In the battlefield of League of Legends, there are a large variety of champions to choose from. From the mid-lane destroyer Syndra to the effeminate AD Carry Ezreal, every champion has some sort of purpose. A thing that they are usually best at and can use over other champions. With this in mind, people usually build all these champions in a certain way. And there is not too much variation from one to another. This build might have some more health, this other one may do a bit more damage, and this one may be better at taking hits from magic. But, that is no fun, isn’t it? No, it is much better to make completely random builds that go completely against the usual meta of how people play them! Of course, most of these are made by my incompetence of how the champion should actually be played. In due part because I am terrible at this game and barely understand half of it.
One such tale: I change a support into a bruiser. A tank that dishes out much more damage than the champion should normally do. What such support is this? Taris, Blitzcrank, Thresh, or another such support like that? Nope. I did it on Sona. Made the calm, spammy support Sona that plays her little melodies into a tank that could 1v1 the enemy AD Carry(I also like to think she starts playing heavy metal on her harp when I do this).
This match I am accompanied by my two friends on League, that are many, many times better than me. Really. They have been playing the game since it first came out and thoroughly mock every mistake I make. For the purposes of this article I shall give them aliases so that I do not give away their usernames. Let us call them ChickenToucher(Jim) and TheCrank(Tom).
Once I receive an invite from one of these questionable individuals, we start looking for a game. Match found! Everyone clicks accept, except one person, so it does not start. Suddenly a notice pops up on screen…….. “Kicked out of match making session because the following party members failed to accept the match: ChickenToucher”
SirArchmage(me): ……..Um, Jim?
ChickenToucher: Oh, what? Sorry, I was zoning out.
TheCrank: God damn it Jim…..
Now, once we actually find a match where everyone accepts, the other two people on our team immediately do this:
LeagueofLegendsAssHat69: Top
OtherLeagueofLegendsDouche96: mid
ChickenToucher: Well it looks like you are supporting, Sir
SirArchmage: Damn it. Who should I support as?
TheCrank: I don’t know……who SHOULD you support as?
SirArchmage: Nasus!
ChickenToucher: No
TheCrank: No
SirArchmage: Fine, I’m going Sona then.
TheCrank: Now there ya go.
TheCrank went as my AD Carrry, choosing the champion Graves, with ChickenToucher jungling with the champion Vi. This is a fairly normal set up, as TheCrank usually goes bottom lane and ChickenToucher usually stays in the jungle through the matches. The only thing is, that I am bad at support. Or should I say, I do not play support roles as they are suppose to be played. No, not at all. Let me go over with you for a second with how support role is suppose to go down, before I say how I play it.
When you are support, your job is to make sure your AD Carry is suppose to get as much farm and kills as possible, so that late game they can sit behind the entire team and do massive damage from a distance. They are the one that is suppose to get the most kills. So as support, your other job is to make sure that they do not die. So, you use your abilities to heal them if you can, stun the enemy so that the AD Carry can get the kill, harass the enemies to get them away from the minions so that your ADC can farm them, placing down wards so that when people get near them, we see them before they can get there and run away. So you are the helping hand throughout the match, giving bonus effects to your teammates and trying to do crowd control effects on the enemy. Many people agree that, early to mid game, the support is the most important role in the game.
This is how I play support. Please, for the love of whatever deity you worship, do not play like me.
As Sona I float my ass over to the bottom lane and sit in the bush, waiting for the enemy team to come. The bush is pretty much where the supports need to be, so that they can randomly do crowd control effects and harass the enemy without being seen too much. So while sitting in the bush, watching my ADC and the enemies ADC compete for last hitting the minions(getting the last strike to kill the minions so that you get gold from it), I get bored, and decide to take a bite of the ramen noodles I have next to me. Well apparently, the enemy team is a group of physics that know what I am doing. Right as I am shoving my mouth full of ramen, the enemy jungler comes out from a bush(I forgot to place a ward there) and starts attacking my ADC, with the enemy support and enemy ADC following right along and attacking. From the Skype call I hear the shouting of my friend, asking what the hell I am doing. As fast as I can I try to attack the enemies and heal my teammate, healing him just enough that he can escape, but am shortly after slaughtered by them all. Thankfully, with them all distracted by me, my friend gets a kill.
TheCrank: Sir, the hell were you doing……
SirArchmage: Oh, sorry. I was eating noodles.
TheCrank:………Uh huh. So……while eating them…….you forgot that you were playing League of Legends?
SirArchmage: I was distracted by their deliciousness.
I simply hear a sigh from him, and hurry back to the lane as fast as I can.
For a while after that it is pretty standard. AD Carry getting massive amounts of farm, me setting up a bunch of kills, and a few failed ganks by the enemy team due to my placing of wards. By the time mid-game started, TheCrank was at five kills and no deaths. Sadly, I was at no kills and two deaths. When I died again I was not very happy at all, and instead of getting a normal support item like I should have…….I got something else. An iceborn gauntlet, to be specific. Not exactly an item that a support should get, and definitely not what my friend expected when I came back to lane. For those of you that don’t know, an Iceborn Gauntlet does a few things. It gives me armor to make me tankier, ability power so I hit harder, and mana so that I can cast more spells, and cooldown reduction so I can cast them quicker. But those are not important as the unique effects it has. When I cast an ability now, the next basic attack will deal a lot more damage, which is good because Sona’s abilities give some bonus effects to her basic attacks. But also, on the basic attack after an ability, they are slowed. A lot. And anyone around them is slowed as well.
So as I return to lane, it is normal for a bit, nothing much happening except for farming more of the minions, when we are suddenly ganked by three people. Obviously they go for my AD Carry, who runs back away from them. One quick attack by me and…….All are slowed. I could almost see the look of confusion on their faces from where the large slow came from, as I just sit back and keep on afflicting them with it as all their health is slowly withered away by my AD Carry and me. They soon run from the losing battle, but not before I last hit one of them for the kill.
TheCrank: Sir. Did you just buy an Iceborn Gauntlet…….On Sona?
SirArchmage: Why yes indeed I did.
TheCrank: ……….Wwhhyyyy?
SirArchmage: Boredom. And no one expects a Sona that can punch them in the face.
TheCrank: You see, Sir, there is a good reason for that. Because Sona isn’t suppose to do that. She is suppose to sit in the back and heal all of us and give us the help from supporting items. You know. What every support is suppose to do.
ChickenToucher: Naaww……..Tanky support overpowered.
SirArchmage: See, he agrees with me.
TheCrank: God damn it you two……
This goes on for quite a while longer. I am getting many more kills then a support should ever get, and getting much tankier than any Sona should ever be. I just keep stacking items that give me more and more health, armor and slowing abilities. I soon even manage to complete the build as the game went on long enough (it probably lasted this long due to me being a crappy support and taking kills from our assassin). I called it my blue Sona build. My basics? They slow. My abilities? They slow. My basic attacks after I use an ability? They slow. Want to even be near me? Your attack speed is slowed. Want to hit me? Welp, I do a buttload of damage and am tankier then most all their team.
ChickenToucher: That is…..Some Sona build you got there.
SirArchmage: Yep. No one expects the tanky Sona. Plus I slow so much even getting near our team kills them.
TheCrank: Never build that again. Ever. It is an abomination.
We, surprising, won(Not actually surprising since both my friends usually carry the team). At the after game chat, the first comment I see from the enemy team is this.
StupidClanBasedUsername: Dat Sona.
SirArchmage: Tank Sona OP
TheCrank:……no
TheCrank: just, no.
And that, is how you do not play support in League of legends. Ever. Really, the support is NOT supposed to start getting a third of the kills and be tankier then the top laner.
As a word of caution, never play like me. Unless you plan on trolling the shit out of both teams, I am not a good person to follow after.
Build that I used to make this monstrosity.
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4 responses to “How to not play League of Legends: Sona”
I laughed my way through this entire article. Please tell me you have more sir?
Yes indeed I do. I have another planned out. And trying to come up with more ideas.
She plays music……….
And the builds whole point is to slow people down………………
WHY DID I NOT MAKE EVEN ONE SLOW DANCING REFERENCE IN THAT ARTICLE!!! ._.
#FirstWorldProblems
I actually used to toy with builds that took advantage of common builds in the meta back when I played. One of these was tank Pantheon . When picking if I saw a ton of AD on the enemy team I would go panth and stack attack speed. Thus I would constantly have his passive block up and I could just bum rush anyone being impervious to their attacks, it was pretty fun .