Boards›Gameplay

RIOT, can we talk about Sona's AWFUL gameplay

Velthios·9/4/2017, 8:51:13 AM·10 votes·1,101 views

Seriously, sona might be the most poorly designed champion not only in LoL, but in any moba. She leaves no skill expression since all 3 of her basic abilities are aoe and can't be aimed at all, and her ultimate is pretty much impossible to miss honestly. She also has no counterplay really, unless you consider "burst her down very very very fast" counterplay. (which, tip, it's not. making someone's average lifespan .25s is very NOT fun actually)

While her stats in Summoners Rift games might be meh, her stats in ARAM and pretty much every RGM she's allowed in are the best! She was so crazy in URF she had to be outright banned. Her winright in ARAM is the highest of all champs at almost 70%! 70%! In Ascension and Poro King she boasts similarly amazing stats, always placing in the top 5.

Is there any talk of a rework? A re balancing? ANYTHING? Sona is honestly such a poorly designed, poorly executed champion that I have no idea why she even exists.

(That said, I LOVELOVELOVE playing Sona, mostly because since I do mostly ARAM and RGM now, it feels like a totally free win that I don't even have to try for. But I still see that it's ABSURDLY unhealthy gameplay design.

25 Comments

Zezockary9/4/2017, 9:00:10 AM9 votes

IMO, she does take plenty of skill to play, it is just macro skill that you need and not so much micro skill. You have to position properly to distribute your buffs to as many people as possible without being close enough to the enemy team to get blown up, and only going for the safest of pokes. You have to make sure you use the right passive auto for the moment, Q for poke, W for trades, E for peel. Your ult isn't that hard to hit, but getting the most bang for your buck out of it can be somewhat difficult when you factor in that you need to position yourself so that you can hit as many of your teammates as possible with your aura so you don't have as much freedom to move to hit multiple lined up opponents.

Pressing your skill keys don't require much skill, but using them to their fullest does. I am not saying she is the hardest champ ever, but she does have a decent macro level skill ceiling. She is one of my favorite champion skill designs because she lets people with a skillset that is not geared towards micro play shine.

King of Demons9/4/2017, 9:00:39 AM6 votes

Her skill expression lies in using your different empowered auto attacks and not spamming so much as to run oom. Plus hitting that ult

sheldonbunny9/4/2017, 9:02:45 AM5 votes

I'm curious why OP didn't post from an account with any visible Sona games to begin with...

Or an account that has even played in season 7...

LightMoon9/4/2017, 9:09:58 AM3 votes

sona is just straight up op

https://na.op.gg/summoner/userName=LightMoon

sheldonbunny9/4/2017, 8:56:43 AM2 votes

They already reworked her in the previous season. Not a full rework, but the smaller kind. People need to realize they need to leave lower skill cap champs for some people.

La Bello9/4/2017, 11:00:26 AM2 votes

her design as it stands has some significant overlap with Nami's design and Sona herself is so versatile that the only way to give her weakness is by obliterating her base stats and giving her obnoxious mana cost to limit her ability to spam without forcing her to solve it first with item 3070 .

I want Riot to rework Sona into being a support with specific synergies with high magic damage allies. I feel like a lot of supports have been created to cater to Marksmen and few have been created to cater to other classes in the game. Just Recently we got the Taric rework which has pretty good synergies with melee champions but this is really only one example I can think of.

I think a support that amplifies the magical damage of allies would be a cool niche for her and she would still be great paired with champions like Varus Corki KogMaw Ziggs

Tribbles Foxfolk9/4/2017, 4:46:49 PM2 votes

Sona's basic gameplay is a refreshing breath of air in the extremely over-complicated modern champion "designs" (or lack thereof). Her skill expression lies in good positioning, mana management (I guess you could buy Tear to solve it, but Tear is also an awful item rn), hitting your ult (Lot more difficult than you think! It's very easy to Flash over it and punch Sona in the tits), and just moving around the map properly.

Her kit is very well-designed (not including the wholly unnecessary CDR her ult passively gives as part of the failed rework). She's pretty good on the Rift as it is, but she's only great in RGM/ARAM because the map is as cramped as it can be. There's no way to miss ult on that map without aiming 180 degrees in the wrong direction. RGM/ARAM stats are worth less than nothing.

If you only "LOVELOVELOVE playing Sona" for her ability to cheese ARAMs, then shame on you. Shame. On. You. There's many different reasons to play her: Great secondary mage, excellent healer (Windspeaker's + Ardent rush and your ADC will never die unless they're stupid), highly engaging gameplay (Yes, you do more than just mash buttons), making your Rammus even faster, ridiculous burst damage with Lich Bane (Blue Chord + Q + Lich Auto = de_leted), and more. She's a pretty general support, but she's good at her job.

(Btw Sona is one of my highest mastery champions, I believe 2nd or 3rd place behind Vayne and MAYBE Ezreal or Ashe. I just haven't played her recently since I've been on a Sejuani and Rakan kick. Branching out a bit into engage champions.)

ChiTenshi9/4/2017, 11:25:11 PM1 votes

Sona was designed to be an Aura-Champion. A champion that can buff your entire team rather than the standard enchanter which can only buff 1/2 allies at a time. She is the easiest champion (no doubt), but she still requires a suitable amount of skill to be used effectively.

Suitable counter-play is to use Vanguards and pin her or her ADC down. She only has 1 hard cc (which is only available at level 6). She will struggle against the likes of Blitzcrank Leona Thresh etc.

Why are we complaining about a champion's design in ARAM? She could be tweaked stat-wise to ensure she isn't as oppressive in that game-mode but you shouldn't be discussing whether a champion needs reworking or not based on their performance in a game-mode which is unrelated to the core game.

Linna Excel9/4/2017, 11:29:29 PM1 votes

Seriously, sona might be the most poorly designed champion not only in LoL, but in any moba.

I think this is unfair over-exaggeration.

Partholonian9/4/2017, 11:57:00 PM1 votes

She leaves no skill expression since all 3 of her basic abilities are aoe and can't be aimed at all

Wrong. She aims them by positioning. When you're the squishiest champion in the game, with the lowest gold and exp on the map, AND most of that gold is going into items that give zero defensive stats, positioning is a matter of life and death. And her toolkit to manage it with is... one move speed steroid.

making someone's average lifespan .25s is very NOT fun actually

It's not fun for that person, but it IS counterplay, and damned effective counterplay at that. Maybe too effective for her viability in higher elo, but without the giant KILL ME FIRST signs she'd low elo stomp even more than Master Yi.

The thing that makes Sona hard to balance is how bad a lot of people are at playing AGAINST her. "Oh I'll just take this 1v1 trade and ignore Sona over there... WTF I lost the trade!?" Repeat until insane winrate (on a champion that is objectively underpowered against people who know what they're doing). People don't try that against Leona more than once or twice because it's obvious why spending half of the trade stunned makes you lose it, and therefore, you need to take Leona's presence seriously.