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Sona long range weaknesses on a short ranged champion

only zhule··2 votes·1,146 views

So does anyone play Sona as a super defensive champion? like i know she has a bunch of semi overpowered interactions with some items item 3504 being a good example. But does anyone actually player her as a back line support where you focus on her heal and movement speed buff and level her damage ability last, as well as going mostly team focused items rather then raw AP/ damage items?

Like there are a lot of things about this champion that seem to just scream "i'm a team based back line support", look at my abilities all giving my team buffs.... But at the same time she feels like a poorly designed short-medium ranged mage. You have one offensive spell, that does pretty piss poor damage without a bunch of AP and requires you to go in for a follow up auto to get the full benefit. A TON of your utility is based around your passive and the things it can do....... but you need to get pretty close to a target and auto attack them to trigger it. These wouldn't be that bad if Sona was naturally fast (325 MS), if she had mobility in her kit (no dash, no blink, your movement speed buff shuts off when you are damaged), or if she was able to take a hit (one of the lowest base health pools and one of the the lowest scaling health pools). I love the champion but it honestly feels like Riot never got around to changing what her built in weaknesses were once they changed her WAY BACK in 4.12 (or what ever that patch was where they totally reworked what her aura do and how far away they can effect allies).

Sona needs a more defined identity. If she is suppose to be a squishy support, remove the need to be in fairly close proximity to enemies to trigger such a large amount if your utility. If she is suppose to be a short-medium ranged mage give her the tools to do that job, more damage / ability to take a hit / more then one offensive ability / some decent mobility.

10 Comments

ZephyrDrake2 votes

Sona's main thing is that positioning is king and be a "jack of all trades, master of none" type of champion. She does a little bit of everything but not as good as others that focus on those aspects. Knowing when to go on the offensive and when it's time to play defensively is what separates good Sona players from the bad ones

only zhule2 votes

{quoted}

Sona's main thing is that positioning is king and be a "jack of all trades, master of none" type of champion. She does a little bit of everything but not as good as others that focus on those aspects. Knowing when to go on the offensive and when it's time to play defensively is what separates good Sona players from the bad ones

The whole "knowing when to go on the offensive and when to be defensive" thing is kind of a crock of shit. You can literally play the most broken champion and if you don't know when to play defensive you are going to just get bodied over and over. On the other side it doesn't matter if you can 2 shot the enemy if you never play offensively.

My issue isn't so much that Sona is a bit of jack of all trades, master of none. It's that her weaknesses are those of a very specific type of champion (long range / back line champion) and that is not what Sona is anymore (nor has it been what she is for a few years now).

ZephyrDrake2 votes

[{quoted}](name=only zhule,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=we9YEbFm,comment-id=00000000,timestamp=2018-08-18T20:11:28.513+0000)

The whole "knowing when to go on the offensive and when to be defensive" thing is kind of a crock of shit. You can literally play the most broken champion and if you don't know when to play defensive you are going to just get bodied over and over. On the other side it doesn't matter if you can 2 shot the enemy if you never play offensively.

My issue isn't so much that Sona is a bit of jack of all trades, master of none. It's that her weaknesses are those of a very specific type of champion (long range / back line champion) and that is not what Sona is anymore (nor has it been what she is for a few years now).

"crock of shit" and i'm done bye

Thimes1 votes

Sona is played as backline support in high elo and has a winrate of 54%+. You just outscale enemies with your utility rather then be a bad burst mage.

only zhule2 votes

{quoted}

Sona is played as backline support in high elo and has a winrate of 54%+. You just outscale enemies with your utility rather then be a bad burst mage.

What gets me is that basically EVERY guide i can find for her all suggest you max your Q first. So the running theory seems to be that she is suppose to be a bad burst mage at the start and then transition into a very annoying support. So why not just cut the first part out. Rework her passive so it's not based on auto attacking and enemy. Buff the healing amount on her W so that you don't have to get it to rank 3 to have a positive mana cost to healing ratio. Lower the mana cost of W so that healing doesn't take something like 15-20% of your mana pool per cast. Lower the cooldown of her W and E, give Sona the tools to help her teammates survive fights and secure kills in the early game that don't require her to have a stun. Maybe give Sona a per 6 stun (part of her passive?) Sona is (i believe) the only support champion who does no have a stun / root in their kit before level 6.

Thimes1 votes

You max Q in lane to deter enemies form short burst trades on you or your ADC. It's more useful in lane then a bit of healing, even on Soraka you max Q or E in lane. Think of it as "get off my lawn ability". The AA part is to force close range interaction, Riot loves that, they even changed Jannas W and AA for same reason. They want every support to fight in lane and not sit back and heal/shield. What you describe is basically the opposite of what Riot wants to achieve in the laning phase.

only zhule2 votes

{quoted}

You max Q in lane to deter enemies form short burst trades on you or your ADC. It's more useful in lane then a bit of healing, even on Soraka you max Q or E in lane. Think of it as "get off my lawn ability". The AA part is to force close range interaction, Riot loves that, they even changed Jannas W and AA for same reason. They want every support to fight in lane and not sit back and heal/shield. What you describe is basically the opposite of what Riot wants to achieve in the laning phase.

Sona is weird, if you go a support build (what one would expect a "support" to do) your passive barely gets any better and you put yourself at risk to trigger it. If you go an offensive build you hit like a run away truck not to mention that a 400-500 AP sona is going to be busting out higher support numbers then a defensive item abusing Sona.

Honestly i would LOVE either a more allies focused support Sona, instead of single use buffs her abilities apply constant buffs while allies are in range. We need not go back to always on buffs, but something to promote buffing your allies rather then stacking a bunch of AP and chunking someone for 1.5K magic damage.

Or push her more down the path of single ally buffs rather then team ones. Makes her a better laning partner, but also removes some of that issue late game where Sona gives her team near constant +100 magic damage + 500 health in shields + 20% (or more) movement speed.

MagicFlyingLlama1 votes

Cant hear you over the sound of a 140% AP ratio autoattack.

chipndip11 votes

Here's what I think you don't get:

Sona, as she is now, does not need buffs for solo queue. If anything, she's gonna catch nerfs soon. Instead of lying to yourself about Sona constantly needing improvements, you should be honest with yourself and say "Sona needs an overhaul". All of your threads literally ooze with dissatisfaction with her current design.

Like, as it is now, they're just gonna nerf her and be done with it. They aren't really going to look at the satisfaction angle of the champion and realize there's an issue when everyone thinks a 54% Diamond win rate champion is complete ass in the game. No kit should be that strong while garnering that type of opinion from most players. Your posts don't really say much about how her design lacks clarity of its contributions or any real satisfaction doing those things, but it's apparently your main issues with the champ.

only zhule2 votes

{quoted}

Here's what I think you don't get:

Sona, as she is now, does not need buffs for solo queue. If anything, she's gonna catch nerfs soon. Instead of lying to yourself about Sona constantly needing improvements, you should be honest with yourself and say "Sona needs an overhaul". All of your threads literally ooze with dissatisfaction with her current design.

Like, as it is now, they're just gonna nerf her and be done with it. They aren't really going to look at the satisfaction angle of the champion and realize there's an issue when everyone thinks a 54% Diamond win rate champion is complete ass in the game. No kit should be that strong while garnering that type of opinion from most players. Your posts don't really say much about how her design lacks clarity of its contributions or any real satisfaction doing those things, but it's apparently your main issues with the champ.

A lot of my issues end up coming a little less for Sona her self (i think) and more from a deep feeling of "HOW THE FUCK DID THAT HAPPEN?!"

Examples being stuff like: Minion block / Pathing fucking me over because the game decides to have Sona try and walk through a group of allied minions and get stuck for 2-5 seconds.... or keep trying to walk around a tower but end up pacing back and forth because the game can't decided which way to move me through 10 movement commands. So the built in squishy nature gets me nuked.

A lack of stun outside of ultimate. It's really hard to set up ANTHING for your team when you lack good CC outside of your ultimate, especially when your DPS is pretty piss poor in the early game (doing 35-40% of your enemies HP isn't all that great when you can only do it once every 30-ish seconds... and that % goes down to like 20% or less after the first couple mins)

But the one that really freaking gets me is that I SWEAR TO GOD there is an issue with Sona and proper movement speed. I have had way to many games where i'm faster then my enemy by like 5-10 MS and a chase starts at near full auto attack range, that enemy will run me down / keep pace (while still getting to attack) with basically no problem. But if an enemy has higher base movement speed then me, again lets say 5-10 MS, that champion is going to close the gap between us in the blink of an eye.

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