Sona is an awesome Utility Support champ. Her auras can be spread to the whole team when the game gets to ARAM phase and can make extended teamfights almost unwinnable for the enemy team. If they don't burst your teammate's health to zero, you soon have them back up to full health plus a large shield! That W after getting Athene's stacked with a nice long range Q gives SO MUCH healing and sustain power. And her Q aura gives your team a significant bonus to auto-attack damage. The E aura makes it so your team wins most chases, regardless of which team is chasing.

Sona's biggest weaknesses are being squishy and having serious mana problems. The squish problem gets dealt with by proper positioning. The mana problems get dealt with by her core of Athene's --> Redemption --> Ardent.

Sona's self and team chase abilities are extremely strong with her utility build that has Ardent and Twin Shadows, both of which have move speed buffs included. Add in her E and good boots and you are flying along.

By the time you get to late game, the AP scaling ratios always cause people to wonder "what if" going full AP Sona could work. And full AP Sona is awesome... except for the 12,500+ gold cost to build it. Lich Bane plus ArchAngel's plus Rabadon would cause any Sona main to dream...

Sona's CDR is insane. Her R at each upgrade causes a massive reduction in cast time of each of her other spells - BEFORE accounting for the CDR from items and runes. As a result, Sona frequently has serious mana problems. In the early game, before you have enough mana built up, you are very limited on being able to cast W a lot. Later game, post level 11, you start naturally wanting to spam your spells on rotation - and this also gets very expensive. The two choices for dealing with this problem lock you into one of the two build paths that Sona can choose. Redemption works well with Athene's and Ardent for a mana-regen based solution to Sona's mana problems. And this is the utility build. On the other hand, you can go tear to deal with the mana problems. But Tear = AA and high cost items that do not synergize with Athene's, Ardent, and redemption and mean that you are going AP Sona. The choice is even starker because you have to choose different runes for the two paths if you want to maximize their effectiveness.

I (and all Sona mains) love AP Sona. But 12,500 gold just doesn't happen often enough. And Utility Sona is extremely strong. You can even convert it into a hybrid AP build by taking lich bane or rabadon as your final item instead of twin shadows.

Sona has two things that really need practice: Positioning and Warding.

All supports need to practice warding. And there are many others out there who talk about the warding game. So I will not dive much into that here. But positioning is crucial to practice. Sona Q targets 2 enemies, with a first preference going to champions and second preference going to minions/monsters. There is no priority to one minion type over another. Within each category (champs/minions), Sona Q prioritizes the closest.

As one example of something to practice in practice tool... when the enemy has backed and you want to hard shove the wave to their tower before you and your adc also back to base... go out to the side of the caster (range) minions and press Q. Aim your auto at the third minion. With just a bit of practice, you can instantly chunk all 3 very rapidly to half health so your ADC can use their wave-clear ability to kill them in one shot.

Likewise, learn your max range on Sona Q and Sona W.

Sona Q max range is long. And if you can consistently hit it at full range, you will usually remain untargetable by most enemy ADC and many supports.

Sona W has very long range for applying the heal. Knowing this range will frequently save your team 1-2 deaths per game as you are able to hit that heal just as you get in range before the enemy team can kill your teammate. Estimate too short, and your teammate dies before you fire it off. Estimate too long and your W is on cooldown having done nothing for your teammate who is getting attacked. The range on the heal is substantially longer than the range of the aura that gives the shield. If you hit a max-range W for the heal, keep running toward your teammate until they get the aura shield as well.

This is the difference between a good and a **** Sona.

Q power chord is the ONLY power chord that affects tower with the bonus part of the PC. Towers do not do reduced damage on a W PC. Towers do not move so E power chord is useless. Only the Q bonus damage has any effect. So always make sure that if your PC is up as you approach a tower that you shift it to Q PC.

W Power chord is a mini exhaust in terms of damage output. 3 seconds of damage reduction. If you get a W power chord onto the assassin as he is diving your ADC, your ADC lives and the assassin dies. If you get it on the enemy team's fed ADC, that is 3 seconds where their fed ADC is shooting spit-wads that tickle your team.

E Power chord wins chases. Not only does the E aura speed up yourself and your team by 30+ move speed, if you land the E power chord auto, then your target slows down by 40%. Boom. pick achieved. Or boom. Your team escapes. Whichever side is chasing, a well-timed E with a E-power-chord will cause your team to win that chase.

You upgrade your Starting Support Gold item to tier 2 ASAP. And then you upgrade to tier 3 as your FINAL upgrade after all your other items are completed.

Unless: You really need to have that 4th ward in your inventory even though you can only have 3 on the field at any time.

The first upgrade for both coin and spellthief lines of starting support items is necessary. Even if you get the 500 gold generated, you do not get the wards from the quest unless you have upgraded to tier 2.

The second upgrade for both coin and spellthief lines of starting support items is an absolute waste of gold. They cost a lot and give you little. Unless you really want that 4th ward in your inventory.

So why do people rush this? Especially those who never use their wards anyways? Because if you look on probuilds, you will see almost all pros rush spellthief tier 3. Why? Because they DO use that 4th ward. And they also get so much less gold at the pro level of play than us lower-elo players that they cannot complete the full 3 or 4 item builds that this guide and others on Mobafire recommend. When I see the enemy support rush a T-3 spell thiefs, I know I am almost always dealing with a non-support-main player who will not know how to ward correctly or how to maximize the supporting of their teammates.

NOTE: This is NOT applicable to the relic shield line of starting support items. Relic shield, unlike gold coin and spellthiefs, massively improves the gold generation rate at tier 3 and should be a first-item upgrade. But Sona does not do Relic Shield.