League of Legends General Discussion Thread

[Enoch]

Sorry Gustaran! I expect my time to get pulverised as well.

I was watching Sulla's recent Sona game and it was nice to see Sona getting some love. If I am having a bad run I always pick Sona because it is pretty much a guarantee of winning my lane no matter what. Her early burst is kind of crazy and that combined with her healing means you can harass your opponents with ease.

The other thing I like is the versatility you have in building items. You can really adapt your role to suit the game and I normally end up with very different item builds each game. Once my team decided I should go mid and we didn't really have any ad damage so I built triforce and manamune. Very silly but a lot of fun

[Edit] Ha ha that is what I get for writing slow

[Dantski]

Yeah I had a crazy ARAM game once where my Sona was 6/0/0 within 15 mins, since we had 5 mages I decided to go AD on her. Still lost badly in a 1v1 fight with the other teams MF despite a level + item advantage

[sunrise089]

I bought Sona long ago and have kept on loving her, but I played her very infrequently over the last few months due to general "Sona sucks" type comments. The Sona thing really illustrates to me the annoying fickleness of the LoL metagame. Yes the flavor of the month sheen build isn't a bad gold investment, but it doesn't completely transform the character. She was buffed, but like 3-4 patches ago. Yet suddenly she's now this amazing support champ because...some high-elo ranked player posted a video on the official forums or something?

I really miss the MP civ meta, even though I like LoL the game a lot. In civ MP if a rival player defeated you with what was considered an inferior civ+leader people would claim bad combat luck or lack of team support. In LoL it seems like the response is to ban that champ in the next game, because no matter how good their player was or how strong the matchup, people conclude that game outcomes are only due to basic champion strength.

The above of course is not so much directed at this community, which tends to be pretty levelheaded, but rather at solo-queue players and their ilk.

[Enoch]

The community is pretty funny in how it reacts to minute changes. A 0.1 nerf on ap scaling apparently can completely ruin a character!

I didn't play Sona before her first big nerf but she was the first character I bought that was above 1350 IP and the reactions to me playing her have changed quite a bit. Before her recent buffs you would sometimes get the always helpful "gg useless sona on team" before minions even spawned. I still think she was useful then and the recent changes aren't huge but definitely make her better. The slowing power chord in particular can be very nice. Hmm also it seems she has the highest win percentage in games at the minute http://yosypvp.blogspot.com/2011/05/lol-...24-31.html Hope she doesn't get nerfed again

Also did people really not build sheen on her before? I don't build it every game but it fits her really well and makes you even more of a terror in the laning phase.

I think in some cases people discovering a new way to play a champion can make a large difference. As I understand it Irelia used to be seen as a weak character because people would just build her for straight damage. It was only when some players started building her with triforce and tank items that she started getting banned everywhere.

[Sullla]

I bought Sona long ago and have kept on loving her, but I played her very infrequently over the last few months due to general "Sona sucks" type comments. The Sona thing really illustrates to me the annoying fickleness of the LoL metagame. Yes the flavor of the month sheen build isn't a bad gold investment, but it doesn't completely transform the character. She was buffed, but like 3-4 patches ago. Yet suddenly she's now this amazing support champ because...some high-elo ranked player posted a video on the official forums or something?

Believe me, you're not wrong about how the League of Legends metagame can switch between liking/hating champs based on totally random stuff. However, Sona really did get significant buffs in several of the patches. Check out this thread:

Sona-Released 1.0.0.101
1.0.0.104
• Fixed a bug with Song of Celerity where it was granting more movement speed than intended
• Crescendo cooldown increased to 170/150/130 from 160/140/120

1.0.0.105
• All aura durations reduced to 2 seconds from 3
• All aura buff durations reduced to 0.25 seconds from 1
• Hymn of Valor
o Attack damage and ability power aura reduced to 6/8/10/12/14 from 8/11/14/17/20
o Mana cost increased to 65/70/75/80/85 from 55/60/65/70/75
• Song of Celerity
o Active movement speed boost reduced to 8/10/12/14/16 from 8/11/14/17/20
o Mana cost increased to 65/70/75/80/85 from 55/60/65/70/75
• Aria of Perseverance mana cost increased to 65/70/75/80/85 from 55/60/65/70/75
• Crescendo range reduced to 1000 from 1100

1.0.0.106
• Hymn of Valor base damage reduced to 60/110/160/210/260 from 70/120/170/220/270
• Hymn of Valor ability power ratio reduced to 0.5 from 0.6
• Aria of Perseverance healing reduced to 30/55/80/105/130 from 40/65/90/115/140
• Song of Celerity active movespeed reduced to 6/8/10/12/14% from 8/10/12/14/16%

This was when everyone stopped playing Sona, because she was nerfed very, very hard. Every skill and aura decreased in effectiveness, decreased in duration, decreased in AP ratios, increased in mana cost, and ult significantly reduced in area of effect. They turned her into probably the worst support in the game. Why would you play her?

Then Riot decided to bring Sona back from the dead:

1.0.0.113
• Power Chord now deals 14 damage + 9 x lvl (from 24 + 12x bonus magic damage) in bonus magic and a bonus effect depending on Sona's last song played.
• Hymn of Valor
o Base damage reduced to 50/100/150/200/250 from 60/110/160/210/260
o Ability power ratio increased to .7 from .5
o Mana cost changed to 75 from 65/70/75/80/85
o Power Chord - Stacatto: Deals double power chord damage
• Aria of Perseverance
o Base heal increased to 35/70/105/140/175 from 30/55/80/105/130
o Ability power ratio reduced to .35 from .5
o Mana cost normalized to 75 from 65/70/75/80/85
o Power Chord - Diminuendo: Debuffs the target to deal 20% less damage for 3 seconds
• Song of Celerity
o Mana cost changed to 75 from 65/70/75/80/85
o Power Chord - Tempo: Slows the target by 25% for 2 seconds
• Crescendo
o Cooldown decreased to 140/120/100 from 170/150/130
o Ability power ratio increased to .8 from .7


V1.0.0.115:

• Hymn of Valor: mana cost reduced to 65 from 75.
  
• Aria of Perseverance: mana cost reduced to 65 from 75.
  
• Song of Celerity: mana cost reduced to 65 from 75.
  
• Fixed a bug where Power Chord: Diminuendo was reducing true damage.
  

The "rework" was really a giant buff to Sona, of course. Her Q now scales infinitely better with a 0.7 AP ratio, and does only slightly less base damage. The heal is much better in everything other than extreme lategame; you need 300AP for the "old" heal to surpass the "new" heal, and you'll almost never get that high on a support. The E skill now slows on a Power Chord. The ult had a gigantic reduction in the cooldown length (now only a 60 sec cooldown with 40% CDR) and also had the AP ratio increased. Furthermore, the mana cost of Sona's skills went down in the rework, and then further decreased again in a following patch. Now 65 mana for all skills at all ranks, instead of increasing to 85 as the game went on. That adds up to... a *VERY* big difference!

So this is one champ where the community knew what it was doing. Sona awesome when she came out, then terrible, and now awesome again. One unrelated note: because I was busy last night, we'll be doing the YouTube thing tonight instead, for anyone who's around.

[spellman]

Yeah, I got Sona when she first came out 'cause I loved her versatility. Then with the nerfs she just didn't have the power to stay alive in teamfights and help. She was still great for poking and supporting a push, but in most teamfights all she had was the dmg aura and her ult. Oh, and the removal of Locket made me qq so hard.

Now she's back to being a complete monster, and the reword on Power Chord makes it so you have to pick the order of your QWE spam to get the power chord you want.

[Gustaran]

Does somebody know why Malzahar is suddenly in tier 1 in Elementz' list ? The last thing I recall Malzahar was somewhere in tier 3, and now he is supposed to be the 4th best champion in the game ? Did I miss some changes ?

[Dantski]

Seems like in the past 2 months, top tier players realized how powerful he is. Although maybe he got buffed in that time I really don't remember the details of all the champions nerfs/buffs

[Cull]

Pretty sure his passive got buffed, but was pretty minor IIRC. Maybe base dmg or ap ratios got increased?

[Enoch]

According to the wiki Malzahar hasn't been changed since being minorly buffed in December.

I think he used to be dismissed because 'he is useless in teamfights' even though he is a solid laner and great 1v1. I guess people eventually realised that a 3 second area of effect silence is pretty useful in teamfights. Also he is pretty handy if you are planning on fighting at level 1.