Talk:Sion/@comment-6016076-20140101205505/@comment-6016076-20140110232855

@Zerxin

Thanks man for bringing that up! Got to change that :)

@Cliffshadow

Thanks for the feedback! I'd like to make a defense here if you have time to read it:

Reply Q

I wanted his Q to feel a bit like Jinx's Zap! in how dodgeable it would be. The main difference is that the range is 30% of Zap!'s range, so you can't snipe with it. One of the reasons why Zap! lands free hits is because you can snipe along an enemy's escape path to force a hit. Sion's Q is too short range to accomplish this usually. The other thing to remember is that within the 0.5 channel time (which is interruptible!), the average enemy champion can walk 2-3x the ability's radius. This means you can practically always dodge it if you are paying attention. Unless you combo CC from another champion with Sion, he will often miss his Q in a telegraphed scenario. This is why he is not an initatior, but more of a dps bruiser. I am tired of bruiser's who do everything and are OP because of this, so I wanted to confine Sion's role as much as possible, hence no reliable initiation.

Reply - Chase Potential

If you don't burst down Sion's shield, he is practically inescapable. If you do, he becomes one of the most kiteable champions in the game. He's like a no ult Olaf who misses his axe. Unlike Olaf, I believe that having a defining strength that is simultaneously counterable creates healthy gameplay.

Here's how I see it playing out:

Sion Q's in. If you are max range, you step out of range; otherwise you dodge to the side. You dash away from him and then burst down his shield at range. At this point, you kite the shit out of him, and he is helpless. The only thing Sion can do is attack a different target to build E stacks and try to skill shot you with it. He relies heavily on being tanky enough to get a second round of cooldowns, so he needs a well-farmed passive or he will be underpowered (like an unfarmed Nasus). Over the course of a fight, I intended him to be tankier than he currently is through multiple uses of W. The scaling is also far more favoreable to AD Sion. He can potentially receive over 1000 bonus HP just from his passive and W throughout a fight, which is the highest in the game behind Mundo. The tradeoff is that his survivability is not burst survivability. If you burst him down early, he is severely weakened. Again, strength and counterplay.

Reply E 

Thanks so much for pointing out that his active has no cooldown! I should definitely add one (will add it in at 8 seconds!)

As for the scaling, it is an AD ratio that scales with rank. This is uncommon but not unheard of. I know Garen's E has this as well. But, I see your point where I did not clearly separate the AP and AD portion to make it legible. It is intended to be a dual ratio, where the high 1.0 AP ratio is balanced by the fact that it deals physical damage, so we can probably expect an AP Sion to have it reduced by 50-66% down to around 0.35-0.5 late game.

AP Sion - benefit of ult and how this defines his playstyle

First, the benefit from his ult is that it reduces cooldowns by 1 second per auto attack. With 8 second cooldown on his W, if you fire off around 3-4 autoattacks, you will have the shield up again. Depending on CDR, that's potentially a free 400-500 HP every 8 seconds, which in some situations will grant him a lot of power.

Furthermore, he has a collective 2.3 AP ratio, although his base damages are very high. This is less than burst APs who run around 3.0, but it is noteably more than Annie and Twisted Fate. It is around Chogath (2.7) and Gragas (2.4), to give you an idea of his damage potential compared to other bruiser APs. One thing to remember is that his W and E have very low cooldowns while his ult is active, basically every 3-4 attacks, with some CDR, will allow him another rotation of those abilities, so he can spam faster than most mages. On the other hand, his Q is also extremely unreliable, which is a third of his initial combo, and his E deals physical damage. Honestly, his AP ratios might be too low!

Most importantly, compared to now he actually has an overall ratio increase of 0.5 AP with similar base damages. Not only that, but his cooldowns will be much lower with ult up. This translates to higher DPS. I increased his overall DPS, but removed the two aspects of AP Sion that had no counterplay: His shield approaching unbreakable values of 800-900 health, and him being the only mage with an on-demand stun that allowed him to 100-0 anyone within 550 range at a given time (TF at least has to cycle!). He now has counterable CC and a shield whose health doesn't scale with 0.9 AP, cutting its health probably in half late game. Overall, this forces him to build tankier and last longer in a fight for repeated rotations, and because he will be tankier, he needed an overall DPS increase to remain viable.

Thanks so much for having read the post and offering the great feedback. I'd appreciate more discussion if possible because this is helping me learn!