Mid Sona Build?

Purpl3Jungl3·Jan 4, 2017·1 votes·1,202 views

I usually build her like this

Then I get stuck on the last 2 items. I usually just get Rabadons + another AP burst item, but I was once told to build her like you would on hybrid teemo & get and another AD item

7 Comments

GinoSoldierJan 4, 20172 votes

I play Sona mid all the time; here's my usual build and the reasoning behind it.

item 3100 item 3504 item 3285 item 3165 item 3089 item 3135

Start with a item 1027 and 3 pots. First part of the lane phase, try your best to avoid casting W (that involves not getting hit, basically ever.) as much as possible, your base mana regen alone should let you spam Q as much as you need for either farm or poke with the increased mana pool. 3 pots means you have an extra 100 health over someone who'd start with item 1056 AND most importantly, you get to rush item 3057 faster.

I only ever buy boots if i have trouble dodging skillshots, and only in the early game, which i sell as soon as i'm out of inventory space. Consider Ardent Censer a replacement for boots you pay for with leftover gold. The %heal/shield is substantial on AP Sona, it's AS/on-hit damage buff is something you get to apply to your whole team, and it gives you every single other stat a Sona could wish for, including MS, and enough mana regen to get a little spammy until later when you get Morello.

If your opponent is building MR, say assassins building Maw or Abyssals, keep Sheen for a while and go for Luden's instead. Sheen being physical damage messes with their resistance to the damage you deal until you scale better.

I rush Lich's, Censer and Luden's first, because all three items together make Sona become ridiculously fast when paired with her E. That's 25% MS from the items, and at that point, your E should be giving off about 20-30% movement speed. Sona's E being what it is, you get 7 seconds of speed boost per cast, down to 3 seconds if you get hit. This effectively means that as long as you keep hitting E, your MS is pretty much permanently increased by close to 50%. And that's at half build. (highest this build offers that I've seen is 93.1% MS)

Be warned that it IS a full-squishy build, so you rely entirely on your ability to dodge and not make bad calls when you go this path. It also means the likes of Diana, Akali or Syndra will pulverize you at lvl 6 no matter what you do. On the plus side, your damage, healing, and move speed are all pretty damn amazing, especially when surrounded by pals.

Oh, and I don't use Thunderlords. Granted the R/Q/AA combo can proc it, but in lane a squishy like Sona doesn't want to stay close enough for trades to happen if she can, so i never get to do it in lane. I use Deathfire Touch.

My favorite strategy in lane is usually to whittle down opponents with Q shots while i use the boosted AA to secure farm, then either shove them out of lane or outright kill them if they aren't careful. I take Barrier and Flash as summoner spells.

khorneyJan 4, 20171 votes

frost queens, lich bane, sorc shoes, moro, ludens, and last item it doesnt matter.

GinoSoldierJan 4, 20171 votes

{quoted}

frost queens, lich bane, sorc shoes, moro, ludens, and last item it doesnt matter.

I tried for a long time to play with Frost Queen's but over time i realized you give up too much of your early game burst when you start going for that. It makes you fall behind in damage and less likely to do kills. Lovely when you're getting behind, know in advance you'll play defensive or are having trouble with farm though.

khorneyJan 4, 20171 votes

you really dont lose that much to be honest. i mean i use scaling ap runes and such. but start dorans ring. Taking the scaling ap runes allows me to lose very little to none ap by taking frost queens. The amount of damage you lose early if you took flat ap runes isnt really anything. start dorans ring then back and by the tier 2 item for frost queens. But you actually gain damage becuase of the fact your losing none by not taking sorc shoes and the slow helps you not die from ganks.

GinoSoldierJan 4, 20171 votes

{quoted}

you really dont lose that much to be honest. i mean i use scaling ap runes and such. but start dorans ring. Taking the scaling ap runes allows me to lose very little to none ap by taking frost queens. The amount of damage you lose early if you took flat ap runes isnt really anything. start dorans ring then back and by the tier 2 item for frost queens. But you actually gain damage becuase of the fact your losing none by not taking sorc shoes and the slow helps you not die from ganks.

What i mean isn't about the amount of AP you have. It's about Sheen and it's damage proc. Having some extra AP early will never scale Sona's Q damage as much as Sheen does in lane trades. A Sheen proc adds straight up 50-75 damage to Sona's AA every cast you make. I find it invaluable for controlling the lane as well as poke. Even if i don't rush Lich's, I ALWAYS rush sheen.