Talent selection Top
So let's start off with why
War Paint over
Shot of Fury
Shot of Fury is great in the early game when you are trading with people sure, but killing people early isn't what you want. This build is focused around the mid-game and puts pressure on bosses and other merc camps with a lot of kill potential against weak targets. Also because we are picking up
Follow Through at level 7 this amplifies the healing we get from each enhanced auto attack (which should be all of them in a fight) by 12% (0.30*0.40)
War Paint also helps when you decide to get your first merc camp, which can be when they spawn or at level 4 whichever comes first and whenever it is most appropriate; sometime you won't be getting a camp till level 6.
Now onto
Superiority
At level 4 you could alternatively pick
Focused Attack or
Shattered Ground although since this build is directed towards boss pressure the choice is between
Focused Attack and
Superiority and the latter will keep you more healthy when you do any and all mercs.
At level 7 I pick up
Follow Through because it is a large damage increase while increasing your healing from your previous talent selection. Simply put it complements what we already have. Having a longer range spear can save you at time and having extra damage on it is nice, so it the healing from
Ferocious Healing; however
Follow Through does a little bit of extra damage and because of this a little extra healing so you get the best of 2 worlds.
************************************Important Note**************************************
You are going to die in some fights because you can't reach your target or you can't spider-man far enough away and that's fine. Just don't let it happen too many times.
***************************************************************************************
Wrath vs Leap
So this is the build defining ability, are you setting up big fights with
Leap or are you a quasi assassin with
Wrath of the Berserker
For this build and play style -which will be addressed later- we want Wrath, it lets you take camps really quickly and powers up all your damage dealing by a lot. Your auto attacks already have a 40% damage increase from follow through and with another 40% ontop of that from wrath you will notice health bars melting.
Alright now onto making you more mobile, and having Wrath up almost 100% of the time.
So why this talent over the others, your Q is your wrath generating ability and lowering its cooldown while increasing its utility is incredibly important if you want to escape death by going over walls or by sticking to targets more effectively.
So at level 16 you have a lot of options and non of these are bad picks at all. They all serve to deal with certain issues,
Furious Blow will increase your burst damage output although in a prolonged fight you can't sustain spamming slams unless you are taking aggro from multiple targets at which point you are more likely to die. So if you are confident that you can pick people off in short fights then this is the ability you want.
No Escape will let you stick to targets really well or outrun people when on the retreat although it doesn't make you more durable so you will still die just as quickly as before, great utility talent I just don't find the need to take it often. If you're against a team with a lot of slows it would be a great pick up.
Imposing Presence is the talent which you will be taking the least out of the 4 choices simply because you rarely find yourself against auto attack based heroes. Although if you are against a team that has two auto attack based heroes you will absolutely want this to help mitigate some of their damage.
Nerves of Steel is the most accommodating ability because it makes you survive most peoples initial burst damage, it is also effective if you for some reason get low doing a camp. Also since
Nerves of Steel is player friendly it will be the ability featured in the build.
Lastly for your level 20 talent you will mostly be taking
Ignore Pain because it will mitigate 75% of all the damage you take when you first get to the backline at the end/late-game.
How to play a typical game Top
So this build is all about controlling the map and still being a dominant force in fights when necessary. For the first few team fights you might not even be there; but as long as you get results your teammates typically won't mind. That being said playing for mercs/bosses/structures in the early game makes it so that you NEED to get results. If the game is lost it is most likely your fault, and if you win it won't be because of you alone, your teamates will need to kite fights or keep them ignorant of your actions from the 8/9 minute mark till around 13 minutes into the game; possibly later still depending on the map.
so here is how most games are going to play out, you are going to lane and be very aggressive towards the opponent in you lane trying to get the kill regardless of the fact you don't have Shot of Fury. It doesn't matter you still do really high damage early on, so you might even want to consider roaming to a nearby lane if they are close or if there is a vision tower go to it and find fights there.
Alright so you survived the first hurdle and are now level 4, what you want to do is after having bullied a laner you want to push out the wave, so go spin in it and kill it and leave to go do a camp asap. By the time you get back to lane the enemy wave will have just died at your turrets; so you sacrifice two waves of experience to get yourself a merc camp. At this point things should be even xp wise since you will have been bullying your lane opponent as best you can wihotut dying or having to Hearth back.
From level 4 till 10 you wanna rinse and repeat while still considering the map objective and teamfights; you aren't hanging your team out to dry yet; BUT it is important to try and keep up in xp or get ahead no matter what.
At level 10 you can instantly go to a boss just don't get seen going there, preferably you want to have a merc camp up on your side of the map so that the enemy team will think you are there. At higher ranks you have to be willing to peel off the boss once you see enemies dissapear since they ARE looking for you. So don't fully commit to it unless you are sure no group is coming to kill you. Since if they only send one person after you; unless they are listed as a high threat above you can likely kill them. An abbathur hat is considered to be another person to me so unless it's a target you can kill quickly you might just have to run as best you can.
So we are reaching the later half of the mid-game. This is where you have to work with your team, if they get a pick or you do; you have to choose in an instant "Is there a boss I can take or do I stay with the team and try to force a fight". From this point on everything is in your hands, clearing mercs shouldn't take time since you should be spamming spears to keep wrath up for them and for fights.
Complementary Heroes Top
So we need to discuss one key point. YOU ARE NOT A TANK. If someone tries to tell you that you are mute them and just keep going about what you are doing. You are a bruiser at best. Your damage numbers can compare to those of an assassin if you prioritize fights and alter this build slightly if that is your primary goal, and you can even out seige most specialists due to your high damage output, the down side is your have to stay in combat to get the most out of yourself. Anyways I'm rambling.
You want to have someone else on the front line with you, it's really hard for you to absorb damage from 5 heroes and live, from 2 heroes you can likely pull it off if you play well enough -by this I mean you are hitting things or spinning if you need to heal and have a lot of targets around you-.
So some great heroes to be up there with you
Uther
Kerrigan
ArthasAnuberak
Leoric
Muradin
The Butcher
Pretty much anyone who can stand on the front line for at least a few seconds. The only melee hero I can think of that doesn't work very well with you is
Zeratul because he excels at getting in and out of the front line so quickly you don't want to inhibit his ability to do so.
You work exceptionally well with people who can bait enemies into over extending so
Murky is a great person to be with.
Abbathur will love you because Sonya's base kit is exceptionally strong plus he can give you vision with mines around objectives you want to take so you can feel safe taking them because you know what's coming.
Playstyle Top
Again I have to say this is pretty much a PvE build with the ability to kill people if you need to. Take any 1v1 fights you can after level 10. Besides that you are playing like and assassin in teamfights and a tank when taking bosses or mercs. in lane you are playing like and assassin, you damage is high you are fragile but you can regain a lot of your hp off a creep wave so never be afraid to trade, just watch out for roaming enemies.
So this focuses on spamming out slams and auto attacks, for this reason you won't be spinning much; although you will be using your other two basic abilities like your life depended on it because it does; for every time you don't auto after an ability you lose out on a talent so you better learn to love your attack move key cause you're going to be using it more than anything else while playing Sonya.
So to sum it up, this playstyle relies on your teamates having the ability to take fights 4v5 what you do from there varies depending on the point in the game and what mercs/objectives are up. If there is a boss you take the boss -unless losing the fight means you lose the game-, if there isn't you need to be in position to hit their back line from the side and do what you can.
********If this is kinda well received or if there is feedback asking for it I will create and add videos*******
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