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United States37500 Posts
Sona, Maven of Strings
Sona brings her team a very strong early dual lane presence. Late game, she serves as a mini-fountain, providing her allies an array of support and utility. Sona is a prime candidate for any push team composition.
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No longer the support powerhouse she once was when she was released, Sona has numbers have been nerfed as well as the removal of her key item, Innervating Locket. These nerfs have sent Sona down the support rankings as a result.
Summoner Skills: Exhaust/Ghost
Masteries: 9 0 21
Runes:
Quints: Flat HP
Red: Magic Pen
Yellow: Mana per 5 per Level
Blue: Mana per 5 per Level
Skill Order: WQWEWR, R > W > Q > E
Item Build: Doran's Ring + hp potion => Doran's Ring + Boots => Tear of the Goddess => Aegis, Shurelya's Reverie, Soul Shroud (pick 2) => Zhonya's Hourglass => Archangel's Staff
Sona is no longer able to snowball as hard as before. Thus, building her AP heavy is not as viable. Her Q was nerfed both on base damage and AP ratio, making it a second skill choice compared to her heal. Building Sona primarily as a support role now makes more sense. Having Archangel's and Zhonya's late game allows Sona to not fall off into the dead-weight void.
+ Show Spoiler [Old Sona build from previous patches] +Summoner Skills: Ghost/Clarity (preferred), Ghost/Clarity/Teleport/CV/Flash Ghost/Clarity is what I prefer to run. You definitely need one skill in either Ghost or Flash for escaping/chasing purposes. Second skill is dependent on what your team needs. Clarity allows for stronger lane duration. Teleport can change the tide of any team fight when your allies suddenly has a healer with an AOE ulti. CV is good to keep an eye on enemy junglers and Dragon/Baron. Masteries: 9 0 21Standard 9 0 21 for Casters/Support. Be sure to select your upgraded Summoner Skill bonus depending on which Skills you have selected. Runes: Quints: Flat HP Red: Magic Pen Yellow: Mana per 5 per Level Blue: Ability Power per Level Flat HP for more survivability (Sona is rather squishy). Magic pen for a stronger Q attack. Mana Regen is needed so you can aura dance late game. I used to run CDR for Glyphs but I found that the extra 1 second between auras tend to not make much of a difference. Only real situation I needed a faster aura was for W for a quicker heal. But for the most part, CDR doesn’t make that much of a difference, so AP/Level instead. Skill Order: QWQWQR, one point in E at level 10, R > Q > W > E (preferred) -OR- QWWQWR, one point in E at level 10, R > W > Q > E Item Build: Meki Pendant + 2 HP Pots => Tear of the Goddess + Boots => Mejai’s Soulstealer => Merc Treads => Mana Manipulator => Innervating Locket => Soul Shroud => Archangel’s Staff => Banshee or GA PlaystyleAlways start out with Q. While you’re at your fountain, activate Q 3 times to enable your Passive. You want to start out aggressive early on in lane. The bottom lane composition will determine if you max Q or W first. In very obvious scenarios: ~ Sona + Twisted Fate vs Gangplank + Cho’Gath => Max Q firstThe enemy is double melee vs your double range. It’s very unlikely they’ll be able to harass you or your ally. A high level of Q means you can zone them farther away from the creeps ~ Sona + Shen vs Janna + Taric => Max W firstBoth sides have a Ranged and Melee, both sides have at least one healer. Chances of your team successfully harassing a Janna or Taric is very minimal. But at the same time, Taric can stun Shen, Shatter, allow Janna to auto attack with her Bubble up and Zephyr for a slow. Overall, it can be a considerable burst at levels 3 and 5. In this situation, max W sooner to heal Shen and it allows you to harass more in return, knowing you can heal yourself more too. By midgame, Q and W should be near equal levels anyways, since you are heavily ignoring E. The skills you decide to invest in during levels 5, 7 and 9 can make a big difference during laning phase. Midgame, you should have your Tear and Soulstealer done, so you’re building for Team Fights, Locket and Shroud. Q whenever you can in team fights so you’re assured at least 1 Mejai’s stack per assist. Be sure to have Q as the main active aura when you are pounding on towers. Have W as your main active aura when you are sieging (to minimize enemy poking spells). Late game, you faceroll QWE constantly, thanks to a built up Tear. Your Ultimate is what can turn the tides of a team fight in a matter of seconds. 3 situations where you use your ulti: 1. If you see the enemy grouped in the jungle, turn on E to speed up your team, Ghost/Flash in and Ulti all 5 enemies and begin the fight. Standard team fight ulti2. Your team has been caught semi-out-of-position. Galio flashed in and started Idol of Durand. Your carry was too close to your tank and caught in the Galio Ulti. Use your ulti immediately in response. Two reasons, first you need to break the Galio Ulti somehow to allow your Carry to retreat and get into position. Second following Galio Ulti, the chances of the enemy charging in is very high, position yourself so you can AOE the entire enemy team while breaking Galio. Ulti to counter enemy initator’s Ulti3. Olaf is caught trying to steal your side’s Golem. You have 3 teammates with you while your Carry is in a lane farming. You can ulti Olaf if your team is ready to kill. Ulti an enemy that is completely out of position but only if your team can net the killTips- During laning phase, practice “dancing” with Sona. That means stay in the brush, move close to enemy champions and activate Q. As soon as Q activates, move back. Q has a priority to hit champions over minions. Move in close to get into the champion’s range but then run back to avoid any spells thrown at you in return. - Watch your passive. Whenever it is up, use it to auto attack harass the enemy. In tandem with Q harass, your passive can easily whittle down most enemy casters/support. Last hit with your passive only if you have no other choice (they are tower hugging and you don’t want to fall behind in farm) - If you run Teleport, you can Teleport to wards and easily turn a fight in your favor. Teleport on ward, Ghost or E in, W to heal once you're in range. Then bide your time for your Ulti. If the enemy team is all running, try and position yourself where you can snare as many of them in a line. - Whenever you are at home, spam your spells! These are freebie charges on your Tear. Typically you can get 3 to 5 Tear charges while you're at home healing. On the occasion where you are 20 gold short on an item, you may want to stay home and wait for gold to accumulate. Spam your spells while you wait!
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I hear there's this jackass that runs Exhaust/Ghost, flat armor Quints/Marks/Seals + flat MR glyphs, and 1/21/8.
Edit:
This jackass also levels W first, charges it twice in fountain, and comes to lane.
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does this jackass start with a u and end in tahime?
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The jackass is shrouded in a cloak of secrecy.
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United States37500 Posts
What's reason for Exhaust on Sona?
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You mention using your ulti on top of an enemy galio's ulti to cancel it and catch more of their team. It is also worth mentioning that when your friendly galio ultis it is worth it to wait a second and cast yours over his, this ensures those who intended to cleanse / flash out can not and allows galio to do his full damage while adding to the time your team is beating on helpless enemy players. It's allowed my teams to win countless engagements we shouldn't have been able to.
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On November 04 2010 17:22 NeoIllusions wrote:
What's reason for Exhaust on Sona?
Closest thing to an additional disable... Sona scales terrible late-game, might as well take a summoner spell that has one of the best late-game scaling.
Doesn't hurt that you can troll the fuck out of people during laning with it :p
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United States37500 Posts
On November 04 2010 17:25 STS17 wrote:
You mention using your ulti on top of an enemy galio's ulti to cancel it and catch more of their team. It is also worth mentioning that when your friendly galio ultis it is worth it to wait a second and cast yours over his, this ensures those who intended to cleanse / flash out can not and allows galio to do his full damage while adding to the time your team is beating on helpless enemy players. It's allowed my teams to win countless engagements we shouldn't have been able to.
That's more of chain stunning / chain ultimates. I'll probably write a thread about general tips in a bit since it isn't champion specific.
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United States37500 Posts
On November 04 2010 17:27 Southlight wrote:Show nested quote +On November 04 2010 17:22 NeoIllusions wrote:
What's reason for Exhaust on Sona? Closest thing to an additional disable... Sona scales terrible late-game, might as well take a summoner spell that has one of the best late-game scaling. Doesn't hurt that you can troll the fuck out of people during laning with it :p
Yeah, perhaps. But should leave disables to your tank imoimo. Having Sona go into enemy spell range to Exhaust is not my slice of pie.
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Doesn't need to - there's a whole lot of shit that comes TOWARD you and your carry 
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United States37500 Posts
Touche. That's a good point.
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On November 04 2010 17:25 STS17 wrote:
You mention using your ulti on top of an enemy galio's ulti to cancel it and catch more of their team. It is also worth mentioning that when your friendly galio ultis it is worth it to wait a second and cast yours over his, this ensures those who intended to cleanse / flash out can not and allows galio to do his full damage while adding to the time your team is beating on helpless enemy players. It's allowed my teams to win countless engagements we shouldn't have been able to.
Eh, not ideal here since you may not get full damage from Galio ulti (though that's not hard since it's only 8 hits to fully charge it), and you wouldn't get full duration from your CCs. Plus, if there's a Taric with Cleanse he's probably just going to cleanse both ults if you try to use your ult that way, or else he's just going to be able to break Galio ult before yours hits.
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Any decent Sona takes Exhaust nowadays =[
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plus exhaust helps rape those jungler ganks
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Being carried by Sona in ELO hell has given me new appreciation for this image:
![[image loading]](http://img338.imageshack.us/img338/1656/sonatakesskillman.png)
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my biggest question is why do you get a tear then get locket. You have more than enough mana just with locket. if you really do spam that much, grab a meki -> codex or grab the mana manip for soul shroud fast.
sona also makes a very good ward bitch because if you build locket, she 'needs' no items beyond it, doesn't care about lost farming time, and has a good spammable speed boost. You can also gank well (with ult), help weak lanes, and generally roam very well.
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Sona plays a lot like Garen:
![[image loading]](http://img411.imageshack.us/img411/547/catg.gif)
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I strongly disagree with the Tear rush, especially if you're not trying to pop out an early Archangels to play heavy AP Sona. Locket gives the same effect as tears like Kaneh said, and Catalyst gives you a hell of a lot more survivability than tears does for mid-early game.
Also if you're running Clairty, a Mana Crystal is a much better choice of first item over a Meki Pendant. Clarity fills your entire manabar if you buy a meki pendant, but only ~60% of it if you buy a Mana Crystal. This allows you to be more aggressive early game, and get clarity on cooldown without wasting any of the mana that would have been returned by it.
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United States37500 Posts
With heals, Sona simply needs to position well and know when to pick fights. I can delay HP survivability (in this case Catalyst) until level 10-11. imo, there's no such thing as too much mana. Sona is queen of faceroll but if you want to really do that, the ever-expanding mana pool thanks to Tear helps immensely.
Not to mention with a Tear, it greatly reduced the amount of times you need to return to base (typically with Tear, Boots, and Mejai's, I can stay in field until I've gotten enough gold to buy Locket in one go. The more often you stay on the field rather than healing, the more opportunities you have to get those Mejai charges). Also with Tear, I am anticipating that if the game does drag out to 40+ minutes, I want to have some sort of AP punch, instead of being purely support with Locket and Shroud. Charging that Tear up early would be beneficial then for a fully charged Archangel's late game.
I will concede that if I am running Clarity/Ghost, Blue Crystal is a better buy at the beginning than Meki Pendant. So thanks. Exhaust/Ghost, Meki instead.
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Please don't buy meki pendant first :<
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United States37500 Posts
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United States2822 Posts
I also don't exactly agree with Meki Pendant first over Doran's Ring. Tear of the Goddess is really cheap, and getting it 435 gold earlier isn't a huge deal especially since you're getting Archangel's so late. Doran's Ring provides better lane presence early game because your Q does more, your W heals more and the health protects you better.
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I think the best build I've used so far on Sona goes like this:
Doran's Ring start - so much presence early game, HP + Mana Regen is so crucial, and the AP doesn't hurt.
First trip back buy Catalyst + Boots - Catalyst is great because it basically allows you free spam through lane because of the mana heal on level up and extra mana. Catalyst is pretty much the thing that's most concrete in my build.
After that it depends on the situation, but some order of Mejai's Soulstealer, Merc's Treads, and Innervating Locket. If lane's going really well and you feel like you're going to get kills/assists fast, rush the Mejai's. Mejai's is honestly Sona's best item with her ability to fill it quickly with assists/kills and then escape ability due to E. Usually finish Merc's before Locket, but if you're not moving much or need to defend or force dragon or something, Locket can give you a nice boost. Locket's just a really great item on Sona in general since she uses the passive well and helps with her mana consumption - you can usually get away with not hogging blue with it.
After that's done you finish Zhonya's and then add situational items based on need like Banshee's or Void Staff.
I think this is the best build for Sona, and I've seen it used in high ELO, though I came up with it myself before I saw it on streams. My only personal touch is that if I'm 2v2 lane with Sona I honestly think it's worth it to back at 800 gold and get a Philosopher's Stone right away because you're not farming very well and it helps with the slower Catalyst / Catalyst level ups.
Edit: I also heavily disagree with the suggestion that you delay E until level 10. I think delaying it until 4 is fine, but having one level early is essential for a lot of reasons. Laning wise, it's great just to deal with ganks or to help your partner run off when he does something stupid. More than that, if you're just out of Q range, you can E and then tag them with Q and then pull out as E aura's wearing off. It also helps a lot for positioning and pursuit/retreat during early game fights at dragon and stuff. It adds a lot more utility than an additional level of W does - 40 more points of healing isn't going to do as much as all the functions of E. Though that goes hand in hand with my belief that maxing W first is always an awful idea because W healing does not do well until later game when you have higher AP and cooldowns, and that in lane you're going to protect your teammates and do better harass with Q first every time.
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I dunno, W does only 40 healing at level 1, 80 at level 2... thats a pretty friggin huge difference, particularly in mana efficiency (the main thing thats stopping you from topping someone off early game) - i've been going QWQWE or QWQWQ and delaying E until 8.
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Innervating locket has been removed, and Sona has been nerfed a bit. What are some effective ways of playing her now?
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Don't.
...but seriously, you're really better off with Taric or Janna most of the time since Sona requires a ton of farm for mana and such. I don't play her in ranked when I need a support, you're better off with the aforementioned two or Zilean.
But when I do play her for the lulz it's usually with a lane with someone who doesn't need farm like another support/Blitz/Alistar. In that case my build usually goes:
Doran's Ring
First trip back:
Tear of the Goddess (Boots if possible)
Start collecting Soul Shroud components (usually start with the Kindlegem first, then the Mana Manipulator) until it's done
Finish Merc Treads
Then I either get an Aegis if our tank is too lazy to get it or finish Archangel's. After that if the game's extremely long maybe Deathcap for AP for healing or Will of the Ancients.
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wtf, you're support, play support
double philo stone -> boots -> mana manip -> aegis -> mercs -> soul shroud
gold/10 quints a must.
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On March 05 2011 01:34 Mogwai wrote:
wtf, you're support, play support
double philo stone -> boots -> mana manip -> aegis -> mercs -> soul shroud
gold/10 quints a must.
The best support champions are the champions that have a strong lane presence.
Jana is strong on the lane.
Taric is strong on the lane.
Zilean is strong on the lane.
Soraka is common annoying support champ. A person is running around you spamming heals and restoring your mana.
Gee thanks now with topped off mana and HP i can really take on 2v1. Ooh wait i can't, now i get face-raped because 2 champions are many times stronger then 1 due to CC.
Honestly you need to bring more to the table then support. The whole reason that Sona was so powerfull was because her damage was through the roof. She was a support but she also had probably the highest damage at level 1 in the game.
She could outnuke people with Q-passive and since Q had a massive range she could easily out-zone people.
But the point remains, support champions must be strong laners or they are worthless like Soraka who only provides support.
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United States47024 Posts
On March 05 2011 03:45 zalz wrote:Show nested quote +On March 05 2011 01:34 Mogwai wrote:
wtf, you're support, play support
double philo stone -> boots -> mana manip -> aegis -> mercs -> soul shroud
gold/10 quints a must. The best support champions are the champions that have a strong lane presence. Jana is strong on the lane. Taric is strong on the lane. Zilean is strong on the lane.
Those three are also strong roamers and share various other qualities as well. You can't just say "strong lane presence" makes a good support because there's more to it than that.
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I'm pretty sure that Sona is still very strong in lane if you set her runes/masteries/starting items up correctly and don't waste mana healing allies.
Imo her problem is that her lategame relies heavily on being able to constantly spam spells over a long duration. She was nerfed heavily to fix the imbalance she was with Locket, but then Locket was removed and now she's just really weak (assuming low farm).
She is quite item-dependant, since her QWE doesn't provide any CC etc. like Janna/Taric/Soraka/Alistar/Zilean have. All the stuff she brings to the table scales with AP (unless you value the MSpd buff that much?).
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Yeah, sona needs locket. She's fun as hell to play in lane but later on you can't get close enough to use your passive or Q, and your heal is worse than alistar's E anyways. She seems underwhelming atm.
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On March 05 2011 01:34 Mogwai wrote:
wtf, you're support, play support
double philo stone -> boots -> mana manip -> aegis -> mercs -> soul shroud
gold/10 quints a must.
If you run that build on her she's out of mana 90% of the time when you need it. Thus my paragraph about how situational she is and why she needs to be played with certain lane partners. As others just said, she really, really needed Locket and she needs more expensive items to replace it.
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United States47024 Posts
On March 05 2011 07:01 Seiuchi wrote:Show nested quote +On March 05 2011 01:34 Mogwai wrote:
wtf, you're support, play support
double philo stone -> boots -> mana manip -> aegis -> mercs -> soul shroud
gold/10 quints a must. If you run that build on her she's out of mana 90% of the time when you need it. Thus my paragraph about how situational she is and why she needs to be played with certain lane partners. As others just said, she really, really needed Locket and she needs more expensive items to replace it.
Double Philo + Mana Manip gives you mana problems?
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On March 05 2011 07:03 TheYango wrote:Show nested quote +On March 05 2011 07:01 Seiuchi wrote:On March 05 2011 01:34 Mogwai wrote:
wtf, you're support, play support
double philo stone -> boots -> mana manip -> aegis -> mercs -> soul shroud
gold/10 quints a must. If you run that build on her she's out of mana 90% of the time when you need it. Thus my paragraph about how situational she is and why she needs to be played with certain lane partners. As others just said, she really, really needed Locket and she needs more expensive items to replace it. Double Philo + Mana Manip gives you mana problems?
On Sona it does, yeah. You're spamming a ton of spells for really, really small effect. You need at least some kind of extra mana in addition to the mp/5.
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With double Philo and Mana Manip you probably have like 40-60 MP5. Assuming you spam QW that is about 170 mana every 7 seconds? You need 120+ MP5 to keep that up. And since you don't build any mana items at all you drain your mana pool pretty quickly.
Locket provided ~60 MP5 by itself (for a total with runes etc. of ~90 MP5) as well as an increased mana pool.
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Why can't you just build a tears...
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Tear has 5 MP5. And Sona still burns through 1350 Mana in less than a minute. If I were to play Sona nowadays, I would most likely get a Tear, but it simply doesn't compare to Locket (especially the missing HP regen, and charging the Tear takes a while). Riot tried to fix Sona while Locket was still around; Locket was removed and Sona left behind.
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So~ I've been playing League of Legends during the beta, but since then haven't really followed it. Some days ago I picked it up again and I bought Sona with some spare IP. Can anyone enlighten and tell me what items I should be getting? I'm not quite sure if the guide on the first page are still up to date. Thanks in advance!
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On April 16 2011 06:39 AMaidensWrath wrote:
So~ I've been playing League of Legends during the beta, but since then haven't really followed it. Some days ago I picked it up again and I bought Sona with some spare IP. Can anyone enlighten and tell me what items I should be getting? I'm not quite sure if the guide on the first page are still up to date. Thanks in advance!
read thread
???
profit
That goes for all the forum, but since you want one: double philos stone, boots, tear, mercs, soul shroud, reverie is what I'd do just to be aura slave numbah wahn.
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On March 05 2011 08:07 spinesheath wrote:
With double Philo and Mana Manip you probably have like 40-60 MP5. Assuming you spam QW that is about 170 mana every 7 seconds? You need 120+ MP5 to keep that up. And since you don't build any mana items at all you drain your mana pool pretty quickly.
Locket provided ~60 MP5 by itself (for a total with runes etc. of ~90 MP5) as well as an increased mana pool.
wont chalice of harmony double your 40-60 to 80-120
sona can probably handle that one
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On April 17 2011 03:01 EmeraldSparks wrote:Show nested quote +On March 05 2011 08:07 spinesheath wrote:
With double Philo and Mana Manip you probably have like 40-60 MP5. Assuming you spam QW that is about 170 mana every 7 seconds? You need 120+ MP5 to keep that up. And since you don't build any mana items at all you drain your mana pool pretty quickly.
Locket provided ~60 MP5 by itself (for a total with runes etc. of ~90 MP5) as well as an increased mana pool. wont chalice of harmony double your 40-60 to 80-120 sona can probably handle that one
Yes chalice will double it to 80/120 if you sit @ exactly 0 mana, as soon as your mana goes up it won't double it anymore. In other words, you still won't have mana.
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So lately I have dusted off Sona in my endeavour to be able to play anything else than junglers properly and Sona's gonna be my "project" atm.
Summoners: CV + Flash
So far my opening is 2 faerie charms with 1 potion and 1 ward. I really like it so far because it has really high flexibillity.
On my first back I can either get: philos stone + boots, mana manip + boots or just mana manip after a lvl 1 fight.
I work my core around 2 philos stones (for reverie + tenacity item) , mana manip (soul shroud), swiftness boots. For AP items I suspect that a good idea would be Rylai, Deathcap, Mejai (wont mejai if they have alot of cc'ers / gap closers).
After my core I think I'd get some mix between pure support items and AP items. I dont know if rylai works with my passive but so far it feels great on my Q.
For runes, there is mpen reds, mp5 yellow, ap per level glyph and quints. About the ap per level instead of flat, I dont really know which is better. Sona doesn't really need flat AP runes to have strong lane presence though it might still be better.
for skills, I usually do R>Q>W>E with a point in E at lvl 8 or 4 depends how active the game is since QW is good for the lane and E isn't that hot in the early levels other than the passive slow which is unexpectedly awesome.
any tips ? really curious if I should work in some d-rings or do a more ward heavy build (I keep wards up at drag / baron / important bushes but as it is now I dont let my lane partner take 100% of the farm cus I am greedy, is this dumb or should I keep doing that).
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Don't get Soul Shroud. All your gold should go into Mana/Mana Regen/AP (and defense if you need it). Soul Shroud is a huge investment into the CDR aura which only makes sense if your carries gain a lot from the CDR.
Again gonna bring up this story of that Sona I recently had on my team, she was >1900:
She went 4-0 bottom lane. Then she got a triple kill. 7-0. Finished the game at 9-11-15.
Barely had any impact on the game despite the huge amounts of money she got.
Sona is still really weak lategame.
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On May 22 2011 18:47 spinesheath wrote:
Don't get Soul Shroud. All your gold should go into Mana/Mana Regen/AP (and defense if you need it). Soul Shroud is a huge investment into the CDR aura which only makes sense if your carries gain a lot from the CDR.
Again gonna bring up this story of that Sona I recently had on my team, she was >1900:
She went 4-0 bottom lane. Then she got a triple kill. 7-0. Finished the game at 9-11-15.
Barely had any impact on the game despite the huge amounts of money she got.
Sona is still really weak lategame.
I didnt have mana probles mwith sona the games I played, sue me but mana was never a problem with double philos and a mana manip.
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On May 22 2011 19:31 Iplaythings wrote:Show nested quote +On May 22 2011 18:47 spinesheath wrote:
Don't get Soul Shroud. All your gold should go into Mana/Mana Regen/AP (and defense if you need it). Soul Shroud is a huge investment into the CDR aura which only makes sense if your carries gain a lot from the CDR.
Again gonna bring up this story of that Sona I recently had on my team, she was >1900:
She went 4-0 bottom lane. Then she got a triple kill. 7-0. Finished the game at 9-11-15.
Barely had any impact on the game despite the huge amounts of money she got.
Sona is still really weak lategame. I didnt have mana probles mwith sona the games I played, sue me but mana was never a problem with double philos and a mana manip.
So you don't need Mana/Mana Regen? Fine. Get AP.
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On May 22 2011 18:47 spinesheath wrote:
Sona is still really weak lategame.
How is Sona weak lategame? She gives buffs and she has an AOE stun. She can't really carry too hard, but saying her lategame is weak when teamfights become so common, where aoe stuns prevail, makes little sense to me.
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On May 22 2011 21:36 BouBou.865 wrote:How is Sona weak lategame? She gives buffs and she has an AOE stun. She can't really carry too hard, but saying her lategame is weak when teamfights become so common, where aoe stuns prevail, makes little sense to me.
She has a long cooldown, short range, line AoE stun. She basically has to Flash to get it off, and even then it's fairly easy to avoid major damage because it's delayed by half a second and it's not that hard to not have everyone stand in a line.
Her heals are untargeted and weak, and her damage will hit tanks 90% of the time. Her buffs are nice, but for teamfights Soraka, Janna, Taric are providing better buffs.
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Straight outta Johto18973 Posts
On May 22 2011 22:17 spinesheath wrote:Show nested quote +On May 22 2011 21:36 BouBou.865 wrote:On May 22 2011 18:47 spinesheath wrote:
Sona is still really weak lategame. How is Sona weak lategame? She gives buffs and she has an AOE stun. She can't really carry too hard, but saying her lategame is weak when teamfights become so common, where aoe stuns prevail, makes little sense to me. She has a long cooldown, short range, line AoE stun. She basically has to Flash to get it off, and even then it's fairly easy to avoid major damage because it's delayed by half a second and it's not that hard to not have everyone stand in a line. Her heals are untargeted and weak, and her damage will hit tanks 90% of the time. Her buffs are nice, but for teamfights Soraka, Janna, Taric are providing better buffs.
A good Sona should also be using her passive strategically.. Giving someone on their team a 20% damage debuff for 4 seconds or placing a 40% slow on someone is not to be sniffed at.
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On May 22 2011 22:41 MoonBear wrote:Show nested quote +On May 22 2011 22:17 spinesheath wrote:On May 22 2011 21:36 BouBou.865 wrote:On May 22 2011 18:47 spinesheath wrote:
Sona is still really weak lategame. How is Sona weak lategame? She gives buffs and she has an AOE stun. She can't really carry too hard, but saying her lategame is weak when teamfights become so common, where aoe stuns prevail, makes little sense to me. She has a long cooldown, short range, line AoE stun. She basically has to Flash to get it off, and even then it's fairly easy to avoid major damage because it's delayed by half a second and it's not that hard to not have everyone stand in a line. Her heals are untargeted and weak, and her damage will hit tanks 90% of the time. Her buffs are nice, but for teamfights Soraka, Janna, Taric are providing better buffs. A good Sona should also be using her passive strategically.. Giving someone on their team a 20% damage debuff for 4 seconds or placing a 40% slow on someone is not to be sniffed at.
yo I'm durrrgot
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On May 22 2011 18:47 spinesheath wrote:
Don't get Soul Shroud. All your gold should go into Mana/Mana Regen/AP (and defense if you need it). Soul Shroud is a huge investment into the CDR aura which only makes sense if your carries gain a lot from the CDR.
Again gonna bring up this story of that Sona I recently had on my team, she was >1900:
She went 4-0 bottom lane. Then she got a triple kill. 7-0. Finished the game at 9-11-15.
Barely had any impact on the game despite the huge amounts of money she got.
Sona is still really weak lategame.
I imagine that a fed Sona could just rush full aurabot. That's more or less guaranteed to be useful, right?
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On May 23 2011 03:00 EmeraldSparks wrote:Show nested quote +On May 22 2011 18:47 spinesheath wrote:
Don't get Soul Shroud. All your gold should go into Mana/Mana Regen/AP (and defense if you need it). Soul Shroud is a huge investment into the CDR aura which only makes sense if your carries gain a lot from the CDR.
Again gonna bring up this story of that Sona I recently had on my team, she was >1900:
She went 4-0 bottom lane. Then she got a triple kill. 7-0. Finished the game at 9-11-15.
Barely had any impact on the game despite the huge amounts of money she got.
Sona is still really weak lategame. I imagine that a fed Sona could just rush full aurabot. That's more or less guaranteed to be useful, right?
Assmuing the auras you are thinking about are Aegis and Starks, WotA in case you have a fed magic DPS: Sure those are always useful.
Still only works if your team has lots of CC, since Sona has trouble keeping enemies off her DPSers, and she doesn't have burst heal. You'd want to take Exhaust for that, but you need Flash for your ult and who takes CV then?
I also don't like how using her passive well requires you to spam less, and spammable spells are Sona's only real strength. You don't have 2 seconds to wait for the right proc to come up. You gotta have it ready when the enemy makes his move, but you run on global cooldowns.
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On May 23 2011 03:36 spinesheath wrote:Show nested quote +On May 23 2011 03:00 EmeraldSparks wrote:On May 22 2011 18:47 spinesheath wrote:
Don't get Soul Shroud. All your gold should go into Mana/Mana Regen/AP (and defense if you need it). Soul Shroud is a huge investment into the CDR aura which only makes sense if your carries gain a lot from the CDR.
Again gonna bring up this story of that Sona I recently had on my team, she was >1900:
She went 4-0 bottom lane. Then she got a triple kill. 7-0. Finished the game at 9-11-15.
Barely had any impact on the game despite the huge amounts of money she got.
Sona is still really weak lategame. I imagine that a fed Sona could just rush full aurabot. That's more or less guaranteed to be useful, right? Assmuing the auras you are thinking about are Aegis and Starks, WotA in case you have a fed magic DPS: Sure those are always useful. Still only works if your team has lots of CC, since Sona has trouble keeping enemies off her DPSers, and she doesn't have burst heal. You'd want to take Exhaust for that, but you need Flash for your ult and who takes CV then? I also don't like how using her passive well requires you to spam less, and spammable spells are Sona's only real strength. You don't have 2 seconds to wait for the right proc to come up. You gotta have it ready when the enemy makes his move, but you run on global cooldowns.
Yeah I found this to be particularly true. It's nearly impossible to sit around waiting for the right spell to come off CD when you need to be poking/healing your team/speeding them up constantly. I do find her poking to be very strong though, especially with a lot of AP. Her Q is almost as good as Nid spear imo; does as much damage from less range, procs strong autoattack, hits 2 people.
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you dont stop spamming to utillize your passive: you stop auto attacking undtil you have the wanted aura effect.
I fond that to be simple
Yes I know soraka is better ( she is so fn to play pure AP too!) but I dont like Taric and Janna has long since gotten me bored which is why I chose sona for some fresh blood.
Karma is fun too but I dont think she is that good at all.
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On May 23 2011 06:11 Iplaythings wrote:
you dont stop spamming to utillize your passive: you stop auto attacking undtil you have the wanted aura effect.
I fond that to be simple
Yes I know soraka is better ( she is so fn to play pure AP too!) but I dont like Taric and Janna has long since gotten me bored which is why I chose sona for some fresh blood.
Karma is fun too but I dont think she is that good at all.
Assume you spam QWEQWEQWE (replace with any order you seem fit). You hit Q. An anti-carry jumps on your carry. You mash E like mad, but no dice, it won't be available until ~5 seconds later. You decide to use the W proc instead. Only takes about 2 seconds to get it up. TWO SECONDS. That anti carry could go read a book before he kills your carry and you still wouldn't have proc'd anything on him.
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the passive is shit. don't rely on it. her biggest advantage is team mobility. can't play her like the traditional taric/janna support where you are a giant nuisance in a teamfight, cause you aren't and can't be.
you pretty much have to zip around the map like a team of teemos and force them to respond to you. force bad positioning from the other team, or just steal dragons/buffs as they try to respond to pushes and stuff.
i always found it better to save your ult for anti-carries and never try to use it like mumu's ult, unless you can catch their team horribly out of position. This makes you much less vulnerable, because this means you're sitting behind your own carry. the only aura your melee things needed was the initial speed boost anyways (which is actually pretty strong).
even if you get caught in a bad spot, the nature of the ult means you can usually disengage safely. This ties back into the whole mobility she gives, and abusing it to never fight battles that aren't clearly in your favor, which is IMO the point of sona.
also, buy shittons of wards. don't need many items beyond philo and boots, and you don't gain much benefit from additional items beyond maybe reverie. wards are even more beneficial to you and your team, because you have the extra mobility to use them even better.
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i tried heal/clair and i actually like it quite alot.
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So like, i read slayer91 posting something in GD along with others about going philo -> kindlegem -> chalice -> shurelya -> aegis
I've been trying this build with HUGE success. Been running 0/22/8 flash/heal with armor marks, 4 flat mp5 yellows, 5 armor seals, flat mres glyphs, 1 hp quint and 2 gp10 quints.
You're one unstoppable force in lane, basicly just lvl Q up and punish people hard enough in lane to make worth the trade with damage for sustain. I prefer flash over cv because i tend to do my warding ok, and if i screwed up i'll let my team know (early drags, blue steals etc).
EDIT: To make things abit more clearer cus now when i read wtf i wrote it gives very little detail of my success.
With CDR boots, shurelyas and the cdr mastery in defensive tree, you're gonna be shitting on a great opportunity to spam your spells quite often, and if you time it right, you can get the needed PC up for certain situations (need damage? Prepare for Q, need mitigation prepare for W, need slow prepare for E). Usually i pop my E PC mostly in team fights because it fucks up people badly (40% slow is something that's amazing). With Q lvl'ed up at 5 you're giving your team a very nice buff of ad and ap aswell as boosting your own damage and helping out while being able to provide heals from my W. This build does not just give you CDR it gives you infinite amount of mana and by the time you got aegis you're sitting on 120'ish armor and mres aswell as 2k+ hp. And the active from shurelyas is simply amazing. Provides so much utility for your team.
I don't have any issues with warding, you gotta be much more active early game to protect your ad carry, but once you get into mid/late you shouldn't really be warding much aside from objects and with the current fashion of wriggles you will perhaps have 1-2 extra ward to cover stuff if you feel the need to have vision over a certain point of the map.
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Just for the record my sona has 71% winrate somehow and I only ever play her in ranked when I can't pick jungle or top pretty much. I don't consider myself a good support player I just feel like sona is absurd.
I usually do quite well in lane but not always because I don't know bot lane that well and sometimes I get overagressive and die.
Anyway, I just glanced over this thread and someone said sona is bad lategame? wtf? Sona is crazy mid/late game. You basically are really really tanky with your W, items like shurelyas, chalice, aegis, maybe a randuins if needed, not to mention you're a low priority target for the other team and you can run constantly while casting spells so you're extremely hard to pin down. That means you generally get free reign to run around (provided you don't do anything stupid and just die) and spam your Q and W. Once I was in a game with this fed tristana on the other team (lol, probably my fault in lane as well but I don't remember) and I actually finished her off in like 3 teamfights when she was low hp and wanted to go back in maybe to clean up and I'd just like Q+power chord her to finish her off or flash q+power chord and double kill janna + trist is was pretty hilarious. But in general I just dish out so much healing and damage and can chase well, have good CC at the start of a teamfight with sona ult and great utility, I can W power chord bruisers, chase with e+power chord, but I'd say 80% of my power chords are damage ones because that's me. 
If I want more damage, I get deathcap, but prioritize max cdr>tanky enough to do my job>chalice for mana regen>AP.
I always do extremely well with sona mid/lategame unless of course the fights are one sided stomps where I can't make a big enough difference either way because we're so ahead/behind.
And I still go flash/cv because sona doesn't need heal or exhaust but I'm not sure if it's best or not. Flash is still really good on sona. Surviving is so useful because of her auras on q/w.
Oh, actually, the hating posts are like insanely old. That was before passive buff I think. Right now sonas passive is absurdly good.
And obviously I'm support so much games don't get past shurelyas/chalice and cdr boots if I'm lucky. But you'd be suprised how much money you get 40 minutes in with tons of assists +towers+dragons. I only get randuins really if I decided I wanted hog as well as kindlegem.
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I've been wildly flailing about trying to find a backup support, trying to get back into Sona but I can't get consistent with her for whatever reason. What's the normal skill order/runeset/masteries and how do you play against most opposing lanes? :/
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On December 14 2011 01:36 Southlight wrote:
I've been wildly flailing about trying to find a backup support, trying to get back into Sona but I can't get consistent with her for whatever reason. What's the normal skill order/runeset/masteries and how do you play against most opposing lanes? :/
i do r>q>w>e, 1 level e at 4, 9/0/21 masteries (edit: 8/1/21 if i take heal), tho offensive masteries work i'm sure, i just like starting with enough gold for faerie charm + 3 wards + 2 hp pots + 1 mana pot, and CV + either heal or flash, but mostly heal nowadays
my runes are mixed, but here goes: 5 armor marks + 4 AP marks, 6 mana regen seals + 3 armor seals, 5 mres glyphs + 4 mana regen glyphs, 1 AP quint, 1 MS quint and 1 HP quint.
the vast majority of lanes i just kinda poke them endlessly, then heal back up with w when necessary. Vs soraka, you just kinda poke at them, but tbh, you're prob not going to accomplish any real dmg without jungle support or lvl 6, basically your goal is to disrupt opponent's farm. Vs non heal supports (blitz + leona) i have to be really careful to not stick my neck out, and poke at them from safety, i make sure to get heal vs these two, kus they have abnormal burst dmg, so you need a bit of extra oomph that w by itself doesnt provide if either you or your buddy gets caught in a bad spot. Guess tl:dr is i almost always play passive aggressive. Sona doesn't have particularly great burst dmg, but she's prob the strongest at just whittling away at hp from safety.
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The problem I've faced is that against shit like Cow I don't feel like my mana efficiency at harassing matches the counterharass...
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I go R>Q>W>E but max W if you're getting screwed in lane. I get E when I feel it's needed, earliest level 7. Getting at level 4 gimps your heal too much early unless you're dominating lane hard. I run like some dumb mastery which gets mercenary and greed but I don't know if I should just run 21 offensive it's just a blanket support page which works for soraka who doesn't really want 21 offensive at all.
Runes just ap or g/10 quints, mpen red armour yellow cdr/lvl or flat or mr/lvl blues.
If you can't harass then just only use your harass when power chord is up or just save it for the engages to be honest. Sona has pretty good sustain and in engages then your auras and passive+q+w and at level 6 ulti is pretty damn strong. Not totally certain on something like trist+alistar jumping on you though, you probably get owned at level 4 and have to play passive until like 6 depending on AD after as well.
You can easily get W lvl 2 at 3 and maybe even lvl 3 at 5 and then switch to Q for teamfights or something. But W is a pretty safe bet for teamfights anyway.
I feel like even if sona can't harass she has good sustain and good engage + good support for ganks so it's okay if you dont' win lane you're probably doing more in teamfights anyway.
I've seen some trolly builds going like dorans ring +ap page+21 offensive that intends to dominate early on but I feel like AP isn't THAT efficient later on and it gimps you later and makes you really squishy + no wards at level 1 makes it feel gimmicky at best. Maybe stacking drings after philo but I honestly prefer cdr on sona. Helps you get passive up a lot as well.
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for me, e is important at lvl 4 because that's when you get ganked. having the speedup + slow power chord is invaluable against jungle ganks, and (unless i'm laning with treebeard) i dont trust my lane buddy to see ganks coming even with wards.
also, again assuming you have an intelligent lane partner, q aura is invaluable for their last hitting and harassing. worth noting i guess. I never really thought about it until tree started telling me to leave q on for the majority of laning phase.
i guess the biggest thing is that im pretty sure sona q outranges everything from all other supports, so just abuse it and being able to just pop out of bushes and q and slip back in before they can react, and then just keep it up for as long as you can. Tbh, i've never had problems with cow, so idk how to really help :[
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The items are terribad :p
I go normal support items at start. Philo stone >1 boots > heart of gold > cdboots or mercs > shurelia > aegis > game should be finished but late game items should be archangels i think.
my lvl sequence Q W W E W R and Q second and E last.
magicpen reds
armor yellows
cd reduction or mp5 blues
movespeeds quins
buy wards every time you go back.
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Why buy a hog if you're not gonna get randuins? It's so meh.
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On December 14 2011 02:08 Southlight wrote:
The problem I've faced is that against shit like Cow I don't feel like my mana efficiency at harassing matches the counterharass...
Against Alistar imo you want to bait an engage by Ali on you. If you max W, cast it before his stuff hits, and/or have heal, you will survive the burst and then you just hunt them down. You should lane with a high damage AD for that.
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Valhalla18444 Posts
goofball time!
I present AD Sona, bottom lane terrormonster.
PROS:
- Very strong burst in lane, comparable to Sivir or Graves
- Great AA range and animation; easy last-hitting
- Ghetto sustain pre-wriggles, meaning better support flexibility
- High gank utility; moredeeps/slow/damage reduction
- Excellent duelist
- Massive teamfight utility with R
CONS:
- No AD scaling abilities
- Low AoE damage potential
- No natural escapes; reliant on Flash.
THE BUILD:
Runes:
Reds: Arpen
Yellows: Armor
Blues: MR/lvl
Quints: Flat AD
Masteries:
21/9/0 - Defensive lane against Graves, Trist, Corki etc where you are likely to take some damage and must win trades
21/0/9 - Aggressive lane with higher utility lategame, use vs Ashe, Sivir, Cait, etc
I run mostly 21/0/9, only vs Graves/Soraka or similar combos do I take 9 defense. I run heal on myself if I take 9 defense.
Sum'ners:
Flash/Exhaust for 21/0/9, Flash/Heal for 21/9/0
ITEM:
AD Sona has to compensate for her lack of AD scaling by getting a little extra utility from items. Wriggles is a fantastic item in that regard, giving her extra sustain and more dps on dragon/baron.
Start Cloth + 5pots. At lvl1 with your Q aura you'll be at 69AD, which is a respectable amount. Doran sword is acceptable if you're facing a difficult lane or have Soraka support.
Wriggles -> Zerkers + 2-3 Dorans -> PD -> IE -> LW -> whatever last.
This build gives you a strong earlygame, and turns into an endgame dps build that is reliant on your autos to deal the bulk of your damage. Think of yourself as Caitlyn with no traps, a better R, and slightly lower attack range.
SKILL ORDER:
QWQEQR, R>Q>E>W. The mobility from spamming E is fucking fantastic. It also gets your passive up while you're on your way to cause havoc. Maxing Q is obvious, you want that burst to carry through midgame. Max W over E if you're getting fucked up, but it shouldn't happen.
PLAY STYLE:
Your job, as with any other AD carry, is to farm. Farm like a monster so that lategame you can three-shot enemy champs and four-shot towers. Early game, gauge whether you can win a trade at lvl 1. Don't do this vs stun lanes (Leona Taric Ali), wait til lvl 3 vs them. If you can win a trade, that means you can completely take over the lane. Sona is a lane bully, you need to play that way to be successful. Playing the lane passively means you're going to farm less than their AD carry. You need to farm MORE than their AD carry to be comparatively damaging, if we ignore the great utility of your auras.
If you've ever played Sona support (lol) you'll be familiar with punishing last-hit attempts and general overextension by your enemies with Q + Power Chord burst. The idea is the same as AD Sona. You will put yourself in an advantageous situation quite often due to the sheer power of her burst combo early on. This quality carries into lategame as well. I'm not exactly sure how the damage increase works on her Power Chord mathematically, but if you catch their mage lategame with R + Q + Power Chord and a couple autos, you chew them up just as fast as the rest of the AD cast.
In order to play AD Sona successfully, you need to realize that you don't bring as much to the table lategame as other AD carries, at least in terms of damage. That means you still need to be somewhat in the support mindset during teamfights - get the most out of your abilities and the utility they provide, and land those clutch Rs, and you'll find a place in lategame. Your autos are just as deadly as everyone else's, even more deadly than a surprising number of current popular AD carries because of how superior Sona's animation and range are. Wiki lists Sona's AA range as 550, but it also lists Vayne's range as 550 and i guarantee Sona outranges Vayne (tested yesterday when i had to play SUPPORT sona, god forbid). Not sure what the appropriate numbers are.
THIS IS NOT A TROLL BUILD, IT'S LEGIT. I simply do not agree that an AD carry REQUIRES damaging AoE abilities with AD ratios to be effective lategame.
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why dont people play sona as a solo? the only times ive seen it looked legit
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I assume people don't play Sona in a solo lane because she doesn't have a lot of damage scaling, and that solo lane farm is better for a champion who can scale better with items. It's not like she can farm up tank items and go around flinging people like Singed, and her burst isn't going to be as high with deathcap as say <insert any fotm ap carry>. I can think of plenty of champions who are much scarier when farmed up than her, which is probably why she isn't played in the solo. That said if you do play solo lane Sona, and get a 15 minute Triforce, you're going to be a huge threat.
EDIT: As a support I buy pink ward at level one, and a few green wards too. This will allow you to remove the enemies' ward, and you can coordinate ganks with the jungler. I like philo, and chalice early. The passive on Chalice is great for keeping enough mana for her w. Philo turns into Reverie, I use it offensively and defensively, which is amazing utility in any coordinated team environment. I like playing her with Ezreal in an aggressive as hell early lane maxing q first. With good coordination with your Ezreal you can set up experience denial using both of your champions q's. The second thing I like about this lane set up is the level 6 Line-em-up ultimate combo. The burst damage from the r-q-powercord while ez goes q ult q is going to hurt. The third and most deceptive part of the lane combo that should not be overlooked is the double dps debuff from both champions w's. This is actually the only time I suggest getting w on Ez at 4, (I don't suggest ap Ez ever,) but ignore that. With ez's exhaust, and w power cord and debuff, I have made botched gank attempts turn into 4-0 kill leads at 5-6 minutes or what ever.
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When she first came out, some people actually did play her as a solo lane AP carry. But her AP ratios and Q range (I believe) got nerfed so I stopped seeing her. Her AP build is pretty mediocre now. I can see her being in a solo lane and building AD though. I think her main drawback is that she's pretty vulnerable to ganks.
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There's a guy around 1900 who only plays AD sona, his name is something like Hoaz the AD sona.
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Valhalla18444 Posts
On February 02 2012 08:40 Dgiese wrote:
There's a guy around 1900 who only plays AD sona, his name is something like Hoaz the AD sona.
Can't find it 
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Sucks that LOLRecorder isn't working atm , but do you have any reps from before? I'm curious to see how the games play out!
New fotm????
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"The Hozz Ad Sona". Seems he stopped playing october last year. A sad day indeed.
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The problem I have with AD sona is this: Everything you can as AD sona would be better used if you were a support sona. The Auras will still go to your AD, except the AD has steriods who will do much more damage than you.scaling with the same gold, while the utility you get from sonas base stats are the same. It might look good doing 600 damage with Q+passive, but it's better if you do 400 damage from Q+passive and then your AD does 400 damage himself. Nothing sona has actually scales well (except cdr, since you spam your abilities base stats more, and tank stats since you can stay alive longer and go deeper in a teamfight, both cdr and tank stats are standard on support) but here base stats are crazy. There's a reason Sona is the best support in the game. Any sucess with AD sona is coming from the base strength of sona combined with decent items. I'd argue you do better if you have a good AD, say graves or something with you playing support sona. The only difference is you don't rune offensively and you don't take that much CS.
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On February 02 2012 05:32 FakeSteve[TPR] wrote:
goofball time!
I present AD Sona, bottom lane terrormonster.
PROS:
- Very strong burst in lane, comparable to Sivir or Graves
- Great AA range and animation; easy last-hitting
- Ghetto sustain pre-wriggles, meaning better support flexibility
- High gank utility; moredeeps/slow/damage reduction
- Excellent duelist
- Massive teamfight utility with R
CONS:
- No AD scaling abilities
- Low AoE damage potential
- No natural escapes; reliant on Flash.
THE BUILD:
Runes:
Reds: Arpen
Yellows: Armor
Blues: MR/lvl
Quints: Flat AD
Masteries:
21/9/0 - Defensive lane against Graves, Trist, Corki etc where you are likely to take some damage and must win trades
21/0/9 - Aggressive lane with higher utility lategame, use vs Ashe, Sivir, Cait, etc
I run mostly 21/0/9, only vs Graves/Soraka or similar combos do I take 9 defense. I run heal on myself if I take 9 defense.
Sum'ners:
Flash/Exhaust for 21/0/9, Flash/Heal for 21/9/0
ITEM:
AD Sona has to compensate for her lack of AD scaling by getting a little extra utility from items. Wriggles is a fantastic item in that regard, giving her extra sustain and more dps on dragon/baron.
Start Cloth + 5pots. At lvl1 with your Q aura you'll be at 69AD, which is a respectable amount. Doran sword is acceptable if you're facing a difficult lane or have Soraka support.
Wriggles -> Zerkers + 2-3 Dorans -> PD -> IE -> LW -> whatever last.
This build gives you a strong earlygame, and turns into an endgame dps build that is reliant on your autos to deal the bulk of your damage. Think of yourself as Caitlyn with no traps, a better R, and slightly lower attack range.
SKILL ORDER:
QWQEQR, R>Q>E>W. The mobility from spamming E is fucking fantastic. It also gets your passive up while you're on your way to cause havoc. Maxing Q is obvious, you want that burst to carry through midgame. Max W over E if you're getting fucked up, but it shouldn't happen.
PLAY STYLE:
Your job, as with any other AD carry, is to farm. Farm like a monster so that lategame you can three-shot enemy champs and four-shot towers. Early game, gauge whether you can win a trade at lvl 1. Don't do this vs stun lanes (Leona Taric Ali), wait til lvl 3 vs them. If you can win a trade, that means you can completely take over the lane. Sona is a lane bully, you need to play that way to be successful. Playing the lane passively means you're going to farm less than their AD carry. You need to farm MORE than their AD carry to be comparatively damaging, if we ignore the great utility of your auras.
If you've ever played Sona support (lol) you'll be familiar with punishing last-hit attempts and general overextension by your enemies with Q + Power Chord burst. The idea is the same as AD Sona. You will put yourself in an advantageous situation quite often due to the sheer power of her burst combo early on. This quality carries into lategame as well. I'm not exactly sure how the damage increase works on her Power Chord mathematically, but if you catch their mage lategame with R + Q + Power Chord and a couple autos, you chew them up just as fast as the rest of the AD cast.
In order to play AD Sona successfully, you need to realize that you don't bring as much to the table lategame as other AD carries, at least in terms of damage. That means you still need to be somewhat in the support mindset during teamfights - get the most out of your abilities and the utility they provide, and land those clutch Rs, and you'll find a place in lategame. Your autos are just as deadly as everyone else's, even more deadly than a surprising number of current popular AD carries because of how superior Sona's animation and range are. Wiki lists Sona's AA range as 550, but it also lists Vayne's range as 550 and i guarantee Sona outranges Vayne (tested yesterday when i had to play SUPPORT sona, god forbid). Not sure what the appropriate numbers are.
THIS IS NOT A TROLL BUILD, IT'S LEGIT. I simply do not agree that an AD carry REQUIRES damaging AoE abilities with AD ratios to be effective lategame.
troll build is trolling
User was warned for this post
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Boxedlunch, if you want to point out the flaws in a build I suggest you take a note of slayer's post, as that's the right way. A one liner that contributes nothing... Well I already said it, it contributes nothing.
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Valhalla18444 Posts
it's not a troll build either. it legitimately works. in a situation where you absolutely must be the sole reason your team wins from the AD carry position, Sona ain't gonna be your AD of choice, but besides losing to mf lanes for free she is very dominant in bottom lane and can turn that into an advantage for her team. If you're more farmed than your opponent AD you're gonna be more useful and more damaging. If you're going to play AD Sona you have to pay attention to things like your power curve, for example when you finish wriggles+pd you're significantly stronger than their carry if they dont have IE yet. Significantly stronger.
Yes you are more or less relegated to pewpewing their bruisers and tanks from safety when your R is off cooldown, but she's just as good as every other champion with a 550 range auto in that regard.
And seriously, Sona is a tremendous duellist. There aren't a ton of champs that can 1v1 a fed AD Sona. That has value as well. She's definitely not the strongest, but to say it's a troll build is just ignorant
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It's not that bad per se, I'd agree. I'd just much prefer to be a support sona+an AD than an AD sona+another support in midgame. If it were possible, AD Sona+Support Sona would be a sick bot lane.
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Valhalla18444 Posts
I was just thinking that hahaha. Sona/Soraka is really fucking strong though, wanna trade that harass all day
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I know of someone that really likes his AD Sona (and converted his gf to it in one game) that advocates grabbing Sona/Soraka for trades all day long, getting triforce as core and then tanky stuff, relying on Q and passive for damage and abusing her duelists capabilities: she's really hard to kill when somewhat tanky thanks to W heal, aura and powerchord, and trinity procs+powerchord+Q active and some AD thrown in here and there do the job. I'll ask him if he buys other damage items tho, as triforce doesn't give so much AD.
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Alright, I'm going to bump this back from the dead.
I haven't seen her enough lately and since I've been on a winning streak with her lately (~5 games in a row), winning bottom lane every time, I figured it'd be as good of a time as any to discuss her again. (Currently at 37-20 in ranked games with sona, 64.9% winrate at ~1570-1590 ELO)
Against 90% of lanes (Anything that doesn't involve blitzcrank, leona, or alistar+bursty AD), I go QWQWQ and poke the crap out of them.
Also, she synergizes with Varus stupidly well. Varus already has some absurd poke in his Q and sona only adds to that. The other slightly better reason is that at level 6, they can 100-0 any lane, no problem.
It goes something like this:
Varus initiates a trade with one to two auto attacks, sona crescendo's and pops a Q + powerchorded autoattack. Varus procs 3 stack blight with his ultimate to chain CC together. Varus auto's and right before his ultimate ends, procs two more stacks with his arrow rain. Whoever got focused is dead.
I pretty much forgot about sona after the nerfs for a while but playing her again reminded me why I have a skin for her and also, why I had a 70+% winrate with her pre-nerf (slowly working my way back up towards that goal).
The reason this is so strong is that varus is the only AD in the game with a hard CC + huge burst (Ashe has the cc but not the burst). Sona can get off two Q's which is actually a massive amount of damage, 3 if they're far enough out from tower, you're pretty much guaranteed a kill.
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Greetings.
I see there are some AD Sona fans out there and have some questions.
The last patch notes tipped me over the edge and I finally gave her a shot as AD and found it to be hilarious fun as well as quite successful (I'm 4-0 so far in the terrible Elo normals I have fun with my friends in).
Just wondering on peoples opinions of various builds for her. Power chord and spammy spells screams early sheen to me, but I seemed to do better (very very low sample size) going straight up regular AD carry items.
assuming a boots+3 or 4 start:
sheen->beserkers->IE->PD->finish triforce?
dorans x 2->beserkers->vamp scepter->IE->PD?
straight up sheen/triforce rush?
something else? thoughts?
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Sheen makes her burst absurdly hard with a powerchord + Q but I'd still go IE->sheen-> trinity on her though, similar to corki since like corki, she has spammable skills, not an on-hit effect like ezreal's Q.
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Korea (South)11232 Posts
She is so good as a support played 10 games never lost the lane phase. She can harass so hard with +AP quints.
Dont get it why she is so underplayed in pro tournaments. IG just picked her against clg.prime but I think thats her fist appearance in ages.
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On July 25 2012 19:32 Lmui wrote:
Sheen makes her burst absurdly hard with a powerchord + Q but I'd still go IE->sheen-> trinity on her though, similar to corki since like corki, she has spammable skills, not an on-hit effect like ezreal's Q.
Sheen is amazing for the poke, getting it later on is a waste as you won't be poking with autos anymore.
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Hey folks, just wanted to get a few thoughts out there about my most-played champ that I've been sitting on for a while. Have 3 points I wanted to discuss.
First of all before the Q mana buff I always went chalice on Sona after my GP10's since it lets you spam W and E indefinitely. 900 Gold is a huge chunk though so I wanted to talk about other mana options.
Generally speaking I've found Philo's gives you enough to poke in lane, not infinite mana but it lets you spam Q and heal a bit. Upgraded to a Shurelias you get a similar thing late-game where you get enough mana but can't quite spam everything. Lately I've been looking at the possibility of a Mana Manipulator, especially with AD's like Ezreal or Graves in your lane. I usually end up completing Philo's + HoG at about 13-16 minutes depending on a few factors and it feels like thats too late for a Mana Manipulator to be useful, implying that it should be built instead of a HoG (which is pretty crap and seriously over-rated). Philo's into Mana sounds pretty good. There is however the option of Philo's into Doran's Ring, gives you a better laning presence, especially since you aren't getting that Ruby Crystal as early anymore.
The other option is of course Mana Regen seals (or possibly even just glyphs) but that -13 armour just seems to fuck me so badly. I have never enjoyed Sona without the armour yellows. Could possibly just get mana regen seals and then buy an early cloth armour to be turned into an aegis (especially if you skip HoG and turn the first ruby crystal into aegis too).
Secondly I firmly believe that maxing E (speed) before W (heal) is infinitely superior in most situations. Max Q first obviously but only 1 or 2 points in W before working on the speed. This plus a rushed Shurelias (for the mana/cdr) gives a whole new dimension to your team that they can't really do on their own, whereas they can work on their tanky stats themselves. New Sona doesn't get the persistant aura's of Old Sona so you can't really give out both damage and resistances, it's one or the other. I prefer to give out damage and then have E for utility.
Thirdly I've been having a ton of fun with Cheese Sona. 21/9/0 masteries with AD marks and (possibly) AD quints. You cut the lifesteal and crit masteries for CDR and Mpen in offense. New Sona lets you spam your passive so much more often and doing so on Q doubles your base damage. Full on AD pages doubles that even higher and lets you effectively 1-shot people at early levels.
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Alright with the season 3 changes, the best opening, bar none that I've found on sona is:
Masteries 1/13/16, grabbing gp10, wealth, ward and biscuit.
Items:
Flask+ 4 green wards
OR
Flask + 2 greens 1 pink
Against any lane with no hard initiate (janna, soraka, nunu etc) just spam Q all day. You can pretty easily run the enemy team out of pots by level 3 or 4 using the biscuit and the first two charges of bottle, especially since you don't ever need to use W unless your AD takes damage.
It's so utterly broken in terms of lane domination.
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Hey guys, just a question,
Is playing AP Sona OR Support Sona use the same build, or completely different?
BTW Sona's Voice <3
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Playing AP Sona uses a different build, yes.
You want to build AP items(Grail, Deathcap, Lich Bane) on AP Sona, and supporty items(Sightstone, Runic Bulwark, Locket of the Iron Solari) on Support Sona.
+ Show Spoiler +
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On December 12 2012 11:45 Praetorial wrote:Playing AP Sona uses a different build, yes. You want to build AP items(Grail, Deathcap, Lich Bane) on AP Sona, and supporty items(Sightstone, Runic Bulwark, Locket of the Iron Solari) on Support Sona. + Show Spoiler +
Hmm how about gameplay, anything different?
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On December 12 2012 12:22 PiPoGevy wrote:Show nested quote +On December 12 2012 11:45 Praetorial wrote:Playing AP Sona uses a different build, yes. You want to build AP items(Grail, Deathcap, Lich Bane) on AP Sona, and supporty items(Sightstone, Runic Bulwark, Locket of the Iron Solari) on Support Sona. + Show Spoiler + Hmm how about gameplay, anything different?
what do you mean? as ap sona you are a carry so you need to have safe positioning, farm alot in lane etc.
Maybe it is easyer if we make a couple stories:
1a) as ap-sona you would poke with q during a teamfight until their bruisers dive you. Now you use your ult to protect yourself and deal as much damage as you can while they are stunned. With your strong heal, mobility and high dps from q you try to outtrade the bruisers and kill them in the process.
1b) as support sona you see an opportunity to stun 2-3 high value targets. you flash into them and ult. because you allready used your most valuable tool you don't have problems to gain distance to the fight, since your ap and ad carries have caught up and are now allready doing their dps rotations. you try to use your auras and item actives to enable your carries to deal a ton of damage.
I hope that helped. In addition there can be said sona is allready useful with minimal farm and most importantly: not as useful as ap carries when she has alot of farm and a carry build.
I would stick to support sona if I where you. she has been the most stable support for a long time now, because she is easy to play and has a strong teamfight presence.
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On December 12 2012 17:10 clickrush wrote:Show nested quote +On December 12 2012 12:22 PiPoGevy wrote:On December 12 2012 11:45 Praetorial wrote:Playing AP Sona uses a different build, yes. You want to build AP items(Grail, Deathcap, Lich Bane) on AP Sona, and supporty items(Sightstone, Runic Bulwark, Locket of the Iron Solari) on Support Sona. + Show Spoiler + Hmm how about gameplay, anything different? what do you mean? as ap sona you are a carry so you need to have safe positioning, farm alot in lane etc. Maybe it is easyer if we make a couple stories: 1a) as ap-sona you would poke with q during a teamfight until their bruisers dive you. Now you use your ult to protect yourself and deal as much damage as you can while they are stunned. With your strong heal, mobility and high dps from q you try to outtrade the bruisers and kill them in the process. 1b) as support sona you see an opportunity to stun 2-3 high value targets. you flash into them and ult. because you allready used your most valuable tool you don't have problems to gain distance to the fight, since your ap and ad carries have caught up and are now allready doing their dps rotations. you try to use your auras and item actives to enable your carries to deal a ton of damage. I hope that helped. In addition there can be said sona is allready useful with minimal farm and most importantly: not as useful as ap carries when she has alot of farm and a carry build. I would stick to support sona if I where you. she has been the most stable support for a long time now, because she is easy to play and has a strong teamfight presence.
Exactly what I was looking for, thanks very much >.<
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How do you guys feel about exhaust vs heal? From the games I've played with Sona, I much prefer heal. I only get exhaust if the AD asks me to, and I find I generally get a lot worse results with it.
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Played my first Sona in ranked and went with a suggestion from TL to start dorans shield against a hard initiate lane :D Ez Sona vs MF Leona. Easy win ;D The poke is still retarded strong, you just don't die anymore. The WTF-factor from your teammates is high, though.
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Hi, I have been playing Sona as a support for a long time now and I have been wondering about the different ways of harassing during lane phase. For example, stacking power cord and casting Hymn of Valor and auto attacking for a nice chunk. But, recently I have been doing another way to harass lane bullies(Caitlyn) . Stacking Power Cord with Aria of Perseverance and auto attacking first so the de-buff is set and then casting Hymn of Valor is another great way to harass. I know I'am not the first person to find this trick but I'am wondering if there are any others similar to this that people do?
Another question I have is for Solo Q Champion select with Blitz and Thresh almost always banned out. Does Sona become top main priority pick? if not, is Taric the next best pick vs Sona? And this is for top 3 picks not seeing the enemy picks yet so team comps is still unkown. Could this be a general role of thumb?
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taric is basically never a good pick anymore he got nerfed to hell
the debuff really isnt all that amazing, its 20% less damage, which is pretty tiny except against burst damage ults and stuff in teamfights. Q doubles your power chord damage, so unless cait does 5x your power chord damage in said trade its not worth it. HOWEVER using w twice to get 2 stacks and then Q+power chord should be a mainstay harass tactic.
sona is really strong but definitely supports like leona and lulu and jannahave enough in their kits to compete if you don't wanna play her
she has been heavily nerfed, back with old passive and old w aura she was a lot stronger, but they thought fixing a bug where w didnt work would be a buff (i never used it anyway except by mistake HUEHUEHUE DAT WINRATE)
i need to write a guide for this im a beast sona and this neo's guide is terribadawful
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Valhalla18444 Posts
After the last round of nerfs to her passive, AD Sona is well and truly dead on Summoner's Rift. She simply can't trade with other ADs levels 1-5 anymore. She needs to be able to bully in lane to make up for the fact that later on, she has no steroids or AD-scaling abilities, just a great auto and tons of utility
AD Sona is still ridiculous on Howling Abyss though, where you are just gifted 1375 gold and 3 levels
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On June 28 2013 08:08 FakeSteve[TPR] wrote:
After the last round of nerfs to her passive, AD Sona is well and truly dead on Summoner's Rift. She simply can't trade with other ADs levels 1-5 anymore. She needs to be able to bully in lane to make up for the fact that later on, she has no steroids or AD-scaling abilities, just a great auto and tons of utility
AD Sona is still ridiculous on Howling Abyss though, where you are just gifted 1375 gold and 3 levels
I still don't see why you don't realize that this makes her an amazing support instead of a mediocre ad carry
you arent THAT far behind on gold if you play your cards right, earlier today I got a 13 minute RoA
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On June 28 2013 08:20 Slayer91 wrote:Show nested quote +On June 28 2013 08:08 FakeSteve[TPR] wrote:
After the last round of nerfs to her passive, AD Sona is well and truly dead on Summoner's Rift. She simply can't trade with other ADs levels 1-5 anymore. She needs to be able to bully in lane to make up for the fact that later on, she has no steroids or AD-scaling abilities, just a great auto and tons of utility
AD Sona is still ridiculous on Howling Abyss though, where you are just gifted 1375 gold and 3 levels I still don't see why you don't realize that this makes her an amazing support instead of a mediocre ad carry you arent THAT far behind on gold if you play your cards right, earlier today I got a 13 minute RoA
I don't even know what that means, why would you have a RoA on a support sona?
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On June 28 2013 08:34 Complete wrote:Show nested quote +On June 28 2013 08:20 Slayer91 wrote:On June 28 2013 08:08 FakeSteve[TPR] wrote:
After the last round of nerfs to her passive, AD Sona is well and truly dead on Summoner's Rift. She simply can't trade with other ADs levels 1-5 anymore. She needs to be able to bully in lane to make up for the fact that later on, she has no steroids or AD-scaling abilities, just a great auto and tons of utility
AD Sona is still ridiculous on Howling Abyss though, where you are just gifted 1375 gold and 3 levels I still don't see why you don't realize that this makes her an amazing support instead of a mediocre ad carry you arent THAT far behind on gold if you play your cards right, earlier today I got a 13 minute RoA I don't even know what that means, why would you have a RoA on a support sona?
because i can
such a retarded item, so many stats
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It seems like everytime I play against Sona I lose lane. Not saying its a "Imba" thing it's just I'am not that great playing vs her. For example I run LuLu, what should be my lvl 1 skills get? should I be playing aggressive early? or passive until lvl 6? How do I unravel the mysterious support sona?
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On June 28 2013 14:58 OLMantis wrote:
It seems like everytime I play against Sona I lose lane. Not saying its a "Imba" thing it's just I'am not that great playing vs her. For example I run LuLu, what should be my lvl 1 skills get? should I be playing aggressive early? or passive until lvl 6? How do I unravel the mysterious support sona?
Click on sona, pay attention to when she has powercord up. If she can auto-Q-Qpowercord-W she will win trades against you. If powercord not up, trade with her, you'll win.
I always get Q first on Lulu, that why you pick Lulu, to be aggressive and zone people with your range and solid early trading. Q best early trading skill, lets you tag both AD and support for 80 damages.
Lulu and Sona both have same support style, as well as same powercurve really, I dunno I think it a skill matchup more determined by how well both bot lanes communicate. /shrug I think Lulu has the ability to outplay a little bit , but I'd say that in even scenario matchup maybe slightly in Sona's favor. Keep in mind you can WE sona everytime she comes to trade, then Q both her and her AD and usually win the trade even with eating just a sona powerchord and Sona's heal, but that requires you to hit both parties.
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goooooooooood you guys are all wrong you start full ad runes, smite and revive for summoner spells, Q and W are overated you max E first gooooshhhhh
(please someone get this)
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On June 28 2013 08:35 Slayer91 wrote:Show nested quote +On June 28 2013 08:34 Complete wrote:On June 28 2013 08:20 Slayer91 wrote:On June 28 2013 08:08 FakeSteve[TPR] wrote:
After the last round of nerfs to her passive, AD Sona is well and truly dead on Summoner's Rift. She simply can't trade with other ADs levels 1-5 anymore. She needs to be able to bully in lane to make up for the fact that later on, she has no steroids or AD-scaling abilities, just a great auto and tons of utility
AD Sona is still ridiculous on Howling Abyss though, where you are just gifted 1375 gold and 3 levels I still don't see why you don't realize that this makes her an amazing support instead of a mediocre ad carry you arent THAT far behind on gold if you play your cards right, earlier today I got a 13 minute RoA I don't even know what that means, why would you have a RoA on a support sona? because i can such a retarded item, so many stats
Guinsoo's is way better.
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sona is all about in-n-out stacking rageblade seems impractical at best
not a bad idea tho
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I love Sona. AD sona I think best itembuild is either BT-triforce-LW, or you can go for just standard autoattacking adc IE-PD-LW.
Support sona I think 0/13/17 is better than 1/13/16, the pickpocket mastery is really good, it's perfect for how you are supposed to play Sona.
About the doransshield start someone mentioned earlier: I think it's bad, you shouldn't have damage problems as Sona, just use potions.
The itemstarts I use:
fairycharm, 3wards, 2hp pot, 1mana pot
fairycharm, 1 pink, 2 normal wards, 2hp pot - I get this when I want a pink ward, like when enemy team has a mid/top running teleport summoner spell
3ward, 1pink, 3hp pot, 2mana pot - dominate earlygame with this, I'd also take ignite mastery if you go for this build
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keeping guinsoo stacks on sona is only possible with some major manaregen. roa seems to be a strong choice on her because it makes up for her lack of base stats and her huge mana needs. iam a huge fan of the philo + chalice combo on her though (along with ruby sightstone and tabi). the athenes upgrade is pretty sick on her combined with a shureilas you max cdr and have alot of mana to spam. instead of getting a roa when i have spare money early on i rather get a tear instead of a philo and then still a chalice. its very rewarding to play sona if you don't have to worry about mana. Also i tried out the new dorans shield on her once on a early first back and it feels pretty strong. pretty sure stacking a dorans shield and a dorans ring or two along with sightstone is a strong midgame buid. in the end what makes sense about it and things like roa is that sona is very stat hungry and is great at snowballing lanes because you can't really defnend against what she is doing except by smart engages or if you are soraka. even if you hug turret. so investing in stats is very often a good thing compared to gold generators. just that roa is a pure luxury and dorans stuff and the like are very costefficient and cheap.
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I only got RoA because I was uber fed and based with 1200 gold and said fuck it.
my standard build is like locket/cdr boots/sighstone into tank or chalice (mikaels if I went early philo)
shurelyas sucks so bad I don't really like it
glacial is pretty decent too if you need armour.
cdr/tank/regen most important sona stats
I'd say cdr>regen usually though
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Lulu and Sona both have same support style, as well as same powercurve really, I dunno I think it a skill matchup more determined by how well both bot lanes communicate. /shrug I think Lulu has the ability to outplay a little bit , but I'd say that in even scenario matchup maybe slightly in Sona's favor. Keep in mind you can WE sona everytime she comes to trade, then Q both her and her AD and usually win the trade even with eating just a sona powerchord and Sona's heal, but that requires you to hit both parties.
Okay, when playing against Sona with Lulu again (I like this example) would it be ideal to run Flat AP to counter the burst and be able to trade properly. Also, max glitterlance? Also should I be running more offensive runes or defensive?
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The only case I've seen Lulu not max Q was Krepo maxing E (Help, Pix! the shield/mark spell) because their duo was against a Sona lane. Sona usually outpokes Lulu because of the burst from powechord that Lulu can't match and the sustain, but I can see a good Lulu harass with max range Q or using E on minions/the AD to avoid getting into Sona's range. Since they both eat mana so fast I have no idea who would have the most trouble, Lulu keeping the damage up or Sona mitigating it with heals.
Not sure about that WE Sona then Q so it hits both her and the AD (ugh, relying on E to hit people is so random with the way Pix flies around the target and messes up the trajectory), it's on a long cd, longer than Sona's powerchord, and it uses up so much mana. @_@
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sona doesnt outtrade lulu that hard but she has a shield, also you can outplay a lulu by dodging q and your q is undodgeable same with your auto so thats why lulu is weaker than sona in lane
however you're in luck because you have 2 forms of CC pre 6 that will help you gank the sona with no escapes or cc
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So, if the answer to playing against Sona with Lulu is to trade better Lulu keeping the damage up or Sona mitigating it with heals.
would it be safe to say getting Flat Magic Resist Glyphs over MR per Level Glyphs is the better choice when playing against Sona?
Now lets flip the scenario , Playing verses a LuLu who has come prepared she has the Flat MR she got her Q firstI always get Q first on Lulu, that why you pick Lulu, to be aggressive and zone people with your range and solid early trading. Continuing, Lulu is coming and ready to poke! *stop and rewind* How does Sona open VS a Lulu? Does Sona get W to counter strong early game? or Q to just even out a trade? Does Sona need Flat MR vs Lulu even? And how do I open? with extra pots or get the mana pendant?
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I play support sona going 5/0/25, getting exhaust + cdr masteries in offense. Near full utility tree grabbing the 3% ms helps me get in range for my auto+Q+Power auto.
I tend to always go Q>W>Q>E no matter who I'm up against. Against Lulu, you do not run head first or you'll eat a glitterlance 100%, instead run diagonally towards her reduces the chances of getting hit by it.
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Sona/Nami/Taric/Ali all have heals that are more efficient for multiple targets. You want to split trades where you and your AD stand relatively apart and hit the opposing duo a little, then back off and enjoy superefficient healing.
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Using flat MR botlane (or at least a mix) is generally the better idea, with all the magic damage coming out from a Lulu/Sona/Leona it's really not negligible, even if Corki isn't FotM anymore.
As Sona I'd say still use Q first, your opening autoQpowerchord (or powerchordQauto) hits like a truck at level 1 so taking your heal that won't be useful at all unless you take damage before getting level 2 is a waste of that aggression potential, and would let Lulu bully you around with Qs and autos.
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I rewrote the sona guide because some nub who didn't know wat he was talking about wrote the first one ggg
didnt put any pretty pictures in yet though now to redo my nasus guide |o|
Sona, the Maven of the strings
Sona is a versatile support who is strong at all stages of the game but specifically laning phase. She has a combination of high damage, decent sustain and CC, with good auras that make her a viable pick for any general situation. Her main weakness is squishy base stats and lack of early game CC to defend against jungle ganks.
+ Show Spoiler [Patch Notes] +V3.8:
Stats
Base Health increased to 450 from 410
Base Armor increased to 11.3 from 9.3
Power Chord
Base Power Chord damage changed to 13/20/27/35/43/52/62/72/82/92/102/112/122/132/147/162/177/192 from 8 + (10 x level)
Aria of Perseverance
Fixed a bug where Power Chord: Diminuendo was not decreasing damage dealt
Lowered the duration of Power Chord: Diminuendo to 3 seconds from 4
Bonus Armor and Magic Resistance to self and healed ally reduced to 6/7/8/9/10 from 8/11/14/17/20
Changed aura bonus Armor and Magic Resistance to 6/7/8/9/10 from 3/6/9/12/15
V3.02:
Power Chord is no longer consumed when attacking wards.
V1.0.0.150:
Stats
Base health reduced to 410 from 450.
Base armor reduced to 9 from 11.
V1.0.0.148:
Tooltips have been updated.
V1.0.0.143:
General:
Basic attack and Power Chord missile speeds increased to 2000 from 1500.
Aura persistence duration reduced to 1 second after deactivation from 2.
Global cooldown reduced to 0.5 seconds from 2.
Power Chord
Now resets your attack timer so you can use it immediately.
Crescendo
Now deals all its damage instantly, rather than over time.
Opponents can no longer use Cleanse or Quicksilver Sash to remove the damage portion of the spell.
Summoner Skills:
Flash+Exhaust/Heal/Ignite/Barrier
Ignite is your standard strong laning, decent all the time spell.
Exhaust is often not great in lane, good against ganks (which sona is good against) and against specific champs that are weak against it (trynd, most assassins, riven, etc)
Heal//Barrier is something I've been using recently, since sona is so squishy any time they pick a kill lane I will tend to pick one of these so you're suddenly tanky and it also works as an anti gank tool. Barrier is weaker later on but you can make up for it if you win lane as a result. Heal is better if you're less likely to be focused directly and it works better later on.
Masteries: use a 0/9/21
By no means definitive. Summoners resolve for heal/barrier only, otherwise take a point in magic resist. Pickpocket is meh too, but not many good alternatives.
Runes:
Quints: Gp10
Marks: Armour
Seals: Armour
Glyphs: Magic resist
Sona is all about surviving to abuse your better damage so thats why you rune like that.
Skill Order: QWQW R>Q>W>E>R Take 1 point in E maximum after level 8 or so if you feel you'll need it.I tend to wait till level 13 though.
Item Build:
Starting items:
1: Faerie charm + 3 wards + 2 hp pots + mana pot
2: Cloth armour + 2 wards + 2 hp pots.
3: All wards/pots
Get cloth against more all in lanes. (syngery with heal/barrier+pots) If you need more wards for level 1 shenanigans you might not want to start any items. I don't recommend level 1 pinks, Sona is more worried about enemy jungler than brush vision, since you tend to dominate lanes with harass.
Philo stone: Get this against harass based supports where you don't need to worry about getting 1 combo'd. It's nice regen and builds into mikaels later so its not a complete waste.
Sightstone/Ruby sightstone: Generally good to have ASAP but you can skip it if you have the chance to get really op items fast (locket, or aegis or something) and buy less wards just when you need them. If you are winning or losing super hard often you don't need as many wards.
Locket: Get this every game its really strong.
CDR boots: Only other real option is tabi against all ad comps. CDR is sonas best damage stat by far and provides more sustain too.
Chalice: Sona needs a lot of regen to spam W in poke situations and it gives magic resist which you have not many good options for, also builds into mikaels which is useful against any dangerous CC.
Aegis/Bulwark: Get this after locket if nobody else is buying it, usually more important than chalice to get.
Randuins: Sona is all about surviving and this is one of the best tank items. Nobody expects you to run into the middle of a teamfight and rape their ad, randuins him ult him and then flash after him andfinish him with Q + passive npnppnp.
Spirit visage: If they have seriously rape amounts of ap damage maybe skip locket for this.
Athenes: A nice upgrade to chalice if you arent getting mikaels
Abyssal: Sona scales best on magic pen and its an aura item get this if you're uber fed. ( or liandries)
Typical build:
Philo+CDR boots+Locket+Chalice+Ruby sightstone
-->Buwark, Mikaels, Randuins
Playstyle
Tricks
Q mechanics:
Q behaves weirdly, in that it prioritizes champions up to a certain range (mouse over your q to check it), that means as long as the champion(s) are in that range it will hit them. However if there are no creeps the Q will stretch quite a bit longer.
This means 2 things:
1: Learn the Q range well, wasting mana while pushing the wave is not what you want. You can run into range Q and run out mid animation to make so it looks like the range is longer but you're just getting out ASAP so you're safer.
2: Watch the creeps. If you are killing the last 2 creeps, you can fire a Q and hit one or both enemy champs when they arent expecting it because of a sudden change in the situation. Also harassing under tower becomes quite easy when creeps are gone.
Q only hits enemies that you have vision of. An unwarded brush, a vayne that's stealthed, anytime you don't have vision your Q will do nothing but go on CD.
Conversely W will hit allies enemies don't have vision of so don't give away a jungler in a brush by healing him. (W prioritizes the lowest hp ally)
Watch tower range. Sona often harasses at towers. If you are going to go into tower range you want to hit them while the tower is shooting, if the tower is ready to fire it will acquire you as a target and shoot much faster than if it has to finish a shot on a creep before switching.
Power chord management:
Typically you only want to the Q auras version of power chord. The W one does half damage and the debuff is not nearly strong enough to account for this until later in the game. This means you need to count your spells properly. There are several sona "combos" in this fashion.
1: Q+auto, W, Q+power chord. Standard double harass +single heal.
2: W, W, Q+power chord. Sustain + harass on the third.
3: Power chord,Q Ult, W, Q+power chord. Nuke combo with ultimate.
4: Q, W, E + Power chord slow. Standard chase combo when you have your E.
Early Game
Start off by taking Q and charging it, buy items, and run to tribush or follow your team for an invade while charging your Q. You can fully charge Q in the fountain if you don't need to rush anywhere. (especially if you didn't start faerie).
If your jungler is starting on your side of the map be sure to help him, but keep in mind you usually want to get to lane the same time or earlier as the enemies so you don't lose the creep wave advantage. (Harassing with a lot of creeps on you does more damage than good)
You want to start harassing early and often. Try to coordinate with your AD carry, or pick times when the enemy AD is csing if your AD is playing too passively. Note that early on your autos are doing most of the damage, Q only does 50 damage early on and your auto damage is higher with the Q aura and especially with power chord. The main reason to use Q is that it makes sure you will out trade the AD carry when his autos do more damage. Often when you force the enemies away you can chase with just auto hits and microing them so you keep moving forward.
The issue with this is that you don't want to waste too much mana on level 1 Q's, lose a lot of hp from harass and creeps, use W just for yourself and be oom too early. When you hit level 3, (lvl 2 q), your Q doubles in damage and only costs 5 more mana. Also, your W works on both you and your AD in lane, therefore when only you take damage you ideally want to just use pots, and if your pots are running low, make sure you aren't trading poorly (including taking damage from 2 champs while your AD doesn't participate). If only your AD carry is low hp and you are full then GODDAMNIT GET IN THERE SOLDIER.
Also pay attention to things like AD sustain and support items/pots. If janna wants to be a bitch and buy lots of pinks to deward your ass then you slap that bitch around and she won't be able to do anything without any health regen/pots. If the AD carry doesn't buy vamp or many dorans blades/pots you put the hurt on him instead.
WARDING AND ANTI-JUNGLER TACTICS
Typically you use the first 1 minute ward just to ward the enemy brush. After that you have 2-3 wards to last you until you back. And sinse a typical laning phase for you is beating the shit out of the enemies until they are crying at their tower and then beating them some more junglers represent the main threat to your fine bottom lane establishment.
The first thing to realize is that spreading wards like herpes doesn't automatically make you a good support. Wasted wards are wasted money, wasted money is less items, less items is a weaker support champ meaning you will die more and have less freedom to operate later.
Tricks to save wards:
-Top lane is normally jungler city, if you are blue side you can expect their jungler to start blue and gank top or mid, pay attention so you know when their jungler might have based and could potentially be heading bottom.
-Coordinate wards. If your mid wards the jungle entrance you just need to ward tribush or dragon (purple/blue side respectively) to cover the main gank routes.
-Use a single ward in the brush closest to lane if the guy is likely to just lane gank. A J4 or lee can hop into that brush from purple side anyway, and from blue side can jump across to dragon or across the wall or just come from lane . Map awareness, enemy awareness (if they go super agressive randomly, 95% its a bait) are your friends because thinking you're safe because you have 2 wards up often gets you killed.
Ward placements:
Dragon ward = the most standard ward, this is also where will most often be pinked because of dragon control
Tribush ward: this +dragon ward covers the standard gank routes.
The "other" brush: This is the lazy ward to cover both routes but you have less reaction time, also works if the enemy pinked tri/dragon
The "golem" ward. (small golems brush blue side, south of blue golem brush purple side). If you have ruby sightstone you can use this for your 3rd ward location if you have time. It will catch almost every lane gank unless they sneak through the edge if they somehow suspect it (nobody does).
"Your" brush ward: Good defensive ward if you are getting pushed, you don't want to get ganked as soon as you push out.
"Their" brush ward: Standard so you can harass into the brush, and also helps spot most lane ganks if you place it up high enough. Also good if someone has TP to TP gank from.
Enemy blue//enemy red: If you have map control you can use this to spot ganks and also to coordinate a buff steal.
The 2 wraith brushes, (one next to the wraiths, the other further along the same wall): Ward these if you are pushing to their 2nd turret and you have mid map control and don't want to get ganked from the jungle.
Ideally you only want to place about 2 wards at any given time. Dragon+Tri early game, and then just dragon or tri later on but you ward the enemies lane brush and your mid wards to cover the 2nd route. 3 wards should be the maximum you need.
Midgame:
The first thing that's important about the midgame is map awareness. You don't need wards if you see that mid and jungle and both missing you know there is the potential for them to gank you. GTFO.
The second thing is warding around the key objectives, for most of the game, it's dragon. If you are really behind after 15 minutes it's baron, or if they have a strong baron team (karthus, nasus, elise, nunu, watch out for any of these guys and keep baron warded). The main thing is you just ward the brushes in the general area so you can safely take the objective. Just don't do anything that's unsafe. You should never die because you're in your own world floating around warding and suddenly 5 dudes are on you like white on rice. Only ward when its safe.
The third thing is intelligently allocating yourself. If the bot towers are up usually you want to stay laning. Once towers start to go down, almost always what happens is whoever is winning pushes and whoever is losing waits for the wave to hit 2nd tower and farms it. It doesn't matter which side you're on here but hanging around is probably useless. Aside from making sure wards are where they are needed (to let your AD push to 2nd tower if he wishes, or to block bot side jungle invades if you're on the losing side), you want to roam. The standard place to stay in around mid, that allows you to get to anywhere pretty fast and push down mid if you can. You can also head to top because nobody expects the wild sona to show up and rape you with ult while the junglers doing something else.
Teamfights:
In midgame fights, you typically stay around poking with your Q, sustaining with W, and not staying too close to any ally prime targets if they have some kind of aoe cc or damage spell (malph/j4/zac/xin/lee etcetc).
Once someone engages (or you engage with flash+ult if its going to hit the right people), you typically want to ult their squishies. Your ult is a pretty bad peel so unless 2-3 ppl are diving you'd prefer to catch the squishier guys on the way on, and it might hit a couple of tanks anyway. The key thing is that you have teammates ready to jump in on it, if you are just running thats when a defensive ult and kite+poke back is in order. Typically though, you ult 2-3 guys and you Q+powerchord whoever you think your team should focus on. Once you have that, you want to keep safe, and keep spamming Q and W.
If they have any strong assassins or something thats another time to defensively ult, and use your W chord on them.
The other thing here is that you want to make sure you're pretty safe at all times, your main strength is in a long fight where you spam till you're oom, sona does quite a lot of damage. Dying because you're focused when your team is actively killing them is fine, but otherwise stay away from any really dangerous guys that can kill you with spammable spells. Just q+chord them and gtfo.
Lategame:
Mostly lategame is the same as midgame, except tensions are super high. Ulting to save your AD carry is suddenly something you HAVE to do if he's going to get 1 combo'd, flash ulting just their AD is suddenly a game winning move if your team is in position to jump him. You can't ward everything so make sure to spam ping back if your teammates are doing unsafe things, usually map awareness is just as useful as wards.
Sometimes you should save your ult really late. If theres an akali or something waiting in the rims for the right time to jump in, ulting 2 tanks and a support might look pretty but its useless, you have to save ult for the key targets.
Sona can move while casting so make suer to abuse your mobility to avoid dangerous things or get closer to squishy targets with your spells and only stop to power chord.
Lane matchups
ADs:
Draven: BAN HIM
Caitlyn: Annoying range so you have to play extra carefully with your harass but pretty not scary in real fights
Ezreal: Dodge his Q's and harass the fuck out of him before he his annoying lategame blue build.
Graves: Dangerous burst but short range makes him an easy target when you're not scared of him
Ashe: Rape, but watch for arrow ganks after 6
Tristana: Care for her burst and cc with rocket jump, but you can out harass her, if you can't she auto pushes lane so free farm yay.
Varus: Easy target, only dangerous if you overextend and he gets to slow you and hit you with the stacks
Vayne: Easy target but sick lategame so be careful not to feed to jungle ganks and let her snowball
Twitch: Really nasty damage but squishy too, be careful whenever he stealths and harass him and GTFO fast because a few hits+expunge will destroy your hp
MF: Dangerous trades, try to keep her passive down, don't use ult lightly, prefer to use it to counter her R.
Corki: Like ezreal but without the lategame or a good escape or a dangerous poke
Sivir: Isn't this a dota champ?
Supports:
harrassers
Janna: RAPE. dont waste mana harassing who she shields
Lulu: RAPE. dodge her q's
engagers
Leona: Harass the fuck out of her early, she can be dangerous later on so build tanky as fuck and always go for his ad when her w is up.
Taric: lol like leona but bad because of all the nerfs
Zyra: If you can dodge Q and avoid plants you win, but very dangerous if you don't
Alistar: pulverise him so he's not healthy enough to go in.
hookers
Blitz: Dodge hook = rape, don't dodge hook = barrier lol gg
Thresh: OH GOD PLS NO STAPHP BAN HIM. He's actually ok in lane but then you get the rape train with lantern + double jump junglers and you just die
^ALL THE ABOVE FUCKERS HAVE WAY MORE CC THAN YOU AND WILL KILL YOU IN GANKS WAY EASIER YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED
Soraka: she out dps's you with her q early on but you just out harass dis gurl
Unorthodox supports: Show them why they're unorthodox the hard way.
+ Show Spoiler [changelog] +
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Nice guide, surprised you didnt mention power chord as an animation reset in the harassment section, though.
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what do you mean its an animation reset? You can auto q chord with no delay?
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just tested it and it doesn't work, maybe it's because by the time you finished q and go for the power chord it feels shorter?
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In a patch they said that it resets her auto, but apart from making her attacking slightly faster it's not a "real" reset, yeah.
3: Power chord,Q Ult, W, Q+power chord. Nuke combo with ultimate.
According to the wiki her ult grants a powerchord charge, so if you really want a quick burst shouldn't you just powerchordQ, Ult, W, Q, powerchordQ?
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thats exactly what that quote said
so yes?
oh, you think powerchord,q is a powerchord Q, I assume all powerchords are Q ones because the rest is a waste unless you have a specific reason
and my version gets an extra q cd in
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Yeah I understood what you meant correctly, my point however was that if you go for the quick burst, wouldn't that order be better since you don't have to wait for Q's cd? Of course once you're full of CDR it's less of an issue.
Also thoughts about going 0-13-17 masteries rather than 0-9-21, trading mostly the %MS for reduced champion damage? Looking at the tone of the guide I expect you to say going that route is a crutch for positioning/abusing Q's range, which the %MS helps.
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On June 30 2013 06:27 Alaric wrote:
Yeah I understood what you meant correctly, my point however was that if you go for the quick burst, wouldn't that order be better since you don't have to wait for Q's cd? Of course once you're full of CDR it's less of an issue.
Also thoughts about going 0-13-17 masteries rather than 0-9-21, trading mostly the %MS for reduced champion damage? Looking at the tone of the guide I expect you to say going that route is a crutch for positioning/abusing Q's range, which the %MS helps.
Yeah I think 0-13-17 is just as viable I can't remmeber why I stopped using it.
and theres you get 2 Q's in my way, 1Q in your way, so why is yours quicker, mine is just as fast except you wait shorter for the 2nd q
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Does it not fully reset on EUW? On NA the 2 attacks are pretty damn quick on the burst. Could be another rumble E type bug on EUW...
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im pretty sure its just your imagination because her autos are pretty fast, i see no reason why it should be treated as a reset, since its not an active but a passive add on to your auto attack
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it definitely resets fyi...
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On June 30 2013 08:26 Slayer91 wrote:
im pretty sure its just your imagination because her autos are pretty fast, i see no reason why it should be treated as a reset, since its not an active but a passive add on to your auto attack
v1.0.0.143 - 2012-07-19
General
Basic attack and Power Chord missile speeds increased to 2000 from 1500
Aura persistence duration reduced to 1 second after deactivation from 2
Global cooldown reduced to 0.5 seconds from 2
Power Chord
Power Chord now resets your attack timer so you can use it immediately
Crescendo
Now deals all its damage instantly, rather than over time
Fixed: Opponents can no longer Cleanse the damage portion of Crescendo
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the fuck
i tested it and it didnt feel that fast at all
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Slayer91 thx for writing that guide. It all makes ton of sense and I agree with most of it.
there are a few things I'd like to discuss though. I've been shifting my sona builds a bit more towards pure early game dominance when I duo'd with a lower ranked friend. Ive become a big fan of dorans rings and even sorcs. I think tabi and sorcs are the strongest early game options for her if you plan on upgrading chalice to athenes instead of mikkaels. the most important item to get is sightstone and with the lower cost on dorans rings the timing is just about right.
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why would you ever get dorans rings if you arent going to make use of the mana regen from last hitting
doesnt really make any sense
sorcs are okay for burst, but worse for dps so meh
athenes isnt something you expect to get in 90% of games, most games you'll get ruby sightstone locket boots 2 and maybe a chalice and possibly a philo before game ends
even then id probably want a wardens mail or something
you can have early game dominance with sona all the time, why you would you slack on wards when the only real counter to you is ganks
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a good part of the dorans rings stats are free. the point is to boost the costefficiency of her early game build as fast as possible. the ad carries time to shine is lategame so he builds towards that. sonas time to shine is early game so I try to make her even stronger and get even more out of that phase.
yes I don't allways finish athenes so the cdr is often delayed yes, but sona tends to do short burst trades early on and only starts to really make use of constant spam later, when I start to build athenes. I get hp from ruby sightstone and the dorans rings.
also I never slack on wards when there is a use for them. Any build that delays wards by default is crap. there are situations where you don't have to go back for wards though, for example when you either saw the jungler far off or you dominate your opponent heavily enough for the jungler to make no real difference at the moment.
I'am not yet sure on dorans rings but they feel at least strong and amplify her early and midgame presence by a significant amount.
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Sona shines at all stages of the game. I would never get a doran's ring on her (especially the new one- unless you're playing her mid or something dumb). You could just buy a chalice and get mr, a lot more regen, and have something a lot more useful to build that into later.
Lately I've been going philostone/kage's lucky pick into a crap ton of pink wards, then getting sight stone much, much later. It's mostly because people tend to rush sight stone, and you can clear their wards out and make them afraid to engage while essentially paying for the cost of sight wards (or less, because people are dumb and keep dropping sight wards on your pinks). It's risky because good opponents should probably punish that by just murdering you, but I get away with it more often than not. Later on I can leverage the extra gold income into more oracles, which tends to win baron fights.
Also, twin shadows deserves a look when you're Sona. The extra movement speed makes you nearly untouchable when coupled with her e, and it really helps ward around the baron area. Also builds from kage's lucky pick conveniently.
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On July 01 2013 00:21 clickrush wrote:
a good part of the dorans rings stats are free. the point is to boost the costefficiency of her early game build as fast as possible. the ad carries time to shine is lategame so he builds towards that. sonas time to shine is early game so I try to make her even stronger and get even more out of that phase.
yes I don't allways finish athenes so the cdr is often delayed yes, but sona tends to do short burst trades early on and only starts to really make use of constant spam later, when I start to build athenes. I get hp from ruby sightstone and the dorans rings.
also I never slack on wards when there is a use for them. Any build that delays wards by default is crap. there are situations where you don't have to go back for wards though, for example when you either saw the jungler far off or you dominate your opponent heavily enough for the jungler to make no real difference at the moment.
I'am not yet sure on dorans rings but they feel at least strong and amplify her early and midgame presence by a significant amount.
ap is a pretty meh stat on sona and paying 475 for 80 hp and a bit of mana regen is not going to "amplify her early and midgame presence"
buying a ruby is 180 g for the same price and also is a step towarsd wardstone which is like a super gp10
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A doran's ring is 60 health now. So it makes even less sense.
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if u want to trade later on for early game you can get flat ap quints or something and be more efficient that dolans ring
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ap is noticeable on your q attacks and dorans rings dont cost 475 anymore but 400. but i get your point.
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its about 10 damage a q, down to about 6-7 with magic resist, if you base and buy it at level 5 or so you have like a 7% damage increase on Q, and considering a lot of damage comes from power chord as well, probably about 4% or so damage increase while ruby crystal gives you about 15% EHP increase lol
+defenisve stats are naturally preferable because you don't lose lane if you don't get bursted or ganked
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Masteries:
0/13/17 is best. Block is amazing (reduces dmg from autoattacks by 3) and pickpocket is amazing (+3gold per autoattack you do on enemy champion, 5sec cooldown) 0/9/21 is viable
With 0/9/21 you get damaged by 5dmg more per autoattack (unyielding+block), but gain 6% cdr and 3% movespeed for it. I would only go for 0/13/17 if the lane is easy and I know I will dominate it.
Items:
I'd go as far as to say that dorans blade is better than dorans ring on Sona.
On June 30 2013 05:00 Slayer91 wrote:
CDR boots: Only other real option is tabi against all ad comps. CDR is sonas best damage stat by far and provides more
NO. No no no no.
The best boots that you can buy as a Sona support ever are boots of mobility.
Boots of mobility give you means to defend yourself, they make your roaming (warding/buying/etc) a lot faster and let you get to fight with your team sooner, boots of mobility are so important on sona because you can get into a good position for your gamechanging ultimate. You literally get 105movespeed as to compared to 45ms from cdr boots.
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i dont roam an awful lot and i value teamfighting a lot more than i do warding
getting into position for ult, well its a small help but I wouldn't place it higher than cdr boots value
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Seems like a reasonable portion of the time that you're trying to maneuver into crescendo position, you're 'in combat' anyway and mobility boots aren't going to be super helpful. Or you're flash-ulting.
There are supports that really can abuse mobility boots, but with sona's only CC being her ult, she just doesn't seem like one of them.
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mobility is good on initiators like blitz taric leo who have spammable cc. i even buy them on janna sometimes but sona is more like a poke champ, often in sight of the ememies and often next to some allies. doesnt sound like mobility helps much there.
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I almost always get mercs sooner or later on all supports. Can't afford to die and leave the noobs alone to feed ^^ In the past I got lucid,mob & sorc sometimes. Staying alive is just worth to much in my oppinion.
Ps. sona is probably my favorite support, ez to play well & high utility ; I like nami to and she gets picked a lot in high level play
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I liked mercs a lot more in season 2. Season 3 they don't really seem to help that much compared to being able to mash all the buttons more frequently. Mobos are okay in certain situations, but cdr boots tend to be the superior option.
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On July 01 2013 15:12 oZe wrote:
I almost always get mercs sooner or later on all supports. Can't afford to die and leave the noobs alone to feed ^^ In the past I got lucid,mob & sorc sometimes. Staying alive is just worth to much in my oppinion.
Ps. sona is probably my favorite support, ez to play well & high utility ; I like nami to and she gets picked a lot in high level play
if you are dying on support because of chain cc you are probably getting caught dont do that
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cdr are definitely just better than sorcs even if the damage is a bit lower (dps doesnt count as much as burst from my experience) having R up a bit earlyer during early-mid is a huge difference. tabi and cdr boots should be as slayers guide suggest the best options for sona in most cases. I also want to mention that the lvl 2 boots upgrade in general is very beneficial in lane, often more than just having hp or regen just because you get some more Qs off and you dodge some more stuff with a ms advantage.
I also tried out the armor marks as you suggest in your guide. It's good. But I like my double penetration marks a bit more. I played around with runes quite alot and It seems like doublepen marks and even quints are pretty huge on sona. I never feel having not enough gold on her anyways.
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i tend to rush tabi against blitz or thresh to avoid hooks
never thought of doublepen marks/quints, probably most people wont have them anyway
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So about that double pen runes, how about pushing it a bit by also adapting the masteries? Like so 14-0-16 with both pens masteries, which leaves you with enough points to get the gold masteries and ward/biscuit. I suppose you'll get really squishy, but i guess you can buy an early doran shield to counteract that. (hem, maybe it's not such a good idea since no gp10 runes might leave you gold constrained if the laning phase is rough)
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sona has enough damage and her weakness is getting bursted down, its stupid to make yourself really squishy for a small % damage boost
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On July 13 2013 11:26 Anakko wrote: I suppose you'll get really squishy, but i guess you can buy an early doran shield to counteract that.
Krepo does this a lot on melee supports, but I don't think it's necessary on a champ with decent range and a spammable heal.
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I don't get see any reason why not to get it since you are typically trading with 2 other auto attacking champs
heal sustain is pretty minimal anyway
however i often just get philo simply because its a gp10 item as well as giving some regen and sona typically doesn't struggle vs 2x ranged set ups anyway
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EPT
