We’re targeting patch 11.16 for a mid-scope Sona update.
Captain Gameplay
Hello everyone and welcome to our summary of Captain Gameplay’s thoughts and reasoning about the upcoming changes to our favorite strings’ virtuoso, Sona. We hope people will find future possible changes to her kit exciting, as Sona had a lot of limitations put on her kit in the past.
In the Article, Captain Gameplay mentioned how not a long time ago, Sona was a meta top-laner that used to endlessly harass her lane opponents. Not even focusing on last-hitting minions and getting gold from the support item. Captain emphasizes that her top playstyle violated a core laning skill test and how it wasn’t a fun experience for Sona’s opponents.
While we generally like alternative play styles (ex. camp clearing buffs to allow more champs to jungle, adding more ratios for champs to scale with alternate builds), this playstyle violated a core laning skill test—in lane, someone should be attempting to farm minions and contesting that should be valuable for the opponent.
Captain also stated that by addressing solo-lane Sona (By increasing her mana-costs and adding a mana-refund tied to her auras), they made her a lot less fun. Preventing her from casting spells unless she played around an effect she often didn’t think about made for a less fun version of Sona.
Well we are now re-visiting Sona to replace this mana refund mechanic with something that Sona players will be more excited about.
Accelerando
In place of high mana costs and a mana refund, Sona’s Ultimate cooldown passive is going to be replaced with a stacking mechanic that rewards her for using Q and W in a way that matches the mindshare of those spells. A positive incentive rather than a negative one that doesn’t punish her by preventing her from casting future spells will make for a generally more enjoyable experience.
Now, when Sona damages enemy champions with Q – Hymn of Valor or uses W – Aria of Perseverance to heal an injured ally or protect them from damage with the shield (the full base value; a tiny bit of ambient damage won’t count), she will permanently gain a stack of Accelerando, granting ability haste for her basic abilities (up to a cap). Striking two different champions with Q will grant two stacks. W can grant up to 5 stacks if it heals an ally and blocks damage on all four allies.
After Sona reaches the cap for Accelerando, subsequent stacks will instead refund a bit of R – Crescendo‘s cooldown as a reward to encourage aggressive plays.
Sona is currently planned for patch 11.16, which ships next month.
While you’re waiting for our Maven of the Strings to get updated, we recommend checking out this article about the new champion, Akshan.
You can also read the full post by Captain Gameplay on League of Legends’ official website