Abilities

Laning Phase

Midgame and Lategame

Items

Runes

Hello folks. I go by Biperspectival (meaning having two perspectives), I'm Gold V in Flex and currently working on massively expanding my champ pool. I've been playing for over a year now, and have played every position except jungle. My personal favorite is support, but for a variety of reasons I play toplane. I mainly play tanks like Cho'Gath, Malphite, Ilaoi, and, of course, Shen. Shen is basically the reason I hit G5, as I played him almost every game of the climb.

Shen is a splitpushing tank. He forces enemies to come stop him from taking a tower, and then uses one of his teleports to join a teamfight across the map for a numbers advantage.

Pros: -Out-duels most tanks- -Global map presence- -Strong TP ganks- -Tanky- -Has very few counters- -Can solo rift herald easily- -Mechanically simple- -Excellent at farming under tower-

Cons: -Can't carry alone.- -Lacks sustain.- -Vulnerable to ganks.- -Weak at low-elo.- -Requires a lot of map awareness.-

Overall, Shen is a reliable pick, as there are very few lanes he loses, and those he does he still out-farms his enemies due to the ease with which he farms under tower. At low elos, it will be more difficult to make the plays which his ultimate can set up, and your teammates often won't understand why you're splitpushing. However, your opponents won't expect your plays, resulting in almost any global play you make succeeding (really, people never expect it).



That is the question. Generally you should pick Shen when

• Your team doesn't have many tanks.
• Your team has a weak teamfighting comp.
• Botlane will be pushed in.
• You don't know who you'll be laning against.
• You don't have anyone else to play who won't be brutally countered.

You shouldn't pick Shen when

• Your team is already built to teamfight.
• The enemies have a better splitpusher than you are (such as Fiora)
• You can counter the enemy laner
• Your support and jungler are both playing tanks

• Your Shadow Dash will taunt an enemy and can position you to land your Twilight Assault on them for easy auto-attacks.
• Landing Twilight Assault will massively increase your damage.
• Shadow Dash is your main source of peel and cc; try not to use Stand United or Teleport if it's down, as you won't be able to help the ally in combat much.
• Remember that Ki Barrier and Grasp of the Undying help keep you alive; watch their cooldowns.

Every ten seconds, when you complete a spell cast you gain a shield that scales with your level and bonus health. If you effect another champion with one of your spells, the cooldown is reduced by 4.5-7 seconds. If your shield is ready when the cooldown is completed. Then, any cooldown reduction gained by affecting other champions is applied.

So, let's look at each ability and see how to utilize their interactions.

Twilight Assault completes its cast when the sword arrives at your location and applies cdr if an enemy chapion is slowed by it. Tip: Remember how far away your sword is. If you expect to need the shield immediately and your sword is a ways away, you might want to use Shadow Dash instead.

This grants a shield after the protection zone is no longer active. Having an ally stand in the zone grants the cdr. Tip: It's generally a bad idea to use this spell to try and proc your shield, as it can take up to 3.75 seconds to complete its cast.

Upon completing the dash you receive a shield, and if you taunt an enemy, you receive the cdr. Tip: This is the fastest way to get your shield, but it's also your only escape; weigh whether getting the shield a little bit faster is worth it.

This grants the shield at the end of the channel, and will always apply cdr, since it has to target an ally. Tip: Don't worry about getting the shield from this; you will usually use a couple of abilities immediately afterwards, any one of which can proc the shield.

Ki Barrier is an important cooldown, and using it well will make your trades quite one-sided, especially when combined with Grasp of the Undying.








Twilight Assault pulls your sword towards you, slowing every enemy champions it hits. Once it arrives at your location, it will empower your next three auto-attacks with bonus percent-health magic damage. If it slowed an enemy champion, your attacks will gain extra power and you get 50% bonus attack speed.

Between the slow and attack speed boost, it is far easier to get off all your empowered autos quickly if you land your Q. The bonus damage makes doing this even more punishing for your opponent. Whenever the enemy is foolish enough to stand between you and your magic sword, use Twilight Assault and punish their impudence. Placing the sword in the far bush when you first get to lane will let you start the laning phase off with a very strong trade.

It should be noted that pulling your blade to you is not instantaneous; the time it takes to arrive scales with its distance from you. At max distance, it can take a while to reach you, so you might want to prepare for future combat by bringing your sword closer to you with a Q.

Remember that you don't have to use Twilight Assault offensively; a slow that hits anyone close behind you is often convenient when running away.








Spirit's Refuge creates a defensive zone around your sword lasting 1.75 seconds. It will wait up to two seconds for an ally to get into range before activating. While active, allies near your sword no damage from auto-attacks.

When playing against an enemy with empowered autos, save your W to negate their damage. Otherwise, use Spirit's Refuge in conjunction with Shadow Dash to negate their autos while you're taunting them.

This ability can also be very effective for peeling for your carries, as it almost completely negate damage from auto-attack based champions such as Master Yi or Kalista.








Shadow Dash is a dash (surprise!) that damages and taunts all large monsters or champions it hits. Also, it passively restores energy when you hit an enemy with Shadow Dash or use an empowered auto from Twilight Assault.

This is your one and only escape/initiation. It can get you over walls to run away, or cripple an entire enemy team while the rest of your friends demolish them. However, it can't do both, so if you are going to engage, be sure the fight is winnable.

Because of this ability's passive, even when you can't attack an enemy champion, you want to make sure to use all three of your empowered Q autos to get the energy back.

Taunting an enemy also has the advantage of making them draw aggro from turrets or minions. If you have a large wave, or are being harassed unter turret, you can taunt them to make your minions/turret work for you. Be careful not to use Spirit's Refuge until they hit you at least once; otherwise they won't draw aggro.








You channel for three seconds, granting an allied champion a shield scaling with their missing health, and after the channel is completed, you teleport to their location. Note that the channel cannot be canceled.

Let's check out the many uses of Stand United.

Firstly, it can be used to get some kills. If an ally is in a 1v1 or 1v2 situation that could be won with your help, an ultimate is nice. It can turn enemy ganks around, or just let your team five-man botlane. With this purpose, you're basically using it like a teleport that happens to grant a shield.

You can also use it to save an ally. In this case, you're generally using it to grant a shield, and if you can get there to peel for them, all the better. Remember that you'll be teleported to their location, so be careful not to teleport yourself into a sticky situation.

Finally, it can be used as an escape in the same manner as Teleport. If you are in a losing fight, but the enemies have no cc, you can use Stand United or Teleport to get to safety.

An interesting, but unimportant note:






If your enemy is between your sword and you, don't bother with a combo, just Q and out-trade him. If your sword is on your side, then you can execute your one and only combo.

Firstly, check how far away it is. If it's near you, you want to Shadow Dash-> Twilight Assault-> Spirit's Refuge them. This will taunt them and then hit them with the sword, and finally shield you from their auto-attacks.. If your sword's a long ways away, do -> -> . This start bringing your sword towards you so it will hit them immediately after you taunt them. Save your W for after you land the taunt to avoid wasting your entire kit.


Note here that Shen landed his Shadow Dash, then walked behind Nasus to hit him with Twilight Assault, and finally used Spirit's Refuge to block the autos of Nasus and the minions.





Sometimes a fight will last longer than just one combo. In general, you should run away after you use your combo. If the enemy chases, they'll have to come between you and your sword, allowing you a strong reengage. You'll want to repeat the cycle of combo -> run away -> reengage with Q -> run away -> combo until they die or you're low on health. While fighting, be careful to watch the cooldowns of Grasp of the Undying and Ki Barrier, as these will sustain you through the fight.

If your enemy is a "stacking champion" like Darius or Tahm Kench, a prolonged trade is often unwise, as their damage will steadily increase throughout the fight. Otherwise, who wins the battle is largely decided by minions.

Minions deal a lot of damage. A huge wave will provide enough damage to let you easily out-trade an opponent. If the enemy has a minion wave, a prolonged fight would be bad, but your Spirit's Refuge will negate minion damage for the duration of your combo, allowing very short trades.



A disclaimer: Shen was already a bit ahead this game, so it wasn't an entirely even fight. Still, the massive health differential evened it out. Notice that Shen wins this fight by quickly using his autos and Titanic Hydra to burst Blitzcrank down. When fighting solo against Rengar, he disengages whenever Ki Barrier is down and he runs out of empowered autos. Once his cooldowns come back, he reengages. Despite remaining at low health throughout the entire fight, Grasp of the Undying and Ki Barrier let him out-sustain Rengar.






Toplane is sometimes described as an island, and that's because you and your opponent are usually left alone (by and large). So, how do you play against your opponent? To answer this question, I made you a nifty flow chart thingamabobber.

tanky?

or

squishy?

Tanks generally will have some cc in their kit, they'll be building for survival rather than damage, and they'll just be all around difficult to kill. Shen is considered a tank, as are other champions such as Darius and Maokai. Most tanks fall into one of three categories: rocks, sustainers, and killers.



A rock is someone who isn't even trying to kill you, and you really can't kill them. In such a matchup, you want to get Tiamat and Sunfire Aegis and shove them under turret. This will help take pressure off other lanes, allow your jungler to invade, and deny your enemy cs.



A sustainer will want to take trades with you and then heal back up. Nasus and Maokai are both good examples of this. Against a sustainer, you have two main choices. You can buy a sustain item like Spirit Visage and make it into a rock lane. Alternatively, you can ask for early ganks to try to get ahead and then zone your opponents away from the minions (which most sustainers rely on to heal back up).



I define a killer as anyone who's tanky and deals a lot of damage. Good examples of this are Darius, Illaoi, and Gnar. When fighting such a champion, you need to get tank items first, or you run the risk of them killing you. If it's a particularly bad lane, reserve your Shadow Dash to escape; don't even try to combo them.



Squishies are basically anyone who is building damage instead of tank stats. Squishies have their mysterious reasons for doing this, but we don't need to know those to play against them. In general, there are three categories of squishies to play against, namely assassins, combo champs, and lane bullies. Note that combo champs and lane bullies will often have some overlap, so you might want to check out both sections.


An assassin is a high burst champion who foolishly is playing toplane; a good example is Talon. They tend to have rather low health, and one high cooldown combo that is supposed to delete you. Or really, it's supposed to delete a squishy, which you aren't. Levels 1-6 will be fraught with danger. Before your first back, you won't really be that tanky, so you can't ignore their burst. Just play safe. Once they hit level 6, they usually get a large powerspike of damage. Be sure to back BEFORE they hit level six to buy your tank items; otherwise, you might find yourself deleted. After you get your first full item, you'll usually be too tanky for them to kill, and they'll stop being a threat. Once this happens, you need to aggressively shove their lane; otherwise they'll roam for kills in another lane.



A combo champion operates by basically throwing their entire kit at you for a lot of damage, and then waiting for the cooldowns to refresh before doing it again. Jayce is the most obvious example of this. A combo champion won't be able to burst you all the way down in one fight, but the fights will be brief and painful. You have a couple of choices. Firstly, you can just become a tank and try to ignore them; this will be difficult, especially if they get early kills. However, against a fed combo champ, it will probably be your only choice. Secondly, you can force them into extended trades, ideally with the help of your jungler. While they have a lot of burst damage, most of them will have difficulty up any damage after their kit has been spent, so if you reengage after their combo, they won't be able to do much. Thirdly, you can just focus on roaming until your jungler can come for both of you to kill him. This will help your teammates, but will likely cost you top turret; try to make sure you get a turret on one of your roams.



A lane bully will, well, bully you. They'll poke you down, and try to keep you away from the cs ( Teemo being the most legendary example). However, this is difficult to do to Shen, as he can use Spirit's Refuge to negate much of their poke, and can easily farm under turret. At low elos, you'll find yourself out-farming bullies despite being shoved under turret due to your empowered autos making it easy to cs. Lots of bullies will also underestimate your combo damage, and forget that against when you have a large wave you can out-trade or kill them easily.



A disclaimer: All of this matchup advice assumes that your opponent is competant. If they are bad, you can win any matchup. However, you should assume that your opponents will be smurfs, and your allies boosted, until proven otherwise.





One thing you should take the time to do is secure Rift Herald. You don't need your jungler's help, but you do need to not be interfered with, so make sure that the lane is pushing and the enemy laner just backed or is somewhere else.

When fighting the herald, spam Q. Always use those empowered autos, as they deal a lot of damage to it. Your W will block at most one auto-attack, so use it as soon as it comes up.

When the eye on the back of the herald opens, don't attack the herald. Wait for it to hit you, and then walk behind it and hit the eye. You can do this quickly enough to kill the eye before the herald's next auto. Alternatively, you can wait until it attacks you and dash through it with E and then auto the eye. Either way works, but using Shadow Dash is far easier.

Every so often, the herald's claws will glow purple and it will stand up. The next attack CANNOT be blocked by your W, so instead just walk or dash behind the herald. The attack isn't aimed, so it will miss you, and then you just keep on as before. If your jungler comes, you can let him have the eye, as he'll be able to use it at the right time more easily (if bot is being sieged, it's easier for him to get there than for you to do so).

If an enemy comes, you should drop Herald aggro. Stick around to make sure they don't try to finish it, but you should not try to take Herald while you're being interfered with, as you lack a smite.





In laning phase especially, you want to keep delicate control over your lane. So, what pushes the lane one way or another?

The simple answer is, whoever's minions are taking more damage will have the lane push against them. So, if you hit the enemy minions more often than your enemy hits yours, the lane will push into their tower, and vice versa. Another rather obvious fact is that when you have more minions than your opponent, those minions will deal damage faster, and push the wave. This is why stacked waves (a horde of minions drawing units from multiple minion waves) will push a lane.

However, in lane you have another, more subtle control, and that's drawing minion aggro. Let's say you want the wave to push into the enemy. Instead of attacking the enemy minions, you can attack the enemy himself. This will make enemy minions attack you. However, until the enemy counter-attacks, your minions will keep attacking his, which will push the lane. If you taunt the enemy, whether you activate your Spirit's Refuge before or after the enemy starts attacking you will decide whether or not he draws minion aggro, and thus whether the lane pushes.

The flipside of this is that if the enemy has you zoned away from the wave, and is freezing it, you can counter this by baiting him into attacking you, and then disengaging. This will make your minions attack him, and will push the wave towards your tower more quickly. As I've said, farming under tower is easy, and the threat of your taunt is enough to make most champions not harass you while you farm under the turret.

If you looked at the matchup section, you might notice I consider Shen to have quite a few difficult matchups. So, you might be asking yourself "Why wouldn't I just pick a champion with an easier laning phase?" Roaming is the answer. Shen has a built in teleport with Stand United in addition to Teleport. This means that you can easily get out of lane and help your teammates. So, let's talk about how and when we do that with teleport. Stand United was already covered in its own section.


A teleport roam requires you to have something to roam to; either a minion, a Stealth Ward, or a Control Ward. Generally, the opponents won't push out in front of the minion wave, so you'll just have to bug other lanes to place wards down behind the enemies. You'll want to gank botlane whenever the enemies push significantly past a friendly ward. You mainly gank botlane as it takes a few seconds to tp down, and the longer lane makes it hard for your enemies to escape.

After you teleport down, you'll want to immediately use your taunt, since your opponents will likely be running away. You should aim for the adc as this will do two things. Firstly, it will hold the adc in place for your allies to burst down. Secondly, most supports won't run away while their adc is pinned down, so by taunting the adc, you also will stop the support from running too far away.

Finally, it's worth mentioning that teleports can be canceled (surprise!). So, when do you want to cancel?

• The fight's over because one side died
• Your enemy laner is teleporting down and you can interrupt him.
• You're about to be hit by hard cc.
• Your enemy laner has messed up in trying to interrupt you and you can kill him.

In general, it's better to cancel teleport than to get it interrupted, as canceling it refunds a portion of its cooldown. Similarly, interrupting an enemy teleport in exchange for canceling yours will give you a teleport advantage (as yours will now be on a lower cooldown).


Stand United can be used to make a roam to initiate or aid in a fight, but it also can be used to just save an ally from a bit of extra damage, like an ignite or one more turret shot. While the latter is useful, and you should consider doing it, I won't be covering it here, as this is about how to make plays around Stand United

Stand United has a couple of big advantages over Teleport. Firstly, and most obviously, it grants an ally a big shield that helps them stay alive. Besides that, you can use it on an allied champion, so unlike teleport, you don't need wards or minions to get into position. Generally, when you ult in on an ally, they will reengage to ensure that you can join the fight quickly and use Shadow Dash immediately upon teleporting down. If you don't want your ally to reengage, you should give them danger/back off pings to let them know you're just trying to save them, not fight.

Unlike Teleport, you generally don't use Stand United to start fights. The shield makes it more useful when your allies are already fighting and taking damage, and since it teleports you to an ally, you can't flank your opponents. Gambling that your Thresh can land his hook and start a fight is a big risk for an ultimate with a two minute cooldown.

However, you still can use Stand United to get flank plays on occasion. This is done when an ally is already going in for a flank, and you can then ult onto them before the fight begins. This is especially good when your jungler is ganking botlane; there's nothing like sending four people bot, and you're tanky enough to enable a tower dive.


So, when shouldn't you roam? Obviously, if the enemy laner has cc and can interrupt your channel, you shouldn't roam. Additionally, you don't want to roam if it will cause to much tower damage; if the enemy has a large wave building, a roam on your part could cost you a tower. Just clear the wave. An exception to this is if you have both Stand United and Teleport up, you can safely use Stand United to roam and Teleport back to lane; they won't be able to damage your turret much, as your roam will be short.

Remember that your enemy will want to roam as well. There are a few ways to stop him, or at least punish him for it. Firstly, interrupt his teleport with a Shadow Dash if possible. If you can't you should try to follow him with a teleport/Stand United to wherever he's going. Additionally, whenever he roams, if you can't follow or interfere, shove the wave. This will hurt his tower and deny him valuable cs, and will put pressure on the map that your opponents will want to respond to; at the least you might be able to trade towers.



In this fight, Shen noticed the gank and waited as long as possible to use Stand United as Master Yi couldn't burst Fizz down immediately. After Shen ulted, Fizz made the correct decision and reengaged upon Yi and Lux. This allowed Shen to be well positioned and able to hit both enemies with Shadow Dash. Ultimately, with the help of Kha'Zix, Master Yi was killed, and multiple enemy summoner spells were used. The gank was thwarted and reversed by Shen using Stand United at the right time and Fizz reengaging.





Mid and lategame is all about taking objectives and ultimately killing the enemy nexus. Objectives usually take the form of towers or epic monsters.

When your team is looking to take a tower, you will usually be splitpushing.





When you have Teleport or Stand United available, you want to splitpush. Splitpushing is when you go into an unoccupied lane and pretend that laning phase never ended. Shove the wave under their turret, and try to kill it.

Splitpushing has a few effects.

Firstly, it will make teamfights harder for your team. They'll be fighting a 4v5 if they engage, and that's bad. This is why you only splitpush when your ult or tp is up, so you can quickly join a teamfight should they be engaged on.

However, your splitpush can secure nice objectives as well. A splitpush that goes unanswered can topple towers, which is really the primary thing your team is trying to do. (every tower gets you closer to that nexus).

The final purpose of splitpushing is that it forces the enemies to deal with you. In general, you should only splitpush in no one enemy can kill you on their own, or if you can't be killed by scariest member of their team. As such, they have to send two people to come kill you, or tie up one of their members. If the former occurs, you team will suddenly be fighting a 4v3, and you can quickly join them to make it a 5v3, which is sometimes enough to dive, and often enough to take a tower. If the latter occurs, your team should be at a slight power advantage, and be able to chip the enemy tower down.

While splitpushing, you need your allies to apply pressure somewhere else, either by pushing a lane or starting an epic monster. Otherwise, your splitpush will end by you being murdered by the entire enemy team. Be aware of where the enemies are, and if they all disappear, get out quickly.





If a teamfight hasn't begun, and you team is looking to engage, it's usually on you to make this happen. A flash Shadow Dash is the easiest way to lock down an enemy. If you can, land the taunt on a squishy of course.

Once you're in the teamfight, your primary job is to peel for your squishies (usually the midlaner and adc). Peeling is when you make the enemies attack you, instead of your carries. However, an assassin will try to ignore you and kill the carry quickly. You have three ways to prevent this. Firstly, Shadow Dash will entirely negate their ability to hurt your carry for a couple of seconds, during which time the carry can kill the assassin. Secondly, your Spirit's Refuge will stop their auto-attacks from hurting your carry, which will negate some of their damage. Finally, you can, after burning your other abilities, use Stand United on the carry to give them a ginormous shield and keep them alive.



So, here Shen was splitpushing toplane, however, he could do this as he had Stand United ready to join a teamfight. Indeed, a teamfight did begin, and once Jhin was getting comboed, he used Stand United to join the fight. Unfortunately, Jhin panicked and Flashed away, which left Shen poorly positioned. So, Shen walked over and Shadow Dashed Yasuo using Spirit's Refuge to stop Tahm Kench from stacking on him and to stop Yasuo's damage. Ultimately, Alistar was chased down and killed, resulting in three kills on the enemy team with no friendly deaths.





When a teamfight goes well, your team will usually transfer to take an epic monster, such as a dragon or Baron. You can take one of two roles, determined on whether or not your jungler or support is a tank.

If you are the team's tank, you need to be in the pit, taking the monsters attacks and hitting it with your Twilight Assault empowered autos. This is to keep your team healthy in case the remnants of the enemy team show up to try to contest. As a tank, you won't lose much health to the monster, and your team will be healthy and ready to turn to the enemies for more kills.

If your team has another tank, you should not be in the pit. Let the other guy be the tank. Your job is to run interference/be a bouncer. Don't let enemies near the pit. If they try to get in and annoy your team, punch them with an empowered auto. If they don't back off, wait until the monster is near smite range and taunt the enemy so they can't try for a steal.





After having listened to me blabber on for so long, you must no doubt be questioning my sanity. This probably extends to the build I presented you with. So, let's talk about what you're trying to do when buying stuff for Shen and why I recommended the things I did.

Shen has two roles: Tank and Splitpusher. As a tank, he needs lots of health, armor, and magic resist. As a splitpusher, you need a lot of waveclear, and a bit of AD to take towers more quickly.

In order to be a tank, you just want to itemize against the enemy team; your build should rarely be identical across a few games. Let's take a quick dip into why you might want to buy various items.

Dead Man's plate is a good all-purpose item. It will let you get to and from side-lanes more quickly, it gives your kit an extra slow, and it gives you some armor and magic resist. If you don't know what to buy, I'd recommend this item.

This gives similar stats as Dead Man's Plate, but its AoE will help you push lanes more quickly. If you're splitpushing a lot, this is a very useful item.

This is the only item I'd call a must-buy. It gives you hp, waveclear, and a bit of attack damage, making it an extremely powerful split-push tool while still making you tankier. The bonus damage scales off of your max health as well. The most important part of this item isn't the stats though, it's the auto-attack reset. This lets you get off all three procs of Twilight Assault very quickly, allowing you to actually kill enemies.

Spirit's Visage gives you increased health regen and some MR, along with a bit of cdr. It helps if you're being poked by enemy mages.

This is something you should only pick into enemies who have damage over time or who jam their abilities. An example of the former is Singed, while our beloved Ryze is an example of the second. This cuts their damage drastically, and is highly recommended when playing against such a champion.

This good against champs who build a lot of lifesteal. It will cut their healing and reflect some damage back at them whenever they hit you. Generally, you'll want to build Bramble Vest and wait until you have a lot of armor to finish the item.

It gives you health and obscene amounts of out-of-combat health regeneration. This is generally just a solid item to build once you have the health to activate its passive.

This item is great if you're teamfighting a lot. It gives you armor and magic resist which is doubled when three enemies are nearby. As such, if you're splitpushing a lot, there are better items to build.

This gives you resistance to critical strikes, and slows enemy attacks speed. And it gives you lots of armor and health. There are better items to build (such as thornmail) if the enemies aren't building crit, but if they are, this can do a lot for your survival.

Obviously, you need to choose which boots to upgrade these. Against someone with a crippling slow, such as Nasus, you'll want Boots of Swiftness for their slow reduction. Against an auto-attack based champion, or a teamcomp that relies on its adc for damage, you should build Ninja Tabi for it's damage reduction. Against a team with lots of cc you should build Mercury's Treads for the tenacity. If you're roaming a lot, you should consider Mobility Boots for the extra movement speed; you should only do this if you aren't worried about your enemy laner killing you.

This is our favorite mastery for a couple of reasons. Firstly, it gives us permanent bonus health. And that's just great for a tank. Secondly, it gives us a heal that comes up every 4 seconds when in battle. Note that our Shield will be coming up about every 4 seconds in a battle lategame. So, we have a heal and a shield which is repeatedly appearing; this makes Shen have a ton of effective health in extended trades, even if he would appear to be severely disadvantaged.

I really like demolish, since it lets you put off building AD. The main reason you build AD is so you actually damage turrets, but with this rune, you can smash a turret in even if you don't really have much base damage, making you a very threatening splitpusher. You might consider taking Unflinching if your enemies have a lot of cc though.

This gives you better stats than the other two runes, but does leave you weaker early game. I recommend that you take this in most cases, but if your enemy is an assassin or otherwise has a lot of kill pressure early game, you should just take Iron Skin or [[mirror shell] depending on their damage type.

In general, I recommend taking Overgrowth as it will make you tankier and increase your Demolish damage. However, the other two runes are excellent as well. If your team has a healer, take Revitalize, as it will increase your own shield, your Stand United, and their healing. Finally, if the enemy has a lot of poke (I'm looking at you Teemo) or sustain, take Second Wind to keep your health bars equal.

So, why the Sorcery tree? The other trees suck. That's why. You don't need damage from Domination and Precision, and the various Inspiration runes aren't that helpful. However, getting 15% cdr on your ult is quite nice, as it lets you roam a lot more.

Aaaaaaand I like cdr. Furthermore, tanks have difficulty getting cdr, as most of the items you want don't offer it. So, get the extra 10% from this mastery to roam even more.

Thanks for reading folks! If there's any questions you have, strange matchups you're wondering about, or cool builds you want to share, please post them in the comments! Signing out for now,

Biperspectival