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Sion's passive punishes him for gaining levels

DrBaryon··166 votes·7,687 views

Sion is intended to be a hyper-scaling tank with serious threat from his passive in teamfights. Yet his passive has to be the worst scaling ability in LoL for one reason: the health drain scales harshly with level.

Each tick of drain is proportionate to 1+Sion's level. This means that the drain is 9.5x more intense at level 18 than at level 1. Sion starts the game at around 550 health, so to keep the drain proportionate, he'd need to have well over 5000 health end game. That's an absurd amount of health even with a pure tank build and healthy w farm, unless you build 0 resistances. So you'll bleed out faster late game than early game.

Then to make matters worse you have 0 scaling of the dmg or attack speed into late game, so anyone who buys armor will take minimal dmg even if you somehow get to them and stick. The net result is that Sion's passive is amazing early game and can easily net multiple kills in a lvl 1 or 2 fight, or steal the enemy's red/blue buff camp. But late game, when Sion is supposed to be at his strongest, the passive dies in a matter of seconds even with no enemy action whatsoever.

Therefore I propose Riot change the passive scaling to a % of base health (not sure exactly how much, but enough so that it's a nerf early game and buff late game), so that the passive has consistent strength across levels. This brings the drain scaling to about 3.5x as much level 18 as lvl 1. This way cheesy early game strats like the buff steal are less effective, but the passive feels less frustrating late game and forces the enemy to pay some attention to your lumbering corpse.

91 Comments

charcharmunro51 votes

Honestly, I find it more useless late-game because literally any CC or speed boosts from your opponents will make it absolutely useless. Perhaps give him some tenacity or slow reduction or something when his passive kicks in, because his thing is "unstoppable juggernaut that won't stop coming at me even if I kill him", and right now his passive is just "NOW I SHALL HAVE REVEN- Oh, no, any CC at all."

DrBaryon17 votes

Something I'd love to see is for death surge to be a cc cleanse a la Alistar's unbreakable will. Adds some skill to the passive and fits thematically. And still counterplayable with a second cc or timing.

charcharmunro4 votes

That, that would be nice too. Perhaps he gain decaying tenacity while Death Surge is active, too? It's definitely meant to be the "Oh, you killed me? WELL I'M COMING FOR YOU" button. I've honestly never even felt the speed-boost because it goes away so fast or I'm against Ashe and fuck approaching Ashe if you're not an ulting Yi/Olaf.

kile14711 votes

I think the entire passive is a missed opportunity in the whole "Oh, you killed me? WELL I'M COMING FOR YOU" department. The awesome way to do it would have been to have the champ that killed you be marked for death, and if you finish them off before you finally fall you get the death prevented and get back up with whatever health you have left.

charcharmunro5 votes

So basically like Anivia's, but you have to actively partake in your own revival? Makes sense thematically, too, I guess, what with the whole "Soul Furnace" bit.

kile1473 votes

Yeah I think that death passive's really need to be rewarding to be a good passive. If you look at Karthus he has a really good passive because he is a squishy short range mage who even building RoA is not going to be tanky enough to survive if he goes in, however in return death only makes him stronger by taking away mana costs and making him immune to cc so that dying at the right time and place actually makes you really strong. Nobody likes Zyra and KogMaw passives because they are champs who should theoretically never die, and so when you do the passive just feels like compensation that would've been better spent keeping you alive in the first place. Aatrox passive and Anivia passive are both decent but kind of feel silly because Anvia's passive literally just gives you a bit of extra safety from tower dives early game, and Aatrox's passive is just a GA on a shorter cooldown.

Sion's is kind of a mix between Karthus and Kog because even though it feels compensatory it at least lets you still be useful to your team.

Squidblimp1 votes

Everyone forgets Zac

kile1471 votes

Oh my bad, like Anivia but gooey.

Axis the Dragon2 votes

And you can TP to his globs!

LordForrest1 votes

Wait, what?!? Rito this is op, remove from game!

In all seriousness this is awesome. Makes me want to bust the blob out again.

Squidblimp2 votes

I main Zac. He's really good, especially after the range buffs to his E.

Juggernaut N1 votes

i think he should get another speed boost each time he puts a rank in his. So by level 16 he should be able to use it 4 times.

Aaravos17 votes

I think passive changes would not solve any issue with Sion. Sion supposed to be a scaling tank (if something like this exist), but the defensive itemisation is just sucks, especially armor stacking in the late game. The defensive item overhaul was a massive nerf for every lane tank meanwhile item 3153 item 3072 item 3071 item 3035 are exist. There is no reason to pick a late game tank who get melted by Tristana Jinx Vayne under few seconds or just get destroyed by item 3071 Fiora Riven and outsustained by that awesome item 3072 .

KnivingDude9 votes

{quoted}

I think passive changes would not solve any issue with Sion. Sion supposed to be a scaling tank (if something like this exist), but the defensive itemisation is just sucks, especially armor stacking in the late game. The defensive item overhaul was a massive nerf for every lane tank meanwhile item 3153 item 3072 item 3071 item 3035 are exist. There is no reason to pick a late game tank who get melted by Tristana Jinx Vayne under few seconds or just get destroyed by item 3071 Fiora Riven and outsustained by that awesome item 3072 .

TahmKench

Aaravos6 votes

Well he is a tiny bit broken atm, insane damage with an insane shield. Probably the best tank duelist in the entire game, but still he is primary played as a support for his utility and not as a top lane tank mainly because of the mentioned reason. And if Tahm played as a top laner he is go for the juggernaut hp fighter build and not for a classic tank build. Tanks are only exist in the form of agressive early junglers (RekSai LeeSin ) or in the form of these stupidly broken juggernaut things (Darius TahmKench ) Scaling and lane tanks are dead or nearly dead.

Quort2 votes

Poor Koggles is feeling left out! He melts tanks too guys! :'C

Shroom Junkie16 votes

To add to that, they need to make his passive activate faster. With the time it takes to revive and start on your rampage everyone near you is already cleared out, you'd have to have a Veigar stun field around you to matter at all besides some extra CS or maybe finishing off a tower.

MorganFreemanBot6 votes

{quoted}

To add to that, they need to make his passive activate faster. With the time it takes to revive and start on your rampage everyone near you is already cleared out, you'd have to have a Veigar stun field around you to matter at all besides some extra CS or maybe finishing off a tower.

That's sort of the point.

Ever played in a 5 made (probably against another 5 made) where the team that has Sion understand how he works? He's frequently thrown into situations where you haveto kill him, and then his team plays around what he becomes. Using their heavy AoE cc to keep people near him after he's died, letting him do serious work.

For Carthage10 votes

item 3717 item 1324 item 3071 item 3742 item 3102 item 3022

I mean... I always get it to work.

DrBaryon4 votes

That build sacrifices too much in the way of resistances, mana and cdr (unless you're running scaling blues) for my taste, your shield won't be very resilient late game and you'll have to back quite frequently bc you're oom. Not a lot of flexibility either. I usually run Randuin's for the slow in passive and occasionally Frozen Mallet, but against a team that knows what it's doing you'll still maybe soak a cc before you die late game.

For Carthage8 votes

20% CDR with over 5000 health and about 150 on both resistances isn't enough for you? Sheesh.

DrBaryon5 votes

Deadman's is 50 armor. A BotRK Vi or Kindred will carve through you like butter. Not to mention without mitigation an adc will lifesteal tons of health from autoing you so they'll be full health when you try punching them to death.

For Carthage3 votes

Sion scales up to 74 armor. While not a lot, consider also that masteries and runes can give you a lot of bonus armor on top of bonus armor, so roughly by late-game you have 150 armor. With 5000 goddamn health, that's really all you need considering as you build more and more armor or MR, the effectiveness of these items decreases with damage reduction and only stays consistent with effective health (I.E., an additional 1% of your max health must be dealt in order to kill you with each point in these resistances). Honestly, building more bulk is dooming you to be more useless than you make the build out to be. Sion's one of the few champs in the game right now that can effectively make an atrocious use of the effective health part of armor and MR, so often times stacking health on health on health results in you being tankier than most other champs.

Yeah, Vi and Kindred will cut you down quick by themselves, but name a tank that isn't murdered by those two. Why? Because % health damage kills all tanks no matter what you do to try and mitigate it - it's just how it works. Even if you're looking to build 300 goddamn armor against these champs they're still going to build LW (or in Vi's case just wreck your armor by 20%) and ignore a nice big 100 points of armor on you. Meanwhile, at 150, they'll ignore 50 points of armor - I still have half your armor I supposed, but I'm not losing too much damage reduction from this and I'm certainly not losing twice as much of my effective health.

The reason Sion has such obnoxious amounts of CC is because he's not supposed to be sitting there 1v1'ing champs all game - he's supposed to be a lockdown tank. The reason the build I posted works is because even after death you become, once again, a lockdown tank - unless your team's all dead, the enemy has better things to focus on than you, so you sprinting up and permaslowing them into oblivion is usually all you need to do while also stacking BC's passive on them the whole while. If you don't kill them, at that point your team's definitely going to.

The Yetii Rider2 votes

{quoted}

Deadman's is 50 armor. A BotRK Vi or Kindred will carve through you like butter. Not to mention without mitigation an adc will lifesteal tons of health from autoing you so they'll be full health when you try punching them to death.

Yeah...but full tanks are SUPPOSED to die to sustained damage. That's the point of a carry. Full tanks are supposed to deal with the enemy burst and assassins, not the carry.

You can swallow a whole lot of AP burst and AD assassin burst with 50 armor and 5k health. That's your job, not tanking the enemy carry. If Riot wanted tanks to not melt against carries, they wouldn't have nerfed all the armor items.

helioseismologis1 votes

[deleted]

The Yetii Rider1 votes

{quoted}

I agree with you, but the current meta of true dmg, hp shred items, and nerfed armor items makes lasting long enough a serious challenge, add in the absurd amount of movement increasing mechanics that make dodging skill shots, like Sion's Q & ult, Naut's anchor, etc, easier than ever and you have a stable of low damage champions who need to build tank STILL getting shred to death in a second.

Bruisers deal more damage than tanks. Tanks have more and better CC, particularly new tanks like Sion and Gnar.

You're supposed to die as a tank, that's your job. If Fiora, Garen or Darius ults you, you'll die, but at least you grabbed an important cooldown that will make it easier for your damage dealers to win the fight overall.

If Vayne is auto attacking you then sucks to suck, Riot's not changing that any time soon. I just ban her at this point.

LeeDark2 votes

150 armor and mres is pretty pathetic, honestly. Especially after Last Whisper.

3TWarrior9 votes

Sion's passive lasts quite a while at full build and if they reduced how much damage it did to him, then there becomes the problem of nerfing his attack speed and %health damage to compensate

think of the consequences before the buffs

DrBaryon14 votes

I don't think anyone considers Sion's passive even close to op. It's one of the weaker and more frustrating parts of the kit outside bronze/silver where people don't play around it. A straight buff wouldn't make it broken. Also, as noted, a scaling fix could put an end to lvl 1 buff steal cheese (which I love, but sacrifices must be made), which would probably make the change close to power neutral.

Cerbearus3 votes

It was like that on release. Riot changed it to what it is now because the % health made the passive super powerful for AD Sion (slow drain, large damage return) and super weak for tank Sion (Much faster drain, less damage return)

DrBaryon2 votes

That's why I specified it should be % base health. It was % max health before, and I'll agree that was dumb. Base health drain will still reward Sion for getting bonus health to prolong the duration.

ArcticSirius3 votes

Going against him early is more terrifying when he dies than late. "Please don't kill Sion first we'll all die" vs "Meh, Sion's dead. And now he's dead again. Who's next?" is pretty much the summary of going against him

Blade of Justic2 votes

I'd like them to take away the fixed attack speed. It's possible for your attack speed to get nerfed if you go into your passive and have built a considerable amount of AS.

If you're going tank build, your passive shouldn't even be activating in the first place, but if you're going crit or bruiser build, then you need to not get kicked in the shins just because you built that way.

His passive is honestly as bad as Kog'Maw and Zyra's

My Waifu Vanilla6 votes

Kog can at least do something with his half the time since he can't be cc'd and moves pretty quick.

Blade of Justic4 votes

[{quoted}](name=My Waifu Chocola,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=a8ARUeem,comment-id=00050000,timestamp=2015-10-26T21:05:12.093+0000)

Kog can at least do something with his half the time since he can't be cc'd and moves pretty quick.

Alright, I stand corrected.

Sion's passive is WORSE than Kog'Maw's

Jingerbeardman2 votes

I think it is supposed to be that way. Powerful early and weaker late. Thanks to his W passive Sion already gets more health than any other tank in the game. On top of that he also gets a shield that scales with that bonus health as well. He also is a monster in team fights with the amount of cc and peel power he has at his disposal.

Not all passives are designed to be powerful or useful throughout an entire match. For instance, Xeraths passive that returns mana with an auto attack every so often is for the most part useless in the late game. Why is that? because once the late game rolls around he is an artillery mage that is not meant to be near the front yet wreak havoc from the back. You can look at Sion in much the same way. In the early game Sions kit is somewhat clunky and slow making him an easy target to harass, but you have to keep in mind that he revives and gains a second wind to punch your face in. Late game you should be a giant hulk that laughs at your opponents pitiful attempts at harming/killing you, because at that point your goal is not to die and hope for another chance at revenge but to survive and live to tank another fight.

DrBaryon3 votes

I'd say Sion's passive is more important to his theme, lore and identity than Xerath's though. Sion is supposed to be like an undead Jason Vorhees who takes ages to put down, and when you finally think you've done it he gets back up and crushes your throat with his bare hands. His character defining moment was killing the Demacian king with his last breath. That's why it's so disappointing when your "glory in death" late game consists of a few seconds of awkward stumbling.

Also since Sion (unlike say Zyra or Kog, whose after death passives are weak precisely because it would be rewarding failure otherwise) is the tank, he should absolutely be rewarded if he's somehow managed to eat a ton of focus fire and go down before the rest of his team. I don't think he should get the ability to reliably catch or kill people without help, but if the rest of his team is still in condition to fight after Sion gets the kitchen sink thrown at him, Sion deserves to turn that fight with his passive provided his team can lock targets down for him.

Basically I feel like Sion's passive is too fitting and unique a concept to be left as weak and frustrating as it currently is late game. And I think buffing it would make the champ substantially more fun and boost his low pick rate without pushing his win rate too high.

Jingerbeardman2 votes

I am confused... you are contradicting what your original post was saying in your second paragraph. What you mention is exactly how his passive is intended/does work right now, so it needs buffs why?

so I guess the real question is are you asking for the lifesteal portion of his passive to be removed in exchange for a longer duration? because if your team locks down the enemy team once you revive you will be staying up a lot longer thanks to the huge amount of lifesteal he gains during his passive.

DrBaryon3 votes

I've played several hundred games of Sion and I'd say that while the life steal sustains the passive well early game, late game the drain is too much and you'll lose massive health even while pounding away at someone, especially if your target has armor (everyone has at least 70 late game).

To do the math at lvl 18, after 2 s (about how long you need to get to your target) each tick is draining 19 + 7 x 0.7 x 19 = 112 health every .25 s. At 5 s you're losing over 1000 health per second (keep in mind that's basically true damage). Unless you build full crit/armor pen suicide Sion life steal will not offset that, even if you're hammering away at a Jinx caught in a Morg bind, so even in ideal setups you'll accomplish little before dying except maybe "securing" kills on people that are really low. He certainly can't turn or win the fight.

Chatillon1 votes

What, sion's passive is FINE

it's broken af with devourer

If you disagree http://i1144.photobucket.com/albums/o486/boshi-h/gif/tumblr_lv1smuD9MY1qafrh6.gif

Baunjo1 votes

Because that's how a " Discussion " works!

Chatillon1 votes

You would think people know youre joking when you put spider man in there :C

MunchCrunchLunch1 votes

Sion is one of the strongest champs early game. maybe the strongest. he can clear lanes and damage other champs at the same time. its only fair that he has some sort of a caveat.

Baunjo2 votes

clearing lanes and damaging champions AT THE SAME TIME? Man too bad more champions don't do that...

RyzeRework1 votes

ive never had problem getting over 6k hp at level 18 your w farming gives you way more hp per stack then nasus q farming and is less situational and nasus lategame ends in 300-500 stacks, sion is almost unkillable regardless because of his huge sheild and the fact that he comes back with another hp bar massive lifesteal and movement speed attack speed bonus makes he a pretty balanced champion right? oh and a ult nuke that not only does tons of damnage and is also able to chain with his 2 second knock up stun combo

DrBaryon1 votes

never

Lies. Also, every ability sounds unbalanced when described that way. Particularly Sion, whose entire gimmick is "tons of op sounding abilities you will struggle to use to even a fraction of their potential against non-afk enemies."

RyzeRework1 votes

{quoted}

Lies. Also, every ability sounds unbalanced when described that way. Particularly Sion, whose entire gimmick is "tons of op sounding abilities you will struggle to use to even a fraction of their potential against non-afk enemies."

Nah it goes with the whole skill thing I have a good record and kda with sion his abilities are easy to hit once you know what your doing most ults in the game are hits or misses I wouldn't say his kit is overloaded I would say it's balanced

lolipopevelynn1 votes

he is really good at sieging because even when he dies diving towers for his team he can still hit tower after he dies, and be more effective at it because of the atk speed.

NavyDivea1 votes

Have to agree, his passive just feels useless most of the time other than jungle cheese.

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