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Sonya Build Guide “Time to die!”
Welcome to our guide for Sonya, a Bruiser in Heroes of the Storm. Within these pages, you will find everything required to understand how best to play this hero, in both different map styles and team compositions.
Sonya's Overview
Sonya is an aggressive but durable Bruiser with a fair amount of self-sustain and capable of dealing a high amount of damage from melee distance, making her one of the best Offlaners in the game when played correctly.
Sonya's Strengths and Weaknesses
Strengths
High waveclear- Great self-sustain
- High single-target damage
- Great at capturing Mercenary Camps
Weaknesses
Susceptible to being kited- No options to deal damage from range
- Excessively reliant on hitting
Ancient Spear 
Whirlwind can be easily interrupted- Low mobility
Sonya's Talent Build Cheatsheet
Basic Attacks Build
Recommended
Sonya's Basic Attacks Build is designed to increase your sustain damage
for killing Heroes with 
Wrath of the Berserker active,
ways to generate Fury for extending Wrath of the Berserker's
duration while active, and some survivability tools for team fights.
The damage increase comes from 
Furious Blow
at Level 1, Giant Slammer at Level 16,
and (optionally) from 
Poisoned Spear at Level 7.
The extra Fury generation comes from
Shot Of Fury at Level 4.
Use 
Whirlwind
and 
Battle Rage at Level 7
to heal yourself in lane or while fighting.
Use 
Ignore Pain at Level 20
to reduce incoming burst damage while fighting.
Leap Build
Situational
Sonya's Leap Build is designed to increase burst damage
for killing enemy Heroes right after using 
Leap,
waveclear for laning,
and some survivability tools for team fights.
The damage increase comes from Furious Blow
at Level 1, from Giant Slammer at Level 16,
and (optionally) from Poisoned Spear at Level 7.
The waveclear comes from
Shattered Ground at Level 4.
Use Whirlwind
and Battle Rage at Level 7
to heal yourself in lane or while fighting.
Use Ignore Pain at Level 20
to reduce incoming burst damage while fighting.
Whirlwind Build
Situational
Sonya's Whirlwind Build excels against team compositions without reliable ways to
interrupt Sonya during Whirlwind
and ideally with multiple melee or low-range Heroes to hit at the same time,
so that you will self-heal for more and thus be harder to kill.
Life Funnel at Level 7 increases the healing Sonya
receives from Whirlwind. Hurricane
at Level 4 allows you to cast Whirlwind more often and,
more importantly, gives you the ability to remove any Slow
or Root from yourself.
Use Whirlwind
to heal yourself in lane or while fighting.
Use either 
Nerves of Steel at Level 16
or Ignore Pain at Level 20
to reduce incoming burst damage while fighting.
If the enemy team has Heroes with high Attack Speed or multi-hit Basic Attacks,
you should replace 
Tough As Nails at Level 1
with 
War Paint otherwise they will easily deplete
all your Block charges.
ARAM Build
ARAM
Sonya's Basic Attacks Build is designed to increase your sustain damage
for killing Heroes with Wrath of the Berserker active,
ways to generate Fury for extending Wrath of the Berserker's
duration while active, and some survivability tools for team fights.
The damage increase comes from Furious Blow
at Level 1, Giant Slammer at Level 16,
and (optionally) from Poisoned Spear at Level 7.
The extra Fury generation comes from
Shot Of Fury at Level 4.
Use Whirlwind
and Battle Rage at Level 7
to heal yourself in lane or while fighting.
Use Ignore Pain at Level 20
to reduce incoming burst damage while fighting.
Sonya's Synergies and Counters
Sonya synergizes with
When going for Leap as Heroic Ability,
having a powerful follow-up is crucial.
As such, she does better when paired with Heroes who can
dive together with her and/or deal a lot
of burst damage on the same target.
When going for Wrath of the Berserker
as Heroic Ability, survival means damage and damage means survival.
As a consequence, she works well with any Hero that can keep her
alive for longer with healing, damage mitigation effects, added
mobility, or who can reliably
crowd control enemy Heroes.
Sonya is countered by
Sonya can be easily punished after engaging because she relies on the self-sustain from her Abilities and Talents. For this reason, Heroes that have crowd control and/or burst damage in their kit are a respectable threat for her.
Wrath of the Berserker only reduces the duration
of Stun, Root, and Slow
effects. As such, Heroes with access to Silence effects
(including Taunt and Fear)
are better for crowd controlling her.
Sonya's Maps
As a solid Offlaner capable of double soaking and clear Mercenary Camps with ease, Sonya can find a place on all Maps. She is, however, particularly effective on those Maps that feature several Mercenary Camps (for example Garden of Terror).
Due to being relatively weak to ganks, Sonya struggles on Maps where it is easier to gank the enemy Offlaner (notably Towers of Doom).
Sonya's Tips and Tricks
- Try and keep your Fury full before impending engagements. Note that it does not decay over time.
- When laning, you can tank enemy Minions to generate Fury and keep allied Minions healthy.
- Ancient Spear is great for generating Fury and should be often used on non-Heroes for doing so.
- To maximize sustain damage and
Fury's Movement Speed uptime, do this: cast 1 
Seismic Slam, execute 2 Basic Attacks, repeat. - When possible, Whirlwind is best used on multiple targets. Heroes give more self-healing.
- Try to constantly generate Fury during
Wrath of the Berserker to extend its duration. - Sonya can use Wrath of the Berserker to take down enemy Structures when uncontested.
- Shot Of Fury at Level 4 can be used to extend Wrath of the Berserker's duration by 5 seconds.
- Avoid using
Nerves of Steel at Level 16 and 
Ignore Pain at Level 20 at the same time.
Sonya's Role in the Current Meta
Thanks to her survivability and waveclear, Sonya is a solid Offlaner that can contribute with a huge amount of damage during team fights. She is also good at double soaking when needed.
Sonya excels in prolonged battles or split-pushing
when having Wrath of the Berserker as Heroic Ability
and does great in short fights or ganks when having
Leap as Heroic Ability.
Changelog
- 22 Aug. 2025 (talents page): Guide reviewed.
- 22 Aug. 2025 (abilities page): Guide reviewed.
- 22 Aug. 2025 (this page): Guide reviewed.
- 04 Jun. 2021 (talents page): Builds and Talents updated after May 18 balance patch.
- 04 Jun. 2021 (this page): Guide updated after May 18 balance patch.
- 26 Mar. 2021 (talents page): Updated Talent recommendations.
- 26 Feb. 2021 (this page): Simplified Build choices.
- 18 Feb. 2021 (talents page): Builds and Talents updated to better reflect current meta.
- 18 Feb. 2021 (this page): Guide updated to better reflect current meta.
- 25 Jan. 2021 (talents page): Talents and builds updated to ensure meta relevance.
- 25 Jan. 2021 (abilities page): Updated Leap's description.
- 25 Jan. 2021 (this page): Updated Tips and Builds to keep up with meta changes.
- 03 Dec. 2020 (talents page): Talents and builds updated after recent balance patch.
- 03 Dec. 2020 (abilities page): Updated Seismic Slam's description.
- 03 Dec. 2020 (this page): Guide updated after recent balance patch.
- 24 Sep. 2020 (talents page): Builds updated to ensure meta relevance.
- 24 Sep. 2020 (this page): Builds updated to ensure meta relevance.
- 30 Aug. 2020 (this page): Role in Current Meta section updated.
- 13 Dec. 2019 (this page): Added a note about current Anomaly.
- 29 Oct. 2019 (talents page): Talent builds and recommendations reviewed and updated.
- 29 Oct. 2019 (abilities page): Abilities section reviewed.
- 29 Oct. 2019 (this page): Guide updated.
- 30 Aug. 2018 (talents page): Talent descriptions updated to reflect latest balance patch.
- 13 May 2018 (talents page): Talent descriptions and recommendations updated to reflect Sonya's rework patch.
- 07 Mar. 2018 (talents page): Talent descriptions and recommendations updated to reflect Sonya's rework patch.
- 06 Mar. 2018 (this page): Role section updated to better reflect currently expected solo laning role.
- 14 Jan. 2018 (talents page): Updated Tier 2 and Tier 3 Talent discussions. Updated Whirlwind and Burst builds.
- 29 Aug. 2017 (this page): Guide fully updated and moved to the new format.
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Elitesparkle has been hooked on Heroes of the Storm since day one in 2015. Over the years, he has consistently competed at Master level across multiple Seasons and has even climbed into Grand Master a couple of times. Known for his logical mindset and love for theorycrafting, he thrives on breaking down the game's mechanics and engaging in high-level strategy discussions with the community.
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