AP Sion's rough Round-Up

Introduction

Servus everyone.

Today I thought about making my first guide to add my own ideas to the community/discuss them, helping you and maybe helping myself tweaking it.

Since I only wanted to create a guide on champs I'm fairly good at and I played long enough already, the choices were piped down to AP Sion, AP/Tank Morde, AD/Hybrid Ez, AP-favored Hybrid Jax, Tank/Off-Tank Jarv4 and so on.
While I was roaming through the guides voted highest on my respective fields, I noticed that the "best" Sion guide was AP and sadly outdated/badly cobbled and with some bad choices here and there.

So now I'm here hoping to give you guys some good material to use/argue about.

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Pros / Cons

Pros:

• Great early game: outzoning/dmg output/farming abilities.
• While boosting your dmg you'll also boost your defense (but: hard to master).
• You'll use the incredible burst of Sion's AP side, while still healing you/r mates for quite a chunk between fights.
• Since some patches ago you now wield a double-edged axe!

Cons

• Your bread&butter skill has 2 edges pointed at you: dmg can be negated by bursting your bubble + 4 sec delay.
• Most predictable. You'll have to suprise enemies with bushes/Flash/teamwork, otherwise you'll give them an accurate time frame of your next attack.
• While normal caster use a complete skillset to face their opponents, you'll only use half of it. Turning you into a wandering meat shield, waiting for it's CDs.

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Skill Sequence

Experiencing many kinds of different games up until now, I judged the skilling order on AP Sion not to be totally firm.

Of course, even while every level offers the same CD, Death's Caress IS your bread&butter, making it the skill that's maxed first.

Sometimes I catch myself not activating Cannibalism in a teamfight at all, since I only land Stun+Bubble+Sheen/Bane proc before retreating not to become the main target of some enraged enemies. So why leveling it at all?
Even while it isn't always usable in fights, it's still viable outside of them!
Instead of wasting money on Spell Vamp you can easily heal yourself/your team off of one minion wave/ use it to take down Blue Buff, Dragon or Baron. It's pretty neat since you dont need extra AD in order to do so, Enrage alone is enough.


Speaking about that takes me to the flexible part of Sion's skilling order.
Instead of going for a standard R>W>Q>E order, I like to drop the priority on Cryptic Gaze according to the game flow:

After skilling Death's Caress with the first point ofc, I always judge the enemy/enemies I'm facing.
If they're too defensive and being outzoned by your presence alone, put your 2nd point in Enrage starting to make use of it ASAP. They'll notice right away, but you still have your Summoner Spells to reach lvl 3 without problem.
At the time I reach lvl 8 with my skills on 1/3/1/1, I'll judge the game situation yet again: You still have the possiblity to farm enough creeps?
Instead of "wasting" your skill point on some minor dmg boost and 1 sec CDR on Cryptic Gaze you should boost your HP by making more use of creeps.

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Summoner Spells

Primary:

Simple the best choice, IMO.
Flash utilizes your rapid burst that needs melee range, best to outzone squishy enemies.
Still, if you want to take the initiative you should try to make use of bushes before activating Death's Caress and Flash.
Ignite is your "finisher", since you dont have much of a chaser and won't burst them to 0% just with a bubble/stun+sheen in most cases.

Optional:

With the recent nerfs/buffs it's not a bad idea to switch Flash for Ghost, if you decide to drop a long CD finishing/escaping skill for higher mobility.
Same for Exhaust: IMO AP Sion's a hit&run champ, without your skills you dont want to stick close to the enemy, except you can finish him off with 2-3 blows after you landed your combo, but therefore Ignite will do just fine.
Both changes should be made according to your personal opinion/playstyle.

Everthing else:

Teleport is still useful solo top or mid, while Surge gives you 2 states you can make use of somehow, but you shouldnt concern yourself with it, Ignite&Exhaust are still better choices.
The rest is just either bad overall ( Heal, Clarity, Revive, Promote)

• Heal, Clarity is ok for those guys who still level and dont have the mastery points/runes or not enough experience to preserve their Life/Mana.
• Revive, Promote are meant to widen the variety... maybe they have some little use, Karthus + Revive is a good one for example.

or aren't meant to be used by not-jungler/not-support Sion ( Clairvoyance, Smite).
Regarding Cleanse I'm not quite sure if using it to counter CC, that is supposed to prevent your bubble activation, is actual viable to drop another spell for or not.

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Masteries

Nothing great to add here.

Normal AP DmgDealer spec.
I dropped 1 AP for the 5AP/5AD bonus while Ignite's on CD and judged Swiftness to be more needed than a little Meditation.
Ofc, if you decide to switch Flash for Ghost you should drop Summoner's Insight for Good Hands.

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Runes

Greater Mark of Insight Marks:

Didnt even spend time thinking about an alternative.
Plainly spoken the best choice you can make here.


Greater Seal of Clarity Seals:

Again there was nothing else I could think about.
Okay, ofc you could switch them for flat Greater Seal of Replenishment to boost your early, but therefore you should buy at least 1 Doran's Ring + Sheen and also not spam your abilities.
Since Cryptic Gaze puts a huge burden on Sion's little mana pool, you can get in a mana pinch with or without them if misused.
Plus I'm not found of stacking mana/manareg on him, it's easy to utilize him to his fullest with only some from Lich Bane and Morello's Evil Tome.


Greater Glyph of Focus Glyphs:

The only ones I'm not too sure about.
IMO they can easily be switched for Greater Glyph of Potency to boost your early a bit more. But since Sion should make use of CDR, I like to have sth close to 30% ( Morello's Evil Tome + masteries = 24%).
Since you can get yourself Blue Buff sometimes and buy Elixir of Brilliance with some spare (ppl tend to underrate it, but it's guite good if you know you won't die wasting parts of it respawning and moving back), there shouldn't be a problem with it not permamently maxed.


Greater Quintessence of Potency Quints:

Your early boost.
The only thing I'd switch them for is Greater Quintessence of Swiftness, but in fact I couldn't try it out up until now, since I can land my (stun+)shield+sheen/bane combo without it I never saw a real need for them.

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Items

Soooo lets get to the major part...
Lets try to do it in chronological order:

Early:

While Boots of Speed and Pots seems to be an alternative I like to boost dmg + defense in one go with Doran's Ring (not only HP but AP on your shield will also help you prevent harass), sometimes even picking a 2nd one seems to be quite a viable option to utilize Sion's great early game even further.

In terms of boots Sorcerer's Shoes is the way to boost your dmg.
Since MR is the weaker/non-leveling state on most champs, you can tone it down below 10 easily that way + MrP runes.
Also I noticed the huge recommendation of using Boots of Mobility.
Good enough if you decide to roam, but bad if you stay more on lane.
You aren't the guy that's always in the enemy blind spot like Twitch/Eve/Shaco anyway.

After that Sheen solves the last bit of your mana problem, gives you more of the off+def increasing AP and adds an extra nuke to your combo. Highly recommended.

Mid:

By now you should check the enemies situation to decide on how to proceed with your built. IMO all the HP you need is provided by Doran's Ring and Enrage, so defense items should provide ar/mr.
While things like Zhonya's Hourglass are great to prevent ppl from focusing you and to pass the time until Death's Caress can be used (while invincible DC will still count down the delay-timer) it's still optional, you should consider it early against AD heavy teams and maybe as your 5-6 item against balanced ones.
But if the enemy team is at least balanced, moreover favoring magical dmg you should grab Abyssal Scepter as a defense item with great dmg boost.

After that you should consider CDR as the next target of interest, Fiendish Codex will do just fine for that. If you find resistance of less use early, you could get Codex first and upgrade it directly into Morello's Evil Tome after finishing Sheen.

Now you should've obtained Morello's Evil Tome + 1 additional AP item, providing you with enough AP to upgrade Sheen into Lich Bane effectively, that will provide you with some needed MS and adds ~200 dmg to your nuke.

A simple core build should be:


Rabadon's Deathcap could also be counted, many ppl tend to stack 2 Doran's Ring to sustain their laning-phase and then go for it directly.
Doable, but only with a great early game, otherwise you will miss too much of other states even with an empowered Death's Caress. That's why...

Late:

... I normally place it after I got my Lich Bane.
That said, while treating Abyssal Scepter as a near to compulsory buy, there should only be 1 slot left.(Selling Doran's Ring, Doran's items alltogether should btw always only be sold to free space.)


There are some optional items you could consider for that spot or replace Morello's Evil Tome:


The enemy's stacking MR? Well, that is it. If you're forced to buy it you can also drop Sorcerer's Shoes for Ionian Boots of Lucidity/ Mercury's Treads (But not Abyssal Scepter it's MR-Reduce applies after %MrPen)
While you already countered magical dmg with Abyssal Scepter and Lich Bane it's a good item to round things up.
You couldn't pick Abyssal Scepter since the enemy team wasn't dealing enough magical dmg to make it worth it's cost? This thing will help you against later upcoming threats while giving you a CC-Block to prevent ppl from denying your bubble.
You dont need that many CDR/Got already Ionian Boots of Lucidity? Switch it for Morello's Evil Tome (Dont get both) for an extra nuke.
Highly recommended if the enemy has 3-4 guys with greater HP stacks.


Like I already mentioned HP and Spell Vamp are not necessary so you shouldn't waste money to get Will of the Ancients or Rod of Ages.
Namely everything that mainly provides HP,Mana or Spell Vamp isnt needed.
Also things like Rylai's Crystal Scepter should be skipped, not only for the HP, but that slow cant be effectively maintained with Sion's skillset.

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Tips

• You should always play aggressive, handle risk and reward and learn to time your shield probably.
• Evaluate what your enemy has ready and how much it will lower your shield to save HP while still nuking everything around you in the process.
• You're a solo laner or lane with a support who won't hug too many of those precious little Happy Meals. Even mid is fine if you learned to handle Sion properly.
• Your Stun is great for an easy DC+Sheen hit, but try to use it after you landed those to prolong a Cannibalism powered autohit fury, if you know that you can actually take him down within a few autohits.
• Dont forget to activate your shield always while you're still on the move to the different hot spots: saving a tower under fire/aiding an ally already engaged in combat and so on. Otherwise your greatest weapon will still warm up with your friend down and some 10% enemies on the run.
• Don't forget: You're beefy as hell (for an AP caster), dangerous, but also a slow lumpy meat mountain, while you lower the enemy's HP bar you'll mostly nuke some of his minions along the way leaving your lane overextended sometimes, therefore Junglers will be glad to dump your rotten slowpoke *** back into hell. Wards are mandatory to prevent such mishaps.
• Lets say, you're solo top and ported back to refill/buy after you also forced your opponent back or killed him. Now you're on your way back and notice Mid is in a pinch and sth prevents your Jungler from helping. Why not lend a helping hand?
  At best you already dominate top and left your lane overextended before porting back, giving you enough time without leaving your tower unprotected.

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Afterword

After everything mentioned above I'd like to add, that AP Sion is a champ that's easy to play, moderate to be good and hard to master.
If you like to play sth. that's spec'd on hit&run with less run and more hit, not missing some beefy tank-like experience AP Sion could be your new best friend.

And since I didn't add some pictures to make those text phases pass quicker + I deceived you with the single one in the Pros/Cons to make you actually read all of this:
Pic of Sion with a new hat I found on the internet:


Now open for adds, comments, notes, ideas.