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I'm sure 90% of this is me but Shyvana feels a bit rough to play

Linna Excel··1 votes·1,121 views

I've been trying to get back into summoner's rift and decided to focus a little more on jungling so I feel comfortable with a secondary role. So I've been playing Shyvana because she's my favorite jungler. Something feels off about her, but if I'm wrong about something, please let me know.

  1. Her clear speed feels a little slow. Granted, it's been a year since I've regularly played SR (more of an ARAM guy). However I don't remember her being quite as slow or squishy as she used to be in the old runes/masteries system. Powerfarming seems off and it's supposed to be her whole shtick.
  2. Her early 1v1 seems a little weaker than before. She used to be a good duelist, but now I'm not so sure about it. I don't have confidence 1v1ing champs with her right now and if they get a gold/xp lead because they can gank before 6, I feel like I'm falling behind them too much with no options to keep up. It feels like riot is forcing junglers to gank and pvp more, but I'm not confident that she has the tools to do that before 6.
  3. Ganking with her early feels like a waste of time. Yes I've gotten one or two early ganks in, but in general if I don't get a kill or assist I feel like I'm falling behind. Taxing ganked lanes early isn't an option anymore because of no GP and trying to catch up with farm feels slow. I don't feel like I have the early lane impact I need so I'm hoping my teammates don't fed 10 kills by 10 minutes. That's not a good place to be.
  4. I'm trying to relearn how to gank lanes and trying to get to champs when your laner doesn't have CC has been a bit of a puzzle for me. I know you aren't supposed to waste your W getting to the enemy laner so it feels like all I can do is trade flashes when I don't have someone who can CC their lane for me. I see why frozen mallet has become core on her and why TF works so well on her.
  5. She needs to get dragons to get ahead in the game, but if my mid and bot are pushed in and I don't feel like I can 1v1 the enemy jungler if he shows up I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do. Considering how high elo people are saying dragons are such a low priority objective, I feel like riot put a trap in her passive. If you lose a dragon, you've lost 190gp worth of stats with no way of recovering it.
  6. Once she gets 3 items she feels good, but getting there is an issue.
  7. I'm starting to think that as a melee champ that wants to punch things but with no easy way to do so outside of her ult is an issue. I'm happy with her being a melee DPS champ, but I feel like she lacks the built in raw speed or stickiness she needs. She's got no hard engage outside of her ult and no real burst, except maybe if you get a TF but that's expensive.
  8. How is she in counter jungling? She used to be good at it, but right now my confidence is so shot with her, IDK if I can.

Anyone got tips for playing Shyvana so I can git gud?

7 Comments

True Garen5 votes

Well, they did nerf her AD scaling, especially on her Q. I looked at your runes; they aren't bad (you can play almost anything on Shyvana), but try these, especially considering that you play in low mmr (and me too), where these can be more useful: Last Stand and Sorc Secondary with Celerity and Gathering Storm (two of your most recent Shyvana games were over 40m long), for a more consistent buff. Also, try swapping Alacrity for Bloodlines. I'll make one other recommendation for better jungle clear, but it's not popular and most will disagree with me: swap Triumph for Overheal. Triumph is definitely the better playing Rune, but I think that if you are struggling to get there with the early Jungling, then Overheal might help, especially combined with Bloodlines. (And when you are more comfortable, go back to using Triumph.)

Shyvana is still great at counterjungling. One of the few junglers where Poacher's Dirk is viable.

Early ganks with Shyvana are rare (not impossible, just as you noted, often a waste of time), and they need to be perfectly set up. When Faker plays Shyvana, he never ganks before level 6, in fact he is completely unseen.

In most games, you can get 2-4 dragons. Learn how to take the early dragon at lvl 3 (if you don't already).

Also, late game, BORK is even higher damage than TF on Shyvana, in general.

I think that most Shyvana builds include Deadman's Plate, even more than Frozen Mallet. (Nothing wrong with both!)

Linna Excel3 votes

This is a bit to think about but thanks for the tips. It's funny you mentioned bloodlines because I was using that and switched to Alacrity just before I started playing SR again. Gathering storm seems tempting.

I'll practice getting a dragon at 3. I just remember the last time I tried practicing it, I was left a little lower than I felt comfortable with.

Hexs Fortune2 votes

My experience with Shyvana early is that she's extremely vulnerable to invaders before level 3. Shy really needs her entire kit to properly defend herself. Other champs like graves can do their kits full damage at level 2

Linna Excel2 votes

I'll try to remember to avoid other junglers before 3, thanks for the tip.

LetMeCarry19831 votes

Shyvana main here. The answer you're looking for is Jax. Play him. Does what Shyvana does but better. Only slightly slower on clears.

Linna Excel1 votes

I was looking at Vi next, but I'll put Jax on my list was well. Thanks.

Alzon1 votes

Shyvana used to be regarded as one of, if not THE stickiest champion in the game. Boy do I love mobility creep.

Anyway, her ganks have always been trash. Her counterganks, however, are top-tier. This combined with her clear speed and objective pressure used to make her a very good champion for learning and prioritizing macro play. However, her clear speed is now average at best, and every other jungler will burst her down in a 1v1 before she builds some HP/resists so she can’t get priority to pressure objectives. This issue would be solved if she could build both damage (Attack Speed) and defense (HP) early to fight, but no reliable early rush item does that. For Shyvana,item 3078 is rather feast-or-famine, the damage it grants is marginal at best, and the build path and price point are not very friendly. A point can be made for the MS and CDR, but Shyvana easily reaches the movespeed soft cap for a good quarter of the game already, and CDR is really just a luxury stat with such short cooldowns already. Again, the item is marginal at best.

A solution for the “getting 1v1’d by non-Cinderhulk junglers” issue used to be rushing Tiamat for the burst, but it’s no longer enough. item 1419 is also not enough vs item 1413 rush junglers, of which you’ll only ever see Sejuani, Rammus, and Amumu - they all have kit elements that counter Attack Speed too well right now, since so many other junglers have either Attack Speed steroids or kite with autos.

Which brings me to my final point. Graves completely outclasses Shyvana at literally everything. More mobility, more damage, faster and healthier clear, better ganks, tankier (True Grit early while rushing Warrior, then Tabi > PD > Cleaver > DD), more crowd control (Smokescreen is ridiculous and can’t be missed nearly as easily as Dragon’s Descent), scales better, builds cheaper and more stat-efficient items, more useful when behind, and has better objective control. The only thing Shyvana has over Graves is that she can 1v1 him if they’re going even, past two items and before four.

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