Talk:Sion/@comment-24013185-20131219015814/@comment-8506165-20140109194251

"What? AP Sion has never done that he's completely harmless pre level six you can't buy enough AP to blow people up unless you happen to be an assassin mage. "

Um... what?

Sorry Oda, I normally agree with you on a lot of things, but you're just plain wrong here. The whole point of AP Sion is to be horrendously broken in lane, because he falls off like a truck later with his nuke becoming unusable once teamfights start and people can break through his shield before he can detonate it. Pre-6 is arguably when he's strongest, because when built AP Sion only really uses two skills - Q & W. His ult is worthless when he builds AP so he doesn't get any power spike at 6, whereas his lane opponent will. But what does he do in lane when he's got Q and W (i.e. his full combo)? Activate W, go up to his opponent, detonate and Q. 180% of his AP plus bases into your face, with absolutely no opportunity to counterplay it - you get stunned and can't counterattack, you can't damage him through Death's Caress and he's won the trade. When he hits six? Eh... so what? 50% AS and Lifesteal isn't very useful on someone who's built no AD or crit. But prior to that you'll have either been forced out of lane a few times or he'll have killed you if you've not gone back, because you can't trade with him but he can force trades pretty easily. The only advantage he has post-6 is he can use his ult to get a little bit of health back off minion waves - it really does nothing for his offense.

So in short, he's about being a zero-counterplay champ in lane, with his sole goal being to shut his opponent down and ideally get as fed as possible because he really sucks later. Zero counterplay = toxic. AD Sion on the other hand? Yeah, loads of potential - theoretically infinite health, high AD steroid and an AS and lifesteal steroid making for a pretty evil mix with some tanky items and AS/Crit items. But eminently kiteable (he needs a load of anti-kite items just to avoid it) and requiring a lot of farm to get to the high levels of health (and the number of items) that he needs to just faceroll into the enemy team. Hardly toxic, unless you count the fact he can theoretically farm infinite health as toxic, although AP Sion can do that too when he eventually starts skilling Enrage.

This is why Riot want to kill AP Sion with his eventual rework and keep AD Sion, because he's meant to be a tanky lifestealing machine, not a mage who only ever uses that axe to trigger Lich Bane procs.