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Sona: Why she is statistically strong, and why she feels so weak

Two Right Wings ·5/4/2016, 2:18:43 AM·5 votes·2,354 views
EXPERIMENTAL Sona changes. Feedback wanted

As we all may or may not know, it looks like Riot is taking another stab at the Maven of the Strings on the PBE. Sadly, I do not have PBE access, and there were some important points I'd really like to get out there while Sona is on the table for some changes, points I feel like the PBE discussion thread is really missing. Currently, I am a support main climbing through Platinum, and I've been playing Sona for about 5 years now, though I've been struggling to make her work this season. I'd like to discuss Sona's current situation with the community here, and hopefully get some Red Feedback on whats going on in the PBE.

So the most important thing to talk about right now is, Sona is performing very well on live. Statistically, over the last several months, she's had win rates hovering several points over 50%. Most Sona players don't feel like she's a top tier support, even though the stats suggest she is. Why is this?

Why Sona is Strong

The current live meta is very very important to the success of a support, synergy and match-ups are very very important things to consider when we look at the role most dependent on their team. A lot of Sona's current success, doesn't necessarily come from Sona herself, but rather what her Teammates and enemies are choosing to play in Champion select, as well as the masteries they are bringing to the battlefield. Lets talk about a few things in the meta that are artificially bolstering Sona's stats:

  • Synergies: For this month, according to lolking, looking at all elos and all regions for ranked play, there are 4 adcs in the top 10: Lucian, Ezreal, Vayne, and Caitlyn. All 4 of these champions synergize very well with Sona's Q aura. All 4 of these champions can self-peel and reposition, something Sona cannot provide. 3/4 of these champions can play a poke/lane bully pattern. Historically, supports win ratios have always followed closely alongside how well they synergize with the most popular ADCs.

In addition to ADCs, there has also been a rise in the popularity of the beefy front-lines, allowing Sona to hide farther back, where she can potentially get off several rotations of spells later on in the game.

  • Match-Ups: Lets talk about the current most popular supports, the "Big 5" if you will: Alistar, Janna, Braum, Soraka, and Bard. (arguably morg, but she's much more popular in NA.) All of these champions are peel-oriented. None of them can match Sona's early lane trading. And most of them lack the capability to simply all-in and kill Sona every time she tries to Q like Leona, Blitz, and Thresh have done in the past. The more passive trends in Supports, have let some utility supports like Nami and Sona rack up impressive win rates on Live, simply by virtue of them being able to survive lane phase and position safely in team-fights.

In addition to bot lane, we can also sees trends in other lanes affecting Sona. It was several years ago during the height of the assassin meta, during some world tournament, when I remember a caster infamously describing Sona as a "meat-bag" and that description could not be more true. During that tournament, the enemy team dove the Sona player at level 2, then again at 3, then just began to pick her off between towers before she could even get to lane. It was the last time i saw Sona picked on the big stage. With the decline in the popularity of the assassins, and less tower diving, Sona can survive lane phase a little more reliably now.

  • Itemization, totems and Masteries: Windspeakers Blessing, combined with Runic Guard on the champions she is healing, allow Sona to be very very effective with her W. In addition, She synergizes very well with frost fang, and the Aegis items. When the mid to late game rolls around, the prevalence of Farsight wards allows Sona to not get picked off quite as frequently, historically, one of her biggest weaknesses was how easy she was to kill in transition.

So with all these things going for her, and her win rates at huge high points, why does Sona still feel terrible? Well, much like the reasons why she is succeeding in the current meta, much of the reason Sona feels terrible can be attributed to things outside the realm of the game, like champion select, build paths, and her current kit.

Why Sona Feels Weak

  • So you que up for some ranked, intent on playing your favorite Support, The Maven of the Strings. Sadly for you, you've landed high in the pick order. Sona players, more-so than any other popular utility support, need to stress over picking blind. Things like Leona, Thresh, Kalista, Blitz, and assassins come out of the woodwork to ruin your entire game. She simply has nothing in her kit that can answer those champions, and games against them feel more like a survival-horror game than a MOBA as you struggle to stop being tower dived. Unlike other Utility supports like Nami, Janna, and Soraka, Sona needs to be on top of her allies, and playing forward to contribute anything at all to the game. An extremely squishy, immobile champion with only an Ult for CC (which is subject to tenacity, unlike knock-ups and knock-backs) being forced to play forward, whilst also being forced to build AP in order to feel useful is not a good combination.

Trying not to get massacred in lane carries over into team-fights as well. Often, Sona players are more concerned with not getting decimated by AOE abilities, or getting picked off than what they are going to contribute. Sona's need to be on top of carries in the fray and be AP-oriented means dying to AOE without even being the target. Teamfights with Sona often boil down to: "Stand in the Middle, Press 4 keys, hope you win, hope you live"

  • The Death of Flash-Crescendo: While Sona can still make big plays, a telegraphed ability like this just isn't as impactful as a flash tibbers, or Flash/Alistar Q, or Braum Ult. Unlike the other supports who can flash forward to make the big engage plays, Sona is easier to dodge, and much easier to punish. A Sona who flashes into a fight, likely will not be leaving alive.

  • Lets talk about Aura-support and Healer fantasy. Aura supports and Healers have been around in gaming for a long time. They are high-priority, big impact over-time characters that seek this fantasy: "My team won, because I survived." cough, hello there Soraka Unfortunately , when the impact feels small, and you are forced to position in a certain way, you lose control over this fantasy. If your positioning is decided for you, you get this fantasy instead: "I survived because my team won" This is much less fun.

Big auras. low cooldowns, let Sona players choose their own positioning, and let them feel like they are contributing over time, thus rewarding them for staying alive with good positioning.

Suggestions for fufilling Sona's fantasy

  • Smaller auras with bigger impact, aren't going to solve the problem of Sona players being forced to position poorly, on top of teammates to feel useful. (hello brand rework). Sona needs more freedom to position and play her auras. Her ultimate is a good place to play with this. Letting her ult serve as a time where Sona plays a concert upping her intensity, giving massive increases on the range and decreases on the cooldowns of her Auras, all building up to a...wait for it...Crescendo, is what I would love to see. Letting her fire her ult only after surviving the duration of her ultimate, would fit thematically, move enough power out of it to open up space to fufill her fantasy as a teamfight, aura support, and fit well with the current ability-delay trend in Newer champions. If Taric can have 2 AOE kayle ults after a delay....

Thoughts Community?

10 Comments

Athenes Lulu5/4/2016, 2:58:02 AM7 votes

Some concerns, not in any particular order:

The idea of an "aura support" will never be a true aura support in any given PvP situation, because it basically promotes victory through pure stat-checking, almost no counterplay, and very binary matchups: things that counter her is a free win, things that she counters is pretty much "there's absolutely nothing I can do against her". Making her auras smaller, more short term (and therefore timing-based), and powerful effects not only removes that "anti-counterplay"/stat checking matchups but also breathing room or requiring thought for her enemies.

Speaking of healing, hers is far from weak, contrary to popular belief. The only real reason it is weak because you are comparing it to Soraka, the dedicated healer whose primary purpose is to heal her allies. Sona isn't the dedicated healer. Of course, by that comparison, it appears weak. However, if you are going to compare that to other supports, it is fairly strong. Let's consider Bard, Nami, and Taric:

  • Bard has to wait some time to make its heals effective, or don't wait and have shitty heals.
  • Nami has to either get in range and take risks to heal both her and her ally at once or waste more mana and heal in safety.
  • Taric's heals are multi-target, but is based on a charge system: you cannot heal more than 3 times in a row in a short amount of time, safety or not.

Sona, can do it instantly, without risk, and the only thing that really gates her from healing indefinitely is mana, which is something all 4 of them are gated to some extent. From the eyes of many players, yes, it looks shit, but it is far from shit.

Taking Sona first pick is like taking Katarina first pick: it is unwise to take them first pick. Katarina needs a specific matchup to function at her maximum potential, so is Sona, and as well as many champions. For instance, you're not going to pick Katarina when your team doesn't really have tanks/main engage champs, and it's just simply a bad idea to do so when the every enemy champ has a button to stop your ult channel, even the ADC. Sona has that same kind of "picking identity": you need the right matchups. For the less obvious examples, Lulu mid/top needs more heavy DPS in the jungle and maybe in the other solo lane, and that the support should be a tank, Veigar mid is something you don't want to first pick especially if you don't know how to play him at early levels, Darius first pick is pretty much an instant invitation for ranged top laners, and so on. Sona is just one of those that you have to take pick order and team comps into consideration.

Positioning on any champ has long been a thing, encouraging players to take more consideration into positioning has also long been a thing. Sure, she does seem weak, but that's mainly because most players don't know the importance of well-timed, and used correctly buffs. She falls under the same category as Lulu support, whose supporting power solely relies on the precise timing and decision making of casting spells, who is perceived as weak also because people don't know the importance of buffs. We all want to be the playmaker, we all want to shine and get shit done, but at the same time, Sona still needs to keep her identity or else, "why pick her?". That's where the "make aura effects stronger" approach comes to mind. Sona is still doing Sona things, but more effective results because she knows what she's doing.

My 2 cents, Sona has been my go-to backup ever since season 3.

lightdragoon885/4/2016, 3:16:08 AM5 votes

I want to play Sona to heal and power up my allies, not to damage my enemies. I feel like to much is put into her passive and Q that the parts that I like about Sona are so low in base/ratios that using them feels so unsatisfying.

I like Sona as a defense support, not a offensive support.

LankPants5/4/2016, 7:01:37 AM2 votes

http://imgur.com/FZK8kxF

I think this shows the biggest problem with the Sona changes on the PBE better than anything I could type.

chipndip15/4/2016, 10:15:13 PM1 votes

Well, I'ma put my commentary in here:

  • What are the most important things supports do? Set up plays for their team and stop plays from the enemy on a low budget. Given how Sona is right now, her basic kit has literally nothing for making plays, only one hidden gem of value for stopping plays (her W passive is greatly underused and under-appreciated, and I will definitely acknowledge that), and since her bases are low and her scalings are "meh" at best (50% on Q bolts is the highest scaling she has in her basic kit), she needs either expensive ap items to continually shove value into her core kit hand over fist...or she uses items like Lich and the new Athene's to simply tack on new numbers to what she already has. This is the core of why Sona feels bad to play if we're just focusing on that. Everything in Sona's kit is a bunch of underwhelming parts shoved together to make a "meh" with an extremely powerful ult tacked on. Other champs have things they definitively do and do well, so when they do it, you actually notice. Most people under-value Sona's contributions to the team because they don't even realize they were healed/shielded, or they don't realize you gave them some speed or reduced someone's damage by a good 1/5. Hell, part of why that passive is so damn good is because enemies don't even realize Sona can do that, so they're sitting there hitting through some healing, a small shield, and the rest of someone's health while missing 20%+ of their damage.

That touches on the next part

  • A good deal of Sona being statistically strong comes from people not knowing what Sona does outside of pressing Q and R. Most opponents don't realize I have the ability to shave a good deal of damage off of someone with her W passive + Exhaust, or that Sona DOES have a slow (even if it's bad) in her basic kit, so they don't play like I could do those things. Yet, at the same time, I know a lot about more common support play patterns like Blitz/Soraka/Janna/Leona/Braum/Alistar/So on and whoever else. Sheer match-up knowledge gives Sona players advantages in places they otherwise should get ran into the dirt.

That brings up the last part

  • In higher elos, the idea of "They don't know what I can do" doesn't hold up as well anymore, and thus people avoid the champ more and she's not as effective when she is used. Like, think to yourself when was the last time Sona was thought of as a strong champ in the meta without something being inherently toxic about her or her itemization. Basically, it's been a long ass time, and yet she somehow low-key slides on by. That's match-up knowledge speaking, but she herself doesn't give a reason why she'd ever be a decent pick, and people catch on to that as they climb.
Mawootad5/4/2016, 3:35:13 AM1 votes

The issue with Sona is she's too feast or famine. If she's ahead she one-shots carries with lich bane autos, if she's behind she's an ult bot that dies to a stiff breeze. Her base utility is borderline non-existent so she can't just build support items and remain relevant in the same way that a Janna or Nami can, so she's pigeonholed into building AP. At the same time though, her AP build has massive issues if she falls behind because her items don't provide the tank stats, utility, and % damage that the standard rylais+liandrys AP support build does, while also being even more oppressive if she's ahead because basically 100% of her gold goes into pure flat damage. If Sona is going to be a healthy champion, either she needs to become a mid-laner by getting aoe damage on q and possibly some other tweaks or she needs to trade a weaker early laning for much better late game utility - improved base stats, aura scaling by level instead of skill rank, and possibly some % current hp damage on q and % missing hp healing on w.

Two Right Wings 5/4/2016, 3:09:10 AM1 votes

Yeah, the reason I didn't talk about Sona's stats at all is because they aren't her problem. I certainly never said her heals were weak. Sona is super powerful, and half of my post is dedicated to explaining why. The issues I was talking about here weren't at all related to her power, but rather why the satisfaction of playing her doesn't match up with that power, and why she isn't delivering on her thematic fantasy. Thanks for the feedback, discussion is the best way to create change.

Vesarixx5/4/2016, 4:44:44 AM1 votes

Chances are the changes won't go through, the new Aura range and Q cooldown just feels awful, stronger heal and more self speed boost aren't worth the nerf to her early game presence.