Sona Rework Concept

First of all, I want to preface this entire post by saying that I am not a fantastic player. I’m not even a very good player. I’m an average player that doesn’t often, if ever, play ranked who loves Sona. She was one of the earliest champions I unlocked and is the support I choose when I don’t want to play something more dexterous. Despite the last rework to her abilities, I still play her more often than any other supports I own, but since there have been experimental changes to her in PBE, I felt like this was the right time to lay down all of my thoughts on Sona as a champion. While I think that her current iteration is okay, I believe that she could be so much more if her identity as a musical champion was pushed even further.

Things I like about Sona:

• She’s mechanically easy to play
• Her abilities are easy to understand (blue = offensive, green = defense, purple = mobility)
• Power Chord’s effect changes depending on the last song used
• Her ultimate is awesome and impactful

Things I don’t like about Sona:

• Her auras aren’t actually auras
• Obtaining Power Chord encourages arbitrary, spammy gameplay
• The amount of decision making she actually has is extremely low. The only actual decision you ever need to make is which Power Chord you want to use.
• Activating a single basic ability during a fight is completely arbitrary due to her desire to tag allies and build power chord stacks as often as possible. In other words, she almost always wants to activate her abilities straight off cooldown, so you might as well use a macro that constantly presses QWE for you (I definitely wish I had one when I played her in URF).

Conceptual Goal: To expand on Sona’s identity as a true musical aura champion while having to make clear, impactful decisions with which auras to keep active.

P - Power Chord Aura: Sona’s basic abilities create a musical aura around her with a range of 500 that empowers her and all allied champions who enter its radius. When a song is activated, her other basic abilities go on a 2-second global cooldown. When a new song is activated, all effects of the previous song are cancelled.

Power Chord: While a song is in effect, Sona’s basic attacks are empowered, and attacking the same target 3 times within 3? seconds of each attack increases the Power Chord’s potency. Once a target has been attacked 3 times, they cannot be affected by Power Chord again for 10 seconds.

Q - Hymn of Valor Range: 850 Mana Cost: 50 mana + 10/15/20/25/30 per second Cooldown: 12 seconds Effect: Upon activation, Sona sends two bolts of sound that deal 40/80/120/160/200 (+0.5 AP) magic damage to the nearest enemies, prioritizing champions. While active, Sona and all allies within the aura’s range deal a bonus 8/16/24/32/40 (+0.1 AP) on their basic attacks and abilities.

Power Chord: Staccato - Sona’s basic attacks deal 16-50 (based on level) (+0.1 AP) bonus magic damage. On the third hit on the same target, Staccato deals 24-75 (based on level) (+0.2 AP) bonus magic damage to the target and all enemies within 250 range of the target.

W - Aria of Perseverance Range: 500 Mana Cost: 70 mana + 16/22/28/34/40 per second Cooldown: 14 seconds Effect: Upon activation, Sona shields herself and all allies within range for 40/55/70/85/100 (+0.3 AP) damage for 1.5 seconds. While active, Sona and all allies within the aura’s range heal for 3/3.5/4/4.5/5% (+0.5% per 100 AP) of their missing health every second.

Power Chord: Diminuendo - Sona’s basic attacks reduce the target’s damage dealt by 5% (+1% per 100 AP) for 2 seconds. On the third hit on the same target, Diminuendo reduces the target’s damage dealt by 10/15/20% (at levels 1/11/16) (+2% per 100 AP) and their attack speed by 5/10/15% (at levels 1/11/16) (+2% per 100 AP) for 2 seconds.

E - Song of Celerity Range: 500 Mana Cost: 40 + 8/12/16/20/24 per second Cooldown: 12 seconds Effect: Upon activation, Sona gains 30/35/40/45/50% (+5% per 100 AP) bonus movement speed that decays to the aura’s bonus over 3 seconds. While active, Sona and all allies within the aura’s range gain 8/9/10/11/12% (+2.5% per 100 AP) movement speed.

Power Chord: Tempo - Sona’s basic attacks slow her target by 10/15/20% (at levels 1/11/16) (+2% per 100 AP), decaying over 2 seconds. On the third hit on the same target, Tempo roots the target for 0.75/1/1.25 (at levels 1/11/16) seconds.

R - Crescendo Range: 1000 Mana Cost: 100 Cooldown: -- Passive Effect: Sona passively gains stacks of (insert relevant musical word here) (max. 100) at a rate of 1 stack per second, increasing to 1.5 stacks per second while she has a song active (achieving 100 stacks in 100 seconds if no song is ever played, or 67 seconds if a song is always active). Each stack of (~) increases the strength of her auras by .15/.2/.25% (max. 15/20/25%).

Active Effect: Sona expends 100 stacks to play an irresistibly loud chord in a line, dealing 150/250/350 (+0.5 AP) magic damage to enemy champions and stunning them for 1.5 seconds, forcing them to dance for the duration.

Thoughts on Sona and the changes I made: The numbers I chose are probably kind of wonky. Maybe some of them are too high, maybe some of them are too low. I obviously cannot properly balance theoretical numbers that are impossible for me to test. The point is the focus on her musical auras and how they affect her gameplay while keeping the integrity of her theme as a musician. Thematically, I always found it kind of weird that after her rework, she didn’t really play music anymore. Sure, she’d strum a few chords on her instrument and a burst of magical music would come out, but that’s it. It’s just a burst of music, not actual songs.

Before her rework, she had persistent auras, which made sense because she was playing a constant song that empowered her allies like any bard-type character would in other games. However, these persistent auras were removed due to being impactful, but not clearly so, resulting in a lack of clarity on how much impact a player was actually having on their team. Because of this, they were replaced with the new, temporary auras that basically made you play tag with your allies.

I believe this was a result of several factors. First, the pre-rework auras were free after the initial cast. This made very little sense since they basically gave free stats at no expense to anyone. As a result, the auras themselves could not be very strong or else they would be deemed too powerful. Second, the pre-rework auras were able to persist even after switching to a different song. This is where the weird power creep / team impact thing came from, in my opinion. Because auras could persist for a couple seconds after changing songs, you could, with enough cooldown reduction, have multiple song auras up at the same time almost constantly. Compounding with the first factor, since each aura was sort of weak on its own, they were much stronger while combined resulting in unclear impactfulness. Third, the pre-rework auras were just visually bad. Because of their visual effects, it was completely unclear as to who was actually affected by your auras despite their massive range, which made them feel weak when they were actually strong because of point two.

Next, I’d like to talk about her Power Chord. For pretty much the entirety of League of Legend’s existence, the concept of stacking abilities or basic attacks to gain a bonus effect has been present (i.e. Annie’s stun, Vayne’s Silver Bolts). Some make thematic sense, others feel kind of arbitrary, but Sona’s feels the most forced. The fact that Sona’s power chord relies on using three basic abilities encourages the face roll nature of her play style. I believe the arbitrary nature of this stacking prerequisite is what resulted in the persistence of her old auras after switching. The effect of the power chord relying on the current active song is a great thematic piece to her character, but the constant switching of songs to quickly acquire it goes against the concept of having auras in the first place.

Crescendo is fine. It's her iconic ability and I didn't change it much.

Now to speak of the conceptual changes I made and the reasoning behind them, beginning with her basic abilities. Since toggle abilities already exist, it would make much more sense for magical songs that empower allies to cost mana per second. I decided that by adding a mana per second cost to her basic abilities, larger and more powerful auras would be justified. Since her visual update, the clarity in her aura effects now properly displays who is within range and empowered by her auras, allowing all players to see a clear impact in what the Sona is doing. In addition, I tied her power chord passive to each individual song, so they would still be unique to the active but stack on basic attacks instead of skill usage. This is to discourage switching songs if you really want to get that big power chord effect. To compensate, I felt as though having an active song should always affect her basic attack--not only sometimes--hence the smaller effects before the big third hit on the same target. Activating songs, switching songs, and knowing which songs suit the current situation should be an actual decision, not just some arbitrary thing you do to gain power chord stacks.

Hymn of Valor, her Q, didn’t change too much. She still deals damage to the nearest two enemies, but her aura now affects the damage of both basic attacks and damaging abilities. The Staccato Power Chord now deals magic damage per hit, and on the third hit becomes a small nuke that deals area damage around the target as well. My goal with Hymn of Valor was to make Sona a real offensive instigator, creating an aura that encourages fighting in the form of skirmishes, dives, and lane trading.

Aria of Perseverance, her W, probably changed the most. I flipped the heal and the shield, so that the shield is the one that comes out on activation. I decided that the aura would better off being the heal. I specifically chose the healing to be based on missing health, rather than flat health or max health, so that the amount healed would always be proportional to your allies’ health while also being less powerful while near max health so it wouldn’t need some out of combat healing condition like Garen’s passive. The Diminuendo Power Chord still reduces the target’s damage output slightly, and on the third hit becomes a powerful mini-Exhaust. My goal with Aria of Perseverance was to offer Sona a real defensive ability that allows her to keep her allies healthy and try to keep the edge in a team fight or siege, or just get allies back to full health when not fighting.

Song of Celerity, her E, is pretty much exactly the same. The movement speed on activation mirrors that of the movement speed that was recently experimented in the PBE, while the aura is lower than on live because of the persistent effect. The only real change is in her Tempo Power Chord. One of Sona’s biggest gripes is that outside of her ultimate, Sona has virtually no crowd control. In a game that is now littered with ridiculous movement options, hitting or missing her ultimate in a crucial moment is one of the most hyperbolic situations tied to a major long cool down. By having a slow on hit and a short root on the third hit, this alleviates the pressure Sona has on relying on her ultimate. I chose a root over a stun because I felt that a stun would be too oppressive, allowing the rooted target to fight back despite having their movement taken away. My goal with Song of Celerity was to allow Sona to provide engage and disengage potential to her teammates while also having an alternate crowd control option to lock down stragglers or slow down aggressors.

As a side note, Power Chord only deals damage with Staccato, while Hymn of Valor is active. My versions of Diminuendo and Tempo do not deal any bonus magic damage, and only have their bonus effects.

Finally, her ultimate, Crescendo. Honestly, I didn’t need to change this at all. It’s her iconic ability, and it’s fine as it currently is. However, since I was changing everything else anyway, I decided to shake it up to further her theme as a musician. A crescendo in musical terms is a gradual increase in loudness in a piece of music, or more specifically, the loudest point in a piece of music that was preceded by a gradual increase in loudness. I thought this could be simulated by adding a stacking passive that gradually increases the power of her auras. As a trade-off, she must spend all stacks to activate Crescendo and stun her enemies. This creates a decision in keeping her powered up auras or activating a powerful crowd control spell.

Possible Concerns: Her mana costs are too high/low! Her cooldowns are too long/short! Her numbers are ridiculously overpowered/underpowered! As I mentioned earlier, the numbers I chose were somewhat arbitrary and based on her current existing numbers and values found on other champion skills. Obviously, I have no way of actually testing these numbers unless I do some serious theory crafting with various possible builds and damage calculations. The numbers are besides the point. What matters to me is her thematic design, gameplay, and identity as a musical aura champion. As such, I based her changes on those three things and not a bunch of calculations. Numbers are easy to tweak, design choices are not.

She looks really strong as a mid/marksman/wherever! To that I say, Yeah probably. With the changes I made to her Power Chord and persistent auras, she probably would excel in other roles where she has access to more gold. This is largely because of the design I gave her. Much like Lulu, it would probably be a numbers game that allows her to excel in roles other than support, but would that really be a bad thing? As long as she’s a fantastic support and only good or okay in other roles rather than being fantastic in multiple roles, I think it would be alright for her to see some shine in other areas.

She’s so mechanically boring/easy! Of course. In my honest opinion, a champion like Sona shouldn’t be mechanically difficult. By design, I feel like that wouldn’t fit an aura champion unless you changed her abilities to turn into a rhythm game. Her difficulty should be in the decisions she makes with her songs and power chords, not how well she sequences or aims her abilities. Should I reduce the damage of multiple enemies, or focus on a single threat? Do I amp up my team’s damage to finish the fight quickly, or do I activate my healing aura to out attrition the enemy? Should I use Crescendo to stun the enemies, or are my auras powerful enough to turn the tide without it? On paper, these look like simple decisions, but that’s what they should be. Simple decisions that need to be made during high pressure situations.

Her auras create too much visual clutter! Honestly, this is the only possible concern I don’t have an answer for. Her current visual effects are perfect to clearly show which allies are being empowered, but if they’re both larger and persistent, it could cause some issues with the visibility of other champion abilities.

Final Thoughts: Sona is a simple and easy champion to play, and that’s okay. She’s a great beginner champion that shouldn’t require an immense amount of dexterity to play. I don’t think the conceptual changes I made are perfect. I merely believe that it is the direction that should be explored if Sona ever does get reworked. Personally, I value the themes and identities of champions, and they should be pushed as much as they can. Sometimes the identity of a champion dictates their abilities, and other times, their abilities help solidify the champion’s identity. The important thing to me is that their identity and abilities are unified. In her current iteration, Sona’s identity and abilities aren’t unified. She’s a musician, but she doesn’t really have musical auras. She sort of has burst damage, but she isn’t a burst mage. All in all, I think what Sona really needs is a push in a single direction that really unifies her identity and abilities like many other champions. Thanks for reading.

TL;DR Honestly, you should read the whole thing, but since you’re lazy, here are the key points: Her ultimate is fine and doesn’t really need a change. Her auras aren’t auras, they’re tagging abilities. If she’s going to be a true musical champion, she needs to have actual aura abilities. Power Chord encourages the facerolly, spammy nature of her gameplay because it’s tied to the number of her ability casts. Instead, it should be tied to her current active song and her basic attacks only. Her choice of song should be an impactful decision in her gameplay. Switching songs should not be an arbitrary thing to do to gain power chord stacks. Above all, her theme and identity should be the driving force of her abilities.