NERFPLZ.LOL Champions Shifting Roles: Rammus and Sona | NERFPLZ.LOL -->




Nov 1, 2014

Champions Shifting Roles: Rammus and Sona

33 comments

There's been a long history of "overpowered" champions staying just under the limelight in solo queue, but then suddenly rising to popularity once they change to a different role, even if that's not their optimal location.

The idea that "wow...xxx is SO overpowered that they can even stop lane as a xxx" is hard to get out of our minds.

Examples

Taric support - 60% win rate shifts to top and jungle
Wukong (mostly top) - 55% win rate shifts to jungle
Nunu - Pre-reworks, shifts to Top
Vel'koz/Brand - 53% win rate shifts to support
Braum (on release) - Played as top and jungle, now stuck as support
Maokai - Shifts to Top

Rammus + Sona

Currently Rammus and Sona both have respectively, top 3 win rates in solo queue and have held this position for quite some time now, Rammus especially.

Rammus

Rammus Top provides insane damage mitigation and catching power, while also providing strong jungle gank support combined with strong split pushing damage. All in all, his biggest weakness is against ranged mages, but even if he can get close enough for a taunt he can outtrade the majority of them (except Swain),

While by no means a first pick priority in this world of heavy ap tops (eg Ryze), the fact that he's normally a jungler gives him the ability to swap out if the lane match-up isn't in his favor. Additionally, even though his early game isn't very good, his come-from-behind power is immense. Getting tower dove is no problem with him with his innate tankiness and taunt, and he can always powerball out of a sticky situation.

This Plat Rammus had a rough start vs Irelia, but once he got the ball rolling...

Sona

Sona currently has an absolutely insane heal + damage + utility balance as a support, and can easily snowball a lane by herself. While she still has trouble early game vs heavy burst type champions, if she can get to 40% cdr and enough mana regen, she can take out 1/3 of a squishy's health while simultaneously healing for 1/3 at the same time every few seconds.

As a mid laner, she gets many of these perks with the added benefit that she can harass early game against many people who as mid lane mains, don't really get the experience laning against her, and thus don't know her effective range.

After getting chalice and Lichbane, she can easily annihilate single targets with her powerchord. She's also very versatile, and can build a morellonomicon if you have a jungle that's blue dependent or is trolling (welcome to solo queue).

The only drawback of placing her mid rather than support is that as a mid laner she's forced to CS, whereas as support she can hold onto her powerchord for longer.

This Plat Sona fought a Fizz and lived to tell the tale

Conclusions

There are a few champions out there that perform best in a certain role. However, if they're strong enough, other roles are definitely still possible simply because of their insane base stats and utility scaling.

Got any more of your favorites? Think these two have a shot at the big leagues? Comment below!





First time to Nerfplz.Lol or not sure where to find everything? Try the Site Map





33 comments:

  1. That taric 60% winrate must be wrong xD

    ReplyDelete
  2. Sona is indeed hella strong. I think you do a good job of detailing her underrated power here.


    However, when placed mid-lane, she robs the team of a mid-laner with waveclear, something even a fizz can do with an e.That doesn't detract from her viabilty - especially when paired something like Lulu top, Vel Voz support, or a Lucian ADC - but it might hurt your team's versatility when it comes to comp building in Champ Select.

    ReplyDelete
  3. SSJSuntasticNovember 01, 2014

    At the beginning of season 3 he had a 60% win rate, but has been nerfed so many times since then that nobody plays him anywhere anymore.

    ReplyDelete
  4. i love taric, and i have a 60% win rate on him, but I had to admit to myself he just doesn't really work anymore unless the entire enemy team is pure ad.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Cameron ReuschelNovember 02, 2014

    I have been playing a lot Sion lately. Especially full tank mid lane Sion with teleport is a lot of fun. By maxing E>W>Q, getting sorc shoes and full tank you get massive long range poke, sustain and the best roaming in the entire game. Already won against LB and TF without any problems at all. But you can only play Sion mid when top and jungle have enough damage for mid to late game.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Legitly confused about sona's future...

    ReplyDelete
  7. Josh ThurlowNovember 02, 2014

    Leona top and jungle are still hidden, good... good...

    ReplyDelete
  8. Josh ThurlowNovember 02, 2014

    SSJ, where do you find these winrates and all? I would really like to look into this info.

    ReplyDelete
  9. I have played the mid match up of Sona Vs Fizz as the Fizz. As someone who played a lot of Sona at the time I thought I understood the range and damage. Once she gets some AP and Shen, she just crushed me. So much damage. Didn't help I had never Fizzed before, but, mid Sona is fun and strong.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Leona top Vs Melee is fun.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Leona top can counter champ like Yasuo (which is still popular), but that's still counter pick.

    Since Jax nerf there are more and more AP top arises, which will result in the success of gap-closer champs (AP top may be very careful with Pantheon, but will be caught by surprise by J4, Xinzhao, Wukong, Aatrox - although these ones will have a hard time with tanky damage Darius/Renek/Irelia or do not have kill potential against passive meat-shields like Mundo/Maokai/Shen).

    Basically when a strong champion is took down by Riot (nerfed into obvillion), the "countered" champions who have been overshadowed by that nerfed champ will be viable (since their main counter is no longer an actual threat)

    ReplyDelete
  12. www.lolking.com

    ReplyDelete
  13. ALL HAIL SONA

    ReplyDelete
  14. MasterOfMetalNovember 02, 2014

    CSing as Sona is tricky, other than that she can do some crazy damage with the lich bane, not to mention 40% cdr sona can do this crazy damage like ever 5 seconds, my apporoval (as though it was needed)

    ReplyDelete
  15. Josh ThurlowNovember 02, 2014

    Like Irelia, her main counter, Renekton, got nerfed and fell out of favor, so she is once again able to show her strength. So Leona counters these AP tops due to her gap closer, or no? I played her more jungle so

    ReplyDelete
  16. Sorry, but this post makes no sense.
    Sona Mid and Rammus Top are not top tier picks, barely viable if played right.
    Rammus Jungle improved when the AD assassin meta appeared, and Sona Support "counters" Janna, who is also very popular right now, who in turn counters hard-engage supports.
    Taking Rammus and Sona to other lanes is really not worth it in my opinion, but feel free to comment and give me your opinions ^^

    ReplyDelete
  17. He isn't saying that Rammus Top and Sona Mid are better than their traditional roles, but merely that they are possibilities given their current strengths in the meta. Rammus Top is actually pretty strong as long as he's against an AD melee.

    ReplyDelete
  18. SquirrelNutkinsNovember 02, 2014

    Maybe as a top of tier 3/bottom of tier 2 specific counter pick. Or you could just get skilled as an all around good champion in top lane.

    ReplyDelete
  19. Damn i can remember those "rammus taric" players that were doing more damage than our adc while taking more dmg than our tank. good old days.

    ReplyDelete
  20. Just telling this have been carrying my bro out of silver easy with sion sup,where the troll adc's can't carry and i can easily harras the lane when they try to counter me on top or jungle they fail where i am a tank sup with insane speed some mixed ap and ad and carry my adc if the adc sucks i just take kills to carry and rush tankyniss and cdr (40%) to snowball lanes with #ONSLAUGHT

    ReplyDelete
  21. Josh ThurlowNovember 03, 2014

    Never said they were top tier, just things that work a little better than expected, and people don't expect these champs.

    ReplyDelete
  22. Love Taric too, but he doesn't have a gap closer that would allow him to deliver his damage without getting murdered. I can only imagine how good he must have been before being nerfed.

    ReplyDelete
  23. OK, now I understand the post better,thanks ;)

    ReplyDelete
  24. Daniel BarcelosNovember 04, 2014

    Galio top also works well. After you get the unholy grail and the first armor iten, just a W+R will make you win the tf alone, plus healling you.
    He doesn't scale tath well, but his base damage on Q and R is enough to hurt any squish target.

    There is also TopWick, but you already make a post about it.

    ReplyDelete
  25. Caleb Powerranger MathewsNovember 04, 2014

    This may sound silly, but I find ali mid really strong. He can have trouble farming in the early stages but once you get a couple of items under him (chalice/tear plus blasting wand) he can very easily stick it to many mid champions by simply using headbutt. And his heal makes him annoying to vs. His ult ruins just about any hard engage or burst from mid laners also.

    ReplyDelete
  26. you also can check at http://na.op.gg/statistics/champion/

    or http://loldb.gameguyz.com/statistics/winRate

    ReplyDelete
  27. trust me i know, i've been playing him since feb. 2010.

    ReplyDelete
  28. Guide for Sona Support?

    ReplyDelete
  29. David CoronelNovember 13, 2014

    am i the only one that sees rammus and sona holding the top three slots.... just two of them so OP they hold the top three lol

    ReplyDelete
  30. Lee SeunghwanNovember 16, 2014

    while Leona top vs ranged ends in a disaster every single time

    ReplyDelete
  31. Matthew RobinsonNovember 16, 2014

    Check Lolking.

    ReplyDelete
  32. Origami PhoenixNovember 27, 2014

    Doesn't the same thing happen when you pick Akali or other mid-laners with bad multi-target damage?

    ReplyDelete
  33. Lucas DiasJune 01, 2015

    What about Skarner Top? That fella can literally bring people under his turrets at level 6.

    ReplyDelete

Feel free to comment or leave a message :)