What’s up guys it’s me Jeremy.
Sion is a pretty interesting champion that has been hovering at a really high win rate
for the support role for a pretty long time now.
Now he doesn’t have a high playrate, which suggests it’s just a small bunch of Sion
players that enjoy this particular way to play Sion, but that’s still an impressive
statistic.
We figured it was well worth looking at to see how good Sion support really is.
And as always If you guys enjoy the video don’t forget to hit that like button and
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And let’s get started.
Sion’s kit is definitely packed with a ton of features that make sense on a support.
His Q, Decimating Smash, is a charged attack that hits in an area in front of Sion.
It increases in damage and range for up to two seconds to a maximum of 300% damage.
If Sion charges for less than a second, any enemies hit will be briefly slowed.
If he charges for more than a second, he knocks up all enemies hit based on how long it was
charged total.
This jumps straight out as an awesome support ability - CC on a basic ability that can hit
multiple enemies is always going to be powerful when used properly.
One of the things that really stands out is Sion’s ability to channel this from a brush
to try hit up an enemy and deal a ton of damage in the process.
Catching one or both enemy bot laners in the knockup with all that damage in the early
levels is just an insane amount of damage and CC, and could suggest Sion would be a
really powerful lane bully, especially in matchups where the enemies can’t deal with
him from a range.
Sion’s W Soul Furnace is probably the worst part of his kit from a supporting perspective.
The passive part gives 2 bonus health permanently to Sion for every enemy he kills, along with
10 bonus health for large enemies and champion kills or assists.
Because Sion isn’t going to be farming as a support, he’ll definitely miss out on
a lot of health in the early and mid game that he would have had if he was playing top.
Activating Soul Furnace gives Sion a shield for up to 6 seconds that scales with his maximum
health.
This could definitely be useful in lane for Sion because it would let him tank damage
for his ADC, survive through poke and also be used to tank creep waves before they hit
the tower if his ADC wasn’t quite back in lane yet.
With less stacks from farming the shield isn’t going to be as strong as possible, but it’s
still quite useful for a support Sion too.
He can also activate the shield to detonate it after 3 seconds, dealing magic damage to
nearby units.
That’s again less useful for support Sion, but if he needed to help waveclear or push
a wave, or just wanted to get a little bit more damage down in a fight, it could definitely
help out and shouldn’t be underestimated.
His E is called Roar of the Slayer and is another part of his kit that makes me really
excited for the Sion support playstyle.
Activating the ability causes Sion to shout, dealing magic damage and slowing the target
hit along with reducing their armor by 20%.
If he hits a minion or non-epic monster, they are knocked back and deal 30% increased damage
to all enemies it passes through, slowing them by the same amount.
This is actually another contender for the ability Sion support would want to max - in
close range lanes where Sion can slam the enemy laners with a Q from the brush, it’s
probably the better ability to max, but you could definitely max E in lanes where you
are struggling to reach the enemy.
Hitting minions gives the ability crazy range and lets Sion poke or slow from relative safety
quite well.
I love the fact that it reduces armor to the unit hit directly though - this is amazingly
valuable in the mid and late game when your ADC wants to be able to punch more damage
through onto tankier enemies.
His E also combos well with his Q, you can slow a target with E to make it easier to
land a fully charged Q for the full knock up and huge damage.
That’s pretty crazy, especially on a support who can just build tanky.
This combo along with Sion’s shield could turn him into a kinda strong lane bully that
wants to stomp lane and then snowball it into a win.
Unstoppable Onslaught describes Sion pretty well, but it’s also the name of his Ultimate.
This notorious charge let’s Sion run in the target direction for 8 seconds, unable
to attack or be CC’d until he collides with an object or the Ult is recasted.
He can steer this slightly to try run into enemies, but it’s definitely kinda hard
to use as an initiation tool because it can be quite unreliable, especially against mobile
teams.
It deals a ton of damage, stuns and pulls in enemies he collides with, and slows anyone
he damages.
The damage and stun duration both build up over the first few seconds of the charge,
so Sion is rewarded for managing to line up a long range Ult onto an enemy team.
and we can definitely see the value of an ability like this in the kit of a support.
Being able to quickly get across the map to help your team is really important, and it
kinda helps solidify this playstyle as a damage-based support with a ton of AoE crowd control.
It’s not likely you’ll pull off many long dashes in lane, but if you do manage to get
a quick stun off from it on an enemy lane it’s pretty much guaranteed that you’ll
get a summoner spell or a kill - it’s just so much damage and the CC is awesome.
It’s got a lot of potential as a roaming ability, and you can get from bot lane to
mid lane without much issue so a well timed ult might let you use your awesome strength
to snowball your other lanes ahead too.
Roaming is a big part of the support meta game at the moment so having an ability that
does it so well is super cool.
Sion’s passive is Glory in Death, which could definitely see some use as a support.
Once he dies, he comes back to 100% life, losing health over time until he dies again.
He can move and attack though, dealing damage and healing up with 100% lifesteal.
It turns all his other abilities into Death Surge for the duration, on a shared cooldown
that gives Sion 50% bonus movement speed for 1.5 seconds, letting him chase down whoever
killed him.
This would pretty much serve as a way to swing a fight that was being lost in bot lane, and
it kinda rewards Sion for tanking damage and dying first in lane, giving him a second chance
to get damage down and put his AD carry ahead.
It also pretty much prevents anyone from daring to towerdive Sion in the early game, because
although you’d kill him, he would get chance for revenge.
This means even a low health Sion can effectively defend his AD Carry or turret, which is a
pretty cool way to use the passive.
That wraps up his kit, and we can see that he could definitely have some strong early
game impact that could make him one of the snowballiest supports in the game.
It seems like the best way to abuse this off meta pick is to keep the side brushes unwarded
and use them to zone the enemy hard.
If they come near the bush, you're insane damage and CC will punish them hard, and if
they stay away then it makes it easy for your AD Carry to freeze lane and cs.
One really cool part about his Q is that at max range, it’s about the same range as
you need to walk to ward.
If you’re doing a good job of keeping the brush clear using pinks or a sweeper, you
can channel your Q as the enemy support comes to ward it and then just smack them hard.
There’s always a valuable surprise factor with picks like Sion that shouldn’t be ignored.
When Sion is locked in, the enemy team will usually expect Sion top lane, and this could
lead to bad top lane matchups for the enemy, and maybe even
a favorable bot lane matchup for Sion.
Another cool thing about Sion is that aside from his Soul Furnace shield, his mana costs
are really really low.
He can use his Q and E really often in lane without worrying about going OOM, unlike champions
such as Blitzcrank or Thresh who can run dry pretty fast and end up being useless.
That being said, he’s pretty clunky as a champion, and players that know how to bait
and avoid his abilities might cause problems though.
It that matters less than top lane Sion though because when supporting you’re still really
valuable as a damage soak and warder, and even just getting the armor reduction on a
key target for your ADC to attack is a huge bonus.
Champions that can dominate the early game are often less useful as the games goes on,
and to be honest that definitely seems to be the case with Sion.
His big early stats matter less as the game timer ticks up, and one big weakness of the
pick is that he’s kinda hard to use in a teamfight.
As a support, you want to either be locking down the enemy team or peeling for your backline,
but Sion’s Q is quite hard to use in a fast teamfight.
All you can really do is get in the enemy team’s face and make them burn
damage on your shield and tanky items, while you try and use your shout on a target that
your AD Carry can hit for the bonus damage.
If you do use his early power to win lane though, using him for surprise kills from
unwarded brushes seems like a good way to get use out of his kit.
Once one enemy is dead, forcing objectives or a 4v5 teamfight means.
From what we’ve seen, it definitely seems like Sion is a huge snowball pick that wants
to crush the early game, and it really favors players who are familiar with Sion.
It doesn’t seem like anyone can just pick him up and dominate games, but
if you put in a bit of time to getting used to his kit then it might really be worth giving
Sion support a good shot because it actually does seem pretty powerful.
Let us know your thoughts and experiences with Sion in the comments, or let us know
about your crazy off meta picks that you think we should talk about next.
And it looks like that’s gonna be it from me, if you enjoyed the video drop a like,
subscribe if you want, thanks for watching, and I’ll see you guys next time!