Greetings fellow summoners and welcome to my quite unorthodox hybrid Sona build. Sona is an all around fantastic support that has a little bit of everything. While she doesn't have the same oomph that Soraka's heal has, or Janna's shield does, I feel that she more than makes up for this with her versatility in being able to fill multiple roles at once. That being said, lets get down to business!

Disclaimer

I am still figuring out some of the formatting and would appreciate any help in changing icon size or other formatting fixes that would otherwise improve the layout of this guide.

Pro's of Hybrid-Support Sona:

1: is an extremely versatile champion that can handle most situations (granted you have a quick wit and good positioning)
2: packs a MASSIVE punch that most champions will not expect from a "support"
3: Very good escape artist (move speed of 403 with passive from Song of Celerity)
4: Able to fulfill role of support w/o sacrificing late game abilities

Con's of Hybrid-Support Sona:
1: Despite having defensive runes/masteries, any significant focus will drop you FAST.
2: Needs a decent team mate to duo with.
3: Fairly fragile till late game
4: Blooms with items around Mid-late game (around the 20-30 minute mark)

As a rule, supports generally aren't reliant upon what items/runes they pick, as their skills scale well on their own and they usually have decent sustain in lane. However, one major problem with supports (besides maybe Taric) is that they are very very squishy. To help counteract this I took the following runes:

x9 Greater Seal of Armor
x9 Greater Mark of Desolation
x9 Greater Glyph of Scaling Magic Resist
x3 Greater Quintessence of Desolation

Now you might be confused as to the reason for A-pen runes. However as I mentioned, this is a hybrid build and as such sona needs the extra poking power early lane.

The masteries I grab are the fairly standard 9/21/0. Getting Magic pen in offense and fully decking out the defense tree.

One could also grab 9/0/21, but that is more geared towards AP-support Sona and not hybrid, but it does eventually all come down to personal preference.

Now you might be looking at these items and be a little confused. However, hear me out. The concept behind hybrid is that both your AP and AD are high making it difficult for players to build resistances against you. By building both Archangel's Staff and Manamune, you achieve that. (~170+/225+ AD/AP respectively)

Another notable perk to this build is the fact that as you increase your maximum mana, both your AD and AP will increase. Thus giving the feel of a fusion between Blitzcrank's mana barrier and Kayle's old passive. Obviously it is not a true fusion of these two, but the effect is comparable.

Core

Manamune: This item along with AA Staff is what makes you hybrid. AD for every bit of mana you have, and as sona you will be spamming skills to make the best use of this passive.

Archangel's Staff:This item along with the Manamune is what completes the hybrid build. Without both these items you just wont be "hybrid". Collectively, both of these have wonderful synergy with one another and will give you enough mana regen to spam for eternity.

Boots of Swiftness: The MUST have boots for sona. With the +3 to movement speed, you will become nearly impossible to catch/chase.

Lich Bane: The item to purchase after you have completed the other core items. The AP proc has fantastic synergy with Sona's Power Chord, essentially giving you 3x the normal attack damage. The extra mana and MR is also very welcome (as well as boosting your AD/AP even more from additional mana)

Other "filling out" items

Guardian Angel: This item tends to solve a lot of the squishy issues that you have throughout the game. If your game ever gets this far, grab it.

Banshee's Veil: Again, a fantastic item to grab if you end up facing a lot of AP casters/magic users, or if you want to counter that annoying initiation ability. Also has fantastic synergy with the additional mana (to boost ur AP/AD even further)

Frozen Heart: A fabulous item to grab if facing a heavier AD team or one with a lot of ranged carries (or high ATK speed). It has fantastic armor values, as well as some great CDR and good pool of mana (once again boosting your AP/AD)

Rylai's Crystal Scepter: A more offensively focused item, granting a bit of hp/ap and adding slow to your skills. However the slow would only apply to your Q and R.

Rod of Ages: Also a more offensively focused item, granting additional AP, hp, and mana (which need I remind you has great synergy with the manamune and Archangels). Typically if you're going to get this make sure the game is going to go for a while because the ROA takes some time to "warm up".

Now that I've explained which items to purchase, it's time to say when to get them.

Start of Game

First item to purchase

:

Doran's Ring: This item kind of goes without saying. Gives you an extra 100 hp, which is crucial, as well as some base AP and mana regen. A VERY important first item.

First time base

(should be 1000+ gold):

Boots of Swiftness: This item should be the first thing you buy as it makes you extremely slippery as a champion early on able to get out of most close scrapes.

*Note*: Another possible option for "first time base" is to grab level 1 boots and begin working on your Tear of the Goddess

Next time base

(should be around another 1500 gold or so)

Tear of the Goddess: This is the first tear to start getting more mana and on your way to the creation of Manamune

Long Sword: The other half of the manamune. If you can try to just buy the manamune as a whole after the purchase of the tear.

The next trip back

Start building your Archangel's Staff, once again starting with the Tear of the Goddess and then getting the Blasting Wand.

ASAP (after the previous two)

At this point in the game it should be around 20-30 minute mark (depending on farming and assists/kills) and it should be obvious when to go back and get items, but make sure when completing the Lich Bane to grab the Sheen first.

All the other items

the game should pretty much be over by now, but if for some reason they are putting up a good fight, then start working on the durability items mentioned above.


Keep this in mind and you should be quite golden. Happy magical-deadly-piano-thingy-killing.

There are a LOT of summoner spells out there, and mentioning them all would be quite tedious. So I will highlight a few that I feel are viable/should be mentioned that have good synergy with this build.

Flash: A MUST grab for sona. It allows you to get in or out of a situation and get that perfect shot off for your skills/flee.

Clarity: Mana is really lacking in the early phasing of this build (as it lacks any mana regen runes or masteries) as such, in order to sustain your lane partner having clarity is a must. (also helps if you lane with a champion who also uses mana)

Clairvoyance: A good support grab. Grants vision which is always good. However, without Clarity to help sustain you you wont be as powerful in lane. Still if the team insists on you grabbing it, switch it. Your job is still to support your team after all.

Exhaust: Not typically suited for supports, however when used defensively it is very effective at saving your lane partner or letting him get that kill. Usually let the carries/fighters take this.

Teleport: Ahhhhh the good ol' teleport. It's a very nice spell, but with the 403 movement speed you can get most places rather fast. Its not to necessary, unless you're soloing a lane.

There are many other spells as I'm sure you're aware, but none seem to suit this style of play very well.

Sona is all about her passive. Proper timing and prioritizing of this in conjunction with her Q,W, and E are what make her amazing. Power Chord+Q is a mini sheen, Power Chord+W is a mini exhaust (damage reduction), Power Chord+E is a mini slow. Knowing when to throw these out will make you dominate.

Another trick is to get your passive charged before leaving the fountain at the beginning of the game. Simply just stay in the fountain to refund any used mana and then head out. This might seem like a no brain-er, but having the Powerchord+Q bonus for the initial team fight is devastating.

Some other tricks:
1: If you see a champion moving in for a harass, try to shoot a PCW (powerchord W) On them to reduce their damage output. Often times this will be enough to deter them from following through with their assault.
2: When chasing down a champion (or preventing a champion from chasing down one of your allies), use PCE (powerchord E) to slow their assault. (Also casting the E will give your ally the boost to escape as well).

Using crescendo to its full power

:
1: When diving the tower with an ally, cast it as he moves in to minimize the amount of time your ally must spend inside the tower zone (and thus under fire). This way you increase his odds of surviving the dive.
2: When your team has been caught out of position. This will give them time to either pounce picking some of them off, or fall back and reposition.
3: Don't worry too much about getting ALL of the enemy champions inside the ultimate. While this is ideal, even disabling 1 champion for 1.5 seconds is devastating in a team fight.
4: Use after landing a Q PCQ combo. This 1-2-3 combo is devastating often times giving you a kill.

In this section I will include links to snapshots of wins and such. I will also be including video footage soon taken with LoLRecorder.