Welcome to my Shyvana, Jungle the Dragon Guide.
Shyvana is one of the most recent champions of the league, thus many ways of playing her want to be explored and shared. This will be the way I explored to work woth her.

I will try not to use that much of insider short cuts, but sometimes it will just happen.
Therefor, this should explain 'em all.

"MR"=magic resist
"AA"=auto attack
"AP"=ability power
"AD"=attack damage
"AS"=attack speed
"CC"=crowd control
"CDR"=cooldown reduction

"TB"=Twin Bite
"BO"=Burnout
"FB"=Flame Breath
"DD"=Dragon's Descent

Passive: Fury of the Dragonborn

Shyvana's passive greatly enhances all of her abilities, but there's really not much special about it per se.

Q: Twin Bite

Shyvana's Q is what gives Shyvana a nice synergy with on-hit items - building Wriggle's Lantern or Wit's End will make this ability really devastating. Use it immediately after an auto hit, because it resets the auto hit timer and gives you that little piece of burst.

W: Burnout

Burnout makes Shyvana a great jungler. With Burnout activated you will clear creepcamps in just a few seconds. Besides it's great jungle performance the movement speed part is your main ganking tool. Pre 6 Shyvana has no gapcloser, so she's heavily reliant on the bonus speed of Burnout to land successfull ganks. With Boots and Burnout activated you'll have around 500 movement speed already at level 3.


E: Flame Breath

Shyvana's E is a a one point wonder. The 15% armor reduction part is great. Late game wise, this ability will work like a little Black Cleaver AoE-wise. But that's just it - it has no AD scalings and poking isn't that much important early on, thus making it not necessary in the early levels.

R: Dragon's Descent

Shyvana's R is her signature. Enemies will kep that burning dragon flying across the map in mind and fear you therefor. Like her passive. Dragon's Descent greatly increases all of her abilities. With Shyvana's R she will turn into a monster in teamfigts, because all of her abilities will turn into AoE skills.

Smite, you need Smite. You can jungle without Smite, but you cant jungle without Smite.

Theres a HUGE difference between a JUNGLER and a GUY RUNNING AROUND IN THE JUNGLE.
Smite speeds up your jungling time, Smite safes buffs, Smite safes Dragons and Smite safes Barons. Not to mention that you can totally RAPE your opponent jungler with good Smite skills if he uses his Smite poorly.
Smite to finish off creeps, dont engage with Smite - imagine: You're doin' Lizard, you don't have Smite, the Lizard is at 400 health. SUDDENLY a wils Shaco appears through the brush, he smites your Lizard and vanishs. And you're like... FUUUUU?!?!?1 Replace Lizard with Baron or Dragon and you know the importance of Smite.

The second summoner is really personal preference, there are several viable options.
Flash Flash is just a no-brainer. Flash offensive to kill enemies, or flash defensive to get out of trouble. Flash to counter a flash or just use Flash to have Flash, because Flash is simply a great spell.
Exhaust & Ignite Shyvana get's naturally tanky with this build, thus not needing a defensive Flash anymore. From 6 on you'll usually engage with your ultimate, thus not needing an offensive Flash anymore. Therefor you can take summoners like Exhaust and Ignite. Exhaust the dangerous AD carry, exhaust the fleeing AP carry, Ignite the selfhealing Swain or do what ever needed.

There are several mastery setups working for Shyvana.

I prefer the 21/0/9 style.

Shyvanas rune choice is quite limited, there are like 2 ways working properly on her.

Setup 1:

That's the allround jungle page working on almost every single jungler out there.
This setup will grant you:
- 9.6 Attack Damage
- 10 Armor Penetration
- 13 Armor
- 24 Magic Resist at lvl 18

Setup 2:

That's a more jungle specific rune setup, allowing you the fastest way to clear your jungle.
This setup will grant you:
- 15% Attack Speed
- 10 Armor Penetration
- 13 Armor
- 24 Magic Resist at lvl 18
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Shyvana only needs the armor seals to be able to jungle. They glyphs are personal preference, take whatever you want there.
Pick your reds and quints as wisely as possible - try to get close to the armor penetration cap of small creeps (wolves, wraiths and double golems have 12 armor). Get close to this point and try to get as much offense out of the rest of your runes.

Pick R whenever possible.
Go for 5 points in W asap,
max Q afterwards,
and take E last.



The first 5 points are chosen for an optimal jungling.
* I prioritize R for obvious reasons.
* Maxing W second due to Shyvana's need of movement speed and of course jungle clearing time.
* I'm waiting with Q till W is maxed, because Q has poor scalings - 5% difference in AD scalings make a difference in like 5-10 damage early on.
* Taking E at last due to only AP scalings. Poking is rarely needed pre teamfights and the Armor Pen part doens't scale with skill level.

Already now, there are several ways of building Shyvana properly item-wise.
For me, Shyvana is build like almost every single bruiser: ATMOGS!
You're in the middle of the teamfight, and you'll deal ****loads of AoE dmg - you will end up being dead after 2 seconds if not built tanky.

I'm starting with the standart Wriggle's Lantern on Shyvana.
This is a must-have for nearly every jungler. It grants Armor, Damage, Lifesteal, a free Ward every 3 minutes and it speeds up your jungle a lot due to it's 500 dmg procc.

My next purchase will be the Boots, decide which ones you need.
Mercury's Treads if your enemies are CC or AP heavy. Take Ninja Tabi if your enemies are AD heavy. NEVER, NEVER EVER, NO WAY, get Berserker's Greaves. Remeber, you want to be tanky.

After Boots you have to decide, do you need tankiness or do you need damage?

Damage

Go for a Wit's End. With the double on-hit effect of your Twin Bite you will have 3 stacks of Wit's End after 1 autohit and you'll have 3 damage proccs of Wit's End's on hit effect.

Tankiness

Go straight for a Warmog's Armor. Get Warmogs asap, because you want it to be fully stacked as fast as possible. Warmog's should be instantly followed by Atma's Impaler. Warmog will bring you to like ~3000 HP in mid game and Atma will result in like ~60 bonus AD at that time.

No matter what you chose, take the other option right after. Chose the tanky way? Go for Wit's End straight after - of course otherwise, too.
Another thing to keep in mind - if your enemies are AP heavy, the Wit's End could be your way too, because you'll have the Magic Resist fully stacked really fast.

Your last item is a matter of need. If you're still needing more tankiness, go for a Randuin's Omen vs AD heavy teams or go for a Force of Nature/ Banshee's Veil vs AP heavy teams.
If you need more damage, a Frozen Mallet, a Hextech Gunblade, a Guinsoo's Rageblade or a Black Cleaver would be possible options.

A well functioning last item too is Trinity Force, giving you SO much for a fair price.
Phage will get you a much needed slow + a little bit HP.
Sheen will give you even more burst with your auto hit + Q comp.
Zeal will of course give you mucho sexy movement speed + overall needed melee stats.
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Build Shyvana like nearly every other bruiser out there.
Starting with the needed jungle items, go on wit Atmogs, adapt to your enemy team, win win.

"Sadly" your first item is only half as usefull if you don't use it's active whenever possible!
Wirggle gives you a FREE Ward per 3 minutes. So use it, and use it wisely!

Red Circles: Having a ward there is crucial. You always want to know if your enemy goes for Dragon / Baron so you can prepare to fight or try to steal it with Smite.
Green Circles: Having a ward there is up to you. If you ward your buffs you'll see if anyone tries to steal them, giving you the chance to interrupt and secure your buff.
Blue Circles: Wards used if you want to counter jungle. You can place wards to see when Buffs respawn or when your enemy is about to do them.
Yellow Stars: Though those places should be warded by your mates, of course you can ward there yourself. Those make it easier for your laners to react to potential ganks.

A new lvl 30 summoner is able to jungle with Annie if he got the right runes and follows the right route. Even though that guy might be able to land several successfull ganks, still, he's far from being a real jungler.

Jungling is actually one of the hardest, if not the hardest, jobs in game. Good junglers are often carrying games. Good junglers have to keep track of spawn timers. Junglers have to have the highest map awareness. Good junglers know when to gank where.
Bad junglers... can do those things too, but rarely they can do all at once.

So let's start with the more or less easy part:

Jungle Timers

• Small creep camps (Wolves, Wraiths, Double Golems), spawn at 1:40 and respawn after 1:40 minutes.
• Buff creeps (Blue & Red), spawn at 1:55 and respawn after 5 minutes.
• Dragon, spawns at 2:30 and respawns after 6 minutes.
• Baron Nashor, spawns at 15:00 and respawns after 7 minutes.

Watch for these. You don't need to write down every respawn of your wraiths. But type down a simple "dragon 23:00" if you killed dragon at minute 17. If you know your enemy started at blue, his blue died at the ~2:10 mark - you know it will respawn around minute 7... so gor for it and try to steal it. Tracking these timers is crucial due to their strategic importance. Stealing your enemies blue all day long will totally rape their jungle Amumu or Karthus in mid, especially when you give your blue to your midlaner everytime.
Taking every dragon results in a boost of

1000g for your team per dragon kill.

Even Nashor povides you with

1500 teamgold and... this minor usefull buff ;D

Another important part:

Know your enemy
You see dat enemy Nocturne jungler? He will prolly start at blue buff or at wolves. How do I know? A Nocturne starting with Vampiric Scepter almost always starts at wolves. One with Cloth Armor + Pots almost every time at blue. But how do I know his starting items? Most supporters place their Clearvoyance right at the beginning to the enemy spawn point. This makes me able to see what my enemy buys and I can adapt to it. So you see that Nocturne starting at blue, why not go for his Wraiths and Double Golems? Simply steal a little bit of his jungle, go back to yours and go on with your route.
The information where your enemy starts is also important for your team. Enemy Xin Zhao starting at Double Golems on purple side? Call your bot lane to be carefull. Seeing a Shaco starting at Red Buff on purple side? Call your top lane to be prepared.
You have to make conclusions about the information you get of your enemy jungler. Seeing a Warwick means your team is prolly safe till minute 7, cuz Warwick ganks pre 6 suck. Seeing an Lee Sin? This guy is freakin unpredictable. He can start everywhere and gank whenever he pleases. Know your enemies, know their habits, prepare yourself and your team therefor.

And another part:

Know when to gank and when not to gank
Countless times I see my jungling mates come out of jungle with 50% hp to assist a lane with 10% hp. They try to kill this sneaky 100% health Udyr... and they fail... cuz, well, it's Udyr. You can't gank someone like Annie with half of your hp, she would just one shot you. So even if your laners ping for ganks like crazy, YOU, and only YOU, decide when to gank where. YOU decide if you can gank now and YOU decide if a target is gankable. Ignore those million pings if you know the position of wards, ignore 'em if you know you and maybe your mate could die, ignore them all if you simply feel something will go terribly wrong. BUT, that doesn't mean that you are the boss. If your mid lane pings for you to hold the lane, you need to get there asap. Even if your mid has to back each 2 minutes... you have to keep that lane, cuz he will die otherwise. If you can't gank due to this, it's not your fault.

And the prolly most important part:

Map awareness
You don't have to watch your Shyvana as she Auto Hits those wolves to death without any problems. Always watch your lanes as much as possible. Make the best out of every CV thrown by your supporter.

See their jungler pop up at bot? -> Take his upper jungle.
See their jungler top, -> best chance to do Dragon.
See your enemy pushs bot like crazy? -> Set up a gank there.
Your top lane pushed hard by your Warwick? -> Hide in the side brushes at top, let your Warwick fall back and do the gank time.

Read your enemies, inform your team and punish them for mistakes.
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That's what makes a jungler. Maybe your supporter is called "babysitter", but you should be the babysitter of your whole team. A good jungler can easily lead his team to win, and a bad jungler can easily destroy a game by totally failling his job. Your job is jungling, so stay in your jungle. A jungler needs farm, too. Even though ganking 24/7 seems really cool, at some point you will have less and less success while ganking, effectively leaving you behind in level and farm. Clear your jungle, watch the map, use opportunities. Some junglers like Udyr can easily farm like any lane. Some are a little bit worse at farming, but there is no point to be at a 50 creepscore as Shyvana, while your Caitlyn in Bot has 220.

Shyvana has atm 2 viable routes,

Route 1: Starting at Blue Buff, doing a full sweap.
Route 2: Starting at wolves, clearing small camps, doing a full sweap afterwards.

Route 1:

Starting Item: Cloth Armor + Health Potion
Start at blue buff, tell your laners to give you a good leash on blue. Smite blue when he's at like 500 health. Use W till golem and minions are dead and go on. One point into Q and go on clearing wolves and wraiths. At level 3 get another point in W and kill the double golems. Finally head to red buff and kill this one with Smite too, take your E as level 4 skill. Use a health potion whenever engaging a camp.

Route 2:

Starting Item: Vampiric Scepter
Start at wolves, again put a point in W. Auto hit + W them to death. Go to wraiths and smite the big one out. Immediately set one point into Q and kill the small ones. Do the double golems and go back to base, skill your W again. Buy a Cloth Armor and get to blue. Do now as you should do in route 1, but leave out red buff, with lvl 4 skill E. Smite blue, kill wolves, wraiths and double golems without smite. Back to buy a Long Sword and a Health Potion. Get to your red buff, smite-kill it and skill W again. Now do wolves, wraiths and double golems again and you'll be lvl 6. Use your health potion between wolves and wraiths and you'll be gank ready with like 700 HP at level 6.
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In general, Shyvana's jungle is quite dangerous because she's often quite low on HP, thus having problems with ganks.
Taking route 1, you'll prolly not able to gank after red before going back and healing once. And with route 2 you're not able to gank before hitting 6.
This is very tricky atm, because early ganks are very important for junglers at the moment. Shyvana can gank at level 2 after getting a strong blue leash - she will be lvl 2 and have QW there, but since she has no gap closer nor a CC, successfull ganking will be tough.
Also be aware of counterjungling. Though Shyvana is a tough 1v1 champ, in jungle she's all day low on HP and so very vulnerable.

The most important thing now: Jungling is most likely to end soon.
A lane is possibly already fallen, some teamfights may already have been fought, so for the love of god, focus on what you are there for: Be your teams tank.

Of course you will still farm your jungle, but at level 10 with some items this is an act of 30 seconds.


This is SO important for junglers. You only NEED the first blue. The second and every following Blue Buff goes to your mid laner. A mid lane with Blue will rape every mid without Blue, and since you focus on AA, you don't need it anymore. Same goes with your Red Buff, as soon as ganking phase ends, Red Buff goes to your AD ranged.

Late game is the time where teamfights are the only matter.
You're your teams tank, so stay in front of your team, prepared to protect your carries.
If you see an enemy off guard, out of position, away from his friends... DRAGON FLY DAT *****!

You're using your R to engage teamfights. Try to hit as many enemies as possible, due to nice AoE dmg and Knock Back. Immediately activate your W and shred through your enemy team, same with E. Try to hit as much enemies with your AoE as possible. Use your Q directly after auto hits. And overall... be a real pain in the *** for your opponents.

Summoner's Rift offers many opportunities to gank, marked with a star in the following picture.

Let's start at top lane with POINT 1:
You have 3 ways to engage there. Wait for your top laner to push minions towards the enemy tower. As soon as they're pushed far enough enter the side brushes - MAKE SURE YOUR ENEMY CAN'T SEE YOU! As soon as you positioned yourself inside the 2nd side brush, order your laner to fall back a little. Now wait for your enemy to overextend a little and punish him.
Another way is to simply wait in the river brush, till your enemy pushs too far. The same with the Tri-Brush beneath the enemy tower - but this ganking method needs good CC since it's very close to your enemies turret.

Going on with POINT 2 in mid lane:
Obviously, the easiest ways of engaging are the 2 river bushes. Place yourself in there, wait for an overextending enemy, go in, make a kill. Another option is the entrance near the enemy turret. This needs again good CC due to the close turret range.

Last but not least, POINT 3:
Like at top lane, decide to enter the lane via the river brush. Wait there till your enemy pushed far enough and strike. The side brush method works of course too. Let your laners push a little, enter the side brushs unseen from behind and let your lane fall back.
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Normally you start engaging ganks post level 6 with your ultimate. Just R in, knock into a nice position and start doing your damage - activate W quickly, use E fast and use Q straigth after auto hits.

A gank doesn't always have to result in a kill, blown summoner spells are almost as good as a successfull kill. Ganking top and burning the enemies Flash is great. Top Lane is now forced to play defensive - and if Top Lane doesn't play defensive, come again in 20-30 seconds and land a kill on a no- Flash target.

That's the way I'm playing Shyvana atm - imo a way Shyvana is doing very well.
At 6 her ganking potential is beast and in teamfights she's just helluva monster due to her freakin billion tons of AoE dmg.

Hope this was of help to some of you out there,
Jungle the Dragon,
Gasparde

11-16-2011 --- Masteries updated