Riot, thoughts after a while with the new Sion

New Sion is really fun. I mean really fun.

That being said, I have a few issues, and there are some things that really need to be changed.

The single biggest and #1 issue is his W's health scaling numbers. They're off. By a lot. In lane he's gaining less health and has less health then old Sion. It was stated that the reason his base health was lowered was to shift power to his W. The problem is, even with skilled play new Sion can never catch up, let alone see more power in his "Hyperscaling" health gain. He needs a lot more health per kill to both recoup the health taken from his base, and see an actual improvement over the old version in the long run. You cannot call it stat hyperscaling when perfect play sees less benefit than the base stat itself.

Second, either you guys didn't change his stats screen from old Sion, or you really, really messed it up. 9 Attack power, 5 defense power, 1 Ability power, and 4 difficulty? That's fucked up.

1. Sion, with an offensive item or without is not much of an offensive threat. I find it nearly impossible to secure kills without ignite, as it is tragically easy to disengage and toddle off. So much of his damage is tied to his full charge Q, that the Attack rating just doesn't fit. His threat is crippling CC, debuffs, and disruption, not damage. Maybe, possibly if Atma's wasn't being removed, I could see an argument for a 6 attack, but 9?

If you try to build him super offensive, you've got a major problem. You're either going to have a super powered Q, strong R, and a weak W and tank level E (with no tanky), while being paper thin or you go AP, and you're Q is no stronger than Tank Sion, but you've sacrificed tank to try and use .4 AP ratios. The very thing you tried to fix with old Sion (Going either AD or AP left you with 2 useless powers either way) is still a thing. Fortunately, tank Sion is the only real way to go, and a 9 Attack power rating is super, unbelievably, run into the wall trying to get the cupcake faster; stupid.

2. 5 defense? Really? A character that, after Warmogs, can basically tank a member of the enemy team for each item he builds gets half of his offensive rating for defense? This guy is a tanky behemoth. He's far more tanky than he is damaging, if anything his Attack and defense should be swapped, but that wouldn't be fully accurate either.

3. Errmagurd! 1 ability power, on a champ with 2 abilities that scale off AP. If you want a champ to be all Attack, and have 1 ability power on the screen that let's people know what they're getting into before they buy, then don't make their abilities scale off of ability power. Seriously. How do you decide what scales off AP, do you have a hat full of papers that say "AP" and "AD" and Sion's draws weren't as lucky as Riven's?

4. 4 difficulty... A champ that is almost unique in it's gameplay, a tank that has to farm health, is the most kiteable melee champ in the game, has super telegraphed abilities, and a surprisingly hard to aim E, is only 4 difficulty? Seems off.

I'd suggest 4 - 8 - 3 - 7 if you don't change the AP scaling or 4 - 8 - 1 - 7 if you do change his AP scaling. If Atma's stays in the game, it should be an Essential item, Sunfire cape should be moved to Offensive (Replacing Iceborn), and his attack could possibly be 6.

E is awesome, but frustrating. The dual range makes it difficult to judge when the basic hit is in range (Smartcast) and the loss of the defensive debuff on secondary targets is disappointing for how awesome it feels to actually snipe someone with it. I would suggest changing the debuff indicator's color to red, and adding a 10% debuff to targets hit by a flung minion, which would use the Yellow indicator.

Possibly broken, but interesting idea for E if you remove the AP scaling. Make it only debuff the first targets Armor and MR, but the debuff scales with Sion's own armor and MR. Just a thought.

Warmogs should be essential. It's very very essential. Between the regen and the bonus health interaction with Armor/MR, it is a night and day difference having it, and not having it.

His passive is super shutdownable. You need to determine what kind of threat he's supposed to be in passive form, and change it accordingly. If enemies are supposed to be running, then he needs to be CC immune, like his ult. If he's supposed to be absorbing effects and damage, he needs to last for more of the duration, maybe add a taunt even.

Criticism aside, I feel this Sion is an incredibly fun champ. He's unique, and is capable of bringing things to the table that force people to react, but isn't big damage. I've had games where people tell me he sucks because an enemy flashed out of my Q, ignoring the fact that another Q is ready in 6s, but that flash is gone for 300s and that enemy isn't attacking our ADC anymore. It's a very thinking kind of champ, and that is very fun and rewarding. Please make sure you keep following up on this, because he really should see high level play, but without better health scaling, and a passive with a definite and usable purpose, I don't feel he will. His initial character sheet also needs to be more accurate so potential buyers know what he's actually about, and what they're getting into if they pick him up.

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