EUPiLoL#3 - Early Game Domination with Sona (Sheen Style)

Sona is another character that I find to be generally misused. Her known role is an early game poker that transitions into a general support character (With an emphasis on auras.) People tend to either build her with auras in mind, with AP in mind, or with CDR/Utility in mind. This isn't how I think Sona should be built. Let's take a look at her strengths and her weaknesses (Compared to other supports).

Strengths

- Spammable abilities.
- Arguably the best early game -> early mid game support.
- Low Mana demand.
- Natural Auras
- One of the best early harrassers
- Decent nuking power
- Amazing teamwide mobility
  - Chasing Power
  - Escaping Power
- The best early game burst potential. Period.

Weaknesses

- Other supports outshine her in the mid to late game.
- Lack of stun outside of her ultimate.
-  Her heal is lacking.
- Difficult to focus damage.

So what you can see right off the bat is that most of her strengths are built around the early game, and most of her weaknesses come into play in the later stages of a match. I want to show you a style of Sona that isn't built entirely around support, and it isn't built around AP. This is a style that focuses on completely dominating the early game in order to snowball yourself and your team into the mid game. Before you judge anything at all, I ask that you read into this post entirely. Take it as a whole, and don't scrutinize on any particular aspect. When theory crafting and building in general, one of my favorite things to do is to emphasize the strengths as much as I possibly can. With this in mind, I fore go her heal entirely and follow this sort of setup.


Level 1: Hymn of Valor
Level 2: Song of Celerity
Level 3: Hymn of Valor
Level 4: Aria of Perseverance
Level 5: Hymn of Valor
Level 6: Crescendo
Level 7: Hymn of Valor
Level 8: Song of Celerity
Level 9: Hymn of Valor
Level 10: Song of Celerity
Level 11: Crescendo
Level 12: Song of Celerity
Level 13: Song of Celerity
Level 14: Aria of Perseverance
Level 15: Aria of Perseverance
Level 16: Crescendo
Level 17: Aria of Perseverance
Level 18: Aria of Perseverance

I know this might seem strange at first, but keep in mind the fact that her heal isn't what makes her shine. It's her early game damage and her mobility. Dispel any sort of desire to level a subpar heal with a mediocre defensive buff. It won't save your teammates, and it won't protect them from any legitimate harassment. Instead, use the other two spells to support as best you can. You'll find that your usefulness will sky rocket. 

Justification for maxing out Celerity over Perseverance 


My style of Sona is a damage oriented gank machine that uses the slow of Celerity as well as it's mobility to get around the map as fast as possible, and to cause massive amounts of damage as fast as possible. This sort of play style does everything in it's power to give you a large advantage in the early game so that you can use that advantage to skyrocket your team to a healthy lead. 

  Lane with other strong early gamers. (Garen, Sion, Teemo, Alistar, Jarvan, Olaf, Poppy, Xin, etc.) and hide in the brush. As the enemy approaches, pop your q and your passive (Along with exhaust for the armor/MR debuff) and hope for the best. Depending on who you're laning with, you have a decently large shot of scoring first blood. You'd be surprised at what Sona is capable of.

Items

Amplying Tome + Health Potion is your starting pick. It's a risky choice, but it's one that you will have to make. Mind the fact that you are squishy, but use that to bait your enemies to their doom. Use your celerity and your Hymn to aggressively poke and prod and bait at the enemy lane. It's usually best that Sona teams up with someone who can be aggressive (Sion, Garen, etc.) You'll be surprised at the burst you find yourself capable of.


Your first 860 should be turned into a Sheen. As a Dominating Sona, this is your new bread and butter item. You can unleash a surprising amount of damage once you pick up your sheen, especially with Sona's spam ability

Boot wise, I prefer Boots of Swiftness. They give you that needed in battle mobility that Boots of Mobility simply can't provide. 

TL;DR Core Build

Sheen
Boots of Swiftness

Past that, there are many routes that you can go, although I always turn my Sheen into a Trinity force sooner or later. 

Possible Options

- Starks and or Black Cleaver. Now that you've harassed the potential of your Sheen, a route that I enjoy going is massing armor debuffs. Not only does this help your personal damage, it helps your team overall.

- Frozen Mallet. An obvious pick if you feel you need it. Maxing out Celerity over your heal means you make an amazing chaser and an amazing kiter.

- Hex Drinker. A good choice if you are facing excess magic damage. Keep in mind that the earlier you get your Hex Drinker, the more effective it is.

- Brutalizer. If you find yourself completely and utterly destroying the enemy team, this can be a good choice to quickly and cheaply amplify your potency.

- Shurelia's Reverie. An amazing item, even if you don't particularly need the regeneration. It works well with Frozen Mallet, as well as your speed boost.

- Heavy duty DPS (Infinity Edge, Ghostblade, Phantom Dancers, etc). This is a viable tactic if you find yourself getting seriously fed and have nothing to do with it (Although you shouldn't be getting kills, sometimes they just sort of pile in.).

Runes

You're going to want to maximize your early effectiveness so that you can snowball into the later stages. Flat AP is my personal favorite choice, as it gives our Hymn an added oomph that can take many enemies by surprise. 

Masteries

9/0/21

Spells

Exhaust/Ghost or Exhaust/Ignite are my two suggestions (Ignite being a higher risk,  higher reward choice.)