I'm NAPKEtheBLOODY2 and I'm usually somewhere in the Silver divisions, so I'm not a pro or anything. I used to have the top rated jungle Shen guide here on mobafire, but many changes to the jungle didn't favour our jungling ninja and the old guide got outdated. Season 4 jungle hit Shen pretty hard, but i feel with the new Feral Flare item Shen's back and stronger than ever!

I tried to keep this guide short and informative. I don't really know how to do all the flashy stuff, so I hope you won't downvote me for that.

Everyone likes to have a Shen as an ally, mostly because of his ult Stand United and his AoE Taunt Shadow Dash. His best position is in the jungle because he won't leave a lane undefended when he uses Stand United to aid his teammates. He had terrible jungle clear speed but with Feral Flare it has greatly improved. He can also spend more time in the jungle compared to other junglers because of the teleport utility from Stand United. He fits most team compositions nicely and has flexible build options.

Pros
- Stand United is great for making plays, counter ganks, split pushing and AFK farming
-AoE Taunt and dashing ability with Shadow Dash
-Makes very good use of Feral Flare
-Safe split pusher
-Very allround mix of utility, tankiness and damage

Cons
-Slow clears before Wriggle's Lantern
-Although Energy recharges fast, he often runs out in teamfights

In this build I focus on attack speed and health, because it works well with his passive Ki Strike. More health means more damage when it procs and more attack speed means it will proc often (also giving you more energy). Vorpal Blade also gives more healing with extra health you have and attack speed works well with on-hit effects from Feral Flare and Wit's End.

Cooldown reduction is also very nice to have because Stand United is available more often and you can use Shadow Dash more. I don't recommand focusing on cooldown reduction because shen runs out of energy fast.

- Ki Strike: A nice ability for extra damage and helps with energy management. It scales with health and attack speed helps it proc more often.

- Vorpal Blade: It's always nice to have a ranged ability on melee champions. It deals damage and gives sustain to anyone attacking the target. This can come in handy when doing important objectives such as baron and dragon. The healing effect scales with health and damage scales with a low AP ratio.

- Feint: It's a shield and shields are nice. It also reduces Ki Strike cooldown, so use it AFTER you proc it.

- Shadow Dash: A great ability but it costs a lot energy! It's a skillshot Dash which means you can use however you want. Learn which walls you can dash trough to increase your jungle clearing speed and make epic escapes. In fights use it to taunt important targets and as many as possible. The more targets you hit the more energy you get back so it's important that you hit it.

- Stand United: This is why everyone loves having Shen in their team. When a teammate is in trouble you can teleport to them from anywhere on the map in addition of giving them a huge shield. It allows your team to play more aggressive when it's off cooldown and it can really mess up enemy ganks. It also allows you to just farm the jungle; you can just press R when you are needed!

This part is almost identical in any jungle guide so I'll keep it short.

- Smite for faster jungling and securing objectives. Always pick this

- Flash is awesome for initiating and escaping fights

- Ghost is Flash' cousin but it has less of a suprise effect. Is very good on early ganks though.

- Mark of Attack Speed because it will proc Vorpal Blade and on-hit effects

- Seal of Scaling Armor because you need to be tanky. You have enough sustain in the jungle to choose these over the flat armor seals. With the recent changes scaling resistance runes start outdoing flat runes by lvl 6.

- Glyph of Magic Resist See above

- Quint of Movement Speed because it lets you cover distances faster which is good for jungle clear time, ganks and catching others.

Thse runes are optimal but Mark of Magic Penetration and Quint of Health will do fine as well. I wouldn't change the seals and glyphs for anything.

For masteries I choose to go 9/21/0. Regardles of how you play Shen, you will take damage. You have a bloody AoE taunt ability so you NEED to invest in the defense tree... The 9 points in offense increase your damage and jungle clear speed, however 9 points in utility give you movement speed, longer buff duration and you can use your summoner spells more often, which is also very nice. It's a matter of preference i guess.

Offense
- Fury : more attack speed? Yes please!
- Brute Force & Martial Mastery : for more damage. Shen's ap scalings are low
- Butcher : for faster jungle clears. I personally don't like Doube-edged Sword for tanks

Defense
- Enchanted Armor : You will build resistances
- Tough Skin : because jungle is tough
- Bladed Armor : because your early jungle clear time is slow and this helps
- Veteran Scars & Juggernaut : more health is good
- Oppression : Movement gets impaired a lot in teamfights and you have a taunt, 3% is huge
- Hardiness : Essential in the jungle
- Reinforced Armor : This helps you a lot late game versus the AD carry
- Swiftness & 1 in Resistance : Kind of my spare points. You could put them elsewhere if you prefer (probably Block )
- Legendary Guardian : Really adds up in teamfights. Nice free resistances (if you invested in Block put one point in Unyielding instead)
- Tenacious D

Utility
- Fleet of Foot: helps you cover ground
- Scout : Nice for scouting
- Summoner's Insight : More Smites and Flashes
- Runic Affinity : Shen utilizes both buffs well

Wriggle's Lantern vs Spirit of the Ancient Golem

-Wriggle's Lantern
Wriggle's Lantern used to be worthless outside the jungle, but can now upgrade to Feral Flare. Wriggle's Lantern provides some attack damage and attack speed, but also 100 on-hit magic damage on monsters and heals 10 health per hit. When wriggle upgrades to Feral Flare (after 25 big monster stacks), damage and attack speed increase slightly and the on-hit effect is fully applied to minions and for 33% to champions as well. This damage is also increased by 3 (1 v champions) for every big monster, kill and assist! It also gives you +30% gold from monsters and a free ward.

Therefore new wriggle is good for champions that
1. use auto attacks and like building attack speed
2. spend a lot of time farming in the jungle
3. farm fast

Shen likes attack speed and can spend a lot of time in the jungle because he can teleport to teamates with Stand United if he's needed. Also with Wriggle's and another attack speed item he clears the jungle pretty fast. Because the on-hit effect from Feral Flare also applies to minions it will make you a very fast split pusher, which Shen can do very well with Stand United.

-Spirit of the Ancient Golem
Spirit of the Ancient Golem is the best spirit item for Shen. It gives health, tenacity, some cooldown reduction, 30% increased damage and unique sustain v monsters and a clever extra gold mechanism.

It's good for champions that
1. Like health
2. Have no other viable means to get tenacity
3. Use abilities for jungle damage
4. Need the sustain (especially mana)

Shen only really likes the extra health. He has two vaible alternatives to get tenacity. His abilities do low damage and he has good sustain.

CONCLUSION: Wriggle's Lantern > Spirit of the Ancient Golem for Shen

Boots

- Ninja Tabi: Is great vs ad and 10% reduced damage form auto attacks can't be obtained in any other way
- Mercury's Treads: Gives some magic resist and also the rare tanicity effect
- Mobility Boots: Best boots for ganking and helps cover ground quickly. Many junglers use this but i dont think they're ideal for shen. He moves fast in the jungle with Shadow Dash already and he has Stand United to help him with (counter-)ganks.

Attack speed

- Wit's End: Awesome item in combination with Feral Flare. It greatly boosts attack speed and adds some nice magic damage on-hit. It also steals magic resist so the magic on-hit effects from Feral Flare and Wit's End itself in addition to your abilities are increased as well! Also privides some magic resist. Sometimes it's best to just build Recurve Bow, than Giant's Belt and finish it later.
Best attack speed item for this build and it's relatively cheap as well!

- Zephyr: Gives you some attack damage but greatly boosts attack speed. Also provides movement speed, some cooldown reduction and tenacity. All are very nice for Shen and allows more freedom in your boots choice.

- Blade of the Ruined King: Simply is an awesome item and very good for duelling other junglers. The active helps when ganking.

Health

- Randuin's Omen: Big health and armor increase. The passive slow effects works very well with taunt abilities such as our Shadow Dash and the active ensures your enemies are slowed after the taunt.

- Sunfire Aegis: It's the offensive alternative to Randuin's Omen. The magic damage is a nice addition to Wit's End and Feral Flare. The passive from Wit's boosts its damage slightly.

- Locket of the Iron Solari: My prefered Magic resist health item. It gives good health, magic resist and some cooldown reduction. The aura and active can also save your team. Nice for when you just used Stand United to save someone.

- Spirit Visage: The more selfish alternative for Locket. The increased healing passive is really nice for Shen, especially when you are building BotRK.

Other Choices

- Frozen Heart & Thornmail: These are situational but can really counter an auto-attack based team. The cooldown reduction of Frozen Heart is very nice though.

- Abyssal Mask: The magic resist is nice but the AP is mostly wasted. The aura can be helpful for your team but also for yourself if you decided to buy Feral Flare, Wit's End and Sunfire Aegis to deal tons of magic damage!

- Zeke's Herald: Some health and the cooldown reduction are nice. The aura is good for AD champions so it's an good option when they are doing well

- Warmog's Armor: Not much to say here. It's just big health. When you know you are going to build Thornmail this item gets interesting.

With Shen you have a lot of freedown in choosing your jungle path. I usually start at blue though. Blue buff also increases energy regeneration, so you can spam your abilities. One thing to keep in mind is that Shen isn't the best duelist early gank. Therefore should be careful for enemy invades. This should not be a huge problem because you are very sustained and can use Shadow Dash to escape if needed. Shen becomes a suprisingly good duelist once he has a few items and can hold invaders inplace long enough for teammates to help you out.

Farming
-Farming is easy. Use Vorpal Blade your target for sustain. If it's off cooldown again but your target is almost dead, trow it on you next target.
-Remember that Ki Strike cooldown gets lower with every auto attack, especially when you are using Feint. Therefore it's best to use Feint AFTER you used Ki Strike
-You can use Shadow Dash to go through almost every wall in the game. Use it to move fast between camps.
-Manage your energy and cooldown of Shadow Dash. You don't want to be in a situation where you need to save someone with Stand United and not be able to to much when you arrive. If you are expecting danger (when a fight might break out in a lane of when you are counter jungling), keep enough energy for Shadow Dash and you should be fine.
-If Stand United is off cooldown, you could choose to "AFK farm" the jungle. This means you focus on farming the jungle, instead of actively ganking for your team. With Stand United you can quickly to your team's aid if needed. Because we buy Wriggle's Lantern we want to farm as much a possible, so this is a viable strategy.

Ganking
-Shen is also a pretty good ganker. If you see that an enemy is pushing a lane, you should definitely gank that lane.
-Best way to gank is to save Shadow Dash for when they use a flashing ability.
- Stand United can be used for ganking as well. Tell you teammates to bait them (example: your adc on purpose gets into a position where the enemy leona can easily engage her) and than use your ult. Another trick is to have your teamate stand in a bush and than you ult to them.

Counter Jungling
-Shen is a save counter jungler because he is sustained, tanky and can escape with Shadow Dash. Just make sure you know where the enemies are and reserve some energy for Shadow Dash. You coud use your ward from Wriggle's Lantern when counter jungling.

Teamfights
With this build you are a very tanky bruiser. This means you have two options in teamfights.
Option 1: Kill their most dangerous Champion. Taunt them and kill them
Option 2: Peel for your carries. Taunt as many enemies as possible and kill those who threaten your carries

Option 1 usually works well. The taunt and your good burst damage usually ensure that your team can kill the most threatening enemy.
Option 2 is best when you can't succeed in Option 1! Also when your carries are capable and fed, it's best to protect them.

Split pushing
Shen is great at split pushing. Not because he has massive wave clearing (although with Feral Flare he's far from slow) or he destroys Towers in a blink, but because of Stand United. He can leave his team WITHOUT ANY RISK! When you are on a split pushing mission and your team gets itself in a team fight, you can just ult to them! You should actively look for split pushing opportunities late game when your ultimate is up.

You've read it all! You probably could have spend your time doing something more useful instead! I know I should have done :D

I hope you enjoyed the guide and give it a try. I believe jungle Shen is back in business and a nice addition on any team. Have fun with him!

Don't forget to up vote and leave some feedback if you have any!