Sona is an amazing Support that brings plenty of utility to your team. She has four utility abilities, two of which do damage. Her Ultimate, Crescendo, if used correctly, can be game-changing. She fits in well with poke comps and AoE teamfight comps, a ubiquitous support that is easy to learn but hard to master. Sona has low cooldowns on a heal, Aria of Perseverance and a poke Hymn of Valor. She can be played defensively, in a "4 protect 1" composition, or offensively, using Crescendo to catch out enemy champions.

If you're in Champion Select, and you just picked in Sona, don't worry about this section of the guide. Read this if you aren't in a hurry. For the information on gameplay, please see sections below.
Sona has no memories of her true parents. As an infant, she was found abandoned on the doorstep of an Ionian adoption house, nestled atop an ancient instrument in an exquisite case of unknown origins. She was an unusually well-behaved child, always quiet and content. Her caretakers were sure she would find a home quickly, but it soon became apparent that what they mistook for uncommon geniality was actually an inability to speak or to produce any sound whatsoever. Sona remained at the adoption house until her teens, watching in hopeless silence as prospective adopters passed her by. During this time, the caretakers sold her unusual instrument to anxious collectors, hoping to build her a trust. For a myriad of bizarre and unexpected reasons, however, it would be returned, or simply appear again outside the house.
When a wealthy Demacian woman named Lestara Buvelle learned of the instrument, she immediately embarked to Ionia. When the caretakers showcased the instrument for her, she rose wordlessly and explored the house, stopping outside Sona’s room. Without hesitation, Lestara adopted her and left a generous donation for the instrument. With Lestara’s guidance, Sona discovered a deep connection with the instrument which Lestara called an "etwahl". In her hands, it played tones which stilled or quivered the hearts of those around her. Within months, she was headlining with the mysterious etwahl for sold-out audiences. She played as though plucking heartstrings, effortlessly manipulating the emotions of her listeners - all without a single written note. In secret, she discovered a potent and deadly use for her etwahl, using its vibrations to slice objects from a distance. She honed this discipline in private, mastering her gift. When she felt prepared, she went to the only place which could offer her a fitting recital: the League of Legends.

PROS

• Great Utility
• Crescendo is game changing Ultimate
• Great poke and harass with Hymn of Valor
• Powerful synergy with most AD Carry and team comps

CONS

• Squishy and targeted the entire game
• Mana hungry
• Weaker than most supports without Crescendo
• Easy to KS your carry

Starting items

You should start with the Ancient Coin as it gives you decent sustain in lane, along with gold/5 generation and additional mana regeneration.
Buy a Stealth Ward for vision. You should buy more later for maximum warding coverage.
Buy the Stealth Ward for early vision. As you will be buying Ancient Coin, you won’t have much gold left over for vision.
Start with some [total biscuit of rejuvenation] for extra sustain in lane. The instant health and mana gained upon consumption can save your life, making the Culinary Master mastery quite useful. If you feel you don’t need the sustain, you can replace a few biscuits with another Stealth Ward.

Core Items

talisman of ascension
The talisman of ascension is a useful gold/5 generation items, while also offering other useful stats as mana and health regeneration. The active is also quite useful as well, allowing your team to engage or disengage with ease.
This season, there is a new warding limit on supports, so Ruby Sightstone is no longer an item that supports rush.
These boots are quite useful once you have the mana to afford constantly using Hymn of Valor and Aria of Perseverance for poking and healing. The movement speed passive is useful for warding and to get back to lane faster.

Late Game Items

Should you require additional AP for the scaling on your abilities, one item that does this well is Rabadon's Deathcap Not only does it give you 120 AP, which is massive for a support, but it also offers a 30% multiplier on your total AP. This item gives you a small power spike in mid game when you first purchase it, and scales well even into late thanks to its passive.
If you are trouble managing your mana reserves and are going oom quickly, you might consider buying Athene's Unholy Grail it offers both magic resistance, Cooldown reduction, and plenty of AP. It allows you to spam Hymn of Valor and Aria of Perseverance to poke your enemy and heal your team. The magic resistance helps you withstand enemy AP casters.
For a teamwide shield, health, and a powerful aura offering armor and magic resistance, choose the Locket of the Iron Solari. Not only can it save your life, but the potential in teamfights, which Sona excels at, is extremely high. It does require correct positioning, however.
Buying the Frozen Heart will make you far tankier than you usually are, while also supplying Cooldown reduction, armor, and mana. Use when the enemy has high AD damage sources.zeke's herald
If your allies need more lifesteal or spell vamp, zeke’s herald provides an useful aura regen item that certainly helps in teamfights.
This item provides many useful stats for a gold efficient price. The AP is provides is helpful, but Lich Bane might be best known for its unique passive. The procs can help you deal more damage in fights.
The Morellonomicon is well known for offering a wide range of stats for one low price. It offers Cooldown Reduction, AP, and applys Grevious Wounds, which is useful against high lifesteal enemy ADC.
If your ADC is consistently getting CC from the enemy team, Mikael's Blessing will help. It offers mana regeneration to you, and an active that keeps your AD Carry alive and well. Just make sure you remember to use the active.

Magic penetration aids with your early in-lane poke, and also increases the damage from both Hymn of Valor and Crescendo
- ALTERNATIVELY-
greater mark of hybrid penetration You will be autoattacking quite a bit in lane to harass. Useful in laning phase. However, I feel magic penetration marks scale better late game. Choose what you believe "feels" the best. Magic resist is for surviving enemy harass and also enemy AP assassins, good both early and late game for defense. Use these to survive more damage and lessen your squishiness. Even with recent support changes, it is still an issue that supports have a smaller income. These, along with one gold-generation items, will put you roughly at same income as the rest of your team. As a bonus, they become even better the longer a game is
-ALTERNATIVELY-
These help alleviate some of your squishiness in lane, and their health may allow you to survive a burst. You never know when ~100 HP can save your life!

I like to put my first point into Hymn of Valor, and use twice in fountain. When you get to lanes, use Hymn of Valor once more and proc Power Chord: staccato to deal massive early game burst. Then take Aria of Perseverance for sustain. I usually only put one point into Song of Celerity until later levels, as the early game effect is not too noticeable. As always, whenever possible, I put a point into my ultimate, Crescendo.

You NEED this spell. Sona is usually so squishy that she can, mid to late game, be instamelted by the enemy carries. You also have no CC besides Crescendo, and no gap closer, therefore you require a reliable escape.
This spell is what I usually take with Sona. Help secure kills for your carry early game. Late game, use on enemies with high lifesteal or natural regeneration so your team can finish them off. Take this or Exhaust, your choice! I will sometimes take this instead of ignite. It scales far better into the late game, however, like ignite, the range is a bit short. Take it against enemy hyper-carries, or those highly autoattack dependent.

This is a useful passive, based on Sona's current stance, or aura. After using 3 spells, her next autoattack will do extra magic damage and a bonus effect based on last spell used. Your Q is the main source for harassing in lane, the aura also provides a decent AD/AP boost for your allies. The power chord proc for this is decent, especially in laning phase, and you can easily use to harass foes out of lane. Your W is useful for a small heal, along with a small buff for team defense. Your E gives a small movement speed boost, with a passive for additional movement speed. This can be used for initiation or as a disengage in unfavorable conditions. Your Ultimate, Crescendo, might be the best in the game. It can be used for ganks, initiating teamfights, and for disengage. Great utility, and decent AP scaling. Learn when to use, and best orientation. Make sure to communicate to your team when you will use it so they can follow up.

Early Game Warding/Laning Phase Warding

Mid Game Warding

Late Game Warding

PURPLE: Vision Wards. If you put a Vision Ward under dragon, it will be impossible to remove unless dragon itself is attacked. In this way, you can call for a teamfight there, during which the enemy will be weakened by dragon debuff. Also Vision Ward the river bushes near the center of river, as traffic there is lower, and your ward will survive up to 10 minutes.
GREEN: Early game wards. Ward the river and tribush to prevent enemy jungler ganks. Just make sure you have map awareness, as wards do no good if you don't watch minimap.
YELLOW: Mid Game Wards. These wards are important for controlling mid game vision. From 15 minutes onwards, be sure to ward Baron, with both Vision Ward and Stealth Ward.
PINK: Late Game Wards. Late Game Wards. Depending on the flow of the game, you will be either defending or attacking. Make sure to ward enemy base, your jungle, enemy jungle, and Baron.

As a support, Sona scales well with little to no gold. The bottom lane is designed so the support can receive the exp of the lane, and the AD Carry the gold. Don't take CS unless your Carry is recalling back to base as the Carry needs gold for scaling items. Be careful when using Hymn of Valor, as it may take your Carry's CS. If you can, deny the enemy CS by harassing them with Hymn of Valor.

In lane, try to help your ADC survive the lane so they can CS. Heal them when it is off cooldown, and use your Hymn of Valor to poke the enemy. Be careful not to take too much harass doing so, and don't harass at all against high range enemy duos as Caitlyn and Lulu. Be sure to ward the tribush, river bush, and lane bushes if the enemy is harassing you. Also make sure to ping MIA when appropriate. Once you push down the first outer turret, rotate to other lanes and help them if needed. After laning phase ends, group with your team and roam as five to secure objectives and kills.

Play Sona when you have a team that loves poking or AoE teamfights. Her Ult, Crescendo helps to engage upon their back line, protect your own carry, or just provide a general source of CC. She also pairs up well with AD Carry that can harass enemy out of lane, such as Ezreal or Caitlyn, as well as CC heavy Carry such as Ashe. She also helps a Carry with poor early game, including Vayne survive the laning phase with heals. Play against an enemy with little burst damage, so you may restore lost health. You excel at extended duels, so pick into those compositions.

TEAMFIGHTS

As Sona, a support, your main goal in teamfights is buff your allies, keep them alive, and protect the carries at all costs. This means peeling, engaging, and healing. Begin a teamfight with Crescendo, and catch the enemy unawares. Use your items as required: talisman of ascension for engaging and disengaging, Mikael's Blessing to remove CC and heal your AD Carry. Use Ignite debuff on enemy carries to lower healing. Make sure to be close to your team to heal, but not enough to be facemelted. Protect the carry at all costs!

SAVING YOUR CARRY

Sometimes you see a teammate with low health being pursued. If they are close enough, you can run towards them, then use your heal and speed spells so they can get away. You can also use Crescendo to allow your ally to run away. If the active for talisman of ascension is off cooldown, use it! Remember that it is "worth" it to sacrifice your own life for the ADC/APC of your team.

~12:00 07 August 2013 C.E - Update with new patch.
~20:00 03 June 2014 C.E- Updated with new patch. Changed based on gameplay.
~20:00 13 April 2014 C.E- Changes on gameplay, tweaked some items.
~20:00 02 April 2014 C.E- Aesthetic changes, more updates based on gameplay.
~18:00 26 March 2014 C.E- Additional coding.
~20:00 24 March 2014 C.E- Additional diagrams and images to enhance viewing experience!
~12:00 21 March 2014 C.E- More coding, update to Chapters 4,14&15.
~20:00 19 March 2014 C.E- WE HAVE REACHED 20,000 VIEWS!
~20:00 17 March 2014 C.E- A few aesthetic updates, more coding.
~16:00 16 March 2014 C.E- Updates to all Chapters 10&15, added Chapter 12.
~20:30 13 March 2014 C.E- More aesthetic changes to Chapters 5&9. Added more information to chapter 4. Added a new chapter, number 10
~18:00 13 March 2014 C.E- WE HAVE REACHED 10,000 views! SO HAPPY ^_^
~18:00 12 March 2014 C.E- More aesthetic changes, added a new chapter, number 4
~20:30 11 March 2014 C.E- WE HAVE REACHED THE TOP GUIDES FOR SONA! Sitting at 8th place right now, thanks to all the comments and views!
~20:00 11 March 2014 C.E- Added material to Chapters 4,5,7&8.
~20:00 10 March 2014 C.E- More coding, aesthetic changes, added more content to Chapters 6&12. Remember, this is a work in progress, so expect plenty of revisions! If you have any advice, please message me or post a comment in the "discussion" portion of the guide! Thank you in advance.
~20:30 9 March 2014 C.E- More coding, changes to Chapter 4, added Chapter 6. Thank you aDaptor for your take on runes.
~20:00 8 March 2014 C.E- 5K views! I didn't know this guide would be so popular so quickly! Thanks for all the views!
~20:00 7 March 2014 C.E- Some changes to Chapters 4&8 .
~17:30 5 March 2014 C.E- Updates Chapters 1,2&7 and added Chapters 2,4&9.
~19:30 4 March 2014 C.E- Aesthetic Changes, more information.
~19:00 2 March 2014 C.E- Original Publishing of Guide.

FLAG COUNTER COMING SOON!