Shyvana Build Guide by TheWeekndOVOXO

Introduction: Rawr, I'm a dragon.

+ Here is an attempt to write a serious jungle guide for Shyvana in ranked play. Obviously, it can also be used to play draft and normals. I've played her enough to attempt to write this, and hopefully it helps you all.


Disclaimer: Obviously, this is just another guide amongst the millions out there. If mine isn't suitable for you, you can check the others. But give me input and criticism if you think I should change something. I like negative and positive comments. So post your comments below and I will reply to you within a day or two.

THANKS!

Disclaimer: Read this please!

+ Make sure your team selects some champions that can offer you some CC assistance. Since Shyvana does not have any form of CC except for red buff and Exhaust, you will be, at times, very reliant on your teammates to perform excellent ganks.

+ For instance, Leona, Alistar, Taric, Janna, Sona and Lulu are good bottom supports that can offer you some form of CC.

+ Then for AD Carry in bottom lane, there's Tristana, Vayne (wallshot), Graves, Ashe and Kog'Maw that can make your kills a bit easier too.

+ For top lane, anything with a slow is fine. Some examples are Gangplank, Irelia, Jarvan IV, etc.

+ Mid lane, anything like Kennen, Morgana, Lux, Cassiopeia, etc.

+ Good luck! And have a nice time reading.

Understand Your Role

+ You're an Off-Tank more than anything else. You provide some damage, but you also can take a lot of hits. You are nothing else but a ganker, an incredibly fast jungle clearer and counter-jungler in the early to mid phase of the game.

+ In this guide, Shyvana will be played with 9/21/0 masteries, and filling in that off-tank spot in your team. You will annoy your enemies, and you will be a good duelist as well.

Pros & Cons

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Pro's + High mobility with Burnout + Very fast jungling ability + AoE damage + Consistent damage + Naturally tanky with Dragon's Descent + Deals both physical and magical damage

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Con's - No CC or Slow abilities - Prone to CC - Very high learning curve - Dragon's Descent only escape - Requires good leash at 1:40/1:55 - Relies on Exhaust & Frozen Mallet

Summoner Spells

Exhaust: As I said in the cons, Shyvana has no gap closers (aka no slow or cc), so she relies on Exhaust to slow enemies down. Then again, this summoner spell does not only serve as a slowing spell, but it can help in teamfights. How? Just simply apply this to the opposing team's AD carry. By shutting down their AD carry's damage for a total of 3 seconds, your team can survive longer and perhaps win the teamfight.

Smite: Basically, every jungler needs to have Smite. It is a very important summoner spell that all common junglers use. It is used to get a killing blow on the blue golem, the red lizard and the dragon. But don't forget that Shyvana is highly capable to counter-jungle. So Smite will be used to steal enemy's buffs as well.


Flash: If you feel unsafe and that you feel like you need some sort of escape or chase, fine, get it. Replace exhaust by this.

Ghost: Same, if you feel like you need another escape or chase, get it. I find this useless since you have Burnout.

Teleport: This actually can be a good or a bad summoner spell. This is great if you need to be somewhere to perform a surprise gank (aka bot ward in bottom right bushes), or to secure dragon. Although you will need red in order to gank correctly since you give up exhaust.


Ignite: Sure this can ignite your enemy on fire, but you're giving up a gap closer for some damage. Shyvana can deal enough damage by herself.

Cleanse: Cleanse is a waste on Shyvana. Like I said above, you're giving up too much in order to get cleanse. Even though you are prone to CC, you can only rely on Mercury's Treads.

Runes

Recommended Runes


Greater Mark of Alacrity: For general junglers, Attack Speed marks are great. Not to mention that Shyvana benefits a lot from AS from her passive and abilities. I take 6 of these and then take 3 of;

Greater Mark of Desolation Greater Mark of Desolation: The only reason why I pick up three of these is for early game jungle purposes. Since jungle monsters have some sort of armor, you'd want only a few of these just to negate their armor. Of course it helps throughout the game too, but Shyvana isn't that focused on physical damage.


Greater Seal of Resilience: Armor, armor, armor. I have mentioned in my Fizz guide that Armor seals are probably THE BEST runes for all junglers. You will NEED this in order to survive the early jungle stage in the game.


Greater Glyph of Shielding: MR/lvl is the way to go for glyphs. They become as effective as flat MR glyphs at lvl 11, so why not? They're 2x as effective at level 18. TAKE THIS.


Greater Quintessence of Strength: You'd want these badasses to increase your early stage damage against jungle monsters. In addition, your Burnout will do more magical damage from these Quints. How awesome?


Other Runes to be Considered


Greater Mark of Alacrity: You can go straight up with 9 of these if you don't want to use a mix of 6 AS and 3 ARPEN marks.

Greater Mark of Strength: Flat AD marks are a good choice if you want to replace those 3 ArPen marks by these. Totally fine with me, but remember that flat AD quints are way stronger than AD marks.


Greater Glyph of Warding: Flat MR Glyphs are good for early game only though. I would rather take the MR/level. If this floats your boat, then be my guest.


Greater Quintessence of Desolation Greater Quintessence of Desolation: If you want to play Shyvana more as an AD bruiser, and you think ArPen is better, you can use these as well. Although, personally, I find flat AD quints far superior.

Masteries

Summary of Offensive Tree and Defensive Tree (Main Masteries 9/21/0)

+ I go deep in the defensive tree. + Summoner's Resolve for 10g per smite. + Hardiness for flat Armor. Great for early-mid-late game. MR will be acquired later on with Mercury's Treads and Wit's End. And your Dragon's Descent passive gives flat MR already too. + Durability , Veteran's Scars and Juggernaut will boost your HP by a significant amount, subsequently synergizing with your Atma's Impaler as well. + Tough Skin is taken mainly to survive longer in jungle. And Bladed Armor to fasten jungle asap. + Indomitable for faster jungle clears and extra survivability. + Initiator for 3% extra movement speed since most of the time we'll be over 70% HP while we gank lanes. 3% is actually a decent amount of increase in speed. + Enlightenment is great for CDR to spam Twin Bite even faster since we're maxing TB second.

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Another alternative path with 0/21/9 (Defensive Tree + Buff):

+ Information is copy-pasted from above + I go deep in the defensive tree. + Summoner's Resolve for 10g per smite. + Hardiness for flat Armor. Great for early-mid-late game. MR will be acquired later on with Mercury's Treads and Wit's End. And your Dragon's Descent passive gives flat MR already too. + Durability , Veteran's Scars and Juggernaut will boost your HP by a significant amount, subsequently synergizing with your Atma's Impaler as well. + Tough Skin is taken mainly to survive longer in jungle. And Bladed Armor to fasten jungle asap. + Indomitable for faster jungle clears and extra survivability. + Initiator for 3% extra movement speed since most of the time we'll be over 70% HP while we gank lanes. 3% is actually a decent amount of increase in speed. + Enlightenment is great for CDR to spam Twin Bite even faster since we're maxing TB second.

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Skills

Fury of the Dragonborn: This is the main reason why AS is so important on Shyvana. So many things synergize with AS. This is one of the reason why I like Shyv.

Twin Bite: Twin Bite hurts a lot not because it hits your target twice, but Wit's End will be activated twice (yes, twice!). And this is easily spammable if you are in a team fight, since your passive Fury of the Dragonborn lowers its cooldown.

Burnout: Freaking LOVE this ability. Makes you run faster for a short duration, but the duration increases when you hit anything with your auto-attack. This is the reason why Shyvana clears jungle so damn fast. Good ability to use while chasing an enemy down or escaping an enemy or many enemies.

Flame Breath: Very useful in ganks. If you successfully hit this every time, your target will be way easier to kill. 15% armnor reduction plus the bonus damage from your passive is hella strong.

Dragon's Descent: Really cool ult. Changes you into a dragon, and grants you MR and Armor passively, and that amount of armor and MR doubles while you are in Dragonform. Although this requires you to have full amount of fury to activate. This helps to position yourself, or to push your enemies closer to your team to kill them faster, or to simply chase/escape your enemies.

Skill Sequence

+ You would want to max Burnout as soon as possible since it is your highest damage output ability. It also allows you to clear jungle ridiculously fast too.

+ At level 2, pick up Twin Bite. It's better than Flame Breath at level 2 since it does more damage, hence, faster jungle clear at early levels.

+ At Level 3, pick up Burnout again.

+ Then, max accordingly to the sequence above.


+ After a few tests, I find that maxing Twin Bite second might be a better scenario. Why? Because at level 13, your CD on Twin Bite is 6 seconds, and since you should have Wit's End already before level 13, your damage will be extremely strong in a duel or teamfight situation (with Dragon's Descent). I believe that with Enlightenment , at level 13, your CD should be just a bit above 5 seconds at level 13, making it easily spammable along with your passive Fury of the Dragonborn since every attack reduces the CD of Twin Bite by 0.5 seconds. Along with Wit's End and your Greater Mark of Attack Speed and Alacrity , you will hit extremely fast too, so all synergizes together.

Items

Boots Of Speed: If you wanna follow my path, and be an aggressive early game ganking Shyvana, get these.

Health Potion: 3 of these, for sure for some cheap investment temporary sustain.


Cloth Armor: If you wish to stay in the jungle longer, you can choose to take this. But remember that you don't have MS runes or masteries, so you will strongly rely on your teammates, your red, and your Exhaust to gank and attempt to secure a kill.

Health Potion: 5 of these, for sure for some cheap investment temporary sustain.


Wriggle's Lantern: This should be your first main item you buy. Great item with fairly nice stats for its price. Even after the lifesteal nerf, the utility of this item is still great for Shyvana.

Mercury's Treads: Second item you buy. You will want these since you are prone to CC and slows. Having these will improve your ganks and your capacity to escape by a lot. Not to mention that this has a small amount of MR as well.

Ninja Tabi: Could be a great item if your opposing team has way too many champions that deal Attack Damage.

Heart Of Gold: I buy this as early as possible right after Mercury's Treads to accumulate gold per 5 since this is our 6th item we will buy later on.

Phage: This is a great item for a chance to slow your enemy down whenever you don't have red. It is also a great item to keep you alive. HP, some damage, and CC. Good early/mid purchase.

Aegis of the Legion: Core item on this dragonlady. Has everything you need, and gives your team a boost too.

Wit's End: This is such a sexy item on Shyvana. Synergizes with Fury of the Dragonborn and works with Twin Bite (on-hit effects are applied on use). MR is great here too. You'll notice a big damage difference after purchasing this item.


Frozen Mallet: A great item on Shyv. It will allow you to not rely too much on red buff, and it will also grant you some tankyness as it gives you 700 HP. Great item, and it will synergize with the following item;

Randuin's Omen: Will be your last item. Will help you tremendously against bruisers and AD carries, and the active ability on the item is so underrated. Not many players use it, and it's very useful to chase down people, or to help your team position better (ie AD carry to back up while they're slowed by the active effect). There's armor and HP that adds up to your tankiness as well.


Atma's Impaler: It is true that Shyv doesn't have that much of an HP pool in this build, but Atmog still remains one of the best build on Shyv. The small amount of Armor is also good here. Since this item has been nerfed from 2% to 1.5%, it is no longer a core item on Shyvana.

Jungle Path

DISCLAIMER: Before you attempt to jungle at all, make sure that your teammates are around you and guarding you. You can't let your opposing team counter-jungle you. And also, this route is ADVANCED. You have boots and 3 hp, and you don't have Cloth Armor. So know that this build is for people that wishes to gank at level 2. And remember that in the Cons section, Shyvana has no natural gap closer, so having red, boots, and exhaust will help you secure that fb..

+ You use Burnout right after your first swing at wraiths. Hopefully, someone will assist you in damaging them. Burnout whenever it's up, and AA the big guy since your teammates should be damaging the small ones to let you secure the kill and the experience afterwards. DO NOT USE SMITE. But use a health potion here.

+ You have Smite up. Wait until someone leashes red (yes, it's possible, but you have to watch this video below to understand how to). Then you use Smite to kill the red golem, and then finish the small golems. Remember that you will need to use one health potion here.


+ Now, you will go to #3 on the picture on the top of this chapter, and you attempt a gank. Make sure you tell your teammates to not push early on and make sure they're pushed ahead so you have more space to gank and secure kills.

#1 Your enemies use Flash (most commonly). This is a good sign. If they used it, so be it. Leave that lane and continue jungling wherever you feel comfortable. You can either go to golems, or wraiths, or any path you choose. Remember that you have one health potion left, so you're still fine for a bit. But make sure you come back around before 255-270 seconds (flash cooldown) to secure the kill since they have no more escaping summoner spell. By the way, even if you used Exhaust during this attempt, Exhaust comes back faster than Flash.

#2 Your enemies do not use any escaping summoner spells and die. Good. If you are low on HP, just go back and shop for another item (assuming you got the kill or an assist mention) or some more HP.

#3 Your enemies survive without using any summoner spells. Well shoot. Attempt failed. Don't feel bad now and give up totally. Just go back to your jungling route and farm. Listen to your teammates when they need ganks and your Exhaust should be up.

#4 You die. Like I said, don't give up. Buy some HPs and continue steadily your jungle route. You're Shyvana after all, so you're still very fast at clearing jungle.

+ So this is just a summary for how to start your jungle path as Shyvana.

+ MAKE SURE THAT YOU GIVE YOUR AP CARRY BLUE BUFF IF YOU DON'T NEED IT. EVEN IF IT'S THE BEGINNING OF THE GAME. IT HELPS A LOT SINCE YOU DO NOT HAVE MANA STARVATION OR COOLDOWN STARVATION. YOUR Burnout STAYS LONG ENOUGH IF YOU CONSTANTLY MELEE. CAPS FOR THE WIN.

Counter-Jungling

+ WARDS, WARDS AND WARDS!

+ The Purple-ish-Pink P indicates that you or your team should put a Vision Ward there in order to counter their ward, and have a basic map vision of Baron and Dragon.

+ The green X indicates places you should ward in the enemy's jungle in order to counter-jungle safely.

+ If you wish to steal red, make sure that you have a ward at the enemy red bush. For more safety, make sure you can a ward at the tri-section (bottom or top depending which side you're playing), and make sure you have a ward at the tri-section near mid.

+ If you wish to steal blue, you will need to ward the enemy's blue's bush, and the bush behind blue. This ensures your safety and will give you vision to see if their middle player is coming towards you.

+ Make sure that you take good use of Wriggle's Lantern. Make sure it's being used all the time. And don't be cheap! Buy some wards yourself if you really wanna focus on counter-jungling.

+ If ever you're trying to do a level 1 counter-jungle by stealing their red. Make sure that your team has at least one Heal, Exhaust, and Ignite (and Ghost/ Flash if you're using a bait). Buy items fast and go all at once to the enemy's red bush. Do not get in any visible field of vision at all, and secure a quick kill if their team aren't protecting. If the enemy team is protecting their jungler, make sure you let them start the red leash/pull first, then you interrupt. Since you have Heal, Ignite and Exhaust (you!), you will win most of the fight. Make sure you communicate and tell your team to ignite the target you're killing, because most teams have at least a Heal as well (on their AD Carry or Support).

+ If ever you are stealing monsters from the opposing team, make sure you kill the big monster (the one that gives most xp/gold), and leave one behind. This ensures that the camp will not reset/respawn at all, causing your match-up to be behind in gold. Then again, you have to make sure you're safe and have wards at their jungle before performing this task, or you will get ganked (mostly because they have wards too). Do this promptly and do not stay in their jungle for too long.


+ Dragon: 6 minutes

+ Red and Blue: 5 minutes

+ Baron: 7 minutes

+ Make sure that your team communicates with themselves so you know when the next Baron or Dragon is up, and make sure you calculate the time that your Blue or Red comes up (or the enemy's blue/red).

Shyvana Playstyle

Jungle Match-Ups

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Strengths + Exceptionally good at ganking + Counter-jungles very well + Stealth makes it hard to find him

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Weaknesses - Exceptionally squishy - Tankier matchups gives him a headache - Vision Ward & Oracle's Elixir

Conclusion: Shaco shouldn't be a problem for you. Just make sure your team covers both blue and red for you so you have an idea if their team is boxing up either places (depending on where you start jungling). Since you are naturally tankier than Shaco, you will have no idea dueling him out if ever he tries to invade you. Cautious though, make sure you have additional health potions when you're against him. You never know if he is behind you while your health is sitting low. Buy an early Oracle's Elixir, and ask your team to buy a Vision Ward to prevent him to gank efficiently.

FAQ

Q: Why Twin Bite second over Flame Breath?

+ After a few tests, I find that maxing Twin Bite second might be a better scenario. Why? Because at level 13, your CD on Twin Bite is 6 seconds, and since you should have Wit's End already before level 13, your damage will be extremely strong in a duel or teamfight situation (with Dragon's Descent). I believe that with Enlightment, at level 13, your CD should be just a bit above 5 seconds at level 13, making it easily spammable along with your passive Fury of the Dragonborn since every attack reduces the CD of Twin Bite by 0.5 seconds. Along with Wit's End and your Greater Mark of Attack Speed and Alacrity , you will hit extremely fast too, so all synergizes together.

Conclusion

Please leave comments below. Downvotes or upvotes, it doesn't matter much to me. I just want to share and let people know my way of playing Shyvana, and maybe it might help you become a better Shyvana player.

Thanks for the support y'all.

Changelogs

April 5th:
[*] Official guide has been released, although it is still raw and under construction
[*] Added more alternative masteries
[*] Added Counter-Jungling section

April 9th:
[*] Changed skill sequence and skill sequence chapter
[*] Added a question in FAQ
[*] Changed masteries and masteries chapter
[*] Now 9/21/0 instead of the previous masteries

May 13th:
[*] Has been 76% (3rd) for a week consecutive
[*] Thanks for all the support!


May 25th:
[*] Went up to 82%, then down to 78% - still okay, even if I was 0%, what matters to me is that this guide stays up
[*] Thanks everyone!

July 23rd:
[*] Tweaked item build a bit and re-done some coding around!