League of Legends LIX: Ice Cream, Stamps, and Lorn

[Antonok]

Sona Rework and DOOM bots game mode.

Don't play Sona so I don't know what she's getting done to her. I just know that some people are going to have a hell of a fit over their waifu being touched. Mostly looking forward to getting my backside handed to me by the new game mode.

Spoiler: Tibbers should not be this big. EVER.

Show

EDIT: For anyone on the PBE trying the doombots. DO NOT use an item that does not have an active! It's a guranteed crash atm.

[Artanis]

your taste in humor grows ever more... inexplicable

It was supposed to be about the "R is not > the other abilities" part.

...I'm really bad at jokes

[Olinser]

Sona Rework and DOOM bots game mode.

Don't play Sona so I don't know what she's getting done to her. I just know that some people are going to have a hell of a fit over their waifu being touched. Mostly looking forward to getting my backside handed to me by the new game mode.

Spoiler: Tibbers should not be this big. EVER.

Show

EDIT: For anyone on the PBE trying the doombots. DO NOT use an item that does not have an active! It's a guranteed crash atm.

So Sona, who is already running into trouble with the rise of the tanky all in supports, is getting what amounts to a nerf, and a fairly LARGE nerf, at that.

Q powerchord is getting straight up cut in half, auras on the whole are weaker without a significant amount of AP (which is NOT A GOOD MECHANIC for a support), auras have a SIGNIFICANTLY reduced area of effect (from 1000 range all they way down to 300, wtf!!), and cooldowns for all abilities increased significantly (7 seconds to 10 seconds amounts to a bit over a 40% increase in cooldown).

Seriously, a 300 range buff is pathetic. And the Q and W aren't even a true aura, because you only get the effects once!

I know that it's still an early build, but the fact that they started at this point makes me EXTREMELY worried.

[Anarion]

So Sona, who is already running into trouble with the rise of the tanky all in supports, is getting what amounts to a nerf, and a fairly LARGE nerf, at that.

Q powerchord is getting straight up cut in half, auras on the whole are weaker without a significant amount of AP (which is NOT A GOOD MECHANIC for a support), auras have a SIGNIFICANTLY reduced area of effect (from 1000 range all they way down to 300, wtf!!), and cooldowns for all abilities increased significantly (7 seconds to 10 seconds amounts to a bit over a 40% increase in cooldown).

Seriously, a 300 range buff is pathetic. And the Q and W aren't even a true aura, because you only get the effects once!

I know that it's still an early build, but the fact that they started at this point makes me EXTREMELY worried.

I think you may be misunderstanding the intent here. The base numbers are considerably better on a lot of the abilities and I'm fairly certain this makes Sona better against an all-in tanky support. Q provides not only the damage, but a really strong attack for you and your buddies. W now comes with a shield and a better heal in response to an initial burst, and E comes with a big immediate speed boost. The new challenge is that all the extra buffs are very short duration instead of an ongoing aura, so you have to use them right when you need them and stick close to your ADC (or your team, later on). But if you get into an all-in situation where Sona can cycle all her skills while standing right next to the ADC and fight together, I think these changes make her a lot stronger.

Where she's weaker is against poke and sustain because you're no longer boosted just by having your skills in use. Further, if you're ranging away from your ADC to try and poke or zone, none of your abilities can be used to max effect anymore and you're at risk of getting attacked yourself.

[Recaiden]

Worst of all, ADC Sona loses a lot of the early power she had.

[Anarion]

Worst of all, ADC Sona loses a lot of the early power she had.

This is a catastrophe of biblical proportions.

[Forrestfire]

Ugh. As someone whose main champion is Sona, I feel like this rework kills a lot of what makes her fun to play. Her poke in lane is no longer spammy, she no longer has the utility she had when not casting spells (especially when pushing towers), and the fact that she has to recast her spells to be useful at all is going to make her mana issues even worse.

The most rewarding part of playing Sona was knowing you were having a large impact just through positioning, even if you weren't doing much of anything at all. Why the hell are they removing that?

I'll have to wait until I can try it, I guess, but my first thoughts are that it's a terrible thing.



(and personally, I feel like she was fine against all-in tanky supports. Maybe it's me being down in the terrible Elos, but I only ever had issues against other poke supports who could take advantage of her early squishiness).

[Olinser]

I think you may be misunderstanding the intent here. The base numbers are considerably better on a lot of the abilities and I'm fairly certain this makes Sona better against an all-in tanky support. Q provides not only the damage, but a really strong attack for you and your buddies. W now comes with a shield and a better heal in response to an initial burst, and E comes with a big immediate speed boost. The new challenge is that all the extra buffs are very short duration instead of an ongoing aura, so you have to use them right when you need them and stick close to your ADC (or your team, later on). But if you get into an all-in situation where Sona can cycle all her skills while standing right next to the ADC and fight together, I think these changes make her a lot stronger.

Where she's weaker is against poke and sustain because you're no longer boosted just by having your skills in use. Further, if you're ranging away from your ADC to try and poke or zone, none of your abilities can be used to max effect anymore and you're at risk of getting attacked yourself.

No, I"m not misunderstanding the intent. You're misunderstanding how they work.

They are not persistent auras anymore.

The 'aura' only lasts for 3 seconds, and only has a range of 300, which is absolutely PATHETIC. Seriously, look at the pictures. That's how close you have to be to get the effect of a range 300, which is barely half the range of the average ranged champion autoattack. Unless you're grouped up nicely to be taken out by enemy AOE, you're only going to tag a couple people with that sad range. Move speed aura in particular will actually split your team apart as you only tag 1 or 2 at a time, and the weaker buff only lasts 1.5 seconds!

So instead of a constant aura applicable to the situation that actually applies to your whole team (unless somebody is going REALLY deep), you get 3 seconds of uptime on an overall weaker aura that is probably only going to affect the back line.

Even if the range were longer, all buffs only last a couple seconds (or in the case of Q, a single attack), and the cooldown on all Sona abilities has been increased to 10 seconds, which results to a large nerf in her effective Q damage and W healing overall (especially in the first couple levels of the skill, where they actually reduced the base amounts of the heal, despite the cooldown increasing!).

What this amounts to is that in lane, Sona will allow her carry to trade a bit better early, at the cost of her early in lane sustain being absolutely crushed. 1 point in W is less than half the effective healing she was doing before, it's not until 3 points in W that you even equal her current sustain.

In teamfights, now instead of a constant buff you get a 1-time buff that, in the case of her E, works out to be WEAKER than the previous effect, in addition to only lasting a short time and over a short distance. In the case of Q, you get 1 shot of higher damage on a couple people rather than constantly increased damage and AP on the whole team as long as you have the aura up. Better for sneaking quick damage on a turret, worse for any fights that lasts longer than a couple seconds. W gives you a weak, low-duration shield.

Even if they doubled the range of her 'auras' to 600 I'm not sure it would help that much, she'd still be weaker overall than she is now.

Poke and sustain were the only thing that were making her slightly viable in the first place. Reduce both of them and now she has nothing.

[TechnOkami]

Just watch as I can play Sona (well) after the rework.

[Nadevoc]

No, I"m not misunderstanding the intent. You're misunderstanding how they work.

They are not persistent auras anymore.

His response specifically mentioned they were short term, not persistent.

Previous auras had to keep being butchered whenever they were good because it was too much invisible power. If they actually felt good to use, they were too strong.


I really feel you need to stop complaining about the numbers of a first release to PBE. The whole point of the PBE is them saying, "Hey. We're not sure about the numbers yet. Let's see how people do with them." The DIRECTION of the rework is good. Wait until the numbers are closer to finalized before flipping out.

[Winthur]

...I'm really bad at jokes

there is no shame in defeat so long as the spirit is unconquered

[Renegade Paladin]

His response specifically mentioned they were short term, not persistent.

Previous auras had to keep being butchered whenever they were good because it was too much invisible power. If they actually felt good to use, they were too strong.


I really feel you need to stop complaining about the numbers of a first release to PBE. The whole point of the PBE is them saying, "Hey. We're not sure about the numbers yet. Let's see how people do with them." The DIRECTION of the rework is good. Wait until the numbers are closer to finalized before flipping out.

No it isn't. Sona's whole thing is auras and sustain. Removing that from her leaves her in the role of free gold for the other ADC. Right now she's not a problem; not only is she not one of the popular supports, but she gets eaten alive by any of them. Nerfing her is not the direction they should be going in.

[JKTrickster]

Ugh. As someone whose main champion is Sona, I feel like this rework kills a lot of what makes her fun to play. Her poke in lane is no longer spammy, she no longer has the utility she had when not casting spells (especially when pushing towers), and the fact that she has to recast her spells to be useful at all is going to make her mana issues even worse.

The most rewarding part of playing Sona was knowing you were having a large impact just through positioning, even if you weren't doing much of anything at all. Why the hell are they removing that?

I'll have to wait until I can try it, I guess, but my first thoughts are that it's a terrible thing.



(and personally, I feel like she was fine against all-in tanky supports. Maybe it's me being down in the terrible Elos, but I only ever had issues against other poke supports who could take advantage of her early squishiness).

Emphasis mine.

Isn't this the whole issue with Sona in the first place? I don't want to say that you're "playing bad" (because to each their own) but Riot is reworking Sona so you have to do something to have an large impact.

The whole idea is that Sona has to position well for an R.....and that's about it. Otherwise she just sticks with her team in some general manner and provide a lot of utility by standing around. And Riot wants to eliminate that gameplay because they think its boring and offers no counterplay.

So uh....they actually are trying to "target" you (in the general sense) and make you play Sona differently. I don't think it's actually that wrong though. Sure the numbers need tweaking a bit, but it's only PBE after all.

[Forrestfire]

I recognize that I'm in the minority. I still don't like it. Current Sona is about making sure you're positioned perfectly, keeping tabs on your allies, and making sure you're using your skills right so you can have the correct color of chord you need at a moment's notice. In addition to that, her auras buffing allies passively let you focus on keeping an eye on the map and making sure everything is running smoothly. Her ult is important, but I personally would like it better if they changed the ult entirely than killing that part of Sona.

It's a relatively unique playstyle compared to other champions, and the thing that makes Sona Sona, in my opinion.

[Anarion]

Guys, removing Sona's auras does not make her "free gold" or totally gut her. I agree with Nadevoc that I'm not talking about the numbers or whether they're balanced or not. The point is that what Sona lost was long term long range auras from having her abilities turned on. What she gained was several short duration short range buffs that she can activate on command, and often in quick succession.

Logically, unless Riot utterly fails on tuning the numbers, that has to make Sona better against all-ins. If a short duration buff is weaker than what used to be an always on aura, it would make no sense and would be a total failure on the part of Riot's balance team. What should happen once they figure out the numbers is that during brief fights and skirmishes, Sona should be stronger than she was before by adding a lot of burst offense and burst defense to her teammates. She may be weaker over a spread out extended fight, but this change should improve her laning against all-in supports by giving her the ability to mitigate their burst and give something back in the trade.

You can argue that this will radically change how Sona feels to play because now she needs to hug her carries and get her team to clump for max effect, whereas before she was all about safe positioning in the back. But that's a style difference and not an "omg they ruined her forever, QQQ!!!111" problem.

[TechnOkami]

Positioning with Sona didn't just involve her Ult. It also involved knowing where you have to be in relation to targets you were trying to damage/heal/speed buff. Positioning in general though, whether you're a tank in the front lines or peeling for an ADC, a Fiddlesticks in the prime location to Ult in, an ADC at max range making sure they get their auto's off without getting killed in the process, is really really hypercritical.

[Manticoran]

Gaizzzzz. Gaizzzzzzzz. Holy crap calm yo self. The goal is to redistribute Sona's power so she can be highly competetive without having a bajilizzilion in invisible power, they're GOING to make her good. If your draw to her was her invisible power, well that sucks, but it's against Riot's stated goals for League that everyone can see and feel each champion's effect on the battlefield, even when you're not playing that champion. She will be good, the changes should make her WAY better in short engagements and team fights and slightly less good in sieges and super long team fights. Oh well, price of progress. In the mean time... Try to critique the effect that the skills have instead of going OMGWTFBBQWAIYOURUINEVERYTHING, unless you just want to complain, at which point please state so so I can ignore your post and not have to try to read what you say when it's just complaining and not criticism. <3

[Nadevoc]

No it isn't. Sona's whole thing is auras and sustain. Removing that from her leaves her in the role of free gold for the other ADC. Right now she's not a problem; not only is she not one of the popular supports, but she gets eaten alive by any of them. Nerfing her is not the direction they should be going in.

As I tried to say (sorry if this was unclear), her auras are exactly what are keeping her from being buffed. They're a huge amount of invisible power. The entire point of this is to tweak her kit so they CAN buff her, and it's hugely frustrating that the response is people immediately going "OMG GUTTED". I expect you guys to be better than GD.

[Winthur]

(and personally, I feel like she was fine against all-in tanky supports. Maybe it's me being down in the terrible Elos, but I only ever had issues against other poke supports who could take advantage of her early squishiness).

sona for me was always an excellent pick against other pokes because she wins the lane straight up unless you get caught by CC
sona wins with thresh (until hook), destroys morgana (until binding), and does pretty well against karma or zyra, the thing letting her prevail being the sustain
of course riot now sees an imaginary problem with her design and decides to do another one of the amazing reworks that nobody ever likes and they're never good
the only riot rework that ever went well was shen and even that got overtuned
you could say gangplank if it weren't for the fact they broke him and then decided that they'll bring him down and down and make him just as useless as pre-rework because his new kit is imbalanced in itself

Gaizzzzz. Gaizzzzzzzz. Holy crap calm yo self. The goal is to redistribute Sona's power so she can be highly competetive without having a bajilizzilion in invisible power

just like taric, right? that turned out really well for him!
why is her invisible power a bad thing?
what's bad about actual, literal, no-items-needed supporting instead of tanky "everyone has a single idea of fun" super-safe five billion stuns in four abilities tanks or forcing AP carries into support role?
playing sona was fun because your positioning was absolutely everything because it was easy to overextend with her while harassing and it was easy to waste mana by being too much of a coward with her Q in lane
playing her was like playing Speedwagon, cheering everyone and especially Jonathan Joestar on to give him an edge against Dio Brando
her invisible power is being shifted to ranking her ultimate, and that's huge because supports take the least XP
so basically her early is crap now (what the hell is this cooldown on Q? Nami's E is so much better in the laning phase and has bonus utility later while later new sona's magic damage will not matter) and her versatility is cut down because the auras now have a stupid range -- i can't wait for people to be like in the days of "how does thresh lantern work" except with three different abilities
and being in the middle of your team with a supersquishy champion is going to be so much fun against AoE teams

[Recaiden]

I think Forrest has it correctly. This is analagous to removing Katarinas resets or Udyr losing his passive AD boost/Lifesteal/On-hits. Like if <insert ADC> became melee. It's a massive, disruptive change to the champion's identity.

Lower range aura's is probably a good change, like how they changed Janna's passive from 'the whole team' to just people near her. But they need to be auras. Maybe their effects diminish with range, or have the numerical effects (not just the duration) effected based on how many people they effect. But if they leave them as purely activated effects they have compromised the champion identity and positioning playstyle. If they made each champion increase them by 1 second, so that in a 5-man fight with full CDR they would last till cooldown, that might even work. But also the 'aura's aren't. Q is one hit, unless it gets refreshed so long as the aura lasts, and with the W which is one shield. If it can't be retriggered, it's not, uh, sonaful. It's just like pieces of Karma's kit. Same with the 'E'. If trhey get boosted movespeed while in the aura + 1.5 seconds after, that will probably be neat. If they have a window in which they can get +1.5 seconds of speed once, that sucks.

[Nadevoc]

Sona's skills currently provide a buff to champions in an AoE around her.

The PBE Sona's skills provide a buff to champions in an AoE around her.

If you're trying to say this change is like making Ashe melee, I don't know what to say except that you're wrong.

[Math_Mage]

Sona's skills currently provide a buff to champions in an AoE around her.

The PBE Sona's skills provide a buff to champions in an AoE around her.

If you're trying to say this change is like making Ashe melee, I don't know what to say except that you're wrong.

Melee champs have a ~100-150 range auto, ranged champs have a ~450-700 range auto. The percentage of range that got cut off is comparable.

[Anarion]

Melee champs have a ~100-150 range auto, ranged champs have a ~450-700 range auto. The percentage of range that got cut off is comparable.

That's a horrible analogy. Sona always has had Crescendo and her powerchords to use during fights, not to mention needing to position near her teammates to ensure that the speed buff and heal were hitting who she wanted. The new change did not cause Sona to suddenly position 400 range differently than she did in all previous patches.

[Nadevoc]

Melee champs have a ~100-150 range auto, ranged champs have a ~450-700 range auto. The percentage of range that got cut off is comparable.

Except this isn't a straight range nerf. Not going to recheck at the moment but I'm pretty sure all her active range is the same, too.

This is like when Eve's stealth got changed. Yes, it's different. But the core is still there and now she can actually get buffed and put in a good spot.

[Winthur]

[Artanis]

Just to get it out of the way, this is WAY early in development...it says it's even earlier in development than usual for a champ to hit the PBE. So there's plenty of time. FWIW, YMMV, grain of salt, etc. etc. Also note, I am using the numbers on the wikia-wiki, so if those are wrong, mine will be wrong as a result.


OK, disclaimer over. On to the actual post.


I am not an experienced player. You know Faker? I am his exact opposite. However, I also have no emotional attachment to Sona in either incarnation, and I am a certified Math Guy. At any rate, I'm looking at this rework stuff, and I think I see some of what they're trying to do.

I don't think they're trying to make the team have to clump up around her. The fact that tagging different champions extends her aura's duration tells me that they want her to move around during the fight. Use an ability, tag a buddy, then move to the next one. Tag that next one, get a little more duration on the aura that may be enough to get you to another ally.

A lot depends on whether her aura buffs refresh at some point. Bonus damage on one autoattack isn't terribly impressive, no, but what happens if the target does their autoattack and is still in the aura? Do they get another bonus-damage-on-next-autoattack buff? If her New-W aura shields an ally, and the shield ends, and they're still in the aura, do they get a new one? Even if it doesn't do that, what if the buff just plain times out, but Sona's aura is still up due to tagging more allies, and she moves back again? Several New-Q procs can really add up, especially if it really can let you refresh them somehow.

Another thing that occurs to me: at 40% CDR those 10s cooldowns become 6s. If her auras last 3s each, that means that she can cycle between two of them. Q, aura-tag for 3 seconds, W, aura-tag for 3 seconds, then Q is back up (or whatever two skills you want).


For some ability-specific stuff...

Honest question: how actually meaningful is 20 AD/AP? That's how much Old-Q's aura gives at rank 5, and I honestly don't know how much difference that makes.

I also notice that the immediate effect of New-W has a hell of a lot of potential due to the "+1% per 1% missing". It won't take a hell of a lot of missing health for New-W to outheal Old-W even at 0 AP. More AP will just amplify that.

Further, Old-W's aura gives what, 10 Armor/MR at rank 5? A champion with 3000 hp would require a whole 'nother 300 pre-mitigation damage to kill when he gets into that aura. Even at 0 AP, I can see New-W's shield getting close to that when all is said and done. Yes, it's a hell of a lot more risky to aura-tag your tank than it is to sit back being an aura-bot, but that provides a choice that requires knowing the situation: spam heals and hang out with the back line where it's safe, or try to get your front line that extra durability at the risk of getting blown up.



Eh, I'm probably completely wrong and just making a fool of myself as per usual. *shrug*

[mrcarter11]

I'm not sure how serious Winthur's earlier post was or if was meant to not be taken serious at all, but it stands partially correct. Riot has demonstrated more than a couple times that they generally **** up reworks. The changes to Sona are a bit of a departure from what she currently does but I think a big problem at the moment is the wording of certain things. I'm honestly thinking that the Q aura refreshes the AA modifier for as long as you're in it. Granted it's now worthless to a lot of mages who don't auto much, but AD carries lose 30 AD and gain 80 magic damage on every AA for 3-5 seconds. Now if it is just a once and down deal, then my question is, what the **** is the point of the auras since they don't provide anything, they have to provide something since they give a way to keep them up longer.

Also, you can't always say the numbers are on the PBE so they'll change. I can think of at least 2 minor reworks such as this, where the numbers on the PBE were almost dead on for what went to live.

[Togath]

Is it weird that I actually know where that's from?

[Renegade Paladin]

As I tried to say (sorry if this was unclear), her auras are exactly what are keeping her from being buffed. They're a huge amount of invisible power. The entire point of this is to tweak her kit so they CAN buff her, and it's hugely frustrating that the response is people immediately going "OMG GUTTED". I expect you guys to be better than GD.

Her power's not invisible; she's got a big ol' visual effect all around her showing what she's doing.

[efdf]

Personally I think that if Riot reworks a champion their goal should be to change its identity.

I in general don't like the concept of reworking badly designed champions. Not every champion needs to be widely appealing with an obviously synergistic and cohesive play style (by which I mean intended usage of abilities is obvious and that they complement each other) , there's enough room in the game for niche appeal.

When the process first started happening I'd hoped that Riot would focus on strange champions that couldn't be left as is because when encountered they would warp the game and make it suck for everyone else (rip mordekaiser). But then we ended up getting stuff like the Xerath rework which tried so very, very hard to change nothing about him except all his abilities and people's first question after every rework is "Are they going to still feel the same?" and I thought that maybe the true purpose of reworks is to make the developers feel better about themselves by fixing their earlier mistakes.

Then they went through with the Gragas, Nidalee, and Skarner reworks despite how much it killed their original "identity" and I felt a little better. I vastly prefer reworks that significantly change champion identity and are designed not to benefit the players of that champion but the people playing against them.


what I really want to say is never rework sion 2014