Talk:Sona/@comment-6761312-20160316120544/@comment-25796537-20160414015339

kinda late, so im replying more for myself than anything.

Sona is not passive at all. Sure you can play sona passive, but there are better supports (nami, raka, etc) for that type of playstyle. Her strength in lane is the poke from her Q: its reliable, low cost, and has a total 70% AP ratio and great base damage to boot. Using this ability promotes an aggressive playstyle because you always want to hit the enemy with your Q whenever its up since all you have to do is make sure theyre in range of you(its ok if you cant get the empowered auto on them, as long as your doing damage you'll be fine). Her squishiness is a balancing measure against her sustain and so that Sona cant get away with being reckless when poking. Her heal is also not sustainable for her mana; its huge mana cost and piddly heal limit you to just a few casts in lane for little gain. However, the shield portion is there to make her W a strong skill in trading because the damage it absorbs racks up over multiple trades into quite a health advantage for your side. The mana costs of Q vs W and the shield indicate how Sona should be played in lane; aggressively spam Q in frequent trades and well timed Ws to mitigate return fire, while the inherent squishiness swing things in the enemy's favor if they manage to catch her.

When I first starting playing Sona I had a passive support mindset coming into it, and that caused me to literally lose 4 out of every 5 games. Once I got over that preconceived notion and switched up my playstyle to an almost hyperaggressive one I started seeing much better results.