4K Sona games Master-Tier's Perspective of 5.3 Sona

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Throughout Season 4, Sona {{champion:37}} has been through a lot - buffs, nerfs and a complete rework. In this article I will be one of those Sona mains that will potentially rant about how the current Sona is down right useless. So be warned. I have come to rant, even if you play well with Sona it's just another non-competitive champion that Riot doesn't care about. No matter how well you play your game, or the amount of knowledge you have, there's going to be a limit for all Sona players. If other supports like Thresh, Janna, Nami are quality-AAA supports then Sona is an average B-support. They just do a better job at heal/cc/poke. There's a reason why people don't play Sona in high-tier challenger or tournaments. Why would they put disadvantage of playing weaker champions over solid quality supports? To tell you the truth I wasn't very happy about the rework back in v4.13. Everybody likes progress but nobody likes change, it threatens the core gameplay that people are so used to. Nonetheless, we humans adapt to change and make the best out of it. The rework in summary was to give Sona more of an "impactful gameplay" along with the glittering visual effects. She does have more sustain with heal/shield while having less of a poke in lane. I wouldn't say the rework was a complete fiasco but I expected more on her kit. After the rework I was quite unhappy about several of the game mechanics that have been changed. The old Sona's Song of Celerity(E) used to buff minions movement speed but the new Sona does not. It does make slight game advantage while pushing, shame it got removed. The old Sona's Cresendo had a wider width but shoots slower while the new Sona shoots faster with a narrower width. In comparison, sometimes in a team fight it is better to have a wider width for a good 3~5man flash crescendo. Another bug or delay would be her Q on-hit effect, sometimes her passive on-hit effect doesn't proc after a fast Q-powercord combo. That means we have to auto the target again for the magic on-hit effect. What does she currently provide in the 5.3 version? In my opinion: Decent early game / Somewhat useful mid-game / Downright useless late-game. What was she like before her kit rework back in 4.13? In my opinion: Decent early game / Very good mid-game / Highly useful late-game. =================================================================================================================== **Sona's Skills** Let's go through every single skill that sona provides. Starting with Powercord. What do I think of Powercord nerfs before v4.13(rework): Very reasonable. Her damage output on her powercord was too much. What do I think of powercord nerfs after v4.13 (rework): Still resonable. Slightly weaker but powercord is still decent. Other powercord nerfs (ap ratios, flat damage ratios) after v4.13(rework): Didn't care too much was reasonable enough. In summary powercord always dominated lanning phase. I wouldn't disagree with that. If they were going to nerf anything on Sona I agree to nerfing some of her powercord damage-out. It was outdamaging the adc by far. First I want to look into the old pre-4.13 Sona. What is the purpose of having a Sona in her team? 1. Q: Buff damage-dealers and poke that scaled with level (AP/AD) 2. W: Heal and make tanks more tanky (AR/MR) 3. E: Increase MVSP for initiation/escapes (MVSP) 4. R: Initiation ult All of these require aura control which "EVERYONE ON THE TEAM BENEFITS" Now, let's look into all the nonsense aura Riot has gave me with the new Sona. The turning point for Sona was when her Q aura used to give an extra boost for the team. Her Q aura was designed to make damage-dealers do more damage. When Sona's Q was maxed, it felt like she provided an extra Long Sword or an Amplifying Tome for her entire team. The best part was anyone on the team could utilize her auras for extra damage potential. "Hymn of Valor passive attack damage and ability power aura 4 / 8 / 12 / 16 / 20" It helps the adc early game to actually cs better with a bit of more ad and ever so slightly buff a bit of ap for poke damage. She would scale very well with her entire team that helps and contributes their damage potential. Even if other lanes were losing she would still provide better stats for the team to outplay the opponent. But when those auras have been removed by Riot and changed to "magic hit per auto" she provides hardly anything for the team. By the time she groups with the team, the "On-hit Magic Damage: 20 / 30 / 40 / 50 / 60 (+ 20% AP) (+ 10 / 20 / 40)" does hardly any damage to the opponent because their base magic resist is by far stronger to withstand any of this damage. Not only to mention the short range for her aura. So who potential will be benefiting from her Q aura? In my opinion - no one. Not even the ADC. No one gives a crap about sona's Q arua in team fights because it does so little damage and people don't usually utilize it. If they still tried to utilize it, they would hardly get any benefits from it. Do you know why Janna is the most contested champion as support right now? She does great job at peeling for the carries but one of the most crucial buffs she got was her Eye of the Storm (E) which Scales on attack damage (attack Damage Bonus: 14 / 23 / 32 / 41 / 50 (+ 10% AP)). Not only is her peeling amazing but also her ability to buff the ad champions. In conclusion, Sona's Q provides rather nothing mid, late game - no poking damage and no one to actually utilize her aura. If Riot has taken away her Q aura that all the champions could benefit from, they need to compensate her stats or maybe place a physical+magical on-hit effect. The same theory applies to her "Aria of Perseverance" (W). The old Sona would provide an extra armor/magic resist for the entire team by the time she groups. The design for this was to make tanks feel a lot more tankier. The Extra "Armor and Magic Resist: 6 / 7 / 8 / 9 / 10 Bonus Armor and Magic Resist: 6 / 7 / 8 / 9 / 10" with "Heal: 30 / 50 / 70 / 90 / 110 (+0.25 Ability Power)" allows Sona to actually scale very well with the entire team. Sona was awfully squishy but she was compensated for her armor and magic resist stats. By mid-late game, she wouldn't feel as squishy as the new Sona. The new version in comparison, gives "Heal: 30 / 50 / 70 / 90 / 110 (+ 20% AP) and Shield Strength: 35 / 55 / 75 / 95 / 115 (+ 20% AP) (+ 10 / 20 / 40)". Removing AR/MR and giving us shield was not the correct way for Sona to scale. She does not provide continuous AR/MR boosts to the team and since the aura is removed, Sona also takes a huge plummeting in her stats. She becomes more squisher than ever. If the base stats are low, what's the point of trying to apply the shield? The shield gets shredded instantly. And yet again, the RANGE on shield apply is so short. It isn't like Janna who sits behind the team to shield for the carries. Sona literally has to go next to her carries, risking her life. **Sona's Song of Celerity(E) new or old were hardly utilized.** There's hardly much to say about Sona's E. It's been a speed buff ever since. Only complaint I want to say is the same old "SHORT-RANGED" aura. The "Bonus Movement Speed: 13 / 14 / 15 / 16 / 17%" is okay for moving around the map. Sometimes use her E for ganks and such but it is hardly recognizable. Her E needs to have a better thoughtout mechanic than a simple speed-boost Here are some more complaints about her current state of auras. = The old Sona didn't need to keep her QWE re-activate to have her AP/AD/MR/AR/MVSP = If Sona was IDLE with one of her auras, she would still give a nearby ally a certain buff. But the new Sona needs to constantly apply buffs to the ally consuming so much of her mana. Especially, her new Song of Celerity diminishes your movement back to normal stats unlike the old Sona that would slightly buff the movement speed. = The extra cooldown on Sona's auras make no sense = When the range of her auras are so short and needs to be always active, why do we need to risk our lives and have a higher cooldown on her skill sets? Her skill-set cooldowns used to be all 7 seconds to keep all her good auras up. But now, her Q - 8 Seconds, W - 10 Seconds, E - 12 Seconds. Does she provide anything for the team mid/late game if she can only use her skills maybe once or twice during teamfights? With the right items of 40% cd, the old sona would have 4.2 seconds on her skill sets allowing good rotations of stats in team fights. What does the new Sona provide? Q - 4.8 / W - 6 / E - 7.2 . She can hardly produce the amount of potential of any of her team fights. **Finally here comes to the "Crescendo" (R)** Crescendo is Sona's core skill that defines her. You miss Crescendo: Everyone goes lol, doesn't matter if it was a janna ult, thresh ult or a nami ult, if Sona's ultimate is missed it highly demoralizes the team. It's one of those skills if missed, it leaves a big impact on the game. The new Sona ultimate has definitely has a shortened width but shoots very fast, and I don't mind it too much. The thing I care about is the fact that her AP ratios have been reduced greatly and the base damage. But what's the point of nerfing her AP ratios when she doesn't gain any AP from her Q? Another complaint on her ult would be the cost of mana. No Support in league of legends champion has increased mana-cost on her ultimate when leveled up. 100/150/200. Not only does her Q and W scale mana-cost per level, but also her ultimate. The amount of mana-cost in her abilities are outrageous. One last complaint on Sona's ultimate is that why would anyone want to place a scaling passive on her ultimate? Ranking up Crescendo increases the strength of Sona’s auras +10/20/30 magic damage for Hymn of Valor +10/20/30 extra shield for Aria of Perseverance +2%/4%/6% move speed for Song of Celerity Sona will forever be a support and to actually reach level 6/11/16 is immensely hard. She could be behind 1~4 levels behind mid-game even if it is a winning game. An ultimate that scales with level is not for a right approach for supports. Would you reduce Thresh Q damage and place it on his ult and give it a slight buff? No. No support would have a passive scale with their ult, it is a terrible design. Okay that was about her Skill sets. I would go on and on about the bad game design but I think I got most of the core game mechanics through. =================================================================================================================== **Items and counter play.** With the new Sona so changed and her base stats so low with no auras, I would still build the same before very passive supportive build. This would usually be my final build. With 0/9/21 masteries 35% cd. with 9/0/21 40% cd. {{item:3092}} {{item:3222}} {{item:3190}} {{item:2045}} {{item:3270}} and {{item:3102}} or {{item:3143}} Let's go into detail on Spell thief {{item:3303}} . The other supportive items are self-explanatory (heals, shields, defensive) {{item:3303}} Is a very risky item for any supports to take. Janna usually takes it now but she doesn't need to risk her life of getting poked for sitting behind the ADC while the enormous amount of shield and ad she provides. Sona on the other hand is just as squishy but needs to be in closer range which results in an easy gank or for bad trades. {{item:3301}} and {{item:3302}} allows you and your adc to heal from minions for extra sustain. With these items in mind most of the supports can out-sustain Sona in lane. Sona still pokes the enemy for extra gold here and there but her poke got too much nerf and the fact that there's no aura to buff her ap she does even less damage in lane. Not only to mention the nerf on Frostfang in v4.13 where "Gold per 10 seconds reduced to 2 from 4" and in 4.3 "Ability power reduced to 10 from 20" does help one bit for Sona. Less gold and less damage potential. If the supports are able to outsustain Sona in lane what is the point of having a Sona? Almost every support champion outscales Sona now = Janna/Thresh/Nami/Morgana/Soraka They have better CC = Thresh/Braum/Leona/Blitz I feel like all the supports are a counterplay to Sona with the current starting support items. How can anyone say that there's no counterplaying to Sona when all of them outsustains in lane and provides better influence to the team? So I question myself. {{item:3092}} {{item:3222}} {{item:3190}} {{item:2045}} {{item:3270}} and {{item:3102}} or {{item:3143}} Is this the right build?? I don't even know. I lost the core idea of how Sona is played because she has become so useless. If I go defensive items, I don't provide anything with my skills because their stats are so low so should I go AP? But is it worth building AP on Sona? With all the low-AP (nerfed) ratios? She loses all the defensive stats and becomes even more squisher. (Then maybe a zonyas?) If she does nothing with her skill sets with her defensive builds would it be worth going full ap and apply better damage-output for the team? Was she build to be an APC (Ability power carry bot-lane) and to be played like an Annie or Morgana? A zonya's initiate? I don't even know anymore. I went through so many builds including different kind of runes and masteries. Ranging from 21/9/0 masteries to play aggressive as an AP dealer to trying out gold per sec runes to get my desired items while playing safe in lane but it doesn't quite fit in the category anymore. Sona has turned way too weak and fragile at a point these runes and masteries are becoming a nusiance. I even tried the 0/15/15 Tresh masteries for tankyness but it just doesn't cut it. Even tried getting Targon's to play safer in lane vs those kill lane supports like Leona with ignite. You get some wins and some losses with these builds but it just didn't quite show the full potential of the Sona. Lichbane {{item:3100}} is a viable choice but is still not as great as it used to be on the Old Sona. Her damage output is okay but she still loses out on core supportive builds. Your team is ultimately weaker in a sense without those great actives. {{item:3190}} shield and {{item:3222}} heal. It is true that the meta continuously change over time. That is what league does. Champions die in and die out depending on how champions get reworked with a nerf or a buff. Even the slightest changes on an item or champion's stats affects the quality of the game. With the current state of Sona, it will be god awfully hard for her to be a viable champion in high-tier. I went through as decently thorough as possible with my extensive knowledge about Sona. I still think I have a lot to learn but I may have to retire from my destined champion. Sona has been great since my arrival from Dota 1 about mid-Season 1. She and I have been through a lot and I thank Riot for that or more thankful to Euls, Guinsoo, Icefrog and pendragon for all the good moba game stratergy. = "Nowadays I play more Dota 2 than league just because of the current dissatisfaction of Sona" = Thank you for reading. tl;dr: The current state of Sona is just too useless.
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