Sion's niche, Health stacking? Or Getting stronger with every fight? An update idea for his niche

So many will look at and think, oh hes that health stacking tank. well yes and no,

Of coarse he farms up health, but that really should not be a niche, no he is supposed to get stronger the more he fights, and remembers.

Looking at his kit that also makes sense, he has poor base stats, defense wise, but solid base damage and cc, And the ability to farm up those ''missing'' stats. which would enable him to scale well with more fights, and thus kills, by getting the health to back up his damage and defense he buys.

However, it is poorly executed. While his kit is awesome, it does lack a lot in defensive stats that you simply cannot really make up for by farming. and his damage falls off by the time you get there.

Essentially you have to get ahead early and stay ahead, but not just like other champions would do, no you also have to maintain farm to do so or you will be weaker then most other bulky champions.

I think i have a better idea to satisfy his niche, one with a great many balance levers as well. And it is something which isn't entirely unique as it exists already in a way, but at the same time it is unique for any tanky champion and will differ enough from the already existing parts.

I made this with the update to the new rune/mastery setup for preseason in mind

So without further ado,

**A new permanent Item, the soulfurnace **

As a Sion main myself i would frown a bit on this idea, for a couple reasons, how does this make sense theme wise, and it might hurt my build diversity. However i have thought about those things, and before you down vote me to hell and beyond hear me out ok.

This new item will be called the SoulFurnace, and it's function will resemble that of Viktors hexcore mixed up with Gangplanks Kraken coin mechanic The idea is simple, staring item will replace the current W passive. Farmed health will double as points threshold and you can buy upgrades to this item in the shop, there will be 3 upgrades available, and you can buy only 3 upgrades, however you are allowed to buy 3 times the same upgrade The amount of health, as a threshold, needed in order to buy a new upgrade will also be a good balance lever.

You start with a basic item which gives no stats and 3 available upgrades which will change, add to the stuff you farm up. This gives greater adaptability and allows you a choice in what you want to build/max out on

You will start to gain additional bonuses from farm after you buy an upgrade and this will not have any affect on what you already farmed, so you have to choose wisely which upgrade you want to buy first as it will gain the most bonuses

Each upgrade will also come with additional stats equivalent to the required gold spent

Like i said there will be 3 types of upgrade, you can buy a total of 3, and you can opt into buying multiple of the same upgrade

Offensive upgrade Sustain & Durability Upgrade Defensive & Utility Upgrade

Each Upgrade will give an immediate bonus to stats & an add on to the farm passive

**The different upgrades ** Here i will go into a further detail about each different upgrade.

Offensive upgrade Item stat boost: Base AD & bonus damage on abilities Farm bonus: Additional hybrid/precision penetration

Sustain & Durability Upgrade Item stat boost: Health, Mana & health regen Farm bonus: Anti bleed tank steroid, reducing incoming damage by a flat (farmed) amount, with cool down

Defensive & Utility Upgrade Item stat boost: Resistances & slow resistance Farm bonus: Additional health

Additional info: Additional health gets marked with an extra + (XXX) and doesn't count towards thresholds You will have to farm up these bonuses so pick the one you want the most first, If you want a greater amount of specific stats/farm boosts buy more the one of that particular upgrade The amounts would be fairly balanced so the values won't get too crazy, unless you are specializing and you have a very long game then the values will add up evetnually

A quick example of how this works

Say you farmed for 10 minutes and killed 100 minions and got 200 hp, you opt into the defensive upgrade, you now get additional health from that point onward, like + 1 per minion/kill from min 10 to 20 you farm another 100 minions, you will now have a total of 500 health, at that point you get the same upgrade again and farm another 100 minions, you now have 900 hp now you grab the final upgrade, and farm another 100 minions ending up at 1400 hp by then you have 400 cs ofc, and the 1400 hp is likely a bit higher anyway due to big minions and take downs

Example 2, offense

Now lets take an arbitrary value of 0.05 hybrid pen/precision,

Say you farmed for 10 minutes and killed 100 minions and got 200 hp, you opt into the offensive upgrade, you now get additional penetration from that point onward. from min 10 to 20 you farm another 100 minions, you will now have a total of 400 health and 5 precision. and you get another offensive upgrade. 100 minions further you will now have 600 health and 15 precision. You decide it's time to get some additional bulk and opt for the defensive upgrade. 100 minions further you now have 900 health and 25 precision.

As you can see the precision keeps growing steadily but the health increase isn't very big because you opted in late, if your first upgrade was health you would have gained an additional 200, but you would have lost out on 10 precision.

**Choices & consequences and infinite balancing levers ** This gives some meaningful choices in what you want to specialize in, dealing heavy damage or being as fat as possible or simply having very high sustainability Your upgrades have their base stats too and these too have an impact. Especially since you only have 5 item slots to consider. You also have to consider the fact that you still need to farm to scale up because it acts as a threshold for the upgrades. This allows for some counter play to the expanded ''infinite scaling'' by setting you behind and keeping you down, which you can already do to current Sion, it will take longer to upgrade the Soul furnace and thus delay your potential late game power.

For the sake of clarity, your soul furnace will have markings, 3 to show the different upgrades for allies and enemies.

As for balancing levers; The thresholds, they can be flat or increase for each additional upgrade There are the prices of upgrades they can be flat or increase for each additional upgrade The stats the upgrades give can be tuned. Incremental or exponential you name it. The bonuses for farm can be tuned. All of those have many different aspects which can all be tuned individually to keep things in check

Personally i would really love something like this, as this would give me the ability to scale how i want, to a degree, More damage or more tank stats or more sustainability. Or do i want a bit of everything. Really allows you to grow stronger with every fight, in the way you deem necessary, feeling like that big shield isn't threatening enough, enemies just walk up to you? They feel like they can take the hit and still do their job? Opt into offense, Make that exploding shield threatening again. Zone your opponents away with bigger damage. Too much smaller amounts of damage like % damage and bleed damage or poke holding you back, opt into a sustainability boost and show everyone how you don't bleed. Getting blown up at the start of the fight? Too much slows holding you down? No problem invest into a defensive upgrade. Though this does come at the cost of an item slot, so while the reward is higher so is the risk.

To me this seems like the best way to really push that niche of an undying behemoth who only grows stronger the more blood he spills

Also keep in mind i created this with the preseason in mind, Many champions will get stat adjustments and such to adapt to the new rune system. And i felt like posting an idea to give Sion a different kind of update to really give him a unique niche again.