How is sion best played?

Pyrite Hank·11/18/2014, 1:45:40 AM·3 votes·1,160 views

I used to play the old sion a lot, loved it, unique experience, hardcore lategame. But i hated the new sion, i tried him once as support and realized too late that he was an atrocious support, so i built AD Tank, got a hydra, sunfire, randuins, and warmogs. Long story short, i was melted by their caitly, (who lost lane because i was pentaqueuing and laning with an adc main friend) and kited to oblivion and even outtraded by their support nami (who was building pure utility) so i came to the conclusion that sion is useless, but watching streams and playing ranked has showed me many sions, most of which sucked, and non that were good, some didn't lose lane and got some initiations off but long story short, seeing an ok sion has given me hope, so i want to know what path to take him in(runes,masteries,ability order, and build) Thanks,

A potential sion player

9 Comments

fullmute a1111/18/2014, 1:52:23 AM2 votes

I'm working on this as well. I generally haven't had any personally bad games with him yet as I find it easy to safely farm in any lane so far as well as being pretty safe/high health in jungle. But again, late game he is just a tank and his ult can be unreliable in certain engagements plus vs certain teams. I also have been building him full tank. Which now I'm going to try to mix in 1-2 dmg items instead of 100% tank items. Like Muramana or hexdrinker plus last whisper later after a couple tank items. Anyways this is just what I'm trying out now, it worked last game. We'll see how it goes from here.

Jenova Synthesis11/18/2014, 2:42:57 AM2 votes

I would have to say with the Q,W,E,R S and D keys, along with the mouse. That seems to be pretty universal to all the champions.

Jungle Lux God11/18/2014, 3:05:08 AM2 votes

I can't tell you too much about runes and masteries because I use the same rune page on all of my tanks and I use the same 2 mastery pages on all of my tanks, one for jungle and one for non-jungle. I also can't say too much about build because his build is more reactive to the enemy team more than anything else, although I do like Randuin's and Banshee's on him.

Where to play Sion changes your ability order a lot. If you decide to play him jungle, I personally max RWQE for maximum tankiness in the jungle, although W scales so well with the health that Sion infinitely stacks that you can max Q first and still be fine. You also want to make sure you get Spirit of the Ancient Golem as your jungle item because of how strong Sion is with the item. Also, you want to farm a little bit more than other tank junglers because of how hard the Soul Furnace passive scales with the large monsters.

In the top lane, your skill order changes a lot. Go REQW as your ability order. Maxing E first gives you tons of poke in the early game, and your poke is mana efficient too, so you can spam it a lot. You can choose to build an offensive item on top lane Sion because of the extra gold income, and Sion can afford to have less tank stats than other champs as well. Hydra and BotRK would probably be the best options, while Hexdrinker is a solid offensive option against AP tops. Also, make it a priority to last hit the cannon minion more than you would on most other champs to get the bonus health stack. The cannon minion is worth 5 times the health of another minion.

DrNova11/18/2014, 7:04:55 AM2 votes

Sion is one step of being Worthwhile. Unless you have a R up, everyone can stay away from you. The only time Sion is useful is in a teamfight you can cause some good chaos. But not reliable enough for a team that you'd ever WANt Sion on your team.

MattAkhavan11/18/2014, 9:39:35 AM2 votes

Sion is super strong top right now. Build him like an average top bruiser with average runes and masteries and you'll be fine. Max his E, roar of the slayer. Tons of damage poke and potential to own people.

Watch maknoon play if you want more detail, he plays sion top more foten than anyone else i think.

Pvt Yong Tai11/18/2014, 10:01:51 AM2 votes

I have a Podcast Tutorial on playing Sion as a support, you can check it out here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=isoV2Xdrqpk

It's kind of like a follow up video to another video on top of that, so check out Winning Condition's video too (link in the description on the YT page)

Well, shameless advertising aside, the new Sion is in a pretty rough spot. His strengths are difficult to point out, and can be incredibly hard to capitalize upon in certain situations. I explain it in the video but I'll explain it again briefly here as well.

The new Sion is a really great teamfighter. All of his skills are team-dependent, but landing them provides powerful utility to a fight. The new Sion seems to suck because people don't know how to play with him yet.

I'd say in solo queue, the new Sion is really low on the tier board. He's hard to play (though simple in mechanics), his playstyle is a little funky (AD caster with rather large cooldowns), it's hard to get random players on the same tempo when teamfighting, etc.

However, in an organized team, I'd say he's potentially a situational but very high tier pick. His skills can shred enemies and put several of them out of commission all at once if you can land them, his ult becomes incredibly scary when you have a teammate lock down enemies right before, and he has very serviceable poke as well, allowing you to slowly gain the upper hand even if the enemy team is being reluctant to teamfight.

I explain more in the video. If you want an example of a nice team play, check out this video (@1:49):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tveyldeuI_8&src_vid=isoV2Xdrqpk&feature=iv&annotation_id=annotation_1795906997#t=1m49s
I ult in after Nocturne blinds all the enemies with his ult, giving me an easy shot and winning the teamfight nearly 4v5 (Zed was super low HP).

Oleandervine11/18/2014, 8:00:14 PM2 votes

I think your main problem was trying to play Sion as a support...

Sion works very best as a tank. You can build a few offensive items like Maw or Black Cleaver, but your mainstay is shoving his durability through the roof. Once he gets his HP and Armor/MR rolling, he can out live pretty much any opponent and even his middling AD and skill damage will eventually force and enemy to flee or die.

IAintDarius11/18/2014, 8:03:51 PM2 votes

Full tank. Farm for 30 minutes and just focus on landing CC more than damage in team fights. imo at least.

Kuroi8611/18/2014, 9:29:17 PM2 votes

Ad reds, armor yellows, mr blues, two cdr quints and one Ad quint. 9/21/0 Bork, Frozen Mallet, tank. Good 1v1 dueling potential and helps with your passive threat level in team fights.