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The 0,25s importance: Sion and the Veigar effect

GelsominoKiller··69 votes·3,558 views

Just recently i'm seeing more and more posts: "Boards are so stupid and sheepish. Veigar was considered UP, but after a small 'QoL' buff he was 'discovered' and suddenly everybody's complaining about how op he is."

Let me point the situation out:

In patch 5.18 Veigar was buffed, particularly the W delay being reduced by 0,25s. This buff effectively may seem small, but let me elaborate why instead i belive such a tiny change makes all the difference in the world. Facts are, pre-5.18 he was decent but not good, and thus rarely played; post-5.18 he became an OP and FotM. Why? Only because people are "stupid and sheepish"?

This brief time window of 0,25s is what allowed Veigar to practically USE his W: before the changes, even landing a stun did not assure his W to actually hit the target. This was harder than any number nerfs could ever be, W being so unreliable that it effectively was a 100% damage reduction on a spell on which a lot of Veigar's power budget is concentrated. Since Veigar was repeatedly buffed in other areas to help him survive with this unusable W, as soon as W became an active part of his kit, he suffered a massive power increase that pushed him over the top.

Now you're all asking: "I came here for Sion. SION WHERE?"

Sion's actually suffering the "Veigar effect" on his W. He's in a sorta-ok spot right now, except for his 3s second delay W: just like Veigar's, the excessive unreliability of the spell de facto means a 100% damage reduction on Sion's W. With Sion being unable to proc his shield for damage, he loses a LOT of his laining power, and ALL of his (reliable) damage threath in a teamfight (remember: Sion's shield is the only thing that allows him not to be completely ignored in a teamfight). I think reverting this and only this nerf is actually reasonable, and buffing other parts of the kit could do more harm than good, since his W is fundamentally the core issue and compensation elsewhere will result in a really OP clusterfuck if his W becomes usable again sometime in the future.

TD;LR: for fuck's sake, revert this 3s delay nerf on Sion and call it a day.

40 Comments

junglerboy1637 votes

Even a 2.5 second delay would be harsh. They already gutted its early durability and crippled his Q's wave clear with a STILL UN-DOCUMENTED NERF TO ITS MINION/MONSTER DAMAGE.

Sion is and was one of (if not) the healthiest champs the game has ever seen, and they way over did the nerfs. His W needs a 2 second delay, no more no less, and then he might be ok again.

—A really salty Sion main who still hasn't gotten over his gutting...

Retillin1 votes

I'll be honest here, I don't play Sion. But what undocumented nerf did they do to him?

charcharmunro8 votes

{quoted}

I'll be honest here, I don't play Sion. But what undocumented nerf did they do to him?

His Q does much less damage to monsters than it does to Champions. I can see why, it's kinda like Pantheon's E, meant to be used to fight, not waveclear.

junglerboy161 votes

I get the logic behind the nerf, but they should at least document dropping his Q damage against monsters from 90% damage to 60% damage (that is a gargantuan nerf). The last documented nerf it got said it only got lowered to 80% (same with the last tooltip update) but in practice it is easy to tell it is at the "proper" values of 60%.

Sire Hippington2 votes

to be honest, he wasn't healthy top after release, his laneing was absurd, easy waveclear, nearly impossible to get out off lane and his W+E allowed for easy poke that did hurt really alot. He had not a single bad matchup, as even if all goes wrong, he just stands where with W to counter harras and clears the wave with a single q+e and walks off...

Need Gold 4 Tent1 votes

you try to counter harass with W you just get it blown and you wasted mana for nothing, not even damage to minions. i try to use it as additional waveclear (my combo is start W, E a line of minions and quickly start up Q so when the minion that got E'd gets back in range it'll be in my Q area) but most of the time it just gets blown up by the enemy laner with 1 or 2 autos, or heck the minions blow it up themselves if I'm proxying =.=

i found that an additional rank was needed for his W now if you intend to have it for damage or it just gets exploded, but the rate it scales you'd be loath to put more than 1 point in it early game (what's an extra 1% max hp when the enemy hp are still low earlygame?)

Sire Hippington2 votes

I'm talking about release sion(rework), who didn't need the W damage for waveclear, and his W was a strong shield with just one point in it

qetzel1 votes

V5.6:

Decimating Smash.png Decimating Smash Damage to monsters reduced to 80% from 90%.

It is on the lolwiki

http://na.leagueoflegends.com/en/news/game-updates/patch/patch-56-notes

And in the patch notes. Unless it was a more recent change, it has been documented.

junglerboy162 votes

I'm talking about the second nerf to its damage against monsters where it was dropped to 60%.

They haven't even updated the tooltip although I've received verbal confirmation directly from Riotscruffy that it is working as intended when it only deals 60% damage to minions/monsters.

kile1471 votes

Sion is balanced though... He definitely has a below average pick rate but his win rate is fine, even when you take his low play rate into account (almost 50% win rate regardless how many games played with him). My best guess for his low play rate is prevalence of counters top lane, or that the Juggernauts are as tanky as him but deal more damage which is far more satisfying than unreliable cc.

1011001110002 votes

Notwithstanding the fact that the W delay and scaling nerf fuck with his jungle clearing, and without the right runes/masteries, you either have to give up the W damage during clears because the camp will pop it in one auto, or you burn it early for damage and sacrifice substantial amounts of sustain.

In trying to nerf lane Sion, they nerfed jungle Sion. Now he's not really a favorable pick into anything.

junglerboy161 votes

He may be okay in lane (I don't know, I never use him there) but he is virtually incapable of jungling anymore since he relied SO much on having a fast clear speed so that he could get to level 6 and start ganking (because without his ult his banks are surprisingly bad for someone with so much CC)

Not only is his clear speed absolute rubbish now, but his early game survivability is completely nill in the jungle because his shield scales so poorly early on and he has such pathetic base health.

kile1471 votes

I mean he isn't doing too bad in the jungle according to champion.gg, though the play rate is really low so the data is kinda iffy (1000 plat+ jungle Sion players out there). I don't think he's incapable of jungle, so much is that he's a little on the weak side, so there is very little reason to pick him. Jungle has traditionally been a role that is very dominated by top picks so if there's even one champ that can fill the similar role and do it better he's out. Right now Gragas is a good tanky jungler and is stronger than Sion so he gets picked, and if you really need someone tanky who can deal AD then Hecarim is a reasonable substitute.

T RexHasTinyArms1 votes

He was still reasonably strong at 2 second delay and that is why they neefed him. If riot was more flexible with doing things over multiple patches they should take him to 2.5 with the intention of taking him to 2 the next patch if they don't see the fix work well. This is how they should have done the nerf too. Multiplying a cd by 1.5 is a huge nerf and would be better to do in increments to make sure you don't over shoot like they did and nerf them to the point of never being seen in ranked any more.

junglerboy161 votes

When he had the two second delay he also still had a 10% max health scaling on the shield at all ranks.

The issue is that they nerfed his W twice in the same patch when they should have just nerfed its scaling and he would be perfectly healthy and still capable of jungling.

UrPalAl1 votes

{quoted}

Even a 2.5 second delay would be harsh. They already gutted its early durability and crippled his Q's wave clear with a STILL UN-DOCUMENTED NERF TO ITS MINION/MONSTER DAMAGE.

Sion is and was one of (if not) the healthiest champs the game has ever seen, and they way over did the nerfs. His W needs a 2 second delay, no more no less, and then he might be ok again.

—A really salty Sion main who still hasn't gotten over his gutting...

Not true, Vel'Koz would be healthiest. Only ever got a change once, and it was tiny af.

Wimbledofy1 votes

he said one of

IGotScuttleCrabs1 votes

Sion was a great rework but far from healthy. And this is coming from someone who really enjoyed pre-nerfed Sion. Come to lane with flask + pots and zone/harass then enemy while shrugging off their damage with a breeze. Rushed a frozen heart? Lol forget about them trying to stand near you. And his wave clear was stupid easy. W>Charge Q>drop both and the wave was gone. Sit there slamming minions into the enemy with E. Sure once you get up in elo or buy boots it becomes easier to dodge his harass but that doesn't stop his easy wave clear under your turret or his.

Curling Veigar6 votes

Secret buff sion thread? I approve.

Squarefighter5 votes

(remember: Sion's shield is the only thing that allows him not to be completely ignored in a teamfight)

This is not an accurate statement.

GelsominoKiller1 votes

If the enemies have enough mobility and you're out of ult, it is.

flibitydoo2 votes

if they're using their mobility to avoid your kit,

then they aren't ignoring you

Darth Valer3 votes

I agree with the W's cast reduction being capital in Veigar rise to power and that the shield nerf hit Sion so hard that it became borderline useless in lane. Hope they revert the latter: perhaps 2.5 sec delay instead of 3 and 10% scaling on shield from rank 1 instead of 6/7/8/9/10%.

GelsominoKiller5 votes

Denonation time must be 2 and nothing more for a flow/combo reason. You usually want to chain it on a Q or an ulti or an e, that's why this nerf is extremely hated by Sion players: it makes the champ feel clunky and broken more than it actually weakens (balances) the poor undead guy.

Delioth1 votes

Take two cases:

  • (Without ult at all, assuming bush surprise or something) You start W at the same time you channel Q. You channel Q for 1.5 seconds.... and the knockup/stun lasts for >1.5 seconds, and W goes off without damage.

  • If you're ulting in from distance, remember you can ALWAYS start your W. You should have an idea of where your enemies are, and should thusly be able to start your W>Hit them with ult for stun>Start Q charging for k.o.+stun.

Overall makes for really easy landing of the W as long as you remember it has no animation and can be thrown up during other skills. Hell, if you get any CC from the team you can land a full channel Q, which is 2 seconds channel, 2.25 seconds ko/stun- you could even start your shield halfway through the channel and land it too. It's really not bad, you just have to anticipate a little bit. Or you do what Sion's supposed to do- build health and resistances>get a giant shield>wait til the shield's almost gone, having buffered it by a second or so so you don't have to worry about detonation time>blow it up for 10-14% of targets' max health.

Additionally, lowering it to 2 seconds would make it flow/combo TOO WELL- you could start W concurrently with Q, and if you got the MINIMUM for stun, you'd end up with 1s channel> 1.25s stun... which makes for a quick burst pattern for a tank to pull, and makes landing a full-charge Q that much less rewarding (relatively). Because of this, he'd honestly need to give something up for that 1/3 charge reduction.

Delioth2 votes

Take two cases:

  • (Without ult at all, assuming bush surprise or something) You start W at the same time you channel Q. You channel Q for 1.5 seconds.... and the knockup/stun lasts for >1.5 seconds, and W goes off without damage.

  • If you're ulting in from distance, remember you can ALWAYS start your W. You should have an idea of where your enemies are, and should thusly be able to start your W>Hit them with ult for stun>Start Q charging for k.o.+stun.

Overall makes for really easy landing of the W as long as you remember it has no animation and can be thrown up during other skills. Hell, if you get any CC from the team you can land a full channel Q, which is 2 seconds channel, 2.25 seconds ko/stun- you could even start your shield halfway through the channel and land it too. It's really not bad, you just have to anticipate a little bit. Or you do what Sion's supposed to do- build health and resistances>get a giant shield>wait til the shield's almost gone, having buffered it by a second or so so you don't have to worry about detonation time>blow it up for 10-14% of targets' max health.

Additionally, lowering it to 2 seconds would make it flow/combo TOO WELL- you could start W concurrently with Q, and if you got the MINIMUM for stun, you'd end up with 1s channel> 1.25s stun... which makes for a quick burst pattern for a tank to pull, and makes landing a full-charge Q that much less rewarding (relatively). Because of this, he'd honestly need to give something up for that 1/3 charge reduction.

GelsominoKiller1 votes

  1. Full channel is never going to happen without very particular cicumstances

  2. I'm not ulting from distance in lane

  3. shield is not only there to soak damage and explode when it's about to be broken for maximum effectiveness: you often want the ability to reliably punish your enemies for standing too cose to your before they jump/blink/leap on your carries.

You're assuming best-case scenarios as Sion's normal functioning circumstances.

Jingerbeardman3 votes

actually it really wasnt the .25 second delay change... it was the ap for assists that put him over the top.

remainedYoung2 votes

What made him useful are all those buffs on Q range, mana regain buffs + Q missle speed buff. You can consider him almost super safe in lane now with good lane clearing abilities.

The AP on assist are more of a cosmetic effect cause you get your AP from farming anyways and shouldn't care too much about getting 2 AP per champion kill assist. You max W last so this buff didn't really change anything. Your main damage comes from Q + R, W is mostly useful in teamfights.

Maligaro Spike1 votes

you get around 30 extra AP from the ap on assist in an average game,not totally useless considering you got 2 100%AP scaling spells

Only Play Darius2 votes

They had no reason for nerfing the reactivation AND scaling on Sion's shield at the same time, considering that he has the lowest base HP in the game and relied on the shield early game to trade. Now it can't even be used to mitigate poke.

Athenes Lulu2 votes

I missed Sion, he was strong yet not as oppressive to go against.

If anyone's complaining about bruisers that has 4k+ HP, provide lots of CC, and still can shred squishies, that's pretty much applies to a LOT of bruisers.

Bladerunner77772 votes

{quoted} such a tiny change

Is that a short joke?!

SaltyKracka1 votes

Sion's actually doing pretty decent toplane. I might see them lowering the delay to 2.5 or 2.75 seconds, but I can't imagine them reverting the nerf entirely.

Olath Quortek1 votes

Shrug... Sion is all about zone control/timing/delayed power and thus counterplay... I honestly don't see why people have so many problems with him. The 3 sec delay is fine. I haven't had much trouble working around it. Timing is key and there is a reason you can activate it while charging Q and ulting.

alfavhunter1 votes

How to fix Sion Q minion monster damage reduction removed-buffs wave clear W delay reduced to 2 seconds, base shield value raised by 10 at all ranks-makes shield more reliable in lane and vs jungle E no longer does bonus damage when using minions or monsters to hit other targets-nerds wave clear and lane harassment

How is this change balanced? If Sion lands Q his W is likely to go off for damage in lane but his E is no longer able to be used to poke endlessly, instead becomes CC and a last ditch farming method for a losing lane

This readjusts Q to be wave clear method (interuptable and dodge able) W is more reliable to actually be useful in lane and out, and E is no longer an absurd poke tool, it can still poke, but it's not mana effective over Q or W

This also lets Sion chose his leaning

Q wave clear /damage W survival/poke E safety for hard lane match ups

Ablogqwer1 votes

I haven't really noticed many problems with Sion - land your e and then your q and you can win. Miss and you lose. Skill based, nice counterplays. This nerf has done nothing except make him a more fair champ where before he just steamrolled. He's still pretty terrifying, although his passive could do with some tweaking.

The undocumented nerf sounds more like a bug.

Yes, I do play Sion. I played him before his rework as well.

just a memory1 votes

Bump for Justice

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