Sion Build Guide by GargoPat

Introduction

First of all, I would like to welcome you and thank you for taking the time to read my guide to Sion, the champion who can do anything. A few things before we get started:

-This is not a simple guide, it is an in-depth collection of builds. I will show you ways to play these builds and give tips and tricks

-This guide goes on the assumption that you already understand Sion and how he plays, and if you are simply looking for a good build, as opposed to a new champion to play

With that said, let us begin!

Sion is a fun champion to play, and is unique in that you can build almost any item on him, and he can fit almost any role in the game. Whether you want to be a tanky top laner, a health jungler, or crit-happy carry, Sion can do it all.

Pros / Cons

Pros +Crazy Crit Damage +Can be built any way and fit any role +Naturally Tanky (with Farm) +DOTA style stun +With the right items, can easily survive 3v1's or even 5v1's +Only champ to have infinite health and AD (with Atma's Impaler)

Cons -Can be kited -Heavy mana costs -No natural escapes ( must rely on Summoner spells) -Farm Dependant -Needs lifesteal to counter health costs from Enrage

Spells

Flash Ghost: I find that Flash works better with burst-damage type champions such as abilities or other summoner spells, and Ghost works better with champions that focus more on sustained damage, like auto-attacks. This is why I pick my spells to accommodate my playstyle and build.

Teleport: Using this spell can quickly save a lane thats pushed, or take down an enemy tower, or even used to backdoor. This spell is useful in a farming lane, so you don't miss out on any experience, and the enemy laner doesn't push the lane too far.

Ignite: This extra bit of damage to finish off a foe in case they just barely escape the reach of you axe.

Exhaust: Slowing a foe down enough for you to finish them off or escape from a grim demise. This spell means that the enemy top laner can't trade with you, especially if your ultimate is active. Combined with Ghost and Frozen Mallet and Frenzy and they will not be going anywhere, and the bonus from the mastery will make them softer too.

Smite: Take it when jungling, simple as that.

Heal: Healing a large amount of health can be useful for yourself and your team, but i find that the late game scaling makes it not very worthwhile, unless you take Summoner's Resolve , which grants a bonus 90 health at level 18.

Barrier: This spell can win a fight, or save you from a tower dive. Activating it on top of the shield from Death's Caress can buy you enough time to heal up with auto attacks during Cannibalism to win a fight you feel you are losing.

Cleanse: If you don't have any tenacity, this spell can save your sorry butt! It's essentially the same active as Quicksilver Sash/ Mercurial Scimitar, but also reduces disables for a brief moment afterwards.

Any spells not mentioned are not worth taking.

Masteries

Bruiser Top

Glass Cannon ADCJungleTank
OFFENSE


Take a point in Summoner's Wrath to improve Ghost, Exhaust, or Ignite. Fury will increase your attack speed by a small amount, but only take 3 points. This way you can afford to put 4 points into Deadliness and the last point into Weapon Expertise , to get that sweet armor penetration. Havoc increases all damage that you deal from all sources, AD or AP. Brute Force gives you a little extra AD to get you started, but it's really not noticeable at all. Lethality will increase the damage of all your crits by 5%, which is a lot when you have items like Infinity Edge and Phantom Dancer. Frenzy will increase your attack speed by 10% each time you land a crit, so it ties in well with critical chance items. Sunder gives more armor penetration, which is a great thing to have on a fighter like Sion. Executioner increases all damage by 5% to targets with less than 50% of their health, making your heavy-hitting crits hit even harder!


DEFENSE


One point in Summoner's Resolve will grant bonus gold on Smite, and extra shield amounts on Barrier, as well as scaling health per level when you take Heal. Durability grants even more health per level, adding onto Sion's already infinite health pool. Hardiness and Resistance will give you more defense early game, but if you are going 21-9-0, take whichever provides more use in-lane. (Take Hardiness against an AD top, for example). Unyielding and Block reduce damage you take from champions, but not monsters, so don't take unless you are laning. Veteran's Scars give some extra health, try to take this whenever possible. Tenacious gives some tenacity that stacks with tenacity items and Cleanse, take this if your going this far into the defense tree. Juggernaut only adds onto Sion's unlimited health pool. Honor Guard reduces all incoming damage by a small amount, but it's still extremely useful.


UTILITY


Putting points into Wanderer will help you get around the jungle faster. Meditation will help sustain your mana in lane or in jungle. Mastermind improves the usefulness of all your summoner spells, especially Smite. Runic Affinity will increase the duration of neutral buffs, like the ancient golem, elder lizard, or baron nashor buffs. Anymore points into this tree are wasted on Sion.

Runes

Jungle Runes

• Greater Mark of Attack Speed: It's like beginning the game with a Dagger. Very useful when you have lifesteal items. Considering the fact that you don't need attack speed to last hit minions, just good timing, these are the superior choice in the jungle, not as useful in a solo lane.
  
  
• Greater Seal of Armor: These are just the best seals to take, to reduce damage taken from jungle monsters, and small fights you might have with the enemy jungler.
  
  
• Greater Glyph of Scaling Magic Resist: Since you don't start against any ap opponents, scaling magic resist glyphs will serve you better then flat magic resist gylphs, as you won't be dealing with any ap damage until you stat ganking.
  
  
• Greater Quintessence of Movement Speed: I hate a slow Sion, so I take these to run around the jungle faster. They also help chasing down targets, especially if you don't build any movement speed items. They also let you swap out your boots late game for another movement speed item, like Zephyr.

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Top Lane

greater mark of armor penetration: These marks will counter the Cloth Armor/ Health Potionx5 start in a solo lane, and ignore any armor that jungle creeps might have. Definitely more useful in a solo lane than the jungle, and since Sion starts with 25 flat ad from Enrage, these compliment them nicely.

Greater Seal of Armor: These are essential against an AD opponent top lane, and reduce poke damage from champions and minions as well.

Greater Glyph of Magic Resist: Early game magic resist helps against ap top laners and hybrid damage dealers.

Greater Quintessence of Life Steal: Starting with these will give you immediate mitigation on Enrage, both in-lane and in the jungle.

greater quintessence of armor penetration: When the Last Whisper and armor pen. marks are just not enough for you.

Greater Quintessence of Attack Speed: When you want to hit 10,000 strikes in less then a minute, these are the quints for you!


Wait, No AD runes??

Nope. Combinind the total AD from marks and quintessences, you get about 15 bonus AD right off the bat. Enrage gives 25. Sure, you may want to start the game with 40 bonus AD, but i find that extra armor penetration, movement speed, or attack speed compliments this massive AD more nicely, and they scale better into late game. You build a ton of AD on Sion regardless, so having some attack speed and armor penetration to go along with it is nice. I mean, you can take them if you want to, I don't, and show you many other options.

Abilities

Feel No Pain: What this ability is saying is that each time you are attacked, you have a chance to ignore 30/40/50 true damage. That means no matter what armor or magic resistance or damage reduction you have, the amount ignored cannot be raised or lowered. You won't really notice when this kicks in, but it can negate a TON of damage late game, meaning champs with high attack speed but low damage are going to struggle against you.

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Cryptic Gaze: A DOTA 2- type stun, aka point-and-click. At a huge mana cost (100 at all ranks), this means that you can't use it for poking unless you have blue buff. Make sure to save it for ganking or team fights, and it helps a ton when the jungler comes to gank your lane. It also helps when the enemy is diving you under your tower. Make sure to save it until the tower focuses them, so they will be stunned and take at lease 2-3 tower shots before either escaping or killing you.

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Death's Caress: This shield scales well with AP, and is just as useful on AD Sion. Note that no matter how much health the shield has left, it will always do full damage when you detonate it. Perfect timing will allow you to tank with it and detonate it for maximum use. This trick separates good Sion players from great Sion players.

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Enrage: Each kill gives you bonus maximum health. Keep it on at all times, so all farm you get will increase your max health. Combining it with Atma's Impaler, you can have both infinite health, and therefore infinite AD. The health costs are easily mitigated by a simple Vampiric Scepter, which can build into a late game Ravenous Hydra or The Bloodthirster.

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Cannibalism: Gives huge lifesteal and attack speed. Combine with lifesteal and attack speed items, and Sion can easily survive a 2v1, 3v1, or even more based on the enemy team comp. This ability alone is why Sion needs attack speed - more attack speed means more healing! Don't forget it heals nearby allies too, so you can keep them alive. Learning the range of the ult and how close you have to stand to heal them is the key.

Items

• Berserker's Greaves: More attack speed fuels more healing from life steal items and your ultimate. I take these usually when jungling, or when building glass cannon. You can trade them out late game for another item that give attack and movement speeds if you really want, like Phantom Dancer or Zephyr.
  
  
• Mercury's Treads: Movement speed and tenacity, because Sion is often focused by hard CC. If you don't take these, try to take another item that gives tenacity, like Zephyr.
  
  
• Ninja Tabi: Reducing damage from basic attacks by 10%?? Combined with all the damage-reducing masteries and you are negating a TON of damage! The armor helps a lot against a heavy-AD based team as well.
  
  
• Boots of Mobility: Boots of ganking. Lets you run around really fast, like Master Yi.
  
  
  
  CORE ITEMS
  
  
• The Bloodthirster: A great AD item, it gives life steal to mitigate the health cost on Enrage. At full stacks, gives 100 AD, the most out of any item. (Excluding Atma's).
  
  
• Phantom Dancer: AS, MS, and Crits. A terrific item for Sion, it synergizes nicely with life steal and Infinity Edge. The movement speed helps out as well, as Sion needs to be speedy.
  
  
• Frozen Mallet: Tons of health, and a great passive that helps Sion chase fleeing foes. If you want, you can get this as well as Warmog's Armor, or both to be super tanky. If your getting Phage, this really is the more viable option to build into.
  
  
• Maw of Malmortius: The lower your health gets, the more AD you gain. This means, if you've been ignited during your ultimate, you're going to start hitting like a TRAIN. The lifeline passive also can save your life in a pinch, and the Magic resist is just nice.
  
  
• Infinity Edge: Your crits hit like a FREIGHT TRAIN. Tons of AD, and combined with Phantom Dancer, you land a crit 55% of the time, and those crits are going to hurt like hell. Only downside is that it is expensive, making it at least a mid-late game item, unless you get lucky with your farming or ganks, but the earliest you can afford it is at least 10-13 minutes in. Despite the high cost, it is gold efficient even without the passive.
  
  
• Ravenous Hydra: AOE life steal and splash damage. The unique active also increase your DPS. I usually take this over The Bloodthirster just because of the AOE splash. It makes Sion such a good pusher and farmer late game. A little more expensive then the The Bloodthirster, but more AOE damage helps farming better. It means you only have to focus the biggest jungle monster to kill all the little ones.
  
  
  MORE ITEMS
  
  
• Warmog's Armor: A huge amount of health. Even if this is the only health item you buy, it will make Sion insanely tankier, and the passive will keep him healthy between fights and farming. It's also relatively cheap total cost, but the recipe cost is hugely annoying. It is very gold efficient, even without the passive.
  
  
• Atma's Impaler: Since Sion has infinite health, and this item gives bonus AD based on your maximum health, you also gain infinite AD! It also has 15% crit chance, so that works nicely with IE and PD. You need to get 22 CS while Enrage is at max level in order to gain 1 bonus AD from this item. 22 CS = 66 bonus health = 1 AD. Only 2,300 gold, and it builds out of our GP10 item. You need at least 1083 health to make this item gold efficient, so it will be extremely gold efficient late game. It out-damages the B. F. Sword at 3,000 health, making it very cheap for a ton of damage.
  
  
• Blade of the Ruined King: This item is used to rip apart enemies that have huge amounts of health, like Dr. Mundo or Garen. The passive life steal and attack speed is nice, but it's outclassed by The Bloodthirster and Phantom Dancer. The unique active helps chasing enemies down.
  
  
• Zephyr: I usually only take this when I need tenacity, because I didn't take Mercury's Treads. All of it's stats are very beneficial for Sion, so pick it up for that reason.
  
  
• Randuin's Omen: A ton of armor and health, and 2 passives that help in fights. The passive counters high attack-speed champions like Teemo, Xin Zhao, and Jax, and the active slows foes from fleeing or pursuing.
  
  
• Sunfire Cape: 40 Magic damage per second increases your Damage output, and type. If they have build nothing but armor, then they will still take a ton of damage from the active. The stats also help Sion stay healthy and durable. You need to be doing tons of damage with the passive to make this item gold efficient, so if the enemy team has lots of magic resist (which reduces damage taken from the passive) then you may want to buy something more cost-efficient.
  
  
• Banshee's Veil: The spell shield is very useful ,it blocks Karthus's ultimate, Twisted Fate's ultimate, and activated items like Deathfire Grasp. It does NOT block summoner spells like Ignite or Exhaust, however.
  
  
• Thornmail: Turns Sion into a tanky beast. Each auto attack damage the attacker, and combined with Randuin's Omen, they will attack slower, but still take significant damage. If you are looking for health and armor, consider picking up something else like Sunfire Cape or Randuin's Omen.
  
  
• Statikk Shiv: Attack speed and crit chance works with most of Sion's Builds, and it helps sion push lanes like crazy. The gold gain from the Avarice Blade helps buying early items, especially if you are behind in lane or jungling.
  
  
• Runaan's Hurricane: Although the passive doesn't work on Sion, the 70% attack speed does! This is the most attack speed you can get from a single item, and I prefer to take it in the splash jungle build over Phantom Dancer because it gives more attack speed, and we don't use the crit chance in that particular build.
  
  BLACK CLEAVER AND LAST WHISPER
  
  
  
• The Black Cleaver: Health and flat armor penetration, as well as each hit reducing the armor of the target by a small percentage that stacks. This means your allies can also hit the target and benefit from the armor reduction. This works better if they have some armor, but not insanely high amounts. Basically, if they aren't building any armor-heavy items, then this is the best choice. This item is not completely gold-efficient, but it is much more efficient then the Last Whisper.
  
  
• Last Whisper: This item is a pure AD booster, and rips right through high armor targets. It offers no other stats however, so if you need to be beefier, consider taking The Black Cleaver over this item. But if they have huge amounts of armor, (say 150+) then this is the better choice to buy. This item is relatively cheap, but is isn't very gold efficient. The Armor penetration needs to be used to its maximum potential to get the most out of this item.

Builds

Splash Jungle:

This build is great at farming, and pushing minion waves, as well as clearing jungle camps. There is little-to-no critical chance items, as they don't affect the splash damage from Ravenous Hydra. This build focuses on attack speed to proc more splash damage, and armor penetration to punch through any armor the minions or monsters have.

Crit Jungle:

This build deals tons of critical damage, and focuses more on single-target damage over splash damage.

Jungling

Start with Hunter's Machete and 5 Health Potions. Put a point into Enrage, and set out. Start at the Blue Buff, and make sure to get a leash from your teammates. Be sure to have your E activated, so you can get a head start on farming that bonus health. If you want, you can get a smiteless blue, allowing you to rush straight to the red buff and smite it off, hitting level 3. If not, be sure to save Smite until you reach the red lizard. Clear the wraith camp, then get the red buff. From here you can go clear the double golems, go back to wraiths and wolves, then gank, or go straight for a gank.

Ganking

When ganking, try to make sure the enemy has pushed the lane more than halfway, it makes your job way easier. Lead in with your Cryptic Gaze, unless your laner has a stun or snare of some sort. Rush in and start pummeling them. If you have exhaust, use it! If so, save your stun in case they Flash out of range. Sometimes all you have to do is pop up, and make them Flash away. Then come back to gank later, while it's on cooldown. After the gank, go back to the jungle, and continue farming. Try to clear some jungle camps inbetween ganks, too keep up your experience gain and income.

If you find yourself behind on gold, pick up and early Avarice Blade. The passive GP10, in addition to the extra gold per kill will keep your income up, and it is the best GP10 item for Sion.

Teamfights

Sion needs to be present in a team fight. He deals tons of damage, and his ultimate can save allies' lives! If you build tanky, then you can soak up tons of damage in order to buy your teammates time to rip their squishy champs apart. Otherwise, if you build pure glass cannon AD, you will get focused in a fight, and will need to be protected by allies. Your goal should be to use your stun on high-importance targets, like their squishy carries, or the enemy that is currently engaging. You can also use your stun to stop an enemy from chasing down and eliminating your squishy carries. And like any teamfight, NEVER FOCUS THE TANK! It happens so many times, it's unbelievable how many people never learn from this mistake.

Farming

Top Lane Farming

First, determine whether or not you can trade with the enemy top laner. If you can trade evenly, or fare off better then the enemy, then harass them when possible, while continuing to farm.

If you cannot trade evenly, or you can trade at all, then just turn your lane into a farm lane. Pick up and early GP10 item ( Avarice Blade is the best choice) and just farm the whole lane phase. Don't engage unless you have a jungler to gank for you, you do not want to give them any kills! Even if they are farming a ton as well, you will be getting more and more health from your farm, so it will be deadlier late game. And never push your lane! You need all the farm you can get, so don't push, only last hit.

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Jungle Farming

Pick up an early Avarice Blade on your first trip back, it increases your gold income greatly. Each kill giving 2 bonus gold per kill is like having a Twisted Fate on your team. This helps immensely, as your final build will cost at least a rough 17,000 gold, not including potions or wards bought.

Update Log

May 12, 2013:
Published!

May 27, 2013:

• Updated Masteries Chapter
• Updated Runes Chapter
• Updated Jungling Chapter
• Fixed a coding error in the Items Chapter
• Added a new photo in the Introduction Chapter

June 8, 2013:

• Edited cheat sheet builds
• Edited Runes chapter
• Edited Items chapter
• Added a Builds chapter
• Edited the Abilities Chapter

June 17, 2013:

• Edited Jungle Chapter
• Edited Cheat Sheet builds

June 24, 2013:

• Edited Farming Chapter
• Edited Items Chapter

Summary

Thanks for reading my Sion guide! It is my 3rd guide on MobaFire and is by far the most, "professional" build I have published. I shall quickly try to update my other guides to match up to this one in terms of formatting. If you enjoyed it, vote up, leave a comment, and check out my other guides for Trundle and Olaf!