Weekend at Sona's #1: Outclassed by Nami

ModUlanopo·Aug 2, 2014·6 votes·3,688 views

I have decided to try an experiment. I obviously believe that "new" Sona is clunky and underpowered, especially in the early game, so I'm going to record and post all of my matches so that people can discuss them.

*While I welcome feedback, please be aware that anything which amounts to "you suck" will simply be ignored. I'm aware that I'm an average player who makes misplays; I don't need to be told that. *

Here's a BaronReplay of my first Team Builder match with new Sona.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B0v9V2h9Kb06MWpMRDg1Sk5fZzg/edit?usp=sharing

Yes, we made some mistakes. My lane partner was distracted and took the wrong summoner spells, for example. We also had some lag issues that led to us getting a Loss Prevented. One of the players was also a little toxic. I queued with Morgana and Kog'Maw.

While we definitely turned it around, the only way we could win was by going after the Vayne first, which was a direct consequence of our terrible laning phase. I found myself asking why I don't just switch to Nami. I own her and all her skins. I like her play style and she was clearly far more effective at every stage of the game than I was.

46 Comments

AkaiNeko4Aug 3, 20147 votes

I applaud the thought and the effort (I've also seen your second post), but I don't think this will make a difference. 90% of the active community is some variation of deeply displeased with the rework, and we've been very vocal about it, and the only response we've gotten from Riot is Fearless himself attempting (poorly, sporadically and often rather unpleasantly) to defend it.

The message has been very clear: They don't care about our opinions. They don't care about our feelings. They don't care about our ideas or our feedback. They don't care that they've mistreated their core community. They don't care that Sona usage will probably drop after this. All they care about is that, ultimately, we keep playing.

("They" here meaning the section of Riot in charge of this situation, not every single Rioter. I imagine that many of them are no happier about the state of affairs than the players.)

Incidentally, if any passing reds or even Fearless himself have something to say to change my mind on this, please, PLEASE do. I don't want to feel like you guys have stopped caring, it's just what it looks like from here.

ModUlanopoAug 3, 20145 votes

I applaud the thought and the effort (I've also seen your second post), but I don't think this will make a difference.

I'm quite capable of tilting at windmills.

I did make one concession, however. I was so upset at that second game that I didn't play Sona in our last match of the evening. I played jungle Rammus and much fun was had.

AkaiNeko4Aug 3, 20141 votes

Man, I need to read Don Quixote....

XXnIE66RuiAug 3, 20144 votes

I'm not Fearless or a Rioter, but I can tell you this: they are probably going to wait on more long term data before they take any definitive action. I don't doubt we'll see some Sona tweaks this PBE cycle still, but I doubt they'll do anything drastic until the dust has settled and they have a large enough amount of data from games to back up a decision.

The reason for this: forumgoers are only a small portion of the playerbase, and people who are displeased are usually a lot more vocal than people who are content. This means the % of people complaining on the forums is very small compared to the total number of Sona games played and the only way to see if this % is representative of the playerbase at large or not is to gather statistics.

Which doesn't mean I am happy with the current state of the rework one way or another, just that, from a logical standpoint, it'd be an extremely silly move by Riot to not take any action if the rework really has trashed the champion. Skarner's rework was reviewed, so... here's to hoping.

MakersFAug 3, 20143 votes

Learn to play the new sona. She is not like before, she is not a poking lane champion anymore imho. She tries to survive the early and makes the adc win the trades due to sheild/heal/dmg boost, and when you start being at midgame with E and medallion passive you have total control of the objectives. No one can escape or catch YOUR WHOLE TEAM. The ulti is game changing in TFs, but if you build her correctly (CDR + enough mana to spam + utility) you can use your ulti every 60 secs.

She is now a fully team oriented support, which adds a ton of utility. It is not a bust-poking lane champion, which adds stats (imho not engough compared with the utility she now offers) late game.

With her in my last game i kited elise, katarina and jarvan in top for a good 45 seconds. Just shielding the poke, speeding up to avoid cc, and buying time for my team. In TFs the auras gives to the team 500+ dmg and effective health.

Don't assume everyone likes the older sona better. I much prefer the new one. I played old sona in S4 maybe one game due to how boring she was.

You feel pissed because you lost a champ you liked: I'm sorry for you. But you can not think that everyone feels like you. You and all the other people that think like you come to the forum complaining (and you are not even nearly the same number of Lee winers), but all the people that appreciate new sona don't come here complaining. Actually, if sona reaches mid game with some gold, she is so strong I fear they will nerf her. Luckily enough a lot of people play her as before, thous complaining about the little damage (I agree with you, her poke is not strong early) and not using her full power later. Is like someone using tristana as he uses draven --> you'll have a bad time.

I only complain about the itemization for AP. The only mid game object which gives armor and AP is seekers armguard. They need to add a ***** AP + armor item which doesn't scale off creeps (and i'd love such an item with rumble too)

ModUlanopoAug 3, 20145 votes

I agree with you that this is pretty much what you have to do with Sona now.

The problem is that they took a champion who was known for early game poke and deliberately nerfed that part of her kit. It's really jarring that her old playstyle is not just suboptimal, but actively bad. It's worse when you consider that her new play style in lane is really boring and noninteractive. You said it yourself:

Actually, if sona reaches mid game with some gold, she is so strong I fear they will nerf her.

That's actually pretty weak design because it forces passive play. This rework changed her from being an aggressive laner with lots of counterplay to the least interactive support in the game.

The5lackerAug 4, 20141 votes

...You really are delusional. Like completely. I think you're mixing up Old Sona (Passive auras, nothing to do herself) with new Sona (Highly potent auras that require actual timing to use, strong but temporary buffs that require engagement to be valuable, buffs that are actually relevant to herself.)

Pika310Aug 4, 20143 votes

Where's your proof to back these statements up? We're not going to simply take your word for it, just 'cause you say so. A lot of us would be interested in seeing your numbers and hearing your reasonings. Especially when countless people have already and repeatedly mathematically proven otherwise.

The5lackerAug 4, 20141 votes

Where's your proof? Other than some random asshole who mained Sona losing a single game?

Considering her old playstyle was "Sitting there and being a placebo" and her new playstyle actually has some degree of counterplay other than "remember Sona exists," you'll have to pardon me if I interpret all of this tantrum throwing as just that: Whiny children throwing a tantrum. Because that's all it is. New Sona is significantly more potent. Better heals, new teamwide shields, more teamwide damage (110 (+20% AP) on a single hit is far more useful than 20 AD given Sona's short cooldowns), she's more interesting for everyone involved, and the few old strengths she actually had (Strong harassment with Q and passive, strong AoE disruption with Ult, teamwide utility, etc.) all still exist and have been notably amplified in some instances.

FaerKhanAug 4, 20143 votes

You display your own ignorance by saying her old playstyle was sitting in a bush being a placebo. Old Sona could control a lane with consistent powerful poke, and provided a lot of utility to her adc and team. New Sona is objectively weaker than old Sona based on pure statistics in reasonable use cases, and requires her teammates to play perfectly to even come close to old Sona.

Oh, and you say her cooldowns are short which makes her nerfed Q more useful.... Really? Her cooldowns just got TRIPLED! Tell me more about how a 110 damage hit is super valuable to a class that relies on sustained damage (Adcs). Her heal has conflicting use cases, so you can never use it optimally. There is no way that the Q aura proc out damages the old Q aura over the period of the cooldown when you consider multiple auto attacks and spells used in that time frame (Which will almost always happen over the course of a teamfight). Sorry, you're not going to convince anyone who has actually played Sona that this is a buff, because it's not.

She's not more interesting, and I don't see how you can make that claim. She's not even more interactive than she was before. Now the only way she can safely do anything is to stand on top of her ADC the whole game, which is entirely boring.

FaerKhanAug 3, 20143 votes

Ironically, the reason why they wanted to change Sona is so that she could be less of an aura bot (read team oriented support) and be her own champion that could feel impactful.

So of course they would rape all of her usefulness and maker her into a mushroom attached to her ADC providing them with all the buffs and not being able to do anything for herself.

Makes perfect sense.

Meanwhile Karma was reworked for being awesome by herself and not "team oriented" enough.... Riot's full of crap and they know it. It makes me angry that they're doing this to a popular champion like Sona. At least with Karma and Skarner and Xerath they were barely played (I was a big fan of Karma, so I'm sure you know now how I felt then).

Tapu FiniAug 3, 20142 votes

At least Sona is getting looked at... Karma is the redheaded stepsister that riot refuses to even acknowledge. Her rework made her into a champion I and many others hate, and it feels like riot has turned a blind eye to her. I at least never wanted a new Karma, just a better one. Riot's solution was to make an entirely new champion with nothing reminiscent of her original style and niche. Karma is gone, people hate it, and riot doesn't give half a shit. Get used to it with Sona because this is the same defensive stance they took with Karma.

FaerKhanAug 3, 20143 votes

And GD told us when we were complaining about what Riot did to Karma, that we were overblowing things and making mountains out of molehills....

We old Karma players saw this day coming, and now most of the players of the game don't even know what old Karma was like...

Sona will be the same thing. She's not the same champion, and since Riot never goes back once they change something, she's gone forever. Even with buffs, she's never going to be picked in competitive play again, since she's never going to be worth the risk unless she's God tier OP. (incidentally, she would have to be as OP as old Karma was)

The5lackerAug 4, 20141 votes

Because old Karma was terrible and old Karma players are delusional geriatric lunatics with glasses so rose tinted they have thorns.

FaerKhanAug 4, 20142 votes

You obviously never got baited into a bush by a low health Karma, only to be completely obliterated by her combo....

The5lackerAug 4, 20141 votes

Oh wow, such a unique identity. A mage having burst.

Wait, aren't people bitching about Karma being less of a support? And her only selling point was her burst? Some consistent whining would be appreciated.

FaerKhanAug 4, 20142 votes

Karma could blow people up as a support with minimal AP. She was that way before the gold changes, and could actually do some damage in the ward bot meta. Karma was uniquely able to help her teammates, while being super powerful on her own if played correctly. I was responding to your comment about Karma being terrible, which is entirely consistent.

RiotRiot SotereAug 3, 20148 votes

I can assure you multiple Rioters have read every single Sona-related post in this forum. Fearless and others are spending their weekend playing Sona on the Live environment.

We absolutely care about what is said here. The disconnect I believe comes from recognizing that this is only one of many sources that we will gather feedback from. Every substantial change is tracked for long after the patch drops. And every bit of feedback is valuable. We review and consider it all.

ModUlanopoAug 3, 20148 votes

I get that I'm just one person, Sotere, and I respect that Riot has to balance for the game as a whole and that the devs take in information from many sources. You don't need to convince me of that.

I guess that at this point I'm looking for three things:

An explanation for the nerfs to Sona's laning and early game poke. The passive on her ultimate says very clearly to me that her early game was a serious concern. In my hands, she went from being a dynamic champ that can wear down the enemy support so that they have to seriously consider the wisdom of going all-in to a passive aura bot.
An explanation for why Sona's ult "costs" so much on her kit when other champions have similar ults and far more aggressive kits, especially Nami. If you watch the video attached to my OP, you'll see that the Nami was more effective at the things that I used to bring Sona for. It feels as though Fearless was aiming to make Sona the first "hyper-support."
An admission that it is not okay to be routinely dismissive of our opinions. It would have been one thing if Fearless had said, "Sona players are going to have to get used to a different laning phase because I moved most of her power into team fights so that she could have spotlight moments other than her ult" I would have disagreed with the design philosophy, but it would have been a productive discussion. Instead, most of his responses feel like I'm being told that I don't have enough experience to understand the awesome glory of his creation, which could not be farther from the truth.

AhskanceAug 3, 20143 votes

Though I'm not a Rioter, I have responses to your points.

Over the past months, Riot has clearly intoned that they want champions to have niche points and areas. They want both definable strengths and definable weaknesses. After having played her new style kit, she actually reminds me quite a bit of Karma (new style), in the constant AoE capabilities that she brings. Previous Sona did have stronger "fire and forget" poke, and new has less "fire and forget" with some forced interaction to keep the damage equal. Case in point, Karma inhabits the "long range poke and long range utility", whereas Sona inhabits the "shorter range poke and utility". I understand the difference is not appreciated to some, but it's enforcing variety in a game where sameness can kill.

On a personal note, I have been able to successfully play her with the heavy harass style of old. The numbers have changed, but the playstyle is still available.

As for the ult "scaling" her other abilities, it's to incentivize people getting E prior to level 13. The base numbers are strong enough to be workable/strong at the relevant levels, but the upwards scaling with ult ranks always you to neglect a skill yet still have it get more before you can properly attend to it with points. I, personally, feel it's elegantly done and feels very nice. To a degree, they could remove any of the extra shield/speed/damage and I would still be more than able to make Sona work very well. Perhaps if they nerf her, that's a good place to examine.

As for the 100/150/200 mana cost of the ult, I question that decision as well. They've been normalizing at 100 for ult ranks for a while now, and I don't see an overarching reason why hers is different.

I'm assuming you're talking about the "one of the big reason people bring Sona to a game, is the power of her ult", and why you might feel the rest of her is tuned low to "balance that power". First thing's first, Sona's ult is different from Nami's ult. Nami's has quite a bit of range, but aside the small annoyance of the knockup, you only really inflict a slow... Also, the ult is quite avoidable range/kit depending.

The different between a slow and a stun... is seeing a LeBlanc distortion in and catching her before she can pop back away from your team to safety. The life saving halt to a Fizz that just dropped from his pole onto your AD carry before he gets his full rotation off. The immediate shut down of a surprise lane gank that was stupidly grouped against a Sona.

You might argue that Nami brings her bubble stun, and it isn't an ult. You'd be right. However, it's smaller and considered hard to land. Arguments vary. Nonetheless, Sona can damage reduce a diver or team of divers and stop them dead. Nami can briefly buffet that, and slow them... and depending on player awareness/skill, stun them after.

I've read several of your back and forth discussions with Fearless, and he repeatedly apologizes for what he thinks was a lack of interaction of his part. I've read him apologizing enough times now that I genuinely feel concerned that he may take this whole situation as a strong negative experience and back away from what he does. I think the end result is quite a bit more fleshed out and realized than prior Sona (and I recognize our differences of opinion), so for my part... I hope he keeps with it.

Please recognize that Fearless is just a dude going to work and doing a job. If he were a talented chef hired by Burger King to figure out a different way to cook the Whopper, he may well catch hell from thousands or millions of hamburger eaters country-wide. Still though, he's just a guy going in to work. He works on a game for a living. You don't know if he's a hugely outgoing person in his social life. He might be great at bouncing ideas off people, but be very focused and run solo when doing the hard numbers. He says he read though the hundreds of pages of Sona comments, critiques, ideas, and feedback? I believe him. I also believe that's he's just a normal dude, going to work...

ModUlanopoAug 3, 20144 votes

Over the past months, Riot has clearly intoned that they want champions to have niche points and areas. They want both definable strengths and definable weaknesses. After having played her new style kit, she actually reminds me quite a bit of Karma (new style), in the constant AoE capabilities that she brings. Previous Sona did have stronger "fire and forget" poke, and new has less "fire and forget" with some forced interaction to keep the damage equal. Case in point, Karma inhabits the "long range poke and long range utility", whereas Sona inhabits the "shorter range poke and utility". I understand the difference is not appreciated to some, but it's enforcing variety in a game where sameness can kill.

I feel that Sona's play style was already unique and rich. She and new Karma (I have only played Karma since the rework and I like her a lot), were the only poke supports that actually supported and, of them, Sona is the only one with sustain. There was a lot of encroachment by high-CC Mages like Zyra and Annie, but those are one-trick ponies. I liked the fact that Sona was more forgiving across a wider range of opponents, at least for me.

As far as playstyle goes, I always felt that Karma was about targeting and Sona was about positioning. When I pilot her, Karma is a lot more safe, but she feels like she has fewer high points. Frankly, if her ult were a little less underwhelming, I would probably switch to being a Karma main, as I like having tactical options and decisions.

On a personal note, I have been able to successfully play her with the heavy harass style of old. The numbers have changed, but the playstyle is still available.

I'm sure that some people have. I'm not one of them.

ModUlanopoAug 4, 20145 votes

I'm assuming you're talking about the "one of the big reason people bring Sona to a game, is the power of her ult", and why you might feel the rest of her is tuned low to "balance that power". First thing's first, Sona's ult is different from Nami's ult. Nami's has quite a bit of range, but aside the small annoyance of the knockup, you only really inflict a slow... Also, the ult is quite avoidable range/kit depending.

I'm fully aware that Nami's ult is different. It's more than twice as long, is wider, has a better AP ratio and the knockup is obviously not affected by tenacity. They both have tradeoffs, making them roughly equal. I don't agree with your devaluing of the knockup, but YMMV. It's also worth noting that the ult triggers Nami's passive on all her allies in the wave, making it easier to get on target.

Maybe I'm being unclear with my argument.

We want Sona to have nice things.
It's difficult to give Sona nice things because of her ult.
Rather than biting the bullet and nerfing the ult, we decided to nerf her laning phase.

I would argue that engineering high and low points with regard to choices, time and place is a much better idea than doing so with regard to time frames within the match. This returns to the notion of Sona as becoming more Vayne-like. If she has a crappy laning phase, there's no guarantee she'll make up for it during the team fights.

You might argue that Nami brings her bubble stun, and it isn't an ult. You'd be right. However, it's smaller and considered hard to land. Arguments vary.

Is that the reverse of the counterplay argument of "don't get hit?"

XXnIE66RuiAug 4, 20143 votes

Nami's ult is also really easy to combo with her bubble, making it near impossible for knocked up targets to dodge it. Obviously the area of effect of the bubble is smaller than Crescendo, but you can set your team up to pick off a target (or more, if the bubble hits multiple people) by combining the two. Even if you miss the knockup window, the slow can still help. Plus, she has another slow in her E that can make it that much harder to escape a bubble, too.

ModUlanopoAug 4, 20146 votes

I've read several of your back and forth discussions with Fearless, and he repeatedly apologizes for what he thinks was a lack of interaction of his part.

You're misunderstanding me. He already admitted that he probably made a mistake prioritizing "bug fixes" so much over sharing his vision with the community. I'm glad he gets it. It's a really good sign in a dev.

My specific gripe is how often "you haven't given it a chance" or "that's too small a sample size" is used as a reason to discount someone's argument. If the chef at my favorite sushi restaurant retires, I shouldn't be told to keep trying the new dishes before voicing my opinion.

Now, I will admit that it wasn't until last night that I fully grokked some of the ramifications of the rework. I think it would have been helpful for Fearless to talk more about having moved so much of her power, but that's a side issue for me.

RiotRiot SotereAug 4, 20146 votes

I'm only one person, too! I'm happy to address your points but do take note that my opinion isn't necessarily shared by Fearless, or the Champion Update team. I was just a player who shared feedback throughout the update process.

Balancing her early game was a concern. I can't speak to the stats on the ultimate. Throughout her update a number of her iterations simply provided more burst and poke on her kit. When you give her access to that, she single-handedly dominates lanes.

We also noticed in testing that she and her laning partner were less susceptible to early all-ins thanks to the shield on Aria of Perseverance. Since the response to her poking nature was less successful, we had to make sure her poke wasn't overbearing when she was the sole contributor to aggression in a lane.

It's just stronger, in my opinion. Ahskance went into it below , but a nigh instant 1.5 second AOE Stun is huge. People joke a bit about Flash+Crescendo but the reason the combination is so prevalent is because it's so impactful. People do not have time to respond to it as they would many other ultimates, so its consistency makes it a strong choice for AOE and pick comps.
It's hard to communicate on forums. A lot of context is not readily apparent in each response. I can't admit/apologize for Fearless, even if I wanted to. I do know that being dismissive is the furthest thing from his mind.

However, the context that might be missing is that we don't expect updated Sona to be the best champion the first time you play her. She has her own learning curve. This includes optimizing her build, learning her new positioning, and even includes your allies respecting your new auras. Part of the beauty of League is that every time you play a champ you like, you get better at them.

The other bit of context is that we don't expect to be spot on with our changes. I have provided a ton of feedback through internal tests, yet, I only played her in 10-20 games. The amount of experience I have with her will be dwarfed by people who latch onto her playstyle over this weekend. The amount of games on Sona worldwide over the coming weeks will be gargantuan and from all of that combined feedback we will evaluate where she sits.

Hope that somewhat helps explain where I'm coming from.

ModUlanopoAug 4, 20145 votes

Balancing her early game was a concern. I can't speak to the stats on the ultimate. Throughout her update a number of her iterations simply provided more burst and poke on her kit. When you give her access to that, she single-handedly dominates lanes.

We also noticed in testing that she and her laning partner were less susceptible to early all-ins thanks to the shield on Aria of Perseverance. Since the response to her poking nature was less successful, we had to make sure her poke wasn't overbearing when she was the sole contributor to aggression in a lane.

I'm slowly coming around to understanding how the balance came to be, but it's going to be a while before I'm comfortable with the reasoning. Basically what I'm seeing is an enlarged version of the problems with Thresh's lantern. It's very difficult to balance abilities that are used on one or two people at some points and the whole team at others. You have to make the decision regarding which time frame is going to feel underwhelming.

Honestly, large portions of the rework feel like they were designed around the "nightmare scenario"

Her rank 1 Q or W can't be too strong or she'll distort the meta with level 1 invades.
Her shield has to be tightly controlled or else Ardent Censer will be too good.
Her laning poke has to be weaker because she adds so much damage to team fights.

I was talking about Sona with a friend and we ended up discussing how you can sometimes become wedded to an idea that's creative or innovative, but dangerously strong. You want to keep the idea, but you have to keep nerfing it so it doesn't spoil the game. The difficult thing is knowing when to stop and simply give up on the idea. I'm not saying that anything on the new kit needs to be scrapped, but that is the lens through which I am considering it.

Pika310Aug 4, 20142 votes

Yes, but while being cautious and erring on the side of safety is good, you can't pussy-foot to the point that your fear of a new Braum/Thresh completely cripples and hampers your project in its entirety. We see the consequences of that here, when nearly every change can be viewed as a nerf, with maybe 1 or 2 insignificant trade-offs that are utterly outweighed by the former.

Pika310Aug 4, 20141 votes

Part of the beauty of League is that every time you play a champ you like, you get better at them.

Even if you don't like champion, you still get better each time you play them. I hated having to use LeBlanc, but each game I still got better with her regardless.

Personally, I never grew to like LeBlanc and I don't miss being forced into playing her.

HellioningAug 4, 20147 votes

I get that, but I'm just not seeing it. Her W is good for sustain, but it's not great in a burst situation, which is what most of bot lane is nowadays. I get that you don't balance to the meta, but I can't just ask the opposing team 'hey, can you pick off the meta so I can figure out how Sona does against sustain lanes?' So I don't know how Sona does against any lane other than the hyper aggressive level 2 all ins.
Her ult is great, but there are other champs that have great teamfight ults too, and their normal abilities aren't weakened for it. While Nami's ult is weaker than Sona ult, I genuinely believe that Nami's entire kit is straight up better than Sona's entire kit.
While I see your point, as it'd take a while to get used to any major changes to a champ, even one you play a lot, I have to ask the question: If my previous experience on Sona, having played her frequently since I joined, is mostly inapplicable to the current Sona, is she still the same champ? If not, why should I keep playing her? True, it's not nearly as dramatic a change as the Karma one, who's basically a new champ with a few similar abilities, but I'm having more success playing her as a 'sit back, heal, and disengage' support as compared to the poking, 'war of attrition' style that I was used too. If I wanted to play that sort of champ, I have Janna and Soraka. I simply prefer the way old Sona played as compared to the current one.

XXnIE66RuiAug 4, 20145 votes

I'd just like to point out that Annie's ult can also deliver an instant AoE stun with the added effect of really massive damage depending on how she's built. Not only her ult, either - she has an instant AoE stun available to her in her W with a cooldown only as long as the rotation of her skills to proc her passive again (obviously a much smaller range and overall impact than either ult). I realize they're both very different characters, just pointing out that Annie can essentially do the same thing with her ult for half the mana cost and with a cooldown that's 20 seconds lower. Obviously, Crescendo reaches further, so the two skills aren't 100% comparable, but I still feel like Flash+Tibbers is more powerful considering it costs much less to use.

(A well positioned E from Syndra can do the same, but it's much, much more difficult to pull off properly, so it really only matters competitively or in really high elo, I think.)

AkaiNeko4Aug 4, 20141 votes

The "disconnect" comes from the communication. Like I said, it's the message we've been getting. Fearless pops into a thread at random, informs us that our opinions are wrong and his are right, and leaves. That's the majority of what I've seen. There's been no big stickied thread acknowledging our discontent, no similar reassurance that things can still change (possibly even back to how they were), no explanation for why a popular, fairly well-balanced Champ like Sona was chosen for this stupid rework rather than, say, Taric or Soraka (if a Support was specifically required), no explanation for why the PBE guys were apparently essentially lied to about how her PBE tenure was going to work. Just one guy, showing up from time to time in other people's threads, talking down to us and arguing badly (from the perspective of someone who won debate tournaments in high school).

Look, I don't play Sona. I don't "play" anyone except Riven. I'm level fucking 16. My issue isn't the gameplay balancing or some shit, I don't know shit about that. My issue is that Riot has done a terrible job interacting and dealing with the players. If I dealt with customers like this in either of my jobs, I'd be fired (and probably blackballed from a national organization), and it saddens, disturbs and infuriates me that a company like Riot, which seems to pride itself on its solid connection with its fans and players would drop the ball so hard on this.

EmosaAug 4, 20142 votes

New Sona is fine. I don't believe your sample size of 3 BOT games and 1 real one is enough to give an informed opinion on her current state. Riot's balance policy has skewed towards releasing champions on the stronger side so that players pick them up and they can tune accordingly, and I don't think this Sona rework is any different. You should really play more games, because my ( admittedly, anecdotal ) experiences in Diamond ranked tell me that she's A-OK and more impactful than ever.

Pika310Aug 4, 20144 votes

Your match history shows you've seen Sona in 3 ranked games. She fed 7 kills in one, lost 2 of them and had no impact in any of those games. If that's "A-OK", I'd hate to see what bad would looks like...

Then according to those players' match histories, they realized it was a lost cause and gave up trying her in favor of Alistar and Lulu.

FaerKhanAug 4, 20142 votes

You really think Riot would release a rework that's op? Pretty sure that's never happened.

JingerbeardmanAug 4, 20142 votes

I just want to come out and say that, even though all the other sona mains seem to dislike the changes, I as a former sona main really appreciate the direction she has been taken. She now has a much better identity that doesn't entirely revolve around her power chord and crescendo and provides a great deal more impact in teamfights compared to before... Ardent censor anyone?

She doesn't feel any where near as bursty as she used to with power chord and yes it is dearly missed at times but her new interactions I feel make up for that. I especially like the buff to her heal, even though I cant cast it as often I still feel like it is able to do just as much, if not more than before. So while I may be in the minority, great work!

To the rest that would much rather jump on the hate bandwagon, give the new sona more of a chance. No rework is going to come out feeling the exact same as before.

The5lackerAug 3, 20141 votes

So you use a sub-optimal champion as opposed to your main, fuck up constantly, and then prioritize the enemy ADC (Which you're supposed to do anyways)... And that's proof that the new Sona is underpowered? ... Sorry, I'm just trying to wrap my head around this.

FaerKhanAug 3, 20143 votes

You're a moron? Ulanopo mained old Sona, which means he/she's qualified to discuss the difference in apparent power.

ModUlanopoAug 3, 20146 votes

It's not necessary to call him a moron. It was clear that he was confused and that he wasn't really here to have a discussion, so I simply downvoted and ignored him.

FaerKhanAug 3, 20141 votes

Yeah, sorry. I was pretty hot about these changes and I went off on him. Riot's white knights annoy the heck out of me, especially because most of them weren't around when Riot actually listened to the community. (I've played since Beta)

The5lackerAug 4, 20141 votes

He could be the CEO of Riot itself and it doesn't change the fact that he is wrong. Not only wrong, but stupid and arrogant. "I didn't do well, but it must've been the champ, not the fact that I fucked up."

FaerKhanAug 4, 20142 votes

You're just a troll Riot white knight. The argument is about how the new playstyle feels terrible.

The5lackerAug 4, 20141 votes

I imagine it would to new Sona players: They have to do something other than sit there playing their harp and occasionally flashing in to stun the enemy team. How tragic, having to do things. I really do sympathize.

FaerKhanAug 4, 20144 votes

:sigh: I always forget not to feed the trolls....

Bad Sonas would play the way you describe. Good ones were much more active than that.

The5lackerAug 4, 20141 votes

You're right: They would Flash + Ult. And... ...Poke the enemy?

Explain to me how new Sona can't do that.

ModUlanopoAug 4, 20144 votes

You're always welcome to download the replay and make specific comments. I would welcome constructive criticism, but I did warn that "you suck" was going to be flatly ignored.