Talk:Sona/@comment-5668616-20140501152604/@comment-3308937-20140502100427

@Neverff

Low win rates are hard to use to determine balance because of the fact that many factors can contribute to the lowering of a champ's win rate. Things like popularity on a mechanically harder to play champ (Thresh, Vayne, Lee), selfish champs having a lower winrate in solo ranked than team-oriented champs (LB, Zed, Olaf vs Amumu, Ziggs, Kayle), unpopularity skewing win rates (Urgot, Poppy), recent champion changes/meta changes (Kass, Grag, Rengar), etc. High win rates aren't usually skewed by those kind of factors.

High popularity and high win rate usually are the results of a champion being consistently strong regardless of who plays them which is a lot different than a champ who is situationally strong like Thresh. Some of the highest win rate champs with good pick rates atm are easy to play like #1 Amumu, #2 kayle, #3 Ziggs, #4 WW and #8 Xin.

One thing to also keep in mind is that there's a difference between competitive strong and soloqueue strong. Amumu is soloqueue strong to the point of being a soloqueue god, he's been in the top 5 win rates for like a year now but he never sees competitive play and hasn't been nerfed in ages. LeBlanc is competitive strong, she's always been a very low win rate pick for soloqueue but she's really shown to be a dominant force in the competitive scene. It's when a champ starts seeing big success in both scenes, a la Kayle, that you can really say that a champ is too strong, otherwise you have to realize the different factors that go into making a champion's win rate what it is.

Sona has the #9 win rate for this past week in soloqueue, the games I care about, but that's partly due to the fact that she's easier to play consistently well with than someone like Thresh and fits into more comps than the constant all-in nature of someone like Leona. Would I say that because Leona has a lower win rate than Sona that Sona's stronger than Leona? No, I wouldn't, because Leona's pick rate is huge and probably weighing down her win rate but I also wouldn't say Sona's weak because of that. Statistically she's doing fine as a champion but a lot of people are saying that she's weak or UP... meaning that there's some disconnect between her actual strength and how strong she feels for those who play with or as her. Obviously, with Sona, this comes down to the fact that a lot of her strength comes in the form of invisible auras and is actually something a Rioter recently talked about, trying to get her power to feel more... there instead of just straight buffing her.

tl;dr: Many factors make a win rate what it is and as long as you can see those factors you can rely on win rate a fair bit to determine a champ's strength in the games that you play. Sona's strong but she doesn't feel strong which is a known issue and something Riot is looking into. Believe in the stats, not your eyes.