@Scruffy and CertainlyT: Sion Rework Feedback

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Hi, Scruffy and CertainlyT. I am writing to provide some feedback on the Sion rework. Sion holds a very special place for me. I do consider myself a Sion "main," as he has been my most played champion throughout the seasons I have played. I started playing League on my first account back when Riot won the Golden Joystick award (2010), so I've been around for quite a number of years. I've stuck with Sion through the good and the bad as he slowly gathered dust on his old MS Paint splash screen. When I heard that he was being reworked, I even wrote up an in-depth suggestion thread (http://forums.na.leagueoflegends.com/board/showthread.php?t=4326054), which gained a lot of support, though I didn't have the time to keep it properly bumped. I am actually a fan of certain aspects of the rework. I love the new Sion lore/artwork, which is a great deal more polished than what I had suggested. There are, however, parts of his new kit that I am not entirely satisfied with, which is why I am addressing this thread to you. This is by no means a complaint thread, though you will find that I am not afraid to offer constructive criticism.

I will start with some of the things that I do like about the reworked Sion.

1. I consider his new artwork, lore, and voiceover to all be definite improvements. Together, they offer much more detail to his character and create a theme with wider appeal than old Sion had. I really appreciate this.

2. I like Sion's new playstyle in the jungle. His new AOE abilities make him feel much more at home clearing camps, whether or not his clear speed actually increased (I'll mention more on this later). However, there are some parts of his new kit that make his jungling feel undertuned compared to old Sion (I'll get to this later too).

3. I like Soul Forge. It is definitely more powerful than his old shield with the way that I like to build Sion (tanky/bruiser). I also prefer the new ability name over the old one (death's caress was a little cliché) and the new ability is honestly wonderful eye candy in-game.

4. I like Roar of the Slayer. The mechanics for it are interesting and well designed. As a replacement for the old passive Enrage, this ability has made Sion’s kit significantly more exciting to use.

5. I like Sion's new ultimate. It feels rewarding when well executed for teamfight initiation or surprise ganks. Overall, I like the new ultimate and feel that it is a good fit for Sion. However, I do think that his old ultimate's massive lifesteal buff was the "spirit" of the champion in a lot of ways, and should have been kept in some way in his new kit. I don't think the undying lifestealer fantasy has adequately survived being moved to the current new passive...

Now for some things that I don't like about Sion's new kit...

1. His new Q (Decimating Smash) versus his old Q (Cryptic Gaze) is much, much less reliable to the point where it mostly only feels usable against jungle camps now. In laning, it is so easily interrupted or avoided that it rarely feels worth investing his limited mana into trying to trade against a skilled opponent with Decimating Smash as lane Sion (blue buff makes this acceptable for jungle Sion). Sion's previous Q was his main gapcloser and trading tool. Sion could use Cryptic Gaze to punish ill-conceived turret dives or trade back against mobile champions that like to leap in, trade, and then leap out (Renekton and Riven for examples). Sion now has no real recourse against these type of laners. The gap closer aspect of his old Q has been adequately compensated for in his new kit but his ability to trade damage has not, and this is a big cut in the power budget of lane Sion, who was already plenty weak enough (generally considered unviable) back when he had a reliable stun, more HP, a sizeable AD buff, and incredible post-level-6 sustain. Quite honestly, new Sion desperately needs a buff to his laning.

2. I am not happy with Sion's new passive. Thematically, it seems cool, but it does not feel useful at all when playing. If anything, it feels almost like an unnecessary penalty, increasing his death timer. Being a true lifesteal tank was core to Sion's identity for me, and this passive has failed to keep that alive. I played Sion because I enjoyed refusing to die, not because I wanted to run around like a chicken without a head while staying dead longer. At best, this passive lets Sion create a slight diversion in teamfights, at its worst (most of the time) it simply lengthens his death timer. If the death/rebirth animation were removed, Sion might actually stand a slight chance of catching up to the least mobile opponents before his health decays, but even then it would still feel pretty bad/useless in most cases. If it offered some sort of actual revive (and was given a cooldown), like Aatrox's passive, it would probably feel a lot better. But on the other hand, Sion should really have a unique passive rather than a recreation of what Aatrox already has...

3. Sion's strength as a hitpoint-hyperscaling meat shield is undertuned and doesn't live up to his fantasy. I will acknowledge that Sion does make better use of health thanks to his new shield scaling, but otherwise, his health now feels like a major weakness in his kit where it used to be a core strength. Old Sion's health advantage over other champions gave him two fairly decent major paths when playing AD. He could choose to build a lot of damage and still have some level of survivability if he farmed up for late game. Or, as I preferred to do, he could build fairly heavy resistances/health and become an unkillable juggernaut late game. Even building tanky, old Sion could afford to put a couple semi-offensive items, like Atma's Impaler and Frozen Mallet, into his final build to become a lategame monster that refused to die or be ignored. Old Sion's natural health was a strength he could build around rather than being a weakness that needed to be filled with items/farming. And, isn't that what a hyperscaler is supposed to do? -Amplify their strengths to become a monster late game? In stead, new Sion feels like he is struggling/working all game towards filling this newly created deficit. I think this is just an undertuning issue, and with Sion's worse-than-ever trading potential during laning, I really think he can afford a buff to give back this core strength or to even emphasize it more than in his old kit. I think it would be pretty safe to give Sion back about 300-400 of the 700 base health you shaved off his level 18 pool. But, I really think it may be even better to further increase his health gains for CS to emphasize his hyperscaling to the point where health becomes a real strength for him again. In Sion's current state, I think there is room for this buff without subtracting from other areas of his kit.

4. I am disappointed that jungle Sion has lost most of his dragon control. Cannibalism allowed him to solo the dragon at level 6 which was a big reason for me to take him into the jungle. I do feel that new Sion has greater ganking potential, but this is already compensated to a fair extent by how much less reliable his ganks now are (harder/riskier to land his CC). Also, while he has gained two new AOE abilities for camp clearing, it should not be forgotten that old Sion actually had pretty decent camp clearing with a tiamat thanks to the bonus AD on enrage. This change shows another strength that Sion has lost and should be fully considered in deciding his new power budget...

5. While I understand why AP Sion was removed, I feel this has been a lost opportunity for what AP Sion could have been. While the previous play patterns of AP Sion may have been undesirable, I feel that the issues it had could have been resolved while making it fit with his lore theme (he is, afterall, a creature reborn from dark necromantic magic; this is demonstrated with his soul forge ability). It's also worth noting that even with his new kit, Sion still has two abilities that scale with AP; they just have too low of ratios on their own to make any AP/hybrid Sion builds worthwhile.

Please see below for a draft concept for how I think Sion could be tweaked to improve his current kit. I appreciate your consideration and if you do decide to move forward with any of these suggested changes, I trust that you will be able to apply your own polish to them. If it isn't too much to ask, I would appreciate if the two of you, Scruffy and CertainlyT, could review my feedback and collaborate together going forward with tweaking Sion. I think that the two of you have complementary design tendencies that can help one another get Sion to where he belongs. Scruffy, I've seen that you tend to be very conservative when minding the power budget of a champ's kit, while you, CertainlyT, seem to sit on the far liberal side of that spectrum. I am hoping that you can both take a look this then meet somewhere in the middle when it comes to balancing Sion accordingly.

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Undying Glory Sion gains 4% bonus Lifesteal and Spell Vamp per 500 health he is missing. When below 25% of his maximum health, Sion will enter a frenzy, gaining Death Surge (if not on cooldown).

Death Surge COOLDOWN: 100 Sion gains 50% bonus movement speed and 30% bonus attack speed that decays over 1.5 second. This duration is increased by 0.35 seconds each time Sion autoattacks.

[This passive would feel much better for Sion players while matching his "unkillable monster" fantasy. This would provide Sion with scaling "pseudo-sustain" that he desperately needs now that he cannot reliably trade damage over extended confrontations (such as in laning). The reason that I call it "pseudo-sustain" is because it would not be capable of healing Sion to full health in any circumstance and would only be particularly effective when already at low health. Also, Sion would remain gated by his mana costs during laning. This passive would scale to become quite strong for lategame dueling, which old Sion exceled at, but would be very weak early, allowing Sion to continue to be bullied. This would make it possible for Sion to survive longer while at low health so that he is not entirely pushed out of his lane by strong pokers/traders. However, it should also be kept in mind that Sion would be putting himself at risk of getting burst, tower-dove, ganked (or counterjungled) by choosing to stick around at low health. Sion players would need to be able to choose when that risk would be worth the reward of additional CS, and greedy Sions' trying to over-utilize this passive would surely be punished harshly by their opponents.

There are several reasons why I think that having the sustain from this passive should scale up by static chunks of missing health rather than % missing health. Firstly, it creates synergy with Soul Furnace's health gains, allowing Sion to theoretically gain infinite lifesteal/spellvamp (though only in the same sense that he can theoretically gain infinite HP/5 just from owning Warmog's). Secondly, it is self-balancing in regards to damage-heavy builds versus tanky builds. Damage-heavy Sion would naturally heal more from lower lifesteal/spellvamp percentages due to the higher damage output, while Sion stacking health items would put out far less damage for his higher lifesteal/spellvamp percentages to actually apply with.

The change to Death Surge would make it into an anti-escape/anti-kiting tool for very close duels. This would really come in handy where his ability to get in-range to lifesteal is the different between life and death (well, undeath and death). Having the duration increase when autoattacking ensures that it is more suitable as a chasing tool than an escape tool. Of course, since it would only come into effect below 25% health, the chances are that he could simply be finished off with any decent burst or CC at that point anyways, so it shouldn't be too overwhelming on its own. I'd like to see it use the current passive's visuals when active, but it would need animations created for casting spells in its duration.]

Decimating Smash RANGE: X COST: 50 / 55 / 60 / 65 / 70 mana COOLDOWN: 10 / 9 / 8 / 7 / 6 (Passive) Spirit Breaker: Sion’s autoattacks reduce his opponent’s magic resistance by 3/5/7/9/11 (only stacks up to 5 times against neutral monsters) for 5 seconds and deal Magic Damage equal to 50% of his AP. First Cast: Sion starts channeling, increasing the damage of Decimating Smash over the next 2 seconds. If Sion's channel is interrupted by crowd control, Decimating Smash will have a reduced cooldown. Second Cast: Sion smashes his axe into the ground, dealing physical damage in an area in front of himself and briefly slowing enemies hit. If he charges Decimating Smash for at least 1 second, enemies hit will be knocked up for 1.25 seconds, up to 2.25 if Decimating Smash is fully channeled. If Sion casts Decimating Smash before 1 second, he will slow whomever he hits instead. Minions take 60% damage.

Minimum Physical Damage: 20 / 40 / 60 / 80 / 100 (+ 60% AD) Maximum Physical Damage: 60 / 120 / 180 / 240 / 300 (+ 180% AD)

[Adding the passive “Spirit Breaker” would help provide a full kit for AP/hybrid Sion. Please keep in mind that AP Sion was actually the most popular way of building him prior to the rework (though I personally didn’t use it) and was even previously endorsed by the Riot staff via his old recommended build path. The current new Sion kit also still has AP ratios on half of his skills. Thematically, I actually find AP Sion both fitting (in terms of new lore/visuals) and extremely appealing. Sion is a being bound to the world of the living by powerful magic. His caged soul is lashing out from its hollow corpse prison. This is shown best in Sion’s current Soul Forge ability. I certainly consider AP Sion more thematically fitting than AP Jax, and really, the concept is actually more lore-friendly than AP Katarina or AP Akali when you get down to it (why are these blade-wielding assassins carrying around Needlessly Big Rods?). I am not asking that the old AP Sion’s playstyle be reincarnated (the targeted stun burst combo was boring), but I would like you to consider what AP Sion could be. Players like having the flexibility to build champions in creative ways. This kind of flexibility is part of the League formula for fun.

The Spirit Breaker effect itself can be imagined as a weaker melee equivalent of Teemo’s Toxic Shot with no base damage (so that it doesn’t benefit AD Sion too much) and with the AP ratio damage front-loaded in stead of being dealt over time (Toxic Shot gets a potential 70% AP ratio but part of it is done over time). While on its surface this may look a bit weak compared to other similar abilities (no base damage, lower ratio, and requires melee range), AP Sion would still benefit from the Decimating Smash’s CC and base damage. I also included a suggested Magic Resistance shredding effect somewhat similar to the effect included on Wit’s End. This MR shredding effect would make it possible for AP Sion to increase his damage output over long fights. This effect would also slightly boost AD Sion’s damage output due to Soul Furnace and Roar of the Slayer dealing base Magic Damage. It would also synergize with some on-hit effects that AD Sion could potentially build, like BotRK. I have suggested a maximum limit of 5 stacks of this effect on neutral monsters due to how strong it could potentially be against Baron/Dragon. I don’t think such a limit would be needed against enemy champions due to the difficulty Sion would have sticking on them over long durations.

I think it would be really cool to see an indicator, such as a glow effect reminiscent of the light emanating from his chest cavity, added to Sion’s weapon or hands to represent the amount of AP he has. The effect could be made more noticeable (more particles, more vivid coloration, etc.) based on how much AP Sion has. This would allow some of the least observant players to easily recognize if a Sion is build AP so that they can respond by counterbuilding accordingly.]

Soul Furnace RANGE: 550 COST: 70 / 75 / 80 / 85 / 90 mana COOLDOWN: 13 seconds after shield expires
Passive: Sion permanently gains 2/2.5/3/3.5/4 bonus health whenever he kills a unit, increased to 8 against large units and champion kills and assists.

Active: Sion surrounds himself with a shield that absorbs damage for up to 6 seconds. After 2 seconds, Soul Furnace can be recast to detonate the shield if it hasn't been destroyed, dealing magic damage to all nearby enemies. Bonus damage from the target's maximum health is capped at 400 against minions and monsters. The shield will detonate automatically if it persists for the full 6 seconds.

Shield Strength: 30 / 55 / 80 / 105 / 130 (+ 40% AP) (+ 10% of maximum health) Magic Damage: 40 / 65 / 90 / 115 / 140 (+ 40% AP) (+ 10 / 11 / 12 / 13 / 14% of target's maximum health) Soul Furnace can be activated and detonated while using any of his abilities.

[The only change that I suggested here is to make Sion’s maximum health gains from small minions/monsters scale based on his rank in Soul Furnace. This would be an outright buff to solidify Sion’s role as the hyperscaling meat shield, because that fantasy feels lacking at the moment. On its own, I think Sion can afford this buff in his power budget, especially if his base health is kept as low as it is currently. If, however, this were done in addition to the other buffs/tweaks (reworked passive in particular) that I’ve suggested, then some power may need to be removed from elsewhere in the ability. I think it would be acceptable to cut the health scaling on the shield to 7.5% or so. Speaking for myself, I wouldn’t personally mind that loss and would be quite happy with the change.]

Roar of the Slayer RANGE: X COST: 25 mana COOLDOWN: 12 / 11 / 10 / 9 / 8

Active: Sion bellows in the target direction, dealing magic damage to the first enemy he hits, as well as slowing it and reducing its armor by 20% for 2.5 seconds.

Magic Damage: 70 / 105 / 140 / 175 / 210 (+ 40% AP) Slow: 40 / 45 / 50 / 55 / 60% If the target is not a champion, it will be knocked back X units - dealing 150% damage to all enemies it passes through and slowing them by the same amount for 2.5 seconds. Minions and monsters cannot be knocked through terrain. Increased Damage: 105 / 157.5 / 210 / 262.5 / 315 (+ 60% AP)

[I think this ability is good as-is. It works well for both AD Sion and AP Sion. I wouldn’t change a thing. I like the creative mechanic of throwing minions as well. Well done. Your hard work is appreciated.]

Unstoppable Onslaught COST: 100 mana COOLDOWN: 140 / 100 / 60
First Cast: Sion charges in the target direction for up to 8 seconds, during which time he cannot cast abilities nor attack, but is immune to all crowd control effects. Sion's trajectory will update toward the mouse cursor over the duration, but his rotation speed is significantly slow.

If Sion collides with an enemy champion or terrain, charges for the full 8 seconds, or recasts the ability, he will slam the ground with earth-shattering force, dealing damage and knocking up enemies nearby enemies, while slowing enemies further away. The damage and crowd control duration increase over the first few seconds of the charge, capping at 200% damage and 1.75 seconds respectively.

Minimum Physical Damage: 100 / 200 / 300 (+ 40% bonus AD) Maximum Physical Damage: 200 / 400 / 600 (+ 80% bonus AD) Minimum Magic Damage: 50 / 100 / 150 (+ 30% bonus AP) Maximum Magic Damage: 100 / 200 / 300 (+ 60% bonus AP)

[My only suggested change for Unstoppable Onslaught is to redistribute the damage to provide a mix of AD and AP. The base damage numbers shown here haven’t gone up overall – Some of the base physical damage has simply been moved to base Magic Damage. This combined with the addition of an AP ratio would be the last step in creating a full kit for AP Sion. The visual effects on Unstoppable Onslaught are actually very similar to Soul Forge (Sion surrounds himself in unnatural “flames” while he charges then releases an explosion upon impact), so I feel this change would be entirely fitting thematically.]

Thank you for reading! I really appreciate your consideration. Even if you choose a different direction, hopefully I have provided material for thought. Throughout the rework process, I have put a fair amount of effort into providing feedback. I am sure there are other players just as passionate about Sion who simply aren’t as long winded. I only hope that you continue in your diligence to make Sion the best that he can be now that he hurdle of release has been crossed. Your work so far is greatly appreciated! -Painted Celt (Sam)