I will admit that I am not a Shen player. I do play Shen, and I always do well with him. This build is not one that I so much recommend, as one that I think you will find fun and a bit different than how Shen usually plays. It is, in my own opinion, a strong build and worth sharing. But I don't have a lot of experience with Shen the way I do with other champions, and it's only fair to say so up front.

Shen has weaknesses, and most builds do not account for them. He has no natural wave clear and so needs at least one item to help him farm. His E can easily fail to reach the target. He has to get into the thick of battle to do what he does best (peel), but his stats while good are not nearly enough to keep him alive there. I wanted to make a build for him that not only eradicates his weaknesses, but turns weaknesses into strengths. It seems a very Shen thing to do.

My primary interest with Shen is in getting his R and E cooldowns low, as early into the game as I can. This has to do with how I like to use him; aggressively, to gank from anywhere whenever my ult is up. I don't wait until someone needs saving and sit on my ult for minutes at a time; I'm a ninja, not a doctor. And you don't get gold saving people; but you do get plenty ganking with your ult as long as you don't miss too much farm doing it.

That all said, there was a hole in my build. Everything was great, except I was a bit slow to get CDR. Shen always wants full boots as soon as he can get them, since he does a lot of walking around due to ulting. Ionian Boots proved to be a good practical answer. They are not the best at winning trades in lane (for that I'd want Ninja Tabis or Mercury's Treads), but they are the best at what I want to be doing when I play Shen. I feel that Shen's buttons being up more often actually does help in lane though. He trades much better when he has more frequent access to his skills.

Mainly, this is to catch up to targets so that I can E through them. In the absence of an enemy champion, it can be used to farm too but isn't really needed for that. I like the extra dash over move speed from something like Righteous Glory. Shen's abilities like health, AP, and CDR; this item's stats are ideal. There's nothing that doesn't fit Shen's kit here. I think Shen players should build it more often.

It gives the most raw bonus health in the game (800). Even if you build it before you get to 3000 health, the +200% health regen on it is strong too. Shen is strong with any extra health you can put on him -- both his passive shield and his dash ramp with bonus health. And eventually, when the build starts to complete, this is an item that lets Shen make a play and then heal instead of needing to recall. He also doesn't have show himself on the map, the way he would with a lifesteal item. It feels very ninja to have the enemy team knowing you could be anywhere right now.

This is a good team fight item for Shen for two reasons. First, Shen will be taunting enemies. They will hit him... a lot. He has to survive it. But also after the initial peel for your team, Shen is often low. If Shen wants to keep helping, normally he has to go back in despite being hurt. But with Warmog's Armor, he heals up as he moves into position to go back in.

This item needs little explanation I think. It's the item most Shen players turn to to wave clear, since it has health on it -- that, and Tiamat is the cheapest wave clear item you can buy by more than a small margin of gold. The only comparable buy is Bami's Cinder... which kind of sucks on Shen, since it's not safe in many (any?) match-ups for Shen to stand that far forward.

I will however note the synergy with Warmog's Armor. Extra health becomes extra damage from the Titanic Hydra. It's not a bad thing to do some extra damage. Definitely not some amazing combo, but it is useful synergy.

First, I wanted just a bit of attack speed.

Second, I like the synergy between Tiamat and Statikk Shiv. For a marginal amount of gold, Shen suddenly becomes a wave clearing BEAST who can rapidly split-push a lane with the best that LoL has to offer; and all without putting his dash on cooldown, should he be in dangerous territory and need to keep it at the ready.

Third, and this is the one people forget... assist gold. In team fights, Shen generally doesn't dash through five enemies. He maybe gets two, and that's if he is lucky. Possibly he gets to auto-attack a second enemy. But Shen's main job, peeling and forcing the enemy team to scramble away from him, doesn't net any gold. But you know what does? Landing some damage on the other enemies. Statikk Shiv is the best item for it; better than Protobelt, better than Hydra. I like all three to maximize the gold that I will get, assuming my team can win the fight.

Lastly... +7% move speed. Get back to lane. Catch people before dashing. Run away while holding your dash, or to augment how fast you can get away. Against some enemies you need everything you can get.

The main reasons to like Death's Dance on Shen are:
-- It provides some armor/MR to enhance Shen's health and passive shield.
-- Lifesteal and the delayed damage taken help Shen to delay/avoid his death.
-- Warhammer's AD/CDR help Shen in lane, to farm and trade well.

Having any lifesteal item in this slot works. You can opt for Blade of the Ruined King, Sanguine Blade, Hextech Gunblade, etc etc. The issue is that your early game CDR suffers. Both Protobelt and Warmog's armor build from Kindle Gem. You'd have to fully complete one of those items, then get another Kindle Gem. The only lifesteal item with CDR on it is Death's Dance. It becomes the logical choice.

It is my opinion that Shen should always be positioned to either attack from a position of strength, or to retreat from engaging when he is not in one. Getting into that position is easy; ult into it. But once you are there, you have to be able to force the issue. I want the minimum cooldown I can get for my E, as early into the game as I can get it -- that's level 10 and 40% CDR, an E with a 6s cooldown (7s at level 9). It's fast enough to dash, hit the target 3 times with Hail of Blades (and hit my W if I'm engaged upon in return), then Dash again to keep the target from escaping (or just Dash out to safety) within the same fight. A slow ninja is a dead ninja, after all.

But consider the other scenario. I'm about to get ganked. I dash to escape, but I'm being pursued. I want my dash up again, as soon as I can get it. Do you want your E to be up every 6s, or up every 14s because you thought a slightly cooler Q was super important? I couldn't bring myself to prefer Q's dps over tactical options, not when attacking and not when defending myself.

A shout out to one of my favorite LoL You-tubers, xPetu who is a Shen main. I didn't like Shen's rework initially and had stopped playing him, but after finding your channel I decided to pick him up again and found that I actually still love playing Shen. Keep going for rank 1 man. I think you can get it. You should try this build once just to see what you can do with it.