Talk:Sion/@comment-20434720-20140330023701/@comment-8506165-20140413002520

All right, let me see what I can provide for you... Not going to say this is the one tr00 Sion build/playstyle that will carry you through every game because... well, your build should be situational even if you have a few core items you depend on, and some games just are that impossible to win. But I'll see what I can do as a moderately experienced AD Sion and enthusiastic theorycrafter:

"mercury treads - alacrity

Atma's Impaler

Ravenous Hydra

Iceborne Gauntlet (before the armor nerfs)

Phantom Dancer

Last Whisper "

Not too bad, in all honesty. I've seen horrendous builds on Sion and this is actually relatively good! But I'll point out several things:


 * Your lack of Magic Resist probably didn't help you. Now, most people playing APCs aren't aware of how ludicrously strong is if you look at what it does for your damage, admittedly, but the 25 from Mercs leaves you with... I'm guessing about 100? So if we subtract 39 for Void Staff and MPen masteries, about 6-9 for marks and 15 for Sorcs, you're left with... about 40. Yowch. That's pretty low even if we exclude Liandry's and Abyssal, and neither is so uncommon as to be reasonably excluded in an estimate of "What will their AP damagers be doing to me?"


 * Atma's Impaler. Sadly, although this should be the go-to item for Sion as an AA-dependent bruiser who ends up with a lot of health, it's just not that good as a pure damage item. If you just need more armor, yeah, you could do worse than picking one of these up, but sadly if you're just looking for damage you can honestly just go into the shop, look for anything in the "Attack Damage" category bar like... Executioner's Calling... and it'll do more for you.


 * The Phantom Dancer. Yes, you like attack speed, but try out a . It's unbelievable how much harder this item alone makes kiting you. It gives you a very healthy chunk of MS, along with some AD (why not?), AS and most importantly, Tenacity, leaving you free to invest in for generalised anti-kite, or your choice of,  or even . Personally, I favour the Swifties with the omnipresence of slows in the current meta, but either of the other two would work as well. Theoretically, yeah, the crit from Phantom Dancer would make it a better choice for damage alone, but you don't deal any damage if you can't get into range. This item alone makes it so much easier. Try it, and (hopefully) love it.


 * IBG. Hrm. I can see it, honestly. But my preferred armor choice is Frozen Heart, because that aura is gorgeous and works perfectly with you being in the middle of a fight. I leave this one down to you and your preferred playstyle though.


 * Last Whisper. Yes. Yes yes yes. Sion needs that ArPen somehow. Other options include for a slightly tankier choice that also helps out your team with the aura, or one of the most unappreciated items in the game: . Flat armor pen, sadly, but a healthy dose of AS and MS on an item that gives you AD and crit can't be all bad, right? I actually really like the Ghostblade myself, but Whisper or Cleaver serve the purpose just as well.


 * Hydra. Obvious choice, no qualms here.

"I get that Sion should be a really strong splitpusher, but that also requires some element of teamwork (they send two people to stop me, 3/11 triforce jinx is off doing golems, my team loses a 3v3). Plus, as Sion against ranged people with waveclear like Ziggs, you have two modes: running away and chasing. There is no in-between hanging around."

Splitpusher problems generally, I'm afraid. If your team's not capitalising on what you're doing you generally just get caught by the enemy team and murdered, unless you're like... pre-rework Rengar or something, someone with a really good, reliable escape. And very strong ranged waveclear usually leaves any splitpusher with two choices - dive, or leave. Honestly, Sion can get away with diving if he's at a certain point in his build and has his ult, but yeah - if you're up against someone like Ziggs and don't feel confident in your ability to kill him in a dive, chances are you're gonna have your splitpushing constantly cockblocked. Sucks, but eh. Trynd would have the same problem if he wasn't able to dive Ziggs, and he's almost exclusively played at the moment as "that annoying guy who just sits on your turrets all game". Ways around it - good warding - upgrade your Totem or buy some if you've got space, stick 'em down so you've got any routes the enemy will take covered, watch for opportunities - rarely will there be no lanes left completely unattended for you to at least mash down some of the turret's health.

"I don't take teleport or ghost much simply because I'm bad at using them. When I take ghost, I forget to use it or use it at the worst times. And when I take teleport, I have no idea when to use it for the most part. These are faults of my own, and I should probably just shut up and learn to use them well. Question, though: would you advise replacing ignite with one of them? So you have something like ghost + flash, or ghost + teleport, or flash + teleport, etc etc? I guess missing ignite in laning phase just really ruins your kill potential (and in low elo where all people do is hit you, usually your best bet is to just hit them back harder... but if you don't have ignite, you'll lose that 1v1)."

Teleport's the more optional one, I feel. I really like it because the old "teleport to brush ward on botlane when the enemy's pushed to your tower" tactic is obscenely good - usually ends in a double kill and free Drake. It's also great for keeping up your CS in lane - which, in all honesty, should be your main goal as Sion. Ignite... ehh. I don't run it myself, but I can't see any particular reason not to; I just rather dislike the blandness of the "OP" summoner spells, with every game featuring ten Flashes, six Ignites, two Barriers and two Smites. But whatever. I'd swap Flash out for Ghost from the "default" summoners because Ghost just serves your purposes so much better, even if it hasn't quite the versatility Flash sometimes does.

Anyway, um... my comment has reached a length that seems to be breaking Wikia's formatting because I keep getting randomly zoomed in and out, so I'll leave it here for now and hope this helps somewhat. Enjoy AD Sion - Sion himself may not be in the best place at the moment, but god it's better than AP Sion. xD