Sona main looking for advice.

Kamai·9/2/2015, 12:09:08 AM·3 votes·1,273 views

Sona is probably my favorite champion in my favorite role, support. Which is why it bothers me that while she has a decent win rate, she feels so weak in my hands, and that the only build that feels like it at all works is the cheeky Lichbane rush build, and even that has problems. You're free to look at my rune pages and masteries, and if you look at my match history, I know that my build on her has been all over. I'm really struggling to find anything on her that clicks.

Before giving the basic advice, I do appreciate what Power Chord W and E give. The kit just doesn't feel like it gives enough compared to what Lulu can do, let alone Nami or Thresh, but given that she's still winning games, I'm hoping it's user error.

12 Comments

Mimy9/2/2015, 12:16:06 AM3 votes

As a support who sometimes plays sona... item 3504 This will make your heal increase your carry's attack speed. If you get that Power Chord you can weaken the damage of the other ADC.

So with this.. A W with a timed Power chord can Heal your adc as well as increase their attack speed. and if you auto their carry the Green power-chord make the enemy ADC do less Damage which may cause you to win a few trades. :)

I don't build lichbane? that to me is weird.. I build support.. OH! and as a sona.. because your heal is an AOE remember that attack speed thing when your team groups.. yea.. xD Karma is OP in that sense too. SHIELDS, MOVE SPEED,AND ATTACK SPEED FOR EVERYONE!!! MUAHAHAH

Final Boss Naut9/2/2015, 3:12:42 AM2 votes

fact is that riot gutted support sona, they made her have to play a cheeky ap build to be relevant mid/late game, sure, u can build support and win lane, but because they lowered all her bases so much and gave her great scaling, she's in a poor spot for balance to be able to viably use other buildpaths.

Gnug3159/4/2015, 4:58:07 PM2 votes

I have one-trick ponied Sona from silver to as high as plat 1 in S5. I am not able to climb higher because my weakness at other roles holds me back, and my other support champs are weak in comparison, so I'm a liability picking her into a counter support (plus, let's face it, I'm no challenjour).

My 2 cents: as stated by someone else above, Riot keeps Sona slightly underpowered because she would be downright obnoxious if given more power. SHe is too easy to play close to full potential.

Regarding the build, I can only repeat what I say in my mobafire build :

Since she is low in Utility (things other than raw numbers, such and stuns and hooks), she has to make up for it with raw power. And since literally everything she does scales with AP - damage, healing & all power chord effects - this is the way she should go.

Honestly, I do well with her when I ks. As in, the team does well when I ks. Because she can use the raw power very well!

hater free zone9/2/2015, 8:10:05 AM1 votes

get hybrid pen runes and build sheen. Sona's strength lie's in her lane harass. You have to become very familiar with her q/aa range and punish the enemy adc every time they come in range to last hit. She's the only champion besides MAYBE Zyra that can force the enemy out of lane by level 2.

ConoX9/2/2015, 8:49:12 AM1 votes

maybe i should play sona to see if you can learn anything? :)

Zmuecat9/2/2015, 9:09:10 AM1 votes

Start blue gold gen item and potions, yellow trinket. Leave fountain with one or two stacks of your passive depending on if you're helping the jungle or not. Try and poke with AA-Q-AA whenever possible. Try not to heal too much unless you are getting heavily poked.

Get Sightstone, then figure out who on the enemy team is going to be the biggest problem and how far ahead you are. If your team has a huge lead, you can go ahead and rush Sheen to stay ahead, but I recommend building Aether Whisp unless you are certain you are going to stay ahead. This item is cheaper, builds into other support items that you can take advantage of (Mainly Ardent Censer) if you need to build more supporty. You can also get boots earlier than if you rushed Sheen. If you go Lichbane, pick up all the AP support items, not the mid AP items, you'll get more out of them and provide a good amount of utility for your team while building damage.

I personally like to pick up Fiendish Codex as it builds into Banner of Command which has a good pushing active, as well as the MR aura, CDR, Health, and AP. From there, you can get Chalice if you really want the mana regen and then get Mikaels for the CC/heal active. Ardent Censer is good too for taking towers with a team better, and it lets your W act like a mini Q with the passive (Attack speed and magic on hit to anyone hit by a shield or heal). Ardent Censer can be delayed for Zekes. Final items can be anything you need to survive, or anything your team needs to continue being awesome.

My builds usually go: item 3303 -> item 2049 -> item 3108 -> item 3241 -> item 3060 -> item 3117 or item 3009 -> item 3504 -> item 3069 -> item 3050

For Lichbane, I delay banner, but generally still pick up every support AP item.

When I'm very behind, I'll go: item 3190 item 3222 item 3023 item 3504 item 2045 and boots of the appropriate defense built early.

Sona Ping9/2/2015, 8:45:53 PM1 votes

She feels weak because she is weak. She is the squishiest champion in the game, but despite this high cost that was paid, she doesn't get anything from it. Riot seems like they don't want Sona to be good enough to "infringe on another champion's territory", some area they are good at, so she's not allowed to be that good at anything. You can make some good plays with her stun and you could mitigate a bunch of AoE on your team with a properly timed shield, so you _can _ do things but her kit leaves things to be desired on too long of cooldown and you just feed if the enemy pays attention to you.

You see, your experience is a good example of why win-rate is a meaningless statistic for this, it doesn't speak as to how the champion performs. It doesn't even say "that she's still winning games", just that Sona was in 51.9% of games that were won, and considering games are supposed to have even odds, that 1.9% percent difference isn't that great. It just doesn't mean anything about the champion, Twitch has had both the highest and lowest winrates at the same time, depending on which section of data you looked at.

So yeah, go ahead with a cheeky item 3100 Mage items, focus on building against the enemy team, or try the item 3504 it works well with her Aria. Ardent Censer's not that great an item, but it's Sona. What else are you going to do.

Aeolian Melodies9/2/2015, 11:58:28 PM1 votes

As a Sona main I never build Lichbane. Lich is for dmg, your job as a support is not to deal damage. Even if AP is good on Sona, I prefer AP with supportish attributes or AP with very strong effects, other than "I'll take the job of a burster".

My runes: flat armor quints, flat hp yellows, flat MR blues (all for early laning phase tankiness because everyone wants you for food), 8x hybrid pen reds (which I find are the best to maximize her poke), 1x crit chance red (for the lolz).

Starting item: item 3303 Rush: item 2049 My favourite boots: item 3009 (better to kite than mobis) Unless you need Crucible rush: item 3070 (upgrade only when full for trololo shield bait) Items to highly consider: item 3050 item 3092 item 3504 item 3023 As needed for the team: item 3069 item 3222 item 3190 item 3060 Luxury items to increase your supporting power: item 3089 item 3040 item 3157 item 3116 Tanky items as needed: item 3110 item 3065 item 3143

Do note that she:

Generally struggles against tank supports Alistar Blitzcrank Leona Nautilus TahmKench Thrives against Janna Does surprisingly well against Thresh (if you can juke hook) and Morgana (if you can juke Q and because you break the shield with ease) Has a skill match up with Nami Lulu Bard Has a natural edge over poke supports because she pokes AND sustains Karma Zyra Gets fucked by Annie

As you may have noticed, her bad match ups are a lot more popular than her good ones, which is why Sona is in such an odd spot where she feels underwhelming to play in most situations, but buffs may actually push her over the edge. Imo Sona herseld needn't be touched in term of balance, tank supports need to be looked at because they are currently so strong that the only acceptable non-tank supports are Janna (who is made to disengage and therefore thrives when hard engage becomes a thing) and Annie (who essentially fills the same role of hard engaging fights).

DeynaTaggerung9/2/2015, 1:10:31 AM1 votes

Building sona you'll probably want to start spellthief's edge, sightstone, sweeper, mikaels is a good early item for adc peel and mana regen, locket(banner of command is situationally better). Past that you have more choices depending on how the game is going but zeke's is good, frozen heart can be useful, you probably won't ever get past that.

Remember sona's lvl1 is pretty great so within reason try to q-powerchord the enemy adc as much as you can. Even if you don't have power chord up they generally won't know that and so after the first chunk of damage they'll back off more readily. Of course your ult is great, try to land it on as many people as possible.

Sona definitely excels at poking which is nice, but sadly she is also very reliant on her adc. If your adc doesn't back you up and poke as well the enemy team will likely do a lot of return damage. Similarly a passive sona still relies on her adc to farm and skirmish well. Unlike champs such as braum, thresh, lulu who can set things up for their adc regardless of playstile sona is going to require a willing team.

Mobafire is also a great place to get build/playstyle advice if you're ever wondering about a champ, there's generally a number of guides by long time mains which will present to you not just one but multiple ideas on how to play a champ.