My message to readers:


Warning:

Can I play just one build?


Warning:

AP vs AD?


Full AP vs AP Bruiser?


Example:

Which runes do I take?

Can I take other keystones?

Favorite Secondary Combos:

Currently, Treasure Hunter is a very strong rune and is being taken by most junglers. In higher ranks, try to match the enemy jungler's tempo by grabbing Eyeball Collection and Treasure Hunter.

You can take any combination of the suggested runes above. Try them all out and find your own favorites.

Which Jungle Pet?

When to not take Flash?

Treat your auto attack as an ability because it is the center piece of Shyvana's kit. Always remember to auto attack because it interacts with all of your abilities.

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What should I max?

The two ways of playing full AP:

Nashor's Tooth is great for increasing clear speed and melee dueling power. Can be sold for another damage item in the late game.

Mejai's Soulstealer gives a lot of AP for how cheap it is. Always try to buy this item if you are not dying a lot. Works great with Shyvana's high AP ratios. 🟨

Cosmic Drive gives a lot of ability haste and helps a lot when playing in closer range. The passive is easily proc'd when jumping in. 🟨

Rabadon's Deathcap is the best damage item for AP Shyvana. Can be purchased early if snowballing but the expensive build path makes it difficult to buy early in most games. 🟨

Void Staff is a necessity if the enemies are building magic resistance items. Shyvana's high magic damage benefits a lot from this item. 🟨

Horizon Focus can provide a huge boost to damage but should be bought later on as other damage items are higher priority.

Zhonya's Hourglass is a great situational item if you are getting focused by unavoidable damage. This item's value scales with how well you use it so avoid buying it if you are not good at using it.

Shadowflame is a great situational item to get more magic penetration for targets with low magic resistance.

Morellonomicon should be avoided if possible. You provide way more by dealing damage than being utility. However, sometimes this is not a choice but a necessity.

Banshee's Veil is a very rare legendary on Shyvana. Only buy this if you need the MR and you need to prevent getting engaged on.

Which items to prioritize? Buy in what order?

1st	2nd	3rd	4th	5th
Nashor's
Mythic
	Cosmic Drive & Rabadon's
		Mejai's
			Void & Horizon & Shadowflame
	Zhonya's & Morellonomicon & Banshee's

The two ways of playing AD Shyvana:

Most AD builds will buy a Blade of the Ruined King as the first item in the build. Although this is the most popular choice, it is definitely not a necessity. Some players will choose to rely on their Flame Breath and auto attack + Twin Bite damage along with items that give AD and sturdiness. Other players enjoy playing on-hit, relying on Burnout to stick on to enemies and kill with auto attacks.

Blade of the Ruined King is the king of DPS items for Shyvana and it scales as enemies build more health. This is usually a rush item but it can be purchased later as a situational damage item. 🟨

Titanic Hydra is another great damage item due to its on-hit effect. It scales with health so it becomes stronger as you build more items. 🟨

Wit's End is the go-to magic resistance item. It greatly increases your combat power as it gives a lot of damage and movement speed upon attacking. 🟨

Sterak's Gage is a high value AD bruiser item on Shyvana. The shield that it provides will help you survive many fights granted that you are playing around the cooldown.

Dead Man's Plate is great at helping you reach slippery targets as it gives you movement speed and your next auto attack slows at full stacks.

Death's Dance gives incredible value when playing into heavy AD comps. Great at stopping AD burst from one shotting you.

Gargoyle Stoneplate is a great last item to round out builds. The shield it gives scales with how much bonus health you have so don't buy it too early.

Guardian Angel is for when you are forced to engage for your team. Can be really good paired with Ingenious Hunter.

Randuin's Omen is the go-to tank item versus heavy crit comps. Active is an additional source of crowd control.

Thornmail is the go-to tank item versus fast attack speed comps. Finish this item for the passive and not the healing reduction.

Spirit Visage is the best MR tank option if you have healing on your team. Also synergizes well with Sterak's Gage and Gargoyle Stoneplate as it will increase the shields.

Force of Nature is the go-to MR tank option if you are getting bursted vs spellcasters.

Anathema's Chains is a great cheap item if there is an enemy that is particularly fed. Gains maximum value if your team has good CC.

What about the other boots?
AD Shyvana's boots are actually incredibly flexible. I've personally tried Berserker's Greaves, Ionian Boots of Lucidity, and Boots of Swiftness. They all seem to be decent but buying the tankier options is usually the way to go.

Which items to prioritize? Buy in what order?

1st	2nd	3rd	4th	5th
Mythic Item
BoRK
Frostfire & Divine
	Titanic & Wit's
		Sterak's & DMP
			Death's & GA & Randuin's
				Spirit & FoN
				Gargoyle
		Bramble & Thornmail & Anathema's

Demonic Embrace is a core item in this build. Not only does it provide a lot of survivability but it also gives a lot of damage as the item synergizes extremely well with Shyvana's kit. 🟨

Cosmic Drive is one of the best items in this build because of the ability haste and movement speed provided. Both stats are incredible on Shyvana. 🟨

Warmog's Armor is great for keeping you on the map without having to recall. If possible, during teamfights, play around the passive and benefit from the heal.

Anathema's Chains is bought when there is a particularly fed enemy or when enemy team has very uneven damage composition (something like 4 AD champions + 1 AP champion, so you don't have to waste gold buying MR for 1 person).

Thornmail is a great item versus auto attackers. Not only does it make you tankier but it also provides some healing reduction and damage.

Randuin's Omen is the go-to anti-crit tank item. Do not forget to use the active if bought. The slow will allow you to stick on to the enemy.

Abyssal Mask gains maximum value with building more HP and having magic damage on your team. The MR reduction is great for your high magic damage.

Force of Nature is the go-to item to counter high magic damage dps. You will feel invicible vs. mages with this item and it also provides some movespeed which is an important stat for Shyvana.

Gargoyle Stoneplate should be built last or second to last because of how it scales with your bonus HP. It provides great resistances and a gigantic shield that can make you a reliable engage and bait out enemy spells.

Zhonya's Hourglass is an item that scales with the player's skill. A lot of value can be derived if used correctly. Great at avoiding skills and allowing your own skills to come off cooldown.

Rabadon's Deathcap is always a good item on Shyvana because of the high AP scaling she has. If you have a big lead, Rabadon's will almost always snowball your way to victory.

Void Staff is a situational item for when the enemy team is buying lots of MR. Because AP Bruiser is completely reliant on magic damage usually, MR can be really effective vs Shyvana.

Blade of the Ruined King can sometimes be bought if you realize your team is lacking physical damage and the enemy team is stacking MR. If the enemy team is not high health then you can even opt for a Titanic Hydra.

Which items to prioritize? Buy in what order?

1st	2nd	3rd	4th	5th
Demonic
	Radiant
		Titanic
		Damage Options
		Tanky Options
		Gargoyle or Zhonya's

What are my jungling responsibilities?


Warning:

Track the enemy jungler



Know the lane states



Neutral objective timers



Enemy vision

Ganking‎‎ is the first thing that comes to mind when people thinking jungling. Look for overextende‎‎d laners, lack of vision, lack of summoners.

Farming jungle camps is the safest way of obtaining gold and experience. While you are farming jungle camps, look for plays to make.

Securing objectives will almost always lead you to a win. Objectives are much higher in value and securing them results in long term benefits.

Clearing vision is also another jungler's job as you roam the map. If you have access to a sweeper, eliminating vision can be a really impactful jungle play.

Putting down wards as the jungler is important because you roam the map with access to good warding spots. Vision provides more knowledge for you to make plays off of.

Counter-ganking requires more information than a gank. If the enemy jungler is likely to gank due to your laner being overextended then this play can be devastating for the enemy team.

Diving is a type of gank where the enemy is under their turret. These plays should be executed quickly as it can be turned around easily due to the turret.

Holding the wave is crucial if your laner decides to recall or die, leaving a sizable amount of gold and experience to be soaked up.

Pushing the wave is another lane play that is higher level. If your laner needs to recall and does not have the resource to push out the wave then this may be a play.

Counter-jungling is simply taking camps from the enemy jungler. Beware of potential vision at entrances when you enter the enemy jungle.

Which jungle path to take?

What to do when invaded?

Objective:

In the early game, Shyvana aims to control the jungle camps and dragon objective while not giving up too much map presence. Remaining at least even with the enemy jungler in terms of experience and gold in this stage usually means that you have the advantage.

Prevent an invade by spotting out champions on the enemy team that are likely to invade. Usually champions with hooks like Blitzcrank and Nautilus or long-range cc spells like Olaf and Swain are looking for level 1 invades. You may drop an early ward at the jungle entrance to spot these out. Try to avoid a fight against these invades as Shyvana's level 1 is quite weak.



Utilize your trinket to prevent any early game disasters. There are a few ways I like to use my early trinkets. The most common one is to drop a Stealth Ward at 1:15 on the buff I am not starting at. Or placing a ward at ~1:20 at the entrance of the buff I am starting at to spot out late invades. You can also save the ward and choose to drop 2 wards for your team after full clearing your jungle. This can really prevent your team from dying to ganks. I always swap to a Oracle's Lens after the first recall.


Choose your pathing based on the jungle matchup and the lane matchups. You may do the same full clear every game but if you are looking to become a better jungler, you need to switch things up. In general, try to path towards lanes with good gank setups as Shyvana only provides damage. Also try to path away from junglers that win 1v1's against you.



Tracking the enemy jungler is an essential skill for Shyvana players. Being able to ping out potential ganks can help you secure a good early game and avoid losing the game outright. Try to ping at least 3 times to get your teammates' attention. The video below will give you a good idea what it means to track the enemy jungler.



Prioritize reaching level 6 as fast as possible because this is a big power spike for Shyvana. A lot of games are lost due to being stuck at level 5 for too long. Look for waves to hold/push to accelerate the hitting level 6. First dragon will give you about one camp's worth of experience. It is usually not worth to lose 2 camps over the first dragon.


Take a dragon aggressively to fully take advantage of your passive. Try to bring an Oracle's Lens or a Control Ward to make sure enemies are not in the know. Be careful losing camps on the other side of the map to counter-jungling as the enemy team is alerted once the dragon is killed. In the clip, I aggressively go for a dragon at spawn with the only risk of dying as no other camps are on the map. Let your team know if you want them to come help or stay away to not giveaway the play.



Punish enemy laners that are over-extended or have Flash on cooldown. This is usually a guaranteed kill if have taken enemy counter-play into account (look for potential counter-ganks or Teleports). Red buff or Chilling Smite almost always will turn these opportunities into easy reward.

Importance:

Make sure you are doing all of the things suggested down below during ganks because of how weak Shyvana's ganks are. If we don't try our best to maximize our ganking success rate, it can greatly hurt our chances of winning the game. This section is about how to execute a gank after spotting it out.

Count crowd controls

Look at all the CC between you and your laners. On Shyvana, you may have a red buff, Exhaust, Chilling Smite, or slows from items such as Iceborn Gauntlet or Stridebreaker. If there are no crowd controls between you and the laner, then only consider a gank if the enemy is way over-extended or at very low health.


Communicate with pings

The general rule is to always ping at least three "on the way" pings. Laners are usually not even looking at the mini-map and if they don't know the gank is coming, there is a big chance of it failing. Try not to ping too early or too late. If you walk on top of vision and decide to back out, use your "area is warded" and "caution" pings to notify your team. This is a very important detail as it can become a disaster if your team engages when you've already decided to back off.


Be patient for ganks

Most ganks require the jungler to wait for the right moment outside of vision in order for the gank to be successful. Do not mindlessly walk into a lane when ganking. There are signals to watch out for. Enemies usually will walk up further in a lane when killing a cannon minion or returning a trade. Watch for abilities being used and spring out of vision as soon as it happens. Every single fraction of the second matters in a gank.

In the clip below, I knew LeBlanc wants to push out the wave and is going to use Distortion. I wait for her to use the ability before jumping out immediately.



How to use your spells

Once you are in the vision of the enemy, try to path towards their path of escape instead of directly to them. Once you are in Burnout range(meaning you are close enough to the enemy target to activate Burnout and walk to them and auto them to extend the duration), activate your W and lead with crowd control.

It is much easier to hit a human fireball in close range than it is from afar. If the enemy is immobilized then you may use Flame Breath as it is ensured to hit. DO NOT throw the fireball randomly as it is a big part of your damage for ganks. If you don't have any reliable crowd control and the enemy champion has decent mobility then simply don't use fireball and go for auto attack + Twin Bite and chase with auto attacks instead. There is a channel time on Flame Breath and sometimes this will lose you kills if you use it without having the movespeed from Burnout to chase afterwards. Sometimes it's better to save the fireball as a finisher once the target is outside of your auto range.


Example #1:




Example #2:




Counter-gank Example:

Objective:

In the mid game, Shyvana aims to control vision around the map for easy objectives and picks onto the enemy team. In the meanwhile, taking camps off both sides of the map with her incredible clear speed. Also fully utilizing the ability to quickly charge up your ultimate after fights to outpace the enemies and completely depriving them of resources.

Eliminate enemy vision

Shyvana's kit allows her to clear out multiple wards with just one usage of sweeper. This can provide extremely high value if you are able to track where the enemy support has put down wards. Try to not use your Oracle's Lens randomly and keep an eye on the enemy support's ward item as there is a number showing how many wards are available.

Learn the common ward spots and sweep them all out by using auto + Twin Bite to one shot wards and using Burnout to go from ward to ward. You can also do this with the support's sweeper by walking with them while they are establishing vision on the map.



Leave no camps nor waves behind

Continue to farm the map because Shyvana is heavily reliant on gold/items and is quite good at farming camps. Do not limit yourself to only your side of the map. If you control the vision well or time your skirmishes effectively, you can safely counter-jungle the enemy.

A lot of the times, players forget or fail to recognize minion waves they can clear. Don't let these opportunities slip by!


Skirmish in the sidelanes

By targeting one of the sidelanes, you are playing to Shyvana's strengths. She excels at smaller fights and can quickly recharge her ultimate afterwards if there are camps on the map to auto attack. Sometimes you may keep a Gromp camp alive before going for a fight. This is so you can quickly recharge (Gromp grants 20 fury upon killing it) to use ultimate again.

Be careful fighting right before an objective is spawning as you may be left without fury to use Dragon's Descent for the objective fight. Most kills are not worth losing an objective over.



Target the objectives

Do not take this point lightly. You can win many games if you simply focus on grabbing dragons and leading that into a dragon soul even if you are not jungling particularly well. Shyvana is able to do objectives quickly due to Flame Breath-marked auto attacks.

If you see enemies committed too hard to one side of the map, do not hesitate to ping your team to grab an objective even if it's a baron. However, learn when to give up an objective when you know a fight simply cannot be won. Try to set up a different play on the other side of the map.

Securing the objectives

If you can't secure objectives with your Smite then there is no point controlling the objectives. For AP Shyvana, the best way to secure an objective is usually through Flame Breath + Smite or Dragon's Descent + Smite. These high damaging abilities make it really easy to secure. For AD Shyvana, you usually want to combo Smite with a Flame Breath marked Twin Bite.



Destroy the turrets

Ultimately, the mid game is about cracking the enemy base open. Shyvana's kit makes her a strong turret killer and even more so if you build the items for it. Her auto attack + Twin Bite and reduced Q cooldown on each auto makes her a turret destroyer.

Items like Trinity Force, Elixir of Sorcery, and building AP in general can accelerate how fast you drop a turret. Do not underestimate this strength! Split pushing and backdooring are both in your playbook for the mid game.

General Notes:

In the above clip, Nocturne starts an engage with Paranoia. I immediately jump back into my team to safety and avoid a Charm. Seeing that the enemy is desperate to follow up on the Nocturne's engage, I turn around around place a Flame Breath in the path to deter them. My team provides some safety as they are the ones being focused and I decide to land a Twin Bite and some auto attacks. The enemies become clumped up so I place another fireball in the choke point. I walk back to wait for my cooldowns and decide to auto attack the raptors to maintain my fury and then drop another fireball from the distance and out of vision. I see the enemy are low enough for me to finish it off with my Burnout movespeed and remaining fireballs.

For full AP builds, fights are usually led with an ultimate. Below are some tips focused on using ultimate.


Using ultimate to hit even one person can be very worth it. Look for stragglers on the side for this opportunity.

Most of your damage is in your Flame Breath due to its high ratio and low cooldown.

In the above clip, I arrive to the fight a little late but I find Lux completely exposed. Knowing that the Lux was fed this game, I decided to fully commit on chasing her down. AD Shyvana is very good at 1v1 in this kind of situation. I lead with Dragon's Descent as I wanted to jump on her while she is trying to deal damage to my team. After ultimatek, I use auto attack + Twin Bite to proc Blade of the Ruined King and Press the Attack. I utilize my Flash to chase after her flash. Seeing Gangplank coming to help her, I save the fireball to hit both of them at once and finished off the Gangplank with auto attacks and a Twin Bite.

For AD Shyvana builds, the primary source of your damage is coming from auto attacks and Twin Bite.


Sometimes you can get more damage off by not using Flame Breath. This is something that you will have to learn the hard way but shooting a fireball has a cast time and locks you at one location. This may allow the target to escape from your auto range where you could have landed 2~3 more auto attacks that would do more damage than your fireball.

In the below clip, I see Thresh and Ahri going for the engage so I decide to lead with Dragon's Descent to get into range. I quickly finish off a target with auto attack + Twin Bite and placed a fireball for some damage. As my spells are on cooldown, I walk back and wait a bit before committing fully to the fight. I spot out a good fireball onto two targets and kill Morgana with it. Chilling Smite and Nimbus Cloak gives me enough speed to chomp the Viktor. I continue to chase down Jinx as I have Burnout and red buff running. 1v1's are usually no problem for Shyvana.

In the above clip, I spot out a straggler in Fiora. I lead with Dragon's Descent and auto attack + Twin Bite. I hold the Flame Breath as I know Riposte can block it. The enemy team does not understand this build's tankiness and decides to jump in on me. I find a fireball onto three targets and realized that the Jinx needed to die first. As my fireball comes off cooldown, we land another multi-target fireball and finish the fight with our AOE damage.

For the AP Bruiser build, your value is derived from being able to tank a lot of damage while playing off multiple rotations of your high base damage.

Objective:

Breaking the nexus is obviously the ultimate objective in the game. How you get to that step may look very different from game to game. Continue with the ideas from the mid game section (maybe link) but with an added focus of deeper map control through vision and turret destruction.

There aren't specific tricks to ending the game as Shyvana but in this section we discuss what it looks like to end the game as Shyvana.

The typical end:

The normal way to ending the game is usually by overpowering the enemy in terms of gold/stats. With this, you gain more favorable fighting opportunities hence the ability to pressure vision and objective control. This opens up more picking opportunities, better fights, and faster rotations. As you break down turrets methodically, the enemy team will have to surrender map control and eventually the super minions will overwhelm them into a nexus-breaking push.

Deeper vision for map control

To get better opportunities such as picks and good teamfights, you will need deeper vision. Not only does this mean wards deeper in enemy jungle but also pushing back enemy vision. Luckily, Shyvana is great at eliminating vision! There is a limit to how many wards and sweepers we have so we try to only control the vision on the side we are play on. For example, if we are trying to fight for a baron buff, we would try to control the vision around this particular objective. Doing this successfully will severely limit what the enemy team can do.


Continue looking for picks

With the added vision control, picks should be easier and more common. Shyvana excels at picking with Dragon's Descent and her high damage burst. Once you pick off an enemy, pressure the enemy team with a play. While the death timer is ticking, you outnumber the enemy so pick a play from the playbook in the mid game section and pressure!



Objectives win games

With the vision control, highly prioritize these objectives!



Outers to inners

Usually you want to destroy turrets layer by layer. This means that you should try to destroy turrets of the same tier before you go deeper. This is not always true but a good rule to help you end games most consistently as the turrets dictate where the enemies can walk to.


Sieging


In the above clip, a typical siege for AP Shyvana occurs. First, clear the vision around the turret you are sieging. Second, use Dragon's Descent to get into dragon form in fog of war. Drop a fireball onto the squishy targets and then run the enemy team down!


Splitpushing

Splitpushing is a strategy Shyvana can take advantage of. She is very good at destroying turrets and 1v1's. If coordinated correctly with your team, this is a reliable way to end the game.

SECTION IS WORK-IN-PROGRESS

Disclaimer:

The preferred items for each champion is simply a rough guideline. Item builds should revolve around not just the enemy composition but your own as well. The preferred items are simply good items to start with if you are looking to counter the champion.

Whether or not you can win a scuttle fight depends heavily on landing Flame Breath. If you miss this ability, most even and winning matchups will become losing ones.

Index:

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