Not completely there yet!!

Shen, a tank and a support, is one of my favourite and my primary champion. Being a tank your build need to be highly situational and should accomodate your need to survive, because onnce your are dead your team is (most likely) an open season for the enemy team. Playing Shen require a lot of map awareness, as your ultimate is basically a get out of jail free card for one of your teammate.

Pros:

-Excellent Supoort
-Good damage absorber
-Can do AoE taunt
-Can teleport to friendlies for aid
-Free flash every 8 sec
-Good intiator

Cons:

-Requires high map awareness
-Terrible in a 1 v 1
-No items to improve Energy, only bsae 25 Energy Regen/5 sec, which hurts during early game

The runes I have gone with is what I used when I sarted playing Shen. It is not completly focused on Shen but accomadates wide range of champions. But now I have a slightly different rune set.

x9
Greatly beneficial for Shen as his passive Ki Strike is pure magical, and so is his Vorpal Blade


Greater Seal of Lucidity x9 (Sadly mobafire doesn't have this rune in their database yet, it gives +0.064 Energy regen/ 5 sec (+1.15 at level 18), I prefer these over the flat energy regen which only gives 0.63 Energy/ 5 sec.


x9 Flat Magic Resist, great at start of the game, as you have both MR and Armor from Doran's Shield

Greater Quintenssence of Swiftness Speed, 'nuff said

You are a tank 21 in Defense is most beneficial.

I like to put my remaining 9 in utility.
help you teleport spell, revive 10% faster, as a tank the faster you are there for your team the better. Bonus experience? Why not.

Ofcourse you can go with a 9-21-0 or 8-21-1 mastery too, but this is what I prefer.

for offense your points should go towards 3 in , 1 in , 4 in and finally you can skip and but the last one in

This is the crucial part for a tank, a wrong build will result in a crushing defeat. When you die you should ALWAYS, one more time ALWAYS, look at Death Recap. Best tool for a tank (and for all champion)

Early game:
I always like to start with Doran's Shield, why? Simple, it gives you health and armor, which is really effective as most damage early game comes form Auto-attacks and minions.