Shyvana - The Half Dragon

Introduction

Hello everyone and welcome to my Shyvana guide! This is my very first attempt at a guide so if there is anything I can do to improve this guide don't hesitate to let me know. Also all constructive and helpful positive criticism is always aprreciated.

My play-style with Shyvana is very aggressive and consistent.
I play her as a DPS Melee Fighter with just a small amount of sustainability.
Reading this Shyvana guide will, hopefully, allow you to become more familiar with being an aggressor and an over-all powerful player.

So without further ado (adieu?) lets get started, shall we?

Pros / Cons

PROS

☺ Very high mobility with Burnout
☺ Extremely powerful burst damage from her Twin Bite
☺ Dragon's Descent has a defensive passive that gives a sweet boost when activated
☺ A very productive and effective farmer/jungler
☺ No Mana! *woot woot*
☺ Incredible escaping abilities when combining Burnout and Dragon's Descent

CONS

☻ Lack of Crowd Control effects
☻ Susceptible to being kited by ranged champions
☻ Easily shutdown if consistently ganked

Masteries

For the Solo Top Shyvana I take 21/0/9 for an early advantage in damage and movement speed.
A point in Summoner's Wrath allows me to use Exhaust and Ignite to it's full potential. Also Brute Force for extra Flat Attack Damage and Alacrity for Flat Attack Speed.
In the Utility tree, I take points for Swiftness for that extra boost of speed when you activate Burnout and also that last point in Runic Affinity for a longer duration ofBlessing of the Lizard Elder, allowing you to have a higher success rate in your ganks.

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For my Jungle Shyvana I take 21/9/0 in Masteries.
In the Offensive tree, I take 21 points, the exact same as the Solo Lane Shyvana.

Note: The reason behind this is because you really want a "MONSTROUS" advantage against your Jungle "AND" your enemy Jungler. Health, and Armor will be accommodated for after you learn Dragon's Descent and after purchases such as Wriggle's Lantern, Phage, Frozen Mallet, and Trinity Force.

In the Utility tree I take Summoner's Resolve allowing for 10 gold per Smite, which is pretty sweet.
Also, Tough Skin and Bladed Armor does a fair amount of damage saving you the bother of last hitting Jungle Creeps.

Runes

Greater Quintessence of Strength gives Flat Attack Damage allowing for that "COLOSSAL" early advantage while you and your Solo Lane enemy champion go toe-to-toe. If he's smart, he'll check your AD before initiating any battles.


Same goes for Greater Mark of Strength. You will be a very hard to beat champion, early game, with these runes in place.


For Yellows, I take Greater Seal of Resilience for extra Flat Armor just because it is the best that I see fitting in with Shyvana. It stacks well with your Wriggle's Lantern and also your Dragon's Descent.


And with Blues, I take Greater Glyph of Focus for some Flat Cooldown Reduction allowing me to spam my abilities more often and being a consistent annoyance to enemy champions. Also, it gives me a big early advantage being able to use more abilities to harras and effectively farm.

Summoner Spells

Recommended


This is a "MUST" for Shyvana if you are going to play the aggressor type.
I use this to secure kills, lower enemy Attack Damage when they feel they think can take me on 1v1, and also to escape if they ever try to gank me when i'm farming/jungling.


This helps to secure kills when ever someone feels like backing off of a fight.
Pop this Bad Boy on them and watch them light up like the Fourth of July!


Ghost also helps with chasing, escaping, getting to a team fight or running up and down to steal buffs, etc. Ghost is a very viable Summoner Spell but I don't feel the need to use it, for I already have my very own personal mini- Ghost. ( Burnout)


Like I said with the Summoner Spell Ghost, I don't feel the need for this spell because I have enough mobility as it is.

NOTE: Range of Flash is 400, Range of Spinning Slash is 660, Ranged of Dragon's Descent is 1000.
Shyvana> Tryndamere> Flash


Use this "ONLY" if you are playing the Jungler Shyvana.
Later on, I will show you a Jungle path that most of you will find quite easy and effective.

Skill Sequence/Ability Explanation

I believe in maxing out Burnout first, along side with Twin Bite mainly because I build strictly AD. I'd say the only AP would come from Trinity Force. So putting one point in Flame Breath while building no AP would be holding Shyvana back from her full potential.


This gives your Auto Attacks enhanced effects accordingly.

- Auto Attacking while Twin Bite is on cooldown will reduce it by .5 seconds.
- Auto Attacking while Burnout is active will extend the duration by 1 second per attack, for up to 6 seconds.
- Auto Attacking an enemy champion who is hit with Flame Breath, and also debuffed, will apply an additional 15% of Flame Breath's damage.
- Auto Attacking while Dragon's Descent has less than 100 fury generates 2 fury per attack.


Twin Bite is a very powerful burst damage ability. Shyvana strikes her target twice, with the second attack dealing 80%-100% of Shyvana's Attack Damage.
This proc's great with Sheen and Trinity Force dealing a chunk of damage.
I take this ability at level 2 and max it second right after Burnout.

Dragon Form: In Dragon Form, Twin Bite does full damage in a cone in front of Shyvana. All on-hit effects will proc each champion and minion hit by Twin Bite.


This will be the ability your mostly going to use. It's versatility is unreal; from jungling, farming, mobility, damage output, chasing, and escaping. During the 3 seconds after you activate Burnout, you will be dealing 25-85 magic damage per second for up to 9 seconds.
THAT'S 225 MAGIC DAMAGE AT LEVEL ONE!!! And that's not including the 6 Auto Attacks your applying while the ability is active.
I take Burnout at level one and max it first.

Dragon Form: While in Dragon Form, Shyvana's Burnout leaves the field burning, damaging anyone who walks across the fiery planes.
This ability is similar to Rumble's The Equalizer and Corki's Valkyrie.


Flame Breath deals a fair amount of magic damage but is really useless if you play an AD type Shyvana. Also, no disrespect to the AP Shyvana's out there, but stacking AP for a move that has quite long of a cooldown and for an Ultimate that comes around only during team fights is not using Shyvana to her full potential.

Dragon Form: In Dragon Form, Flame Breath engulfs all units in a cone in front of Shyvana. I'd say this is the only moment I would spam as many Flame Breath's as I could for maximum damage.


Dragon's Descent is Shyvana's Ultimate and is what makes Shyvana so powerful in every way.
It provides 15/20/25 Armor and Magic Resistance while in human form.
Activating Dragon's Descent allows Shyvana to fly, pushing enemies towards her target location and damaging them with 200/300/400 magic damage.

Dragon Form: In Dragon Form, the defensive passives are double. Instead of 15/20/25 it is now, for a short time, 30/40/50 Armor and Magic Resistance.

FURY:
- Upon Reaching level 6 you have to opportunity to learn Dragon's Descent which will give you a full bar of fury (100).
- Having 100 fury will allow you to activate Dragon's Descent.
- Activating Dragon's Descent and while in Dragon Form, Shyvana's abilities gain additional effects but will lose 6 fury every second.
- While in Human Form, Shyvana gains 1 fury for every 1.5 seconds. Additionally, Auto Attacking will generate 2 fury per attack.

Items

Main Items

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Why?

The reasoning behind Trinity Force and Frozen Mallet together is that they just work so well together. Trinity Force gives movement speed combined with Burnout for chasing while at the same time Frozen Mallet is slowing the enemy champion, and don't forget that Flame Breath deals extra damage on debuffed units! Also, Twin Bite proc's unreal damage with Sheen effect that has scaled AD with both these two items.

NOT TO MENTION!!
They give GRATUITOUS amounts of HEALTH!!!

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Plausible Items

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You'll want to grab this if the enemy team has an AD Ranged Carry who is real squishy. You'll end up trolololling all the way to the bank.
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Pick this up if your enemy team consists of hard AP Carries like; Akali, Ahri, Kassadin, Kennen, etc. Also, if they have high health Magic damage champs like; Singed, Galio, Alistar, Cho'Gath, Maokai, Mordekaiser, etc.
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This item is for when the enemy team includes low-health enemy champions.
Team Composition Example: Sona, Ashe, Ryze, Pantheon, Shaco
Infinity Edge deals Extremely Catastrophic blows when combined with Twin Bite and the effect of Sheen/ Trinity Force.
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Atma's Impaler is a great defensive and also offensive item, I like to compare it as a stronger version of a Wriggle's Lantern. Take this item if ever your up against medium-high health AD Melee or Ranged champs. An example would be; Xin Zhao, Kog'Maw, Udyr, Olaf, Lee Sin, etc.
NOTE: At the point you've purchased both Trinity Force and Frozen Mallet, you'd have achieved roughly about 3000 Health. I'll do the math, since everybody hates math any ways, which comes up to about a WHOPPING 60 extra AD added from Atma's Impaler's Unique Passive. How's that, for a Tanky DPS?

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Not Recommended Items

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- Well, the reason I chose to blot out these two items is because you are NOT the tank and you will lose the feel of aggression and offensive power if you choose to go this way. If you trust this guide and believe that I have even a small ounce of logic in why I choose to do this then please, build accordingly and wisely. I mean, would you rather be praised by your team on how you pwned them so hard or be raged at for not being able to do any damage? ... Think about it.


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- To say the least, you definitely are NOT the carry, therefore there is no need to buy items to counter enemy tanks and DPS fighters. There are no particular customs in which one must follow or types of rules one has to apply if they've chosen a certain role in a Champion.
BUT! The role that I personally play as with Shyvana is a DPS Melee Fighter who soaks damage while at the same time disrupting and persistently dealing tons of damage. And I believe that including these items into the core items will disrupt the offensive and defensive balance in Shyvana.

Team Work

The role you will want to take in a team fight with Shyvana will be the DPS Damage Soaker (or whatever you wanna call it). You will be dealing AoE (Area of Effect) Damage and focusing to eliminate the enemy carries so that you and your team can push turrets and destroy the nexus.

How to Descend as a Dragon: First of all, do not waste your Ultimate Dragon's Descent recklessly if you do not need it. Use it under major situations such as; Securing a runaway kill, Damaging over half of the enemy champions in one single flight, or Escaping a team fight if your carries are taken out and you've run out of options.

REMEMBER: If you choose to use Dragon's Descent over walls as a flash to reach an enemy team fight and NOT over the "ACTUAL" enemy champions, then you are lowering the potential damage output you will be dealing.

Initiating: You are not the tank and will not be able to take many hits before you are staring at the grey screen of death. So, to prevent that, you will need to allow your tank to initiate and become the focus. Immediately afterwards, you fly in for the kill and your carries and assassins will follow your lead, picking up whoever is most liable to die first.

Jungling

☼ Start with 475 gold, buy Vampiric Scepter.

☼ Begin at Golem Camp, learn Burnout.

☼ Smite Big Golem immediately and activate Burnout right after, attacking the same Golem. Finish camp and move onto Wraith Camp.

☼ Activate Burnout focusing the Purple Wraith. You've now learned a new move!! Choose Twin Bite, auto attack until they diminish and move onto Wolf Camp.

☼ Activate Burnout and Twin Bite focusing on the giant wolf. Auto attack until they die and continue onto Ancient Golem Camp.

☼ At this point Smite will be coming close to getting off cooldown. You will have two options; Take if for your self or give it to a friendly champion nearby. Either way you will need to activate Twin Bite and Burnout and activating Smite when necessary. You are now level 3, choose Burnout, auto attack Young Lizards and move onto Wraith Camp.

NOTE: If you takeCrest of the Ancient Golem be sure to Smite when the Ancient Golem has health just below 500.

☼ Destroy the Wraith Camp like you did before using Burnout and Twin Bite, focusing the Big Wraith. Auto attack to finish and move onto Golem Camp.

☼ Focus the Big Golem with Burnout and Twin Bite, auto attack to finish. From this point you have two choices depending on the state of your health.

Choice 1: If you have high enough health to takeBlessing of the Lizard Elder, then by all means take it and gank your enemy lanes who have overextended.

Choice 2: If you have too low of health, then Recall back to home base. Go straight to theBlessing of the Lizard Elder and afterwards gank lanes who are in need of support.

From this moment on, it will be up to your moves that win you and your team the game.
My advice for junglers when takingCrest of the Ancient Golem orBlessing of the Lizard Elder, please Pull them into the brush so that you aren't ganked or stolen from by enemy junglers.

In Conclusion

Shyvana is such an unpredictable champion. People do not realize how strong she really is and that's the thing that makes her so powerful when they meet up with Shyvana on the Fields of Justice.

Please give this guide an upvote if you like it and if it has helped you in any way.

Feel free to leave a comment if you have any thoughts you'd like to throw my way.

Please tell me if there's anything I can do to improve before you give this guide a downvote, it'd be much appreciated.

And just to keep tellin' 'em,
"They have faced nothing like me." - Shyvana

Special Dedication

To jhoijhoi and her beautiful line dividers. I couldn't have made this guide without her. Everything on her guide was well said and easy to understand.

GO CHECK OUT HER GUIDE NOW!!!
It helped me immensely , thanks jhoijhoi for breaking down the complexity so that people can learn how to make guides look so nice. ;)

Change Log

• 2-24-2012 Changed "Summary" chapter to "In Conclusion" Chapter.
• 2-24-2012 Added Match History Pictue to "In Conclusion" Chapter.