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Choose Champion Build:
- The Hit and Run Route
- The Standard Damage Route
- The Scaling Route
- The Utility Route
Recommended Items
Runes: Quick Burst
+9 Adaptive (5.4 AD or 9 AP)
+9 Adaptive (5.4 AD or 9 AP)
+6 Armor
Spells:
Flash
Ignite
Items
Ability Order
Power Chord (PASSIVE)
Sona Passive Ability
Threats & Synergies
Cassiopeia
She has a longer range than you and can burn you down with the poison and damage, it's not very easy to win this lane, but it's not impossible.
Draven
You deal most of the poke he needs to cash in on his stacks. Make his life easier and he will carry you back.
Draven
You deal most of the poke he needs to cash in on his stacks. Make his life easier and he will carry you back.
Champion Build Guide
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.
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. |
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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.
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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 |
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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).
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.
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.
Basic gameplay videos on both Mid and Support.
Taking some time:
Matchups against champions.
Itemization order.
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.
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