Can include multiple changes because of changed content, opinion is based onto the PBE database. You can find the current PBE status here.

Reason number 1:

Reason number 2:

You wanna have fun.

You heard right, there is really no competetive reason to play Sion. He is outclassed by many junglers in clear speed, earlygame power and lategame scaling. He is rather medicore and combines those things. Allrounders are definitly not the meta.

But I really like his playstyle and at most, his theme. While most people hate on it, I like the Arnold parody and the undead style. He also has in theory a good kit synergy for jungling, combining a passive which reduces a big amount of damage you take, a big shield which reduces the damage further and also adds AoE damage and high single target damage which farms HP and has more high priority targets in the jungle. Finally, this giant lifesteal tool, which also heals your team.

The problems of him are his super bad base AS which makes him a rather slow jungler, that his shield does not scale for bruiser and his ultimate heal AoE which is way to small. If that problems are fixed he could se more play.

These are Sion's abilites. I will explain you now a bit deeper how to use them perfectly. To see, what a skill does, hold your mouse over it.

Feel no Pain A very underrated passive, especially for jungling. Earlygame it basically means that you have a 40% chance to ignore every damage dealed by monsters. Of course, it could need some buffs like removing the randomness and lowering the effect or give it an actual lategame scaling with a % reduction. But still, a really cool passive for jungling and if you take minion aggro. Cryptic Gaze The best non-ultimate stun in the game. One of the big reasons why you can play Sion in the jungle. It is the perfect ganking tool because it is point click, similar to Maokai or Taric, which means, it can't be avoided. And for that, it has the longest duration at level 1, which is 1.5 seconds. Thats enough time to catch up and deal damage or for your lanemate to setup damage or a lockdown. Especially with the new Ghost you will close the gap in no time. Death's Caress So, we had the perfect ganking tool for a jungler? Here is now a great AoE clear tool and a great survivability tool. Not only does it reduce the damage you take in the jungle, it also increases your damage dramatically, if used wisely. Start your shield at 1:51 before going onto the camp, because you want to control when to deal the damage. Also look for this at the other camps. 100 damage, which is also magic damage (monsters have 0 magic resistance), is a great thing to have in the jungle. And if you max it first, it will be even more usefull in this terms. But this spell is not only great for the jungle, it is also great for ganks. Instant 100-300 damage against an enemy is a nice thing and makes nearly every gank already worth it. This is also why you max this first, you will deal way more damage in ganks than if you max Enrage. Enrage This skill is not only a good ad steroid which has basically no cost, it also is one of a few permanent HP steroids in the game. This skill makes your single target clear way better and allows you to stack up to 500-1000 HP depending on how long the game goes. This greatly increases, combined with your lifesteal, your survivability. Cannibalism Taric got his fabulous hammer, you got your cutty cutter axe. While this is activated, it goes so deep into the enemy flesh that you can steal parts of their life and their soul out of them and heal with that you and your team. In theory, of course. But this thing has also many bad sides. If you get kited, it gets useless and you die. And this is also your biggest weakness kiting. But if you can stay close to the enemy and even heal some of your team with that super bad AoE, you can get legendary with this. Try to position yourself so you heal as much of your team as possible.

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I already explained why I take Death's Caress first over Enrage. But again, this is because of that earlygame and early midgame there will be only small skirmishes with a low amount of auto attacks, so Enrage doesn't do much and Death's Caress is way better. But why then go for Enrage second over Cryptic Gaze? This is because at this stage of your game, you will clear more camps and creep waves faster, so you can farm your HP faster. And now, auto attacks get more and more important, especially with your rank 2 ultimate. And it deals magic damage, which is at this point rather meaningless to increase without magic penetration. Ultimate at every rank should be obvious.

Note: Runes will be potentionally redone, this is just for the current runeset on PBE.

Greater Mark of Attack Speed Look at Sion's base attack speed here. Sort the list for the lowest lvl 18 attack speed and you will find Sion at place 15. This is for a champ, which is purely based onto basic attacks, just bad. All champions placed above him either don't use auto attacks at all or they are not based onto rapid AA's. This is why you need to increase this so badly. And also the reason why marks, glyphs and quints are attack speed. Only with that, you can reach a good amount of attack speed lategame. Greater Seal of Armor Whoever doesn't use this rune yet should be ashame of himslef. It is used on EVERY champ right now.

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Greater Glyph of Scaling Magic Resist The AS only offer an attack rate increase of 0.03 or something like that. While that is sometimes usefull, getting some more defense is better. With this runes, you get a good amount of magic resistance for lategame. Greater Quintessence of Attack Speed See marks.

Smite Every Jungler needs Smite. Smite has way too much uses to be ignored as jungler. For slower junglers, it is even buffed, as the CD of it is drastically reduced by 30 seconds. For that, it deals a bit less damage, but that is nothing against up to 3 Smites in 1 clear. And lategame, it deals the same damage anyway.

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Ghost Ghost also recieved some changes which make it way way way way better than Flash on Sion. You will now gain instantly 75%! movement speed for 1 second, which makes closing a short gap rather easy, similar to how Flash works. After that, it grants a constant movement speed of 15%, which is good for sticking to the target. And the cooldown of this even reduces with levels, making it lategame pretty much every time avaiable. What could you want more?

Hunter's Machete Yeah, Machete is still here. Not only that, it even got better. You now get 3 hp back every time you hit a monster. Perfect to increase Sion's already high survivability. Spirit Stone Even while the new passive isn't applied, it still seems stronger on Sion than Madred's Razors. This is because the 5 bonus health is still there while the 20% bonus damage scales well with your shield. Zeal What did you need to close the gap? Oh, it was movement speed, right. This has a 5% increase for that. Not only that, it also offers attack speed and crit chance, which are the perfect extensions for your Enrage. And again, Sion needs attack speed because his base is "bad". Vampiric Scepter After you got this, you should never ever get sustain problems in the jungle again. Now you no longer need to use your shield. Also, at this stage, this gets really usefull in combination with your potentional lvl 2 ultimate and Second Wind. Bilgewater Cutlass So, you need even more slow? You can have it with this. Now you can close the gap multiple times if somebody manages to escape after you stunned him. And it also gives 2% more lifesteal than scepter, which is great for your general strategy. It also builds into Blade of the Ruined King later in the game, which has an as good synergy to Sion as Frozen Mallet. Randuin's Omen You want health for your masteries? Check! You want armor against physical damage? Check! You want something to stick to enemies? Check! Randuin's is the perfect physical damage defense item for you. It is also way better than Sunfire Aegis, because at this point, the magic damage of it is pointless and the slow is way more usefull. Especially because it stops Blade of the Ruined King, which destroys you. Blade of the Ruined King So, now, after we got enough defense against nuking, it is time to increase your damage, and through that, your sustain defense. And what could be better for this than an item which gives everything lifesteal wants. Not only that, it gives you a passive which rewards you for constantly attacking and an active which heals 19,5% of the enemy HP (15%+30% with Second Wind and Spirit Visage). Against a 5k HP enemy that is nearly 1k HP. 1k HP HEAL!

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Boots of Mobility You got a 1.5 seconds medium range stun. What do you need to get in range for it? Mobility! That is why this boots are needed to give Sion great earlygame ganking. Not only that, you are also fast enough to sometimes outrun the enemy sight of wards and if you are chased they are very helpfull aswell. Ruby Crystal I put in a Ruby Crystal here because at this point, I feel my defense isn't enough to peform potentional towerdives and stuff like that. With that little bonus at HP, it gets way easier and it is very cheap. Giant's Belt Your first big HP item in the game. It builds together with Ruby Crystal into Frozen Mallet, which is a must have on Sion. At this point, you will most likely have more than 2k HP and together with the new masteries you are able to be a big threat. Frozen Mallet Many people will ask why Frozen Mallet on Sion, since nearly no champ gets this. If you look at his ultimate, you should already know the answer. The ultimate requires you to constantly hit stuff in order to heal your team and yourself. So what could be better for that than a constant 40% slow? Of course, it could be better, but nothing better exists. (Skull Basher from Dota, beeing like Naix) Mercury's Treads At this point, teamfights will start, so you will no longer need to roam around the map. Now you have to stay close in the fight while they throw 1 billion of CC onto you. With Mercury's Treads you can go through this and continue your Autoattackrampage. Spirit Visage HP? Of course. CDR? More stuns and shields, nice. MR? Not that much needed but very helpfull against enemies, which want to burst you down instantly. Second Wind on crack? OF COURSE WE WANT THIS!!! The double amount of Second Wind all the (instert your word here) time. What could be better on a lifesteal based champ than this! Phantom Dancer And finally, the only stat missing to benefit lifesteal, critical strike chance. If you crit, it basically doubles your lifesteal and with 30% crit chance, nearly 1/3 of all your attacks will crit. This increases your survivability by a great amount aswell. Not to forget to mention that ignoring unit collision is great against kiting and obviously, 50% attack speed.

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Blue*->Wight->Wolves*->Wraiths->Red*->Golems * marks Smite Typically, this is what you want to do now at S4. If you think the enemy is gonna invade you, get a smiteless Red and then do the route and use Smite everytime it is not on cooldown. While Sion can have strong lvl 3 ganks, you really want to clear your first jungle and get level 4, as a level 2 shield basically increases your gank damage by 50% and you want to farm your Mobility Boots as fast as possible, because without them, your ganks are only like 1/4 effective. After the full clear, you will sit on ~650 gold, then you can try 1 gank and after that you most likely got enough for Mobility Boots. After you got Mobility Boots, you will go and gank most the time possible. But don't waste your time at it standing still for 15 seconds or more, because in that time, you could have cleared one more jungle camp and gained an advantage over the enemy jungler. The right balance for this comes with more game experience, so you just have to try and find out your style. The ganking style of Sion is relatively simple. As with any champ, the general rule is, don't waste your gap closer if you don't need it. So if you can just run up to the enemy and hit him without stunning him, do that. If you have Red Buff or Frozen Mallet later in the game, one hit will slow them enough to burn any of their escapes. Of course, in some situations you have to lead with stun, otherwise the enemy instantly escapes. But try to make it as late as possible, the best position would be directly in front of the enemy turret out of turret range. Of course, sometimes you also have to interrupt channels with it, so safe your stun for that. The more and more you play Sion and the more you know about your enemy, the more good ganks you will peform.

Sion is really great at taking early objectives, since he has lifesteal and can heal his team. This makes clearing Dragon or Baron very easy. He can also ignore most of the rest of their damage with his shield and passive. But, if you used your ultimate, you are nearly useless at post fights, so be aware of that. In Teamfights, you want to be the frontline of your team. Try to keep everything away getting through you with your stun and your Frozen Mallet slowing auto attacks. If you hit someone, try to make your team staying near you, as this heals them, increasing the potential to win the fight very much. If you got the opportunity to do it, try hitting the enemy adc, as he can't do much against you while near you. If you are winning the fight, chasing is easy. Stun the running enemies and keep them slowed forever. You may have not the best movement speed, but with your build you got a good ability to stick to the target. If you are loosing, it is your job to die for your team and safe the rest. Try hitting everyone of them and slowing them down, so your team can escape. Stun the most dangerous one and then make yourself the try to run. You will most likely die, but for that, the most important part of your team is alive.

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So, that is now the end for my little Sion guide. Again, I never said Sion is better than anyone else in the jungle, he is just fun to play and you can also have fun with him. If you got fun playing Sion in the jungle, give me a thumbs up and leave a comment. If you got a better build for this, comment with an alternative and say why it is better.