Passive

Sion reanimates into his zombie form for a few seconds after dying, gaining increased attack damage, attack speed, movement speed and lifesteal. He also gains the ability to cast Death Surge while in his passive form.

Zombie Form Active

Sion gains a sudden burst of movement speed for a few seconds that decays throughout the duration.

The entire inting strategy revolves around this ability, allowing Sion to carry while having a negative KDA.

During your zombie form you gain additional AD, lifesteal, attack speed and movement speed for a few seconds until your healthbar drains empty.

You can also activate your active ability in your zombie form Death Surge in order to drain your healthbar faster causing you to die in your zombie form faster but gives you a burst of movement speed and attack speed. This can be useful in chasing enemies that are just barely out of reach from your attack range.


Inting for no reason: some player tunnel vision too much on the inting concept of Sion that they do it too much with little to no benefit and are just straight up running it down. When it comes to dying, you need to utilize Sion's passive properly.

Q

Sion charges up, dealing damage and slowing or knocking up enemies in an area in front of him, depending on how long the ability is charged up for. This ability deals extra damage towards jungle camps, so Sion can counter jungle and clear camps very well, even without jungle items. This is also Sion’s main waveclear ability. Sion’s iconic bread and butter ability. Most of your damage is gonna come from this ability. Regardless of whether you chose tank or lethality build, a full charge Q Decimating Smash is gonna hurt, as the base damage for this ability is really good, even without AD items. Good places to use Q Decimating Smash:

W

PASSIVE: Infinite health scaling. Sion gains +4 HP for every unit killed, increased to +10 for champions, cannon minions, and large jungle monsters. ACTIVE: Sion gains a shield, and if the shield persists after 3 seconds Sion gains the ability to explode the shield in an AoE around him, dealing damage. This ability is what makes Sion such a late game threat. The passive is amazing for a scaling tank and allows you to oneshot towers later on with Demolish, as the damage on Demolish proc scales on your max hp, allowing you to be a gigantic side lane threat. Another synergy this ability passive has is with Titanic Hydra and Overlord's Bloodmail. The passive effects of both of those items also scale with max hp%, which we know Sion has a gigantic amount of, further strengthening your identity as a late game tank raid boss.

E

Sion lets out a roar, slowing and reducing the armor of the first unit he hits, or when the first unit is a minion or jungle monster, goes through multiple units in a line, applying the slow and armor shred to all units. This is a great set up ability to be followed up by your ultimate, Unstoppable Onslaught, or a long charged, or even fully charged Q Decimating Smash to deal more damage and increase your chance of knocking up the enemy. Make sure to use this ability right before dying, in order to slow the enemy during your zombie form to help ensure a kill by preventing them from running away.

R

Sion charges in a direction, becoming unstoppable, stopping at the first champion, tower, or terrain hit, dealing AoE damage, knocking up, then stunning or slowing the enemy, depending on distance traveled. This is also another ability which can greatly help in setting up a long or fully charged Q Decimating Smash to ensure the maximum damage and CC for the ability. This ability also has massive AD scaling, which is one of the reasons lethality Sion is a viable and strong setup.

This is the standard leveling sequence for tank Sion. You max Q Decimating Smash first due to the increase in base damage, allowing you to waveclear much better and deal stun for longer. Leveling Q Decimating Smash first not only increases damage but also reduces its cooldown, allowing for better trades. You then max W Soul Furnace for the additional shield, allowing you to be tankier and soak more damage. Then you max E Roar of the Slayer last, as the survivability from W Soul Furnace is more important in most cases than the additional slow fom E Roar of the Slayer.

Standard leveling sequence for lethality Sion. This gives the highest possible damage output when building attack damage. Maxing E Roar of the Slayer second shred enemies’ armor, giving lethality even more value. The stronger slow also gives you more time to charge your Q Decimating Smash, which is your main damage output, allowing you to deal more damage and stun for longer.

This can be a good situational ability leveling sequence especially against hard matchups such as Aatrox. Gives you way better survivability in lanes where you will most likely die a lot or struggle.

Tank, frontlining and trading focused leveling sequence. Do this if you’re taking shield bash and revitalize and looking to play a shield focused set up. Though you would rarely want to do this.

standard E-Q trading pattern.

First slowing the enemy with E Roar of the Slayer for the slow to set up charging your Q Decimating Smash into a knock up and stun, then walking up to sneak an auto attack in.

This is a trading pattern for both tank and lethality Sion.

Tanks can proc Grasp of the Undying when going for the auto attack in this trade pattern, and lethality Sion can proc Phase Rush, allowing you to do a trade then run away unscathed or with minimal trade back damage thanks to Phase Rush movement speed buff.

Quick 3-hit combo to trigger Phase Rush for the immediate burst of movement speed.

Full basic ability rotation combo.

Similar to the combo above, but with the addition of your W Soul Furnace.

This is the maximum damage combo you can do with a full rotation of all your basic abilities.

The W Soul Furnace shield also works well into your E-Q combo, shielding you from potential trade damage if they don't get knocked up and retaliate.

Full ability rotation combo.

This is the absolute highest possible damage you can output in a combo.

Depending on the distance traveled on your ultimate, you may be able to sneak in an auto attack before charging your Q Decimating Smash.

Sion’s most mathematically optimal build.






Grants tankiness, survivability and a lot of damage.

Sion’s abilities has scalings on attack damage and health. And these items all synergize together with each other, your runes and with Sion’s W Soul Furnace health stacking passive.

This build is not gonna make you as tanky as the Full Tank build, but the damage this build dishes out is much much higher.

But this build is not recommended if the enemy has %max hp damage.


Sion W Soul Furnace grants infinite stacking max hp.

Demolish tower damage scales off of max hp.

Heartsteel grants a ton of hp, and infinite stacking max hp as item passive.

Titanic Hydra grants a ton of hp, on-hit and cleave damage scaling off of max hp.

Overlord's Bloodmail grants a ton of hp, attack damage, and attack damage scaling off of max hp.

You see, with this build it's all about HP and so as long as the enemy don't have Vayne or Blade of the Ruined King champions, this is most likely your best and most fun build as tank Sion.

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Tank is the most consistent build you can do on Sion.

He was designed to be a tank, and his kit synergizes really well with tank items.

You sacrifice some of your damage with the tank build, but you become extremely tanky and are one of the best frontliner tanks in the entire game

Swap the items around depending on the enemies' team comp and damage type. Check the items section for a list of items to buy on Sion.

First item is highly recommended to be a waveclear item in a lot of times, so either Sunfire Aegis or Hollow Radiance.

Sion’s insane AD scaling on his Q Decimating Smash, ultimate Unstoppable Onslaught, and his passive Glory in Death make him a monster assassin with a ton of CC.



Build these items when against against a lot of squishy champions on the enemy team comp.

This build focuses on solely on burst damage, making you squishier than tank Sion, but not too squishy actually due to your W Soul Furnace infinite max hp stacking.

Youmuu's Ghostblade is gonna be the standard first item due to the movement speed active and passive, giving you better sticking power to your enemies, which is especially strong when securing kills in your passive.

You can buy other situational items as a first buy such as Edge of Night against Vayne, Umbral Glaive against Teemo, or Serpent's Fang against Shen or Ambessa.

If so, then you can buy Youmuu's Ghostblade as a second item instead.

You can buy Hubris early (1st or 2nd item) if you are snowballing hard and beating your laner hard.

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Crithality deals more over all damage than full lethality, but this build needs you to be able to get to auto attack range of your enemy in order to deliever the maximum damage with this build.

So, champions that can hinder you from dishing out auto attacks such as Teemo, you are better off going for full lethality than critthality.

You are able to dish out more damage through Sion’s passive Glory in Death with the crithality build, since all he can do are auto attacks on the zombie form, which CAN crit.

The bigget powerspike with the crithality build is when you obtain Infinity Edge, the AD equivalent of Rabadon's Deathcap.

Sion can have a very traditional tank role in a teamfight, except that you deal quite a lot of damage, even as a tank due to health item-runes-ability synergies. You are very anti-attack damage. Sion's key ability in teamfights is his ultimate Unstoppable Onslaught, which can single handedly win teamfights with a proper engage on a cluster of enemies.

But Sion isn’t limited to being just an engage bot, as he can also peel for his fed carries if the enemy has a big threat that can easily dive and burst down your team’s carries, though this entails sacrificing your engage tool to protect.



Early teamfights are often chaotic small skirmishes. You need to keep in mind that these fights begin even without having the entire team on the same page, regardless of who wants to fight or not, since this is solo queue.

You need to consider a few things first before deciding to join a fight such as how far you are from the fight, your impact on the fight, how fast you’ll respond and arrive to the fight, the pathing towards the fight, who’s currently stronger, etc….

Before a fight even begins, you should consider all the possibilities and variables in a fight.

Once in a teamfight your main goal is to get on top of as many enemies as possible and beat them down with CC, soak damage, and cause disruption and help your allies dish out their abilities and damage while also trying to protect them when the enemies are getting too close.

Later on when everyone starts to get a few item components, a numbers advantage becomes even greater, meaning that once a team is fighting with 1 player less in a teamfight, they will most likely lose if they’re not gigafed.

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Mid game team fights are more coordinated, both teams will be focusing on fighting and contesting objectives.

Make sure to place wards and provide vision for your team.

Do not tunnel vision for an engage on 5 people at once, as you need to take you and your team’s positioning into consideration as you would need them to follow up on your engage. You might also get caught out in an awkward position and die.

You also need to assess the enemy team’s threats, and be ready to protect your ADC and other squishy carries.

Again, in a teamfight your main goal is to get on top of as many enemies as possible and beat them down with CC, soak damage, and cause disruption and help your allies dish out their abilities and damage while also trying to protect them when the enemies are getting too close.

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Late game team fights are much riskier but more rewarding.

In this state of the game, everyone deals way more damage and deaths and losing fights are punished way more harshly, while getting kills and winning fights are rewarded more greatly.

As such, there is a lot of weight on your shoulders as an engage/split push champion, because people will sing songs of praises for you if you can get a good engage and win the fight and even possibly the game, but curse you if you do a bad engage and lose the fight and possibly the game.

So I suggest playing it slowly and not moving hastily.


Be patient and look for surefire angles to use your ultimate Unstoppable Onslaught to win fights.

Play around objective timers, and don’t just mindlessly start a coinflip teamfight with not much to gain.

When the enemy has assassin and your team doesn’t have any peel champions, then you’d better focus on protecting your carries.

Prioritize protecting your team in the late game rather than engaging if you're the only one who can protect.

Deciding who to use your ultimate on is a very important decision making skill when playing Sion.


Sion’s ultimate is a versatile tool. You can use it for teamfight initiation, peel and protection, escape or for a Baus Special.

There is a slight learning curve to it though, as steering it might be a bit challenging if you're not familiar with the turning radius, as Unstoppable Onslaught is not as nimble as Nunu & Willump’s snowball when it comes to cornering.

If Nunu & Willump’s snowball drives like a nice sports car on a windy road, Sion's ultimate is like your mom's minivan on the Autobahn.

More important than where you are looking to hit with your ultimate is your starting position.

Considering the difficulty and ridiculously low turning radius Sion's ultimate Unstoppable Onslaught has, the starting position of where you cast your ultimate is ultimately gonna be a bigger deciding factor of a good Sion ult vs. a bad one, unless you're casting your ultimate point blank, in which case starting position doesn't matter.

There's also a bug which you can abuse with Sion's ultimate(scripters always use this trick) is hitting certain corners of a wall to redirect Sion ultimate to make a very sharp turn. Though I don't recommend this because this is bug abusing(riot will punish you), and also because it's not gonna be a reliable tactic that you should look to do every game.

Jungle Camps Counter jungle as much as you can by the mid-game if possible, such as when the enemy jungler/top or both are dead, your super ahead, or if your jungler is looking to invade, as this not only gives you or your jungler additional farm, but also denies the enemy jungler resources. Sion can clear camps really fast especially once you have Serrated Dirk, or a few points into your q Decimating Smash, so look to clear enemy topside camps once you fully shoved the minion wave up to their tier 2 tower, though beware that doing this is a lot riskier if you’re behind, but nevertheless still possible if you can sense when and where they’ll collapse on you(if at all). Take an Oracle Lens to clear wards to make sure they don’t see you taking camps, or do deep wards in the enemy jungle if you have regular wards. You can also take your jungler’s blue buff if neither your jungler or midlaner needs it, as Sion can utilize the cooldown reduction and mana regen very well from the buff. When you or your team killed 3 or more of the enemy in at the same time, or emerged victorious in a teamfight and there are no other objectives to take, look to shove all the waves then decide to either counter jungle or take towers depending your team’s tower taking speed and the enemy’s respawn timer.

Rift Scuttler Rift scuttler is a very important objective early on, and as a toplaner, you should look to help your jungler contest and secure scuttle at around 3:30 if both junglers are pathing topside and will end up in a fight against scuttle. Look to set up a slow push if you can, to force the enemy toplaner to choose between helping contest scuttle and lose a ton of minions, or stay in lane and give the enemy the numbers advantage. If either one or both of the junglers are pathing bot, then there is no need to contest scuttle, simply cheater recall instead. This objective not only helps in the sense that you’re helping your jungler gain gold and exp, but it also gives vision(!!!) and a small aoe movement speed buff which benefits everyone. Later on in the game if your jungler isn’t taking the scuttle crab, take it yourself, as it is additional vision for your entire team which becomes all the more impactful the later the game goes on.

Towers Sion is the kryptonite of towers. This is one of his greatest asset he can provide for the team. Take towers whenever you can to help open up the map for your team, allowing for better counter-jungling, deeper minion wave crashes, and more sidelane pressure.

Inhibitors Destroy this structure to make super minions spawn which can provide pressure to an enemy's lane without you being there. Try not to take inhibitors down very early if you can't end the game or secure baron to end the game, since if the enemies have good wave clearing abilities, they can farm the super minions which provide more gold than regular minions, allowing them to possibly make a comeback.

Dragon Dragon is usually gonna be the first objective that both teams are gonna fight and contest over, as fights for rift scuttler happens way less due to the scuttle crab nerfs, splitting it into 2 small crabs in the early game instead of 1 regular sized scuttle. Dragons give a permanent buff to you and your team, up to a maximum of 4 dragons secured, in which you gain the power of Dragon soul which gives a way stronger permanent buff, and gives your team periodic effects.

Voidgrubs Tower buster buff. Great objective especially for strong tower taking champions like Sion. Securing this objective increases your sidelaning pressure, synergizing well with Sion's identity as a tower destroying sidelane monster. Void grubs also give Sion a ton of health due to the hundreds of mini void grubs that spawn every few seconds while taking this camp, and if you remember Sion's W Soul Furnace passive, it gives you health for all units that you killed.

Rift Herald Rift Herald is a very strong sieging objective. Once you or your team secured herald, try to have it placed on the lane who benefits most from an open tower for easier roam set ups for them. Try to ping your team off of placing it on your lane, as Sion himself already has really strong tower taking, no need for rift herald. Having the eye of the herald also gives you an empowered recall cutting down the recall time in half, so you might not want to drop Herald immediately so you can utilize this empowered recall. You also get 1 empowered recall buff if you helped secure the rift herald. So you can technically just drop 1 auto attack then dip just to get the empowered recall. Whenever you're dropping Herald to take towers and tower plates are still up, look to use it when the tower has 2 and 1/4 plates to ensure that the Herald crash can take the tower out, making her go to the next tower for another crash. You can also drop and use the rift herald as an escape tool.

Dragon Soul Provides a strong permanent buff to your team after securing 4 dragons. The buffs you receive are stronger than the regular dragons and depending on which dragon soul, may provide healing, movement speed, resistances and shields, damage, or slows.

Atakhan Provides a strong permanent buff to your team after spawning in 14 minutes. Gives an AoE 15% current health damage upon killing an enemy and slowing on the same AoE. Atakhan is an epic objective similar to baron nashor and elder dragon, that spawns after 14 minutes into the game on the side of the map which has had the most amount of champion combat happen.

Elder Dragon The win-teamfight buff. Try forcing teamfights once you have this buff, due to the massive advantage in fights you gain after securing this dragon, as it grants true damage burn and 20% HP execute.

Baron Nashor All around team buff. Securing Baron Nashor grants your team AD/AP, empowered recall and buffs your minions. The buffs are mostly used to help siege and take down towers and inhibitors with the help of the Baron-buffed minions. Try to group and force your way through towers as a team when you have Baron buff and are healthy enough to fight.