Isn't New Sion's health scaling passive on Soul Furnice pointless?

JedenVojak·Oct 10, 2014·151 votes·16,429 views

Sion's base health at lv 18 has been reduced to 1680, from 2275: it now takes 298 CS to equal his original health before the rework, and that's not taking into account the fact that old Sion was also scaling his health on top of that base level. Riot might as well have just left his base health alone and taken away the health scaling passive all together.

If you make a character have a bonus "strength" in an area, but then put them so far behind the average in that area to the point that you need the bonus just to get up to par, that is not a bonus at all - it is a non-ability.

164 Comments

EdgeSanityOct 10, 201449 votes

Well it's actually a pretty big penalty to have to farm up to something everyone else gets for free.

RaptameiOct 10, 201418 votes

Well it's actually a pretty big penalty to have to farm up to something everyone else gets for free.

Oh a free spell? How cool! Lissandra 85 mana Q

Oh.

Report Team GGOct 10, 201425 votes

its riot logic.

garen used to have a passive that gave him free armour/mr.

so riot gave him the lowest base armour in the game.....

DurzakaOct 10, 201411 votes

its riot logic.

garen used to have a passive that gave him free armour/mr.

so riot gave him the lowest base armour in the game.....

Going to assume they changed that when he got changed? Because he is tied for third highest base armor in the game right now.

Caldwell AzvianOct 10, 201415 votes

I too noticed this and it bugs me. I would rather they either reduce the health scaling by the ability or remove it entirely so long as they restore some of his natural health.

TserrisOct 10, 201412 votes

You people conveniently seem to be forgetting the massive amount of crowd control, mobility, range, and overall damage added to his kit. Pretty short-sighted to fixate on his health and solely that instead of looking at the big picture of this complete kit rework.

You guys put the R in something, guess what.

JedenVojakOct 10, 201456 votes

You people conveniently seem to be forgetting the massive amount of crowd control, mobility, range, and overall damage added to his kit. Pretty short-sighted to fixate on his health and solely that instead of looking at the big picture of this complete kit rework.

You guys put the R in something, guess what.

This isn't about his kit - his new kit actually looks pretty interesting to me, although the shifting of his old ult to his passive is a huge nerf if you liked AD carry Sion.

This is about this weird thing I've noticed with several new champions and champion changes where they basically are given non-abilities. For example -Azir has a passive which gives him attack speed for cooldown reduction; Azir has the 2nd lowest attack speed in the game -The Soraka rework sigh gives her a move speed bonus passive, but lowers her base move speed -The Cass rework gave her a passive for scaling cooldown reduction and bonus AP, but lowered the damage on her abilities and upped her cooldowns

This is about Anti-abilities; abilities which don't give you anything, because to compensate for you having the ability, you're worse at that thing than almost every other champ in the game. That's what I take issue to.

ProfDrDeathOct 10, 201412 votes

The reason they lowered his base HP/lvl for Soul Furnace's bonus HP gain is simple - it allows them to better differentiate the worst and best cases.

Imagine if Sion still had his old 104 HP/level. That would mean, he'd be pretty tanky even if he did not kill any creeps at all. However, if he killed anything, his HP amount would be skyrocketing to levels that are incredibly hard to deal with, especially in the early stages of the game. That means, the gain from Soul Furnace's passive would have to be incredibly small (like, 1 HP per creep, without a bonus for bigger creeps).

To accomodate that best case, they lowered his base gain significantly. Now, if he has an average or sub-average game, he'll only get as much tankiness as the next bruiser or tank (HP/lvl in the range of 85-100). However, if he has a significantly better game, he'll still get to be a total brick wall.

For numbers:

Sion will get a comfortable amount of HP with 10 CS/lvl, as a laner.
As a jungler, you need to do 2 camps/lvl, as camps give, on average, 12 HP.
If you do 3 camps/lvl, you exceed the old HP/lvl gain.

TUfekAeySiOct 10, 201414 votes

Except that old Sion did have the original 104 HP/level, higher base health and the "Soul Furnace" (Enrage) passive. And no, it didn't really help him snowball at all.

The OP is completely on the ball, it's a non-ability at best and an active handicap at worst.

Teridax68Oct 10, 201416 votes

Except old Sion 's kit was balanced around his old kit, which included not only his health gain but also his other abilities. Old Sion was balanced around being able to stack tons of health on top of his ultra-high bases, along with his point-and-click stun, magey shield and overwhelming ultimate steroid, and paid a high price for it (super-high mana costs, extreme kiteability, an inability to put his kit to full use). New Sion not only functions better as a whole, and can do a ton of things old Sion never could (initiate, travel across the map, stunlock the entire enemy team at once, etc.), but also scales a lot better with health thanks to his new shield. If Sion was somehow too squishy, then perhaps that would warrant an increase to his base health, but as it stands Sion looks like he can be extremely tanky despite his low health gain per level.

JevelFaithfulOct 10, 20144 votes

+1 for pointing out that he has a lot more tools now (or so it seems from looking at the kit) and that they can buff him if need be.

TserrisOct 10, 201411 votes

So your argument is that because these champions had native stats reduced, that these new "non-abilities" "don't do anything"?

Are you really this simple-minded? Azir's base attack speed is low, so the free attack speed he gets from buying non attack speed items gives him no edge whatsoever?! Are you blind?! What other champion can get 1.2 attack speed without a single attack speed item? No one.

Cass had BASE DAMAGES reduced, she also had her scaling INCREASED, but hey, i guess because her laning phase is weaker, that means her late game is just as shitty with way fkin more AP than anyone but Veigar, huh?

And Sion? Sion is brokenly strong right now, and if the game goes longer than 30 minutes you can crack 4k+ health if you're a moderately good farmer, it isn't 2 health per kill period, it's 2 health for small jungle monster and minion kill and 8 per large monster/minion kill and 8 for every champion kill AND assist. That means that as a jungler, with only 80-90 CS and a handful of successful ganks, you can easily have around 400 bonus health by the end of a 20 minute game -if you lane with SIon, you can easily double that number.

You're basically saying that because the base numbers are lower on these champions, that these abilities they have that scale incredibly well into the mid and late game do nothing.

Well, you're an idiot.

Commando YiOct 10, 201412 votes

So your argument is that because these champions had native stats reduced, that these new "non-abilities" "don't do anything"?

Are you really this simple-minded? Azir's base attack speed is low, so the free attack speed he gets from buying non attack speed items gives him no edge whatsoever?! Are you blind?! What other champion can get 1.2 attack speed without a single attack speed item? No one.

Cass had BASE DAMAGES reduced, she also had her scaling INCREASED, but hey, i guess because her laning phase is weaker, that means her late game is just as shitty with way fkin more AP than anyone but Veigar, huh?

And Sion? Sion is brokenly strong right now, and if the game goes longer than 30 minutes you can crack 4k+ health if you're a moderately good farmer, it isn't 2 health per kill period, it's 2 health for small jungle monster and minion kill and 8 per large monster/minion kill and 8 for every champion kill AND assist. That means that as a jungler, with only 80-90 CS and a handful of successful ganks, you can easily have around 400 bonus health by the end of a 20 minute game -if you lane with SIon, you can easily double that number.

You're basically saying that because the base numbers are lower on these champions, that these abilities they have that scale incredibly well into the mid and late game do nothing.

Well, you're an idiot.

congratulations on spending 20 minutes to reach the halfway mark to his old base hp stats!

or if you were in lane farming against a disconnected opponent, you've managed to reach just over where your hp was before the rework!

splendid

i look forward to your mobafire guide on reaching challenger

TserrisOct 10, 20148 votes

You're an idiot. You're still looking at this without factoring in the fact that this NEW KIT has much, MUCH, much more damage in it, has an AoE slow, an AoE Knockup, a line slow, armor shred, an AoE stun and a massively long ranged intitiation tool.

If we were talking about OLD sion with his dog Sh*t kit, you'dd have some ground to stand on.

Fact is, new sion is a badass, and he needed something reduced to compensate. Quit crying about one part of a greater whole.

Commando YiOct 10, 201417 votes

You're an idiot. You're still looking at this without factoring in the fact that this NEW KIT has much, MUCH, much more damage in it, has an AoE slow, an AoE Knockup, a line slow, armor shred, an AoE stun and a massively long ranged intitiation tool.

If we were talking about OLD sion with his dog Sh*t kit, you'dd have some ground to stand on.

Fact is, new sion is a badass, and he needed something reduced to compensate. Quit crying about one part of a greater whole.

stopped reading at the bolded

this wood tier rage backed by wood tier knowledge and understanding of the game won't get you very far in discussions

TserrisOct 10, 20145 votes

Educate yourself before you try to sound like a league god, lol.

Commando YiOct 10, 20145 votes

Educate yourself before you try to sound like a league god, lol.

how little you understand is clear from your previous post and i know better than to engage in pointless discussions with your kind

TserrisOct 10, 20145 votes

I don't have to prove anything, lol. The only argument you have is a bunch of clearly biased opinionated diarrhea, and that you're not even willing to put up a factual and statistically sound argument.

Bottom line, from the most dumbed-down (which you clearly need) standpoint, Sion has five skills that revolve around outputting damage, old sion had two and an attack speed/life steal steroid.

New Sion has better base damages, all of his skills minus his passive can deal AoE damage, his skills have much better scaling, more CC (much more CC), actual mobility, and actual synergy with itself.

You can sit there on your high horse, but all you're accomplishing is making yourself look like an uneducated child that lacks even the motivation to back up his own arguments.

Commando YiOct 10, 20145 votes

I don't have to prove anything, lol. The only argument you have is a bunch of clearly biased opinionated diarrhea, and that you're not even willing to put up a factual and statistically sound argument.

Bottom line, from the most dumbed-down (which you clearly need) standpoint, Sion has five skills that revolve around outputting damage, old sion had two and an attack speed/life steal steroid.

New Sion has better base damages, all of his skills minus his passive can deal AoE damage, his skills have much better scaling, more CC (much more CC), actual mobility, and actual synergy with itself.

You can sit there on your high horse, but all you're accomplishing is making yourself look like an uneducated child that lacks even the motivation to back up his own arguments.

i'd consider educating you but your ignorance and arrogance makes me content to leave you wallowing in your own idiocy

TserrisOct 10, 20147 votes

Aka you don't have the balls to back up your own argument. Go on punk, prove me wrong -I dare you.

Go on, make more excuses for why it's not worth your time, you've lost this debate fundamentally. "I'm right because I'm right" doesn't even work when you're a toddler, who taught you to think it would work in the real world? Lmao.

Commando YiOct 10, 20145 votes

Aka you don't have the balls to back up your own argument. Go on punk, prove me wrong -I dare you.

Go on, make more excuses for why it's not worth your time, you've lost this debate fundamentally. "I'm right because I'm right" doesn't even work when you're a toddler, who taught you to think it would work in the real world? Lmao.

sshhh

no backtalk now

OdinblazeOct 10, 20147 votes

Aka you don't have the balls to back up your own argument. Go on punk, prove me wrong -I dare you.

Go on, make more excuses for why it's not worth your time, you've lost this debate fundamentally. "I'm right because I'm right" doesn't even work when you're a toddler, who taught you to think it would work in the real world? Lmao.

sshhh

no backtalk now

The Diamond Overlord has spoken!

BlazingSalvoOct 10, 20148 votes

Half the comments are lost in a pool of "Show More" and all the smaller voices are silenced forever (and made more difficult to run a Google search of the forums). Also, the infinity reply bracket looking absolutely disgusting.

OrothrimOct 11, 20144 votes

Okay so, lets look at the ability, it gives 2 health for killing a small minion, but 8 for killing a large minion/monster or getting a kill or assist. So if you use the jungle to calculate:

In the jungle on a 1 minute cooldown there are 4 large creatures, and 6 small creatures, so that gets him 44 health per jungle clear.
4 x 8 = 32 6 x 2 = 12 32 + 12 = 44

BigWraith + Wolves + Wraiths + Golems = 10cs

If he is jungling he will get blue and red each 5 minutes, so as a jungle he gets 244 health in 5 minutes (with perfect clear) from 56 cs. The aim of getting 595 health on his soul furnace should therefore only take

44 x 5 + 2 x 8 + 2 x 4 = 220 + 16 + 8 = 244 health

10 x 5 + 6 = 56 cs

This means with perfect clear it will take in 12.2 minutes (132 cs), assuming no kills, and no lane tax (both unlikely). Now you might say, "he would get counter-jungled" or "His clear is slower than that" so lets handle that, I would put in a factor of 25% loss, so that's an extra 3 minutes or so, to make it 15.24 minutes (However, this won't increase his cs since he won't be getting the health from those lost monsters). Most games take longer than 15 minutes, 20-30 minutes, which means in that time (give lane tax and kills/assists) he will easily surpass his old base.

"But wait" you say, "old sion also scaled his health from kills, you have you calculate that to.". Alright, I'll do that, old Sion, if he starts the game with his Enrage maxed then he gets 3 health per minion kill.

This means that with the 132 cs he would have 396 health, way less than the 595 of the new Sion, "but how long until new Sion's max health is more than old Sion's"?

Alright overly curious imaginary questioner, lets figure that out to. For each set of 5 minutes in the jungle new Sion gets 244, while old Sion got 168 (assuming his enrage was maxed from level 1, instead of level 13 or later).

However, if we are going to do this, we should take into account the lower early health scaling from old Sion, to do this I have used a random ap sion build guide (since Commando Yi was talking about AP Yi), this guide doesn't level his enrage until level 4 (so he doesn't get any health from his first clear) and maxes it at level 18, so I am going to say at 25 minutes the sion will be level 18 (way earlier than is true almost always).

Calculating this gives it that after 15 minutes new Sion in-fact has 7 more health than old Sion did, of course this is after the jungle first spawns.

Edit: Alright, I just had a look at an ad Sion build which maxes Enrage first, assuming you do that we will treat it as a transition from 1 to 3 per cs at 15 minutes, (So I am giving him the full 15 minute clear at 3 health per cs). This gives old Sion more health until 20 minutes in, so this gets old sion with more health for 5 extra minutes, I don't think that's enough to win a game.

ErroniusOct 10, 20149 votes

Yeah.. Not that I agree with your attitude, but you (Tserris) are correct. Old Sion had lower base damages, lower scaling, less damage abilities, not to mention no % max health damaging skills. I mean, new Sion had a ton of base health removed to compensate for all his newfound damage and crowd control... I mean, Commando, I'm not sure what you're trying to accomplish here, just wiki the stats and stop arguing.

Commando YiOct 10, 20146 votes

Yeah.. Not that I agree with your attitude, but you (Tserris) are correct. Old Sion had lower base damages, lower scaling, less damage abilities, not to mention no % max health damaging skills. I mean, new Sion had a ton of base health removed to compensate for all his newfound damage and crowd control... I mean, Commando, I'm not sure what you're trying to accomplish here, just wiki the stats and stop arguing.

a champion that was split into half burst mage who could 2 shot people and half melee carry that could steam roll jax got turned into a pure ad tank with abilities suited for a tank

he lost 2 abilities each of which dealt 300 +0.9 ap ratio in damage along with +65ad and 100% life steal, 50% attack speed for 20 seconds in exchange for ad tank abilities, half of which are easily dodged.

explain to me what exactly you mean when you say "less damage" or "lower scaling" in the old sion

you are aware that challenger sions existed yes?

ErroniusOct 10, 20147 votes

Old Sion had a total damage potential of 600 base magic damage + a 1.8 ap ratio, half of it being AoE. Add in a few auto attacks with + 65 damage and it's still not the most impressive base damage by a long shot.

New Sion has a total damage potential of 1655 with a total of a 2.6 AD ratio and 1.0 AP ratio on his kit PLUS 14% of enemies max health as magic damage, and ALL of this can hit multiple targets. This is his maximum damage potential, and while it is harder to achieve than old sion's down-syndrome-level kit complexity, the fact is that the potential is much much higher.

Sion is not a tank, lol, even from a lore standpoint it describes Sion as being a master of killing, and with his massive damage potential it's hard to argue with the lore. If anything he is a Bruiser, great base damages, some defensive scaling and lots of CC -bruiser.

KoukamiOct 10, 20144 votes

I'd say the rework was performed just fine. Sion's a tanky brute with a huge damage Q nuke paired with AoE CC, they had to compensate on his newly given power by shaving off some tanky, but giving it back with effort out of his W's passive. Overall, everything about this Sion is better as a whole. AD sion is no longer just a stun and hit two trick pony, AP sion is no longer trapped with a crappy ult that only benefitted from AP once he got a lichbane and even then only benefitted for about two swings until it ended.

His new kit is a proper approach to him, while eliminating two half-efficient builds at the same time and making him way more reliable and competitive.

KoukamiOct 11, 20142 votes

I don't see how you can compare ad nautilus at all to Sion's current form.

For one, he has two abilities that scale with AD and both deal AoE damage and crowd control whereas nautilus has 0. For two, he also has a health scaling W that deals damage based on enemy max HP, also in AoE, and while Naut also has a scaling shield, the damage scaling is strictly worse.

Nautilus serves a whole different class function and with horrible (read:nonexistant) scaling with AD items beyond his autoattack there's not even a minute comparison to current sion.

His Passive needs maybe a buff to move speed, also a fix against grievous wounds messing it up.

His Q is more than useful, an AoE ad nuke that slows on a low cooldown at worst, or an AoE ad blast that knocks up -and- stuns at best hitting for over 600 damage to all targets.

His Ult has a few negligible drawbacks, but we can chalk that up to player skill and wanting appropriate counterplay. He -cannot- be CC'd in that ult, and seeing as fights will typically happen at key points like the lanes, dragon, or baron, he has more than enough clearance to engage and do something. If the enemy has to worry about positioning against sion's ult, that's one more thing they're distracted with that can also cause them to slip up. Not to mention his W damage paired with the hit on it.

We don't want a Sion perfectly hitting his Q and R 100% of the time or else he'd be possibly the most bs champ in the entire game, so there's player-skill related caps to make them less reliable if not used properly but highly rewarding and game changing if they are.

I'd say the only thing Sion needs are a few QoL buffs like hitting broken towers with his ult and grievous wounds completely shutting down his passive when applied and he does. That's it.

UrGayTwink04Oct 10, 20144 votes

This is about this weird thing I've noticed with several new champions and champion changes where they basically are given non-abilities. For example -Azir has a passive which gives him attack speed for cooldown reduction; Azir has the 2nd lowest attack speed in the game -The Soraka rework sigh gives her a move speed bonus passive, but lowers her base move speed -The Cass rework gave her a passive for scaling cooldown reduction and bonus AP, but lowered the damage on her abilities and upped her cooldowns

This new trend of non-abilities is worrisome and makes me not want to play the non-ability champs. Why is Riot even making champs with non-abilities? I guess the abilities will SOUND COOL when you originally read the champion description when they reveal it (on their site, without the hard numbers) so that people go and buy the champ. Then it isn't until after you look at the base stats / numbers that you realize you've been duped. Or maybe they appeal to a younger demographic that doesn't ever read stats? (10 year olds??)

AblogqwerOct 10, 20145 votes

This is about this weird thing I've noticed with several new champions and champion changes where they basically are given non-abilities. For example -Azir has a passive which gives him attack speed for cooldown reduction; Azir has the 2nd lowest attack speed in the game -The Soraka rework sigh gives her a move speed bonus passive, but lowers her base move speed -The Cass rework gave her a passive for scaling cooldown reduction and bonus AP, but lowered the damage on her abilities and upped her cooldowns

This is about Anti-abilities; abilities which don't give you anything, because to compensate for you having the ability, you're worse at that thing than almost every other champ in the game. That's what I take issue to.

It's deliberate because Riot is either using these "anti-abilities" to encourage certain play styles (cdr on Azir instead of attack speed an on hits, Soraka to be sluggish until allies are in danger, and encouraging Cass to cast constantly). In the case of Sion it's to force you to figure out how to farm efficiently while harassing.

It looks better to a viewer to watch and more skilled players will be able to wring more out of these abilities instead of being a flat stat. The key word of today's Riot is "interactive."

Edit: Keep in mind I am not saying that these abilities are too strong or too weak; merely that this is the logic behind them as far as I can tell.

Daddy Space LionOct 10, 20141 votes

This is about this weird thing I've noticed with several new champions and champion changes where they basically are given non-abilities. For example -Azir has a passive which gives him attack speed for cooldown reduction; Azir has the 2nd lowest attack speed in the game -The Soraka rework sigh gives her a move speed bonus passive, but lowers her base move speed -The Cass rework gave her a passive for scaling cooldown reduction and bonus AP, but lowered the damage on her abilities and upped her cooldowns

This is about Anti-abilities; abilities which don't give you anything, because to compensate for you having the ability, you're worse at that thing than almost every other champ in the game. That's what I take issue to.

It's deliberate because Riot is either using these "anti-abilities" to encourage certain play styles (cdr on Azir instead of attack speed an on hits, Soraka to be sluggish until allies are in danger, and encouraging Cass to cast constantly). In the case of Sion it's to force you to figure out how to farm efficiently while harassing.

It looks better to a viewer to watch and more skilled players will be able to wring more out of these abilities instead of being a flat stat. The key word of today's Riot is "interactive."

Edit: Keep in mind I am not saying that these abilities are too strong or too weak; merely that this is the logic behind them as far as I can tell.

And what's the "logic" behind ADC's having more base armor than Riven?

Why can't we just all agree that the design team can't agree on anything and so everybody, including in-game champions suffer for it? Which champion is next on the chop block? Because everyone is fighting off the stage, while nobody is actually doing anything to fix the bloody problem.

AblogqwerOct 10, 20145 votes

And what's the "logic" behind ADC's having more base armor than Riven?

Are you seriously asking this? Because her kit gives her a ton of free mobility, a shield, and a huge amount of damage. None of it costs mana. An ADC vs Riven will result in Riven quickly steamrolling them. This is a non-argument because you're not looking at the rest of the kit in this case.

This, by necessity, makes her able to be poked down EVENTUALLY at early levels by a more skilled person or be hard countered by other all-in champs with hard cc.

Why can't we just all agree that the design team can't agree on anything and so everybody, including in-game champions suffer for it? Which champion is next on the chop block? Because everyone is fighting off the stage, while nobody is actually doing anything to fix the bloody problem.

Because you're flatly wrong, and Riot has admitted to a few champs needing more rebalancing but unable to give them the attention.

Daddy Space LionOct 10, 20143 votes

And what's the "logic" behind ADC's having more base armor than Riven?

Are you seriously asking this? Because her kit gives her a ton of free mobility, a shield, and a huge amount of damage. None of it costs mana. An ADC vs Riven will result in Riven quickly steamrolling them. This is a non-argument because you're not looking at the rest of the kit in this case.

This, by necessity, makes her able to be poked down EVENTUALLY at early levels by a more skilled person or be hard countered by other all-in champs with hard cc.

Why can't we just all agree that the design team can't agree on anything and so everybody, including in-game champions suffer for it? Which champion is next on the chop block? Because everyone is fighting off the stage, while nobody is actually doing anything to fix the bloody problem.

Because you're flatly wrong, and Riot has admitted to a few champs needing more rebalancing but unable to give them the attention.

Are you not familiar with Riven's position in the fields of justice right now? At high-levels of play where players have an actual brain, Riven cannot do anything in spite of her abilities. Why? Perhaps it's because she has less armor than an ADc.

Name one champion that was successfully changed. Just one. That's all I ask for.

Clow0905Oct 11, 20144 votes

And yet, Faker in the HIGHEST LEVELS of the game can still steamroll with Riven. Also, to answer your question: XERATH! Xerath was quite ignored by the majority even by pro players, but now he's used as a counter to Orianna. I'd say that his change was successful, from being ignored to a direct counter to a certain champ (that is still dominant).

Daddy Space LionOct 11, 20142 votes

And yet, Faker in the HIGHEST LEVELS of the game can still steamroll with Riven. Also, to answer your question: XERATH! Xerath was quite ignored by the majority even by pro players, but now he's used as a counter to Orianna. I'd say that his change was successful, from being ignored to a direct counter to a certain champ (that is still dominant).

Let's take M2K from the smash community as an example. The guy can play any character in the character roster at high levels of play. Faker also can pick up champions and do things you wouldn't believe to be possible. There's a fine line between understanding when high-levels of play are for the argument and when high-levels of play are irrelevant to the argument. When we're talking about the total ability of what can and cannot be done, that's when we use Challenger Tier views because they are the people that capitalized on everything and continue to outplay everyone under Challenger Tier. But when you use a Challenger Tier's ability to play a champion better than anyone in the world, that's when your argument becomes irrelevant. This game is not for 0.1% of the community - it's for the whole community. Someone mastering a champion does not mean the champion is in a good place. Riven is not in a good place. Everything besides the greatest players in the world playing these champions, demonstrates it. I guarantee you that Faker could do better with, let's say Zed, than he could with Riven.

Long Dong WukongOct 10, 20143 votes

Mobility?

If that meant his ult, that isn't mobility. Mobility is dashes etc. that offer outplay potential. He just happens to have a TF/Panth/Noc ult that he runs to the target location instead of teleporting.

TserrisOct 10, 20145 votes

mo·bil·i·ty mōˈbilədē/ noun the ability to move or be moved freely and easily. "this exercise helps retain mobility in the damaged joints" synonyms: ability to move, movability "restricted mobility"

Sion passes through units unobstructed, gains massive amounts of movement speed and hurdles (a form of increased movement, and there for a MOBILE ABILITY) in a target direction for a set distance or until he collides with a champion or wall.

THIS IS A MOBILE ABILITY, mobility. You stupid or something?

Yandere CarryOct 10, 201410 votes

sion still feels super kite-able imo... Yes ulti ms, but you can kinda just dodge him.

Mirage NightOct 10, 20146 votes

sion still feels super kite-able imo... Yes ulti ms, but you can kinda just dodge him.

I haven't had much of an issue. I have been able to get the hang of his E in minion waves. using them as projectiles against the lane opponent. Once that lands, follow is pretty easy with the rest of his kit.

Yandere CarryOct 10, 20143 votes

I mean like, I was just goofin off as xin top and ran into several Sions. E worked fine, but his Q is easy to dodge unless you do it instantly... which does negligible damage. And his ult seems easy to sidestep.

John BerserkOct 10, 20147 votes

It would only take Sion 298 cs to reach that if he ONLY farmed lane minions. Killing large monsters, getting assists, and getting kills however grants him an amount of max hp equal to 4 minions.

It's not impossible, but it's very, very unlikely for a Sion player to go a whole game without getting a single kill, assist, or large monster kill.

The reason Riot gives champions abilities like that while making their base stats related to it relatively low is so that champion can scale more or less evenly throughout the game, so you feel some sense of progression as the game goes on longer (feeling useless late game sucks yo).

Take Jinx for example. Her base attack speed is horrendous, being the 4th lowest in the game at lv 18. However, Pow-Pow helps mitigate that (as a "non-ability" as you put it), increasing her attack speed incrementally. With all 3 stacks, she has the highest base AS in the game at 1.6813 AS, compared to Ashe and Vayne tied for second at 1.105 AS.

Switch to Fishbones though and her attack speed goes back to a measly 0.731 AS. That's the tradeoff, and that's why these kinds of abilities are in place, mitigating supposed weak points.

It should be considered however that Riot isn't perfect, and some might scale too hard or not hard enough into the mid/late game. But hey, thats what patches are for. :)

JunkοOct 10, 201411 votes

The thing is, Jinx gets a choice for either a horrible AS for range and AoE damage, or a lot of AS for shorter range.

Sion has no choice, Azir has no choice, Soraka has no choice

John BerserkOct 10, 20143 votes

This is true. Some would say this is what makes Jinx not only strong, but OP, due to the fact that she has more leeway and options at her disposal. The reason I think she hasn't seen any significant nerfs to this (yet) may be because (at least in high level competitive play) she isnt able to use this advantage of hers to overcome her weaknesses in lane to other ADC's like Lucian or really deal with the assassination abilities of someone like Twitch later in the game.

So if someone like her, who HAS choices with nice tradeoffs, isn't strong enough to be a popular "meta" pick atm, it becomes clear that those WITHOUT choices (or at least less choices) would have an even tougher time. That kind of has been the always-dominant "gateway" champs needed to pass in order to be viable, the amount of choices they have. Thats why champs like LeeSin , Thresh and Elise have almost perpetually remained not only relevant, but dominant in the meta.

So basically, while I personally feel Sion is in a more or less good spot atm (though it is way too early to tell for sure), Azir, Soraka, and all the other champs in their positions could probably use some buffs in some ways to compensate for their lack of choices.

TUfekAeySiOct 10, 20146 votes

I don't think you're really grasping the issue. Sion doesn't scale into late game per se; he just scales back to where he would've been without his ability gimping his health.

Spells like this and Azir's and Soraka's are liabilities because you can only reach parity later in the game and it is never guaranteed you'll even be able to. I can see the issues with someone like Azir having high base attack speed from a balance POV but on the whole it just seems like Riot is afraid to give a champion any kind of advantage and it's baffling.

John BerserkOct 10, 20143 votes

I dont think they're afraid to give a champion an advantage, they'd just rather have a champion UP on (re)release rather than OP, so I feel like they naturally (and maybe even subconsciously) undershoot a lot of things, just to be safe.

Azir and new Soraka are still relatively new as well, so I'm sure Riot is still looking at them on Live, waiting to see the results themselves and observing what needs buffs and whatnot.

As for Sion going back to where he was pre-rework, I think that may be part of the cost of his overall more cohesive kit. When you get a super odd and black/white champion like Sion (by that I mean you can build extremely in one direction or in another, thanks to the imbalance and lack of focus in his kit) and give it a focus, a single "theme" and direction, you're going to "gain" power in one area compared to the original kit, and you're going to lose power elsewhere. Changing from 50/50 to something like 85/15.

I'm no expert on champion creation/balance, but that's what I would assume.

Knight SoIaire Oct 10, 20141 votes

If you make a character have a bonus "strength" in an area, but then put them so far behind the average in that area to the point that you need the bonus just to get up to par, that is not a bonus at all - it is a non-ability.

well its just like lucian riot took away parf of his power but replaced it with the thing that negates his newfound weakness

Knight SoIaire Oct 10, 20145 votes

oh and sion lost some health not because of his w but because now he can actualy catch ppl, he doesnt need to survive hours while he is sloppy walking towards them

Commando YiOct 10, 20148 votes

oh and sion lost some health not because of his w but because now he can actualy catch ppl, he doesnt need to survive hours while he is sloppy walking towards them

sion is more kitable than ever