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Is there any hope for Sona players?

Orreos·1/23/2018, 4:15:08 AM·17 votes·4,294 views

To preface all of this, I've mained/one-tricked/whatevered Sona for the past 3 seasons. I have over 1,000,000 mastery on her alone and I can definitely say that right now she feels awful. Her overall winrate comes out to about 48% (ranging from 39.5% 0-20 min. to 56% at 40+), and the future looks bleak. Meddler has stated that they're looking at nerfing Manaflow Band, which at the moment Sona is super dependent on to not be constantly out of mana in lane, as well as Kleptomancy and Magical Footwear. These changes, while clearly not direct nerfs to Sona, would further weaken the tools she has to try to stay afloat early. Combined with the removal of Queen's Tribute (Frostfang quest reward) with the upcoming patch, things only seem to be going downhill.

Sona's early game feels awful to play through. She gets outclassed in lane at everything by specialist supports--and they do it all for less mana. While her late game is still good, the fact that you feel useless early basically counter-acts that. Even if she's a scaling champion now, she still has an absurdly low early win-rate for one. Nasus and Veigar, for example, both have 50% 0-20 minute winrates which generally scale up from there. In other words, she just feels like she suffers far too much for what her late game is.

I know that I'm not the only one who feels this way because I also frequent r/SonaMains as well as their Discord and have seen several threads with long time one-tricks leaving, to beginners asking whether learning Sona was worth it. The general sense I've gleamed from them and myself is one of despair and my real question is:

Is there anything planned?

Meddler has been silent on the matter of Sona in recent gameplay thoughts, other than the slight buff she's getting on the PBE (which is really just a partial revert of her mana cost nerf)--which he mentioned over a patch ago.

I hate to sound melodramatic, but seeing champions like Viktor and Volibear apparently fall by the wayside doesn't reassure me much. As much as I sympathize with them and am not trying to say that Sona deserves buffs any more than they do, I'd hate to see another champion fall to their level in the first place.

If it helps at all I feel like pretty much anyone who plays Sona (myself at the very least) would be perfectly happy with sacrificing some late power and actually giving her something early if necessary. Overall though, I (and many others) feel that Sona could really use some attention.

Thanks for reading!

64 Comments

Done251/23/2018, 4:32:55 AM16 votes

Sona's kit needs a real form of skill expressing before it can be allowed to be powerful.

RedCyclone1/23/2018, 5:03:13 AM10 votes

Sona is a victim to knee-jerk nerfs this preseason

All the damage has been done to her kit already and yet they are still nerfing every rune she touches, a great example of bias from Riots part as they did not drop the nerf hammer as hard on any other preseason offenders, everyone saw that Sona's winrates had normalised to around 52% before the destructive "kill her Q" nerfs, a lot of pro player rundowns on the patch questioned why the hell Sona was getting nerfed in the first place let alone it being such a severe nerf

The nerfs also heavily effected full AP Sona to the point where it cannot be played in botlane anymore because she needs so much gold to scale and you are more or less just a free bag of gold for the enemy botlane if they are smart

I fear for the future as I can't shake the feeling after the slight mana revert Sona is going to be doomed into mediocrity while everyone cites that a 48% winrate isn't bad and people tell you to play Nami instead if you want a better support, motherfucker i just wanna play my waifu

General Esdeath 1/23/2018, 4:56:29 AM3 votes

rework her already, we've done this dance so many times

lilneopolitan1/23/2018, 6:44:29 AM2 votes

Sona was the first support i picked up when i started getting sick of ADCing and honestly, she is by far the most fun support/champ i have ever played. i LOVE her, and i do agree with everything youve stated. i dont think it would be easy at all at this point to mid sona considering you can only use your Q to actually clear a wave at this point, and its barely even possible. she is in my opinion the ideal support with all her skills, but early game shes too unsafe. unless you know the champ youre matched up against in your lane to a T, youre absolutely toast. her w barely does anything in the beginning, her q is a great poke but nothing more, her e is great but severely misunderstood/overlooked but that might just be an elo thing, and DONT GET ME STARTED on teammates that rely on your R or W when you hit like Q twice and youre basically out of mana. All game, im basically investing in mana regen and some AP. she does need some help thats for sure.

Linna Excel1/23/2018, 5:01:56 PM2 votes

Rushing an early item 3070 seems to be your best option now.

hoyohai1/23/2018, 5:18:33 AM2 votes

You must push through

It doesn't matter how nerfed she gets you must push through

If you somehow win when she's this bad you'll demolish everyone when she gets buffed

Kubox1/23/2018, 7:29:10 AM2 votes

I've actually been having some form of success simply maxing heal. With the whole sustain meta we got bot right now, it doesn't turn her into a healbot (adcs can sustain for themselves) as much as simply makes her able to brush off weak ganks as well as make her stronger in longer fights. Damage is still acceptable as Sona's passive was always the bigger beast and, while it's still a noticeable impact, it does look healthier than before.

Sona should also not be affected too much by the coming Klepto nerfs, as from what I'm understanding, Meddler's comment was about making it give less items to the biggest abusers of the items (GP, Ez), so I'm assuming that means item gains themselves are gonna get a cooldown. Since Sona tends to stay away from AAs until her passive, I would assume that she would not be affected by this outside of skirmishes (which is where Klepto can get dumb anyway).

All this to say, while she's no longer as good, I don't think she's hopeless. The Manaflow changes could hurt her, but that's in the same patch as no more Sightstone (Lack of Spellthief quest does scare me a bit though, as that was amazing on her, but that would apply to 90% of it's users). As a bonus, as long as ADCs are building Relic's, she gets to get her items much easier, which definitely helps a ton.

PokladnicaZla1/23/2018, 9:48:29 AM2 votes

I just checked her statistics on LoLKing for Diamond and she seems to hold a fairly decent winrate. She seems to suck on EUNE,but on NA,EW and KR she's doing fine.

GrayBlood1/24/2018, 7:23:18 AM1 votes

It gives you +15 mana now so auto attacking is better.

Don Lupus1/23/2018, 8:20:26 AM1 votes

Sona is basically a faceroll champ that gets a lot of damage and healing power more or less for free and with a lot of safety. She needs to position and to watch her mans and that's it. Any other supports need to do that and their skills demand more than just to press a button. Early game she can destroy a Soraka with her Q/Powerchord and then heal without trading more than mana. So I don't think she deserves any buffs that give her even more safety/power

Daddy Tie Me Up1/23/2018, 10:23:40 AM1 votes

Sona is for thrash players and it should be treated like a thrash. No spamming your keyboard in teamfight isnt skill. No counting to 3 isnt sill. No hitting ult wide as lane isnt skill. If sona feels awful to you then it should be that way. Along with Janna and Soraka, those 3 champs should be thrash tier simply for how simple their kits are. Highest sona, soraka, janna main should not be higher than silver 1.

Jerry SeinfeId1/23/2018, 12:29:11 PM1 votes

Tbf she's just downright annoying. You press a button and all the counterplay to it is "don't be near her". I main jinx and singed so i'm really not gonna talk about skillshots but sona takes it even further by not even having to target someone.

This makes it hard to balance her. She'll faceroll lower elo's once she becomes strong. She's also just not fun to play against. She hits hard and hits you easily. The only thing you have to keep in mind is which powered autoattack you use and your ult.

Tbh she can keep her aura playstyle on both the MS boost and heal but her aura damage REALLY has to go imo. turn it into a heimer style skillshot maybe?

Rathar Dashing1/23/2018, 2:14:30 PM1 votes

Are you still maxing Q first on Sona? I've found that if I go Q-W-E-Max W-Max Q-Max E then she feels much better in lane, since the nerfs to her Q are much less noticeable here. Her passive still deals considerable damage, and all that extra healing really helps out in lane, protecting you from ganks, poke lanes, and allowing you to survive until you hit the late game.