Poke heavy aggressive Sona is a thing of the past now?

RedCyclone·Aug 29, 2017·7 votes·1,140 views

Atleast I feel like if you do not build "attached to ADC" your ass will get reported

This was one of the main reasons I loved playing Sona, she was a really good bully and could even carry games when she had a bunch of AP under her belt Nowadays poke means nothing because ADC's have so much damn sustain even without buying into lifesteal, it's disgusting

Sona always had 2 playstyles of being passive and aggressive, the latter is being pushed out in favor of a Sona who chooses to have as little enemy team interaction as possible and an incredibly stale and toxic way of playing, supports are now expected to be the ADC's extra item slots and if you don't then you will probably be flamed and reported just like every time someone sees me rushing a Lich over Ardent

I'd happily take a Sona nerf at this point, but I don't think she is the problem

17 Comments

La Belle SauvageAug 29, 20173 votes

I main Sona, the poke still works for me.

LankPantsAug 29, 20172 votes

You main Sona in Bronze, anything can be made to work in Bronze.

The simple fact right now is that the optimal way to play Sona is Coin>Censor. Once you have Coin and Censor you already have increased heal/shield and you don't have much AP, so your best option becomes Redemption at that point. You could probably slot in a Revolver for poke at some point, but I'm not convinced it's better than just buying more cheap broken support items.

AuraCreedAug 29, 20172 votes

I stopped playing Sona regularly around the time they did a mini rework of her abilities along with Leona. They took away the one thing I loved about playing as her - all that lovely poke damage that harassed people out of lane - and gave her more cdr and bigger auras to compensate. From what I've noticed you can still play a pokey sort of style but it doesn't do enough damage to make it worth it for me anymore - definitely not as satisfying as it used to be.

BALDG1VEN BOOMERAug 29, 20171 votes

If you can get a couple items what I suggest is Ardent, Redemption into Grail because of the AP passive, those items should stack up to about 200 - 250 AP, while still playing an enchanter based style.

RedCycloneAug 29, 20171 votes

250 AP really doesn't suffice when you plan to play her as a hard poker, I view her AP support build as a race to keep your AP and damage relevant at certain stages of the game, something that really can't be done when Coin generates so much more money then STE I enjoy the high risk high reward playstyle a heavy AP Sona has, but why even bother with high risk when you can just do the low risk high reward passive playstyle

chipndip1Aug 29, 20171 votes

Play Brand? Sona was always meant to be a mix between offense and defense, with her comparably high damage Q and her W heal/shield. Even if you wanted to build ap heavy, skipping Ardent/Athene's is just blatantly unwise.

Lord knows I've gone back to stacking tears for Seraph's Embrace. Depending on my final build, I can have up to like 400 ap.

BALDG1VEN BOOMERAug 29, 20171 votes

250 AP is enough suffice enough to poke an ADC down for about 40% of their health. Stacked power chord can equate to about half their health.

Lewd NeekoAug 29, 20171 votes

Whenever I play Sona, I still focus on poking. Even with just an Ardent Censer, a Q-empowered auto still does a good amount of damage to the enemy adc.

chipndip1Aug 29, 20171 votes

I mean, you still poke and shit, but Spellthief's/mid laner build Sona is a thing of the past now, yes. Even if they buff STE back into being useful (which they won't), mid laner builds are still history.

OleandervineAug 29, 20171 votes

I build Sona as an aggressive poke all the time. I usually combine the knife into the Sightstone and then go pure AP, with maybe Ardent, though generally I find that she does a helluva lot better almost murdering opponents than she does with her heals. Her heal is pretty weak, and you'd have to invest a lot of gold into the Idol objects to really make it worthwhile early on. It's easier to invest in pure AP, and just have the healing be a bonus, rather than the focus.

crzymdscntstAug 29, 20171 votes

I played Sona recently and all I could think, wow, they really trashed these cooldowns and mana costs now.

Sona suffers a lot as a support compared to how her original design felt so good to play without being too power-heavy.

MawootadAug 29, 20171 votes

Damage Sona is still the best Sona build though, it's just weaker because your first 3k gold worth of items contains a whopping 60 ap as your only relevant combat stats.

13900 EssenceAug 30, 20171 votes

You are actually being forced to use other abilities than your q?

Must be hard.

RexxieeAug 30, 20171 votes

Rush ardent and tear, spam W on CD.

Literal freelo.

RedCycloneAug 30, 20171 votes

You are right, I have won much more games by doing this then going AP (what I have been doing for years) Super easy to abuse, super annoying to play against

CalabokAug 30, 20171 votes

they better not make her Poke so good at early stages. would be totally unbaslanvcerddfkjhkled

RedCycloneAug 30, 20171 votes

If you read between the lines this isn't a thread about buffing Sona's damage, it's that item changes, ADC changes and expected playstyles have rendered a once perfectly okay build to be a troll build