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Can we just agree that Sona's kit (Auras) don't work?

Chessoms·11/21/2017, 4:49:54 PM·12 votes·2,006 views

My turn for the inevitable, my main is being nerfed, and I have thoughts, post.

Alright, I rarely make posts on the board, I think the last time I did was back when Sona was being reworked in the first place, but I figured I'd share my thoughts in the hopes that if nothing else, I can vent a little lol.

While I'll try to keep this somewhat short and concise, I also care a lot about this topic so I'm sorry if this gets a tad long. And if, by some miracle, someone from Riot actually reads this. Please don't misunderstand my post with that of someone crying about their champion getting nerfed. I 100% agree that Sona had benefited from recent changes more than others (whether it was enough to warrant the potential changes on PBE is debatable but I digress lol) I respect the amount of work that goes into game balance and the amount of effort that goes into introducing new and exciting parts to the game. I just urge you to remember that you do have loyal players and people who love this game, and sometimes there may be merit to what we say.

{tldr} Auras don't work Don't keep Sona in the state she's in to service new players Add meaningful skill expression and counterplay

Without further ado, let's get into it.

Auras suck (lol) While the ideas of auras are really cool and something that Sona has had as a unique identifier, the sad case is that they just don't work in a game like League. It's been stated before in the past, but the entire idea of auras, by definition, prevent meaningful interactions, counterplay, and skill expression. My question is, if that's the case, and it's a well known fact, why are we holding onto them so hard?

Some like to throw out the argument, "we can't change it, it's who Sona is, and doing so would erase who she is as a champ" And my response is that that's simply not true. Ask any Sona main, the reason we all fell in love with her and started playing her was not for her kit, it was the design, art, lore, and overall feel that the champion provided. Something about her resonated with us and we fell in love. That's what it means to find your main. Granted, kit is also a factor, but definitely subservient to the overall picture. And that's the point, Sona is not the Aura champion, she's the silenced and misunderstood musician with a mysterious past. THAT's what matters when trying to preserve her identity, not this out of place mechanic that has proven impossible to incorporate/balance successfully time and time again.

This brings on the idea of potentially reworking Sona . Which I am all for, so long as it's done right. Riot's said it before (although I can't remember the original post location) that Sona was among the champions intentionally geared towards new players, by way of an easy to pick up playstyle. This basically means that she A) also has a low skill ceiling B) lacks meaningful ways to directly impact the outcome of the game C) is a nightmare to balance because she's too easy to be strong, and otherwise too weak to be utilized outside of very low level/elo (no offense).

And this is where I cannot agree with this philosophy. Why intentionally gimp a champion and force them into this unsatisfactory position, just so they're a bit easier to pick up for new players? This may be harsh, but regardless of if you play Sona for your first champion, or Yasuo , you will not be good. It's just a fact. This game is not an easy, pick up and play a game here and there and you're good to go, game. It's a very complex and intricately designed game that takes a ton of time to begin to get good. So, if a person really wants to get better, and wants to do so with a high skill cap champion like Yasuo, they'll put in the time to do so, regardless of the difficulty at first.

And again, people don't main Sona because she's easy to play, they play her because they love her as a Champion. I just wish that we could get rid of this mentality that just because there are new players, we should intentionally make champions that do not reward time investment and skill. At least not at the same level as other champions. As it stands, if you place equally skilled players against each other, and one mains Sona while the other mains someone like Thresh or Nami , The non Sona player has infinitely more chances to directly impact the outcome of that game, than Sona. And that's where skill ceiling/expression comes in.

Sona's ultimate is the only ability in her kit that promotes proactive gameplay. And huh, look at that, it's the only ability that isn't an aura. While the changes to Sona's kit 3 years ago did help a bit in regards to adding more counterplay and skill expression, she still just has to press a button, and she sees results. There's very little that a skilled Sona can do to really differentiate themselves from a novice, and even then, those things aren't Sona mechanics, they're simply game mechanics like positioning, game sense, macro play, etc. And this is why you have the cycle where Sona is either too good and lacks the skill ceiling to back it up, or too bad and borderline unplayable.

When playing against Sona in lane, people don't get punished for things like being out of position, or underestimating the level 2 powerspike like with Thresh /Leona . No, they get punished for merely existing relatively close to a Sona. Whether in range for q, or for an auto attack, there's no inherent "mistake" that a person has to make in order to be punished by Sona. In turn, Sona has no opportunites to mess up, or miss a skill and be punished during the downtime of that ability. But she also has no opportunities to take the game into her own hands and directly impact the flow meaningfully, like Thresh hook & flay, Nami bubble, Bard Q, etc. Again, save her ultimate.

I feel as though a great example of a Champion who has an identity that differs from their in game mechanics is Jhin , who I personally consider one of the best Champions in the game thematically. He's very similar to Caitlyn in regards to they're both snipers. However, they feel nothing alike. With Jhin, while you are playing a sniper marksman, you FEEL like you're playing this psychotic maniac who's art takes the form of murder. This is brought to life by beautiful voice acting, art direction, music, etc. But he has a kit that can be changed and balanced for the game. I don't know why Sona's music has to be tied to Auras. Riot has proven time and time again that they can rework a champion's gameplay extensively and still preserve the champion's identity Poppy Sion Urgot Warwick . I only ask that we stop ignoring Sona and actually do something to change this.

55 Comments

E Man forever11/22/2017, 3:44:15 AM4 votes

It makes very little sense to up the mana cost on the most mana hungry champion in the early game while her main keystone got gutted.

Foxynth11/21/2017, 5:04:10 PM2 votes

I have a friend who got about to Plat playing Sona Mid. Now I'm just a stupid bronzie but like, there are champions that are generally geared toward new players because there HAS to be. The only reason that certain champions that have fairly basic mechanics and low skill ceilings fare well in low elo and poorly in higher elo games is because unlike many others, the people who play these champs have to come up with highly unusual ways to play the game in order to win in a challenging environment.

For a new player though, it's very easy to get frustrated and to get turned off to a game that ONLY has high skillcap characters, especially if everyone else is playing that character at a higher level than said competitive player. As much as I'd like to see certain champions with more diversities within builds and playstyles, there will always be a general "Tier list" that has to be followed so that both casual and competitive players can play to their enjoyment, no matter the game being played.

Weiss Guertena11/21/2017, 5:05:57 PM2 votes

I'd argue that Sona's "auras" can work - as they are not just permanently giving boring stats like true auras, which is both deceptively powerful and invisible. They are simply AoE buffs.

That being said, how would you change Sona without some form of aura-like persisting effect, which is IMO a must for a musician type character? For someone like Jhin there are many ways you can take them; he could've as well worked as a dagger-wielding assassin and keep the theme of a psychotic artist-murderer. There are only so many ways you can incorporate music theme into gameplay.

EpicSaxGandalf11/21/2017, 11:53:59 PM2 votes

the community is too divisive to agree on what should be done in regards to sona due to us all liking and disliking different things about her. a portion of us don't want sona to be reworked at all(not trusting riot, not wanting a rework). Others can't agree on what aspects of her kit should change let alone the specifics. I dont see this ever changing, and because of this, it cripples our voice, and further power, for sona's future.

Snow Guardian11/21/2017, 5:02:09 PM2 votes

I do agree with this, as another Sona main. While she was easy for me to pick up as a new player, she was not the first support I mained and I didn't fall in love with her for her simple kit. I love her lore, even though Riot hasn't really added anything to it recently even when they did the Demacia lore update (I'm totally not still salty about that). I do in a sense like her invisible power, but I recognize it as a problem. Being a good Sona is not readily apparent to allies or enemies. If I have good positioning and manage to save my allies throughout a fight with careful heal and shield management and itemization, they likely won't notice at all. The only thing that shows her power and skill is getting good ults off. She really needs to be reworked.

Honestly, if anyone was to rework her, I would want the Riot team that reworked Warwick. They did a very good job of giving him a low skill floor so new players, of Warwick or the game, could pick him up fairly easily, while also giving him a high skill ceiling and plenty of ways to differentiate a good Warwick from a bad Warwick. That was with them keeping his identity. I want Sona to get a similar rework if they do it at all. Because otherwise we are just stuck in a cycle of, Nerf to nearing troll status, small buffs to keep her relevant, new item or other thing comes out, Sona finds a way to make it absolutely broken on her because of how versatile she is, nerf that and nerf Sona, then start all over again.

an s10 warlord11/22/2017, 6:45:49 AM1 votes

I personally strongly disagree with this post. I've been playing sona as long as i've been playing league, sona is my highest mastery and most played each season(i'm a D5 sup main). Sona is one of the most unique supports in the game, a reason for choosing her is not her unrivaled ability to sustain a single person (such as janna, soraka, lulu) but instead offer slightly weaker support to a group, in several ways. if she was reworked to be supports that only offer single target she would literally just be stronger/weaker versions of soraka or lulu, in that case we'd just have to play the meta.

This thinking reminds me of how i feel about Aurelion Sol, you can love a champs idea, lore, appearance, but if you don't jive with its gameplay it's just not for you. I don't think you can really love sona if you only love the idea of her appearance/lore and not her execution.

I personally love everything about her including her mechanics/gameplay, its an experience you can't get from any other support in the game.

Slich Bissi11/21/2017, 5:25:34 PM1 votes

Rework Sona to be like a Bard from FFXIV. She can be an archer support who also has temporary buffs to either mages or ADC. That'd be cool. She'd be a musician with a harp-bow that plays music. Song of Swiftness, Song of Repose, Battle Litany or w/e.

Do we even have any literal buff heroes? Ones who use an ability actively on another player to actively make them better in real time? Like Press the button, click on an ally, make them do something better?

Oh yeah, Nunu's bloodboil. Okay we have 1 so the precedent is there. Let's do this.

Pika31011/21/2017, 5:37:38 PM1 votes

I really wish you would've included "Revert to pre-4.13" on the poll list, but "Rework" is essentially the same difference, so whatevs.

Anyways, there's nothing wrong with Auras and matter-of-fact, SONA DOES NOT EVEN USE AURAS. Sona hasn't used auras since they were removed back in patch 4.13 and replaced with LINGERING ACTIVES, but that's not the point I want to make.

The problem with Sona and the reason her design is an inherent failure: Rito is trying to force a "late-game fantasy" on a support champ, which by inherent nature is counter-intuitive and flawed. By locking power in a passive that requires ranks in R, she sacrifices lane strength and even despite this, Rito has repeatedly punished her for playing around that locked power.

It's Sona's R passive that needs to eat dirt, not her bubbles and certainly not auras, if she were to revert to her original kit. Which btw, was perfectly fine and balanced and the last time Sona was a professionally-viable champion.

Barkley11/21/2017, 8:33:08 PM1 votes

If she has no meaningful way to impact the game, then why does champion.gg list her as the highest win rate support right now, boasting a win rate of 55% as of 2:32 CST 11/21?

I agree that she feels boring to play, and I agree that her "auras" are a joke... but no meaningful way to impact a game?

That's a bold statement.

Destructor24211/21/2017, 4:55:52 PM1 votes

Was sona ever reworked or did she originally have auras at launch? I'm a season 5 player so. I also main sona