A couple of weeks back, League of Legends developer Riot Games revealed that support champion Sona, the Maven of the Strings, would be getting a “mid-scope” soon, which the studio was aiming to ship with League of Legends patch 11.16. Now, that mini-rework has indeed hit the game’s testing grounds for the 11.16 cycle, so we’ve got a good idea of what’s headed the champ’s way.
It’s worth noting that this isn’t a full champion rework, instead being intended to replace Sona’s less rewarding “mana refund mechanic with something that Sona players will be more excited about” – however, there are still some key changes coming up that mains will want to get a look at. As reflected in the changes posted on Surrenderat20, the biggest change on the way for Sona with the patch is a new ability haste aspect to Accelerando in her passive, Power Chord. With the changes, she’ll gain stacks of ability haste from “using her basic abilities well”.
When this rises to 120 stacks (or 60 basic ability haste), Sona won’t keep racking them up, but instead she’ll see the cooldown of her current ultimate decrease. This will be by 1.5 seconds, going by the changes currently in for testing, though this could alter a little before the patch drops n a few weeks’ time.
This change should help give Sona more of an edge in going about her support role but additionally make sure she can fare well as a solo laner and be more enjoyable to play, along the lines of Riot’s previous dev post. “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,” as the studio explained at the time.
Passive pic.twitter.com/dVe4AQ4bO3
— Monstrous Yi (@MonstrousYi) July 22, 2021
There are also changes across her other abilities, which you can check out via the embed above – for a comparison between what’s live and what’s on the PBE right now – or head to our League of Legends patch 11.16 notes for the full rundown of what’s coming to live in a few weeks.