I posted this before, but I still want to discuss this: Sion kit changes...

Alright, a little backstory here. I was going through the league lore page when i saw something i hadn't seen in a while. Sion's lore. I love Sion's lore. Among all the champions I put Sion's lore at the top of my list, even though some would argue it's not as fleshed out as it could be, but hey neither is Sion.

Anyway, having a look at his lore, and a listen to his music, i remembered something about Sion that i hadn't thought about in a long time. Sion is a juggernaut. Sion isn't just some undying menace, hes an undying menace that when he gets into the fray of battle, he slaughters everyone in his path. He wants to get in your face, stay in your face, and kill everyone around you.

While i currently enjoy Sion's kit, it doesn't reflect that theme as well as it could, as the most effective way to play Sion is to spam his e from as far away as possible then charge up a q without being in retaliation range. While that's fine as a kit design, i think it would be more thematically fitting to have Sion focus more on his destructive melee damage output backed up by his cc than to have him focus on long range poke.

In fact, his initial design and intended playstyle had him maxing his q and building AD to run down opponents and crush them under his massive strength, as evidenced by his champion spotlight and the intention of his passive.

The point of all this is, Sion could be more thematically cohesive between his in-game and in-world fantasies.

I want to start a discussion on how we could potentially change Sion such that he wants to function differently, at least in lane. He's the only tank which has no need to auto-attack in a fight to make a full use of his kit, even though it's good game practice. Sion should be among the STRONGEST fighters in the game for a tank, not one of the most cowardly (Even though his ult is often used that way),and be a big threat to anyone who attempts to fight him up close.

I do want to keep his e as a viable ability to max in some lane matchups, like his traditionally weak Darius matchup, or most other juggernauts as Sion should still remain a tank first, but i want to shift the power away from being a cowardly sniper into being a destructive close range bomb.

To reintroduce this theme I would like to see changes to the following:

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1 - His passive "Glory In Death" isn't very glorious, it's more like a whimper of sadness, as a single crowd control nullifies the effect, even something as minimal as a 30% slow. This should be something that makes you absolutely terrified of killing the guy first, as he will proceed to run down the nearest enemy and slaughter them. Firstly, theres a bunch of numbers and ratios that either don't exist, need to exist, or need changing. it currently reads as follows:

INNATE: Upon taking fatal damage, Sion briefly becomes untargetable and enters a frenzy, restoring himself to 100% maximum health but losing 2 - 19 (based on level) every 0.25 seconds, increasing by 70% per subsequent tick.

Sion can freely move and use basic attacks during this time, gaining 100% Life steal , attacking at 1.75 attack speed, and dealing 10% of target's maximum health as bonus physical damage, capped at 75 against minions and monsters.

While Glory in Death is active Sion's standard abilities are replaced with Death Surge, granting a decaying 50% movement speed buff over 1.5 seconds.

Most of this is fine, however there are a few changes that need to be made. For one, 100% lifesteal isn't helpful when Sion builds no or little ad. It SHOULD read "heals for 100% of damage dealt", thus proccing on the bonus passive damage. Another thing, the bonus 10% hp damage really should scale, perhaps with level, or with ad, but it should scale with something. Heck it might just be better to give him scaling armour pen while in his passive, but the damage this deals falls off so hard after the early game it's insane. Next, we have death surge, which is nice and all but is basically useless. In fact, the 50% movespeed is jut REQUIRED to reach your opponent as they walk away from your death. Really what Sion needs is a small buff here. Etiher we could try making the movespeed not decay over the 1.5 seconds, we could increase the duration, or we could simply give sion an immunity to slows while in his passive form. All of these would still grant counterplay as any immobilizing cc would still all but nullify the effect, but it feel sbetter for the sion player knowing that they actually used their passive to contribute.

One more thing, this passive is totally useless unless sion is dying repeatedly, which is generally a bad thing. What we could do to promote him fighting people is to give him a small stat swap using his passive. Have his auto attacks deal bonus damage based on his ad, but lower his attack speed to compensate. This may be a losing suggestion, but i think having an ad ratio of 120% on your auto attacks but attacking slower is a good thing.

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2 - His Q "decimating smash" often is just "you're slowed so now prepare to take a bonus 60 damage unless you displace me". This should have been, and should now be, his main damage spell. The problem is it's too unreliable, WAY too unreliable. Don't get me wrong, I like this ability; I like how it's difficulty to use effectively is a skill you need to learn when playing Sion. I DON'T like how it's so unreliable that people opted instead into minion bowling to have him function.

This is how the ability reads now:

FIRST CAST: Sion channels for up to 2 seconds in the direction of the mouse cursor, increasing Decimating Smash's damage by 0% - 200% (based on channel time). If the channel is interrupted, Decimating Smash goes on a reduced 2 seconds cooldown.

SECOND CAST: Sion flails his axe, dealing physical damage to all enemies in the target area, decreased by 30% against minions and 20% against monsters, and slowing them by 50% for 0.25 seconds.

If Decimating Smash was charged for at least 1 second, Sion instead slams his axe down, Airborne icon knocking up all enemies hit for 1.25 - 2.25 (based on channel time) seconds.

Damage: 20 / 40 / 60 / 80 / 100 (+ 65% AD) --> 60 / 120 / 180 / 240 / 300 (+ 195% AD)

This is nice. The way that the cc is gated behind a 1 second channel time is good, but the fact that it's damage scales linearly, and that fights often don't leave a whole second of time where he can stand still to channel is very bad for his dueling potential.

I don't want the cc to be changed (ok maybe a little, have the slow scale up to 1.25 seconds in duration at 1 second charge just to have some scaling consistency, but that's minimal and totally unnecessary), I DO want the DAMAGE to be changed.

I also don't want the damage to be increased, the overall damage is insane (i believe that's the highest ad ratio on a single ability) and is fine as it is. The problem i have with it is how long it takes to get to that damage number. I think the damage scaling should work in an opposite way to the cc scaling, meaning that the damage increases massively over the first second, but the cc has little to no scaling, then the cc scaling starts to kick in, but the damage scaling drops ALL the way down. Something like: "Over the first second, the damage of the ability is increased by 150%, and 50% over the second second." ######second second? is there a better way to put that? But yes, the damage of the ability doesn't ramp up fast enough to risk having the ability interrupted in the first second, therefore no-one uses it in the way it was intended.

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3 - His E "roar of the slayer" functions more like Fus Roh Dah ,than it does like a setup tool. This ability is TOO reliable and has too much going for it preventing the rest of his kit from being meaningfully buffed.

It currently reads as follows:

ACTIVE: Sion bellows in the target direction, dealing magic damage to the first enemy hit, slowing them by 40 / 45 / 50 / 55 / 60% as well as having their armor reduced by 20% for 2.5 seconds.

If the target is a minion or non-epic monster, they are knocked back 775 unit's, dealing 30% increased damage to all enemies they pass through and slowing them by the same amount for 2.5 seconds. Projectile enemies stop upon colliding with terrain or reaching the end of their trajectory.

Damage: 70 / 105 / 140 / 175 / 210 (+ 40% AP) --> 91 / 136.5 / 182 / 227.5 / 273 (+ 52% AP) 725 base range

This ability is fun to use. It's very fun to snipe someone under their tower as they try desperately to back, but its also super oppressive to be dealing with this ability on cooldown (even if it is longer than many other similar abilities). This has been his most impactful ability since his release, getting nerfed numerous times, and is likely going to get him nerfed AGAIN in the current meta.

Ideally, we don't make this ability feel worse to use, but increasing the cooldown or lowering the damage doesn't always fix the problem (even though that's most likely what would be changed about it if it was changed). Perhaps the ability itself needs to be less reliable to match up with the rest of Sion's kit. Instead of nerfing the damage or the cooldown, we could try nerfing the missile speed of the ability. In this way opponents have more time to sidestep the speeding minion and get into retaliation range. We could also try changing the range of the ability, as its high range leaves some opponents with no way to farm when Sion gets yelling.

In the end, Sion may not need any changes. Hes a perfectly good champion that I have enjoyed playing for 3 years now, but I wanted to bring up these things as I've always seen them as problems with the champion thematically. Some may disagree, but i feel that these may make Sion better in the long run.

TL;DR Sion changes: Passive has ad scaling, heals more, and is less effected by slows. Q does more damage before one second, ramps up the same amount. E does less damage and is less reliable. Sion matches lore better. Please read the whole post I spent like 2 hours thinking this up.

Edit: Also please upvote this so we can get more people to see the discussion.