750 gold quest reward, see above]. UNIQUE Active – Warding: Consumes a charge to place a Stealth Ward at the target location, which reveals the surrounding area for 150 seconds. Holds up to 5 charges which refill upon visiting the shop.
Soothing Melody (Passive): Additional Beat Range: 550 units Sona performs an additional beat when she plays a different song between 0.5 to 1.5 seconds after the previous song ended. This additional beat does something different based on what music plays next:
Triple Notes: Sona grants an adaptive 20-60(+20%AP) ability power or 10-30(+10%AD) attack damage to herself and nearby allies for 4 seconds. Song of Perseverance: For 0.75 second, nearby allies and Sona are immune to the next damaging effect. This lingers as 15%(+5% per 100AP) damage reduction for Sona for the next 1.5 seconds. Dance to the Beat!: Nearby allies gain 10-30%(+4% per 100AP) bonus movement speed and 15-50%(+6% per 100AP) bonus attack speed for 4 seconds. Sona gains 40-100%(+10% per 100AP) bonus movement speed for 1.5 seconds when Dance to the Beat! ends. Perish Song: Nearby enemies are dealt 200/275/350(+60%AP) magic damage.
Bringing the shopkeeper to tears: Sona's music is so beautiful that it really moved the shopkeeper and brought him to tears, offering Sona unique items that only she can purchase.
Triple Notes (Q): Cooldown: 8 seconds; Cost: 60/70/80/90/100 mana; Range: 1000 units Passive: Notes deal double damage than the last when the next cast is at least 0.5 second apart. If the same enemy is damaged by all three notes then they are immobilized in place for 1.5/1.75/2/2.25/2.5 seconds.
Active: Sona blasts a powerful musical note in the target direction, dealing 20/30/40/50/60(+20%AP) magic damage to the first enemy struck. For the next 4 seconds, Triple Notes can be cast two additional times.
Song of Perseverance (W): Cooldown: 2 seconds; Cost: 50/55/60/65/70 mana; Range: 1000 units Passive: Sona plays an uplifting hum to keep her allies alive! Allies within 550 range of Sona gain 2/4/6/8/10%(+3% per 100AP) increased healing.
Active: Sona plays a quick song of perseverance for 1 second. If an allied champion or herself takes damage then they are healed for 40/60/80/100/120(+80%AP) health and Sona is healed as well, if Sona takes damage then the nearest allied champion is healed. If no one is healed then Sona becomes depressed and is suppressed for 1 second. 25% healing if the damage source is from a small unit.
Dance to the Beat! (E): Cooldown: 11/10/9/8/7 seconds; Cost: 25/30/35/40/45 mana per second Toggle: Sona channels in place to play an upbeat song that as long as the enemy is in range to hear will force them to dance, rendering them unable to attack and cast abilities while dancing. Sona cannot attack or cast her other abilities while playing Dance to the Beat!
(Song Radius: 450/500/550/600/650 units)
Perish Song (R): Cooldown: 120/90/60 seconds; Cost: 100 mana; Range: 800 units Sona plays a final song for 5/6/7 seconds, enemies listening to the song are dealt 20/25/30%(+2% per 100AP) increased damage from all sources.
If Perish Song ends and Sona fails to receive a kill or assist then she is left with a single point of health and is slowed by 50% for 3 seconds.
