Hi!

I am a Diamond 4-3 player and I have been testing Shen Smite/Tp for a while now.
I have found that it is really strong in some circumstances, I will comment on these later.
The main reason for having Smite on Shen is that he scales so well with Hp, and to me Skirmishers Cinderhulk is the perfect item for Shen.
In fact, i havent tried this myself, but you could take Smite/Flash on Shen top! (Shen R working like a Tp)

This guide is for experienced Shen players. Mostly because you will have to play safe in lane since not having flash in the early game is riscy.

The recent buffs on Shen has obviously brought him back in the Meta game, being allot better overall.
The only thing still bothering me about Shen is his lack of scaling and power spikes. Therefore I have been testing Smite/Tp Shen, even before the Cinderhulk nerf, and I am STILL finding it stronger and stronger.

First of all, do NOT use this build in every game!
Atleast untill you get used to it; only use this against "easy lane opponents" meaning tanks or slow scaling champs.

These 3 points "must" be valid:

1. You are against a tanky top laner or a slow scaling champ.
2. You have some good engage on your team, or a kiting team
3. Your main job is to peel and/or be a frontline tank

Second, This is meant for ranked solo que, Not having prober communication with your teammates means allot playing Shen. And having Skirmisher Cinderhulk makes up for this in two ways:

1. Making Shen a true Splitpusher, with Triforce.
2. Making Shen a true Tank, with Hp stacking+Thornmail and objective control.

(No, i dont see Shen as a "true" anything, not even a ninja!)

I prefer the second option myself, mostly because splitpushing is rarely that effective, unless you are far ahead.

I am using Smite/Tp more and more often myself, working well against pretty much anything.
That said, I would never use it against champions like; Riven, Renekton, Rumble and other early game bullies. Not saying this isnt possible :)

Third, Smite on shen almost makes him a different champion imo.

- He is less about engaging, except for ultis.
- He is more about frontlining, peeling, zoning, objective control
- And most importantly; he scales so well with cinderhulk instead of sunfire cape!

In my opinion Shen with Tp/Flash will start falling off after 3-4 items, with Smite/Tp this is not the case as he will keep scaling well untill 6th item is done.

This guide is truly a work in progress, but please comment!

Best Regards, EUW "Lesbian Seagull".

Already at lvl 1 you can start taking advantage of smite in more than 1 way:

1. Taking a camp, Gromp, Raptors or Krugs
2. Helping your jungler by smiting his first camp.
3. Stealing a camp or red/blue buff
4. Invading on your opponent if he is doing a camp at lvl 1. (steal the camp)

Shen is pretty strong from lvl 1-5 and I feel like you can take away some of this early game power in exchange for some more scaling. Shen doesnt have much kill pressure 1v1
anyway.
I do play it safe, telling my jungler to mostly ignore top.(An early gank top can be nice, just to burn flash etc.)
I dont trade unless its necessary and I will "never" use E offensively in lane.
I simply farm with Q while getting as many basic attacks off as possible to proc Q passive and get more Shen passive's. This combined with my scaling health runes and some early Hp Regen from Crystaline bracer gives Shen a great sustain. Almost comperable to Vladimir.
In lane smite is usefull aswell, smiting cannon minions is really nice for wavecontrol and u even proc Q passive when you Smite a Q marked target.

This is when the scaling starts kicking in. After u got Cinderhulk + some more Hp items.
Combined with the scaling Hp runes are getting effective around lvl 9.
This is when you want to use ulti as much as possible. If its a high paced game an early Kindlegem (CDR) can be quite good, if the game is slow go for more lane focused items.
U want to be using ulti on botlane and taking dragons afterwards. Here smite helps aswell, you can even have your jungler defending top tower in the meantime. But your tower will probably fall quite early, this is rarely a problem tho. Being able to take camps with good profit and having global pressure with ulti, while farming far back in the top lane is really nice in the midgame.

At 5 items you are really strong if you are not far behind.
Cinderhulk, Warmogs, Merc's, Thornmail, Spirit visage.

Obviously you are tanky but the dmg is not bad at all, Challenging Smite+ Shen passive+ abilities+ Thornmail+ possible Gromp buff, will do a bunch of Dmg to anyone hitting you, mostly AD champs ofc.