Hello everyone. I'm ArcThoron, semi-rookie player, and I seemingly have found a jungle Shen build that will save your team time and time again. I only recently have started playing this game, about halfway through season 6, and only started playing jungle Shen after noticing the champ for cheap in the store. So I picked him up, and played him like crazy. It's kind of insane how far I managed to get with the jungle Shen as I'm now a mastery 7 Shen with about 100k points (yeah, not much there, eh?), and I have some pretty funny stories about what I've done with him. Either way, hopefully this guide will be of some help to rookie players chasing the jungle Shen dream.

I'd talk about matchups, but I haven't played enough to work on that section. So hopefully I'll be able to keep the guide up to date.

The Pros of Shen in the jungle:
You're tanky, so if you get caught out, you can still survive if you play it right.
Spirit's Refuge and Twilight Assault make for some safe camp clearing.
Stand United lets you save teammates from near certain death.

The Cons of Shen in the jungle:
You're squishy early game. Yep, sucks to get invaded.
You don't really have the greatest clear speed until you get the Bami's cinder.
The way you go into a fight determines the outcome of the fight.

Ah, the jungle clear path. It's actually fairly straightforward. You'll go to red buff at level 1, and take it without smiting. I realize that he doesn't have the fastest clear, but it will all be worth it later. Second thing, go to blue buff. I've never done well in a game where I didn't take blue buff immediately after red, I realize that you might not like the idea, but at this point the enemy team will have noticed your considerably slower clear speed, and will likely have plans to invade you early game. It happens consistently, so I adjusted, and my games turned out better. Following Blue, take the skuttle in the river, and then finish your blue side jungle. Following the blue side jungle, take your raptors, check on the other skuttle to see if you can take it, and finish with krugs. If you see an opportunity to gank, make sure you have level 3 so you can taunt. But just be aware you're still not in a position to be dueling, due to the fact that you need your jungle. So after your initial clear is complete, look for opportunities to dive into the enemy laner's faces and say "HEY! I'm a jungler!" It is always worth it to contribute to the team when playing Shen, because in so doing you invest in yourself. The ganks Shen can give are actually pretty very good for securing kills for your team.

So, you're asking yourself at this point, what's the point of jungle Shen without a Titanic Hydra?! Well, you're asking a decent question, so here's my take on that item: It's good for waveclear and clearing camps, but with a Cinderhulk, you don't actually need it. If you feel like adding in a little burst for team fights, yeah sure, go right ahead and build it. But more often than not, it's not even worth the gold, when you can add more resistances instead. At least, that's what I've found. So it's not a bad item, I just think there are better ways.

Well, it's pretty easy to get confused on this part, so let me give you the run down. You should use Twilight Assault at the beginning of clearing a camp, but while it's in flight, get in the auto. You will get one auto attack in before the Spirit Blade reaches you. Depending on the camp, you'll be able to use Spirit's Refuge to block two autos from the large monster in the camp if you time it precisely while the monster is in its auto-attack animation. Dragon is the only exception. Baron and Rift Herald aren't exempt, as I've used it to block damage from both of the top side team buff monsters.

Your Shadow Dash actually has some pretty unique properties, so let me go over them here. Shadow Dash taunts all monsters and champions caught within the line of the dash. So it's a useful tool to disable enemy champions and group your jungle camps. The second unique property that people seem to forget is that it can go through walls. So if your flash is on CD, and your Shadow Dash isn't, and you got picked near a wall a standard jungle wall, dash through it to lose them. That has saved me from dying so many times from certain death when flash has been down. The third property that you'll need to know is the taunt flash. Most people don't realize this can be done, so let me explain the principle. What happens is your target is just out of taunt range, and you have flash up. So what you do is you taunt to line up a flash, and just before the taunt animation finishes, you flash on top of your target, catching them with the taunt, and give your team a kill or at least a high pressure situation. I've also stolen kills with this...

Finally, Stand United. It's pretty easy to use, but you have to be aware of the map to use it effectively. I had a situation where my Vi support (yeah, that was a thing) was going to die to an Annie, and I couldn't make it in time. So, being the dutiful jungle Shen that I am, I ulted my Vi, and turned the certain kill by Annie into a kill for Vi. Two things to note when you ult someone: First, your Spirit Blade goes with you. So a timely ult into Spirit's Refuge is huge and keeping the teammate alive. Second, if you have it off of CD, use your Shadow Dash immediately after a taunt to keep your friendly adc, or whoever else, alive and able to take the kill you peeled for them.

Jungle Shen is an extremely useful and versatile jungler who is sitting outside of the meta. If you play him well, you can become the legendary Shenungle, which is just Shen jungle. I've found that most of the time Shen in the jungle is useful for not only your squishy ADC, but can also set up some amazing plays by your team. So don't underestimate the Shen in the jungle who doesn't build the Titanic Hydra... If you see him against you, well... you better hope your team gets ahead. Fed Shens are scary. Anyway, I hope this guide gives you rookie Shen junglers a place to start. Good luck out in the jungle with Shen!

I have to thank Linky317, aka YummyRice, for his ideas and thoughts for how I should play Shen. He gave me a lot to work with with runes and masteries. I didn't have to do all the legwork to get to the point where I am with Shen because of his guide.

I think that's all. If you have any inquiries to this guide, please feel free to get in contact with me. I'm around in the game trying to climb to Silver 5.