WARNING: GUIDE UNDER HEAVT CONSTRUCTION So, quick update. I'm a little busy at the moment and don't have time to wrap up the guide and officially publish it. However, I'll still release it so the people who need it can see it since it still has some useful information. I'll make sure this guide is done by the first week of May. Thanks for your patience. ^^

Table of Contents
Introduction	Summoner Spells	Matchups
The art of Sona	Runes	Gameplay
Abilities	Items	Extra Tips | Wrap-up

Hey! Thanks for checking out my guide. Here you'll find everything you need to know to go from a mediocre support to a semi-average Sona main! Before I introduce the champion, I'm going to introduce myself first.

I'm wailingwailord, a support main from PH. I'm fairly new to League of Legends, having only a career of about ~2 months. However, I think I have a firm grasp of the basics and how to play Sona. Even though these tips will be from a new player, read the entire guide before you discredit me!

As you can see, not really that impressive. As I said, I've only had a career of more or less 60 days. So I'll make sure to update this guide as I learn more and more about the game and how to be a proper Sona support! :)

DISCLAIMER: As I said, I'm still quite unexperienced so if you see anything in the guide that needs correcting kindly inform me ASAP! ^^





So, Sona. She's a very easy to use support champion that I highly recommend if you're starting out playing support. Her playstyle revolves around the melodies she casts with her 3 basic spells, attacking, healing and speeding up allies, then using her ultimate Crescendo to stun the entirety of the opposing team. Her offensive capabilities are further boosted by her passive Power Chord to apply a variety of on-hit effects unto enemies.

Before further discussion on Sona and her abilities, I'll first list down the upsides and downsides of using this champion.

Summon: Aery Summon Aery is an excellent keystone which pairs well with Sona because when an ally enters any of her melodies from one of her 3 basic abilities, they will be shielded, enabling your ADC to have a shield up often to reduce damage.

VS.

Arcane Comet Arcane Comet has more damage, but can be dodged and has a longer cooldown vs Summon Aery. I recommend taking the latter because you can really abuse Aery with your auras. Alongside that, Aery has a manipulable cooldown and is guaranteed to hit. So overall, Aery should be better.

Manaflow Band Manaflow Band gives you 25 extra mana everytime you poke, until a cap of 250, then gives you 1% of max. mana every 5 seconds once you reach the maximum. This is great for the early game to increase your mana cap, but doesn't do that much late game.

VS.

The Ultimate Hat The Ultimate Hat however gives you extra CD on your ult every time you use it, which becomes useful as the game progresses. This choice is up to preference and your playstyle. One helps in the early game, the other helps in the late game, your pick.

This is the pick where you have a choice. Scorch is a great rune which can help your poke early game to proc some extra damage and help you in harassing the enemy laner. Gathering Storm on the other hand increases your heals in the late game since they scale off your AP. Waterwalking is more of a niche pick, and I don't recommend it, it increases your MS and AP slightly when in the river, which could help in feuds over Dragon, Rift Herald, or Baron, but that's about where it ends. Once again, this is a matter of preference, so experiment and choose which one suits your playstyle.

Magical Footwear Magical Footwear is a pretty good straightforward rune. It gives you free boots at 10 minutes, which slightly build any boots you build off it. Takedowns get the boots to arrive sooner. This is useful so you can spend that 300 gold on a different item, since you don't get much income as a support.

VS.

Biscuit Delivery Ever been frustrated by lacking sustain in the early game? This rune is the right one for you. Biscuit Delivery grants you good health and mana sustain so you can stay in lane longer and minimize the time you're spending in base or walking back to lane. Either of these runes are great, so I think this one is also up to preference.

Thresh This matchup is terrible for you. His Death Sentence -> Flay -> The Box combo will guarantee death for you 95% of the time as long as his ADC is close enough to follow up unless you burn your Flash. No matter what, do not get chained by his Q. Even pre-6 without his ult, he can still throw you with his E away from your turret and into the arms of a trigger-happy Caitlyn. Play the lane passively. Poke from afar only when it's safe. Try to punish him when he's trying to collect a few souls, and hide behind minions. A common way to die in this matchup is when you're whittling his turret, given a false sense of security because you have a wall of minions directly in front of you, you look behind and your ADC is going back, he walks towards you and fires his Q, you fail to dodge it and you get annihilated by him and the turret. Do not get greedy in this matchup, always tower hug if you're left alone with him. He may be a support but don't let that fool you. Buy Ancient Coin if you have to.

Leona Ah, one of my least favorite supports to play against. Leona is one of the hardest support matchups for me because she will constantly bombard you with CC, after latching onto you with her Zenith Blade. Alongside that, she's very tanky, so when you're playing against her, try to direct as much of your poke as possible toward her ADC, but as long as the Leona is somewhat good, they'll know to stand infront and shield their ADC by soaking up all of your poke damage. The most dangerous tool she has in this matchup is her Zenith Blade and is her main form of engage. You have to stay away from this at all costs and if either you or your ADC do get grabbed it's most likely death unless you have your Crescendo up as a last-resort escape option.

Blitzcrank Ugh. The absolute bane of supports. This is a matchup familiar to most people who play bottom lane so I'm gonna keep the explanation here summarized. His Rocket Grab just absolutely is terrible. Get grabbed, you're just about dead. Even worse post-6 when he can execute his Q > E > R combo on you then you would take a huge chunk of damage which the enemy ADC can easily pick you off. Play as passively as possible, hide behind minions and do not approach him even when you're out of Rocket Grab range, he can fire off an Overdrive or a Flash to catch you off guard and hook you. I still recommend using Spellthief's Edge for this matchup because you can always poke him as long as you play smart. If he misses his hook, use the long cooldown against him and play as aggressively as possible to force him or his ADC out of lane and give you some breathing room.

Caitlyn Probably one of the more dangerous ADC matchups, Caitlyn's high poke range, great tools with Yordle Snap Trap and 90 Caliber Net make her a pretty good zoner in the early game. Because she has the highest auto attack range (in the early game, without ability modifiers) out of all the champions in the game, she's kind of an anti-poke champion. She also has great zoning tools with her traps and net, which limit your movement in the lane and apply pressure. Try to punish her when she goes for CS, especially cannon minions with the new update, since they are now worth more gold. Timing your attacks is essential in this matchup. One of the more prominent openings is when she misses her Piltover Peacemaker, it leaves her very vulnerable so you should hit her as hard as you can and as fast as you can. The choice between Spellthief's and Coin is dependent on her support, so if her support looks passive, take Spellthief's, if not then take Coin.

Tristana Shouldn't be too hard of a matchup for you. Tristana doesn't really have any super big damage options in the early game so this is what you should take advantage of and bully her as much as possible. The only threat Tristana proposes is if either you or your ADC are on low health, she can easily Rocket Jump and go in for the kill, so always be wary. You're relatively safe in this matchup, really, so go for a lot of poke to whittle her down. Another small thing to note is when she's sieging your tower and throws a Explosive Charge at it. This combined with her Rapid Fire can make a pretty big explosion radius that can chunk off a decent amount of health so that's something you need to watch out for. Take Spellthief's Edge definitely since you're gonna be able to harass her and push her under tower constantly.

A: If you're having trouble getting a good rating with Sona, don't worry, getting an S rank is actually pretty hard for supports in general. There are many different factors which affect whether or not you're going to get an S rating.

I'd say the two most important things to keep in mind when trying to retain a good rating as a support are kills and deaths. In order to get an S rating on your performance, you're not going to want to exceed around 4 deaths. Even when you reach 4, it's gonna be a bit hard to retain S rating status as a support. This is where kills come in. To get an S rank, you're going to have to do a little bit of killstealing. Yes, I know, I know. Killstealing is the taboo of support mains. You're never supposed to do it, since it's essentially stealing gold from teammates which could otherwise have been used for items to help them carry. So don't killsteal in ranked games, I suggest to do so if you're only desperate to get an S, and it's in normals. You're gonna need about 2-3 killsteals (more than that if you have 3+ deaths) to reach S by the end of the game.

To give you some insight on the topic, I'll give an example.

In the game above, I got 27 assists (out of 47 total team kills), 2 deaths and 1 kill. This however didn't grant me an S rating, only a very close A+.

In this game however, I got 20 assists (out of 36 total team kills), 3 deaths and 6 kills. I did much worse in this game as a support, dying one more time than the other game, stealing more kills and assisting in fewer, yet somehow, I was given S+, meaning I did exceptionally well according to how the game sees it.

As you can see, the grading system for supports is very unbalanced and poorly made. It supports stealing kills for yourself and putting off your team in a worse position. This is why Riot should fix the flawed grading system for supports, but until then, you know now how to get the highest rating and earn those mastery tokens.


TL;DR You have to killsteal twice or thrice (more depending on your death count) and avoid death as much as possible. Get at least 10 assists, and you should be good to go.





A: This is something that crosses the mind of everyone who's used Spellthief's Edge and encountered Ancient Coin. I, for one, have always used the recommended item set by LoL for the first month of playing. Then I discovered Mobafire guides and started using those. It then occurred to me, what is the difference of Coin and Spellthief's? Which one should I use?

Well first, let's talk about the items and their upgrades' differences.


As you can see, the main difference is Spellthief's gives you AP and mana regen, while Coin gives you MS and CDR. For a poke-y, mana-hungry champion like Sona, the definite option here would be Spellthief's Edge. The extra AP gives you more poke damage and the mana-regen gives you sustain.

Coin on the other hand gives you less stats for the initial item and its upgrades. However, coin gives you a lot of gold and mana just from standing there. A common mistake I see from low-ELO supports are that they think Coin gives so much more gold, plus mana, but in the end the stats from Eye of Ascension aren't suited for certain support champions over others.

But! Even though I've said all this, the starting item you choose doesn't solely depend on the champion you're using. It also depends on the matchup, so you should analyze and assess the situation, and try to predict how the laning phase will go depending on the enemy support, ADC, and your own ADC. If you're a Soraka and your ADC is Vayne going against a Blitzcrank and Caitlyn, your poking abilities will be restricted by a lot. This will reduce the effectiveness of taking your usual Spellthief's (on Soraka, that is) since you won't be able to utilize the passive almost at all. In these situations, take Coin instead.

Another factor you should consider is your own playstyle. A prime example is Janna. I play her very aggressively by constantly poking with my Howling Gale and Zephyr, so I almost always take Spellthief's unless the Matchup is really hard. But most Jannas tend to have a more passive playstyle where they sit in the backline shielding their ADC with Eye of the Storm, protecting themselves and their ADC. These players should take Coin. So analyze how you play your support and pick a starting item according to your analysis.

And if you're wondering, yes, there is another support starting item which I haven't mentioned, Relic Shield. If you simply look at the stats, in case you haven't noticed, this starting item is more for tank supports. Leona, Thresh, etc., it's not at all viable on regular supports like Sona or Soraka because it gives a reduced gold income and no useful buffs.


TL;DR

Spellthief's Edge is for poke-y supports that can utilize its passive ( Sona, Soraka, Nami).

Ancient Coin is for supports who help their ADC defensively instead of offensively. Janna is the only champion I can think of with this playstyle, but there are other champions too depending on how you play them ( Nami, Thresh).

Relic Shield is the starting item for tanks who soak damage for their ADC ( Blitzcrank, Leona, Tahm Kench).



This is more of an off-topic thing relating to Sona support, but it's important nonetheless so I will include it.

League is a frustrating game. I think this is something we all know. When it's 10 minutes into the game and you've already been killed thrice by that Orianna you're gonna be tempted to quit while you're dead. I will admit, this is something I do, and more often than I would like to admit. Keeping a healthy mindset is one of the most important things to have in mind when playing League of Legends. It's either gonna feel amazing when you win or devastating when you lose, and when you're devastated, it can really affect your performance.

If you're in a losing streak and all you've done for the past few games is feed, you should take a deep breath and close LoL. Read a book, go outside, or just take a deep breath. If you continue playing, you're just going to do worse. Even in winning streaks (especially in ranked games) it's important that you stop playing, because you strain your mind a lot when playing something as complex as LoL. Doing a marathon gaming session can really tax your mind and hurt your performance in game, so you should distract yourself with something every once in a while.

Another important thing to remember in game is that the mindset of your teammates will affect the game as well. If one of your teammates is in a rut with a lot of deaths, cheer them up. When you feel that you're behind in the scaling race you're actually going to play worse. And when your teammate is actually doing good, compliment them. I know most of the time when you play as a support your ADC is gonna be very inconsiderate. They don't thank you for your heals, shields or clutch saves but ignore those and criticize you for what you do wrong. In times like these, it's tempting to shoot back an insult, but you shouldn't. There are enough toxic people in League, why be one of them? Why make the game worse for other people? Plus, you shouldn't do it and risk having a provoked teammate quit, AFK, or feed. Instead, ignore what they say, or reply with a hearty smile or a witty comment. And when they do something good, compliment them. A simple "wow nice" or a "wp" may not seem like much, but teammates who feel encouraged do better than teammates who don't.

TL;DR Be un-tiltable.