Hi there, I'm Cloud375, a player who has been a Sona main since the end of season 3 (although I've been playing a fair bit less than when I started). Currently (as of 09/08/2019), my Sona mastery is at level 7 and I have over 720K mastery points on her so you can say that I have a fair bit of experience playing Sona.

So, first off, I'm new to this and this is my first guide I've put on Mobafire so please leave me comments if you could because I would like the advice. With that said, I'm new and also bad at doing this kinda stuff and really don't have enough time on my hands to make it as appealing or as in-depth as most other guides so forgive me about that and I'll be updating this guide as much as I can but otherwise please cut me some slack for how this guide appears. Thanks.

This is a guide for those who want to have fun, try new things and have a shot at trying to one-shot people in-game. For the current meta, she isn't considered to be very strong, and it's true when you compare her to champions such as Ekko, Fizz, Syndra, etc. However, she DOES have the potential of becoming very strong against any squishy if given the proper chance.

An additional, more personal comment from me - Although these builds are mostly focused to be played in the mid lane and are not too good (As there are almost no defensive items to be built), it does not mean that this is not viable for support. As long as you start as a support and then build into these items it should be fine.

Also although this is not a good guide (compared to pretty much all other guides), I originally created this guide to be for the usefulness for other players of low elo. This is mainly due to the fact that I myself am a low elo player (Currently Gold 4). I've been put down in Bronze multiple times and climbed out easily by only playing Sona mid and support with the above builds. So I guess this is a guide on how to get out of Bronze by playing Sona.

Pros + Can end up one-shotting most squishies eventually. + Simple Kit and only one large skillshot. + Strong AOE ultimate. + Can be a decent utility pick.

Cons - Low Mobility without boots or Song of Celerity. - So damn squishy. - Easily countered. - Almost useless without items. - Little to no escape ability. - You miss that ult or use it badly - can cost the game. - She scales ok with AP but is almost reliant on magic penetration.

• Power Chord: This passive gives Sona her utility as well as her damage. Its first passive is Aura, and it creates a special AOE circle which has an effect - Increased damage on Q, shield on W and a movement speed increase to all allies in the circle for E. The aura last 3 seconds and only empowers allied champs once, but it also creates a 0.5 second period of time where you cannot cast any of her other basic abilities. Using another ability while the aura is still active cancels the current aura and uses the new aura to replace it. The other part of her power chord (which is called Power Chord - no bonus points for guessing it). This causes her next basic attack after using any 3 basic spells (It can be the same spell 3 times) to do increased damage scaling on 20% of her AP and has an additional effect depending on what her last basic spell used was. Power Chord will reset Sona's auto attack timer when it becomes ready (e.g. you have 2 stacks and auto attack, then use an ability, if done correctly the auto attack timer will reset and fire your next one immediately) which is incredibly useful as it helps you to trade against your enemy more efficiently. Something to note, abilities such as Counter Strike and Riposte cannot block the Power Chord damage, even if it can block the basic attack damage. However, it can be blocked or missed.
  
• Hymn of Valor (Q): This skill is your key to farming and harassing as Sona. It automatically targets champs and will hit them unless they use Zhonya's Hourglass, Playful / Trickster, etc. It is the main source of your damage. This can be used with Hextech Revolver so that it only takes one Q and auto attack in order to do a lot of burst damage. Using this ability with Power Chord gives you a 40% damage boost on your auto attack.
  
• Aria of Perseverance (W): Is a very useful heal and comes with an shield. On using it's Power Chord, it reduces the target's damage output by 25% (+4 per 100 AP) for 3 seconds. This scales 25% AP for the heal and 30% for the shield so it can be very useful long as you have the items to stack it up. One thing to note though, is that due to the fact that this build primarily builds full ability power; if you don't have any utility supporting items such as Ardent Censer, you won't be able to heal or shield as much as a proper Sona support would, but the ability power does try to make up for it. Typically, when you cannot oneshot your enemy yet and they try to all in on you, using Power Chord with Aria of Perseverance or your Song of Celerity will be your way out.
  
• Song of Celerity (E): This is your movement skill that increases movement speed of all allies and yourself by up to 14% (+ 6% per 100 AP) at max level for 3 seconds. This movement speed increase becomes 7 seconds for Sona ONLY if you don't take damage and this extended buff is canceled if you take damage. Using this ability with your Power Chord makes it so that your next auto attack slows the target by 40% (+ 4% per 100 AP). This is a very good skill for engaging/disengaging with and can also be a potential gap closer against enemy champs.
  
• Crescendo (R): This is a large AOE ultimate that has a fairly good range and a large hitbox that's pretty hard to miss. As a passive, it reduces the base cooldowns of Sona's abilities by up to 40% (not including the cooldown reduction she already has through items or runes like Transcendence). With the cooldown reduction, you have the potential of spamming abilities constantly. It also has a 50% AP scaling so it can do some pretty good damage and it stuns all enemy champs hit for 1.5 seconds, which can mean everything in a teamfight. It moves quickly but the only problem is that it has a 0.2-second delay before it launches and that can mean a lot when you're in a tight spot.

So, a very important piece of information to point out about Sona's abilities. Due to the passive aura that comes out whenever you use a non-ultimate ability, similar to Udyr (except in Udyr's case, it also applies to his "ultimate") you are unable to use your other abilities for a very short amount of time. Although this is very short, in tight situations, this lockout can be a very bad thing. In the early game, there is a time period of around 0.8 seconds after using an ability which stops you from using another ability. However, at later stages of the game, once you have cooldown reduction and have put points into your Crescendo, this time period drops to around 0.3 seconds after using an ability.

Please note that I tried to make this part of the information as accurate as possible but unfortunately this was done by eye using the practice tool and I did not have the time to slow the footage down to check it properly, so my information is definitely going to be off by an amount of time and for that I am sorry.

So, this set of runes are mainly designed on abusing the power of Electrocute with the use of a R+Q+Auto followed up by a Hextech Revolver activation for quick bursts. This is a somewhat ok set of runes to run, but not the best in my opinion.

Domination Electrocute: This is your main rune you should take as it provides large burst and works very well with Hextech Revolver as well as Sona's skillset. This also has a better scaling than Arcane Comet, but is mainly designed more on assassinations. AN IMPORTANT NOTE ON THIS RUNE THOUGH - Although Electrocute is supposed to act as the new Thunderlord's Decree , unlike Thunderlord's, the Hextech Revolver WILL NOT TRIGGER when you hit someone with a single Q+AA unlike when you tried to do it with Thunderlord's Decree which honestly, I feel like it is a bug because I have seen champions such as Akali and Fizz proc Electrocute with one ability + auto attack, but who knows - Maybe Riot just wants it that way. Since it is this way, in order to even use this rune efficiently, you will need to be able to auto cancel with power chords in the early game and then in the late game you can just hammer them down with your ULT+Q+AA combo followed up by an Ignite if you have it. Cheap Shot: This rune is so that you can have more damage towards the mid to late game and win fights. This rune can be replaced with Taste of Blood for more sustain. Eyeball Collection: This is a useful rune which helps Sona to scale just that little bit extra throughout the game. It scales well with Rabadon's Deathcap and since it does also stack from ward takedowns as well, this means that you do not have to get kills just to stack this rune - which is very handy at times when the enemy botlane is too passive to get kills from. Relentless Hunter: This is useful to have to run towards and away from fights faster. It can also help to get you kills. This rune can be replaced by Ravenous Hunter for more sustain. Sorcery Gathering Storm: A generic rune which helps you to deal more damage and scale better. Absolute Focus: Also another rune which helps towards dealing damage - All the more is always better (right?). Replacement Rune #1 - Manaflow Band: This rune can be used as a replacement because Sona is seriously mana-reliant all game and, even if you happened to have mana regen items on you, she can easily burn through all her mana way too quickly, so if you prefer to have a way of regaining more mana faster, then take this - heck you could always just also get a Tear of the Goddess as well, that'll definitely make her a lot less mana reliant, but it does use up an item spot so make sure you choose wisely towards how you want to play the game out. Replacement Rune #2 - Celerity: This is another rune you could be running instead of something like Absolute Focus due to the fact that having the extra movement speed can be useful towards being able to dodge skillshots better, catch up to or escape from enemy champions. Additionally, this rune gives bonus AP depending on the amount of bonus movement speed you have, giving you a little bit extra damage towards killing your opponent. Replacement Rune #3 - Transcendence: This is another rune you could take over something like Absolute Focus as the item set that I have put up will not get you to the maximum cooldown reduction possible, but this rune will help you get there. Precision Replacement Rune #4 - Triumph: This and the rune below is the ones I normally take because I personally am more used to it, but in all honesty, this rune can help a lot when the enemy has high damage or has an Ignite. Replacement Rune #5 - Coup De Grace: This basically just helps you to kill your enemies faster.

So this rune set is for the higher burst that you can do as Sona. This is what I would recommend as it does more overall damage and burst than the 40 Second Hit and Run over a period of time.

Sorcery Arcane Comet: This is your main rune you should take as it provides large burst and works very well with Sona's skillset. This also deals better consistent burst damage than Electrocute. This can be replaced with Summon Aery however, depending on which one you prefer. Manaflow Band: Always helps to have a greater pool of Mana and greater Mana Regen. Absolute Focus: Also another rune which helps towards dealing damage - All the more is always better (right?). Realistically though, this rune can be replace by either of the two other options as they are all good and this rune choice is just based on preference. I personally prefer Transcendence as the build normally doesn't allow you to reach maximum Cooldown Reduction. Gathering Storm: A generic rune which helps you to deal more damage and scale better. Domination Eyeball Collection: This is a useful rune which helps Sona to scale just that little bit extra throughout the game. It scales well with Rabadon's Deathcap and the attack damage that it gives does allow your Q+Auto to deal more damage on top of the extra ability power. Ravenous Hunter: Same as with Taste of Blood, this rune helps towards healing up by killing enemy champions which does help towards more health sustain whilst in and in the mid to late game so you don't end up dying because your W isn't up fast enough. As I have said above in the electrocute runes however, this rune can be replace by any of the other runes as this really is situational and isnt always the best option to go with. Regardless, any of the 4 runes are all quite good anyway so take which you think you either prefer or need. Precision Replacement Rune #1 - Triumph: Once again, this rune and the rune below is the ones I normally take because I am personally am more used to it, but in all honesty, this rune can help a lot when the enemy has high damage or has an Ignite. Replacement Rune #2 - Coup De Grace: This basically just helps you to kill your enemies faster.

So this set of runes is for the highest amount of burst that you can do using Sona. This is what I tend to use most of the time regardless of matchup due to the high amount of damage that it can give. The only downside to this is that you need a fair amount of time before the scaling damage starts to show.

Domination Dark Harvest: This is the main rune to take on this build as the scaling amount of damage it can provide can give you the highest amount of damage between the three rune sets. It does take some time for the effects to show though. Cheap Shot: This rune maximizes on the damage that you can throw out as Sona as this can be used after you use your power cord to slow them via the slow that the Song of Celerity gives. Eyeball Collection: This rune just helps towards increasing damage but can be replaced with either of the other two runes. Relentless Hunter: This rune is really flexable since you can just pick the one you prefer out of the other three since it doesn't change the damage potential. Precision Triumph: As explained, this gives you some extra survivability. Coup De Grace: This helps to maximize the possible damage. Sorcery Replacement Rune #1 - Gathering Storm: As explained before, this is a generic rune which basically just helps you to do more damage. Replacement Rune #2 - Absolute Focus: Again, this is also another rune which helps towards dealing more damage to the enemy. Replacement Rune #3 - Manaflow Band: Mana regen can always be a useful rune to replacement another rune with. Replacement Rune #4 - Celerity: As explained before, the increased movement speed can always be handy to have. Replacement Rune #5 - Transcendence: As explained previously, due to the build not giving the maximum amount of Cooldown Reduction one may want, this can help get towards that goal.

Ok, so this rune set is the one I typically run for most of my games regardless of if im playing mid or support Sona. It's very similar to the runes for the "Consistent Burst", but focuses more on getting money (Mainly through CS) and hitting late game.

Sorcery Summon Aery: Main rune to help with dealing basic poke damage until you have enough items to disregard it. Particularly useful for helping your teammates with the shield it can provide during the early and mid game. Manaflow Band: Basic rune for keeping your mana up during the early and mid game until the Tear of the Goddess and it's upgrade fixes that issue. Transcendence: Another basic rune just to supplement for the lack of cooldown reduction you build. Gathering Storm: The rune which increases your ability to do more damage towards the late game. Domination Taste of Blood: A rune purely for the early game to deal with trades and make the laning phase even the tiniest bit easier. Scales with AD and AP so it will help more and more towards the late game. Relentless Hunter: This rune helps towards getting to other lanes faster for ganks and assists as well as to move around the map quickly later in the game when you team needs helps in winning fights or obtaining objectives.

Ok, so this build is actually a very slow build. You don't tend to have anywhere near as much damage early and mid game compared to if you ran the other builds. The other builds prioritise finishing items one by one such as rushing lich bane and then getting the other items ASAP, basically rushing as much damage as possible as soon as possible. This build, however, is much much slower. For this build, you prioritise getting a Sheen Tear of the Goddess and Catalyst of Aeons ASAP with boots being a minor purchase in-between or after depending on how the games go. Once all 3 half-items have been built, then you upgrade into Rod of Ages to get it stacking up ASAP, selling boots to finish building it if needed. After this is to finish Lich Bane, after which you can start building according to what you need next. This makes the build incredibly slow since it does not prioritise damage and instead prioritises stalling and survivability. Due to this, it becomes harder to kill enemies without having the AP items on hand in the early game. So just as a note, although this is what I typically do, don't follow it if you prefer to just buy the items one by one and get the AP first to try kill your enemy faster.

Ignite So, this is the main summoner spell I run other than flash. This is due to the fact that it helps give Sona early kill potential so that you can start scaling quickly. If you manage to kill someone with it, then you also can set them behind, which also helps to beat your opponent down even further. Flash The generic spell that should always be taken on Sona. No questions need to be asked here, just take it, IT IS ESSENTIAL! Although there are other options for summoner spells that could replace Ignite, I would recommend you not to take anything to replace Ignite. This is mainly due to the fact that as Sona, Exhaust in the mid lane is useless for Sona. Tbis is because the damage reduction is almost never worth it due to how squishy you are and you have a slow on your power chord Song of Celerity which helps you can use as a replacement for the slow on Exhaust. Ghost is not really worth taking either since your Song of Celerity will provide very good movement speed, especially in the late game. Barrier is thought to be ok to take against harsh matchups such as Zed - and honestly, you really couldn't go wrong with taking Barrier against someone like Zed and Talon as well as the new Akali - all of which can easily kill you unless you kill them first. Despite this, I would say not to since it can be replaced with your Aria of Perseverance, which will provide you with a mini barrier and heal. As long as you keep your health up with heals, they really shouldn't be able to oneshot you as long as they are not fed a kill or two. Also, you lose your kill potential with it - which is REALLY IMPORTANT on Sona as without it, you lose out on a major chance to fight back against your opponent. Cleanse is also occasionally used, and it isn't too bad on Sona against matchups like Lissandra, Twisted Fate, but once again, you lose the kill potential which you really need. All in all, although some of the summoner spells are half-decent/good, Ignite and Flash are the way to go!

Skill Sequence #1. Crescendo 6 / 11 / 16 #2. Hymn of Valor 1 / 3 / 5 / 7 / 9 #3. aria of perserverance 2 / 8 / 10 / 12 / 13 #4. Song of Celerity 4 / 14 / 15 / 17 / 18

> > > We want to max out Hymn of Valor first because it is our main damage source other than our ultimate. Then Aria of Perseverance as it allows you to try to keep your health level stable and is a much better ability to level up over Song of Celerity. We level up Song of Celerity last as we don't really need the movement speed or the slow as much as the other abilities to level up this before the others. Of course, remember to level up your ultimate Crescendo when you can as when you can level it up, it has a higher priority to level up than the others.

The reason why this is here is that it really helps towards your burst damage throughout the game. Hextech Revolver has the unique passive of 'Magic Bolt'. This passive causes a shock of magic damage (scaling with level) to occur once every 40 seconds when you basic attack an enemy champion. Although Hextech Revolver does not trigger Electrocute because apparently for Sona it doesn't count as a pseudo-spell, the damage that this item deals from just a single Q and an auto attack will be very high, in most cases, it will knock out nearly half the enemy champions hp long as they are squishy - sometimes, a little more. As the game progresses and you gain more AP and more items, the amount of burst dealt to squishies are increased to the point where the Q+Auto combo will do most to all of their health. However, later in the game, this item can either be upgraded (which I personally don't like to do because 1. The use of the upgraded items are not easy to use as they require you to get close to an enemy champion and that is never good and 2. There are other better options that will both either maximise your damage, increase cooldown reduction, or both) or sold for another item such as a Luden's Tempest or whatever you think you need depending on the situation.

As for most of the other items I've listed, I have put notes to them (At least, there should be, but people can make mistakes so please tell me if there are notes missing on the items above - Thanks in advance).

So, there are a few main reasons as to why I don't add Zhonya's Hourglass to the main build and even put it on the list of items you shouldn't buy. Firstly, one of the issues to playing Sona mid, is how little health that she has. Many of the mainstream mid lane champions do not care about magic resist and armor, but typically, having more HP can get you out of a lot of difficult situations and can help you trade later into the game. Due to this, Zhonya's Hourglass isn't worth buying compared to HP+AP items. In addition, I personally find that using a Zhonya's Hourglass causes more deaths than saves (although this is probably just me) due to the fact that using it in places such as in teamfights will leave you highly likely to be killed immediately after as well as leaving your team with little to no heals, CC and damage to peel for the others. Typically, it's just best to fight for your life than to risk getting punished for using a Zhonya's Hourglass.

Sona, is a champion that, with this build, should be played with a sort of 'Hit and Run' tactic. This is because, due to her items and abilities and also factoring in her pros and cons, some of which were labeled before (because there is no way that I can possibly label all of her pros and cons - I'm not THAT smart). Because of this, in the early game as Sona, you should be aggressive when possible and try to take as little damage as possible. Once you have Hextech Revolver, you play towards bursting the enemy every 40 seconds. If you have Sheen or its upgrades, then you can do consistent damage and stay focused in your lane. Once you have both Hextech Revolver and Lich Bane, you can start working towards helping out your teammates by getting as many picks as you can. Especially against the squishies. You should also start roaming once you have your Crescendo available as your teammates, especially the botlane, will need the money and all the advantages they can get. So unless you can get a kill with that ultimate mid, go to gank another lane and help your teammates, they WILL need it!

In teamfights, aim to knock out the squishy champions and wait for the right moments to use your ultimate as it could be the thing that wins or loses you the fight. Try to avoid accidentally auto-attacking an enemy champion if you are unable to get the rest of your main burst out to follow up with it or if you will not be able to get out afterwards - Safety takes priority. However, if you can't reach the squishies due to problems like tanks being in the way, no problem, just focus the tank until you can reach the squishies in the back, your magic damage will be high enough to do sufficient damage towards tanks and still have enough juice to take out a lot of the squishies health. In the possible case this situation occurs, just remember, wait for an opportunity, then ult, afterwards, either go forward and aim to waste the enemy carries or squishies, or back off and deal damage to the closest problem and let you teammates carry the fight for you.

So, although this guide is mainly for mid, the build and runes itself is still viable to be played as support so long as you start with the standard support starting items.

Typically, play Sona support is basically the same as how you would play it Mid with the only difference being that there are two people on either side and you don't take CS typically. The new update made it much harder to earn money after a certain point, so make sure to focus on taking any kill you can. Sure your ADC needs gold too, but least you give him the CS, you can't earn gold after your support item is fully upgraded so getting kills early and snowballing with them is important.

For the very near future:
Basic gameplay videos on both Mid and Support.

Taking some time:
Matchups against champions.
Itemization order.

10/12/2019 - Finally had the time to update the builds slightly. Need more time though.
25/09/2019 - Added a note on running the build as a support rather than mid.
11/08/2019 - Added new build "The Slow Burst" and an explanation chapter on it to explain a few things.
09/08/2019 - Updated the notes on items, added Qiyana onto the list of threats and added additional champions onto the synergy tab. Also updated information on abilities and made some slight updates to the information in some chapters.