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@Riot: 5.5 & 5.6 Sion Changes

FirstSergeantBim·3/25/2015, 9:33:30 PM·3 votes·1,203 views

@Meddler, @Scarizard, @PWYFF, @Riot Balance Team

The 5.5 and 5.6 changes to Sion are troubling to me and many others. What made you think his presence was too strong and why did you solve that by increasing mana costs and reducing his damage? I believe there was not enough time for the community to react to his presence and develop strategies to counter his strength and play on his weakness. **Unless you can give me more information and proof that Sion was uniquely too powerful, I must view these changes as hasty and impulsive (especially when taking your piece on Nidalee into consideration). In addition, these changes tell me you are unfamiliar with his counter-play. **

Furthermore, I find issue with the community's perception of what is strong and what is weak. Squishy, high burst champions that possess high-risk, high-reward gameplay have been popular for some time. This has lead to Marksmen and Mages finding frustration in game because they cannot rely on random teammates to protect them with durable, high utility champions. Sion, Sejuani and Cinderhulk in Patch 5.5 helped, but you are reverting that impact. Weakening champions like Sion and Sejuani instead of strengthening them will only hinder a shift to team-focused play instead of encourage it. **If you want the LoL community to embrace team-oriented play, champions like Sion must remain strong until this shift can happen and I implore you to re-evaluate the changes you are making to this game. I guarantee that if you create a more diverse set of durable, highly disruptive champions, the LoL community will naturally come to embrace a team-oriented mindset. **

Concerning Sion: It is no secret that he scales into his durability over time through farm and items. Did you know that Sion is one of the most fragile champions in the game at level 1? Shaco, and many others, are in fact more durable until Sion can acquire the farm and items he needs, but guess whose primary role is tank. I'll give you a hint, it doesn't rhyme with taco. Sion needs his damage and CC to survive the early game. Damage that requires hybrid penetration to remain relevant throughout the match and CC that relies on Sion's skill to land or the enemy's skill to avoid. This penetration can only be found easily through runes and masteries and in order to attain it, he must sacrifice durability when he is most fragile.

The changes you have implemented put Sion in a position dependent on his team early on. Is that what you intended for Sion? If so, why do you feel that this is fun and fair? I would love to show you how simple the strategies are to counter Sion. If you saw how effective they can be in shutting him down, I know for certain that you would re-evaluate the changes because I know that you balance champions around counter-play, Veigar is an example of this.

The following are examples of the counter-play Sion possesses:

  1. If Sion builds full defense early, his damage is marginal early and falls off once the enemy builds resistances and health.
  2. Sion's mana cannot sustain his ability use required to keep enemies at bay.
  3. If Sion is unable to land his skill-shots (all four of his abilities), Sion is non-threatening.
  4. Champions with stronger all-in potential, poke or sustain (all popular meta picks possess these characteristics) are able to zone Sion out of farm through proper positioning with little threat from Sion.
  5. If Sion does not have proper access to a minion or monster, the damage from his E Pass-through is non-threatening to enemy champions.
  6. If the enemy chooses to engage Sion in direct combat at early levels, Sion cannot compete because he is fragile and his skill-shots are telegraphed.
  7. If Sion becomes too strong for the opponent, it is without a doubt because they were not prepared to face him or they are not at an appropriate skill level relative to Sion.
  8. If Sion engages the enemy team early on, he is not durable enough to survive focus and easily killed since he is big, slow and lacking mobility.

**I challenge you to watch the community push Sion out of competitive play as they learn to counter him. He has been stripped of the powers that made him viable in a competitive setting where opponents are of equal skill and knowledge. Not only that, the transition to team focused play will be hindered and the community will suffer as a result. **

EDIT: I have edited my original post to help clearly outline my intentions.

10 Comments

SIayton3/25/2015, 9:38:45 PM4 votes

I feel like the changes were a little hasty as well. He wasn't blowing teams out of the water and rarely carried games, he was just fuilfilling the tank role well while being fun to play, hence his popularity. Most top laners can easily beat him in a straight up fight, so he needed the damage on minion E's to poke them down to manageable levels. People are just inexperienced right now and don't know to not stand between sion and a minion.

I really hope they don't touch him again unless his win rate gets ridiculous.

Jaygo413/25/2015, 10:25:02 PM1 votes

when you can get 4.2k HP at 25 minutes in the game and still do a fair amount of dmg, things need to come down not only that he's fairly contested in competitive play

LoRdJeSuS69694203/25/2015, 10:27:50 PM1 votes

His winrate was excessively high after the patch. Their changes were also partly just meant to make him less powerful of a jungler, and the damage to monsters change doesn't affect his top lane power at all.

LoRdJeSuS69694203/26/2015, 6:12:15 AM1 votes

I don't know. A relatively small (~13%) damage reduction on a situational use of a single spell on a champion with a 55% winrate does not seem to warrant any complaints, in my opinion. They aren't exactly gutting him.

I think claiming that he encourages teamwork and coordination might be going a bit far as well. How much coordination does it take to say "lets group?" Or to ping the enemy midlaner before you ult up through lane? Not very much... Teamfights will inevitably occur in most games and champions that excel at them are going to be stronger...and that should be taken into consideration when looking at balance. The way I see it, it's split-push or pick oriented compositions that require the most careful coordination.

Sarchiapon3/26/2015, 6:13:23 AM1 votes

Let's be real: Sion is FOTM actually. People talked shit about him from day one after his rework...and now they spam him. The nerf was just a matter of when. That happens with a lot of champs, and i don't get why Sion should be the exception.

That being said, the nerfs are really mild. If you put a squishy against Sion, you will have to watch your positiong cause, differently by what people said, his kit is really not that difficult to land. You have to be constantly on the move to avoid charged E, Q and W's splash, all the while farming and harassing. You can avoid put a minion between you and Sion, but you still don't want him to circle you and get near anyway, expecially if the jungler is a factor. It's not that simple.

If you put a tank with sustain against Sion, you will probably gain the upper hand cause sooner or later you will outscale him. I think Trundle is a good choice against him. But, problem is, people are playing Sion mainly cause they are told to, but they still generally despise tanks. People don't want to "contain" someone in the top lane, they want to kill it. That put Sion in a good position cause he can greatly assist the jungler in ganking, dealing good poke in the meanwhile, while being difficult to kill or wear down fast.

So, the nerfs are good cause they are aimed at a playerbase than mostly does not want to deal with Sion like they should, but by a FOTM point of view that is exactly like the one that push people to play Sion in the first place. Mostly as the first Kata nerf ("we must help people CC her"), RioT is saying "we must help the medium top laner in dealing with Sion".