TL;DR - this is a SURVIVAL SUPPORT BUILD. If you want high KB's, this is not the build for you (and in my opinion, not the Champion for you, either).

"With Perfect Tempo..."
So - You want to support, but HATE being squishy? You've tried other high AP builds just to find yourself running back from the graveyard more often than not and your teammates asking you to uninstall? You try your best, but no matter what your items, you STILL get focused (as you should, you are Sona, after all!) This, my friend, is your build.

You are the bane of your enemy - you speed your team up, heal your team, and make your team do more damage. Following this build will not only slap a big smile on your face when you manage to get away from the Cooldown/Ultimate smack down thats sure to be landed on you, regardless of the team. The best part is, after your 'VICTORY' is splashed across the screen, you get overloaded with 'Thank You Sona's, hearts, friend requests, and invites to do more games.

This is my 'brilliant balance build' - AP, great defense, excellent manuverability.

Pro's with this build

Fantastic support - stay in the fights longer for better pushing potential
Great manuverability, flash + teleport
"Semi-Beefy" build with great amount of hit points, decent base of magic resist and armor
Great mana pool and mana + health regen
Allows greater harrassment potential

Con's with this build

Not as high AP as some other builds

Masteries -
Full utility tree, as is common with support characters. What isn't common is the remainder of the points placed in the defensive tree.

3/3 Resistance and 3/3 Hardiness will absolutely give you the advantage while laning early game. It's all too easy for you to be focused down by a hard hitting or snare combo (Xin and Malph, for example) while you're harrassing. Having this initial boost of defense will easily allow you to get away moderately unscathed.

3/3 Strength of Spirit utilizes your great mana pool and keeps the health ticking back continually throughout the game (Remember to co-inside this ability with 4/4 Expanded Mind, from the utility tree). Also, working with your Summoner Abilities and Seals, Strength of Spirit gives you a little more 'wiggle room' to not have to constantly heal yourself (wasting mana to do so. See more on this strat below in the Runes section.)

Runes -

9 x Greater Mark of Insight, a no brainer for an AP character, giving you the advantage to hit your spells with the hardest possible numbers.

Greater Seal of Replenishment
9 x Greater Seal of Replenishment is quite possibly your most IMPORTANT rune to take. Because we are not using Clarity as a selection of our summoner skills, 95% of your mana regen problems will be early game. These seals will keep your mana ticking. Because we took 4/4 Strength of Spirit as explained above, we are using far less mana to heal ourselves during the harrassment/laning phase, leaving you more mana to get those Hymns of Valor off - score!


9 x Greater Glyph of Focus is also a no-brainer here - the more often you hit your songs, the better you do!


3 x Quints of Fortitude - ahh... nothing like rollin' out the base at the start of a game with more than 4 bars of health - over 500+ hit points. Yet another unexpected thing about this build, but effective!

Summoner Spells -

Teleport, because we've got such great mana and health regen, we aren't using Clarity, as is a common support choice. In order to help assist our teammates, we are nice enough to pick up a Soul Shroud to boost not only their mana regen but their cooldowns too! So, in place of Clarity, we pick up Teleport. Essential for 'speed laning' as well as helping take down a turret on the other side of the map.

Flash - Singed hook you? Amumu got you tied up? No worries - flash and speed song away. :)

Final core items:

Boots of Mobility, Soul Shroud, Archangel's Staff, Rylai's and Banshee's Veil.

These items are absolutely key to this build's success. You're helping out your team substantially with Soul Shroud (CDR) and Rylai's (snares), saving your own hide with Boots and Banshee's, as well as keeping that mana flowin' with Arcangels!

You'll find that you'll be continually twisting auras and keeping your team up with ease.

Flexible final item:

(depending on your enemy's team)
Frozen Heart, Guardian Angel or Rabadon's Deathcap if you're having no problem running circles around them (which I find quite easy with this build ;p).

I've never found the need to purchase an Hourglass. Unless you're playing REALLY aggressive, you shouldn't ever need one.

Item's You Shouldnt' Buy and Why

Mejai's...ah, I'm sure I'll be getting some flack for this one. "You claim you have a great survivability build but you aren't going for a Mejai's? WTF!?".

Here's why: No one is perfect. Ultimately, you're going to get into a situation where you can't get out of. Last night I had 4 people chase me across the map just to get me. And yes, I died even with this build. Furthermore, this build is more support based, not ZOMG KBZ GOGO based. While you get pleanty of assists, maybe a few KB's, by the time you cap out your Mejai's and pray you won't get focused down because of it, you could have had a solid 10-20 minutes with another item at full use during that time.

The times that I have attempted to weave a Mejai's into my build by dropping the Scepter or Banshee's Veil seem to be my highest death games, lowest kb/assists ever. Maybe its just bad luck, but I've so over Mejais. :)


Lich Bane is great in theory, but poor in execution for Sona.

Here's why: Early game, it would be 'ok'. But mid to late game when you'd most likely be picking this up would perform very poorly. Most of the time you will be floating behind your tank or carries twisting your auras, not up front swinging every which way to proc this bad boy. Realistically, you be able to harrass with this not often enough to make it worthwhile. The replacement for this would be your Scepter, which procs very easily off of your Valor. Zoom in, Valor, zoom out.

Balance, balance, balance - its all about that balance!

Straight out the base, first ability:

Charge this bad boy up three times on your way to your lane to get your Power Chord ready to go. Hide in those lovely leaves until you and your laning partner pounce on the first champion to enter. This super charged ability will knock a champion down 40-50% right off the bat!

Aria of Preserverance
This should be your next ability. Makes a huge difference early game. At this point, level 2, I'll keep this aura or Valor running, depending on how much the enemy is harrassing. Always, always, always have your aura stacks for power cord at 2.

The moment a champion gets too cocky, swap to valor for a hit and your power cord to pack a punch.


Next up, your speed song. Sometimes I will swap to this aura with 2 stacks so that my laning partner and I can get around and harass easier. It does make quite the difference. Also, its great because you can begin snaring at this point!

From there, I try my best to keep my abilities even level to level 3 of each ability using the priority as follows:
> > Aria of Preserverance >
Meaning, I'll get all of these abilities at least level 3 before I further upgrade any other, with ult of course taking top priority whenever possible.

After all of my abilities are at least level 3, I'll still take ult as my priority, followed by Valor, followed by Aria, followed by Celerity.

Now, I know most other summoners say to put 1 point into and then 'forget about it', but I have found so much success maintaining this at level 3 before you leave it for later. While I may have great manuverability with my boots and flash, my teammates may not. This extra 'oomf' could be the difference between winning a team fight or having your buddies picked off one by one.

Yes, its true, you could go AP happy as is common with casters and run around with 1750 hit points. You'll land that great KB and then get demolished within seconds. If thats your steeze, go for it. I'd personally wonder why you didn't pick an actual pure caster, however :)

I, for one, hate those graveyard trips. Sona get's focused because she does turn the tides more often than not. My win ratio went from 1 out of 3 to 4 out of 5 using a more 'balanced' build.

I truely hope you do find great success with this build. Let me know how awesome your games went with it!

Last notes: Match history to follow. Please leave feedback!