Sion buff proposal

So...Sion. His rework is pretty much the "gold-standard" for reworked champions, being fun for the player while leaving counterplay options for opponents. I picked him up shortly after rework when people still building ravenous hydra, maxing q and complaining about how lackluster and weak he was. Loved him to death for his badassery, the simple-to-learn, hard-to-master kit, and his self-destructive and fearless play style and he's been my favorite pick in ranked since.

Then he hit the pro-scene and people started to notice how bs his e was, and it got nerfed a couple times. Totally legit. It was the only part of his kit that had no counterplay and the base damage and mana cost were out of line. People still had great success on him.

But then the shield nerf happened, and Sion instantly dropped from overpowered to balanced or slightly below balanced. The delay in popping it is clunky but sensible, since people weren't using it as a shield and there wasn't enough time for opponents to pop it. But the scaling was a serious problem. Now Sion's shield is one of the worst in the game until you can start leveling it after lvl 9. And if you don't level it 2nd because you want to your e to actually have a decent cd/slow/dmg, it will be weak almost the whole game.

Since that nerf Sion dropped out of pro-play pretty completely, and almost everything that happened since has diminished his effectiveness further. His core item Frozen Heart took a serious nerf, as did Righteous Glory. The juggernauts took his role as a high threat tank and do it much more effectively than him (he has a cc/initiation advantage but if that was all you wanted maokai and malphite could do it much more reliably, sion's advantage was his dmg threat). New Fiora and GP add to the long list of champs that crush him in lane (riven, vlad, cho, anyone else with some combo of mobility sustain and cc). Sterak's is a solid choice on him, but Titanic Hydra is a trap given how poor his ad ratios are outside q (his ultimate scales worse with ad than Renekton's does with ap) and how little he autos, and deadman's plate lets the juggs initiate, further eroding his niche. Consequently, according to champion.gg, he sits at a pick rate of below 1.5% and a win rate below 49%. These numbers aren't in and of themselves horrible in the way post-nerf kass was, but given that his kit's so well designed and counterplayable, I can't help but feel that now would be an ok time to give him a buff so he can get some play outside of his hardcore fanbase and compete with some of the "OP" new top-laners.

If anyone at Riot agrees, here's some changes I think could help him out a little. It would be great if you could implement 1 or 2, I certainly don't expect all of them given I agree he's about balanced:

1. Buff Base Ad. Sion's base AD growth of 4 per level was nearly the highest when he came out. Reworked Darius however outpaces him significantly with 5 per level. This doesn't make much sense thematically, given Sion is basically Darius's prototype, with 300 lbs extra muscle and a oven of blood magic in his stomach. More base ad would buff his q and ensure getting hacked at by a giant zombie berserker doesn't tickle.
2. Change his passive's health drain so it scales on base hp. It's a pet peeve of mine that Sion is pretty much the only champ actively punished for gaining xp by one of his mechanics, since his passive drains health based on level. It makes the power curve on his passive very strange, making lvl 1 undead sion a buff stealing, multikilling monster while lvl 18 sion struggles to live more than a few seconds even with no enemy focus and a full tank build. Scaling on base hp keep his strength consistent and rewards him for the bonus health from tanky builds and successful w farm.
3. Revert the w shield strength nerf. This option will allow sion to get some beef back into his lvl 1 shield and gives him the flexibility to max e early without gimping his mid game teamfight. Maintaining the 3s delay will keep it from being as oppressive as in his glory days. Probably not a good idea given how oppressive e max can be, but would strengthen his ability to handle mobile and ranged opponents q max can't handle.
4. Reduce mana cost on shield. Another option. Sion's builds are inflexible and rely on frozen heart too much because of the above average mana cost on w, which is essential to winning a trade, but still much weaker than it was on release. Setting it to a flat 65 would also discourage the e first build Riot struggled to balance.
5. Make e a 1 point wonder. Sion's strength in lane is his cc combo of e slow into q slam. As it stands though, that combo is difficult to pull off unless you max e first, which gimps the aoe teamfight tools of his q and w. Lvl 1 e has double the cd of maxed q and a somewhat weak 40% slow, which is part of why people max e. If you want to favor the q>w>e skill order, reducing the lvl 1 cd or setting the slow to a flat 50% would be good ways to make it useful in lane even if you max q first.

Just some ideas, sorry for the novel. I understand if you're of the mind sion is balanced, but would appreciate you considering the first two at least, since to me they're small buffs that fix counter-intuitive elements of his kit.