League of Legends - Sona - Skill List and Guide

League of Legends - Sona - Skill List and Guide
Page content

Introduction - League of Legends - Sona - Skill List and Guide

League of Legends, released by Riot Games creators of Defense of the Ancients (DOTA), is a complex MOBA (multiplayer online battle arena) that pits players against each other in intricate team battles. While the game is deceptively easy to play, its wide selection of characters and their powers take an extensive amount of practice to master. This League of Legends Sona skill list and guide teaches beginners how to play Sona, Maven of the Strings.

League of Legends: Sona Skill List and Abilities Guide

Sona is an incredibly strong team-oriented champion who is relatively easy to learn. She can change the tide of battle for the entire team, and she is one of the best and most balanced support characters in all of LoL. Sona, like all other champions, has four powers. Unlike most champions, she can use her powers in concert and have them stack with each other.

Hymn of Valor – A Sona Ability (Q)

creeps

The Hymn of Valor allows Sona to send out two beams of sound that strikes the nearest two enemies. Champions are prioritized, but using this power to do damage can be quite tricky if there are any minions near Sona. The secondary effect of the Hymn allows Sona to boost the physical damage and ability power of her nearby teammates. This can be extremely effective in a team fight or when taking down a tower quickly.

Aria of Perserverence – A Sona Ability (W)

This heals the most wounded ally who is in range, and additionally, it heals Sona as well. In addition, this ability grants team mates additional armor and magic resist. This is not a targeted heal, so healing a specific person during a team fight can be very tricky and requires careful positioning. Thus, for players learning how to play Sona, just remember to cast this as often as possible during team battles. Be careful in using it in the early laning phase. The aria uses a lot of mana.

Song of Celerity – A Sona Ability (E)

This ability boosts the movement speed of all friendly champions who are near Sona. It will also give them a temporary speed buff that is great for chasing or running away from enemies.

Crescendo – A Sona Ability (R)

Crescendo is Sona’s ultimate, and it is one of the best in the game. Crescendo stuns every character in the power’s path. (Players get a template of where it will hit, so aiming is relatively easy.) In addition, it is only on a 180 second timer. That means it is available for almost all team battles and even individual battles. Used in combination with a tower, Sona can easily kill her opponents using this ult. Plus, Crescendo stuns by making all the affected players dance. It is incredibly entertaining to see this.

Power Chord – A Sona Ability (Passive)

Sona’s passive power activates after every three song she plays. It will turn her auto-attack into a powerful three-stringed chord that will 24 + 12 x level of damage when it hits.

General Tips for Masteries and Runes (How to Play with Sona)

LoL Mastery Points

Everyone will have their preferred play style and rune page for the characters they play. For Sona, cooldown reduction, magic penetration, and mana regeneration are the most important factors for her character, especially for beginners. Having health quints will also make her much more hardy in the early laning stages which can be very important for ther.

Sona can easily put 9 points in office and 21 points in utility for her masteries.

Summoner Powers

I usually go with Teleport and Ignite for my summoner powers. Beginners can substitute with Ghost and Teleport. Ghost is an excellent power to use when retreating or catching up with an opponent. Teleport is one of the best way to get kills with Sona. You can move to a team that is getting attacked at their tower and stun the opponents under the tower. They will take additional tower damage which allows Sona to finish them off easily with her Hymn.

Gear Building – Part I

LoL Tower

Cooldown reduction, mana regeneration, and ability power are the primary item builds for Sona. Her six second cooldowns are already superb, but being able to toggle between all of her abilities is extremely important to the team during the end game and during team fights. A good support Sona will be constantly spamming her spells.

Start out with a mana regen item. Buy the Meki Pendant if you are laning by yourself or with a character that does not use mana. You can get a health potion, too, if you go this route. If you are laning with a character that uses mana, get a mana manipulator. This will restore quite a bit of mana for both you and your teammate, and your support role begins early.

Your Meki’s Pendant will build into Tear of the Goddess. You will receive 4 mana every time you use any of your abilities, which is incredibly often for Sona. This will later build into a Staff of the Archangel. This will raise your ability power and your mana pool.

Gear Building – Part II (Play Sona in League of Legends)

Amplifying Tome

Get your Boots of Speed early. Depending on how well your team is doing, you do not have to upgrade. If your team is doing poorly, get Mercury Treads for a heavy ability power opponent team. Otherwise, you can get Sorcerer’s Shoes to boost your ability power. Boots of Mobility or Boots of Swiftness are also a good choice for Sona because it allows her to get from teammate to teammate quickly and to move across the map to support team battles.

Buying a Mejai’s Soulstealer early is an excellent purchase for Sona because she can build stacks easily through assists. Since she usually stays in the back, she does not die often, and she has excellent get-away abilities. Get this as your first damage item.

Your Mana Manipulator will build into a Soul Shroud. I strongly recommend getting this item for Sona. It can also build well with Spirit Visage, and your cooldowns will be lowered to 4 seconds. Do not overbuild for cooldown because the reduction is capped at 40%.

Leveling Guide

Do not bother with auto-attacking for Sona. Simply last hit often and cast your Hymn of Valor every so often. Every three spells will trigger your passive, and your next auto-attack will do extra damage. Save it to harass a champion or to secure a last hit.

Start with Hymn of Valor as your first ability. Do it immediately when you get into the game, and hit Q before you by a single piece of gear. This will activate your spell and your cooldown. More importantly, it puts you one step closer to your first Power Chord. Next, buy either the Meki’s Pendant or the Mana Manipulator. Then hit Q again. At this point, you will only need to hit Q one more time, and you will have a Power Chord ready to go.

Train the Aria next, and you will have your first heal. Then train Hymn of Valor unless your pairing is taking a lot of damage. In that case, you can train heal again. Switch back and forth between the Aria and Hymn until you reach level 5. At level 5, train your first point in Song of Celerity. This will help you and your partner retreat more quickly or advance for a gank.

At level 6, train your Crescendo and be ready to use it to stun people at the tower or to help control opponents in any team fights. You can also use it to get away in bad situations or to stop someone who is running away from your team.

Train your Aria and Hymn for the next few levels until you can upgrade Crescendo again. You can save the Song of Celerity for last even though it is an excellent power to have.

Team Fights (Sona Gear Build)

Sona plays a gigantic role in team fights, and she should never be off by herself when her team is ready to engage. In fact, she should usually NOT be by herself so that she can lock the other team down for her team to destroy.

The lower her cooldowns, the more effective Sona is in group battles. Cycle through her Q, W, and E powers to keep everyone in the team buffed, healed, and speedy. Use her R power to stun key members of the other team and as an interrupt, but be very careful not to stun champions who have huge DoTs (damage over time) when they have already gotten them off. You can end up killing your team this way. Late stuns can do more damage than no stun at all.

Once you get your stun down, auto-attack the squishiest character near you, and keep cycling through your powers. Remember, every third song and your auto-attack becomes a Power Cord. For more advanced players, cycle through Q and E repeatedly until your team actually needs a heal. There’s no point in wasting mana if everyone’s health looks good. You can simply just hit your heal when you want to buff your team’s resistances.

Do not forget to use your speed boost every time it is up when you are running or chasing. Not only does it buff run-speed, it gives a temporary boost that makes allied champions even faster.

Conclusion

victory

Sona is an amazing support character, and she is definitely one of the best in the game. She is not hard to learn, but a really talented player can turn her into a game breaker. Sona, however, needs a good team to support her, and teams filled with solo-gankers and assassins are very bad for her. She works wonders in AoE teams. Sona pairs well with the following teammates: both pirates, Nunu, Blitzcrank, Pantheon, Ashe, and any mana heavy, high damage characters.

She does not pair as well with characters that do not use mana and have no range like Akali.

This post is part of the series: League of Legends Champion Guides

A collection of miscellaneous champion guides for playing League of Legends.

  1. League of Legends - Champion Guide for Riven
  2. Champion Guide for Wukong in League of Legends
  3. League of Legends Guide to Akali
  4. League of Legends Guide to Playing Sona, The Maven of the Strings
  5. League of Legends Champion Guide: Olaf Pre-Game
  6. League of Legends - Ezreal, The Prodigal Explorer
  7. League of Legends Champion Guide - Singed
  8. League of Legends Champion Guide - Malphite
  9. League of Legends Champion Guide - Kayle
  10. League of Legends -Amumu, The Sad Mummy
  11. League of Legends: Playing Veigar - The Tiny Master of Evil
  12. League of Legends: Annie, The Dark Child
  13. Playing as Teemo: The Swift Scout