Can you not?
http://i.imgur.com/x04DYkM.jpg
Sona literally doesnt have a single losing match up. The hard engage supports that "counter Sona" actually have some of the worst winrates against her. So can people stop bombarding threads with this misinformation? You're making it harder and harder to take the pro-Sona side seriously.
Thanks.
Serpents Embrace8 votesPretty sure the problem with Sona right now has almost nothing to do with her laning phase, and everything to do with her late game, cooldowns and sheer healing numbers.
And a lot of the supports you circled suffer in the late game because the gold deficit they have as a support doesn't allow them to build as much tank as they need to contend with enemy laners, and not because they're losing lane to Sona...
Battlecast Sona7 voteswhat people need to stop saying is "hard engage supports counter Sona"
what they need to start saying is "hard engage counters Sona"
If you take Leona, Sona is perfectly capable of sitting back in lane and keeping her laner alive. However if you take Leona and after level 6 are constantly forcing all-ins on ultimate CD, you'll at least make Sona's life difficult. I think the problem is people pick stuff like Leona or Thresh into Sona thinking it's gonna be ezpz but really, you still have to play the lane way more aggressively than you might normally play it to really get an advantage over Sona.
This way you can at least force her to max W, which basically stabilizes your lane into a farm lane - or kill her/her ADC a couple times, making it much easier to handle her. Once Sona gets behind she stays behind and she can really feel it, especially now that hitting level 6 is more than just unlocking Crescendo.
Sightless662 votesThis way you can at least force her to max W
If Sona is doing that against Leona, she's making a huge mistake. W doesn't give enough shielding and regen to do anything, and it guarantees that you can't do enough damage to Leona's ADC to dissuade them from going in again. It also takes away from your ability to poke the Leona and her ADC out level 3-5, which is a huge part of the matchup.
I don't care how aggressive the Leona is, I'm maxing Q. There is no situation where I wouldn't. Even we're losing hard, I wouldn't max W, because that just guarantees that we'll never be able to get a cross kill in a gank, and it means that I won't be able to do enough damage to roam effectively at 6 (and roaming at 6 or even before 6 is exactly what I'll do in a losing lane).
I think the problem is people pick stuff like Leona or Thresh into Sona thinking it's gonna be ezpz but really, you still have to play the lane way more aggressively than you might normally play it to really get an advantage over Sona.
I kind of disagree. I actually think the problem is exactly the opposite: People pick Leona into Sona thinking they can win every trade, and as a result they go in literally all the time, and they play up on you thinking that the threat of an engage will make you back off. The thing is, Sona's heal and poke design is based around taking trades that are even slightly bad, and punishing them horribly, and she can actually resist getting bursted down thanks to her shield/heal. Pre-6, if Leona and her ADC don't get all of their burst off very quickly, Sona can turn it into a sustained trade that she and her ADC will almost always win. After 6, Leona's ults have to be followed up very quickly, and she has to go in while Sona isn't in a position to stun her ADC, or else Leona will lose most of her stun uptime and sunlight procs while her ADC is getting bursted. The impetus is on Leona to take only the best fights, and way too many people will just go 100% ham 100% of the time.
Ever since Sona got the shield added and had her base stats increased, I actually think that Leona really doesn't do great against Sona. If the matchup is played absolutely perfectly, Leona will win, but even small mistakes open her up for a ton of punishment. I will specifically pick Sona into Leona because of this.
Battlecast Sona2 votesIf you've died more than twice against Leona you should at least be putting a couple extra points in W (imo) just because it's unlikely at that point that the slight additional damage from Q will really matter. With Q getting nerfed and W getting buffed, I think people are kind of clinging to the Q max - most of the damage comes from powerchord (which was buffed and isn't based on Q level at all), so there's no reason to continue to max Q if you lose kill pressure, especially against a lane like Leona where if you have no kill pressure you're basically free.
And while you are right about Leona needing to take the right fights, if Leona takes the right fight twice in a row Sona and her ADC basically automatically lose the lane. I understand that Sona is definitely stronger now than she was before, but she still gets dunked by Leona played well - you just actually have to know how to play Leona, which I feel is a staggeringly low percentage of the League of Legends population these days.
Immortal spax1 votesSo the only counter to Sona is to ask a 3v2 to you jungler? Against a support?
Wow, much counterplay, yes sona is very balanced...
ACENOX1 votesthe real counter is abusing sona's base ms and base armor/hp by picking hard engage adc like 
Immortal spax1 votesSo she ult and go away, an adc ult for supp ult, still worth for sona and in 30 seconds she is again full health.
Much counter play.
Battlecast Sona1 votesokay 1 I have never once said that current Sona is balanced (lol). But what beats her is not just "oh I have a Thresh in my lane" - you beat her by consistently hard engaging on her. It's a poke comp - it's exactly how you dealt with Nidalee back in the day, too - if you let Sona sit behind her ADC and continue to heal and poke she will win the lane, but if you hard engage on her before her heal can reset the lane that's how you beat her. The problem is people pick melee hard engage supports into Leona expecting to have an EZPZ lane but it's still a skill matchup.
AGAIN, I don't think Sona is balanced, right now. She needs nerfs. But people talking about her like she's a free win need to remember that Sona's pretty susceptible to getting caught out and to teams with heavy hard engage. She's still weak to these things, even while overtuned.
Immortal spax1 votesI just played a Leona into a sona, i gone ham on her, every time my ult was up i engaged(my adc was ashe), and guess what, we didnt win any 2v2, and its funny because one of the nerf of this mini rework was to nerf her laning phase, what a joke eh?
So stop to say "muh pick engage champions", clearly you are referring to the old sona where it was true that a engage champ counters her.
Also she could take 50% of my adc life with one "combo"
I kept asking to the jungler to gank bot.
As i said, 3v2 for a support, much counterplay, very balanced...
Battlecast Sona1 votesread my posts please. you're not even replying to me.
I never once said she was balanced.
I said that Sona does poorly against hard engage (which was true). You can sit here and say I'm wrong (lol) all you want, but it's a squishy champion who has to be inside her team to tag with auras and has to get inside AA range to "burst" her target.
Also, the change DID nerf her laning phase (pre-6), but the level 1 Crescendo is too powerful for her CDs. Her Hymn of Valor (Q) and Power Chord damage is LOWER by about 40 damage in the early game, so her burst was nerfed.
Again, I DON'T THINK SONA IS BALANCED. Just for those in the back I DON'T THINK SONA IS BALANCED.
People need to actually look at what's wrong with her though before we have to watch Sona once again get nerfed multiple times in a row while ignoring that the reason she's oppressive is not because she does damage or has a heal+shield it's because she has all of these things on top of an instant cast AoE stun.
Sona doesn't need numbers nerfs - she needs an entirely new ultimate that actually makes sense on an enchanting support. It would literally instantly fix every single problem with Sona, because she's way less oppressive when you can actually engage on her without her just instantly stunning you and your ADC and walking away/killing both of you. It makes sense for someone like Janna to have a disengage ultimate - she can't really utilize the CC for herself aside from peeling for an ADC, because she doesn't have any sort of significant damage, and I feel she pays for it by having a bit less team utility than Sona. The only reason we still have Crescendo is because Riot is afraid of alienating the Sona playerbase, but if you look back over Sona's patch history Crescendo is consistently listed as one of the reasons she's strong, even though it literally hasn't had a significant change since a range nerf in season 1.
Immortal spax1 votesYou can say that hard engage champs counters sona as much as you want, but facts are facts, and its a fact that i didnt even won a single 2v2 with leona against her.
Well now you can say, "you are just a silver scrub l2p noob" But scroll up and see, 59% winrate against leona, plat+
And i dont think that 59% of leonas plat+ are boosted silvers.
You keep saying that sona doesnt needs number nerfs, but just rework ults, but you still dont understand that her ult is just the icing on the cake.
Her kit is braindead, oppressive and overpowered.
Riot now just needs to delete one of those 3 thing and balance the other 2, ez.
Battlecast Sona1 votesHer ult is the reason her kit is oppressive. I've played over 2k games of Sona. trust me bro.
I have way more experience with the champ than you will literally ever have. I've played her since Season 1. And I can tell you, if you're losing to Sona pre-level 6 you would've lost to Sona last patch too.
Her numbers were NERFED on her damage this patch. NERFED. And her heal received a net nerf on low health targets (AND IT'S GETTING NERFED NEXT PATCH). All I'm saying is Riot has done this song and dance over, and over, and over. AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER. We've seen numbers nerf after numbers nerf after NUMBERS NERF after numbers nerf on Sona and it's literally never fixed her problems.
Yes, remove her oppressiveness and the braindeadness. Neither of those things will be fixed by flat damage nerfs, I'm telling you now. Because she's not oppressive because of the numbers on any of her abilities, and advocating further nerfs knowing that is ridiculous. I mean hell, her Q at level 5 does 220 damage if you hit with your AA as well - for reference, 
W at level 5 does 230 damage as well, potentially to two enemy targets (just like Sona's Q) AND it heals an allied champ at the same time for 185 health, AND it speeds up the allied target. Nami's W ratio is only .2 lower than the combined ratio on Sona's Q and autoattack. For reference a level 9 Sona has a 40HP heal and shield available to her. LOL.
Sona is a lategame support who right now carries too much early game threat because she has access to a very powerful disengage/engagement ult. Riot needs to find a way to line up that fantasy with Sona, and I really don't think reducing her damage numbers is really the issue.
Additionally, removing Sona's ultimate has a pretty huge effect on her in general - when Sona has no instant AoE stun, she can no longer really safely rush full AP. It becomes a lot more dangerous for Sona to go AP because she no longer has an oh shit button that can facilitate her either oneshotting someone or disengaging from a situation she should be dead in. This would fix a lot of Sona's numbers problems in the mid and lategame fairly easy by pushing her into more utility focused purchases like 
- when the champion becomes riskier to play, building AP becomes less useful (especially when, really, you're a support who shouldn't be prioritizing your own personal damage anyway, but rather your ability to keep your team alive).
AHeroNamedHawke6 votesSona could literally have a 100% solo queue win rate, warp tournament play so much that the pick phase is altered to allow each team to pick Sona 3 times, and Sona mains would still come to G&B to defend her
Blåbæret2 votesExactly. Sorry, but Sona mains make me sick.
Battlecast Sona1 votesinb4 I'm a 300k mastery Sona player who thinks they should remove Crescendo because it's the reason her kit is oppressive, AMA
TTK Dreadnought5 votesKinda leaves information out doesn't it? The sona could of gone 0/12/3 but the game could of been won because of the top, mid, or jungle.
Leetri2 votesThat's why win rate is never a good metric to go by on its own.
Immortal spax1 votesWhen you have a 55%-60% winrate in every matchup, its clear that this champ is broken...
Leetri1 votesIt's an indicator. But as Technolians said, it's possible that Sona is just super easy to carry and most of the work was actually by her team. However, looking at her other stats you can tell she's actually doing really well on her own. On a side note, Janna has had 50-55% win rate for years and no one calls her broken.
Immortal spax1 votesThe difference is that Janna cant 1v1 the enemy adc and even built full ap she still does no damage.
Meanwhile sona have 58%winrate AOE speed boost, heal and damage, and she counters her counter.
Battlecast Sona1 votesuhm, unless you're like lichbane/luden's Sona who's gotten far ahead of the ADC you shouldn't be 1v1ing them at any point past the laning phase....
Immortal spax1 votesThats the point, but this sona does it, SO she needa a big nerf
Battlecast Sona1 votesPlease no. Do people not realize that the reason this shit keeps happening is because they need to STOP just mindlessly buffing and nerfing Sona and actually look at why her kit is so oppressive. Like, seriously, between Sona's release and her rework, she was nerfed 8 times with nothing more than mana cost adjustments given as compensation. Then she was updated (which you can consider a nerf or a buff, depending), received 2 more nerfs, and now we're here.
This champion (clearly) can't be controlled with purely numbers changes, as Riot has been attempting to find a balanced spot for her since Season 1 and basically what happens is: Riot nerfs Sona multiple times when she gets strong, Sona fades. Items change, Sona comes back, Riot nerfs her again. Rinse and repeat.
This time we just got the item change in combination with a Sona buff so everyone is losing their minds while forgetting that we've had heal values all over the map - including a point where Sona's level 1 heal only healed 25 HP, because they wanted to force Sona who wanted to be a good healer into maxing W - and she still managed to come back into the game. It's unlikely that the PBE heal value nerfs will do jack and shit for Sona's actual problems, and yet people will just be like NERF HERRRRR without realizing that that's how you end up with champs like pre-rework Eve and Yorick.
Auto-target Q and instant-cast AoE stun will make everything else on her kit oppressive, regardless of the numbers. I wish Riot would realize that so they could actually address the problem instead of just nerfing Sona over and over.
Immortal spax1 votesNice text, but she still needs a "HERRR DERR NERRF"
The fact she is braindead and oppressive is just a plus to my statement.
Also i agree her kit is exaggerated, no other champs heals, speeds up, does a ton of damage and have a big CC and plus is braindead.
Also count that sona have a lot of fangirls, thats why riot dont want to gut her like yorick.
Battlecast Sona1 votesYou literally didn't read my post though. The reason she's oppressive isn't because she does damage (lots of supports do that, and better - 
comes to mind) or even that she also heals AND does damage AND speeds up ( ) - it's that she does all of these things while also having an instant cast AoE stun. At least Zyra's knockup is delayed and close range. At least Nami's wave is really slow and easy to dodge.
Sona QWE by themselves are far from oppressive - if you think that's oppressive it must bother you to know that Soraka Q does more damage at all ranks and her heal is also better and lower CD (AND she has access to CC outside of her ultimate). The only problem with her base spells is the auto-target Q - the numbers on them are pathetic in comparison to every single other support in the game. This is literally the problem - people like you who say "OH SHE'S BRAINDEAD NERF HER". No, you don't NERF braindead champs, you make them not braindead. Flat numbers nerfs will NEVER, EVER fix Sona's problems, because she ALREADY has some of the lowest numbers on her base abilities and the damage on Crescendo is not the problem in her kit. It's like how GP was fluctuating wildly between being a powerfarming monsterbeast or worthless for a couple of season - they added complexity to his kit so they could have additional levers to balance that weren't just "damage". Sona really only has base numbers and CDs to change, and I feel like they've had everything from release Sona's incredibly, super short CDs starting at level 1 to initially post-rework the incredibly long CDs and it's never really fixed her problems.
What frustrates me is that (for example), the values on the PBE nerf aren't even new heal values for Sona - it's just a revert to a previous patch. Like, if none of the numbers you've tried have worked and you've been trying for like 3 or 4 years now, maybe the numbers aren't the problem. Maybe flat nerfs won't fix this champion.
Immortal spax1 votesIf you think sona isnt oppressive in laning phase, its clear that you never played against an "above the average" sona.(im not going to say good, because there are no goof sonas)
In laning phase she is worst than karma top, she comes at you, Q, you try to give her back the poke, but she W and E, and like this for all the laning phase.
A good nami can never do that, zyra can but she is too fragile.
One of the reason why for most people is ok that Azir can be OP its because he is difficult to play. One of the azir counter plays is the azir itself, a bad player with a high skill cap champ can nevver have a 52% winrate with azir at the first 1-5 (check sona in champion.gg)
Now, or we turn her numbers down(by a lot) or we remake her to be a high skill champ with an exaggerted damage.(for me its fine)
JRobin315 votesHard engage can work against Sona, but it's all or nothing. If you just trade, Sona will sustain back up. If you play poke vs Sona, she can just sustain after each trade. I think the discussion about whether or not hard engage counters Sona is moot since Sona is simply too strong atm.
Rozzeta3 votesThat costs mana, meaning she has less mana to use in attack. And after following patch, her heal will be nerfed.
Athenes Lulu1 votes"b-but sona's heals r garbage xdddd"
Streetlight Man4 votes
is our only hope
Godspeed
Eedat4 votesBased , please accept our apologies for demanding your recent nerfs. We were foolish, but now a new evil has arisen and you must be our champion. A champion to guide us through the darkness of patch 6.14 and vanquish this foe
Niaphim3 votesIt's more like she outright wins every single matchup with 55-60% winrate. Kinda broken.
PhDs Nuts3 votesJust stop engaging CerealBox. He does this in every thread.
CerealBoxOfDoom1 votesJust stop engaging CerealBox. He does this in every thread.
no, I really don't.
Some people don't try to make silly arguments.
omg thresh such hard ingauge huehuehue
DarkRitual3 votesShe's literally just too fast for most supports to catch her. E up with mobis and you feel like you can race Quinn in her ult. I won a game earlier against a Leona wheile I was on Sona. She aimed her Zenith Blade well, but I just always had the speed to get myself away. Anytime she dove onto my ADC, I had Diminuendo/Crescendo up for the enemy ADC, so it rarely got any damage through. Then I just healed it up.
You literally can't do anything unless you get ganks and roams from the backside to lock them in. I'll be fine with some nerfs, I just hope she's not gutted so quickly after the changes.
CerealBoxOfDoom2 votesalso going back to my original question of the viability of hard engage supports why do all the hard engage champs have the lowest number of game samples aside from Leona and is thresh really a hard engage camp??? I mean come on lol. He's practically ranged.
YCitizenSnipsY22 votes"Is thresh really a hard engage champ?"
No, I wouldn't think pulling yourself right on top of the enemy and using two melee range forms of CC would be hard engage.
CerealBoxOfDoom2 votes"Is thresh really a hard engage champ?"
No, I wouldn't think pulling yourself right on top of the enemy and using two melee range forms of CC would be hard engage.
thresh's playpattern does not typically involve any heavy and fast melee engagement. Especially not earlygame unless the enemy bot is just shitting all over you anyways. Even after the dash I guess he shoves you some? The other one is a slow. He has no teamfight aoe engage ability asie form the slow I guess but even then he doesn't seem to use it that way usually even in tournament play. In lane against a competent sona do you really think he's just going to hop on top of her and ride her like a pony?
Eedat8 votesthresh's playpattern does not typically involve any heavy and fast melee engagement.
his engage literlly drags him to melee range of his target. Low range flay. Low range ult. "Not melee engagement". Wut?
He has no teamfight aoe engage ability
Hook -> Flay -> Ult. "no aoe engage". Wut?
In lane against a competent sona do you really think he's just going to hop on top of her and ride her like a pony?
You are contradicting yourself. You are saying Sona is weak to being jumped on, then immediately saying "why would someone hard engage on Sona?"
Droogzy3 votesI dislike how strong Sona is but lets not get over reactive here, Thresh, without a doubt, has the ability to make a hard engage happen with his hook/pull-flay-ult, but any solid Thresh players extremely rarely will do this unless they know for certain they will make the kill happen or if there is very unique circumstance for doing so. If you do this, the person has the ability to dash or blink through Thresh's ultimate which allows them to escape.
Most of the time its hook, walk forward, flay into ult so the hooked champion is right in the vicinity of The Box's range so they get the slow immediately. This is the more ideal move probably 90% of the time and it hardly counts as a hard engage as Thresh rarely will launch himself towards his hooked target, even though he has the option to do so. The ones that do use the pull portion of the hook constantly, are typically the ones that are new to his kit.
You may be thinking of his ability to set picks, which he does well, but does not count as a hard engage.
Eedat13 votesas Thresh rarely will launch himself towards his hooked target
what am I reading
My Waifu Vanilla1 votesWhy would Thresh willingly go into Sona? Thresh takes the gap close and gets Crescendoed while he can't dodge and straight up dies since he ditched his ADC and Sona still outdamages him.
Rozzeta4 votesI think there's at least 2 reasons why Thresh would willingly dive to Sona.
Jeanne fan club1 votesThesh naturally has a lower win rate because he is very skill intensive and relies on his entire kit to support properly. If you can't use every ability in his kit properly then you won't be winning many games. He isn't much of a hard engage champ as he is a pick champ
Sammystorm2 votesSona has been one of the most resistant to nerfs champions out there. It is no surprise that after receiving buffs she sky rockets in win rate.
Squidward Dab1 votesI think it's because there was a time when a melee minion had more base health than her and then everyone went berserk and lashed out at riot so now riot's very careful of nerfing her hoping not to anger them like that one time but I'm not sure
Urgot doggy dogg1 votessona counters hard engage supp i do not know what people are talking about
Arsenic Sulfur2 votesThe counter was found back when Sona would snap easier than a match stick.
Vellich0r1 votesMost leonas lately are pretty bad honestly
Solari Fortune2 votesshe is on free week so thats an answer
