Sona's new rework

Nymzo··3 votes·989 views

I started playing since the end of season 3, I had a little bit of experience in the moba games before (an arcade game in sc2 named Hero Attack) and support was and will always be my favorite role. The first support that I ever played and how I learned to play the role with was Sona. After the failure that was her rework, followed by the ''buffs'' 2 years later that made her op for a patch before nerfing her to the ground again. So I decided to do a better job than a group of adults by giving her a proper rework.

What are the rework's goals?

  1. Keep her theme of being a support that plays music
  2. Remove a little bit of power in her lane bully potiential
  3. Give her new tools that allow her to be an Enchanter and a Debuffer
  4. She will not have a complex kit but she will have decision making now (instead of spamming the keyboard).
  5. Edit: Forgot to mention she will not have any auras, I just wanted to see what would happen if she didn't have any.

Passive: Etwhal Sona has the possibility to play 3 songs with her Etwhal, each song has no effect on Sona or her allies. However, her songs add additional effects on her basic abilities.

Sona can play: Hymn of Valor (blue), Aria of Perseverence (green) or Song of Celerity (pink)

You can choose the songs that you would want to play like Kindred can choose their target but instead of champions, it's songs.

Sona can switch between songs, even in combat. However, each song has its own cd: 20 second at level 1 to level 6.

(This is mean that early game, you will have to be careful when using a song because the long cd can cause your downfall)

**Q: Power Chord ** Sona plays a note forward in a straight line, damaging an enemy and debuffing them depending of the song that Sona is currently playing

Staccato (blue): The note collides at the first unit it hits, the target takes 10% dmg from all sources

Dimmuendo (green): The note collides at the first enemy champion, the target deals 10% less dmg

Tempo (pink): The note pass through all units, dealing dmg and slowing them by 10%

(Sona main dmg ability with a little bit of utility, now a skillshot, can use while moving)

W: Help note Sona plays a note to help an ally, the effect of the note depends on the song that Sona is currently playing.

Augmmento (blue): Ally has his main dmg source (Ad or Ap, calculated like the dragon buff or Camille's passif) increase by 15% for 3 seconds

Protecto (green): Ally receives 20% less dmg for 3 seconds (or he can be a shield, I'm not really sure)

Rapido (pink): Ally has his movement speed increase by 20% for 3 seconds

(Sona main support ability, the only point and click in her kit, can be use while moving)

E: Heal music Sona heals an ally with a different music, healing them for an amount until they are full life. This ability will drain 5 mana per second, interrupt any songs that Sona is playing, can be interrupt by any source of dmgs and will immobolise Sona for the duration unless canceled by the player.

(This is basically a huge heal that is probably better that you don't use while in combat, this probably not the best idead but eh).

R: Crescendo Passive: Reduce the cooldowns of all of Sona's songs by 5 sec (15 at level 6, 10 at level 11 and 5 at level 6)

Active: Sona plays an irresistible chord in a line, dealing magic damage to enemy champions and stunning them for 1.5 seconds, forcing them to dance for the duration.

(The ult is bigger than it is now but smaller than it was before the rework)

The numbers that I give are only use as an example.

Hope you like it if you like Sona, I hope you also like it if you hate being lane bullying by Sona xD.

11 Comments

You Disgust Me3 votes

Hold on for a second. Why are you complaining about Sona being a lane bully if you claim that she was nerfed to the ground? If she is as nerfed as you say, then there shouldn't be an issue here. Why even propose a rework? You should easily defeat her in lane.

I have a few discrepancies about your argument:

First, you seem to have a completely surface level bias interpretation of Sona's current gameplay. This "Button Mashing" you refer to is not how you should play Sona. Sona's skills are very situational and cost quite a bit of Mana. She can't support spamming her skills recklessly. What separates a good Sona from an average/bad Sona is knowing which skills to use in the right situations, especially with her Power Chord. Another thing, she needs to choose her openings and position well to harass very carefully. She's not a very tanky or mobile champion, and can easily be gimped by champions with dashes, high damage, or strong CC. She's not as mindless as you think.

Second, this proposed "rework" of yours doesn't give much information making it very difficult to critique. You didn't provide any damage numbers/skill level scalings/cooldown or costs. Also the skills don't synergize very well. They are very clunky and don't mesh together at all. From what you propose, her Q will be her primary source of harass (with little to no damage) rather than combining them with auto attacks. Her utility is also very unreliable... In summary, she's either just going to literally just waiting around for her CDs and harassing with little to no damage or standing still and healing an ally. This doesn't seem very fun to play nor does it add much strategic gameplay.

It is important for you to remember that a rework is a potential change that attempts to achieve a greater realization of a champion's design/identity and undermine any potential flaws while providing a unique and fun gameplay experience. Your proposal is huge step backward.

TLDR; Sona is already a unique champion. She's an aggressive Aura-Controller-Support/Mage champion. Overall, I think she's in a relatively decent spot right now and does not need a rework.

Nymzo1 votes

[{quoted}](name=The Stupid One,realm=NA,application-id=A8FQeEA8,discussion-id=PuBk16Rp,comment-id=0000,timestamp=2017-03-18T05:37:52.067+0000)

Hold on for a second. Why are you complaining about Sona being a lane bully if you claim that she was nerfed to the ground? If she is as nerfed as you say, then there shouldn't be an issue here. Why even propose a rework? You should easily defeat her in lane.

No what I meant is that her nature of a strong lane bully was the reason why she got reworked (and the rework nerfed her auras) and the rework changed everything except the lane bully. I never had a problem with Sona herself, only that I can't dodge her constant harass.

Thought I think I went a little bit too harsh, I'll change that part.

I have a few discrepancies about your argument:

First, you seem to have a completely surface level bias interpretation of Sona's current gameplay. This "Button Mashing" you refer to is not how you should play Sona. Sona's skills are very situational and cost quite a bit of Mana. She can't support spamming her skills recklessly. What separates a good Sona from an average/bad Sona is knowing which skills to use in the right situations, especially with her Power Chord. Another thing, she needs to choose her openings and position well to harass very carefully. She's not a very tanky or mobile champion, and can easily be gimped by champions with dashes, high damage, or strong CC. .

The problem is that because of her current passif and numbers, you will almost always use Staccato instead of the other 2. Yes you may need to use Tempo is you need to catch a fleeing enemy but aside for that, there's no reason to use it over Staccato. And dont get me started on Dimmuendo, the travel time make it difficult to use effectively (on spells like Lucian q, sometimes it's fast enough)

There's also because unlike all the other Enchanters, her heal is... average at best. Building utility on her is very weird while building Ap make her harass more powerful while slighly upgrating her utility.

Which is why I would turn Power Shord into a skillshot while also increasing its travel speed.

Second, this proposed "rework" of yours doesn't give much information making it very difficult to critique. You didn't provide any damage numbers/skill level scalings/cooldown or costs.

I'm very bad with numbers so I didn't want to waste too much time on that. But I would say her base dmg would be strong, her levels scaling increase a little bit the dmg while also decreasing the cd while also increasing the mana cost, of course.

Also the skills don't synergize very well. They are very clunky and don't mesh together at all.

I don't know what you mean, there's a ton of different combos of notes that you can use together alone with her ult.

From what you propose, her Q will be her primary source of harass (with little to no damage) rather than combining them with auto attacks.

Her Q will have the same power as the current Staccato, it will just be a skillshot along with the additional effect of the song.

Her utility is also very unreliable... In summary, she's either just going to literally just waiting around for her CDs and harassing with little to no damage or standing still and healing an ally. This doesn't seem very fun to play nor does it add much strategic gameplay.

Again, I don't know what you mean, all you have to do is to lane a very fast skillshot on someone, while also using a point and click spellon an ally while also using it a powerful ult? Her heal is better use out of combat unless you like to live at risk.

Which won't happen because her cd are still short? The cd of a song is the only thing that she has to ''wait'', except that late game, all 3 will have 5 sec cd so...

It is important for you to remember that a rework is a potential change that attempts to achieve a greater realization of a champion's design/identity and undermine any potential flaws while providing a unique and fun gameplay experience. Your proposal is huge step backward.

It is also important that you actually look at the rework: I keep her design, hell I would argue that I did a better job at Riot on that part. Flaws I found them, and I tried to get rid of them while giving her new tool that fit her theme.

I'm not sure if you actually looked at the rework, because you sound more like you got triggered by my words, which is my bad, because all you said is actually in there.

I don't know, I removed her auras because I've been told that auras are difficult to balance so I tried a rework without the said auras

The problem is that I had a good idea about her auras but Blizzard was already a step above me and made a support around this a few months ago.

But maybe if her q and w had a little bit of cd while also resetting every time she switchs to another song.

zero3561 votes

Couple of things, will come back later

One: As a Sona main as well, implying that anything other than Staccato is the right choice 90% of the time is wrong. Two: NUMBERS MEAN SHIT. A good kit needs no numbers. The numbers come later and match the state of the game. Balance issues generally arise from the core of the ability. Third: I can generally concur with the lack of cohesion and hit-or-miss utility

Arakadia1 votes

Sona wasn't nerfed into the ground. And this tework takes away her flexible play style

chipndip11 votes

Honestly...this didn't sound half bad at all.

Quick notes, though:

  • Remove the scaling power shit from her ult. This has been a major issue in Sona's design and I don't know why people keep doing that. Official rework or otherwise.

  • Yeah, that E sounds horrible.

But the Q, W, and Passive sound legitimately cool.

Nymzo1 votes

{quoted}

Honestly...this didn't sound half bad at all.

Quick notes, though:

  • Remove the scaling power shit from her ult. This has been a major issue in Sona's design and I don't know why people keep doing that. Official rework or otherwise.

You mean the cd scaling of her songs in her ult? I wasn't sure if that was necessery or not.

  • Yeah, that E sounds horrible.

Honestly, I had no clues what to give her for her E. I hesitated between multiples things such as a shield but I went for the massif out of combat heal because nobody has one like this yet.

But the Q, W, and Passive sound legitimately cool.

Thanks.

Akenero1 votes

Bring in the vero

Veroxid1 votes

The specifics may need a bit of rework, but the general idea seems interesting. As for the comments of you saying she's rather broken or useless, I'm going to ignore those since everybody else already has that covered.


As for the specifics:

Passive: Etwhal Sona has the possibility to play 3 songs with her Etwhal, each song has no effect on Sona or her allies. However, her songs add additional effects on her basic abilities.

Sona can play: Hymn of Valor (blue), Aria of Perseverence (green) or Song of Celerity (pink)

You can choose the songs that you would want to play like Kindred can choose their target but instead of champions, it's songs.

Sona can switch between songs, even in combat. However, each song has its own cd: 20 second at level 1 to level 6.

(This is mean that early game, you will have to be careful when using a song because the long cd can cause your downfall)

This is what I was talking about earlier: an interesting and potentially cool concept, but I'm not sure if Riot will ever implement a champion to have so many different abilities.

Beyond this though, for organization purposes, I'm going to split her kit based off her passive, not on her abilities. The fact that they have such a huge CD means that the respective abilities will basically be a different kit almost. Since the ult is basically the same as her current one, I won't comment on it.


Blue

Q: Power Chord The target takes damage. The note collides at the first unit it hits, the target takes 10% dmg from all sources.

W: Help note Ally has his main dmg source (Ad or Ap, calculated like the dragon buff or Camille's passive) increase by 15% for 3 seconds.

So this is the "Aggressive" passive, I'm assuming. Increasing damage to an enemy while increasing damage to your ally? I don't know. I feel like it should be the other way around in a way. Basically, make it so that Q on the blue passive increases damage dealt, but W decreases damaged received on allies. Switching it around this way will especially fit well with how the purple passive already works, which I'll explain later.


Green

Q: Power Chord The note collides at the first enemy champion, the target deals 10% less dmg.

W: Help note Ally receives 20% less dmg for 3 seconds (or it can be a shield, I'm not really sure).

For the sake of consistency with how the other two passives work, let's make it increased armor/mr. I continue with what I said with the previous one. Instead of making Staccato the "Aggressive" mode and "Protecto" the "Passive" mode, switch one of the abilities around. This way it will work something like this:

Blue: Q increases damaged received; W decreases damaged received.

Green: Q decreases damaged given; W increases damage given.

Basically, it works on what's being received or given instead of what's more aggressive or passive. This will help it sync better with her purple passive.


Purple

Q: Power Chord The note pass through all units, dealing dmg and slowing them by 10%

W: Help note Ally has his movement speed increase by 20% for 3 seconds

I kind of already ended up saying everything about this with Blue and Green. Changing it away from Aggressive/Passive will actually leave more room for her abilities to do more individually. This will also give her more reasons to potentially want to change her passive mode while in combat. As is, her passive acts more as "Are they mostly a damage dealing team or a defensive team?"


"E" I left until now because they are unaffected by what mode her passive is in.

E: Heal music Sona heals an ally with a different music, healing them for an amount until they are full life. This ability will drain 5 mana per second, interrupt any songs that Sona is playing, can be interrupt by any source of dmgs and will immobolise Sona for the duration unless canceled by the player.

Keep her heal as-is. This change is unnecessary in my opinion.


Overall I'd say that this is a very interesting concept that if it isn't done to Sona could potentially be used as a completely different champion if balanced correctly.

Viper0171 votes

Couple of things.

  1. "Help note" and "Heal music" are really dumb names for abilities.
  2. What on earth is a Power "Shord"?
Nymzo1 votes

[{quoted}](name=Adobe Ghost,realm=NA,application-id=A8FQeEA8,discussion-id=PuBk16Rp,comment-id=0005,timestamp=2017-03-22T14:27:46.089+0000)

Couple of things.

  1. "Help note" and "Heal music" are really dumb names for abilities.
  2. What on earth is a Power "Shord"?
  1. I made them on the spot, don't mind me
  2. A typo
zero3561 votes

To start, I won't say I like "switching" the way her kit works, but I'm not opposed to it; I'll probably work some with the idea myself later.

As for problems and comments, for Q, hitting the first target makes it much more difficult to use because the first person is likely a tank or an assassin. Hitting an assassin is great, and a niche, but elsewhere the Q falls flat. Another thing you didn't consider with it is minions. This point is especially true for people who want to play Sona midlane. The fact that she doesn't and wasn't given any waveclear is also a point, but is irrelevant here.

W: I'm assuming this is point and click and I'm generally ok with it.

E: IDK. I would put the heal on W (as it is) but the new W also fits so. I like the idea of massive AOE heal. But, Janna already does that to an extent (not as much, but worth noting) and Rito would probably never swing for this. They generally hate heals. The other problem is that it breaks the pattern you had going, with the current song affecting it. Maybe move her auras into this with the aura based on the song? That could work. No massive AOE heal, but that could maybe be fit in new W or some other work around.

Speaking of Auras. No. Just No. Those stay somewhere. From a thematic standpoint, music as an aura is quite appropriate.

And to finish, shameless self-promotion of my own Sona Rework Idea https://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/gameplay-balance/JqtuhBZT-sona-rework-idea Supposedly, based on another post I saw, this idea is actually somewhat common. I've only seen mine and his though, so IDK. Anyway, maybe you'll like it.

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