Sion is a champion that is hard to quantify in your typical game of League of Legends. He is a Bruiser that borders on Juggernaut Status, who is particularly weak to CC and Ranged top laners who can kite him and lock him down in order to kill him. He has been on the rise in top lane for some time, so I anticipate seeing more of him in the next few releases unless he gets some kind of major nerf.

I first picked up Sion as a support during one of Sona's OP phases, as Sion is a natural lane counter to Sona. I was so impressed that I have kept him in my wheelhouse for some time as my go-to tank support when my team needs a front line more than anything else. Yes, there are other supports that can fill a tanky role but each of them have other off purposes that make them specialty picks. Using Sion (and his Passive) in the support role, is like having 2 front line tanks for the price of one.

Why does this work? Well, whether weak or strong Sion's biggest frailty is his susceptibility to being CC'd and Kited to death. In top lane, this limits the kind of picks that you want to use him against. In the support role, you almost always have someone who WANTS to fight into you in order to get to your ADC, and you don't mind eating CC if it means that your ADC is staying healthy and performing well. Also, when skirmishes inevitably break out for bot lane tempo and dragon control, it will take a considerable amount of resources to bring you down (taking the heat off your ADC) at which point your passive can take over and instantaneously punish teams willing to over-commit for a kill and turn an enemy gank into a feeding frenzy for the carry you are protecting.

This even carries over to teamfights anywhere on the map. The enemy team has to fight THROUGH you to get to your team, and while you won't have to gold to be extremely scary the first time around -- extremely dense team fights become a killing field for your reanimated corpse to rampage through when your passive kicks in (and a number of enemy spells are on CD). Your passive alone will turn many seemingly one-sided teamfights into a blowout for your side. Not bad for a lowly support.

Even faced against High damage/High CC lanes, Sion can poke and trade well unlike most Tank Supports. Even better, playing Sion bot tends to draw a lot of attention to you... which is exactly what you want as Sion. All that attention on you means more time trading punches rather than getting Kited to death, and leave your adc free to get work done.




This game really showcases how using early advantages well can close a game out pretty quickly. Giving Master Yi a fast start in jungle sets him up to snowball early, while Miss Fortune and I lock down Bot lane. Once the towers start going down, we press our advantage and close out the game early rather than giving the enemy team time to catch up.

Inspiration + Resolve give you a remarkable amount of tankiness early,

Unsealed Spellbook Reduces the CD of your Summoner Spells and turns you into a Swiss Army knife, allowing you to pick and chooses Different Summoner's Spells depending whats going on in the game.

Magical Footwear Gives you a free pair of boots right when you really want your extra mobility to kick in, without having to go back to base to buy them.

Biscuit Delivery Gives you early sustain for free, which includes a little shot of mana. Not overly potent, these are still extremely useful and you the option to sustain a lane you might otherwise need to leave to rotate.

Cosmic Insight bumps up our CDR across the board, letting us poke and CC more in spell rotations, as well as further enhancing out Summoners.

Conditioning and Overgrowth double down our tankiness, and ensure that we are hitting good Armor, MR, and Health numbers, even though we aren't augmenting CS into our purchases. I feel it is necessary to point out that Overgrowth especially is what allows us to hit nice health stats even though we are not actively killing minions. this matters most late game when we are scaling and still want lots of health to tank with our personal shield, and for Locket of the Iron Solari.

First and foremost, Unsealed Spellbook lets us swap out our Summoner Spells throughout the game, so starting with exhaust is almost a waste of time, when we could be using it for something else. Starting with Ignite is setting a bad precident for our early laning pattern... so instead, we play to the support aspect and pay that advantage to another member of the team... the jungler.

Starting with Smite allows you to tank a couple hits to start your jungler off, and then heal that damage back and deliver a burst of damage that will really set your jungler ahead on his first clear. While you are in lane, Smite give you and easy (and ranged) method to execute cannon minions to pop charges off your Relic Shield and finish your support item quest.

Best of all, once you take your first Back to rotate, you can swap off to Exhaust.

In rare cases, putting your Jungler off to an early clear can set up early ganks bot, that then turn into an early dragon if you haven't swapped off your Smite yet. Just remember that this is an outlier case and you should always swap to Exhaust the first chance you get unless otherwise planned with your team.

Recommended:

Smite
Starting with Smite is almost purely for starting you Jungler off to a fast clear. Once you have done that, you can use it to execute Cannon Minions at range for your Relic Shield Procs.

Swap this to Exhaust on your First Rotation.



Flash
This is the standard go to for play making (or bacon-saving) mobility. Lastly, a last ditch flash with Locket of the Iron Solari will sometimes mean the difference in being able to save a teammate.

Additional Summoner Spells -- the change-up:

When utilizing the Unsealed Spellbook based build, it is important to remember that there are a number of additional tools at our disposal to deal with issues as they arise. Using a little ingenuity and craftiness can turn seemingly impossible games in your favor, and set up some amazing and unexpected plays. Below, I will detail the context in which each can be appropriate. When possible you will change for specific loadouts, but don't be afraid to swap out whichever skill is available now if your need is time sensitive (e.g. if you need something NOW, switch whichever Summoner Spell is not on cooldown to avoid incurring additional wait).

Exhaust
Again, most of the time, you should be swapping for Exhaust on your 1st back every game. As a support, your team relies on you to be able to put a dampener on problem champs in skirmishes... especially with the unique CDR granted by Unsealed Spellbook.

Ignite
Similar to Exhaust you can use this to create kill pressure, or tone down the innate spellvamp/lifesteal of problem champions. This is usually PAIRED with exhaust if you REALLY need to win a teamfight to get back into the game.

Teleport
Occasionally you may choose to use teleport to give you a quick rotation in order to back, heal, and buy -- and then quickly rejoin your team for a siege, baron or dragon play. Very rarely, you can use this for an opportune and unexpected cross-map gank. Typically you will swap this out for Flash.

Smite
Remember that when you have swapped off your Smite, you might sometimes re-equip it, especially in advance of Baron or dragon plays. Weigh this option carefully as you often need to also be able to Fight for Epic monsters before finishing them off.

Glory In Death [PASSIVE]
Innate: Upon receiving fatal damage, Sion goes untargetable for a brief moment and reanimates. He comes back to life at 100% health, gaina 100% lifesteal, and a significant boost to attackspeed. Once reanimated, his health rapidly decays and his autoattacks deal 10% MAX health vs targets (capped vs minions and monsters).

His abilities are replaced with a movespeed buff that can be used only once per death.



Decimating Smash [ Q ]
Sion Charges up a cone AOE in front of him that deals increasing damage the longer it is charged, and slows all enemy units hit. If it is charged for at least 1 second before it is released it will knock up all units within its AOE.



Soul Furnace [ W ]
Sion gains a % max health shield which lasts for up to 6 seconds. At the end of its duration (if the shield persists) it explodes dealing % MAX health vs targets. After 3 seconds (if his shield persists) it can be activated again to detonate early.



Roar of the Slayer [ E ]
Sion roars out a lineshot aoe that deals damage to the first enemy hit, slowing and reducing the targets armor for 2.5s. If it his a minion or non-epic monster, it will fling that unit along the same path for an increased length, applying these effects to all units hit.



Unstoppable Onslaught [ R ]
Sion Charges in target direction and is immune to all non-terrain CC and disables. While charging, Sion can make minimal course corrections. He charges for the full duration unless he recasts to stop, or until he hits terrain or an enemy champion. On a collision, he deals damage in a small AOE -- pulling units into him, slowing them, and briefly stunning them and himself.

Glory In Death [PASSIVE]
Teams will often forget your passive until its too late. Never give up on a fight and be ready to die in skirmishes just to come back a second time to wreck face.

While you lose all your other abilities, you gain a 1-time movespeed buff. Use this intelligently. You can also still use any activated items in your inventory, like your warding item or Locket of the Iron Solari. Often you want to barrel into large fights and force the enemy team to waste damage on you, only popping your locket on your team when you reanimate. This gives you a little extra rampage time and usually scares the living **** out of the enemy team.

If you absolutely have to take a tower, be willing to die for it. While you don't want to feed, sometimes the only way to break ground, is to soak up as much damage as possible and use your reanimated form to finish something off while your team backs off to safety.



Decimating Smash [ Q ]
The time you have to charge to get the knock up is deceptively short. Get a feel for it. Even if you have to snapcast the ability and not get the knock up, just the slow can keep fleeing targets from getting out of the AOE and escaping your team's reach.



Soul Furnace [ W ]
Detonating this shield early offers a surprising amount of burst damage. However, you need to prioritize when you want the damage, or when it would be better to just keep the shield. Most times, it is just better to force the enemy to burst through the shield to get to you, and leave the raw damage to your carry.



Roar of the Slayer [ E ]
This is your bread and butter poke during lane phase. You can hit surprisingly long shots on minions and hurl them way back into what the enemy laners feel is "safe territory". The damage and slow may not seem like much, but it adds up over time. More-so, once you force them to respect it, it significantly increases your range of threat in any minion wave -- often forcing them to forfeit wave control if they are getting low. Conversely, if your lane is pushing to enemy tower, you do not want to use it to tower harass, as it is an important tool to warding off incoming ganks.



Roar of the Slayer also pairs nicely with Decimating Smash for extended trading and CC. Hurl a minion at them, and while they are slowed, walk up to AOE range and give them a short charge knockup. It sometimes seems unfair to be able to do so much poke for so little commitment, but depending on who you are laning against, you definitely want to abuse it if you can. Just remember that disables can interrupt your channel, so don't out yourself at risk frivolously.



Unstoppable Onslaught [ R ]
The amount of direction control you have while charging is extremely limited, but there are things you can do with it. Get a feel for just how the control feels before trying to navigate narrow corridors.

Also, don't forget you can damage structures with this ability. If your team is looking to knock down a tower, you can just ult in to hit the tower instead of an enemy champ, while the enemy team backs away to avoid you. Then while you are the focus of everyone's attention, your team can attack.

Your ULT is also a potent ESCAPE tool. If you can get clear of a dogpile, running in ANY direction can give you an out, as you will be able to cover a lot of ground. Worst case scenario is that you end up running into enemy territory and wasting a lot of their time as they try to corner you. But in most cases if you have enough health and patience to get clear of anyone body-blocking you, you can press R and just peel out.

SION


SION

SION
Core Items
				As a tank, the Relic Shield line come naturally to us. As a support we need to ward. This item is a no-brainer
				Sion has innately one of the bigger health bars in the game. Locket gives us a little Armor and Magic resist to go with it, and shares a portion of that impressive health with teammates.
				When Sion picks a fight, he is typically in it for the long haul no matter what. Mobi boots helps him to get to where where the action is sooner, and makes him surprisingly light footed when dancing for position pre-engage.
Space!
Space!
Space!
Space!
SION
Optional/Extended Items
				Mallet is for when you need to be a little beefier and want to peel a little harder in teamfights - especially in undead form.
				Zz'Rot Portal Augments your Armor and MR, and gives you an active that is good for Siegeing, Splitpushing, or Drawing the enemy team towards areas of the map (and away from others).
				This is a pickup for when you need to help deal with champs that have OP healing.
				Some additional tank stats that share with your ADC (or other carry), meant for when you are having longer drawn out Brawls. You keep your target alive, and they keep you alive. Pretty sick synergy in undead form too.
				On VERY rare occasions you need to act as a psuedo-assassin in team fights. When teamfighting (usually after you die), BORK helps you make sure you take the RIGHT target with you.
				It is rare for Support Sion to pick this item up. However, if you are at a loss for what to build and you have a stack of gold, Sion can never go wrong with The Cleaver

Vision Matters!

Support has a lot of complexity in terms of thinking outside solely what is currently on our screen. Despite your buildpath, one of the most important things that a support NEEDS to do is ward for their team. Finishing your support item should be one of your earliest priorities, and completed or not, you should always be leaving base with at least one Vision ward in your inventory. Vision not only helps protect your lane early -- it allows your team to move out on the map and take objectives. A good rule of thumb is that the ABSOLUTE LATEST you can have wards ready, is when the first turret of the game goes down. Don't take that rule lightly, however. If the first tower of the game goes down, and you aren't warding yet... you are doing things very wrong, and are now significantly behind.

Enemy Assessment

Just in lane, a good support will keep a running threat assessment of the enemy team. Is either side favored in poking or wave clearing, is either side roaming better than the other? These are important things to take note of as you not only watch the map, but hone your "support-sense" for incoming danger. Even sudden changes in your enemy laner's behavior can be indications that something is amiss. Pay attention!

Friendly Assessment

Aside from just a static assessment of champions, you also need to keep a running tab on performance. Is your Ezreal missing every Q? Is your jungler diving towers recklessly chasing kills? Just because you have a theoretical advantage doesn't mean your team can translate that into a realized advantage. If your team isn't performing as well as they should, hang back and encourage them to take fewer risks in order to ensure their enthusiasm doesn't blow up in their face.

Damage Control

Sometimes despite your best efforts things just don't work out. Whether someone is feeding intentionally, or just doing poorly and refusing to take advice, sometimes the best thing you can do is cut them off. Don't go in trying to save them from suicidal plays and limit the amount of gold pouring into the enemy team. It sucks to have to let go sometimes, but you can do more for your team by staying alive and looking for other players/opportunities to lend your hand in creating positive advantages, rather than pouring more blood into the well.

Do I protect a friendly tower, or do I let it go?

This choice is one of the costliest in terms of trading and strategic thinking. Towers are the most visible things players see in regards to winning or losing the game of map control. However, Towers are MEANT to go down, minions will kill them on their own given enough time. Investing too much into protect ONE tower just for the sake of keeping it up can be a waste of effort ... and in some cases a death trap.

Ask yourself, how important is that tower to me for the foreseeable future?

Mid lane Towers tend to be the most important since they control access to jungle and the rest of the map. Second Tier towers are next after that, because they are usually the strongest defensible position that enables map access.

First of all, you have to decide if you can even defend the tower in the first place. Pouring a bunch of deaths and gold into the enemy team trying to save a lost turret is a recipe for an enemy snowball. IF it IS defensible, you have to judge if it is not simply worth trading for something else.

If your team is doing poorly, Sometimes you just want to let all the outer turrets go and fall back the the more defensible inner ones. While this may seem inconsistent at first, you have to look at it from the perspective of the enemy team. The area that you have to protect shrinks, and the area they have to attack grows. You can still ward your inner perimeter of turrets and have limited access to jungle. More importantly your team can move and react more quickly to each other than they can. This style of defense typically lasts until the first baron spawn.

If your team is doing well, you have to consider if saving that tower is worth it versus counterattacking and taking one of theirs. Assuming you trade 1 for 1, at worst that trade is even -- at best, you can use that opportunity to get a higher priority tower.

On a more advanced note, sometimes letting a singe tower go can be beneficial to someone on your team. Certain champions can really thrive on being able to farm a long lane, assuming you ward appropriately and control your area well. For example, Letting your outer bot-lane turret fall early can give a Vayne a little breathing room to farm, while freeing up your support to roam and do other things. Just remember to communicate with your team!

Roaming versus Staying in Lane

Later in the game, you will naturally roam, as your role requires you to move around the map and provide vision and objective play. However, even during lane phase, you may find opportunities to roam and do things in other parts of the map... but should you?

First and foremost, you need to communicate with your lane partner, and have a good grasp of whether they can handle being left alone, for even a short time. If they are just going to sit and try and facetank 1v2 you should probably just stay with them. Conversely if they are mature enough, you can leave them to glean a passive level advantage, while you go to assist someone else on your team until you get back.

Ask yourself... what is the objective of this roam? Will it facilitate other plays? or am I just wasting time away from XP. More importantly, what is the expectation that the enemy team will try to catch me in a bad position and capitalize on an easy kill?

Roaming with a purpose is good, but have respect for what the enemy team can do to react, and don't take unnecessary risks.

Don't be alone!

As much as we want to secure vision over objectives for our team, it is important that we aren't taking additional risks moving through uncontrolled territory, begging to be picked off for an easy kills. If you don't trust moving through territory, ward incrementally and back for more wards, OR wait for someone to go with you. Your death may not be as impactful as someone else on your team, but it is a powerplay for the enemy nonetheless. More importantly, many times a support is a force multiplier for their other teammates, rather than an additive force. This means that often, a support is a PRIORITY target for teams looking for an excuse to teamfight. Don't give up your gold easily. Be patient and wait till you can be more sure of your movement.

It is very easy to get overzealous with Sion and let yourself get caught out of position. While your undead form is a nice way to turn fights, you don't want to fall back on it too much, as you will lose XP while still giving gold to the enemy team. Play smart, and only die when is is absolutely necessary or unavoidable.

Your Dream combo for trading in lane is E - W - Approach - Q (charge for Knock-up) - W (detonate). However you don't have to do the full combo every time. In fact, it is better to only go for the full combo occasionally rather than limiting yourself to a predictable set of actions.

Most of your Poke is going to come from E - Roar of the Slayer. The amount of damage this does is surprisingly good given its range and cooldown. Even if you are holding on to the rest of your Combo, you can still E frequently and keep the opposing laners off balance. However, your poke (quite literally) shoves the lane towards the enemy team, so you need to be sure your ADC is comfortable with Wave control before you do it too much. Limit your poke if you want the wave to push to you instead. Also, picking the right minions (positioning} you are going to throw carefully can make this much easier for your adc to keep their cs up.

When you have a wave pushed to the enemy tower, you have 3 options. Harass, Rotate, or Roam. If you are going to Rotate, try to Back together with your ADC. If you are going to Roam, you can do so solo or with your ADC. However, never should your ADC stay in lane solo while you go somewhere else. If you Choose to harass, don't use your E to harass under tower. the slow is incredibly important for warding off incoming ganks while you are pushed. Remember this pattern however. Don't just sit at the enemy tower harassing and wait to get ganked. Back off and look at other opportunities.

Your Typical lane Phase rotation is going to be pretty simple. Shove lane to enemy turret. Harass for one wave. Once you shove to tower again, Back, Buy, and Rotate. Done right, the wave should bounce back to you, so that the next wave will meet you back at your tower in time to shove it right back at them again.

After your first Back, you should have swapped your Smite off for Exhaust. Spellbook gives you amazing Cooldown on this spell. Don't be afraid to use it as needed. Depending on how soon you start roaming, you may even want to swap your Flash for Teleport. Teleport allows you to roam to other parts of the map, and still be able to rejoin your ADC at the press of a button. Conversely, Teleport can give you a quick rotation, or put you into an area that unexpectedly needs some additional attention, without having to run there.

Your Ult is a Mobility tool as much as anything else. You can use it to get to a teammate who is getting pressed under a tower and have an immediate impact. Unstoppable Onslaught is also capable of damaging turrets, similar to the rift herald charge. Using your Ult, Dying, and then going straight back in as Undead Sion can make you a 1-man Turret Wrecking crew. This is good for picking off turrets that your team is finding it difficult to siege due to wave clear. Don't feed a kill frivolously for the sake of sieging, but know you have this tool in your bag if you need it.

Bodyblocking is one of the key aspects to playing Sion Support. You have to know when it is time to do something stupid and put yourself in harms way, and force the enemy to chew through YOUR HP and not your ADC's. If your ADC has poor positioning and makes this impossible, play a little more passive so they aren't incentivized to run out and go ham as much. In the worst case Scenario, stay alive and just play turret defense until other members of your team can intervene.

Your Kit gives you a decent amount of waveclear which is good for defending turrets and shoving waves. You don't want to be splitpushing all game... but covering a lane for a teammate to rotate is a service you can offer and pick up a little CS in the meantime.

When preparing for skirmishes, try to hang way back out of vision so that your ult comes as a surprise when you engage. When you fight Remember you are meant to frontline. Soak up every bit of damage you can, apply your exhaust to a key target and if you die, come back with a vengeance.

This Build will be updated and refreshed on a regular basis. Be sure to comment or leave any feedback if there is anything in addition you would like to see.