Updated from season 5 to season 8. What a trip.

Hey guys. My summoner name is Jynsin, I stream on http://www.twitch.tv/honeyfruitgaming regularly and will be posting videos on the HFG youtube channel in time. This in-depth guide is designed for anyone Bronze to Diamond looking to climb the ladder with the teleporting ninja, Shen, Eye of the Twilight. He's a flippin ninja with amazing map control potential, team fighting presence and an all around fun and efficient top laner. Beware of queing with Kennen and Akali, however, supposedly their secret passive will decrease all of their base health by 1 when in a game together. Ninjas work better alone. (but Shen actually really needs his team)

Pros:
-Shen has a couple dope swords and looks like Sub zero
(Sub Zero)
-You have the best map presence in the game (arguably)
-Laning and team fighting phases are exceptional and dueling is surprisingly powerful
-Full rotation of abilities for skirmishing with almost no cost
-Tank for days
-Ultimate is the biggest shield you may ever see
-Can teleport across the map by pushing R
-Can taunt an entire team and not get blown up (so much better than Rammus)
-Does excessive amounts of magic damage with the right items
-Can also support and jungle

Cons:
-He can be kited easily when taunt is down
-Gets outscaled by hyper carries
-Is team reliant for damage
-Can carry, but it's pretty hard
-Losing lane prevents a lot of play making
-Generally a secondary professional choice to a more classic tank such as Maokai or whoever is OP in the meta. Great in soloque though!

Doran's Shield is wonderful in most situations. Doran's Shield is nice against heavy poke like a Pantheon with a corrupting or a Gnar or a Rumble. Boots is kinda a possible start to look for safe play and roaming, or to avoid skillshots, but Doran's Shield is much more efficient in lane.

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Armor Options:
Sunfire Aegis I love sunfire on Shen. He forces enemies to stay within melee range and take 40 magic damage per second, Sunfire is a must for split pushing and wave clearing and even dueling. However, the tiamat meta has a way of pushing this item out in favor of more defensive choices.

Randuin's Omen is a great item. It has a nice chunk of health and armor, a slow active, and an attack speed slow passive on hit, meaning if you land taunt you automatically reduce an attackers attack speed. I would get this item against a heavy AD team or fed AD crit or attack speed champions to help peel for your carries and add survivability.

Thornmail Great against most ADC's and for dueling, but the trade-off is the near insignificant health pool.

Deadman's Plate This item is pretty powerful on Shen. If you need the extra armor it stacks incredibly well with Trinity Force for burst damage and has more health than Randuin's Omen. It also helps Shen land those nasty game winning taunts with the movement speed.

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Magic Resist Options:
Spirit Visage A great item on Shen, mostly because of the passive and CDR. 10% cooldown will help massively with map presence on ultimate, dueling, and peeling in team fights, while the passive increases sustain with natural regeneration and item regeneration.

Adaptive Helm Useful against champions like Corki or Katarina that just hit a lot of seperate times, or champions like Rumble or Ziggs that want to wear you down.

Wit's End The icing on the cake with Sunfire Aegis and Thornmail. Attack Speed for more Twilight Assault proccs, On hit magic damage, and you steal magic resist to increase the damage of everything but your physical auto attacks. Not to mention increasing your APC's damage. Still, Shen is but a tank and this is but a damage item. Be careful not to bite off more damage than you can chew.

Abyssal Mask I rarely ever get this item. It is most utilized against heavy AP with a heavy AP team. Or on gimmick AP Shen.

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Damage:
Trinity Force Trinity Force is almost a perfect damage item for Shen. The Mana is wasted. Otherwise this item maximizes his kit, makes him more bursty with spellblade on Sheen, and prevents kiting with rage on Phage and the movement from Zeal. Unfortunately, often you will need to build tank instead of damage to be a sponge for your team.

Blade of the Ruined King If you're super fed, aren't taking much damage, and you feel that your team needs the extra damage output, Bork is good for anti-kiting and dealing fat loads of damage. That being said, I don't think I've ever built it in a competitive game.

Frozen Mallet While the extra damage and health are great, this is more of a CC choice. This item is good for catching the enemies carries and preventing escape, or even peeling for your teammates. Taunt and right click to watch the magic happen.

Titanic Hydra This item is for if you're fed and stacks well with Deadman's Plate and it seems Sterak's Gage.

Sterak's Gage It's Okay. Shen needs to take a lot of hits and not worry about dealing damage as much. I suppose its viable if you're trying to snowball and you could use tenacity and a damage boost, but the shield will not be as useful as a real defensive item.

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Guardian Angel This item is when you end up as the carry (dealing a lot of damage and being the main assassin on your team), and everyone focuses you. You might be surprised how easy it is to jump into 5 people and kill the enemy ADC when you have 15+ kills. Also slightly troll and you should never have that many kills in Plat + as Shen.

Warmog's Armor If you have decent resistances and armor and the enemy team has evenly keeled damages or simply isn't hurting all that much warmog's will make you extremely difficult to kill. The out of combat regeneration is best used for teams that like to skirmish or poke i.e. Nidalee, Jayce, Zoe. It's also useful against pesky champions like Darius and Master Yi that do a lot of true damage (if you already have Randuin's and/or thornmail).

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Items Not To Get:
Nashor's Tooth This item has AP, attack speed, Cooldown Reduction AND on hit magic damage?! Well it's a bad idea. It's so frickin expensive, the build path is still whack, and it provides absolutely zero tanking or sustain minus a slight boost in DPS.

Berserker Greaves You may be tempted to buy these shoes for the lols and maybe the Twilight Assault. Well don't, you will always have a great use for one of the two defensive boot choices. Always

Zhonya's Hourglass You never want to be immune. It takes you out of the fight and prevents you from tanking as a tank

Statikk Shiv Again, not an adc. This item has one purpose, damage. (and maybe kiting with the movement)

Rapid Firecannon Just..why...

Phantom Dancer At this point I think it goes without saying.

Icebourne Gauntlet It's not horrible. It really isn't. Its just not good enough on Shen considering you pay for sooooo much mana and that's a good portion of its value.

Ultimate is always priority on every champion.
Max Twilight Assault first for massive damages and skirmishing.
Max Taunt second for escape, chase, intiate, damage even, and lols.
Max Spirit's Refuge last. Its an amazing and unique ability, but leveling it up only reduces the cooldown. Most of the time you only need it once anyways and dropping it from 18 seconds to 11 isn't really worth it.

Flash is my favorite and in season 8, who doesn't take flash? Flash taunting enemies is beyond golden in laning and team fights, especially after using your ultimate.
Teleport Most Shen players should also take teleport for maximum map control. You can be top, then bot, then mid and win fights in all three lanes in under 20 seconds.
Exhaust is beyond situational. Take it if you really have no confidence in winning lane or making plays and think you'll just end up being a peel machine.

Farming is the bread and butter of the top laner. Twilight Assault allows for easy last hitting. Like most champions, wait till a full health melee takes 2 tower shots and auto attack it. Unlike most champions, Shen can secure all 3 backline minions after 1 tower shot without prepping it using Twilight Assault. Feel free to also use Spirit's Refuge to block some punishment when you want to pick up some risque minions. don't blow taunt willy nilly beyond the halfway point and keep river warded.

I put farming above laning because farming is SO important. Those were the basics how to farm, now I'll go over laning and the importance of farm while laning. Twilight Assault can be downright brutal if used effectively. There will come a time where you must decide, do I poke or do I farm? If I farm there will be trouble, but if I poke there will be double. Never give up creep score for poke. I have a bad habit of this because I am extremely aggressive most of the time and I like to go for kills. It is a mistake. If minions are worth 20 gold each (not entirely accurate just a perspective point), 10 minions is 200 gold. 20 minions is 400. 40 minions is 800 gold not including siege. Late game minions are worth even more! Early game they're indeed worth less, but most of the game they will be worth around 20. Siege are around 40. 1 Kill is about 300 gold. If you sacrifice farm time and time again to poke, those numbers add up and you're hurting yourself. Don't be afraid to Twilight Assault for a creep. It doesn't cost anything that won't be back in a few seconds. While Twilight Assault is effective poke, depending on the champion Shadow Dash Twilight Assault and Spirit's Refuge while using Grasp of the Undying to out trade and denitiate is tremendous poke in most situations. Be careful early game, however, diving behind the enemy minions will make you take unnecessary loads of damage after you basic attack and aggro them. While laning always watch the map. For an ult, for a gank, for a teleport, watch your wards, warn your allies. You never know what they see and don't see, so it's up to you to show them. Buying wards is also a key part of laning phase that almost all low ELO players do not do. Pink wards can last for an entire 30 minute game for only 75 gold. They have the potential to be the single most useful item in Summoner's Rift. Buy one and it will usually die, but it will often be well worth it. Plus it reveals whatever wards are nearby. And Mushrooms. And Jack In The Box. And Stealthed characters(sometimes :/ )

Shen is the empitome of teamwork. A great ult could literally win a game, but it's super easy to ult ineffectively. Lets go by ability.
Twilight Assault In team fights, you will often taunt the enemy carries, Twilight Assault through them, and right click till your mouse breaks. And pop your basic attack block to deflect punishment. If there's no chance of you killing a carry, focus on peeling with your taunt and slow on twilight assault whilst weaving in autos when you can.
Spirit's Refuge Don't pop it too early, don't pop it in a bad position, be aware of what champions can and WILL auto attack who and when they will plan on doing it. A good spirit's refuge can negate 5000 damage, a bad one can lose you a teamfight. Generally it is best to provide a safe haven for your teammates near the enemy ADC.
Shadow Dash can be even more useful than your ultimate in some situations. Try to land it on as many enemy champions as you can, but prioritize APC's and ADC's. You get a refund of 40 energy per champion hit, plus a refund of 5 seconds on Ki Barrier, so if you think you will hit more than 2 champions know that your Ki barrier is essentially refunded. Flash taunting in team fights for the squishies will, with the right positioning and focus, blow them up instantly. Make sure to communicate which target to focus with your team and ping during fights. High level Shen mechanics dictate that taunting and then flashing is much harder to react to, but also much more difficult to pull off.
Stand United If you teleport onto a champion they will become much more difficult to kill. At level 16 your shield has 840 max base, and a 1.5 AP ratio. Ulting too late, however, will prevent you from even entering the fight if your ally dies. Ulting too early will just scare off the enemy team or otherwise prevent them from over committing. ALWAYS ping before you ultimate. ALWAYS. If you don't your teammate may attempt to run away from an easy fight and completely waste your ultimate and any summoners or abilities they may have used to aid their escape. Communication is key on Shen. More key than Ki Strike. (Rest in peace 2016 Shen)

This is my first Mobafire Guide, my summoner name is Jynsin, I've been playing league since 2010 and I've been off and on with Shen. Right now I honestly don't touch him much, but I have plenty of previous experience to make a guide. He is strong at the moment, I just don't main top anymore. He is also a great support and a decent jungler, and I may add sections on that in the future. He's super fun and I hope this guide helped all of its viewers in one way or another. If you have any suggestions, something I missed, or any errors feel free to comment. I appreciate any help from the community.