Views: 1002 The og Jungle Dragon
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I have been having some good success with 
Shyvana out of the jungle of late so I wanted to talk about what is working for me.
For starters Shy was my main for the majority of last season though I backed off on her after patch 6.6 when they nerfed Twin Bite which hurt her dueling and slowed her clear speed a bit. They also lowered the amount of stacks you could get from the Rift Herald from 2 to 5 for Enchantment: Devourer in Patch 6.5 which was an indirect nerf. And in Patch 6.9 they removed Devourer and replaced it with Enchantment: Bloodrazor, which was weak on introduction to the point that it was substantially buffed in 6.10. Side note: They nerfed my second role main, Vel'Koz right around the same time. WTF Rito?!
This is just to show that I have some experience with Shyvana so I'm not walking into my current success with her without having played her a decent amount.
Shyvana's main weakness is minimal CC to assist in ganks and being kited.
She farms like a boss, is a good duelest, and can go over terrain with her ultimate for engage or disengage (being able to go over terrain is a big deal when you look at most of the successful champions played at the professional level).
She also benefits from the fact that the dominant ADCs, Jhin, Varus, Miss Fortune, Ashe are immobile. There be dragon food.
Some results from recent games.
A comparison between Hecarim who I have more games on from earlier this season to Shyvana who I've just started playing again about a week ago.
Better KDA, more gold, more CS, more turrets, more dmg dealt, and I'm pulling off more multi-kills.
To be fair Hecarim has probably had more substantial nerfs than Shy, which I feel like hurts his early game and hence slows down his snowball potential (though a good Hecarim player is still a force to be reckoned with).
An example of runes, masteries, skill order, and item build.
I tend to go for a fairly high damage build, with enough defenses to allow me to lifesteal up in any fight I can get my auto attacks off on a target.
However that is an ideal situation and while I consider Blade of the Ruined King core, if you need to build defensively before picking it up then do so.
Start Hunter's Machete + Refillable Potion.
If you think you can pull off of a gank and can finish it on your first back buy a Stalker's Blade. If you are just looking to continue farming then I feel like the combination of Hunter's Talisman + a Dagger offers more in the way of sustain and improved clear speed.
A standard build would like something like:
Stalker's Blade + Enchantment: Bloodrazor
Mercury's Treads
Dead Man's Plate
Blade of the Ruined King
Maw of Malmortius
Guardian Angel
I feel like this build gives you pretty much everything you need outside of maxed CDR. I know of one higher level Shy player that will even build Black Cleaver on her as a third damage item for the CDR, armor shred, and Rage passive, but I feel like it leaves me too squishy. Maybe something to think about if you are snowballing out of control.
The main thing is that going this route gives you enough movement speed modifiers on top of your movement speed quints and Ghost that kiting you becomes quite difficult, which means you can continue to autoattack, lifesteal, and applying Burnout] damage.
Switch out Dead Man's Plate for Randuin's Omen if they have crit based autoattackers on their team. Pop the active after you've dove into the middle of their team to get off a multi-target slow.
Playstyle:
Farm. Farm your side of the jungle and the enemy jungle. Get wards down in the enemy jungle and gank lanes from behind where they are less like to expect being attacked.
Once you have level two in Burnout you can easily burn through their raptor camp every time it is up. Make sure they never have that as a resource.
If you get a level up on the enemy jungler go make their life hell. Make sure they can't gank and they get no farm.
Shyvana directly benefits from taking dragons via her passive Fury of the Dragonborn and can easily solo-it once she has Enchantment: Bloodrazor. I believe you can solo it at level 4 if you have Recurve Bow, two Health Potions/ Refillable Potion and a Control Ward to make sure you aren't seen doing it. And if you can't think of anything else to do on the map this is what you should be looking to do.
I often find ganking with Shyvana at level 3 to be counterproductive, especially verses champions with high burst damage. Riven, Quinn, and Diana are some champions that I've had problems with ganking early.
Definitely don't gank those targets if you are lower level than them, unless your laner has really good lockdown.
Try to gank from behind or run in front of your opponent because Dragon's Descent knocks targets its hitbox collides with backwards.
If you are going to use Ghost use it early as it has a ramp up to max speed it its latest iteration.
Run in and apply whatever slow you have available while trying to stay ahead of whatever direction some safety lies - Red Buff, Dead Man's Plate, Blue Smite, Blade of the Ruined King. Once the are slowed hit them with Flame Breath. Once you are on Top of them turn on Burnout and AA them to death (AAing will keep Burnout active for longer). If they haven't Flashed, yet they will probably Flash at this point. Try to get ahead of them again or beside them (the active from Blade of the Ruined King is helpful for this because it steals their movement speed and gives it to you) and then pop Dragon's Descent to knock them backwards or sideways. If you smack them into an object it is sort of like a short duration stun. Continue mauling them until dead.
Teamfights:
If you are the primary engage, try to get a flank or come from behind and ult into their team and if you can sit on their carries and kill them then do so. If you think that you are going to go down too quickly try to zone their carries for as long as you can then kite back toward your team to use your % health damage to start DPSing their front line, then follow your team back in when their front line goes down or starts to retreat.
If you are the follow-up engage then do just that. Follow your Malphite / Hecarim / Kled in to finish mowing down their carries. Shyvana likes nothing better than a dive buddy.
If you are behind you are going to have to decide what is better. Zoning their carries until you get popped or sitting on your carries and trying to dissuade their divers to back off. If your Guardian Angel is up, you might try the former and if it is not up it may be best to do the later.
Super Happy Note:
Dragon's Descent feels so much better. It had a hella wonky hit box before and having it be able to be interrupted made it feel like trash in some situations. Really glad Riot took the time to tweak and enhance this ability.
Shyvana out of the jungle of late so I wanted to talk about what is working for me.For starters Shy was my main for the majority of last season though I backed off on her after patch 6.6 when they nerfed
Twin Bite which hurt her dueling and slowed her clear speed a bit. They also lowered the amount of stacks you could get from the Rift Herald from 2 to 5 for Enchantment: Devourer in Patch 6.5 which was an indirect nerf. And in Patch 6.9 they removed Devourer and replaced it with Enchantment: Bloodrazor, which was weak on introduction to the point that it was substantially buffed in 6.10. Side note: They nerfed my second role main, Vel'Koz right around the same time. WTF Rito?!This is just to show that I have some experience with
Shyvana so I'm not walking into my current success with her without having played her a decent amount.Shyvana's main weakness is minimal CC to assist in ganks and being kited.
She farms like a boss, is a good duelest, and can go over terrain with her ultimate for engage or disengage (being able to go over terrain is a big deal when you look at most of the successful champions played at the professional level).
She also benefits from the fact that the dominant ADCs,
Jhin, Varus, Miss Fortune, Ashe are immobile. There be dragon food.Some results from recent games.
A comparison between
Hecarim who I have more games on from earlier this season to Shyvana who I've just started playing again about a week ago.Better KDA, more gold, more CS, more turrets, more dmg dealt, and I'm pulling off more multi-kills.
To be fair Hecarim has probably had more substantial nerfs than Shy, which I feel like hurts his early game and hence slows down his snowball potential (though a good Hecarim player is still a force to be reckoned with).
An example of runes, masteries, skill order, and item build.
I tend to go for a fairly high damage build, with enough defenses to allow me to lifesteal up in any fight I can get my auto attacks off on a target.
However that is an ideal situation and while I consider
Blade of the Ruined King core, if you need to build defensively before picking it up then do so.Start
Hunter's Machete + Refillable Potion.If you think you can pull off of a gank and can finish it on your first back buy a
Stalker's Blade. If you are just looking to continue farming then I feel like the combination of Hunter's Talisman + a Dagger offers more in the way of sustain and improved clear speed.A standard build would like something like:
Stalker's Blade + Enchantment: Bloodrazor Mercury's Treads Dead Man's Plate Blade of the Ruined King Maw of Malmortius Guardian AngelI feel like this build gives you pretty much everything you need outside of maxed CDR. I know of one higher level Shy player that will even build
Black Cleaver on her as a third damage item for the CDR, armor shred, and Rage passive, but I feel like it leaves me too squishy. Maybe something to think about if you are snowballing out of control.The main thing is that going this route gives you enough movement speed modifiers on top of your movement speed quints and
Ghost that kiting you becomes quite difficult, which means you can continue to autoattack, lifesteal, and applying Burnout] damage.Switch out
Dead Man's Plate for Randuin's Omen if they have crit based autoattackers on their team. Pop the active after you've dove into the middle of their team to get off a multi-target slow.Playstyle:
Farm. Farm your side of the jungle and the enemy jungle. Get wards down in the enemy jungle and gank lanes from behind where they are less like to expect being attacked.
Once you have level two in
Burnout you can easily burn through their raptor camp every time it is up. Make sure they never have that as a resource.If you get a level up on the enemy jungler go make their life hell. Make sure they can't gank and they get no farm.
Shyvana directly benefits from taking dragons via her passive Fury of the Dragonborn and can easily solo-it once she has Enchantment: Bloodrazor. I believe you can solo it at level 4 if you have Recurve Bow, two Health Potions/ Refillable Potion and a Control Ward to make sure you aren't seen doing it. And if you can't think of anything else to do on the map this is what you should be looking to do.I often find ganking with
Shyvana at level 3 to be counterproductive, especially verses champions with high burst damage. Riven, Quinn, and Diana are some champions that I've had problems with ganking early.Definitely don't gank those targets if you are lower level than them, unless your laner has really good lockdown.
Try to gank from behind or run in front of your opponent because
Dragon's Descent knocks targets its hitbox collides with backwards.If you are going to use
Ghost use it early as it has a ramp up to max speed it its latest iteration.Run in and apply whatever slow you have available while trying to stay ahead of whatever direction some safety lies - Red Buff, Dead Man's Plate, Blue Smite, Blade of the Ruined King. Once the are slowed hit them with
Flame Breath. Once you are on Top of them turn on Burnout and AA them to death (AAing will keep Burnout active for longer). If they haven't Flashed, yet they will probably Flash at this point. Try to get ahead of them again or beside them (the active from Blade of the Ruined King is helpful for this because it steals their movement speed and gives it to you) and then pop Dragon's Descent to knock them backwards or sideways. If you smack them into an object it is sort of like a short duration stun. Continue mauling them until dead.Teamfights:
If you are the primary engage, try to get a flank or come from behind and ult into their team and if you can sit on their carries and kill them then do so. If you think that you are going to go down too quickly try to zone their carries for as long as you can then kite back toward your team to use your % health damage to start DPSing their front line, then follow your team back in when their front line goes down or starts to retreat.
If you are the follow-up engage then do just that. Follow your
Malphite / Hecarim / Kled in to finish mowing down their carries. Shyvana likes nothing better than a dive buddy.If you are behind you are going to have to decide what is better. Zoning their carries until you get popped or sitting on your carries and trying to dissuade their divers to back off. If your
Guardian Angel is up, you might try the former and if it is not up it may be best to do the later.Super Happy Note:
Dragon's Descent feels so much better. It had a hella wonky hit box before and having it be able to be interrupted made it feel like trash in some situations. Really glad Riot took the time to tweak and enhance this ability.
Route to take Dragon after your first clear
Start
Start
Drop a ward on your Red Buff to spot a steal attempt.
Wolves
Back and buy a
At this point you should have two casts of
Head to dragon and drop your
Getting to level 6 as fast as possible
This forgoes the attempt at an early dragon in an attempt to reach level 6 as fast as possible.
*Raptors > Wolves
1) Ward for your laners (especially ones that are pushed up)
2) Check and see if the enemy raptors are up
3) If the enemy jungle is ganking on the other side of the map steal any camps that are still up on that side of the jungle.
4) Countergank
5) Gank...situational (their laner needs to be in a very compromised position and your laner needs to be someone that can bring CC or damage or preferably both).
6) Back and buy
if you simply back and buy then your jungle route will be as follows.
Krugs > Raptors > Wolves > Blue > Options (run through your option lists again).
With
*if those leashing for you accidentally kill a small raptor this will prevent you from getting level two off the small raptors alone and kind of defeat the purpose of starting the raptor camp (the main point of which is finishing your jungler clear with the most amount of XP possible).
Vs targets you are having trouble sticking too
It can also be used as an escape if you are in a sticky situation and given that the cool down is short, don't hesitate to use it to get out if things look like they are going South. Going over a wall will often prevent pursuit.
You also don't always have to use it to dive directly into the enemy team. Sometimes (especially when your are the only diver) it can be best to look for angles that allow you to knock one member of the opposing team into your team.
Man oh man do I remember when you could interrupt it. Felt amazing if you were the one interrupting, felt terrible af if you were
Man oh man do I remember when you could interrupt it. Felt amazing if you were the one interrupting, felt terrible af if you were
I watched a game being played where a
Appreciate the thanks re the blog post and to know that you enjoy the ranked adventures thread.
I tend to use the blog to collect the pieces/impressions I get from the games played and expand on my thought process/things I've learned. Seems to finally be paying off in terms of climbing the ladder.