Guide for Melee Sion

This is a guide for people who likes to play melee sion!

Runes:
Red - Critical Chance
Yellow - Armor or dodge, or more Critical Chance
Blue - Cooldown Reduction or Magic Resistance or Critical Chance
Some of you might ask "Why not critical damage?"

Here is the reason.

In order for Sion to kick ass, you will need to have a very good early game. With the help of your enrage, your damage is always one level above everybody else. In the early 2 v 2 fights, if you score a critical, you can easily win the first 2 - 3 early game battles. People will be scared of your damage. They will keep distance from you and aim for the creeps closer to your teammate, or tower hugging. Critical chance is VERY VERY important to set a great early game for Sion.

Summoner Spells
The spells you MUST have:

Cleasne - As a melee Sion, you will be entering battle side by side with your tank. Of course, your enemies will choose to toast you anytime over bashing on an Alistar. You will be eating whatever CC your enemies have, and have to be able to get out of it. 

Spells you want:

Ghost - Melee Sion has a stun, but lacks slows. It is essential for you to increase your speed to catch up runners, or annoying Ashe shooting your humongous ass . Some people likes to use flash for surprise attack. However, flash is garbage after the patch (for Sion). And it only gives you short term chase/escape ability. Over all ghost works better on melee Sion than flash does.

Teleport - It helps you push tower, or help your team push tower. It is also great for defending, ganking, and all sort of things. If your team has an Ashe, you can replace ghost for teleport. If your team has Kayle or Morgana, you can replace Cleanse for this (althogh, I suggest you always get cleanse).

Exhaust - This skill will help you kill runner, and sometimes save you from melee champions. However, giving up cleanse for this will hurt you during team battles. It works great, but might come back to haunt you later on. However, you can replace ghost for this. 

The spells you might want:

Flash - As explained above, it has similar effect as ghost. Some people prefer flash over ghost.

Rally - Rally boost Sion's damage by a lot. the more damage you do, the more you can heal. It is a great spell for Melee Sion. However, I suggest you leave the support spells to your teammates.

Clarity - Sion's mana pool without mana item is smaller than his own weener. there are times you will find yourself chasing dying enemies, but don't have enough mana to stun them. Having clarity will solve that type of problem. However, it is quite useless when you move into late game phrase. Also, if you have ghost, you will be able to catch most of enemy. There is no need for stuns.



The spells that you don't want

Heal - Why heal for that pathetic amount of health when your ultimate gives you 50-100% life steal?
And the rest!
Leave the support skills to your support based teammate, or whoever has empty slots. 

Mastery
Since we all know the summoner spells we will be using, it is now the time to set up the mastery.
I usually go with 21/9/0 or 21/0/9

21 for offense, it is pretty self-explanatory for a dps sion. 9 point into the defensive tree is for the movement skill in there. The skill that grants you 10% movement whenever you dodge an attack.
It works great when you have dodge runes, and a phantom dancer.
When I chase people, I run close to enemy creeps (just enough to not let them disrupt your pathing) to make them hit me. If I dodge one of their attack, I can speed up my movement and catch up to the runner without poping ghost. If you have 400 movement, the skill will increase your speed to 440. That is a pretty big boost. Not to mention, it stacks with ghost. Sometimes you will be running around with 500 move speed! That is enough to catch up to most champion.

21/0/9 
the 9 in the unity tree is obvious. For improved ghost! You can also put one point into ghost and spend the rest on more offense mastery or invest in some defense passives.

Teammate set up
Champions that you will want to lane with: Anybody that can keep you alive, and gives you a nice farming place

Soraka

Alistar

Tarlic


Champions you can work with: Anybody that has a Slow or Stun

Ryze

Ashe

Annie

Blitzcrane

Champions that is best not to lane with you: Anybody that needs creep farming, or champions that doesn't have a slow or stun and will make the other team harass you first.

Gangplank

Veglar

Naxus

Eve ( It might work sometimes, but it is bad on your part. Your enemy will harass you when eve is not visible. However, the double stuns works well against squishy champions)

Teemo

Twitch ( Twitch will make you the #1 harass target because he is ranged and is a stealth unit. Usually this team won't do too well, but you might be able to get some early kills from ganking a squishy in your lane)

Master Yi

Item Build

Now we get to the core part!
There are many ways to build a DPS sion, and they all can work in their own way.
I like to build mine for critical chance.

Before I begin, I have to let everybody know, Sion needs to be build to fight against the enemy team. you can't use the same item builds for every match and expect it to turn out as good as the previous one.
There will be times you show your enemy team the means of "Sion Hell", there will be times you are sitting at 2/7/5 type of score and is called by your teammate a noob for not playing an AP sion.

*For a DPS sion, there is no middle. It is always you kick ass, or get your ass kicked.*

Ok! Let's begin.

*First item, or Starting Item*
If you are with anybody that can heal you, go for 

Boots + 2 Potions

or

Brawler's Gloves

if your enemy team has over 3 ranged harasser, go for 

Regrowth Pendant

if you are fighting against melee champions, go for 

Vampiric Scepter

*Second Item*

Most of Time you will need

Berserk Boots

Unless the other team is just too full of Stun, Blind, Slow, etc. In that case your will get 

Mercury Trend

*Third Item *
If your enemies are bunch of squishy melee champions , go for

Zeal
Cloak of Agility
Then
Phantom Dancer

I know a lot people will disagree with this item, because most carries needs high DPS to kill champions.
However, Sion is different. Sion's damage is always 65 higher than most other carries, the only thing holding him back is his attack speed and low critical chance. With Phantom Dancer and runes and mastery, you will have around 50% chance to crit and around 160 damage. It is enough to dominate squishy champions at level 10-12. Also, phantom dancer is a counter to other physical champions. If they happen to get executioner's calling, your ult will be cut down by 65%. 20% dodge will make you do better against these melee carries.

if your enemies are bunch of squishy AP champions, go for

B.F. Sword
Cloak of Agility
then
Infinity Edge

This is very basic. Many other DPS champions go for inf edge also. You will be sitting at 220 damage and 40% chance to crit after you get inf edge. You will be doing 400 crits on annie, ryze, gangplank at lv 12 (if you have a good early game, you should get it by then) 3 chop and one is done. Not to mention, you get around 300 health back everytime you crit chop somebody! 

if your enemy has a dodge stacking Jax, go for 

Sword of the Divine

Jax is the only melee champion that can give you trouble.
you can rip apart Trydemere, Master Yi, anytime, because they will never outlast your 20 seconds Ultimate (However, do watch out for Trydemere with Executioner's Calling. If you are facing one, do not get cocky and fight him without being fully prepared.) Jax will be dodging many of your attacks. You cannot heal yourself when your attacks are dodged, that is why you must keep him at bay and not give him any chance to get fed up.

if your enemies have two or more armor stacking tanks, go for

Last Whisper
Usually, you shouldn't be attacking tanks anyway. But sometimes it can get troublesome when two meat walls charge toward your tower and you can't do anything to them. Unless their tanks are really putting your team down, don't bother with last whisper. you would be better off storming their backline from behind than chopping their tanks.

if your enemies have champions with heal ability or a lot heal as summoner spell, go for 

Excutioner's Calling

Everybody knows Excutioner's Calling renders a heal useless. Smart player will definitely get this if the other team has Soraka, or a lot lifesteal based champions. (Sion is one of them). It is fairly cheap, too. Although, Sion does not need that extra lifesteal, but more critical chance is always nice.

*Forth Item*

Same as the third item, and same situation.

If the other team has a lot melee champions, and you already bought a Phantom Dancer, go for
Infinity Edge
If the other team has a lot of AP Champions, and you already bought a Infinity Edge, go for
Phantom Dancer
If the other team has a lot tanks, and you already have a Last Whisper, go for
Infinity Edge
or
Black Cleaver 

if the other team has healers and more than 3 champions with heal summoner ability, and you already have a Excutioner's Calling, go for 

Infinity Edge

I think everybody gets the idea of third and forth item. Basically, they are just the same items, but buy them in different order. It is very self-explanatory, so I am going to move onto the fifth item.

*fifth item*

by this point you should know your enemies very well, and should know what you need to fight them.
But I generally get 

Atmas' Impaler

If you have trouble chasing people, go for

Frozen Mallet (aka Frozen Omelet, named by me!)

if you bought Regrowth Pendant as starting item, and does not have any chasing issue, go for

Warmog's Armor

*sixth item*

Nothing special, pick one of the item you haven't get from fifth item's list and get it.

If you have a good early game, then the game generally is over by the time you have Infinity Edge, and Phantom Dancer. I rarely fight a team that give me good start and last long enough to see me get my fifth or sixth item. 

All these capitals and bolds must be hurting your eyes. Let me summarize for you.

Item Summary

Against APTeam -

Regrowth Pendant 
Boots of Berserk
Infinity Edge
Phantom Dancer
Atmas' Impaler
Frozen Mallet

Against Melee Team -

Regrowth Pendant (or Vampric Scepter)
Boots of Beserk
Phantom Dancer
Atmas' Impaler
Frozen Mallet

Against Tanky Team-

Regrowth Pendant
Boots of Berserk
Last Whisper 
Infinty Edge
Black Cleaver (if Last whisper is not enough) or Atmas' Impaler
Phantom Dancer, or Frozen Mallet, or Warmog Armor

Champion Skill build up

1. Enrage
2.Stun
3.Enrage
4.Shield
5.Enrage
6.Ultimate
7.Enrage
8.Shield
9.Enrage
rest Whatever you want, they are not important. Just make sure you max out enrage asap, and get ultimate whenever you can. I personally prefer getting shield up over stun because it helps you kill neutral monsters easier.

Now that the items are set, let's talk about how to play DPS Sion in an actual game.

Early Game

This is the most important part of the whole match. In here, it will determine whether you will be kicking ass, or getting your ass kicked. I have fought many skilled premade team, and they were defeated by my less- experienced casual premade because they underestimate my DPS Sion, and gave me chance to get fed up. Remember this, DPS Sion is no different than Master Yi carry, and Trydemere carry. You get fed, you win, you are not fed, you are garbage.

Ok let's get back on track.

First, pick your teammate well. I have listed several champions that work good with you earlier. Try to lane with them as much as possible. DO NOT SOLO MID, unless the other team is throwing stupid champions in mid, like Blitzcrane solo mid. And if you and your teammate are getting owned, ask for lane switch. 
When the creeps spwan, you should be last hitting just like what everybody else is doing. If the other champion gets close, don't hesitate to give him a chop. After a few critical chop, your enemies will be scared. When you run toward them, they will run back to space out of your melee range. When that happens, you can keep scaring them by pretending to hit them, but killing dying creeps instead. 
Of course, that only works when you are having an upper hand in the lane. There will be times, you are getting harassed by two ranged champions and is unable to get close whatsoever. If that happens, just focus on farming. If your health gets really low, throw out all your spells and blue pill. Don't stay around your tower for 5 minutes with 1/3 health. 

Mid Game

By now, you should be able to guess if you are going to win or lose the game. If you get a lot of last hit and one or two champion kill before you reach level 8. Congratulation, you are one step closer to showing your enemy the means of "Sion Hell"

Get your first item with the golds you have and start ganking other lanes. Get Lizard or Golem runes whenever possible. If none of the lanes are having party, go kill dragon. You should be able to get it down by yourself at lv 9. Kill creeps when there are nobody to gank. Start heading into jungle when you see enemy champion start pushing up on other lane. Kill jungle monsters until the enemy champions are over the river line. If you get over 4 kills during the mid game, you can safely say, "GG". 

Late Game

If your score is something like 8/1/3 at lv 15. You have won the game. If your score is not quite there, that means the game might be dragged longer than 40 minutes. You, as the carry need to ask your team for full on support. If your score is sittng at 2/3/4. I am sorry, you will be as useless as a mega creep spwaned from dead inhibitor. If that is the case, think about what went wrong, and try again.
In late game, it is all about 5 man VS 5 man. If you flank their team from behind, when the battle engages, you will be able to totally demolish their squishy DPS like Ashe, Gangplank, Annie. Once they lose their source of Damage, the battle will be in your favor. However, follow one rule.

If you are flanking their back line, DO NOT engage first. You must attack "after" your team and their team start the fight. But, don't wait too long, or your team will die out quickly from lack of main DPS.


The END, well for now.