This section will cover future patches and how they will affect Shen (will not reference patches that aren't important)

Patch 13.23: Turret gold got buffed again, basically neglecting the change they made a few patches ago and nerfing Shen again lol.

Patch 13.21: Hullbreaker is getting nerfed, but still seems to be strong. Let's just hope to god they remove the item at some point. I also updated the runes to give you more options as well as the items to fit into the current meta. Items like Iceborn Gauntlet and Jak'Sho feel pretty good and it seems like you aren't forced that much into a supportive playstyle. Try them out for yourself and let me know! (Credit for my inspiration goes to IMainToplane, goated Shen player)

Patch 13.20: Not really any direct Shen changes, but a lot of other changes that indirectly affect him. Turret gold is getting nerfed, meaning that roaming around the map early on isn't as punishing anymore. However, early drakes are getting nerfed, which means ulting to secure the first few drakes isn't as worth it anymore (in Top Lane). Most runes are getting nerfed later on, except Grasp, which means it is overall a bit stronger and better for Shen. Doran's items (including DShield) are getting buffed a lot so you might opt a lot more for DShield instead of Ruby Crystal, even against melees. Jungle is getting nerfed, which means Shen Jungle is even more **** pls never play this unless Shen gets direct monster damage buffs. Death Timers are also lower, which might make early kills not as impactful anymore. Let's just hope riot listens and fixes Shen (they are already rescripting Fiora so we might be able to block vitals with W again).

Patch 13.18: Guide rework after a little hiatus. Added new runes and updated my item section based on the current state of the game. I also acquired more experience and knowledge about Shen Mid and can confidently say that this is Shen's best role by a landslide. Try it out for yourself!

Patch 13.6: SHEN FINALLY GOT THE SKIN WE WERE WAITING FOR! Oh and also no relevant balance changes

Patch 13.5: Grasp got a little nerf to it's healing, but in return, you receive more HP per proc, which is quite nice for Shen's scaling. Triumph now heals off of your max health as well as missing health so it's overall better for Shen. Plated Steelcaps got buffed because they were a lot worse than we thought. Now they are actually good, but still worse than Ionians (except if you play against full AD/Auto-Attack based teams).

Patch 13.4: Doran's Shield got nerfed, diminishing our early power in lane quite a bit, especially against ranged enemies. However, I've already thought of a good alternative to Doran's Shield. Both support items for Shen got buffed, giving you a lot more health regen, which helps against poke laners.

Patch 13.3: Iceborn Gauntlet finally received it's bug fix and properly works on Shen, meaning it's actually a viable option! Radiant Virtue, while getting nerfed for most tanks, got even stronger for Shen since his Ult cooldown is super high by default so he just gets more stats for free. This item is a must-build in my opinion if you want to play like a supportive tank (the heal and ability haste amp removal is still a nerf tho).

Patch 13.1: Nerfed Jak'Sho so it's no longer OP, but "just" strong. It has been discovered that Radiant Virtue is super strong so build that. Iceborn is apparently still bugged for Shen (not applying the debuff if you are shielded) so don't build it until it gets fixed.

Patch 12.23: They buffed Sunfire! It now cost 100 gold less and also gives you 100HP more, very very neat. They also buffed a lot of tanks this patch and Shen is generally good against tanks. Overall pretty happy with the changes.

Patch 12.22: PRESEASON PATCH! New Top Lane tank mythics are out, guide will be updated a lot over time, but right now, Jak'Sho and Heartsteel are the best imo, Radiant Virtue felt kinda lackluster to me and a bit too support focused. IBG feels weird because no MR and it lost synergy with Demonic, probably wont build this item ever again. You should still take bamis cinder and build it into sunfire, pretty good item on Shen (or build tiamat into titanic if they literally have no AD). You don't need a damage item anymore and can go straight into tank items. Randuins and Frozen Heart are both viable now in the right circumstances. Turbo Chemtank is super situational and is basically Dead Mans, but against AP. Abyssal Mask got changed and is no longer viable in my opinion. Gargoyle might be super strong combined with the new tank items. We'll see how this turns out over the preseason.

Patch 12.20: Demonic Embrace got changed, but it's a nerf for Shen since they nerfed the Health for more AP and nerfed the max health ratio on the burn effect. Demonfire might be strong still but the -100 health and -0.2% max health ratio nerf hurt a bit. Sterak's Gage got buffed, might be worth building again in some very rare cases (probably in combination with titanic hydra).

This guide isn't finished yet, some general info and tips on how to play Shen in the Top, Mid, Support and Jungle role will be coming soon. I might add a bio of myself and my history with Shen once I'm done with everything else.

Introduction x Who am I? x Who is Shen? x Shen Ability Rundown Practice x Early Game x Mid Game x Late Game

Theory x Runes x Items x Tips & Tricks Extras x Conclusion x Skin Tier List x Patch Updates

Shen has been classified as a Warden, which is a sub-category of tanks. His focus lies on being a big meatshield that peels for his teammates and protects them at all costs. However, unlike other tanks, Shen is at his strongest in the early game, meaning his laning phase is very strong and consistent with little to no losing matchups. With his early-mid game power and his global ultimate, he can control the entire map like no other champion. Shen’s abilities are very straightforward, making him somewhat easy to pick up, but he needs a lot of time and practice to master him to his fullest. He not only has very in-depth tech with his spirit blade, he also requires a good understanding of macro through his global ultimate, giving him a high skill ceiling and making him super fun since you can always learn new stuff from playing Shen. He is also very versatile, being able to build and play like a peeling supportive tank, an engaging frontliner or perhaps even a team carrying bruiser! He can successfully be played in a variety of playstyles (which is the reason why I want to make him work in nearly all roles to make full use of his versatility) so you can identify your own Shen in your own playstyle. If you want to a champion, that: • Has a strong laning phase • Can impact the entire map early on • Is easy to learn, but hard to master • Has satisfying blade mechanics • Rewards your macro and decision making • Can be played in a variety of ways Then Shen is the right champion for you. Start your journey now to embrace the equilibrium and achieve true balance. Shen is currently very strong, but not a lot of people play him, so if there is any time to start playing Shen, then it’s right now!

Ki Barrier Self-shield upon casting an ability. After casting an ability, Shen gains a shield for 2.5 seconds as soon as the ability's effect is finished. Successfully affecting another champion with an ability (dragging Q through an enemy, protecting an ally with your W, hitting an enemy champion with your E or successfully finishing your R teleport) will reduce your passive cooldown depending on your level. Twilight Assault Reposition your blade to your location, empowering your AAs. Shen calls his Spirit Blade to his current position and empowers his next 3 auto attacks upon blade arrival, granting your AAs extra max health magic damage and more range. Dragging your blade through an opponent increases your AA damage, your attack speed and slows the opponent if they walk away from you. We devide non-dragthrough and dragthrough Qs into normal Qs and Empowered Qs. Spirit's Refuge Shield around your blade that blocks auto attacks. Shen's Spirit Blade creates a protective area that blocks auto attacks as well as some auto attack based abilities (Udyr stun, Leona Stun etc.). Casting the ability without you or an ally standing inside it makes your blade wait for 2 seconds before activating the shield or until you or an ally walk into the area. This ability has a very long cooldown, but can turn the tides of many teamfights, skirmishes and even some trades in the laning phase if used at the perfect time. Shadow Dash Taunting and damaging Dash + Energy recovery. Passively, Shen gains energy by damaging any attackable unit with his Q or E. When activated, Shen dashes, depending on cursor location, taunting enemies hit in the way for 1.5 seconds and dealing physical damage. Can be used to engage a fight or disengage even through some walls. This is Shen's only form of mobility so use it wisely. Stand United Global Teleport and Shield for an ally. Casting Stand United on an enemy instantly gives them a shield based on your bonus HP, your AP and your allies current health (max value at 40% or below) and lasting for 5 seconds (assuming you don't die). After channeling for 3 seconds, teleport to you ally. This is Shen's most important ability since it can be casted from anywhere and can save teammates at any time, turning around a lot of teamfights and skirmishes or can be used as an engage tool if you ult an ally with decent engage (Malphite Ult, Hecarim's existance etc.). Using it correctly will come with a lot of time and practice.

If you don't want to think about runes too much, you could go these every game. This runes page enhances one of Shen's strongest aspects, his laning phase. It gives you the most power early with some additional scaling options if you want to be a bit stronger later but sacrifice early power.

Grasp of the Undying is the best keystone for Shen and has been for a long time. It not only gives you plenty of sustain and scaling health over time (which Shen definitely needs as a tank with HP scaling), it also grants you damage in form of a single burst auto attack proc, which synergizes perfectly with Shen's trading pattern early on. Would definitely recommend taking this keystone into every game if you play Shen in the Top Lane.

Shield Bash is by far the best out of the 3 because Shen uses a lot of shields so you can proc shield bash at least once in every single trade you take, especially since Shield Bash gives you one empowered Auto Attack, just like Grasp so this strenghthens Shen's trading pattern even more. Additionally, Shield Bash also gives you resistances, which aren't anything substantial, but can help you in some close early trades to give you the edge over your opponent.

Second Wind gives you a lot of sustain in the laning phase through a heal over time after taking damage, which is not only great against ranged matchups where you will heal their poke, it can also be great in melee matchups due to your burst-heavy trading pattern, which lets you disengage really fast after a trade and heal back up if you took damage. It also synergizes extremely well with Doran's Shield, which you will take every game. If you really want to, you can take Boneplating against All-In champs that can't proc bone plating very easily from afar (Wukong, Jax, Sett etc.) or Conditioning if you want to gain resistances in the mid game, but Second Wind is my personal favourite rune and I might be biased, but I truly belive it is underrated, even after the nerfs.

All of those 3 are great options, but after trying all of them out, I am confident in taking Revitalize every single game since it's the best imo. It enhances your Passive and Ult shields level 1 so you can reliably use it in lane combined with Second Wind, Doran's Shield and Grasp healing since it also increases healing. It synergizes perfectly with your ult since your ult gets the biggest when teammates are at 40% health and revitalize increases shields the most on targets at 40% so it's literally a no-brainer fore me. You can still take overgrowth if you want to infinite health scaling or Unflinching if the enemy has a lot of CC and you want as much tenacity and slow resist as possible, but because Shen has such a powerful early game and kind of bad scaling, I'd much rather enhance my early game since I'll get the most value out of that phase.

With Cheap Shot, you will do true damage on your targets in usually every single trade because you can proc it with your E and your Q drag-through since it slows your enemy and counts as "impaired movement". Makes your early game a tad bit deadlier.

Ultimate Hunter is the biggest reason why we take Domination secondary. Your Ultimate Ability has such a long cooldown and because you can easily get stacks by ulting to your team and helping them, you will decrease a lot from your ultimate, which is your most important ability and can turn the tides of many teamfights. No reason to go anything else in my opinion.

You can either take double adaptive or attack speed adaptive. They are equally good and you can choose based on your preference, but I like having double adaptive because my single attacks will do a bit more damage against enemy champs in the early game and I can oneshot casters after a tower shot with a normal Q, which helps me CS under tower and I don't think I need more attack speed, but as I said, take whatever you want. Don't take double resistances, it weakens your early game for no reason. Now you have 2 options, either scaling health against every matchup or resistances based on your matchup. I'd always take the resistances because they are stronger early, but if you are unsure of the enemies damage type, you can go scaling health and be good to go.

Your Jungle Runes are a lot more variable because you can for example opt into taking Aftershock for a more supportive playstyle or Hail of Blades for more upfront burst in skirmishes, but I figured that Precision with Domination is the most consistent choice for me.

There are only 2 options: You either take PTA for a nice 3 hit proc that increases your and your allies damage in All-Ins against that target or you take Lethal Tempo for more attack speed and attack range in extended fights. You should usually take PTA since Shen can proc it more easily and it helps you AND your team to kill SQUISHIER targest faster. However, if you find yourself against a team with at least 3 or 4 tanks/bruisers, then feel free to take Lethal Tempo since it's a lot better in those extended fights and scales a lot better than PTA. Look at the enemy team and decide for yourself.

Triumph is the obvious best choice for me. It gives you health and extra gold for takedowns and can definitely save your life in close call situations (nice synergy with Last Stand). Overheal is just kinda bad on Shen and you don't need extra energy from PoM, assuming you use your abilities correctly and don't throw them around mindlessly without hitting anyone.

It usually depends on the comp, but in general, take Alacrity against low or no enemy CC and Tenacity if the enemy team has at least some form of meaningful CC. Just look at their team comp and adapt.

Last Stand is in my opinion the best out of all of those because not only does it have the best numbers overall, but it's also better in longer fights because in the Jungle you won't be short trading and then disengaging, but instead, you'll be going for constant all-ins and trying to kill the enemy laner or jungler and this runes helps immensely, especially when you are very low on HP against another low HP target but you clutch it out with your Ki Barrier shield while having very low health and dealing a lot more damage. Coup the Grace might be better to finish off an enemy, but in the end, it comes down to your preference (just please, NEVER take Cut Down in your entire life as Shen, thanks).

With Cheap Shot, you will do true damage on your targets in usually every single trade because you can proc it with your E and your Q drag-through since it slows your enemy and counts as "impaired movement". Makes your early game a tad bit deadlier.

Ultimate Hunter is the biggest reason why we take Domination secondary. Your Ultimate Ability has such a long cooldown and because you can easily get stacks by ulting to your team and helping them, you will decrease a lot from your ultimate, which is your most important ability and can turn the tides of many teamfights. No reason to go anything else in my opinion.

Always take Attack Speed + Adaptive for the fastest Jungle clear. Now you have 2 options, either scaling health against every matchup or resistances based off of your matchup. I'd always take the resistances because they are stronger early, but if you are unsure of the enemies damage type, you can go scaling health and be good to go.

The Resolve + Domination tree is in my opinion the stongest, but if this ever changes in the future or you want to play something different, I can recommend the Inspiration tree to you.

You should usually always take Aftershock, since you want to taunt your enemies a lot and aftershock compliments that playstyle greatly by making you tankier after imobilizing a target and deal damage afterwards. But if you play against an enemy with very long range that you probably can't taunt into (like Caitlyn + Morgana), then feel free to take Guardian to peel for your ADC because you won't be taunting into the enemy anyways unless you get a gank and you have to taunt-flash to reach your enemy. If not, ALWAYS take Afteshock.

Font of Life is criminally underrated and underutilized. It heals your teammates for attacking a target that you taunted, meaning that by playing aggressively with your taunts early, you give your ADC a lot more sustain and by that win more trades and all-ins. This can also be very useful later in the game because FoL scales with your max HP so it synergizes very well with Overgrowth. While it is good in itself, you usually take it because the other 2 options are kind of bad in the Support role as Shen.

Second Wind gives you a lot of sustain in the laning phase through a heal over time after taking damage. As expected, it is also a great option in the Support role because you will most likely face ranged enemies in the bot lane, except if they play something like Yasuo, Samira or Nilah and an all-in support like Leona, Nautilus or Blitzcrank. In those matchups, you could consider going Bone Plating, but Second Wind is just so much better in my opinion, but feel free to decide based on matchup. If you take Resolve as a secondary rune page, don't take any of these runes. The others give you more value in my opinion.

All of those 3 are great options in the Support role so pick based on the situation at hand. If the enemy team has a lot of hard CC or many slows, consider taking Unflinching to reduce those effects. If that's not the case, you can take either Overgrowth because it will make you a lot more tanky since you won't be buying that many health-based items anyways and it also increases your effectiveness of you Font of Life heal. Or you can take Revitalize, since it increases not only your Ult/Passive shields already in the early game where it's the most important, it also increases your Guardian shield, your Font of Life healing and it synergizes perfectly with my special Bot-Lane Combo: Nilah + Shen (or how I call it: United Joy). They both utilize shields and heals, meaning that revitalize will increase BOTH of your ALREADY INCREASED shields EVEN MORE, making both of you healing and shielding monsters + both of you have a W to dodge auto-attacks. I swear, those 2 champs were made for each other. Try it out for yourself and always take Revitalize if you ADC is a Nilah.

Glacial Augment is the only option in the Inspiration tree. You slow your targets after taunting them, granting you extra slow to your CC for the ultimate utility tech. However, it sacrifices your own tankiness after taunting from Aftershock with more tankiness for you ADC, but since they will be attacking you because of your taunt anyway, it's a bit weaker than Aftershock in my opinion. You could, however, take it over Guardian, not necessarily because of Glacial Augment, but because the Inspiration tree helps you to catch up to certain opponents (like the before mentioned Seraphine + Vel'Koz combo), but it's kind of held back by being a lot harder to use so I would recommend Glacial Augment with the Inspiration tree for more experienced Support players.

Hextech Flashtraption is the only plausible pick here, giving you an extra gap close tool to catch up to opponents much easier. This lets you be more loose with your Flashes and go for more Flash + Taunt plays. A bit hard to use at first, but definitely worth in the long run.

Since you will be low on money as a Supporter, taking Future's Market might not be a bad option, letting you get to your items spikes a lot faster (especially good for a roam-heavy playstyle, which is recommended as Shen sup in most cases), but Minion Dematerializer isn't too bad either, enhancing your very lackluster wave clear as Shen, which is even worse as a Supporter, but Future's Market would be my personal recommendation. If you take Inspiration tree as a secondary, don't take any of these. They all kind of suck compared to the rest.

Cosmic Insight gives you not only more Summoner Spell Haste for more Flashes, it also gives you more Item Haster for Items like Locket, Redemption etc. The easiest option out of those 2. The other one, being Approach Velocity lets you catch up to oponents faster via a speed boost from impairing an enemy, but is limited by either having an ADC that can impair any movement of the enemy (Jhin W, Twitch W etc.) or you being required to place your blade towards your enemies beforehand and pulling it to you, slowing the enemy and giving you movement speed. Very specific and hard to use rune, but definitely more worth if used correctly.

With Cheap Shot, you will do true damage on your targets in usually every single trade because you can proc it with your E and your Q drag-through since it slows your enemy and counts as "impaired movement". Makes your early game a tad bit deadlier.

Ultimate Hunter is the biggest reason why we take Domination secondary. Your Ultimate Ability has such a long cooldown and because you can easily get stacks by ulting to your team and helping them, you will decrease a lot from your ultimate, which is your most important ability and can turn the tides of many teamfights. No reason to go anything else in my opinion.

Always take Ability Haste since Shen has long cooldowns and will use his taunt a lot. Take either one resistence with scaling HP against a certain matchup or double resistances against teams (or everyone except top lane) that uses one single damage type.