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Shyvanna a balance discussion with patch history

Mr Sir Lebowski·11/12/2014, 5:33:28 PM·8 votes·1,361 views

I asked myself a few questions after I messed around with Shyvana this weekend and then gathered some details about Shyvana's patch history to start a thread about her

Are you happy to see a Shyvana on your team?

Is Shyvana currently a viable competetive pick?

Was Shyvana ever a viable competetive pick?

Now here is a little patch history

We'll start going as far back as Patch 3.9

2013-07-11 Patch 3.9 Presumably Shyvana was not strong enough at this point because these are some minor buffs

Riot: "We're repositioning Flame Breath as a core tool for objective control and faster jungle clear, while also emphasizing its use as a “burn down” ability to be followed up with auto attacks against tankier fighters. We've also fixed a long-standing bug with Shyvana's Burnout where it wasn't scaling with attack damage while in Dragon form. This fix - along with her increased fury gains and reduced fury decay – will help her in late game teamfights. Lastly, we've moved the descriptions of her previous passive effects to their new ability tooltips to help centralize information."

Fury of the Dragonborn - Remade. All Fury of the Dragonborn effects have been moved to their respective abilities. •Dragonborn - Gains 5/10/15/20 Armor and Magic Resist. These bonuses are doubled in Dragon Form.

Flame Breath •No longer reduces Armor by 15% •Now passes through all units hit instead of stopping at the first •Debuff duration increased to 5 seconds from 4 •Damage reduced to 80/115/150/185/220 from 80/125/170/215/260 •On-hit magic damage to debuffed targets changed to 2% of the target's maximum Health from 15% of Flame Breath's damage (12/18.75/25.5/32.25/39 + 0.09 Ability Power).

Burnout •Fixed a bug where Burnout wasn't scaling with attack damage when Shyvana was in Dragon form

Dragon's Descent •Passive Armor/Magic Resistance component removed •Passive Fury Gain increased to 1/2/3 per 1.5 seconds from 1/1/1 •Fury decay while in Dragon Form reduced to 5 per second from 6 per second

2013-12-13 Patch 3.15 Starting with this patch it's been pretty much nerfs the whole way so I guess she was too strong from those changes?

Shyvana E - Flame Breath •Fixed a bug where Flame Breath was shredding armor in Dragon Form

Perhaps this was a bug but taking it away was certainly a nerf. Maybe if she wasn't too strong at this point they could have just made it official instead of taking it out.

2014-01-15 Patch 4.1 Summary: We’re lowering Burnout’s overall damage and Flame Breath’s damage at earlier levels. Dragon’s Descent also received a bug fix and the damage now matches the tooltip.

Shyvana’s doing a lot of damage in the early to mid-game, even when she builds tanky. It turns out that when Shyvana can push, wave clear and out-trade opponents all at once, things can get a little frustrating. We’re cooling some of that dragon blood down to make her early bullying more manageable.

W - Burnout •Damage per second reduced to 20/35/50/65/80 (from 25/40/55/70/85) •Minimum magic damage reduced to 60/105/150/195/240 (from 75/120/165/210/255) •Maximum magic damage reduced to 140/245/350/455/560 (from 175/280/385/490/595)

E - Flame Breath •Damage reduced at earlier levels to 60/100/140/180/220 (from 80/115/150/185/220)

R - Dragon's Descent •Damage now correctly matches the tooltip at 175/300/425 (from 200/300/400)

Small changes but nerfs none the less so presumable she was still too strong

2014-07-02 Patch 4.11 Jump down to this patch and we see something very minor, I think it was tiny nerf but being larger means you get hit by aoe's easier and makes it harder to avoid traps

The following champions had smaller than average hitboxes so we've increased them to the average hitbox size. In other words, we've added 27.3% Teemos to each champion's overall hitbox (from 50 units all around to 65 units all around) but there should be no visual change:

Shyvana

Thresh

2014-07-30 Patch 4.13 This is one that gets me, perhaps it needed modifying but it is a nerf so unless she was too strong at the time why take something away without thinking at this time about buffs

Shyvana can't double her W duration through dragon form, and her flame trail now applies damage less often (on par with W's damage tick rate) “ While we didn't want to make significant changes to Shyvana, we did make two bugfixes which should tame some of her more obscure strength.”

W - Burnout

removedDRAGON TAMING : Burnout can no longer be extended past its intended maximum duration through the use of Dragon's Descent

CONTROLLED FIRE : Dragon's Descent's Flame Trail now applies damage every 0.75 seconds ⇒ 1.0 seconds (to match Burnout's damage rate)

2014-08-27 Patch 4.15 Can we guess? Yes it's another minor nerf, perhaps they are stacking up at this point. Was Shyvanna too strong at this time or was she actually in need of buffs?

“While we realize this is a small power reduction, we had the choice of either buffing Shyvana's late ranks in damage or just reducing her level 1 damage by 20.”

E - Flame Breath

SORRY SHYVANA : Fixed a bug where Flame Breath was dealing an extra 20 damage at Rank 1. Shyvana's damage now accurately reflects the tooltip (at 60 damage).

VISUALS : Adjusted Flame Breath's dragon form particles to better match the damage cone. Actual area of effect remains unchanged.

So there you have it, it's been a long string of minor nerfs directed at Shyvana for quite a while. Has Shyvana been too strong at any point **this year **at all? I don't think so, and I just wonder why all the minor nerfs. Bug fixes? It may be 100% true they are bug fixes but if you are fixing this many things about her maybe you could address her balance at some point. Not just her you could start throwing out some minor buffs to champions until you start to see them viable competetively.

15 Comments

LuckyReden11/12/2014, 7:53:38 PM3 votes

Back in preseason of season 4 and up until the spring split she was practically godlike top lane, as she could somewhat bully lane and then scaled well. For a while it was Shyvanna, Renekton, Mundo, and occasionally Trundle in the meta toplane. Basically they'd just farm up and apply pressure top, never get ganks, and then roam mid for the eventual tower and dragon. After Shyvana nerfs, Renekton fell out of meta, and there for Trundle stopped being useful (because he is a tank counter), the meta shifted to mage/ranged top with chamions like Nidalee, Ryze, Kayle, and Lulu. She is definitely not meta right now at all, she is not a good jungler due to her low cc, her ult hardly ever actually knocks back, and she scales strongly but Warwick does what Shyvana does much better.

Ad Astra per Asp11/12/2014, 9:01:34 PM3 votes

Before patch 3.9 she was considered an extremely weak jungler that is unable to gank.

After patch 3.9 to patch 4.1 she was considered too strong not as a jungler but a top laner.

After patch 4.1 she's just been hit with continuous nerfs and been too weak even after 4.1, 4.1 itself was too heavy handed.

That doesn't include the mass amount of nerfs to her itemization: Feral Flare made for clear junglers like her: nerfed hard. It was probably the only period since season 2 she was a good jungler.

Randuins: Nerfed to remove the movement slow. Was a core item choice. Spirit of the Lizard Elder: Nerfed to no longer proc off her W, it's core feature for Shyvana. Blade of the Ruined King: Active nerfed for melees but buffed for Ranged. Sunfire Cape: Early damage from the fire nerfed, something that compounded on her already weakened W.

That leaves all her most used items outside thornmail pretty much nerfed, unless I'm remembering wrong Banshee is a better buy now than Spirit visage since it too was nerfed leaving her with basically no good CDR buys anymore since Locket was nerfed and respec'd and had it's armor removed making it a pure anti mage buy and lets face it except for extreme situational use starks is just not a great item for a bruiser/tank.

Quite frankly they've been ripping her apart piece by piece for a long time now. And for what reason even, because she had a power spike top for a few patch cycles? Was some pro screaming in Riot's ear or what? Fiora has been ridiculous top for all season and they aren't even touching her because "mah reworks" (they are reworking her but really they should at least bump some numbers if she is left broken all season).

Drunk Rummate11/12/2014, 9:07:17 PM2 votes

she actually had the highest winrate of any toplaner in LCS earlier this year. it wasnt until ryze and lulu became an extremely common pick that she was bullied out of toplane, and shes too passive to work in the jungle meta

i think shyvana is a really strong champion, but we won't see her again until we start seeing melee champs like renekton again. though i'm amazed people don't pick her into mundo.... maybe they just forgot about her. it does happen!

TecToNiiC11/12/2014, 6:37:12 PM2 votes

U spelled shyvana wrong... :p

She was my main before the whole hypertank phase and still is. The nerfs and bugfixes all hurt her power but it is hard to buff her. She is sort of just a stat check when fighting most other champs.

I still think her win rate has alot do with needing the correct teamcomp as opposed to her being weak. Any champ you can stick you still delete for the most part. Since the disappearance of sivir and ancient coin her win rate started to drop as that was her ticket to destroying in a team fight.

If you're bored playing her in top/jung, mid against assassins is fun. Yasuo is hilariously easy to stomp and your aoe hits most of akalis shroud. Last night i played against a self proclaimed "yasuo and akali main" (lol who admits to that), made a triforce/cdr burst build and went to town on their team.

CDR is so good on her especially if you have someone else on the team as another tank/offtank

TrianbleMan11/12/2014, 6:21:57 PM2 votes

Nice roundup

She's definitely not tournament viable and I don't believe she ever was which makes these patch notes all the more amusing. That's about a years worth of nerfs to a champ that no one complains about and sees 0 tournament play.

chumbler11/13/2014, 8:52:13 AM1 votes

The problem with Shyvana is that stats are literally the only thing she has. She is entirely dependent on numbers to be viable, and if they're not sufficient, she isn't. Either Riot is going to rework her (which would make her even worse, judging by Cass and Sion), they'll have to accept that maybe a champion who literally only does damage should be good at it, or most likely she'll just be trash forever.

exiledFromBadmen11/13/2014, 4:29:58 PM1 votes

Use only 1 "n" please.

Shyvana

item 3070 Shyvana item 3070

For the nerfs, I think she should have a GU or one more CC but she'll be a better jungler after preseason.

Tentacle Love11/13/2014, 5:48:28 PM1 votes

She lacks crowd control and mobility. Her only real "zoom" is when you turn into the dragon. You don't want to do that BEFORE you become a threat. you need to be able to escape or pursue, and she just doesn't get that.

She'd be far better if her R turned into a short cooldown zoom effect that she could use maybe 1-2 times each time she's a dragon. instead, you either turn into a dragon to kill someone off or you whiff completely and blow far too much of her combat potential.

The way I see it, players just don't want to commit that much of their champ's power so early in a fight.

TehNACHO11/12/2014, 6:54:38 PM1 votes

Ehh, depending on Shyvana's role on the team, I can't say the hitbox thing is a complete nerf. If she has to act as the primary diver and get EVERYONE's attention/bodyblock as much as possible, a larger hitbox doesn't seem so bad.

I also recall seeing tons of Shyvana earlier this season, in fact.

Rebonack11/12/2014, 9:30:02 PM1 votes

Shy wasn't too powerful in Pre-Season 4. Tank masteries were too powerful in Pre-Season 4. Shy got clobbered by targeted nerfs, mastery nerfs, and item nerfs. Just running around clearing the jungle quickly isn't good enough right now and she has more than her fair share of trouble top.

She still needs a rework. Riot had one planned for her where her human form was going to get weaker and her dragon form was basically going to be Godzilla, but that got stuck on the backburner when she became FotM top for a few months.

Linna Excel11/12/2014, 9:38:17 PM1 votes

As someone who doesn't play in tournaments I give zero craps about her being balanced for that.

She could be tournament viable, but not in this meta.

  1. She's team reliant as she lacks CC.
  2. She's a poor ganker and pro teams use ganks to win hard
  3. She's a powerfarmer in the jungle which means she's not going to be present during the first half of the game.

There are things she does well like split pushing, counter jungling, etc but I don't see her fitting the needs of a pro team at least right now.

RevyUp11/13/2014, 12:23:51 AM1 votes

I believe that almost every time I see shyvana taken as a jungler the team ends up losing. For a farm heavy tanky jungler warwick is just flat out better. I don't see why riot has to nerf just about everything about her. I remember one game I tried to duel this twitch we both were full build and I got the jump on him and I couldn't even pop his GA and he didn't even bother kiting me. So shyvana couldn't possibly be killing adc unless she was far ahead.