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What's wrong with tank Sion?

Crashyy·1/27/2020, 6:07:03 PM·5 votes·4,112 views

I recently played a very low tier game because new season. I as Sion was at some part of the laning phase 60 cs and 3 kills ahead of my opposing top laner Garen. The items that I had were: Sunfire Cape, Ninja Tabi and Null-magic mantle, Spectre's Cowl because their jungle was AP, but she wasn't fed at all, 0 kills. All that Garen had was Phage, Stinger, boots of speed...

Now I would think that with such a huge gold lead and also as a stacking champion with such a good cs count (750 bonus HP)....I would be pretty much unbeatable while facing at least 2 champions. Well it turned out that Garen was still able to trade with me 1v1 even though he always lost at the end cause I use my abilities once he leaves, and when the jungler came I stood no chance...I couldn't beat neither of them because my damage is low and I couldn't sustain their damage for long.

Sion is a very simple champion. This is not good from the users end. Instead it's good from the opponents end because it's very easy to counter you. At the end against most champions, Sion's biggest damage outcome comes from his auto attacks because of how easy it is to counter q and w (largest damage spells).

When building tank you have to adapt to the enemy team comp and not only to your laner. If I as Sion was only focused on bruiser items I wouldn't even have to worry about early adapting, lets say I bought: Titanic Hydra and Sterak's Gage, it would boost up my damage output from Auto attacks, actually make me able to 2v1 easily if ahead, increase regeneration which is useful when laning, and give me a passive that triggers a shield equal to 75% of my bonus health when I'm in danger and this all scales with my HP....

So what's the point of tank items if I cannot even sustain damage from 2 under powered champions?

13 Comments

Bulshlaka1/27/2020, 6:21:41 PM5 votes

you didn't have a gold lead

you spent 1500 gold into defending against their jungler thats equivalent to 5 kills now lets say i give you the ruby crystal from spectral thats still 1100 gold

garen invested everything into damage you only had tabi and a bit of health

you should be adapting to damage only that you will be taking if you instead finished the sunfire you wouldn't have lost to garen and their jungler would have had a lot less incentive to gank you

Agent Corgi1/27/2020, 6:52:49 PM2 votes

I would have just focused on building against Garen. If Shyvana wasn't fed and had no kills, then she isn't a priority.

Tank Sion toplane is not a terrible pick. He's really beefy, has a buttload of Lockdown and relatively decent damage. Also worth noting Frozen Heart feels really good on him as well.

  • +110 Bonus Armor
  • +20% CDR
  • +400 Mana

When playing Sion, you have to focus on itemizing for your lane (or if you're a DeathSiege Sion, hard focus the items you need for that).

Lovelle1/28/2020, 4:30:09 PM2 votes

Now you understand the current problem. Tank itemization not only doesn't scale well, but it isn't good early game either. You do no damage with it, and you don't survive anywhere near long enough to make up for the dps loss.

From what I understand, one of the reasons tank itemization is kept weak to keep overloaded assassins/skirmishers like Ekko, Yasuo, and Akali from building tanky and dominating every other class. Basically, an entire class of champions has to suffer because of a few that have proven impossible to balance over the years.

Assassins are ruining the game. They're also one of the most popular classes, and when tanks are good they hard counter them. As such, the majority of players don't actually want tanks to be good, and then you have popular streamers ike Hashinshin complaining about tanks even now, which just exaxerbates the issue.

Don't count on things improving itemization wise. The best you can hope for are direct buffs to tanks, but in the long term that causes even more problems.

Kazekiba1/27/2020, 6:32:28 PM1 votes

No cleaver, bramble, or Frozen Heart? Garen scales hard on aspd, he loses a good bit of damage if you buy Warden/Heart, and cleaver/Steraks/Tiamat are good strong damage items. Sion isn't entirely a tank, and neither is Garen. They're Juggs, which are naturally good at contending with tanks by sustain and damage while having similar beefiness.

Items aside, Did you land your Q properly, E minions into him to shred his armor and keep passive regen down? A lot of Sions Q is a stun AFTER the knock up, Garens W will reduce the overall duration heavily if you mistime your Q slam. Theres a lot of skill inside the matchup but it's mostly on you and itemization to win it

Darkdemon6531/27/2020, 9:11:33 PM1 votes

Show us the replay.

DarwinTheory1/28/2020, 6:36:03 PM1 votes

I'd you timed your w right Garen shouldn't scratch you.