Sion vs Darius — Top Lane Matchup Guide

How to win lane as Sion against Darius · 49.34% win rate over 4,420 Emerald+ games · Updated 2026-07-27

Verdict: Darius is favoured — Darius owns 3 of the 7 game windows to Sion's 2. Play it patient and win your windows. Sion wins 49.34% of games vs Darius in top lane (4,420 Emerald+ games analysed).

Favour timeline — who owns each window

StageFavouredWhy
Level 1DariusDarius's passive bleed procs on any hit and starts stacking immediately — at level 1 he only needs a few autos to threaten the empowered Q heal window, so walk away from any trade he starts.
Level 2DariusAt level 2 he adds his E pull to the rotation; a full 5-stack pull into empowered Q at this stage chunks HP your W-shield cannot fully cover yet — dodge his pull animation rather than tanking it.
Level 3DariusHis full E-Q-auto bleed into empowered Q at level 3 wins a sustained trade before your W-shield value is large enough to absorb it; pop W on the pull animation and back out before 5 stacks.
Levels 4-5Even / skillNeither champion has a decisive spike at levels 4-5 — your W-shield absorbs more of his bleed now, but his E pull still dictates the fight if you charge Q in the open and he simply steps back.
Level 6Even / skillLevel 6 opens Unstoppable Onslaught as your gap-close tool and your zombie Passive gives every death trade value, making his R execute less clean — neither of you auto-wins the all-in here.
First itemSionHeartsteel's HP compounds with your kill-stack Passive and your W-shield absorbs the empowered Q heal trade outright — you start winning sustained brawls where his bleed DoT ticks into a HP wall.
Two+ itemsSionAt full build your zombie Passive means Darius spends his Noxian Guillotine R to end you and still faces 8 seconds of zombie combat; your HP total makes his Hemorrhage a small damage fraction and you win the war of attrition.

Early game (levels 1–5)

Darius wins levels 1 through 3 cleanly — his passive bleed stacks from any touch, and his E pull at 5 stacks into empowered Q heal is a kill threat your W-shield alone cannot reliably eat at low HP totals. Your job is to keep stacks below 3: do not extend autos when his E is off cooldown (24 seconds), farm with Q tip from max range, and pop W reactively the instant his pull animation fires to absorb the bleed burst. If you land a full charged-Q knockup before he closes the gap, that stun buys time for his Hemorrhage to clear and resets the trade firmly in your favor — but the charge telegraph is slow enough that he can simply step back out of the cone. Respect the range on his passive-proc autos; one free Q-heal trade snowballs into an unkillable bleed window.

Read the rest of this matchup

The full Sion vs Darius report continues with the mid-game plan, the late-game and teamfight plan, every power spike to play around, and the win conditions for both sides — plus cooldown tracking and the live enemy-jungle tracker inside the app.

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Playing the other side? Darius vs Sion guide →
All Sion top lane matchups →