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No one asked for Shen nerfs...

Hemulen Magi··5 votes·1,153 views

I am sort of baffled by the upcoming Shen nerf. Neither Shen's popularity or his winrate are out of line. He wasn't even truly outstanding in the midst of the so-called "tank meta". Shen was pretty blatantly underpowered as recently as late 2014, often in the bottom ten lists for least popular and lowest winrate. I see a lot of champions complained about but Shen isn't one of them. I really don't think this nerf is driven by the community or actual balance statistics.

So, this completely unnecessary and uncalled for nerf has me concerned. From what I have seen lately, when some Riot staff member comes up with some sort of rework concept that they desperately want to try out, they will often deliberately sabotage a champion to drive away the champion's playerbase beforehand. Riot has done this a bunch of times with Evelynn, and it's left her in a terrible mess at the expense of players that used to enjoy her. I feel like Riot also attempted to setup the same situation with Mordekaiser during the DFG removal period.

I feel like I shouldn't need to say this, Riot, but please make your balance decisions actually about balance. Don't try to force champions to remain in the dumpster so that you can later delete them and replace them with a new champion that happens to have the same name... It's really not fair to your players.

15 Comments

lennzy2 votes

Popularity links to winrate and win rate doesn't necessarily mean he's weak or strong.just means he's not as popular with other players or players don't know how to play them. In competitive play he's a top pick for a reason

Cloud2732 votes

Shen has never been "oppressive" and never will be. Yes he likes to stack HP, but so do lots of other champions like Sion and Mundo. And we still have %health damage on lots of champions, and liandry's and BOTRK so it's not like stacking HP really helps him that much. There's so many ways to fuk up HP stacking that it will NEVER be strong. The only reason Riot is doing this is because Shen prevents people from making LC$BIGPLAYS.

Hemulen Magi1 votes

The funny thing here is that a Shen ulting in and taunting a towerdiving Zed to his death is exactly the kind of LC$BigPlay I actually want to see...

ZerglingOne1 votes

I would say it's related to the fact that Riot basically just imposed a health stacking meta which he is oppressively strong in.

With the warmogs changes, it's not like a little bit of healing goes missed really.

Hemulen Magi1 votes

If he is oppressively strong in this patch, why has both his winrate and popularity decreased according to both lolking and champion.gg? Thanks for posting; good to get discussion going.

ZerglingOne1 votes

[{quoted}](name=Hemulen Magi,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=1X0NHgEU,comment-id=00000000,timestamp=2015-08-22T18:14:48.408+0000)

If he is oppressively strong in this patch, why has both his winrate and popularity decreased according to both lolking and champion.gg? Thanks for posting; good to get discussion going.

Let's just assume Shen builds 2800 bonus HP which in this patch is completely reasonable. Let's also assume he has a item 3748.

For having 4700-4800 HP, as if that weren't enough reason to do it, he gets 280 extra damage on his passive for 356 total damage and his titanic hydra will do 480 on the auto attack reset active. You think 800+ burst damage is okay just because he built a ton of health?

Hemulen Magi1 votes

I agree that Shen likes hp stacking, but you also have to realize that he's playing against a Vayne in about half his games in this patch as well. Also, that 280 damage that Shen gets for building health won't put him close to even with the base damage burst most champions have in their kits. Shen has only has his passive and Q for semi-reliable damage. For a champion designed around health stacking, he doesn't even seem to benefit from the addition of Titanic Hydra all that much, since as I said earlier, his winrate and pickrate have actually gone down. I personally do like the item on him, but the statistics don't show it helping him keep up with the tank item nerfs that came in this same patch. Maybe people could adjust and his winrate/pickrate could recover or even go up, but that hasn't happened yet. I don't think there was sufficient statistical evidence for Shen to start receiving nerfs already.

LoLKiru1 votes

[{quoted}](name=Hemulen Magi,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=1X0NHgEU,comment-id=0000000000000000,timestamp=2015-08-22T18:52:21.805+0000)

I agree that Shen likes hp stacking, but you also have to realize that he's playing against a Vayne in about half his games in this patch as well. Also, that 280 damage that Shen gets for building health won't put him close to even with the base damage burst most champions have in their kits. Shen has only has his passive and Q for semi-reliable damage. For a champion designed around health stacking, he doesn't even seem to benefit from the addition of Titanic Hydra all that much, since as I said earlier, his winrate and pickrate have actually gone down. I personally do like the item on him, but the statistics don't show it helping him keep up with the tank item nerfs that came in this same patch. Maybe people could adjust and his winrate/pickrate could recover or even go up, but that hasn't happened yet. I don't think there was sufficient statistical evidence for Shen to start receiving nerfs already.

Worth noting, its less of a damage thing (titanic hydra definitely helps on this front though), and more of a; it gives him waveclear, which he's ALWAYS wanted, while still giving him stats he actually desires.

General Murica1 votes

Good thing riot shouldnt listen to GNB, shen is pretty insane atm.

His w/l is low cuz inexperience (second lowest games played overal), his 125+ game w/l is pretty huge

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aon3JipO1C0

Hemulen Magi1 votes

Replying to the linked video: Shen does shine in groups with good team coordination. That is true. Going from ranked solo to ranked 5 vs 5 only takes his winrate up 2-3%, which is still not a major outlier. Plenty of champions show similar trends.

As for the change in Shen's winrate with experience, I feel that it is healthy for the game to have a few high skill cap tanks. There are actually many champions that have winrates that reflect similar learning curves (Annie, Malzahar, Braum, Ahri, Azir, etc. etc.). Shen still doesn't stand out in any way that I see justifying nerfs.

Anyhow, thanks for adding to the discussion.

General Murica1 votes

[{quoted}](name=Hemulen Magi,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=1X0NHgEU,comment-id=00010000,timestamp=2015-08-22T18:33:42.735+0000)

Replying to the linked video: Shen does shine in groups with good team coordination. That is true. Going from ranked solo to ranked 5 vs 5 only takes his winrate up 2-3%, which is still not a major outlier. Plenty of champions show similar trends.

As for the change in Shen's winrate with experience, I feel that it is healthy for the game to have a few high skill cap tanks. There are actually many champions that have winrates that reflect similar learning curves (Annie, Malzahar, Braum, Ahri, Azir, etc. etc.). Shen still doesn't stand out in any way that I see justifying nerfs.

Anyhow, thanks for adding to the discussion.

High, skillcap?

Its just awareness.

67chrome1 votes

I see a lot of champions complained about but Shen isn't one of them.

Champions being complained about has a lot more to do with people complaining about them over there objective strengths.

Usually UP threads are because someone is struggling with their main squeeze. Usually OP threads are because someone just lost to a champion that got a lot of kills.

Don't listen to the community about balance.

I feel like I shouldn't need to say this, Riot, but please make your balance decisions actually about balance.

Riot generally does. That, or they try to push their best designed champions forward where knocking some of their worst down a peg.

Important thing with balance though is Riot balances right around the pro level where a 1% difference in power really matters. At a casual level a 1% difference is largely meaningless.

Also: just as the game you and I play has a completely different environment and state of balance than a level 2 summoner playing the game for there 4th time, so does the pro scene have a completely different environment and state of balance.

And just as there are pub-stomping champions, there are also the inverse: Champions that appear weak at first glance, but are extremely potent in pro-play.

Shen is one of those. He had a ~2 year phase where he was 100% pick/ban. Where he frequently beat every pro team that let him through thinking they had a way to deal with him. And during that time - most yoloqueue players didin't really know how to use him, and the forums where filled more with questions about how to access that power and why Shen was even considered good over QQ Riot please nerf.

My guess? Riot probably saw some data points hinting that, with the item changes, Shen had serious potential to become a huge problem at the pro level again.

Enosetc1 votes

???

the nerf was needed

have you laned vs. a shen on a champ without sustain? it's ridiculous. even still, it's such a ridiculously minor nerf that it won't hurt anything

Slamurai Jack1 votes

They just gave Shen his absolute dream item in item 3748 and he was already quite strong before this patch. Shen's sustain is high enough that many, many champions can't even duel him after lvl 6 because his base damages are so high and he can rush sunfire cape to suppliment his already high base damages while shrugging off any harass. With Titanic Hydra, he's now also going to have burst and strong waveclear and high dps in teamfights. His win rates right now don't even mean that much because people aren't building item 3748 or item 3742 plate on him with any regularity, which are amazing items on him.

2yordles1cupcake1 votes

No one also never asked for lux buffs.

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