This is more than a build, this is how I see the game and how I play Sona, doesn't mean this is the only way to play her or the right way to play her, it's the way I play.

I have been playing Sona for a few weeks and I absolutely love her. I believe I am a much better Soraka than Sona to be honest, but I have a lot more fun playing Sona than Soraka.

Sona is a very versatile support, she can do so much more than heal, she can give her team bonuses using her auras, The movement speed Aura is fantastic to chase or run away.

She can easily get first blood especially if laning with Ashe using her power chord (you should activate it at your spawn, just use the aura 3 times and start the game with a power chord).

Her Stun is awesome and can win team fights or save your team's *** and she can do some nasty damage as well if played properly.

And as if that's not enough she can Heal as well...

- Decent Heal.

- Decent Damage. Power Chord can hurt especially early game.

- Great Stun.

- Good bonuses from auras if you know what you are doing.



- Squishy.

- Get focused.

- Not as easy to play as some other supports (Soraka and Taric).

- You won't have fun if you think the game is all about kills.

- Hard to farm gold.

- Can't pick who to heal or who to attack (it will heal the lowest health friend in range and attack the closest enemy)

First of all you need to understand you are a SUPPORT. What does that mean?

- During the lane phase you'll babysit a Carry. You won't try to get minions, you'll give him AP/AD bonus, you'll try to harass the opponents without do anything stupid and you will heal him and that's it.

- In team fights you'll stay behind, will watch your team's health and will heal them, will attack whenever you're in position to and most important of all you will use your stun properly. Sometimes you'll use the stun to start a team fight, if the opponent is dumb enough, sometimes you'll just throw your stun at the middle of the fight to give your team the upper hand, most important, stun their carries and not their tank. If you stun at the proper time you should be able to stun the whole team, but that's not always possible, so try to stun the carries when you have the opportunity to do so.

- You will likely be focused in team fights if the other team knows what they are doing, sometimes they will send someone behind your team just to take you down. It's important that your team pay attention to the other team's strat and see if it's worth helping you or not. In most of the cases, saving the support pays off during a team fight, even if that means go after the tank.

You must understand you won't win the game for your team. You are the support, you'll make your teammates better. If you are planning to play a support role you can't have an ego. You can't get butt hurt if you don't have a nice Kills/Death ratio, etc etc.

Sona is a squishy champion. No matter what, you cannot get into a bad position or you are DEAD. Yeah your flash can save you at times when you make a mistake but it won't save you forever. Play smart, have a decent map awareness and understand what's happening around you. Also hope you have a good team and they're communicating properly and updating you on what's going on.

You must understand you are THE SUPPORT, you are not the carry, your main goal is NOT to get kills, obviously no one will complain if you get a few kills but if there is a situation where the enemy is about to die and you can finish him off or let a CARRY get the kill, YOU LET THE CARRY KILL, you want him to get the gold bonus.

Still if a kill is there for you, you take it. Period. If there is a slight chance the enemy will escape, you do not hesitate and you kill him. Period.

You do not try to be a hero and hold a tower alone. If you are in a **** situation where you're left alone at your lane with a minion wave and a couple of champions ready to tower dive you, you back off. To give up a tower is horrible but to give up a tower and give a free kill is just dumb. Obviously if you can kill the minion wave and control the situation before it gets ugly, you go for it tho, you don't just give free turrets for the sake of it.

Flash is an absolutely MUST. It is too good to pass. It will save you from bad situations/bad positioning, will allow you to escape flashing through walls and it can also be used as an offensive weapon. You can flash towards an escaping enemy and finish him off and lastly you can flash out of some champion skills like Jarvan's ultimate or Veigar's stun circle. You can also use flash to get into a proper position to use your ultimate.

The second spell should be Clairvoyance, so your team can have some extra map awareness. If you know how to use it and use it constantly your team will benefit greatly. Obviously you and your team should still be placing tons of Wards for map awareness, but CV will help. You must understand very well what the other team's jungler is doing and must be able to use your CV to follow him whenever it's possible. It will help your team to counter possible jungle invasions and to predict ganks. So once again, make sure you know what to do with your CV.

Sometimes I go for Teleport when I am playing with people I don't know. Teleport is great in lane phase, you can go back to buy/heal/mana regen and come back instantly but it's also great for ganks and while you are not a high damage champion, your Stun can turn fights around, especially if the opponent team have no idea you are there to stun them.

Some people may want to go with Clarity/Heal to help your teammates with mana/health especially early game in lane phase. I honestly think it's a waste but whatever.

This is the first step for your Philosopher Stone, it will give you some mana reg, As soon as possible complete your Philosopher Stone so you start earning gold over time.

It will give you some gold over time and also some health and mana regen.

As soon as possible buy your Hearth of Gold, it will give you some HP which is good and will increase your survivability early game but the reason you want it is to earn gold over time so you can buy wards and help your team. You need to ward dragon and the river bushes to prevent the opponent team from getting free dragons and easy ganks on bottom lane. Early game it's not your responsibility to ward top river or Baron, Top lane/Jungler must do it.

Most people buy it before HoG, I rather rush both GP5 items before I even get my boots, If you want to buy it after Philo Stone and before HoG go for it though, you won't be doing wrong.

This boots will give reduce your cool downs by 15%. CDR cap at 40% and with your full build you'll meet that. CDR is extremely important for you since you allow you to spam heal during team fights and you must heal as much as possible to keep your teammates alive.

Rylai's Crystal Scepter will give you some AP which is great for you and will give you some HP helping you to stay alive during team fights but the most important thing from Rylai's Crystal Scepter is it's passive which will help your team greatly especially if you combine it with your E and later with shurelyas Reverie.

Abysmall Scepter will give you some AP which is good will help your heal and will help you to do some damage with your Q, a good amount of MR and the most important: it's passive will help your team's AP carry in team fights since it reduce enemies magic res by 20.

Surelyas Reverie will give you HP, will reduce your cool downs and the special thing about this item is it's active ability, it will boost your team speed by 40% for 3 seconds and can be used every 60 seconds. Combined with Rylai's Crystal Scepter and Song of Celerity that's an amazing weapon, either offensive or defensive. Your team can retreat easily from a bad initiated team fight, or can chase your enemies. It is important that you realize you're using your Philosopher Stone to build this item, so as soon as you buy it, Philosopher Stone's passive will disappear.

honestly, most games will be more than over at this point but if they're not Soul Shroud will give you more HP and will reduce your team CDs a little bit. It will cap your CDR at 40%.

Zhonya's Hourglass is expensive but it's a great item, will give you some AP and Armor but most important will increase your survivability considerably. If you're getting focused you can just go into Stasis which should be enough for yours CDs to be back and your team to help you.









Those items will cap you at 40% CDR, will add you 1350 HP, Will get your AP ~300, you'll give your team 20% magic res reduction on opponents, will reduce your team's CDR in 10% will slow down enemies every time you hit them and will help you to survive for a couple of secs if you're getting hit hard.

It's important that you remember you must ward non stop, a good map vision make it a lot easier for your team to plan what to do and most important what not to do.

If your team is pushing, keep enemy's jungle warded, if your team is in a siege defending, ward your jungle, keep dragon warded all the time and make sure your team keep baron warded. It is not the support's responsibility to place all the wards, whenever someone from your team leave the fountain with an empty slot and 75 gold, without a ward, he is wrong, but as a support, you must understand you MUST ward as much as possible.

One important thing is, do not put yourself in a stupid position when you're going to ward. Use your CV properly and make sure you don't face check bushes. Make sure your team know what you are doing, and once again, communication is really important. Make sure no one is missing. It's extremely stupid to die when you're placing a ward, so make sure it doesn't happen.

There are some cool guides about ward, where to ward and how to ward properly, look for them and follow it.

If the opposite team is AP heavy or have a champion with fear (Nocturne/Fiddle/Shaco) you may want to go with mercury's treads instead of Sorceror's Shoes.



You may want to go with Rod of Ages instead of Abyssal Scepter, I honestly rather go with Abyssal but RoA works fine.


You may want to go with Banshee's Veil if the opponent team is AP heavy, instead of Zhonya's Hourglass, it will also help with your survivability but will give you more MR instead of Armor.


A lot of people like to play pure AP Sona,I honestly think it's a waste, yeah she'll heal nicely and will do some cool damage but Sona is a lot more than that.


Rabadon's Deathcap and Archangel's Staff are items that will add nothing but AP and they are extremely expensive items, that's why I avoid them and go for items that will help my team more or will help me to stay alive for longer periods so I can do my stuff to help my team in team fights. If you want to go full AP tho, it's your call.

Early game like I said before, Sona might have mana issues if she have to heal or harass too much, the seal of clarity will help you with that issue.
Magic Pen will help you to add some damage when using your Q skill.
the AP will help you to make some more damage and will also help in your heal a little bit.
Same as above, this will help to add some damage and heal a little better

If Sona shouldn't go for last hits during lane phase how does Sona get gold to buy those items?

She will get some gold over time, even more if you decide to go with heart of gold, but some extra gold is always welcome, whenever you have some free time hit the jungle and try to go for wolves/wraiths/golems, do now screw your jungler neither abandon your lane partner alone.

You must be smart to realize whenever you can go get some extra gold or not. If you go at the wrong time you'll hurt your team badly.

Another important thing is, make sure your team get as many Dragons as possible, time the spawn properly, keep the river well warded and whenever you guys have a clear opportunity to Dragon, put some pressure on your team and go for it.

You'll also get some extra gold from assists, if you heal someone and that person kill an enemy, there we go, you got an assist and a little bit of gold.

Useful Hotkeys

Ctrl+Q - Add an ability point to the champion's1st ability.
Ctrl+W - Add an ability point to the champion's 2nd ability.
Ctrl+E - Add an ability point to the champion's 3rd ability.
Ctrl+R - Add an ability point to the champion's ultimate ability.


Alt+Q / Q+F1 - Cast champion's 1st ability on self (must be a support spell).
Alt+W / W+F1 - Cast champion's 2nd ability on self (must be a support spell).
Alt+E / E+F1 - Cast champion's 3rd ability on self (must be a support spell).
Alt+R / R+F1 - Cast champion's 4th ability on self (must be a support spell).


Shift+Q - Smart cast champion's 1st ability.
Shift+W - Smart cast champion's 2nd ability.
Shift+E - Smart cast champion's 3rd ability.
Shift+R - Smart cast champion's4th ability.


Numbers (1 to 6) - Use Item in corresponding inventory slot.
Space - Center camera on champion ( holding Space will hold the camera on the champion until released).


F2-F5 - Move camera to corresponding ally champion (camera must be unlocked).
F12 - Take a screenshot.
Ctrl+F - Toggle the numeric frames-per-second and latency display.
Z - Open chat history.


for more info check http://leagueoflegends.wikia.com/wiki/Hotkeys_and_Commands

So if you intent to play Sona as a support make sure you have a team worth it, don't worry if you don't get a pretty score but do not feed. Sona's score at the end of the game should have low kills but even lower deaths and a good amount of assists, more important than your score, your team should win and you should feel you have contributed for that win.

As long as you accomplished that you did a good job. Not everyone realize how good a support is so you won't get as much love as you should, for that reason you shouldn't have an ego and should be happy making people around you better.

I hope to get some feedback good or bad doesn't matter, if you guys think something is wrong, let me know and i'll think about it. I also hope this guide help people who are thinking about support but are not so sure about it.

Trust me, if you have a cool team it's worth supporting, you'll have a lot of fun with them and you guys will do amazing stuff together in the game.

I'll try to keep this guide updated. Peace.

30/07/2011 - updated masteries and added the Hotkeys chapter.
8/08/2011 - updated the items.
11/08/2011 - updated items explanation, expanded CV explanation, added a small item summary and a little ward explanation.