- Sona, one of League of Legends’ most recognizable champions, is getting a rework
- Some people have voiced their suspicions about the rework and whether it’s actually going to better the character
- Riot’s lead gameplay designer stepped in to reassure fans that everything is thought out and is ready to be rolled back if it indeed doesn’t work
Sona’s rework has sparked discussion among the League of Legends community. Lead gameplay designer Sidhu joined in defense of the changes.
Fans Took the Rework Specifics with a Grain of Salt
Over the years, Riot Games’ League of Legends has had numerous memorable champions. Sona is one of the game’s oldest and most recognizable support characters and has been around since 2010 – just a year after the game has been officially released. As she has been recently becoming less useful in competitive play, the developers have decided to give her a rework. However, some fans weren’t quite convinced by the changes.
Jeevun Sidhu, the game’s lead gameplay designer, has given his thoughts on the matter on his Twitter. He said that Riot Games deeply cares about fans’ take on the matter. However, he thinks that those who are unhappy with the changes and consider them a “nerf” might be underestimating some of the specifics.
Sona’s rework is currently being tested in League of Legends’ public beta environment. Sidhu shared some of his takes on the results of the testing.
The Changes Coming to Sona
Sona’s rework hasn’t been a “major one” but is one that is aimed to make the character much more efficient both as a support and as a late-game fighter. For example, each time the champion uses a skill, she would passively gain stacks of Accelerando. Stacking stacks would improve Sona’s ability to haste. When she reaches 120 stacks, the cooldown of Crescendo, her ultimate attack will be reduced.
To some fans, this seemed like a lot of work for an ultimate attack. Some of the critics of the rework even doubt that most players will be able to achieve more than one ultimate in a fight. Sidhu responded by saying that the data shows otherwise: in fact, many of the playtests proved that Sona can often times get two ultimate attacks in the same late-game team fight.
Crescendo currently has a 100-second cooldown on Sona’s non-reworked version. In her reworked counterpart, Sona requires much more ability haste, making her more dependent on runes and items.
“The basic ability haste is also very front-loaded compared to live, particularly if the Sona player plays the lane well,” Sidhu said. “It’s worse at 16, but you would need 80 Ability Haste from other sources for the old level 11 R Passive to break even with the new one,” the gameplay designer explained.
In order to reassure fans that Riot is working with the goal of making the game as balanced as possible, Sidhu added that the rework would be carefully thought out. He said that the gameplay designers will proceed cautiously so that they can always pull back.
The rework of the champion is scheduled to release on August 11, together with the game’s new patch.
Riot has been giving a lot of support to League of Legends and has always aimed to make the game enjoyable to the community. Recently, the company revealed it would be introducing changes to ranked decay in order to let pro players take a breather.
