I have this Sonya I pulled a while ago with irrelevant IVs. I’ve been thinking on using her in my “Dark” (I still don’t have any dark mythics, I’ll try to get Sothis and Bram asap) defense team. I can fodder a L!Celica to her.
Why don’t I use L!Celica instead?
Sonya’s refine.
Sonya can receive mythical buffs.
Why am I hesitating?
No Special Spiral to make the best out of her.
I only have one copy (Does anyone know when she’s coming back?)
F!Lyon exists.
Sonya is unique for the one turn special and that makes her great to just put her on your defense for an easy IP set up, or a clutch pick in arena assault. Without SS I agree though she won’t be as good as she can be. They have the thing from the toilet paper for Lewyn, so that’s one way to get it if you wanna go for it.
Then I wouldn’t recommend it. Her SS build is really the only reason she’s used still. Yeah, she’s usable without it, but…
You don’t want Spiral for AR-D anyways so go ahead 
Funny story, I was committing to the Distant Counter path, but then the L!Edelgard banner happened and it gave me a few extra Nagi. Time to switch, I guess.
Sonya’s still pretty good on an IP AR-D team imo, so you wouldn’t really need special spiral there. As most of her power is completely deleting one unit with glacies/iceberg, and when that happens most people leave because its their most needed unit.
For PvE content though, she really wants special spiral. She’s not really great without it.
Sonya’s rerun banner is at the end of either this month or next month I believe, btw.
sonya pops up randomly and i think she’s on some of the weekly focuses. she’ll be back around eventually, that’s how i ended up having her at +1.
she’a fun nuke and if you have interest in building her, go for it. it doesn’t really matter if there are other units like her as long as you like using her.
Partially true for L!Celica, but it’s season-related.
But if you really just want a green tome IP nuke, Merric does the same thing but can arguably fit better in an IP team due to his higher HP (no wasted IP charges, can give the IP charges instead) and is easily mergeable.
Also, if you’re really hung up about Special Spiral, she might still be useable with just a blade seal for PVE, though her low-ish speed makes desperation and flashing blade less good choices
Sonya can be quite ridiculous at max investment. As others have said you can first turn Glacies with support and good luck tanking that.
My Sonya is +Atk -Def, and her Glacies with Mirror Impact is a joke. I mean, a joke if you try to survive that.
I hesitated at first, but then spent that SS and MI on her and… omg whenever I don’t know how to finish off something she comes and says ‘Hey dude let me aid you’ and she does and everyone gets annihilated.
I’m pretty happy with her.
She’s still nice to have as a budget addition to an IP AR defense that can also be heavily invested in to become even more potent.
As a PvE nuke mage, she might struggle as powercreep continues, so Legendary Celica is probably stronger there.
It depends on what you want from her 
Only if you like her tbh
Her use as an AoE mage is getting harder, as her low Atk leads to somewhat lackluster AoEs, and she can’t loop them
Thanks for the @ 
@Annie_May :
Well, Nick was @ed above and he’ll certainly have better advice than me since his Sonya is made for [AR-D] and he uses her there, but she’s blessed with Anima:
[Death Blow 4] is mainly for passing more attack checks that [Heavy Blade 3] does and is a must to consistently activate [Blazing Wind] which is IMO the best offensive area-of-effect special because it can span still span a decent amount of enemies and cripple down their HP, though {growing} specials might work better but I haven’t tested them (wider range but no extra damage).
[Inf. Hexblade 3] is just a treat I gave her and nothing you need at all, I used to run her with [Even Atk Wave 3] and it’s great, but if I had the fodder I’d give her:
Yes, F!Lyon exists but he’s more of a ranged tank and she doesn’t have to face him, you can still use her on other places even with a build like Nick’s or something budget, but… how far are you willing to go on investment? Are you going to +10 her?.
As for [Special Spiral 3], it’s pointed out in the first comment but you can compile a manual that’s a source of the skill:
And Sonya’s return will be in next month, specifically: 2020-06-14T07:00:00Z, you’ll have a banner that lasts for a week, three peeps (none sharing color) and 4% focus rate (2% non-focus), making it an excellent banner to pull for merges
Turns out I’ve run against your def before (recognized the hexblade) and speaking from experience, yeah, glacies hurts. I normally have no issue with IP teams (go go power Witchy Wand) but yep… I didn’t win against yours.
Thank you so much for the detailed post! I would love to eventually +10 her, but for her revival I’m looking to aim for +1, or if I feel adventurous, keep going a few more times hoping I get a +Atk. I will definitely exchange toilet paper for that Special Spiral.
Np, glad I could help. +1 is good enough, specially if she’s +atk, it’s generally her best IV but +spd is fine and allows for more effective speed-based builds.
I did get her to +10 and in this thread I show my pulls, I’m linking it to show that there shouldn’t be much trouble to get one or two copies since all of them costed me ~550 [Orbs] (all F2P) but of course luck is very likely going to be different for you.
Good luck in advance!
