League of Legends released a hotfix for Patch 10.4, nerfing Sona again. Despite being nerfed in both 10.3 and 10.4, Sona was found to still be too strong. Changes were also made to Soraka and some of the Immolate Items.
Sona's Nerfed Again
For those who've been following the latest changes, Sona was nerfed back in Patch 10.3, which released early this month. Specifically, her E self movement speed was decreased in order to pull her back a bit. This speed was lowered to 20% from 25%.
However, that wasn't enough so she was nerfed again with Patch 10.4. While her aura now gives her 30 mana at first ally tag, the mana costs for her Q, W, and E, have all be increased. The cost increases are:
- Q-Hymn of Valor
- From 50/55/60/65/70 to 75/80/85/90/95
- W-Aria of Perseverance
- From 80/85/90/95/100 to 105/110/115/120/125
- E-Song of Celerity
- From 65 to 90
- E-Song of Celerity
As seen, the amount increased was rather substantial. This hotfix nerfs her even more, which includes lowering her base Attack Damage from 45 to 40 and attack damage per level from 3 to 2. This should make it even more difficult for her to last hit. Remember her E self movement speed? Well it's been decreased yet again from 20% to 10-14%.
Only time will tell if the hotfix is enough.
A Slight Change for Soraka
With that, let's move on to Soraka. In Patch 10.4, Soraka was nerfed with the objective to chip away at her top lane performance as she had become the winingest top laner. The changes also made sure that the impact on her support lane was minimal.
Thus the first changes were lowering her base stats like Health, Health Growth, Mana, Mana Growth, and even Attack Damage. That's not all, as her Self-Heal and Rejuvenation Heal Duration of her Q-Starcall were also both lowered while the mana cost was increased. The bonus movement speed of Q was reduced as well. For W-Astral Infussion, it was changed and now has "While Soraka is Rejuvenated, the 10% maximum health cost for casting Astral Infusion will be reduced by 40/55/70/85/100%" with the heal part increased slightly a bit. Finally, her health cost reduction when rejuvenated is now 60-100% from 40-100%.
While the nerf as it relates to her top lane performance worked, her support was found to be too week. Thus, the cooldown for her W was lowered from 8-2 to 6-2. The mana cost of W was lowered as well from 50-70 to 40-60.
Immolate Too Strong
For Immolate Items, Bami's Cinder had the effect of "Once every 10 seconds, your next immobilizing ability deals 6-23 (+0.02 bonus health) and releases a fire nova that also deals that bonus damage around you." With the hotfix, the bonus health is now at 1% instead of 2%.
The same thing was done for Sunfire Cape, which now only has 4% bonus health, with Cinderhulk now offering 3% bonus health.
We'll see if a hotfix is again released or if League of Legends is going to hand out changes in the next patch. You can view changes that arrived with Patch 10.4 here.
