NOTE. This is no longer supported or even accurate anymore due to the new masteries. It's completely changed my playstyle with this champ, so I'm archiving this and starting a new guide (Eventually, once I've worked out the kinks.)

Hi! I'm SirBroad, and this is my first build on Mobafire! This is how I play Sona, who's one of the strongest supports in the entire game, at least in my opinion. This is because she has a little bit of everything. She can build as a caster/dps, aura support, basically whatever you want (as long as it makes sense for the character) will work on Sona. This is still a work in progress, and I plan to update this whenever I possibly can, especially since I am reasonably new to the game and haven't played in ranked yet. (Please don't troll for that, everyone was a noob at some point. Constructive feedback is always nice, though.) Item and Skill order aren't exact at the moment, I'm still playing with them, but the final items will stay the same.

Okay, so let's start off with runes, short and sweet. For reds I chose 9 Greater Mark of Magic Penetration to help with her damage, since there isn't really anything else incredibly useful for her in reds, and magic pen is always nice. Blues and yellows were a bit of a toss-up, to be honest, it can go either way. It depends entirely on whether you want more CDR or AP. I went for more AP with Greater Seal of Cooldown Reduction and Greater Glyph of Ability Power just for that extra oomph with her abilities, particularly because I'm rather conservative with her ult anyway, so it's usually on CD when I need it. This may change depending on your team makeup, if you find that you need to use it more often than you can following this build exactly, swap blues and yellows. The same goes for quints. I chose a little bit of both ( Greater Quintessence of Cooldown Reduction and Greater Quintessence of Ability Power) with gold/10 ( Greater Quintessence of Gold) as the third slot (Because I'm still learning the best way to farm with her, and this build takes a lot of gold to get to completion.). If you're more experienced, I would imagine that it's much more optimal to take full CDR or full AP, or similar. It's just a personal choice here.

Masteries were a little harder, and this is where a lot of uncertainty in the build lies. I went 9/0/21, but it's likely not the same thing that everyone else implies with it. I took my 9 in Offense just to get to the extra CDR and magic pen - This is a really important point here. My points in Utility were kind of scattered. Good Hands will always win out over Perseverance in my books (and those of a lot of other builds I've seen here), so that was an easy first choice, then I put a point into Haste because I'm a Ghost fanboy. From there, Awareness takes precedence over Expanded Mind to me just because there's no other way to increase exp gain, and the mana gain from the latter is negligible on Sona. Greed is included because I personally like it, also, again, this is an expensive build. Meditation and Utility Mastery are critical here, especially the second one, since blue buff is your friend with the easy CDR it gives (The mana helps too, but you have so much by the end that it's just silly anyway.). Quickness helps get to the end of the tree and is pretty nice as well, and more CDR with Intelligence is always welcome. Then Presence of the Master is just a given. I don't mean to sound patronizing with explaining every single mastery, I'm just giving my reasoning for them so it makes more sense. If something is blatantly wrong here, tell me in the comments.

Pretty simple, I like Teleport and Ghost. I use them wherever I can, it's just what I get the most use out of. Clarity, Flash, Cleanse, Heal, Clairvoyance, Fortify, etc. are also good options, I just don't use them that often. Experiment and see what you like to use!

Items are where you'll find the most improvisation ingame, simply because besides skill order, it's the only thing you can influence during the match. Allow me to start off my item explanation by saying that yes, I am fully aware that I don't build any form of defensive items like armor or mresist. You get some from Lich Bane, but that's just a pleasant bonus. Your job is not to be in the middle of every fight, it's to stay on the sidelines and in the back, throwing heals as fast as possible and poking with your Q until you can finally ult and let your allies wreak havoc. Anyway. I rush Tear of the Goddess ASAP, to the point where I only take the 2 early pots if I'm feeling particularly cautious. Otherwise I like saving the gold. Whether you take Meki Pendant or Sapphire Crystal first is up to you, I prefer the higher mana pool off the bat, but that's my choice. Try to stay in lane as long as safely possible, until you have the gold for your tear, then base to pick it up (and the beginning of your boots if at all possible). I run Boots of Swiftness over Ionian Boots of Lucidity because it makes you that much faster, and it's that (VERY tiny bit) cheaper. I've also been thinking of trying Mobility Boots just because it's easy to stay out of fights with Sona. Meijai's Soulstealer is completely optional. It should be easy enough to get a lot of stacks with it if you play safe, and that CDR at the end of the tunnel is a plus; if you get it, you don't need Golem nearly as much, though it still helps. Build that right after your boots because you will likely need the time to build stacks, especially if you end up dying (and trust me, it will happen.) I'm undecided on whether it's better to take Archangel's Staff or Rod of Ages next. I'm thinking it's best to get the Rod because, in addition to a little bit of survivability, taking it before staff carries the best guarantee of maxing it, depending on how long the game goes, but at the same time, Archangel's gets you building AP quicker, but it's very easy to build mana on it just by spamming spells between fights. The next two items are mostly for if the game needs to end. I feel like Rabaddon's Deathcap and Lich Bane are just as interchangeable in the order as the previous two. Lich Bane first if the team needs the damage output, and Rabaddon's every other time.

Alternative items may be added later once I've done some experimentation and number crunching. For now, though, if you're leery about Meijai's, feel free to replace it with a second Rod of Ages or another suitable item to your liking.

This one's going to be short. I haven't worked out my perfect skill order yet, and I'm not positive that there is one. I've adopted the skill order from Chrispykreem's guide, shown here. I chose to use his because it follows the prioritization that I use with my skills, though I will probably change up the order a little in a later version of this, because I don't like to neglect Song of Celerity quite so much. It's really useful the entire game through for escaping and chasing, and can help pick up assists or even kills if not make great escapes. It's like a mini Shurelya's Battlesong! Anyway, Hymn of Valor and Aria of Perseverance are your bread and butter, level them whenever possible, prioritizing Hymn over Aria, and obviously level your ult every chance you get. It's one of your greatest tools, so don't waste it. It is perfectly acceptable to use it as an escape mechanism, it isn't only for winning teamfights.

In conclusion, I'll briefly go over how I play Sona. I try to stay near teammates because of the support that I give them, but also because Sona can be fragile, especially when hit with a lot of CC at once. That being said, Sona gets a surprising amount of damage, especially at low level play, where people don't recognize that a lot of support characters have viable DPS options. Heal your allies whenever possible, since a healthy team is a winning team, and if you've got nothing better to do at any given point, randomly spam abilities. Whenever possible, grab blue buff for the extra CDR, get a teammate to help if you need it, and if no one else needs it, red can help, too, if for nothing else than the slow. Thanks for reading the build, and I look forward to feedback in the comments below!