I run the steel before every session and the knives still die, where does honing stop and sharpening start

The rod moves steel around, it barely removes any. An edge in use rolls and folds at the very apex, and a grooved steel pushes that fold back into line, which is why the knife feels transformed for about ten minutes and fine for a few days. What it cannot do is create a new apex once the old one has worn round and blunt, and every use is wearing it round. So the rod is genuinely maintenance, it is just maintenance of an edge that only sharpening can put there in the first place. Roughly: rod between uses, stone when the rod stops working, and you have already found the exact moment the stone is due.

Worth knowing that "steel" covers three different tools that people talk about as if they were one. A grooved or ribbed steel realigns and mildly abrades. A smooth polished steel realigns and does effectively no cutting, which is what most butchers actually use and use often. A ceramic rod does remove metal, slowly, and will genuinely refresh a slightly tired edge, which is probably what you actually want between stone sessions. A diamond rod is a sharpening tool wearing a rod costume, it removes metal fast and will reprofile your edge if you use it casually. For softer Western knives like Victorinox, a smooth or ceramic rod plus a stone every month or two is the whole programme.

I ruined the edges on two decent knives by treating the rod as a sharpener. Fast strokes, lots of pressure, terrible angle control because I was doing the flourish thing from cooking programmes. What I was actually doing was rolling the apex hard over one way and then hard over the other, so the edge was a wavy mess that no amount of rodding would fix and I had to grind past all of it on a stone later. Light pressure, slow, five strokes a side, and think about the angle rather than the noise.

For scale: I cook a similar amount and my Victorinox chef knife goes on a stone maybe six times a year. That is a couple of minutes on a 1000 grit, a few passes on a 3000 or a strop, done before the kettle boils. Between those, ceramic rod when it starts dragging on skins. The rod is not the problem, the missing sixth of the year is.

Honing straightens, sharpening removes metal to make a new edge. You cannot straighten your way out of a worn apex. Buy a 1000 grit stone, learn on the cheap santoku, and keep the rod for between times.