5/29/15: Current with Kael'Thas patch

Sonya is a surprisingly difficult to play warrior hero, mainly because she is very squishy for a warrior. However, what she lacks in tankiness she makes up for with her versatility and utility.

Play Sonya if you want a warrior with:

- Near-infinite lane presence

- Huge initiation range

- Counter-ult stuns (e.g. Nazeebo Spirit or Valla Strafe)

- Easy-mode jungling

Avoid Sonya when:

- Facing a team with a lot of stuns/knockback effects (interrupts whirlwind)

- Playing on haunted mines (harder lane phase and less jungle camps)

- You trust Blizzard (Sonya balance changes will crush your soul every patch)

Passive

Fury is generated by auto-attacks, taking damage, landing Ancient Spear, or the Shot of Fury talent. Fury does not degenerate. Ideally, you want to have a full fury bar before initiating team fights. This passive also grants 10% movement speed after using an ability. Sonya needs this movement speed to catch up to fleeing heroes, as every attack stops her movement for a brief moment. CONTROL YOUR RAGE. Wasting fury as soon as you generate it will prevent you from being able to chase people down. You can also use abilities, usually whirlwind, to proc the movement speed to run away.

Q

Your main fury-generator in fights. Mastering the spear is the biggest part of mastering Sonya. Spears are best used for interrupting enemy abilities or chasing. Ancient spear will hit any minion in its way. When fighting minion heroes like Zagara, Nova, or Anub'Arak, be aware of positioning before throwing out a spear. Try to not initiate with spear. It is better to initiate by charging in on a mount, and to save spear for closing gaps or stunning.

W	The main fury-dump. Not much to say here. Use when you have excess rage or want to burst someone down. Be aware of positioning. Slam does splash damage to enemies behind the main target. Keep this in mind for merc camps.

E

Sonya's main weakness in high-end play. Any stun or displacement effect will interrupt whirlwind. Always be aware of enemy cooldowns and use WW when you're not at risk of getting interrupted. That said, whirlwind is great against NPCs. Whirlwind in the middle of a creep wave to kill the wave and heal to full. This can put a ton of pressure on towers in the early game and give your team an experience lead. Use WW to clear jungle camps and take less damage. While whirlwinding, Sonya will ignore unit collision. Extremely useful for positioning in fights, escaping through body-blockers or zombie walls, and not blocking team-mates. You can now once again use other talented abilities while whirlwinding. Ferocious healing, stoneskin, and shot of fury.

Block is essential for boosting Sonya's defense throughout the game. It's not exciting, but it gets the job done. Shot of Fury does everything. It will increase your damage in fights and allow you to not be so reliant on auto attacks. Endless Fury is taken if you want to have a lot of fury to dump at the start of battle. Synergizes with Furious Blow eventually. War Paint is really bad in team fights. Sonya is rarely able to land more than a couple auto attacks in a fight. This does work well against NPCs, though, so consider it for maps like Garden of Terror.




This is a really bad tier with some really awful options. Focused Attack comes out ahead for me. While you will never get the chance to auto attack to reduce its CD, throwing in a quick bonus damage auto attack helps burst people down. Shattered Ground doesn't do much. If you want to AoE anything, just whirlwind. Hurricane also seems useless to me. Even against someone like Malfurion, this talent requires that you spend 40 fury to break a root. You might not even be close enough to anyone to get damage off. Very wasteful. Superiority is bleh.





If you want damage, take Follow Through. The 50% damage bonus on Poisoned Spear doesn't compare. If you really need more defense, take Ferocious Healing. Though, you'll end up being fury-starved and you won't be doing any damage making you pretty useless. Composite Spear has its uses for sticking to slippery enemies, but I find it to be too situational whereas Follow Through is always good.





Wrath of the Berserker will make you into the scariest sustain damage bruiser in the game, but you need to have a solid team with some dedicated healers to keep you alive. Leap is great for bursting squishy enemies, interrupting channeled ults, and positioning yourself where you need to be. Either ult is viable and good, but there are clear indicators when one should be chosen over the other.




Only in rare situations do you ever want to take anything here besides Mystical Spear. This is the new Boon of the Ancients, with the added bonus of allowing you to sometimes escape over walls, or chase someone down that is just out of spear range. Life Funnel is only good when the enemy team has little or no interrupts. Aftershock is a talent that looks good, but is actually very impractical. The window that you need to cast the second slam in is very short, and is usually over by the time you catch back up to your target. Spell Shield is probably the ideal defensive talent at this tier over life funnel. A good counter to bursty heroes, as long as you don't let it get procd before the fight starts.





No Escape is the default talent to take, especially with the wrath of the berserker ult. Sonya has serious mobility issues and this talent fixes them. Chase better, flee better. Great talent. furious blows is and always will be a bad talent. +40% slam damage for +40% fury = +0 damage per fury. The only time this talent is good is when you're a few levels ahead of the enemy team and you want to keep up the steamroll. In that case, being able to burst people down in 2-3 slams is much more likely. Imposing Presence is a great option against AA heroes, ESPECIALLY Illidan. Nerves of Steel is another decent all-around defensive ability if you're still finding yourself in need of it.





Hardened Shield is a perfect talent for a squishy warrior. Pop it during the heaviest damage of battle and know what it's like to finally be a tank. Nexus Blades completely changes the DPS game for Sonya, allowing her to chase people down and generate rage. Choose whichever of these two areas, dps or defense, you need the most help in. Sonya's level 20 ult talents are very boring. Arreat Crater is often useless because of all the blink-type abilities. You're better off with nexus blades for locking people down. Anger Management I think is outclassed by nexus blades as well.

Early Game (Levels 1-10)


Whirlwind gives you huge lane-pushing potential while you soak up life. Push your lane hard. Anyone that stands in your whirlwind will take free damage, allowing you to harass people out of your lane. Few heroes can clear waves as well as you, so you should be able to empty the enemy's towers of ammo. At level 7, soloing merc camps becomes a breeze. Use your best judgement on when to leave lane or other objectives in favor of grabbing mercs.



Mid Game (Levels 11-20)


This is the team-fight phase. If you took leap, look for opportunities to burst targets down, or save leap for shutting down an enemy ult. Wrath of the berserker gets better as you get to level 20 and pick up more mobility talents. Stick with your healers and do your job as a bruiser.



Late Game (Level 20+)


Wrath of the Berserker scales much better into late game than leap does. If you took WotB, try to carry your team in fights while trying to avoid getting bursted down early. Nothing changes for the Leap Sonyas. Look for ults to counter or squishies to crush.

GG

- Vandalier