Why hello there (again)

I go by Veralion and I’ve played Shyvana obsessively since she was released back in Season 2. I've put many thousands of games on her over the years and currently have over 4.5 million mastery points between my two main accounts (Veralion and RAWRARAWRAWRRAWR). Vera is #1 mastery NA and I'm #3 world if you add the two together (but I bet the other guys have smurfs too so it's tough to say).

I jungled her with the bread and butter AD Mallet build to Diamond V in seasons 7 and 8, so after Riot buffed the AP ratios on her Flame Breath and Dragon's Descent, I fancied a change, started building her AP, and got hooked. These buffs opened up an entirely new playstyle that gave her a whole new level of agency in the current metagame.

I peaked Diamond I in season 9 playing primarily Shyvana mid (which, yes, worked quite well at the time). After Rito killed my mid strat and made jungle more of a farm meta, I swapped back. The build I describe here has me currently chilling in D1, about to break into Master for the first time.

Season 11 brought some huge changes with all the new items. Nashor's Tooth is still here, but it's lost its CDR in exchange for more stats and a stronger proc. The lack of the all in one CDR and clear speed package in addition to the removal of the insanely cheap and cost effective Runic Echoes made the old backline Dark Harvest playstyle MUCH weaker. With aggressive junglers being so popular, the scaling nature of Dark Harvest leaves you wide open to being invaded and shut down. The full build feels just as strong or even stronger, but it takes an eternity to get to that point and I no longer think that it justifies having such a weak early game. As Shyvana enthusiasts, we need to adapt, and after a few hundred games of testing I'm sure enough to say how.

The future is AP Bruiser with Press the Attack and Riftmaker. Nashor's now builds out of Recurve Bow, a VERY strong early item on Shyvana that shores up one of her key weaknesses. Paired with Press the Attack and a combat summoner, this makes you a huge threat very early into the game, so this ends up being quite a good trade. Though catchup XP has been put back into the jungle (PRAISE JESUS!), losing any tempo in the jungle is often disastrous for your team. Being able to stand up for yourself prevents this from happening so easily.

Riftmaker may strike you as odd at first compared to the more conventional Night Harvester, but I urge you to give it a shot. Freshly buffed to stack faster and more reliably, it's an extremely powerful scaling Mythic and is your best option to boost your effectiveness in a long fight. Since she has very high base damage and ratios, an extra 9% as true damage winds up being tons, and the extra omnivamp is worth a few hundred health while scrapping. It easily outvalues all other options in a durable build. If you get chunked, the extra vamp can allow you to run around and take more resources than you would otherwise be able to before backing. It also makes tanking Baron a breeze, letting you fish for sneaks without giving any sort of advantage to the enemy if caught.

Since you can do some serious damage from range while being a terrifying melee combatant, this build is the perfect marriage of AD and AP. The AP ratios recently added to Twin Bite and Burnout further cement AP bruiser as the go-to option. With the durability to step forward and slap champions, you are much less reliant on Flame Breath and get great use out of your entire kit, solving the problems outlined above. What is lost in single hit burst is MORE than made up for in sustained damage, durability, and utility. It is the single BEST all around Shyvana build as far as I am concerned.

Finally, Shyvana remains a very potent AD champion through Blade of the Ruined King and Trinity Force. Having the flexibility to pick the right build for the job is a luxury that few champions have. If your team has a surplus of AP (rare, but it does happen), I'd suggest going AD to not get shut down by MR purchases.

Shyvana is a very solid and underrated jungler, as she has peerless objective control and is a terrifying lategame threat if not properly shut down early. She is one of the most flexible, easy to execute, and least contested champions in the entire game, making her a fantastic choice to main or one-trick. Pick her up if you love prioritizing objectives over ganks, playing late-game 1v9 terrors, and dragons. Especially dragons. <3

So if you too wish to become Fire and Death, roasting and flaying champions one after another, read on and learn well!

And with that, let's get into it!

+ Fantastic objective control, Flame Breath's mark plus Twin Bite & Smite on Drake is almost impossible to outhit early and makes steals a breeze + EXTREMELY flexible, effective AD and AP champion + Manaless, can stay on the map indefinitely and gain incredible value per outing + Capable of very early 100-0 burst potential + Punishes turret plate greed like no other + Extremely strong, safe siege with empowered Flame Breath + Very high structure damage through AP scaling and Twin Bite + Significant splitpush and backdoor threat + Mulches super creeps; one inhib down just means more money for you + Snowballs LUDICROUSLY hard and is downright unfair if significantly ahead + Low pick and ban rate means extremely high availability in draft, great choice to main or one-trick + Is a motherf***ing dragon. Rawr XD.

- Pathetic levels 1-2, weak until first recall, difficult to contest level 1 invades - Can made useless for the entire game if put behind early, needs a lead to really shine - Sensitive to bad lane matchups, particularly mid - Pure damage champion, brings absolutely no utility - Very poor ganks before level 6, gives weak mental teammates an easy scapegoat and excuse to give up - Reliant on Dragon's Descent availability to meaningfully gank and contribute to fights - Requires team to know how to play around your fury bar (Not killing camps and creeps when you need fury, not fighting when you cannot Dragon's Descent; get used to spam pinging) - Countered by Banshee's Veil, Spellshields, and other anti-projectile abilities, prevents application of Flame Breath mark

To take advantage of the above strengths and mitigate weaknesses, there are a few conditions that should be met before you decide to lock in that sexy dragon. You're looking for favorable compositions and good matchups in draft to set you up to burn villages and kidnap princes (like Jarvan IV).

What is a good Shyvana comp?

Though this build becomes quite tanky later on, Shyvana has no CC and is a very poor primary initiator. Going in alone ahead of your team will usually just get you locked down, focused, and killed before you can get your damage off. You're really gonna want a dive buddy to set you up for success, someone who can easily yeet at the enemy team and keep them still for your dragon things.

Nowadays, this is typically your beefy top laner or engage support, things like Malphite, Sion, Nautilus, and Leona. Mid laners like Diana, Qiyana, and Lissandra can fulfil the same role. Delivering a Command: Shockwave with Dragon's Descent is oftentimes sufficient as well. The more CC the better; if your initial combo doesn't outright kill their carries, being forced to stay put in the flame patch and eat Riftmaker empowered auto attacks for a few seconds will.

Since you have no way to keep targets still, reliable CC is also crucial to help you get ganks off in the early game. Shyvana does an insane amount of damage, but she struggles to keep pace with mobile champions without help.

Later on, you'll be doing so much damage to so many enemies at once that you can set up a teammate with a reset like Tristana, Pyke, and Darius to go to town and clean house before they know what hit them. These are good to have on your team as well.

As far as the enemy comp goes, specific matchups are much more important than overall composition. AP Bruiser does not share the same weakness to tanks and bruisers that full glass AP does since Riftmaker's true damage cuts through resistances and you're durable enough to use your Flame Breath mark to its fullest. Just watch out for champions like Lulu + Kog'Maw and Vayne who excel at mowing down frontline and give them the respect they deserve.

Why are good matchups important?

Since Shyvana is easy to disrupt before level 6, you are going to want to pick her into a champion that does not like to invade early and apply pressure. Tank junglers like Sejuani, Jarvan IV, and Amumu are great, as are power farming champions like Karthus, Rumble, and Lillia.

Exercise caution into highly mobile and stupid powerful early game duelists who love to level 3 invade like Nidalee, Lee Sin, Kindred, Kha'Zix and Rengar. Though Press the Attack, Bone Plating, and Ignite/ Exhaust make you quite threatening, your cooldowns are still very long and getting jumped while they're cycling is no bueno. Peek at your lanes and play such situations slow if help is coming. Whatever you do, don't get frustrated and die for nothing like I do. Falling behind, even a little bit, is a death sentence for this champion in the current state of the game. You can outscale these champions and dominate teamfights later as long as you aren't put in a pit early.

I've got pages of notes on how to handle every common matchup under the threats section at the top of the guide, so take a peek at that for more details.

Since you're low on the pecking order for a while, you really want a strong early mid with priority to let you win crab battles by default and defend you from any cheeky invades. A suitably attentive winning midlaner can turn one of those bad matchups into a payday if they try to mess with you. Killing the enemy and snowballing isn't necessary, only that they maintain control and zone out the opposition so that you get to play the game. Most ranged into melee matchups accomplish this, so look for those.

Though champions like Kassadin and Vladimir are lategame terrors, their pathetic early game would leave you wide open to attack, so gank-focused duelists who can stand up for themselves and help them scale up would be much better picks. I genuinely hate playing with Kassadin and will dodge every time he does not have a good matchup. Seriously, every time. I highly suggest you do the same. One experience with Talon and Kha'Zix permanently in your jungle is enough.

Mid priority also allows you to invade the enemy fearlessly with an aggressive setup like this one. Shyvana can steal away an entire side of the jungle with a single opening, and a healthy mid diff is essential to putting the enemy jungler on the Maduro diet.

Bonus points for a heavy roaming midlaner like Talon or Aurelion Sol. These champions are much more effective at ganking than you are, so it makes sense to have them fill the role. All you need to do is swing by mid and catch waves while they go to town. Getting funneled free mid lane farm on a champion that scales as hard as Shyvana does is fantastic, especially if it gets you to level 6 earlier. Just make sure you don't eat so many creeps that you hit the funnel penalty and waste resources for your team.

Lastly, you want a winning bot lane to make taking drake as safe as possible. Early power is the name of the game; look for champions like Draven, Jhin, and Tristana. Swain is also actually insane right now, but rare. Engage supports are great at creating enough threat to let you drake in peace. Beware picks like Vayne and Ezreal who take a while to scale up and have agency. Not only does a lack of priority make drake more dangerous, such champions also need help to get going, help that you cannot provide for some time. Many enchanters like Yuumi and Soraka are passive enough that they make early drakes unsafe as well. An enemy support with nothing to do will often look to ward or roam mid while shoved up, and there is a good chance they will just happen to catch you doing drake.

A strong duo lane is also important since aside from creating objective pressure, finishing off their bot lane is an extremely efficient use of your ult. AD carries have pathetic health regeneration and REALLY don't want to lose creeps to the turret. They will usually stick around on low life in the lane much longer than is safe. Empowered Flame Breath will one hit a low health target stuck farming under their turret from well outside of its range. You don't even need to dive. As long as you take the time to aim well, they cannot escape without using Flash. Carries and supports like to huddle together even more than usual while on low health, so there is a very real chance of killing them both with one shot if you arrive at the right moment.



Once picked into the right scenario, Shyvana becomes one of the strongest champions in the entire game. If left alone and allowed free reign of the map, you'll have first turret through first Rift, first inhibitor through second Rift into Baron, and a 22 minute Dragon Soul on top of truly frightful teamfight potential. It's seriously disgusting how hard she can snowball a game under the right circumstances. How do you deal with a dragon that has 400 AP, 3500 life, and 200 Armor and MR? You don't. You just lose.

Passive: Dragonborn

Shyvana Drakeshredder. 20% increased damage combined with your Flame Breath mark lets you rush and kill the first two drakes before the enemy team even realizes they've spawned. Unless they have vision on the drake as you pull it (which you will be checking for), it is already yours. Even if they catch you while it is at half life, it is likely already dead and there is nothing they can do about it. Double proccing your mark with Twin Bite can outsmite just about anybody and makes finishing or stealing away drakes very easy.

5 Armor and MR per drake is nice, especially with a scrappy build, but negligible. It means a lot more in terms of mitigation for glass cannon builds than it does for a more traditional on-hit bruiser style. I seriously wish Riot would revert her passive to double while in dragon form like it used to; then I might actually care about stacking it.

Q: Twin Bite

Auto reset which hits twice and synergizes with the on-hit damage from her Flame Breath mark, Burnout, and Nashor's Tooth. While in dragon form it cleaves every target in a full semicircle in front of you and generates fury for each target hit, which can add up to quite a bit. Proper positioning to cleave groups of creeps (and especially Raptor camps) will extend dragon form far beyond its base duration and allow you to fire several additional Flame Breaths.

11.3 added a 40% AP ratio to this ability, and 11.15 went even further beyond by dialing it up to 60% and shaving 2 seconds off the CD. further cementing AP bruiser as the default style. Added to the buffed ratio on Nashor's Tooth, AP Shyvana is no longer a joke at close range. I am still surprised by how hard my Q hits, and love tearing carries in half with it!

The cooldown buff makes it possible to proc your Flame Breath mark 9 times with just Ionian Boots of Lucidity and Recurve Bow. This will save you several seconds per game and is nothing to sneeze at. You got to be quick though, and decent ping makes it a lot easier.

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Unlike most auto resets, it gets no bonus range and has an animation that is tied to your attack speed. Landing an auto-Q on a fleeing target is thus very hard unless you are moving significantly faster than they are. Make sure Burnout is still up when you get into melee range!

Keep in mind that both hits of Twin Bite must connect in order to get the full 4 fury. If your target dies on the first hit, you only get 2. That sounds trivial and not worth paying attention to until the first time you die at 99 fury, which I can promise you is ABSOLUTELY INFURIATING. Spare no effort to get Dragon's Descent back up as fast as possible.

Twin Bite's cooldown is also reduced on structure hits, making it an obscenely strong pushing tool with a high AP build. After this last buff, it might be the single best structure-killing tool in the ENTIRE GAME. If you get a chance to hit a structure in the lategame, it is not long for the world. Dragon form Twin Bite has also FINALLY been fixed in 10.14 after nearly a year to deal appropriate amounts of damage to structures on its second hit. Bite away, but remember that in some situations you may wish to cleave the wave instead for the fury for one last Flame Breath. It also finally does 2 points of damage to wards, but still does not to champion placed objects like Illaoi tentacles despite Riot specifically saying they fixed that too. Small indie company!

W: Burnout

AoE damage and speed buff. Phenomenal for clear speed, as it continually applies the burn damage from the jungle item to everything around you and saves you many auto attacks to finish off little krugs and baby chickens.

Though its movement speed decays over time (for reasons that are no longer valid in the current state of the game), this ability hastens your movement around the map and helps you get in range to apply red buff to gank targets in the early game. Activation timing is key; you want to take full advantage of its gapclosing potential while not letting it expire before you get to your target and extend it. Once you have a few points in, it will help you position in fights, chase people down, and make your Flame Breath absolutely inescapable for most champions in the game.

11.3 added AP scaling to Burnout's movement speed, on the order of 8% per 100 AP. This quickly becomes frankly unreasonable. A bruiser build typically ends with 400-500 AP, giving Burnout 82-90% bonus movement speed. This is enough to outrun almost every single champion in the game, letting you casually chase them down for a lethal Flame Breath or effortlessly stay in range to whack them to death with your brand new and shiny Twin Bite ratio. A glass build with Rabadon's Deathcap can end up going to Plaid and achieve honorary Hecarim status. No escape!

It does literally nothing in dragon form. It just gets a little bigger to match your larger size.

God forbid it do something useful and exciting while transformed like the rest of her kit, like grant slow immunity, or at the very least not decay over the duration.

I miss my fire trail. If you aren't going to give her some love, at least give me back my fire trail, Rito.

E: Flame Breath

Basic medium speed skillshot which passes through creeps and stops on the first champion hit. Though initially on a long cooldown, the ginormous amount of damage its mark does to big monsters makes it the most important part of your clear.

Flame Breath while transformed with an AP build is one of the most reliable, safe, and potentially damaging basic abilities in the entire game. It surpasses most ultimates, in fact. Not only is it an AoE nuke (and believe me, that IS the right word for it) with a 1.0 ratio and massive range, which is nuts enough, the fire patch it leaves behind is also extremely threatening. It can tick 4 times before it expires, often hits priority targets for over 100 damage, and will always tick once before your target leaves the zone on a direct hit. Getting CCed in scorched earth is quite lethal on its own!

Glass builds which focus on Flame Breath scale up to an insane level. It hits carries who neglect to build MR for well over 1200 damage with a full build on the nuke, plus at least one tick of patch damage, plus a Dark Harvest proc. That's a one hit kill. Bruiser builds usually end up hitting closer to 600-700, but that difference is a small price to pay in my eyes for the added defenses and close range capabilities. And to be fair, that's still a TON of damage from this far away, especially if multiple targets are struck.

Some key things to remember about dragon form Flame Breath. First, it’s very tricky to hit targets that are on top of you and inside your model (OwO). Since the ability has a short cast time and cannot be aimed directly below you, a moving target is very difficult to hit at point blank range. I say again: you cannot E directly below Shyvana. And since you must place Flame Breath below your snout, a quickly moving target can rotate around you and avoid the hit. Not only that, but if your mouse is too close to the center of Shyvana's hitbox, your Flame Breath can fire sideways or even backwards, missing and completely screwing you.

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If you are getting hit by two melee champions from opposite sides, you will only be able to hit one of them. If you’re being hugged, Burnout away for a half second and gain enough distance to be sure of your shot. Think of it as a dead zone extending about 50 range from the dead center of your model and never try to hit a target that’s inside it unless you are in a do-or-die moment. Once you have Nashor's Tooth and can do an appreciable amount of damage outside of your Flame Breath, I’d suggest simply autoing them down for a second until they expend their mobility and you force them to move in an easy to predict direction out of your dead zone.

Second, do NOT press E at all while you are flying in Dragon's Descent. The ability can buffer based on the first location you cast at and may cast there upon landing even if you attempt to retarget it. Right clicking after pressing E seems to cancel this, but the behavior seems to be inconsistent. A lot can happen between when you press R, when you land, and when your Flame Breath cast finishes. Just don't do it and press E only after you regain control of Shyvana.

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Besides that, if you land Dragon's Descent on someone and they see their health get chunked down, they will typically immediately Flash away anticipating your follow-up Flame Breath. If you cast it right away at their feet upon landing, you’ll miss and feel like an idiot. If you don’t know if their Flash is up or down, wait a second for them to respond, then fire after them. Aim your Flame Breath at max range directly behind a fleeing target so that if they do Flash late, you’ve got a good shot of hitting them anyway. That goes double for champions like Ahri and Ezreal who have built-in dashes and blinks. If your target is not fleeing or if you know their Flash and any movement abilities are down, aim at their feet to not risk the shot going wide. Trust me, it feels really bad to have your shot go right over someone's shoulder because you tried to lead them when it wasn't necessary. Patience is key ; with the unfair range and area that Flame Breath covers, landing it is entirely in your hands. Do not fire unless you’re sure of your shot. Allow your target to react, use their Wind Wall, untargetability, Flash, whatever, then nail them once they’re a sitting duck. Aim small, miss small.

In patch 10.18 the flame patch and indicator on Flame Breath was enlarged to match the explosion radius on the ability. It's also a center hitbox check instead of an edge check, so it's less frustrating to play into. The explosion radius at rank 5 was slightly nerfed, but we got a bigger fire patch that ticks faster out of the deal.

There is a bug which will make your shots pass through a target if fired from a very specific range. It happens at something close to half of your max attack range and is thankfully extremely precise and tough to replicate. It seems to have something to do with that minimum cast distance I was talking about. You’ll probably never see it happen in a real game, but just know that it’s a thing. Rito pls.

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There is another much more pleasing bug with Flame Breath that will reset the cooldown if you cast it at the very instant Dragon's Descent expires. It's not reliable or very reproducible, though; it used to be, but Riot "fixed" it a while back. They didn't do a very good job (imagine that) and just made it much harder. Details below. Definitely don't intentionally go for it and risk not getting your empowered Flame Breath at all, but if you do incidentally cast it at the very last second, check the cooldown real quick. You might have gotten lucky.

R: Dragon's Descent

Objectively the coolest ult in the game. Unstoppable dash with a 1.0 ratio limited only by fury generation, having an extremely low effective cooldown with just a little bit of attack speed. Though it hits like a truck, it is fairly slow and allows your target to juke you easily or simply run back if cast from max range. Close distance with Burnout before hitting R if you need it to hit to pressure a kill. The knockback is also great for cancelling high impact channels like Bullet Time, Death Lotus, Bountiful Harvest, and Meditate.

You only get a baseline 20 seconds in form before dropping out and you need to make the most of it, which makes CDR vital. You are half a champion without it, so it's a damn good thing it's so accessible. Managing fury is crucial; you must have your ult when you need it and extend it for as long as possible through frequent auto attacks and Twin Bite cleaves to get as many Flame Breaths off as you can.

Never use Dragon's Descent if it's not necessary. Don't use it if a simple human form combo is enough for the job. Just because it has a very low "cooldown" doesn't mean you can't wind up needing it before then.

Dragon's Descent also has a minimum range and cannot be cast in place. Take a moment to familiarize yourself with this distance in practice tool. Keep in mind that you are much larger while transformed, and your hitbox reflects this, making you very tough to miss. Hooks in particular are a huge threat; Blitzcrank can practically aim sideways and still catch the tip of your tail.

DO NOT EVER ATTEMPT TO HIT Dragon's Descent ON A STACKED TEAM HEAD ON WITHOUT ANY SETUP. You will get killed instantly by 20 buttons and contribute absolutely nothing. You need to either split damage with your dive buddy and take advantage of his CC, or ambush their backline from out of vision to kill them instantly before they can react.

After reverting to human form, gaining fury is your first, last, and only priority. If action is likely in the near future, go straight to the closest available minion wave or jungle camp and begin hitting it. Do not use Burnout or Flame Breath. Only auto attack and Twin Bite until that bar is full. If you will kill the camp before reaching 100 fury, reset it and keep hitting it for as long as you need to. Ping your team away from your fury batteries and ping them to not pick a fight while you're becoming relevant again. Remember that Gromp now gives 20 fury, which is a huge help.

If cast with your cursor at the midway point in a medium thickness wall, Dragon's Descent will catapult you through at twice the usual speed. It works sort of like Flash; you attempt to jump in the middle of it and get pushed through the rest of the way. This can catch people off guard and potentially give you the extra half second you need to catch up to your prey and line up a Flame Breath. However, this risks bonking on the terrain if you fail the execution in the moment. Also, only very specific lengths of wall work. Basically, anything thick enough to barely be traversible with Dragon's Descent normally. You can't use this to jump farther than you ought to be able to, only to speed it up a bit. Be careful that this interaction does not jump you through a wall that you do not want to go through; if ulting at a target that has their back to a thick-ish wall, mind your cursor placement. I've accidentally shot through plenty of walls thanks to this strange interaction before.

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The knockback effect also behaves strangely; along most of its path it will knock targets back a short way as intended, but for whatever reason at the very end of her travel path it pulls back and clumps all enemies in front of her. It's basically a vortex effect like Moonfall tied to the end of her ult. This makes landing a multi target Flame Breath rather convenient. Aim to clip targets with your muzzle on ganks whenever possible. This is tough to take advantage of, so will take practice.

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Oh, and make sure to buy Championship Shyvana and spam recall while ulted every free moment you get. It's, uh, required to do well. Honest.

Duelling: Red Smite Challenging Smite pairs well with Press the Attack and Riftmaker to augment your dueling ability. I wouldn't ever choose to go Chilling and pass up the 20% damage reduction and extra DoT on a build that's all about smacking people, but you may feel differently. Once you have some AP behind the Burnout ratio, you should have absolutely no issues keeping pace with your prey.

Heal Cut: Ignite Ignite is a strong option to help you win the early 1v1 for scuttle crab and duel whomever you please. In conjunction with Press the Attack and Bone Plating, you can do a ton of damage while taking very little and catch people by surprise. Access to early healing reduction is very valuable with items like Eclipse, Goredrinker, and Immortal Shieldbow in the game. Champions with these items simply will not die without heal cut. You'll have to rely on this for quite some time since you should complete your core before grabbing Oblivion Orb unless in a real emergency. This is my default choice.

Anti-Burst: Exhaust Exhaust makes your ganks much more threatening and lets you shut down any cheeky assassin players or flanking bruisers like Riven. If you're concerned about early pressure, this is a great choice to turn the tables on a level 3 invade. Every team should have at least one Exhaust. If you take it, sit on your fed carry, and slap that Nocturne with it when he goes to dive in, you will completely take him out of the game and make winning a sure thing. It's also great insurance in case someone on the other team gets stupid fed to bring their lead back down to size for 3 whole seconds.

Mobility: Flash Flash remains a very strong choice with Press the Attack to let you get in range after landing Flame Breath for that big chunk of burst, but it is in no way necessary on Shyvana and I don't find myself missing it. That being said, picking Flash against hook champions, most threatening of which is Blitzcrank, is never a bad idea if you don't think you need a combat summoner.

Press the Attack Shyvana is one of the best PtA users in the game because a simple auto- Twin Bite procs it immediately. Paired with a rushed Recurve Bow, you go from a joke to a real threat in the blink of an eye, and can easily defend yourself if invaded. Once you have some AP under your belt, you'll be able to easily one shot any squishy that gets too close to your jaws. Conqueror may be considered only if the enemy team comp is extremely tanky AND the enemy jungler isn't aggressive. There is no point to taking a scaling keystone if it causes you to get run over before you can even think about teamfighting. And it's not like PtA is ever bad. 12% damage amplification is a lot, even to a tanky boi.

Triumph Good old Triumph. A 12% missing health heal on takedown often makes or breaks early fights and stops trade kills from coming through on the back end of a play. The extra 20 gold per takedown is also appreciated and can get you that extra little bit to make your next recall a clean buy. This can be upwards of 500 gold in a scrappy game on top of those clutch heals. Value!

Tenacity Since we are on the Ionian Boots of Lucidity hype train, we need some way to reduce incoming CC so that we can continue to do dragon things to people. We get plenty of AS from Nashor's Tooth, making Alacrity unnecessary, and lifesteal is, of course, meaningless for us, so this is almost always the best choice. It is very rare that a team will have so little CC as to make Alacrity an attractive option.

Coup de Grace Mo damage mo money. An extra 8% damage goes a long way towards finishing off that priority target and getting your first Triumph proc. Last Stand is tempting, but we don't really get tanky enough to use it to its fullest until late in the game. By the time it fully activates we usually either have to back off or we are already dead, and we've already used our burst combo by that point so it doesn't end up being very impactful. I'd rather get that extra bit of damage to help get early kills and start the snowball rolling.

Secondary Runes

Bone Plating This is just a damn good rune. Mitigating 90+ damage is a LOT early. That's like 10% of your entire life bar. This rune will let you win early fights that you have no business winning, so long as your opponent isn't packing it as well, so check for that. As such, you should be taking it in most games. 180 isn't too shabby later on into the game, either, though Conditioning provides a much more consistent benefit and easily outvalues it later on. This is because you must be careful that Bone Plating does not get poked off of you before a big skirmish. You can't take ANY damage until the fight starts, which is not always possible.

Conditioning The scaling defensive option for games that look like they're gonna go slow. This rune gives about 3-4% damage mitigation, more if penetration is at play, and amplifies your high base resistances + drake stacks. It won't do a thing for you early, so if you take this against a Nidalee or a Kha'Zix, Imma slap ya.

Overgrowth As a farming jungler, you stack this rune fairly quickly. In a longer game in which you get 240 or so CS, this rune gives 90 flat health plus 3.5% total (105 at 3000 life) for a total of 195. A bit more than a ruby crystal, so some decent value. The real number would be even higher since you don't have to actually kill the creep to stack the rune, just be near it when it dies. If against a balanced damage profile and you're looking at Gargoyle Stoneplate, the bonus health from Overgrowth feeds into its active, effectively giving double the usual value[/color]. Keep that in mind!

Ravenous Hunter Draintank gotta drain, and 11% more omnivamp helps a lot with that. This brings us up to 36% omnivamp vs monsters, making solo Baron a VERY real possibility at as little as 3 items + boots. However, if you have multiple heavy-healing champions or those who like to build lifesteal/omnivamp on your team and it is certain you will be playing into 3+ grievous wound items, you may wish to take a rune that is not going to be so easily countered. I play with my Warwick buddy a lot, and so don't usually have the opportunity for example. This rune pairs very well with Spirit Visage, so look to run it if you're against a heavy AP lineup. I don't have a strong preference for the second rune to pair with it yet. Sudden Impact for all in power, Taste of Blood for a small early heal, Zombie Ward if you sweep diligently, or just Eyeball Collection for the easy chunk of AP are all viable options.

Every dragon needs their stash of fancy, powerful artifacts. These items will be the wind beneath your wings, carrying you to greatness so that you may carry your team to victory.

Core build

Starting item Emberknife is the go-to for an AP bruiser build around Riftmaker. Make sure you don't sit on 2 charges and get Smite upgraded as fast as possible. A full clear plus a crab gives about 950G. After you put your second ward down to spot for one of your lanes, you'll recall on 1000, just enough to choose between...

Option 1: Lucis Welcome to the Luci rush meta, boys. There's a reason why most junglers are rushing these in competitive nowadays. Not only do you get tier 2 movespeed first thing in the game, you get 20 haste (!) AND 12 summoner spell haste. This translates to a faster clear and a faster smite upgrade in addition to shaving a dozen or so seconds off of your Ignite or Exhaust. These babies are INSANELY cost effective.

Option 2: Recurve bow Unfortunately, though the Hunter's Talisman burn remains on the new jungle items, Hunter's Machete is gone for good. We got a lot out of machete because Twin Bite procced it twice. A fast Recurve Bow makes up some of that difference and gives enough attack speed to get the clear machine up and running first thing in the game. I can't even begin to tell you how much of an improvement this is over stinger. Shyvana uses it extremely well and it makes you much harder to bully in the early game. This goes a long way towards mitigating one of her key weaknesses, and I don't actually mind losing the CDR on Nashor's Tooth as a result. As far as I'm concerned, it's worth! The choice here is between mobility and power, and either is acceptable. Get the other one on your second recall, along with...

Second Recall: Dark Seal Welp, it took them most of a year, but they finally nerfed Dark Seal. It's down to 4 AP per stack now, and you lose 5 on death. However, this means that it's just been downgraded from giga-busted to just regular old busted. At max stacks, it gives 55 AP for 350G, a much too tempting possibility to ever pass up on. DARK SEAL IS STILL CORE. Buy one early in EVERY game, no matter what, PERIOD. I usually grab it right after my bow. It also lets you get a head start on a Mejai's Soulstealer if the game plays out in your favor.

Fury generation, objective pressure, dueling power: Nashor's Tooth Nashor's Tooth is still a necessity on AP Shyvana. It gives you much quicker access to Dragon's Descent through its hefty attack speed bonus, which you are next to useless without, and it also lets you take objectives and clear your jungle much faster. Shyvana is designed to revolve around attack speed, and skipping out on it slows your clear speed to a crawl. Since AS is so vital and she gets so much out of Nashor's, it makes sense to pick it up before your mythic. Though its CDR has been removed, the on-hit proc synergizes with your Twin Bite and has been buffed to 20% AP, letting you defend yourself outside of dragon form with stronger sustained damage. The extra 20 AP also lightens the blow of losing Runic Echoes. It's an incredibly efficient and over budgeted item because there aren't many champions in the game who value both attack speed and AP, so it has to hold up this niche all by itself. Maybe it should just be a Mythic item?

Riftmaker Our long awaited AP bruiser support is finally here! This item is basically old Hextech Gunblade and Liandry's Torment fused together. 8-16% omnivamp on a champion that hits as hard as Shyvana is quite a bit of healing, and the 9% damage amp is EXTREMELY valuable with her high base damage and scaling, particularly when converted to true damage. It's been freshly buffed to stack up in just 3 seconds, and I promise you, this build lasts a whole hell of a lot longer than that in a teamfight. Its mythic passive has been nerfed to 2% vamp and 8 AP in exchange for adding 150 health to the item, making it much stronger early and letting it play nicer with Gargoyle Stoneplate. It always seemed weird to me that the supposed bruiser option gave substantially less health than Night Harvester. Glad that's fixed. Admittedly, Rift is initially underwhelming when picked up, but it becomes insanely powerful as you progress in the build. Like, seriously stupid. And since Shyvana farms so fast and builds level leads over the enemy very easily, she can scale very quickly and get the item to really shine. One last note, the extra vamp makes tanking Baron an absolute breeze, and not having to worry about turning on the enemy team while injured takes a huge amount of pressure off during those tense moments.

Heal Cut: Oblivion Orb Orb is still practically core, but for different reasons. It, and Morellonomicon, have had their identity crisis finally solved. They are now solely anti-healing items, and grievous wounds is oftentimes an ABSOLUTE NECESSITY in season 11. With healing champions now being balanced around a 60% cut, not having it against Aatrox and Soraka is simply NOT an option. You will lose, and it will be extremely frustrating. Oblivion Orb is now also only 800G, on par with Executioner's Calling, so it's easy to pick up. You don't have the excuse of telling your ADC to get exe anymore because it costs 3000G to get heal cut on a mage. That being said, try to encourage a few teammates to grab heal cut before getting it yourself. I really don't like how squishy I feel if I'm forced to delay my build. If your team refuses to build smart though, you may not be able to wait.

Defensive Options

At this point, we are going to need a strong defensive option as our 4th choice. AP/Health items are great and we will be rounding out our build with them, but you end up being made out of paper without any resistances. It's just not viable without an insane lead. I've zeroed in on three options to consider depending on the enemy damage profile.

If you've maxed out your Dark Seal already, Mejai's Soulstealer is a smart buy at this point too, but be careful with jumping in with those stacks before you get the chance to beef up a little more. I'd only buy it here if your team is absolutely crushing it. After your defensive item is completed, you shouldn't have any trouble keeping them for the rest of the game. This build is extremely tough to take down past that point.

VS Even damage profile: Gargoyle's Now that it no longer reduces your damage dealt, Gargoyle's is a fantastic one stop shop for resistances against a balanced composition. It gives you 60 of both, up to 85 in a big fight, and has a great active that plays well with our upcoming AP/Health options. Bonus health includes what we get from Dragon's Descent, Overgrowth, and Elixir of Iron, effectively giving us double value out of all of them. Always build the health components of upcoming items first to take advantage of this item. Since most lobbies with super heavy AD or AP get dodged, you will be building Gargoyle 90% of the time or more. It may as well be core!

VS Heavy AD: Death's Dance 35% mitigation is a LOT, multiplying your short term effective health more than any other single item, and it will buy you a ton of time to get your damage out and vamp through the DoT. With how much damage you deal, it's highly likely you get a takedown and cleanse the bleed, healing for 10% of your health on top of it. DD is far superior to Zhonya's Hourglass for a build like this one... at least, if you're ahead. Recently, I've just been getting exploded through it in losing games, and I'm not as hot on it as I used to be. Mayhap Thornmail or Randuin's Omen would be a smarter buy if the game is getting out of control. I'm not sure since full AD teams are very rare to see locked in and they usually get dodged out of. I'll get back to you on this.

VS Heavy AP: Spirit Visage Though the healing amp has been nerfed to 25%, Spirit Visage gained some stats with S11 and now also buffs up any shields given to you. However, AP heavy compositions are much more rare than AD just based off of the meta in every role, so you probably won't get the chance to build this very often. If you have a Soraka, Seraphine, or other heavy healing/shielding support, Spirit Visage may be worth building even against a more balanced composition. Keep this in mind. Think about Ravenous Hunter as well if the enemy jungler is weak and Bone Plating isn't necessary.

Conveniently enough, all three of the above options have haste on them as well, which we sorely need, further securing them as the frontrunners for defensive itemization.

AP/Health Options

Death Note: Mejai's Once you have your defensive item, dying becomes fairly difficult. Therefore, turning that 10 stack dark seal into a book is not a half bad idea. At full stacks, this item gives 145 AP, a disgusting amount on such a tanky build. You shouldn't have too much of an issue keeping that stack count high, and it's a really quick way to get some more vamp out of Riftmaker. You can grab book before your defensive choice too, just be careful. You lose 10 stacks as opposed to 4 on death. I'd advise only doing this in seriously one sided games.

Antihealing: Morellonomicon Again, antihealing is going to be a necessity in this new world of multiple roles having easy access to disgusting amounts of healing. Upgrading Oblivion Orb buffs your heal cut to 60% on an injured target, which could make all the difference. The AP/Health stat line works great with a frontline playstyle, and you will probably need to build this more often than not.

For tanky bois: Demonic Embrace This item gives you a mini Liandry's burn on any damage you deal, great for chewing through tanks and bruisers. This is essentially our Void Staff. It also gives you a tiny bit of durability as a bonus. One thing to note here, Baron Nashor does NOT like this item, and you can take him down at a pretty good pace with it.

Sticking power/Peeling: Rylai's Freshly buffed back to a 30% slow, Rylai's is a very strong option to frustrate melee champions and control fights. Your flame patch becomes a slow field with this item. It will also let you stick to and finish off any squishies that you manage to dive onto. Importantly, it builds out of Giant's Belt again instead of just a Ruby Crystal, great for frontlining, especially if Gargoyle Stoneplate is the play.

VS Squishies: Cosmic Drive If you're up against many squishy champions, especially ranged ones, then gear up to go Drive. 40 haste is an absurd amount, letting you spam Flame Breath like it's season 10, and the additional movespeed will help you catch up to carries and chow down. It's got 200 health on it to boot, not as much as our other options, but it's still very much on-theme with the build.

VS Hypercarry: Anathema's Though it's a second purely defensive item, Anathema's is incredibly valuable if you only have to worry about a single enemy threat. This passive cuts them by almost a third ON ITS OWN. Is that Katarina 20/0 and hard carrying 4 bonobos across the finish line? This item will put an absolutely MASSIVE hole in that plan. Double support + marksman comp? Lulu/ Kog'Maw/ Kayle/ Shen? Assassin + Yuumi? All great situations for this item.

A final Aggressive option: Lich Bane This is your ultimate greedy 6th buy. For season 11 its AP ratio was cut in exchange for DOUBLING the base AD component on the proc. Since Shyvana's base AD is pretty high, this ends up being a great trade for lower AP, non-Deathcap builds like this one. Do not consider building this until you are coming up on level 18, as we need Twin Bite maxed in order to proc it consistently in fights. Me, I'd always rather go for an AP/health option instead, but this is certainly a very strong choice and is well worth mentioning.

For critical moments: Tank pot Most of the time I prefer to buy brown pot with Riftmaker, especially if I built Gargoyle Stoneplate. The extra 300 health on top of your resistances and vamp will make you much tougher to take down, as well as giving more tenacity to keep the drain train rolling. Your team will appreciate the extra movement speed to follow you into engagements; 15% is nothing to sneeze at. It also makes you bigger, and big dragons are awesome. UwU. Elixir of Sorcery remains an option for those im-too-fed-and-IDGAF games. Got a stacked Mejai's? Go ahead, one hit someone as a 3000 health unkillable beast of a champion. Balance! Game design! 200 years!

Your Final Form: THE HAT Every once in a while you get so fed and games go so long that you can't wait to kick off your boots and put your feet up. Well, the second you can swap them out for a hat, do so. You'll wind up with about 800 AP, giving your Burnout about 116% movespeed. The loss of mobility is therefore minimal, and you gain a TON of damage. You have also picked up enough haste at this point to no longer need your Lucis. Worth and a half!

Finally, now that the background is out of the way, we come to the meat of the guide. Jungle is the most dynamic role in the game, and you will have to adapt to an infinite amount of situations while mastering it. There is only so much I can teach you here; a lot of it comes down to experience and repetition. However, as one of the strongest objective-focused junglers in the game, I can lay out a general blueprint for you to follow that should get your team to the midgame with a commanding lead more often than not.

Early game (0:00 to 14:00)

Potential level 1 shenanigans

A few rules of thumb for level 1 strategies. Champions with long duration roots and hook abilities like Blitzcrank, Morgana, and Thresh love to invade early looking for free kills. If you have one of these and your team has the stronger level 1, ping to invade bot side jungle. This has the greatest chance of finding a pick. If the other team has one and you do not, call to stack in the botside river bush by mid.

Wait to skill your first ability. If you find an isolated target, skill Flame Breath. If you find their entire team, skill Burnout instead, which will deal more damage to multiple targets than Flame Breath will, and you are unlikely to be able to land it on a good target or stick to them if you can. You also need the movement speed to stay in auto range through what will almost certainly be at least one slowing effect.

You may also choose to invade topside with your top and midlaner to attempt to 3-buff your opponent. I would only attempt to do this if your solo lanes are significantly more powerful at level 1 than their counterparts, as Shyvana is quite weak by herself at this point.

If nothing ends up happening, spotting whichever buff you aren't starting at is a great use of your first ward. Place it in pixel bush at 1:10. This should catch any steal attempts. Some champions like Graves like to start their red and then hop over the pit wall to go right to your blue. Shift your ward to watch for this. A full clear leaves plenty of time for it to be taken away if left open if the enemy started on the opposite side of the map. Hopefully your team can collapse for a free kill if they try. If not, use vertical jungling to even things out.

First clear

Your jungle path is always going to be a full clear. Currently, I think that always starting red buff is best when possible. This lets you clear the super-valuable krug camp twice before drake spawns and lets you easily move from gromp to crab to contest at level 4 with a full life bar.

If your counterpart likes to level 3 invade ( Lee Sin, Elise, Rengar, Olaf, Rek'Sai, Nidalee, etc.), you may wish to start topside instead and clear down. These champions will be much more hesitant to invade the botside of the map because being collapsed on by botlane is a big threat, especially now that tanky engage supports are so popular. I’ve noted these in the matchup section above. Over time you will be able to predict which lanes will have priority at that time and use that to decide which buff to start.

Low elo junglers lose entire minutes over the course of a game to little inefficiencies that build up over time. Move between your auto attacks in the direction of your next camp. This saves you travel time and can reset the camp’s auto timer, giving you some extra health.

Whether you Smite your first buff or your first camp depends on the strength of your leash and your Flame Breath cooldown. Don’t use Smite on a very strong leash, obviously. Weaker leashes will leave the buff with 450 life when your Flame Breath still has a few seconds left on its cooldown; Smite it and use Flame Breath on your next camp. No leash at all will have the buff at 700 life or so when your Flame Breath comes back up, too much to take down with just autos, so do so again and Smite your first camp.

Don’t mark your camps at max range. You have just enough time for 4 autos at this point before it expires, so applying your mark too early and missing one of them will cost you a big chunk of damage.

When doing Krugs second, kite the medium krug around the big one so that it doesn’t hit you. Though the jungle was just nerfed and camps don't hit as hard, you still don't want to take any needless damage. This seems to be significantly easier now; the krug's new shiny model seems to have affected their hitboxes.

Auto a little chicken to aggro the camp and walk back a bit so that they line up for your Flame Breath. Run through the camp between your auto attacks while you are killing it, as with so many of them at least one will get creep blocked and be unable to hit you. Without Hunter's Talisman's leech, chickens hurt a LOT. Kite them for a few seconds while Burnout is down. Don't leave the bush until all chickens are dead. Having one reset on you is disastrous and is not worth trying to save a second or two.

Wolves are much more generous with their resetting and can easily be brought to the blue bush before they leash. Drag the blue over to gromp between auto attacks, Smite the gromp to pull it, and hit both with your second Flame Breath right when blue is about to die.

You can clear your entire jungle by 3:20 or so and be level 4 for the first scuttle crab. Use the vision plant before stepping into the river to make sure you don't round the corner right into an Olaf axe. A bruiser setup can be much more assertive here, and it's one of the major reasons why I love the build so much. Press the Attack, Bone Plating, and Ignite will absolutely destroy many junglers 1v1. You will also have a level lead on your side since it is impossible to get to the crab in time from krugs. Just make sure they don't also have Bone Plating and be aware that they will probably have their Smite up to heal on the nearby crab. One final note, if you are not sure if the other jungler is coming to crab or not, hold your cooldowns and just whack the crab until you're sure you can secure it. OP setup or no, you can't do a thing without any CDs.

Lane priority has much more of an impact on who gets the crab than your matchup. If you have it, it's free. If you do not, just concede the crab and leave if you may be collapsed on. DO NOT risk dying for it. The first jungler to die usually ends up losing control over the entire game. Do not attempt to steal the crab without priority unless the enemy jungler has absolutely no CC. Don't be Blaber. Be better than Blaber.

First gank window

Once the crab is dead, it should be around 3:40. This is your first gank window. Quickly glance at adjacent lanes for open targets, but don't waste too much time, as your Krugs will have already respawned. More often than not, side lanes will be a better target than mid. Without a dash or hard CC, Shyvana struggles to gank the short and safe mid lane unless her target is extended past the river and your mid has CC of their own.

By contrast, many people will simply not ward top yet, not expecting Shyvana to gank at all before 6. Bot on the other hand usually will be, but depending on your support and how far pushed they are it may not matter.

A few words about post-gank wave management. This is always crucial to keep in mind, but it goes double for top lane. If the enemy has Teleport up, don’t help shove the wave. This will just split the XP with your top laner and put him behind. Just leave and float around for what I call the “Hashinshin TP”. This is when the enemy top Teleports back into the middle of the lane despite you literally just taking his life. Sometimes you can just loop back around and kill him again. This will usually tilt-spiral him and win the game instantly.

If he does not have Teleport and the wave is pushing, help shove it in. If the wave is slow pushing towards your team though, LEAVE IT AS IS. Top lane in particular can snowball out of control off of just one successful gank if you do this. Now that you have put their top laner behind, they more than likely will not be able to approach the wave 1v1. A skilled player in a decent matchup can keep the wave frozen indefinitely, turning a single gank into a 50 cs and 2 level lead by the midgame. Many top laners will tilt and feed for CS in this situation, or flame their jungler enough to self-destruct the entire team. Here is a particularly humorous example of this happening. Unfortunately, it happened on my team.

Play Video

Regardless of if a gank is available or not, I like to leave my second ward in the enemy tribush while I'm in the area, especially topside. Top laners have this annoying habit of overextending, being ganked, and spam pinging you as if it's your fault. This makes it marginally less likely.

If your top is kicking *** and shoving in, lying in wait for the enemy jungler who doubtless will have noticed this and is heading over is a great strategy. Shyvana is very dangerous if facechecked.

If the enemy jungle early ganked the far side lane, use this time to steal away his jungle if no gank opportunities present themselves. Many early gank focused junglers use red-blue-gromp or blue-gromp-red pathing in order to rush level 3 for early pressure, so you can safely assume that everything else is up in this case. Look to steal chickens in particular. They are easily accessible, worth a lot, and Shyvana mulches them. Krugs are a great prize, but are much riskier to take. As a general rule, take enemy farm whenever possible and leave a small dog or chicken behind to delay the respawn and add to your lead. Enemy camps are essentially worth double what yours are.

Early counterganking

Occasionally you will have the opportunity to countergank. As you lack any sort of gap closer or CC before level 6, this is usually the only way for you to impact the early game.

Knowing if it’s a good idea to go in and assist comes down to game knowledge and experience. Some champions like Olaf and Udyr are usually too strong early to contest and should usually be ignored, others like Kayn may be beaten quite easily. Try to ping your laner to bait them into a bush to facecheck you; this is particularly effective in mid lane. If a matchup is listed as a major or extreme threat, be very careful in how you approach the skirmish. If you miss your Flame Breath, just back off. You NEED that mark to be helpful unless the fight is already won. It's a huge chunk of your damage.

In any case, try to start your recall right after you drop your second ward and you have 950G. Don't waste too much time waiting for "maybe" plays. You have somewhere very important to be. Buy your Lucis, a Control Ward if possible, and swap out for Oracle Lens; you will have just enough money if no extra opportunities presented themselves. If you picked up an early kill or two and are loaded, grab a Dagger too.

Taking first drake

Shyvana is the absolute best champion in the game at securing drakes for her team. This is more important than ever before, as Soul buffs are incredibly powerful win conditions. As such, getting the first couple for free will go a long way towards eventual victory and will buy you 5-10 minutes of extra time to scale in a losing game. Even in high ELO, people are oftentimes unprepared for Shyvana's drake rush and you can snag it completely uncontested about 80%-90% of the time.

You can usually afford to be a little late, so do your krugs and chickens again before looking at drake. This will put you at level 5. If bot scuttle is already dead, that's actually great for you. The blast cone behind drake pit conveniently spawns anytime between 5:00 and 5:30. Clear your camps, cone over, either sweep or slap your pink ward down at the entrance to the pit, and kill the dragon. You should be left completely alone as the crab will give the other team a false sense of security. This works just fine on both teams, though blue side obviously makes it easier.

It is possible to pull and kill the drake from the front while remaining outside of the crab's vision range, but this is very precise and tricky to pull off, and potentially disastrous if you mess it up. It also puts you in vision range of either the pixel bush or the bot river bush. Still, it's cool to know, and if you are confident in your pulling skills, go for it.

Unless the enemy team responds immediately, the drake is already yours. At level 5, you kill the thing in about 18 seconds. You can get your first auto- Twin Bite off before it knocks you back if you Flame Breath in auto range. Use your second Twin Bite right away without your mark up.

Drakes have 21 armor and 30 MR (except for mountain, which has 41/50). If you see a steal attempt coming, make sure you time Smite with Twin Bite while your Flame Breath mark is up. Unless you get hit by CC, this should guarantee you get the drake. At level 5 at this point in the game with this setup, you can burst drake for 782 damage (736 for mountain), so pull the trigger the second you see it fall below 750/700 life to be safe.

To set up an ideal Smite, hold your second Flame Breath until the drake falls below 2000 life for non-mountain drakes. 4 autos and a Twin Bite will take it into Smite range from here. Mountain is tankier, so you can just use Flame Breath right away and take it into Smite range with your third. Mark mountain drakes at 1700 life to set up the kill.

Only a select few champions are able to beat this, so if necessary, commit and die for the drake. You will always get it with good timing and a kill for drake is well worth it.

If a fight breaks out during this time, (say, enemy jungler ganks bot right as you blast cone over), prioritize the drake. You offer very little in a skirmish before level 6 and are not likely to be useful. The higher percentile play is to make sure you secure drake. Most of the time you will kill it before the enemy team can finish fighting and go for it.

Finally, drake type slightly impacts how you approach them. Mountain and Infernal are boring and don’t do much DPS, just point them away from any teammates in the area. Mountain takes a little longer to kill than the others. Cloud does a high amount of single target DPS, and you may be forced to Smite early if engaging it below half life. Finally, Ocean applies a fairly significant slow which can easily kill you if you get caught. Take an extra second to watch the enemy for any signs of rotating before starting him in particular.

If you are challenged 1v1 for the drake while it's still healthy, remember that the drake always targets the closest champion. This means you can use it to help kill the other guy if he goes in. Positioning to use the drake to your advantage can be a gamechanger, especially if it's Ocean. Keep this in mind.

Post-drake

Once drake dies, it should be between 5:30 and 5:45 if you went unmolested. You’ll be beat up a bit and still level 5, so unless someone is int-pushing you’re going to want to finish your clear. This will put you at level 6 at around 6:30 if everything went well. Catching a wave or two will get you the rest of the way there.

By this point, your lanes should be making their first recalls. Be aware of this and try to swing by to snap up any crashed waves on your side of the map. They are well worth going out of your way for. Your camps will still be there when you’re done, and it’s a big chunk of XP and gold for you, especially if it’s a canon wave. But don't show on the map for anything less than a full wave. Giving away your position isn't worth it.

Second gank window: going RAWR!

At long last, you are ready to impact the map. Target selection is critical; since you can only really make a meaningful gank with Dragon's Descent available, you must make every one count. For this reason, bot lane always makes a juicy target. Splitting experience makes them lower level, and most AD carries are easily chunked to death. The extra target also gives your ult more value, and many popular engage supports like Nautilus and Leona offer insane gank assist. However, don’t be afraid to give mid and top some love if you have strong setup abilities to work with. Excellent midlaners to gank for include Ahri, Malzahar, and Lissandra, and you should always be ready to gank them as soon as their ults are up. Similar top laners include Camille, Malphite, and Kled. Of course, if the enemy top laner is someone nearly impossible to kill like Garen or Poppy, just ignore the lane entirely unless he’s taking plates on 300 life.

Ambushing enemies who are taking turret plates is a phenomenal use of your ult. You’ll end up right on top of them so that they can’t juke your Flame Breath, and in many cases will be able to land Dragon's Descent as well, guaranteeing a kill on potentially multiple targets. You’ll have more than enough time for a second follow-up Flame Breath as they flee in terror back down the lane. These opportunities are gold mines; watch for them.

Play Video

All river bushes are commonly warded. Avoid these and ult over walls which are unlikely to have coverage for best results. For example getting into bot lane to gank blue team through the drake pit and mid lane through the enemy chicken coop works well. Hanging back in fog and letting your laner start a fight to bait the enemy forward is a great tactic. If you must cross a warded bush, ult over it from fog to give your prey less time to react.

DO NOT GANK list

I don't really know where exactly to put this since when a champion is too threatening for Shyvana to gank varies widely. This is important knowledge, and as such should be gone over somewhere. I'm putting it here since this is when you will think about fighting top laners with their ultimates, which comprises most of the list. As discussed previously, most bruisers and top lane duelists are a nightmare to play into, and most tanks are simply a waste of time to interact with. Make sure if you go for a play on these champions that they are out of gas, or that you have a similarly strong champion on your side. List is likely incomplete, will update regularly.

Darius: I've seen this champion double kill me on ganks after 6 far too many times. You can win, but both of you must play it smart if he's ready to fight. Whichever one of you he decides to focus MUST back off at 4 Hemorrhage stacks to avoid giving him his passive. He gets that absurdly massive bonus, he probably double kills you. You should be the softer target, so most of the time this will be you. Get your damage off, Flash away if you have to, and let your top finish the kill.

Garen: Complete waste of time to gank at all stages of the game. The champion is extremely fast, cleanses slowing effects, gets a ton of free tank stats and mitigation, and can easily turn and all in one of you with his kit for a kill. Any damage you do will quickly be undone by Perseverance. Just ignore him.

Illaoi: Don't go anywhere near her while she has her ultimate. Dragons don't like tentacles. Well, some do, but they're weird. It's almost always best to just leave her be and let top be a farm lane. Leap of Faith can very easily double kill you on a gank. If you go for her, make damn sure that you GTFO the INSTANT she casts it, or you will be bursted from full to dead instantly.

Singed: Singed is not a person. He does not exist. Interacting with him will just get you Flinged away, waste your time, and cost you a ton of health. I don't care how far up he's proxying waves. You can't catch him without significant amounts of help from multiple people, enough to make the entire exchange not worth it.

Fiora: DO NOT 1V1 THIS CHAMPION if she has her ult. You will die, even if you have a huge health advantage. Wait for her to Riposte before using your Flame Breath. If she ults you on a gank, RUN AWAY. Fully proccing Grand Challenge will full heal her and probably give her a double kill. Sticking one of the pie slices into a wall is a great way to prevent this.

Mordekaiser: AP Shyvana cannot duel Mordekaiser. Even with a full item and a half up on him, she struggles heavily. Other builds shred him (most hilariously crit), but he just laughs at AP. So, since his ult forces you to duel him, and he will always choose to ult you, you should leave him the hell alone. Ganking him will almost always end up being a 1 for 1 trade at best.

Poppy: This rat is simply too tough to kill. She's fast, spams shields on herself, gets tankier the lower she is, and can effortlessly disengage you with Keeper's Verdict. She also does tons of damage if you misposition and let her ram you into a wall.

Olaf: Some people run Olaf top. He's a hilariously strong counterpick into certain matchups. You want to avoid him for all the same reasons that make him a nightmare to jungle against. Good chance he can 1v2 you if you don't have Ignite to cut his healing.

Pyke: Never attempt a standard gank on Pyke mid or attempt to chase him down in the jungle. I promise you, you won't catch him. You need serious lockdown and must kill him before CC expires, or he will escape and heal back over half the damage. You must wait in fog for him to engage on your midlaner or you have no hope of killing him.

Take Rift Herald

Ideally you kill one of their solo lanes with your ultimate right away and use the pressure to secure Rift for free regardless of vision. This also lets you get Dragon's Descent back at the same time for added efficiency. If you don’t have a likely looking gank window, just take the Rift by yourself. Almost nobody bothers to ward the thing and very few junglers even think about it when it spawns. Checking for vision is unnecessary. It’s like people don’t even know how good it is. You will almost never be messed with, kill it super fast with your Flame Breath mark, and get your team a free objective. If interrupted, you can usually go right back once they think they've chased you off. One final note here, omnivamp works on the eye damage, so you’ll probably heal to full while doing it.

Using Rift Herald

Now you have 4 minutes to decide how best to use Rift. You can’t go wrong with immediately running mid and dropping it. Mid lane turret is the most important turret on the map, as it offers your team the most freedom of movement once it goes down and your midlaner will appreciate the extra gold. You can drop it over walls if you hug them before pressing the button, so there should always be a chance to make this happen. This will get you at least 320G, potentially even 480G if a plate only has 300 life left. Not a bad return for a 20 second investment! Retreat immediately afterward; you will get the gold regardless of distance.

If one lane in particular is getting smashed and the turret is already at half life, path over there right away and gank. If successful, you will probably be able to get 2 charges off and get most of the inner turret as well, yielding higher value. If unsuccessful, just drop Rift and secure the first turret bonus of 150G for your team. This will unlock your best players to make plays across the map, creating a spillover effect.

If you’re feeling selfish, waiting for an opportunity to drop it by yourself for solo plate gold is also a great choice, especially if it gets you solo first turret bonus gold on top of it. If your top laner gets solo killed for instance but managed to rough up his opponent in the process, cleaning up afterward can easily get you 3 plates plus first turret gold all to yourself, equaling 880G. Getting a fast Nashor's Tooth to mow down the jungle is critically important, so do this whenever possible.

If taking down a healthy turret, drop rift after getting two plates so that it can do its true damage into the turrets increased resistances, killing it much faster. A full turret, even split two ways, is a STUPID amount of money. A great way to catapult yourself into the lead and make a big dragon.

Additionally, remember that side inner turrets now also give a ridiculous amount of gold, 550 local and 50 global. If you get a gank off on a side lane and see their jungler cross-map, try to take both turrets with herald if at all possible. This is easily done in one death timer with Nashor's components. If successful, this will have you looking Jeff Bezos in the eye first thing in the game.

Whatever you decide, make sure to use it before 14 minutes for turret plating if you were delayed in taking it, and don’t hold onto it for so long that you become unlikely to find a good chance to use it. Trust me, watching Rift slowly tick down and expire while dead feels very, very bad.

Taking Rift nice and early also gives your team plenty of time to take the second one once it spawns 8 minutes later. A second Rift with a lead usually results in an inhibitor taken, making Baron setup a breeze to casually close out the game. You also want to take Rift off of the map before second drake spawns at 10-11 minutes so that you leave no opportunity for an objective trade.

Recall immediately once you can complete Nashor's Tooth or if second drake is about to spawn, whichever comes first. If nothing much happened, a 14 minute Nashor's is about average. The faster, the better. If you get it by 10-11 mintues, you're in fantastic shape to hard carry the game.

Take second drake

From this point you will have to adapt to the state of the game and things become less certain. The most important thing to worry about is second drake. Be on time with full fury and a Control Ward like before. There is a good chance you can zerg this one down, too.

If your team throws beforehand, stealing it with Dragon's Descent or Flame Breath + Smite is very likely. Jump in at ~1500 life. It is impossible for most champions to outsmite Shyvana this early in the game. If you think you can get it, go for it. A drake is always worth dying for. Take into account how well the enemy jungler has been playing. If he’s been having an off game and seems slow, committing for the steal attempt is a great idea. Look at how much CC they have in the pit too. If possible, Twin Bite the Flame Breath mark for best results. If you'll get CCed, just go for the Flame Breath Smite.

You'll have your Smite quest completed by this point, so you'll effortlessly secure it over almost anyone who isn't a jungler, but since you both have 900 base damage so early in the game, the champion gap is smaller than it used to be. Should still be easy enough.

A word on elemental maps

Once the second drake dies, the map will transition to elemental state and you will know which Soul buff you’re working towards.

Infernal > Ocean > Cloud > Mountain

Infernal soul is broken. That amount of flat damage added onto a build this tanky is just absolutely unfair. You will have no issues killing multiple champions at once with this soul. It also knocks down walls around buffs, letting you move around the map faster and easily steal them away from the enemy.

Ocean’s great too. The Soul offers a frankly absurd amount of in-combat healing, and is strong enough to guarantee victory if the enemy did not itemize healing reduction. You thought you were tanky before? You haven't seen anything yet.

Cloud soul gives an insane amount of movespeed each time you ult, very helpful for sticking to targets with this tanky and hard-hitting setup. When this dragon hits 88 miles per hour, you're gonna see some serious ****. And that usually involves tearing their backline in half while their tanks watch helplessly, unable to catch up and peel. The drakes themselves are also by far the most useful on their own; they're fixed and now properly give 10% extra fury generation each. The map also speeds you up between camps, helping you farm faster.

Mountain is probably dead last. You appreciate extra resistances, but would rather have any other drake instead. The Soul Shield is sizable and nice to have, but it just falls short of the others. Seriously good into poke champions like Ezreal, Zoe, and especially Karthus though (what is Requiem if not a global poke?).

Target remaining plates

After second drake you should have a few minutes to target any remaining turret plates before they despawn. Now that you have Nashor's Tooth, your auto attacks and Twin Bite seriously hurt turrets. Path in that direction and keep an eye out for likely gank or countergank opportunities. Find a couple, get a good use out of Rift, and enter the midgame with as many plates taken as possible.

Smite-combo scuttle crabs whenever possible. Now that Smite drops its shield before doing damage, you can literally one hit the crab once your quest is done, leaving no chance for a steal. This feels SOOO nice, much better than chasing the ******* thing around for 10 seconds like we used to. I'll never get tired of it!

Mid game (14:00 to 20:00)

Treat fog of war with respect

By this point lanes will start resolving and the group and roam phase will begin, with any mistakes leading to full-scale engagements and picks leading to objectives being taken. This changes how you think about the game and play in fights. What you don't know becomes quite dangerous, as getting caught by so much as a high magnitude slow around more than one person in this damage-creeped modern meta is almost certainly lethal. You don't have your defensive item yet, so you can easily be 100-0'ed by 12 or more buttons. Always keep in mind who you see and who you don't see, where they can be and where they can't. Remember that you are unstoppable while in Dragon's Descent and use it to negate any CC that may land on you to avoid being instantly killed.

Secure third drake: how to approach teamfights

Third drake should be up at around 16 minutes. Reset and arrive 30 seconds early this time and set up vision with your team. It is unlikely that you will be able to sneak this one away, as lanes will have resolved and the enemy will begin moving as a unit. You’ll probably have to fight for it, so now is a good time to go over how to tackle a big teamfight as AP Shyvana.

Though you are a dragon, you are still squishy at this point and ulting into a fight without a godly setup is a one way ticket. You need your defensive item before you can survive being focused by several people. Unless you know you can kill or cripple 3 or more priority targets or you know the fight will be won before they can retaliate, don’t do it.

Remember that Dragon's Descent knockbacks a small distance, and can buy your fed Vayne the second she needs to get away from that 15/0 Kha'Zix. If you have a hyper fed carry that is in danger of being jumped on, watch over them and let them shine.

Bruiser builds can play similarly to full AP by poking and denying the enemy team's approach, but you don't hit nearly as hard and really need multi target hits to force a team to back off. Instead, you are looking to charge in alongside your primary initiator when he finds a good window and pressure their carries. If they are kept still for you for a mere moment, you can easily one shot them. You're also much more effective at chewing through frontline, so if no dive opportunity presents itself just focus on playing front to back. If you get engaged on, ult back towards your team, then turn and cleave them down.

We will still be hurting on Haste at this point, putting our Flame Breath on a pretty long cooldown, so accuracy is absolutely crucial. That mark makes a world of difference. Do. Not. Miss. Be as patient as you need to and always look to land guaranteed shots while a good target is CCed. If you manage to hit multiple carries with a single shot, you should carry the fight single-handedly, but this is not always possible.

Most of the time you want to prioritize the marksman in a dive; they almost never build defensively and have huge amounts of reliable, sustained damage. You will also absolutely obliterate squishy enchanter supports, who like to huddle right next to the marksman to juice them up and peel for them.

Pay special attention to champions with channeled ultimates. Saving Dragon's Descent to cancel a big ult is a fantastic use so long as you don't have to overextend to do so. Examples include Miss Fortune, Jhin, and especially Katarina. Removing one of these ults from the equation is a huge deal.

Knowing when to use Dragon's Descent is absolutely crucial. Being overzealous and wasting it on a bad pick attempt, getting caught out and being forced to use it defensively, or simply misreading the 5v5 dance and ulting for a fight that doesn’t end up happening can very easily concede objectives and throw the game while you are frantically trying to build fury in order to become relevant again. That’s a nightmare scenario. Be patient while the teams dance around and feel each-other out, waiting for one side to make a mistake. Eventually someone will get caught by CC and start the fight, and you must have a full bar of fury when that happens.

Ult availability is your number one priority in the mid to lategame. Spam ping your team away from creeps when you need to hit them and tell them to leave at least one jungle camp up for you. Spam danger ping when you have no ult and it looks like someone wants to engage. They may not listen, but you need to try. If it looks like they aren't getting it, find a few seconds to spell it out for them in chat.

If all goes well, your Flame Breath will find its mark and carry the fight. Then nom up that drake. If battle lines are drawn and neither team seems willing or able to engage on the other, you may elect to just kill the drake during the mexican standoff so long as you are sure they can't see you or realistically charge in and steal it. It will absolutely melt and punish their indecision.

One random note here, after every won fight from now until the end of the game, make damn sure to rotate through the enemy jungle and take away as much as you can. Shyvana farms at lightspeed with a few items and can effortlessly take a quadrant or more away in a flash. Doing this just a few times will cripple the enemy jungler.

Secure second Rift

The second rift should spawn at around 15 minutes if you took it nice and early, giving plenty of time for you to swing by. Grabbing this is very important as I’ll explain below. If your drakes were delayed and it spawns well before third drake, try to make sure that it doesn’t survive long enough for drake to spawn and give an opportunity for the other team to trade one for the other. Rift is for some reason a much lower priority in people’s minds than drake, and even the second one usually dies uncontested.

If second Rift and Drake spawn at around the same time and you are in a position in which you must choose one or the other, that depends on the game state. If you’re significantly behind and have 1-2 drakes, take Rift. Conceding one is worth it in this case so you can’t find yourself in the tough position of contesting Baron with a dead inhibitor. If ahead, take Drake since it’s unlikely the other team will get a good use out of Rift and you will be one closer to Soul, making it exceedingly likely that you will get that sweet buff. If behind AND down two drakes, surrender. Seriously though, take drake in that scenario. Buying another 5 minutes before they get Soul is more important. Better pray to God nobody gets caught for 4 minutes and you lose the inhib for it, though.

Second rift: FIGHT!

Once you have control of the second rift, it’s time to win a big teamfight. By this point at 18-20 minutes you'll have Riftmaker and start tanking up to multiply your value. This is the part where you start scaling into an absolute monster and become exceedingly hard to deal with. Keep in mind everything I said about fighting above and you should come on on top. Remember, you must survive in order to be able to drop Rift and secure the inhibitor. You can mow down an entire lane with that thing off the back of a won fight.

Again, remember during these larger engagements that ult availability is paramount. If a fight breaks out and you don’t have your ult, get it back up first if at all possible, even if that means you arrive late. You’re so much stronger with it than without it.

Once you’ve killed a few enemies, pop down the Rift and take an inhibitor with your team. This will give you 5 minutes to set up an uncontestable Baron. Ideally this happens as close to its 20 minute spawn as possible, but the real world is rarely so neat and tidy.

Late game (20:00 to end)

Secure Dragon Soul

If you’ve been doing your job, the all-important Dragon soul drake should be spawning soon, sometime between 22 and 24 minutes. Make sure that once again you ping it like crazy and set up vision control in the bot river ahead of time. You'd better believe you'll have to fight for this drake.

If you've snowballed the game properly, you will have your all important 4th item halfway done or completed, allowing you to take a beating. This is where the fun begins. You should have so much offensive and defensive value with your level lead that contesting Soul is outright suicide.

If you just used second Rift to get that inhib, wait patiently in the mexican standoff until someone is forced to back to save nexus turrets. Then you can take it for free.

It is unlikely that the enemy team will attempt to trade it for Baron so early in the game. Not many compositions can manage it quickly enough to avoid being stopped in time. If they do, send your team to harass and contest it while you take Soul on your own. Remember, Baron is temporary, but Soul is eternal. If it comes down to it, prioritize Soul.

The all-important Baron Nashor

Alright, so buckle down, as I have a LOT to say here. Whoever gets the first Baron is usually able to build an insurmountable lead with the amount of map pressure it offers. As the jungler, you have the most say on your team as to how to approach this objective.

Don't randomly start Baron assuming you won't be caught. This is a great way to throw your lead. If you're wrong, your whole team will be down cooldowns and health, which may force you to concede it and will definitely lose you vision, making it very difficult to approach the area. Or it could be outright stolen away. This is a needless risk.

Instead, always starve out vision, lie in wait, and look for picks. A little bit of patience will let you set up no-win scenarios for the enemy, making sure that nothing can possibly go wrong and you're able to close out the game nice and clean. If you got an inhibitor with second Rift, again, wait for someone to back and then start it to force a 4v5 fight. ALWAYS TURN on them when they walk in range in this scenario and NEVER attempt to finish the Baron right in front of them.

The pit should always have a Control Ward in it at this stage in the game. Drop wards over the back of the pit and all over topside jungle to watch for people attempting to check Nashor. Any singular target who tries should be doomed. Most teams will just concede Baron 4v5, especially if they are behind. If they smartly group up and check as a team with the tanks in front, you're able to initiate on your terms and should easily win the fight.

If most of the enemy team is across the map in bot lane (say, chasing down your splitpusher), ping and start Baron immediately. Use your ult. Your fire patch will do upwards of 2000 damage to the Baron on its own, potentially buying your team the extra second they need to finish it and back off safely.

So long as your vision control is good, you may choose to duo sneak it with a suitable percent damage carry while your team holds their attention in a lane. This is where Riftmaker comes in handy, as the extra omnivamp will keep you topped off to tank it indefinitely. You must ensure neither of you are seen pathing to it and should only go for it if many people are bot side, especially their support. At higher ranks opportunities for this become few and far between, but keep it in mind if their vision lapses at a crucial moment.

You may even look to solo it with this build, but this takes most of a minute to accomplish and needs to be done very carefully. Look to start it while your team has mid priority and tell them to rotate towards Baron when it is below half life to finish it. This will catch the enemy team completely off guard and won't give them any time to respond before Baron dies. Trying to solo it from full to dead on your own is very risky and can go wrong quick unless your vision control of the area is immaculate and you have a massive lead as a team.

NEVER 50/50 BARON unless you are massively behind and in a do or die moment. This is also called "Flipping" the Baron. Don't flip it. This ain't Wendys. Whereas you will have your attention split between the enemy’s positioning and Baron’s health, the enemy jungler will be laser focused on the latter. Additionally, you will more often than not be tanking the thing, reducing your damage and making it much easier to outsmite you. I don’t care if their jungler is the only one alive (or someone like Lux who is capable of Smite-level burst) and your team is perfectly healthy. Spam danger pings, park the Baron at 3000 life, starve out their vision, force them to guess, kill them for free, and THEN finish the Baron. There is absolutely no sense in risking such a stupid way to throw the game. Ping like absolute crazy and keep your team on a short leash. Run out of the damn pit to show them how serious you are if you need to. Making absolutely sure that your team does nothing stupid with Baron is enough to gain substantial amounts of ELO all on its own.

If you lose control over the area and the enemy team starts it, remember that you are one of the best champions in the game at contesting Baron. You have free access to the backline while their meatballs are tanking the worm. On top of that, the geography of the pit forces said backline to clump together to do damage. A fire patch on the entrance will force carries to corner themselves or take tons of damage. This is absolutely ideal for you. Even with a lower AP bruiser setup, you may be able to prevent their Baron all on your own if you hit more than one carry. These clips are old and with a glass build, but should still give you an idea of what I mean here:

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If your team just got picked or lost a fight and you have to go it alone, approach from a direction that they are unlikely to have warded for best results. At higher ranks, they will have someone threatening running interference most of the time, usually a bruiser or tanky CC support, so it may be hard or impossible to find a good angle onto the soft targets. In those cases, or if you arrive too late to discourage through kill pressure, it may be worth orbiting around the area and finding an opportunity for a steal attempt. Begin your Dragon's Descent at 2000-2500 health depending on their DPS.

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Baron Siege

If the game gets to this point, it is likely already over. Your siege potential is absolutely absurd. A single hit on a soft target will make their inhibitor absolutely indefensible. Once they've been forced to back off, the AP scaling behind Twin Bite will practically one hit their structures.

If possible, wait patiently for long range CC to land then fire away on whoever was dumb enough to get caught. You can't miss a stunned target. If your team has no such ability, then you can just ult into range and look to chunk a carry or two. Look for and take advantage of clumps of enemies. It is common for people to huddle together while defending a siege if they aren't focused on something like Unstoppable Force. Punish this behavior. Take great care when doing this against hooks, long duration snares, and F--- You buttons like Nether Grasp. Your hitbox is massive while a dragon and you are very hard to miss.

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Once you have a defensive item and a Giant's Belt, you may choose to dive if you see a good opportunity to chunk multiple priority targets. You're tanky enough to take one hell of a beating. Don't just YOLO in alone though, make sure you have follow-up ready to go.

Splitpushing

The most recent buff to Twin Bite gave us even more absurd structure damage and makes opening the gates a real possibility. If you find an unattended turret, you can easily push the thing over by yourself in seconds. Just make sure you ward up and don't get collapsed on. In most cases, you should wait to split until Baron is off the table and Dragon's Descent is recharging. Getting your ult back by splitting in a side lane while the entire enemy team is marshaled to stop your Baron push is a very high value play since you contribute next to nothing to fights without it. This will also shove up another wave so that your team can take more than one inhib with your Baron push.

End methodically. DO NOT THROW!

Once you start cracking inhibitors with Baron, the game is yours to lose. The most dangerous thing at this point is greed. It turns out that greed is not, in fact, always good. Greed can be wrong. Greed does not always work. G2 can attest to this! Make sure to retreat 5 seconds before dead champions start spawning to not get run down and killed by their homeguard movement speed. Don't lose the war of attrition to the fountain either and find yourselves poked to half life without cooldowns and no way out. Even a huge lead can be thrown away like this.

Play it smart. Get your ult back and then regroup to knock down another inhib. Then get the last one. 1-3-1 with Baron is a fantastic strategy with a lead that can take their entire base in one fell swoop as long as the enemy has no hard engage.

Once 2 or 3 inhibitors have been taken, Elder should be spawning soon, with the second Baron soon afterward. It is impossible to contest Elder and Baron with 2-3 inhibitors down. Even with an intact base, having one nearly guarantees getting the other. By contrast, if your team miraculously loses a fight while they're both up, suddenly it's YOU who are at death's door. Do not risk this and simply wait patiently, take them both off the map, then make your last death push. It takes talent to lose the game with both Baron and Elder. Ryoma still managed it. Don't be Ryoma. Be better.

Super Late Game (30:00 to end)

just kill them 4head

Seriously, this build is DISGUSTING at 5-6 items. Like, looney tunes level absurd. Jump in and GO RAWR!

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And that about covers it!

After entirely too long, I think I've run out of things to say. This ended up being way more involved than my mid lane guide, no surprise as jungle is the more tactical role. As much as I said, though, there really is no substitute for experience; it's by far the toughest to master and there are way too many potential scenarios for me to ever go over. However, these strategies and timings should be a great starting point. They've gotten me to the top of Diamond II so far, so I must be doing something right! A bit less tiltyness and fewer mistakes and I'll claw up to Master this season for sure.

Anyway, I hope this guide was helpful, and hope you take my teachings and charge up the ladder with them. Shyvana is incredibly strong right now, and she should serve you well in your climb!

Remember, kills don't matter, objectives DO.

Now get out there and absorb that Dragon Soul!