After chilling in solo queue and 5man premade after the talon patch with Sona a bit, I was very disappointing and satisfied at the same time about the patch. Over all, I dont see the change as a nurf or a buff but more of a change to add more utility to an already mainly utility focused support champ.

This guide will go over the 4 different way's I would normally play sona after the talon patch (patch 1.0.0.124). The changes to Sona in that patch are as follows and i will go over them in some details

Aria of Perseverance
---Base heal reduced to 25/50/75/100/125 from 35/70/105/140/175
---Ability power ratio reduced to .25 from .35
---Now grants double her passive aura bonus to her heal target and herself for 3 seconds
Reduced the lockout time while casting Sona's songs to make them more responsive
Fixed a bug where Hymn of Valor and Aria of Perseverance caused her to deal 20% reduced damage

So the changes to her W is the big focus of this patch making supports less sustained in lane and encouraging more clutch saves. The intention is good, I have played against other Sonas before and alot of time, it does feel like harassing does nothing because of how much heal she has. However the method of implementation is what failed to deliver this goal. The end result is sona is pushed away from her primary role of support into one of her lesser roles of AD or Tank.

I'm pretty sure most of you know how sona works or and so on but here's a little explanation on her skills so in case you didn't know something.

passive - power cord:
each time you cast a spell, all your other spells go on a 2 second cooldown (this is not affected by cooldown reduction)
after 3 spell casts your next normal attack does 14+9xlvl bones magic dmg and based on the last spell casted it applies a different effect.
Q: the bones dmg id doubled
W: reduce the damage dealt by the target hit by 20% for 4 sec
E: slow the target hit by 40% for 3 seconds.



Q - Hymn of Valor:
Upon activation, you send out 2 auto targeting beams of stuff that hits the 2 closest targets and for magic damage (It says it prioritizes champions over minions but that's a lie. The only way to be able to use this to do most damage to champions is to learn its priority range and it maximum range and position yourself accordingly. There's no way to teach that other than to play her alot) and leaves a blue aura which gives all nearby allies bones AD and AP



W - Aria of Perseverance:
Upon activation, you send out 1 auto targeting beams of stuff that heals yourself and an allied champ within its cast range of the lowest %health, both you and your target will receive double the aura passive for 3 seconds. after using this skill it leaves behind a green aura which grants all nearby allies bones armor and magic resist.



E - Song of Celerity:
Upon activation, you and all nearby allies within range gain a small burst of speed for 3 seconds. Using this skill leaves behind a purple aura that increases the move speed of all nearby allies by a small amount.



R - Crescendo:
you send out a line nuke that stuns all champions within the cast range for 1.5 sec (its actually a "dance" so its unaffected by tenacity)

Sona is one of the few champs who can easily fit into many different roles on a team depending on item build. There are many different item builds that you can utilize and here's to list a few. I will briefly cover the basics here and a more in depth explanation of each one later on.

To keep all the options open before the game starts, all of them will be using the exact same rune setup, mysteries, and summoner spells.

AD Carry sona:

This is likely the most common rout or second most common rout to go with sona after the talon patch. The core concept of AD sona is to proc sheen ( ) as often as you can and considering sona's passive puts a 2sec global cooldown its almost like sheen's made for sona.

Tank sona

This is a less common way to play Sona. In fact this is on of the least common ways to play Sona after the talon patch however this is very strong as people aren't smart enough to notice your going tank. The core concept with this build is that because Sona is widely considered to be a "squishy" support, many people will jump at the chance to take her down for a free kill (aka: auto taunt) and by building alot of resist and the giant resist buff on your W, you can survive getting hit by alot of stuff and initiate by baiting the enemy team.

Support sona:

This is your classic bot lane support Gold/time stacking aura support. This is probably the second most common way, if not the most common way to play Sona since her primary role is technically "support". Not much to say. just camp brush and press W whenever its off cooldown

Tanky DPS sona:

Since they're so popular Sona want's to be part of the crew too. Essentially you build a hybrid between AD Sona and tank Sona and you get this. You can say this is an extremely uncommon rout to go but it's got its own advantages. this is possibly my favorite way to play and possibily the build with the most late game potential.

for my default runes i roll with



This set up allows for a very aggressive early game as well as a powerful mid to late game because you no longer have the need to buy any CDR because your runes and masteries provide so much of it. In fact, you will have more than 25% cdr without blue buff at lv 18 no prob. however if you dont have the rune using the other recommended ones are fine too.

The masteries are pretty standard for support/casters. The only thing that's significantly different is the 3 points in deadliness ( ) instead of archmage's savvy ( ) but that doesn't really matter

Summoner spells are clairvoyance and flash ( ) for a few reasons. Flash doesn't need to be explained so i will skip that, the reason I take CV is because no one else will take it. Even if your going AD, every team needs a CV and having it on a carry is better than not having it at all.

The second reason is to bluff your opponent into thinking your one of them "squishy" supports as that's how most classic supports are built and give yourself a free auto taunt for when you do go tank or tankydps. In the last case scenario when you actually do go support then well if your going support why not just take the CV?

Alternatively, you can take almost any other summoners other than CV but doing so will give your opponent the hint that you might be planning on going anything that isn't bot lane 0 CS support sona so they might become weary of you later on. That's why i stick with CV even if i'm going AD or tank as well as having the flexibility to go AD or tank half way through the game if needed.

As mentioned above your goal is to proc sheen and do dmg with it. This means if your bad at farming like me, sheen should be your third item because when you get to mid game. Sheen proc + Q passive hits like a truck. On the contrary, if your really good at last hitting then then its safe to buy a chalice before moving on to the sheen because having tear chalice combo is will give you so much mana that you will never ever need to worry about it ever again. Not only that it offers a decent amount of magic resist so you dont get insta melted by someone.

Sona is super mana hungry therefore tear is almost a must buy. Especially if your AD sona because you'll need alot of mana later on to be able to dish out sustained and burst damage. So i normally rush tear. Chalice is another option however i find that tear is better than chalice in many circumstances. Your core build for this path is the following:

give or take

After that from her you go and work on manamune ([iocn=manamune] and your final boots (most of the time merc treads but other boots like swiftness and dodge boots also works under certain circumstances). Alot of people say that manamune is a bad item and I have to agree with them to a point which is assuming your building manamune just for damage. Assuming you only benefit from the damage portion of manamune then manamune is a piece of junk dont ever buy it. However as AD sona, not only do you benefit from the bones damage, you also benefit from the mana. consider it this way: you have to buy tear on sona because that's the only item that can satisfy the mana hungry sona now you can throw in an extra 1000 ish and get something like 70 bones damage or leave the tear there? I'd say the bones damage is worth it. and farming tear is easy too, just keep pressing E as you fun from place to place and it auto farms your tear.

After the Manamune and boots its probably best to get some attack speed and more damage because sheen procs off AD and any AD champ must have some attack speed and the only item that fits the bill is the black cleaver ( ). After that you can finish off your trinity ( ). generally games will never last this long and if they do your team is probably doing something wrong or the other team isn't doing something right. however if games do drag on to this long then gunblade and last whisper are next ( ) as you will benefit from both the lifesteal and spellvamp not to mention the active that lets you slow someone for 3 seconds fully allowing you recharge your E passive for a total of 9seconds worth of slowing. Additionally if games are going this long, then they are likely stacking heavy armor or magic resist and and the extra armor pen is very helpful.

Fun fact: Ezona is the name that AD Carry Sona is often refered to by. The reason is because the origin of the build came from someone who played sona with an ezreal build and it worked and hence Ezreal Sona, Ezona

Your jealous that I got to play with Jesse Perring :P

This is one of the silly builds that I play when my team is desperately needing someone to initiate fights. that's not to say that this is not a viable build. The primary way this works is because people like to focus champs with small health bars which is a psychological trick that makes this build work. As a tank you need to do 3 different jobs.

1. initiate team fights: baiting or flash ulting
2. take lots of damage: if built right anyone can do it
3. peal enemy off your carry: auto taunt derp

The first 2 roles of tanking can be easily fulfilled by sona's kit or her build however the third role is somewhat harder to accomplish as you need to position yourself somewhere to taunt your opponents into attacking you (blowing alot of cooldowns that should be targeted at your carry) while not getting 5 maned an instantly melting. This is the trick part of being tank sona.

The rule of thumb is to stay where they can see you but not close enough for them to right click you. this is generally in front of your carry and right beside your tank/tankydps. if done right they will jump you but you'll have enough time to counter initiate with a good ult and run away with heals.

The reason the item section of this build is not finished is because depending on the enemy team comp and how ell everyone is doing, you may wish to build different items or even not go this rout at all. But there is a few core items that should always be gotten in every game and they are:



this puts you 85 magic resist off the bat allowing to take hits in the face from casters. this is not including the 20 from your W aura and 20 more from the buff. chalice + merc + base MR gets you 85. Essentially you can push W and take a hit from their caster and probably survive. Additionally this is the core build because early game, chances are, its the AP casters that are doing the most amount of damage making it very logical to get some magic resist early and fast.

your next items depends on the enemy team. If they have more damage in the form of magic damage then continue building magic resist focusing on force of nature ( ) however if they have more damage in the form of physical damage then roll with either thornmale or frozen heart ( ) depending on if their physical damage is AD caster like panthion and renekton or auto attack damage like yi and ashe. majority of the time either would work however under the circumstance where they have 2 or more heavy auto attacker then frozen heart is definitely the better choice as it reduces bother their damage by 20%. As well if their AD damage comes from casters and he always focus you maybe you want to get thornmail because it cheap and you can start blocking off more damage faster. Its hard to explain the different situation of when to get each item and when not and as a result the best way to find out is to play more games. ultimately you want to have both force of nature and either thornmale or frozen heart and possibly another armor item if it the amount of AD damage is that much.

One of the greatest complants about the tank sona is its lack of HP. However it is the lack of HP that make tank sona work. The reason is because if u see anyone with a giant HP bar, the natural reaction is to ignore that person until everyone else is killed and on the contrary if u see a person with a small health bar, its only natural to hit them. Additionally the more health you have the less % of your missing health you'll be healing for each time you haal. allowing you to effectively tank and recover damage. As a result, throughout the build, I have avoided majority of the defensive items that offer both health and resist such as sunfire capes and bnashee's veil ( )

fun fact: I have friends who call this build "tankmo 2.0" because it essentially functions off the same principal tank teemo does except teemo's auto taunt is global. To this day I still don't get how this "global taunt" thing works. As well I decided to call this Trollna because that's what my team called me half way through a game until i baited 3 ults on the enemy team and won us an ace which won us the game.

This is your classic support sona which is your aura bot who's job is to sit there and pretty much sit there. with this you can start off with W or Q depending on how aggressive your lane partner is. Alot of time, I just assume my lane partner is going to be super aggressive and get Q first and charge 2 points in it early. Anyways you level your W first and pretty much just sit there and heal, pretty simple if u think about it.

I do not specialize in support sona nor do i think its as good as the other 3 so I will not go into alot of details. One of the things to note is that this play style is only successful if your lane partner can catch 90% of the cs that comes and the majority of the players at 1200 - 1600 elo wont be able to do that. as a result, I dont often play sona as a 0 CS support. However the majority of the other builds for her do play her as a 0 CS support. Anyways I'll cut to the chase don't do this unless your in high elo. and if you are, you'll probably have your own build instead of following some trashy build from some nub out there.

This is one of my favorites as it does quite a bit of damage but allows you to take somewhat of a beating as well. This is most practical when you take a solo lane (or in a really long game). the concept of this build is to take the best elements of both AD Carry Sona and Tank Sona and melt them together to form a very powerful build. The only drawback to this build is its very very costly to build. The basic core items still remain, tear, boots chalice and sheen however this time chalice is mandatory instead of like AD sona, chalice is not mandatory this time it is. By mid game you should have the following:



your next goal should be to aim for manamune to get the AD in and then after that start working on your defensive item. I would recommend that you get chain vest ( ) to match your magic resist however if your getting hit real hard by magic damage then getting a negatron cloak ( ) could be a wiser option. at the end your goal is to finish either quicksilver sash or force of nature and thornmail or frozen heart. ( / and / ). Additionally, its not a bad idea to not finish your big defensive item in favor of the other defense item because all of a sudden the enemies started to dish out more physical damage than magic damage or vice versa.

Generally the game is over by the time you finish your first major defensive item but if it drags on far beyond the time frame of a normal game and you have finished both of your major defense items then the next and the only option to go is to get tri force ( ). There will probably never be a time when you finish trinity and be like idk what to get and i have 2k in hand. if that situation ever arises then the only option is to sell chalice and buy either something to do more damage such as an item that builds from BF sword or a defensive item that protects you from the enemy team's main source of damage, either routs being totally acceptable. In fact, its also possible to go full tanky starting with tanky items such as force of nature and follow up into sheen + manamune. This is my favorite build because no matter what point of the game your at, its always ok to come to this build.

Fun fact: I have many friends who plays with me and they all know that my sona build are all "unnatural" yet effective to a point. My nickname among some of them is Prona (pro sona) and that's what I have decided to call this build (my favorite build and most used build) rather than Eztrollna.

I have designed the build to all start out relatively similar. What builds to use at what time often will be a tough decision to make. Here's a basic guide on how to choose what build to use. The fist thing you must do is to decide if your going to be roll with support sona or not. essentially, support sona is the one build that must be chosen at the start rather than flow into where all the other build are flow based. The reason is because classic support sona requires you to get 0 CS and that doesn't go over too well with the other 3 more farm dependent champs.

Assuming you decided that your going to go either AD, tank or tankydps from the start your next option is to finish your core build. This is the common factor that all builds share in common: tear boots and possibly chalice, upon completing these items you then look at how fed you are, how fed your opponents are, how ell your team is doing and how well your opponent's team is doing. so here's the situation break down

Assuming that your not fed, the build you want to use should always balance out with what your team is doing. For example if your team loves to get into team fights you should build tank so you can create windows of opportunity for your team where as if your team is very defensive then you should play a little more aggressively so that you can take advantage of small windows of opportunity.

Thanks for reading. Please at least give them a try before voting.