I love Shyvana. She is extremely fun as well as a great solo queue champ. She relatively easy to learn and in no time you'll be playing her at a high level.
The first thing i want to say is I always see people buying a BORK(Blade of the Ruined King) on her. I personally don't like this item on Shyvana. I am a firm believer that as of now Shyvana should be played OPTIMALLY as a full tank. Don't get me wrong. I think BORK is a great item. I just believe that there are far better items that can be bought for her. My main play style and build for Shyvana is this. Go full tank with a Sunfire Cape, jump into the enemy team and cause as much AOE damage as possible. It's a very simple play style but it works. For some reason no one ever wants to go full tank at lower levels/elo. Well you want to win games dont you? Then go full tank Shyvana and watch your enemies BURN!

The Good

-Great full tank
-Great mid game
-No mana champion
-Great team fight initiator
-Very fast while Burnout is active
-Great jungle clear speed (especially with a Sunfire Cape)
-Gets naturally tanky from her passive (DRAGONBORN!)

The Bad

-Not a great ganker
-No crowd control/peel
-If enemy team has a lot of CC her affect can be minimal in team fights

Although she doesn't have any CC built into her kit that will be made up for somewhat in the item build.

Some people don't like to take flash on Shyvana because Dragon's Decent is like a flash. Well I'd rather have 2 flashes then. If you don't want flash you can always take exhaust for some CC.

You need Greater Seal of Armor runes for your early jungle clears or you'll be constantly recalling to heal.

I take Greater Marks of Hybrid Penetration so that i do good damage in with by basic attacks but then can also do good magic damage in team fights with the magic penetration. You can always just take the standard jungle Greater Mark of Attack Damage runes instead if you want.

I like to take Greater Glyph of Scaling Magic Resist runes unless I'm going up against an AP jungler. These runes make you really tanky against magic damage late game and you don't need magic resist for jungle camps so why not have the advantage late game?

For my quintessences I take Greater Quintessence of Cooldown Reduction runes because cooldown reduction is great on Shyvana. It lets you use your abilities more which in turn will help you move around the map faster and you'll put out more damage in team fights.

I like Stalker's Blade - Juggernaut because the chilling smite is a nice source of CC for Shyvana because she doesn't have any in her kit. The juggernaut enchantment is a must. It gives good health, some cooldown reduction and most importantly tenacity to reduce time on enemy CC.

Ninja Tabi are a great tank item. The 10% damage blocking of basic attacks is great and 25 armor is nice too. Remember the juggernaut jungle enchantment gives tenacity so you don't need to ever buy Mercury's Treads.

I love Sunfire Cape. This item will help you clear jungle camps in seconds and helps deal some good AOE damage along with Burnout in team fights. The health and armor also help on the road to being an invincible monster.

Randuin's Omen, the quintessential tank item. Probably the best defensive item in the game. Gives good health, great armor and has a passive that slows enemy basic attack when they hit you. Not only do you get all that but it also has an AOE slow active thats great on Shyvana because when you initiate a team fight and jump in the middle of the enemy team you activate this item and keep them around you and most importantly off your teams damage dealers.


Banshee's Veil is a great item against AP champions. Good health and magic resist, health regeneration and a shield that blocks one enemy spell that will come up again after taking no damage for 40 seconds. The spell shield is great against champs like Blitzcrank and Thresh so you dont get pulled into the enemy team.

Guardian Angel is one of the most annoying items in the game so I'm going to use it. It will already be extremely hard to kill Shyvana if she has all the other items on this build and even if they do manage to kill you, you just come back and continue the fight after a few seconds.

If you're in low elo and you don't know what a ward is or have never seen one learn this simple lesson. VISION WINS GAMES! You get map vision from placing wards. So if no one on your team is putting wards on the map buy a sightstone after you get sunfire cape and build it into a ruby sightstone later. There are definitely better items you could get but you do get some heath and are able you place up to 3 wards on the map to get your team some vision. The charges on the item always reset when you recall so you'll always have wards to place on the map. Remember to tell your team to help ward the map and you won't ever have to buy this item.

So you're probably wondering why when this is a full tank build I'm telling you to go 21 in offensive instead of defensive mysteries. Well the way I look at it is I'm going to be so tanky from items and Shyvana's passive already why not do some good damage in the early game which will help with jungle clears. Then later in team fights you'll do good damage to enemy champions as well. This really is personal preference so if you just want to go 21 in defense and be unable to be locked down by CC but not really do any damage that's fine but going 21 in offense really does help you deal some decent damage.

Remember you're the tank. It's your job to soak up as much damage as possible. Don't run if you're the one being focused by the enemy team in a team fight. That's your job. If you're the first person to die on the team but you won the fight. Good. You did your job.

Remember once you get a few items Shyvana is a great tower diver and can eat a few turret shots before she has to get out. If you see someone low under their turret let your teammate know you're going to dive and go for it.

Also watch high elo (challenger players) on youtube and learn from the best. Learn how the Champion works by watching someone who really knows what they're doing before you try and you'll probably learn a thing or two.

Thanks for taking a look at the build. I hope this helps and I hope you have a blast playing Shyvana!