[Thought Experiment] League of Sion

Thales·6/2/2014, 5:04:02 PM·2 votes·349 views

Let's do a little thought experiment on game balance and interconnectedness. Suppose Riot decides that rather than rework Sion, they'll just buff the crap out of him. Say, raise his stun duration to 2 seconds from 1.5. Increase his W shield and damage base values by 100 at all levels (scaling from 200 to 400 now), and its AP ratio from 0.9 to 1.2 1.6!

So, Sion is now clearly the best champion in the game. The problems inherent to his kit remain, but he's so overtuned it doesn't matter. Now, he would just be a permanent ban, but Riot also decides to make it so that he can't be banned, so that everyone gets to admire their handiwork. Welcome to the League of Sion.

Beyond making the game no fun at all, what effects would this have on the metagame at an LCS level? What would be strengthened and what would be weakened by this change to exactly one champion?

5 Comments

Thales6/2/2014, 5:58:19 PM2 votes

I have a number of thoughts on the matter that I'm opting to put here rather than clutter up the first post. If Sion cannot be banned and is insanely strong, clearly blue team will have a sizable advantage, but perhaps not an insurmountable one.

AP Sion's strengths are waveclear, durability, zoning, and roaming. However, he is immobile, short-range, and struggles in teamfights where there's many foes who can wipe away his shield. My buffs do not change the fundamental calculus of Sion.

Sion's effects would be most immediately felt in mid lane. One team would almost certainly pick Sion, and the other team would have to choose someone who could survive lane against a hard-shoving, basically invulnerable, undead juggernaut. LeBlanc would immediately vanish from competitive. Her waveclear is dicey, so she'd struggle vs. Sion's ability to wipe the whole wave instantly from level one onwards. Though she could probably avoid dying against him, she couldn't puncture his shield without burning pretty much her full combo. She could try roaming, but Sion would be roaming too, and not missing out on farm. Melee mid laners also become unviable, as they can't even farm without getting killed by Sion. Imagine Yasuo trying to deal with a 300 shield Sion at level one!

Range and safety would be the key to surviving mid lane. Super long range mages like Ziggs, Xerath, and Lux would see a boom in play, because all three can farm whole waves without leaving the relative safety of tower. They also have CC to stop Sion from just running at them.

The effects of the Sion buffs wouldn't just be limited to mid lane, however. Bot laners would have to deal with strong waveclearers in mid lane, as well as the roaming from the game's Sion. I think Sivir would benefit perhaps the most from this. Her spell shield gives her great resistance to Sion's combo, her ult allows her to escape from an enemy Sion or allow an allied Sion to run in more easily, and her Q and W allow her to push just as hard as the push-heavy mid laners. Caitlyn and Corki with their range and safety would also become better picks. In terms of support, Zyra and Morgana's strong disengage would be enough to keep them viable picks, but Lulu and Leona probably would probably fall off. Janna might also see a resurgence.

Top lane would become much more cautious and tower-huggy. The threat of roam would be much greater than in the current meta. I don't know as much about top lane, so I can't really speculate on specific champions that would be helped or hurt by this.

Jungle would probably switch more towards farm-heavy junglers. Sion is pretty much impossible to gank, because he's so durable that he could walk away from even the best ganks. Top and bot would likely become more safe and defensive, so the avenues for a gank onto them would also be fewer. Shyvana and Nocturne would do well with their abilities to countergank, but even folks like Yi or Jax might start doing well in jungle.

Buffing one champion would have repercussions far beyond that one champ.

Sire Hippington6/2/2014, 6:53:16 PM1 votes

The team without sion would probably pike a poke comp with a good rwaveclear mid, probably not ziggs as he will be banned by the team that gets sion, so lux or xerath would see more play, aswell as midlane karma. toplane jayce/nida would return, or zed as he has a realistic chance on outdueling sion in the late if he dodges the stun with his ult. I think kogmaw and varus would become huge as carrys, as they fit great into poke comps and their %health dmg alows to take sion down even if he acumulated ungodly amounts of health with his E-passive.

Globalcmbs might also work and just splitpush the hell out of sion, and twisted has great ranged waveclear to survive mid

Vi anf Malph will probably be permaban, as u don't want to give sion a hard initiate, and i think lulu, kayle and sivir will be contested aswell, as they can support sion with aditional movement, while they also work good against him.

Janna would become permaban aswell, as no sion likes dat bitch

J4 would become god tier jungler aswell as Seju and Amumu, as they offer the best initiation if Malph and Vi are banned