Talk:Sion/@comment-24035110-20140128004116/@comment-20434720-20140201032345

I've tried AD top Sion. Multiple times. The problem is that his laning phase is pretty bad, and he doesn't start healing for a lot until post-16 with near-full build. And if the enemy laner just sits back and lets you farm for 30 minutes, they deserve to lose. Sion gets bullied out of lane... by jax... it's pretty bad. You would think that, with the strong stats he has on his ult and E, he would be pretty strong, but flat AD buffs don't really help all that much until you get attackspeed and crit.

It's not that Sion's kit is weak, it's that by level 6 he has a 450 mana pool, and his Q costs 100 mana at all ranks. His W scales up to 110, as well. Meaning if you use *any* abilities for trading, you will have one more opportunity to do it and go OOM. Compared to, say, jax, whose E -> W -> Q-> AA combo does more than 4 of your AAs and costs AT MOST 185 mana. And heaven forbid you go against a manaless renekton... you have to be a pretty amazing Sion, have a pretty terrible lane opponent, or miss out on almost all the farm in order to not give up a kill by level 6. Add in that he doesn't really have a noticeable passive (i'm sure it helps, but it's not reliable at all).

Even if you simply get an avarice blade and vamp scepter and settle down for some nice long-term-desert-your-team-and-hug-turret farming, the constant health drain from having E toggled on will keep you from being able to regen much of the harass you'll still be taking. You'll just get dove and die anyway (yes, even through your ult's lifesteal. Everyone and their cat takes ignite and stacks armor, so your whopping 30 hp/hit that you get through ignite won't mean much of anything.

It's not that AD Sion isn't strong, it's just that he scales like Nasus, but with a weaker early game, weaker late game, no anti-farm-denial kit, and comparatively weak stats. And in yoloQ, your team is not just going to play passively as you scale up - heck, they don't even know what Sion's E does. They're going to run around like headless chickens, get killed, and blame you for *only* pinging MIA and warning them. '

And playing AD Sion, even if you make it into the late game teamfights, still requires a completely different playstyle from other toplaners. You aren't a full tank renekton who can jump on the enemy adc and sit on them for 10 seconds. The situation with Sion's mobility is pretty awful. You get kited by jax. You get kited by renekton. You get kited by Maokai. Heck, I've gotten kited by kha'xiz before (THROUGH GHOST). I know that sounds exaggerated, but it's not. Getting IBG helps, but by the time you get it you either don't do damage (and you bring no utility either except that slow and some resistances - stun aside, your kit has 0 utility) or the game is pretty much over.

Although I haven't tried jungle Sion in pvp games (farmtests in customs. He can farm up to 700 health by 30mins, and by just farming can get full build by 40 mins if he has wriggle's), but if my 0-7 record with Sion top means anything, I doubt it would work too well either (to be fair, I'm not exactly a great player, last I checked I was around silver level...). You would end up with Nasus syndrome: your team has to 4v5 for 90% of the game while you farm and pretend that your late game is stellar and won't end up with the enemy team's Liandry's + BotRK making your extra health hurt more than help.

To be fair: I played pretty badly in the games I've tried (normals). There were times when it was obvious that if I was a better player, I *could* have come out ahead in some situations. But if I was a better player, my opponents would be better also.

Sion's infinite stacking ultimately falls in the same category as Veigar and Thresh: if the  game hasn't ended by the time it really gives you a large advantage, then neither team is playing well. Nasus' damage stacking has much more immediate effect (of course, his real strength as of now is the other free stats). Yes, you can in theory with atma's have infinite health and AD. Yes, it will take 20+ hrs to top 1k AD.

Sion's lifesteal is a noobtrap: for the duration of your existence in a teamfight, you will be ignited / have grievous wounds for pretty much the entire time. Furthermore, until you get last whisper AND ravenous hydra, you can't even fight the other team's frontline. The lifesteal is good if: you are 1v1ing an enemy in the middle of an enemy minion wave and have ravenous. Your ADC doesn't know what your ult does, and besides, they shouldn't be within 250 range of the enemy frontline to begin with.

Listing all the strong parts of Sion's kit is like looking at Karthus' Q and saying "wow, that gives so much DPS! Why don't people play Karthus all the time, he must be freelo?". You don't really realize that Sion's teamfighting is bad, his laning is bad, his late game is only somewhat above average, his mana is bad, his cooldowns are bad, and grievous wounds hurts him more than Mundo. You would think that he could at least splitpush like Trynd, but no - you try fighting someone, you ult, they *walk away*, wait 15 seconds, come back and kill you. And that's assuming that you went at least even in laning.

Apologies for the huge wall of text, but having looked into the possibility of AD bruiser Sion top and found it extremely frustrating and difficult, I want to make sure others are aware of the problems I've encountered before they try it.