Shyvana doesn't suck, she just lacks Utility/CC

19 19 19·Jan 29, 2015·12 votes·3,262 views

A rioter says a Tank is supposed to be a champion who's Tanky and have that CC power to them.

Shyvana doesn't suck when it comes to laning but when it comes to team fights she lacks Utility/CC to actually do something. Sure she has her W but her W is within her body range and you can't get TOO close to the enemy because like what most arguements are now-a-days "Tanks get melted so easily".

Maybe if her Dragon form was Immune to CC it would be pretty damn useful as a Tank for her but then people would find that OP.

Shyvana needs some kind of stun or a different utility/CC that would make her more useful in team fights than worry about being too close to getting "melted".

Remember it's not her W alone that damages the enemy a lot, you have to land her E first but once those two skills are on cooldown you pretty much are useless.

66 Comments

Angry MonsterJan 29, 20155 votes

Shy is not a tank. She is a bruiser/ fighter

Captain AishiJan 29, 20152 votes

shyvana isn't a tank, at her core design she's closer to an ADC, and I wouldn't want riot to change her into something like sion

i like her as an aoe damage monster that runs at people to punch them to death

junglerboy16Jan 29, 20152 votes

Just make Dragon's Descent uninterruptible and that should fix pretty much everything.

mi ramfanJan 29, 20152 votes

Hi, big fan of Shyvana, mained her as my jungler in S2 and S3.

Shyvana doesn't need CC. Giving her a hard CC would probably just immediately break her and giving her a soft CC wouldn't be much better. She's actually a very strong champion with a lot to offer to a team, but she is meta game dependent to an extent.

For Jungle Shyvana to be strong, there needs to be sufficient reward for stealing camps to justify the risk. At the moment, that's simply not true. Poachers was a step in the right direction but +20 gold on smite does not justify the massive risk I'm taking by going that deep into enemy territory.

Honestly, if I were to give Shyvana a buff at all, I'd want it aimed at her bulk, particularly in Dragon form. Gnar's transformation, even though it's uncontrollable, essentially makes Shyvana obsolete. I'd want to see her ult grant her +50% armor and magic resist instead of just doubling her passive bonuses; the passive resistances alone don't mean much in the land of BorK/LW. This change would allow me to do something like Sunfire/SV into damage items, which is a niche she needs to differentiate herself from Master Yi and J4.

ImHerVoiceJan 29, 20151 votes

yeah gnar is a shy+renekton ult. broken as shit.

He just randomly gains 200+ hp every 60-90 seconds for doing nothing but farming lmao.

19 19 19Jan 29, 20151 votes

I understand you and who ever else is about to post will say " she is not a tank" but many people Treat her as one rather than a fighter. That's why I said she's a tank if I were to say she's a fighter then people will argue and say "no shyvana is a tank just build this and that etc".

But yes of course she's designed as a fighter but shes treated more as a tank that engages first.

Captain AishiJan 29, 20152 votes

i feel like if they'd just remove the %hp damage on her E and bring back the flat damage and armor shred it used to have she'd be in a much better spot already, as far as her original role of "light figher" is intended

LankPantsJan 29, 20152 votes

I don't think she was ever intended to be a 'light fighter'. That tag's usually saved for more assassin/carry based bruisers like Irelia and Jax respectively, or even sometimes used for M/ADCs like Yi. I'd say she fits better into a 'heavy fighter' or 'off tank' role and the armour shred made very little sense on her, considering her damage is split about 33/67 physical/magical.

Captain AishiJan 29, 20151 votes

shyv was designed as a melee adc originally though, all about constantly autoattacking people as much as possible, thus why she has nothing in her kit that helps being a tank (like locking people down or team utility, etc.)

and the armor shred helps a lot when you build up to 300 ad with 1.5 attack speed on her

LankPantsJan 29, 20152 votes

and the armor shred helps a lot when you build up to 300 ad with 1.5 attack speed on her

When do you have that? No common Shyvana build has that much AD on it. Also you don't gain much more from 15% armour pen than you do from 2% HP on hit.

VS a target with 3000HP, 300 Armour and 100 MR (fairly typical tank)

Damage mitigation 300 Armour=75% Damage mitigation 255 Armour=71.83%

Bonus Damage 2% HP raw=60 Bonus damage mitigated=30

Physical damage VS 300 Armour=3000.25=75 Physical damage VS 255 Armour=3000.2817=84.51

So you'll deal 84.51 damage with old E and 135 damage with new E. these numbers come closer VS squishier targets and with bonus flat pen (further apart with bonus %pen) but you'll almost always deal more damage with her new E.

Bear in mind 300 AD on Shy is not an optimal build, It's better just to get AS so you can reapply the E damage more or more defence to use the high bases on E and W.

The only time the Shred was ever better is when you were shredding for an ADC.

Captain AishiJan 29, 20151 votes

my standard shyv build has that, and the %hp damage is stronger on tanks, the people shyv wants to be hitting the least, since she is hybrid damage and doesn't itemize penetration efficiently in any way

The old E also applied 15% of it's spell value as magic damage on hit, which meant with no scaling, had a flat damage value higher than the 2% max hp on squishy targets

LankPantsJan 29, 20151 votes

The old E also applied 15% of it's spell value as magic damage on hit, which meant with no scaling, had a flat damage value higher than the 2% max hp on squishy targets

At max rank it was almost 40 damage, At max rank that would do more damage to a champ with less than 2000 HP, which most squishies reach anyway. It was also common to max E last, meaning you'd often be dealing 12 damage or 600 HP worth of damage.

since she is hybrid damage and doesn't itemize penetration efficiently in any way

You understand that in any non-ADC case pen does more to squishies? That's one of the main problems with the game currently. Hybrid damage is also better VS mid ranged targets, since they do itemise defence, but not enough that they want to invest in both armour and MR.

Raw magic does more to squishies since they have low MR and raw AD does more to tankies because of crit. That's why AD assassins are so problematic to balance, they're either so strong that Zed happens or so weak that ADCs base armour mitigates them like it did in S2.

%hp damage is stronger on tanks,

This is a misconception, %damage is equal VS everyone. This is the reason why Elise never met her goal of 'tank buster', it's just better to hit carries since they lack the MR to deal with being hit by your % damage.

LilxPaprikaJan 29, 20154 votes

i think she leans more towards tank than fighter. she has high base hp and her passive really gives her that extra tankyness. her kit also tanky like damage. she doesnt have a q like khazix or lee sin thats meant to burst. she kills by attrition. i like to go full tank with just sunfire hexdrink for dmg. and 1 doran blade early game. go 9/21. btw won most of my placemnts with her went 10-0 as well.

with her recent buffs she is really strong. her q has very low cdr now.

on the other hand she can be just as good as a fighter but your team will need a tanky composition if you choose that path. if your having trouble with cc consider frozen mallet

19 19 19Jan 29, 20151 votes

{quoted}

i think she leans more towards tank than fighter. she has high base hp and her passive really gives her that extra tankyness. her kit also tanky like damage. she doesnt have a q like khazix or lee sin thats meant to burst. she kills by attrition. i like to go full tank with just sunfire hexdrink for dmg. and 1 doran blade early game.

with her recent buffs she is really strong. her q has very low cdr now.

it's only a 1 second cool down difference.

LilxPaprikaJan 29, 20151 votes

i find it enough to justify going full cdr instead of attsck speed. since it drops to 3 seconds with 40%cdr. so you q auto wait a sec and q again. allowing you to get hybrid pen marks.

AbrahamBaconhamJan 29, 20151 votes

But... doesn't her Q's cooldown reduce on every AA anyway? Her AA's affect her W duration as well, and are empowered by her E. There's literally no reason to take CDR on Shyvana instead of AS.

LilxPaprikaJan 30, 20151 votes

W description..."Shyvana's autoattacks extend the duration of Burnout by 1 second, to a maximum of 4 extra seconds. " if you dont run cdr your still likely to get 3 auto attacks during the duration of burnout. since your q resets your auto animation. so auto once q and thats two autos right there within a split second of each other. plus in the event you need to run away youll have w up 2 seconds sooner.

her as increase per lvl. the extra damage you get on e is negligeable. since you can instead invest in hybrid pen. and can have more ad for your q and w.

Sire HippingtonJan 29, 20155 votes

thats the common missconception. Tankiness does not mean tank in this game. Tank refers to champions that focus on tankiness and CC off-tank/bruiser refers to tankiness and dps(with quite some aoe) fighter refers to tankiness(usually a bit less than the previous two), agressive mobillity and singletarget dps

most melees are a mixture off those 3 tending more towards one or another, shyvana however is a pretty pure bruiser.

LilxPaprikaJan 29, 20155 votes

she def not a full tank. never not get at least 1 damage item or else people will ignore u. if you do dmg however they have to deal with you. whike full tanks like maokai can go full tank literally no dps item because he can cc people non stop. its ultimately about keeping enemy occupied/distrated by u. shyvanas way is with dmg while other tanks is by rooting/cc. ultimately both fill same role. Pure bruisers look for situational picks moreso like lee sin/udyr. but as far as tankyness dmg soaking power she is top tier in my book.

ImHerVoiceJan 29, 20151 votes

Shyvana is a duelist that burns you down

She plays alot like singed.

She's not a true duelist like Skarner or trundle(who is the strongest duelist in the game on equal item builds)

But she is a strong one none the less. What she lacks in actual 1v1 she makes up for in wave clear and split push potentional.

LankPantsJan 29, 20151 votes

Just because a champion builds tank it doesn't mean they're a tank, If I play Ashe with straight defensive items it doesn't make me a tank.

Shyvana's a bruiser by design, similar to Darius and J4. It's common to build only tank items on her due to her super high bases but it's also not uncommon to see more offensive items like BotRK bought on Shyvana.

Shyvana doesn't suck when it comes to laning but when it comes to team fights she lacks Utility/CC to actually do something.

Not quite. When Shyvana was played last season she was considered to be quite a weak lanner with a powerful teamfight. She's kind of like a more offensive Mundo in teamfights.

Maybe if her Dragon form was Immune to CC it would be pretty damn useful as a Tank for her but then people would find that OP.

No-one suggests dragon form immune to CC, they suggest Dragon's Descent, the dash to be immune to displacements similar to a Malpite ult.

exiledFromBadmenJan 29, 20151 votes

Jarvan has 3 CC abilities, he's actually a tank must be justified.

LankPantsJan 29, 20152 votes

He's pretty solidly a bruiser though. The number of CC abilities is not necessarily what defines a tank, rather the quality of said CC and their ratios.

J4's definitely more of an edge case than Shy though. Take away all his damage and he'd function as a somewhat subpar tank, take away Shy's damage and she'd be worthless.

19 19 19Jan 29, 20151 votes

lol and now math comes into the arguement. Good old GD.

Old Man TeetoJan 29, 20151 votes

Tank - High soak, High utility, Low damage

Bruiser - High soak, High damage, Low utility

Shyvanna is a bruiser. Renekton is a bruiser. Dr. Mundo is a bruiser. Olaf is a bruiser. Mordekaiser is a bruiser. Yorick is a bruiser.

Alistar is a tank. Rammus is a tank. Shen is a tank. Jarvan is a tank -- with too much damage. Nunu is a tank. Nautilus is a tank. Zac is a tank.

LankPantsJan 29, 20151 votes

Now for where the fun starts. Where do Sej, Amumu and Cho fall? Their late game damage is comparable to Mundo's but they also bring CC on par with Zac.

Also Mord is a weird edge case where although he seems like a bruiser he's actually a mage. Defensive builds are rare on him and he generally just went DFG to try to blow someone up. If you want an AP bruiser to include I'd recommend Vlad.

junglerboy16Jan 29, 20152 votes

Sej, Amumu, and Cho are Tank/mages. All three of them scale significantly harder into late game than most tanks in terms of damage and utility, which is their niche. Alistar, Rammus, and Shen for instance are utility tanks, focused less on DPS or burst and more on lock down. They are generally stronger early than most other tanks, while less impactful later than some harder scaling AP tanks.

TheI3igDaddyJan 29, 20151 votes

Zac isn't a tank, he's a bruiser. What part of his kit tells you that he's a tank? His passive? Aatrox and Anivia aren't tanks.

Zac's an AP bruiser who specializes in initiations, but he has no shields or defensive steroids. His tankiness is 100% based on the items he buys.

19 19 19Jan 29, 20151 votes

{quoted}

Zac isn't a tank, he's a bruiser. What part of his kit tells you that he's a tank? His passive? Aatrox and Anivia aren't tanks.

Zac's an AP bruiser who specializes in initiations, but he has no shields or defensive steroids. His tankiness is 100% based on the items he buys.

but his CC is based on HIS skills.

chumblerJan 29, 20151 votes

Here's the thing about Shyvana. Her kit does nothing other than have numbers. Riot has decided, in all of their idiotic thinking that they have a brain or literally anyone competent on balance at all, that a champion whose kit does damn near nothing is "antifun no counterplay bad for game health buzzword buzzword" whenever her numbers are actually decent enough to make her worth picking. Rather than actually give her something she can do, they just let her languish.

Though given the quality of their last oh... every rework, she's probably better off not getting reworked.

blueberrypancakeJan 29, 20151 votes

If her ult made her immune to cc then that would make her an Olaf. And if she was immune to slows then Shyvana could be Master Yi 2.0. Maybe making the tank effects from dragon form be better. Maybe give her a little bit of tenacity.

OnanThaManJan 29, 20151 votes

Tanks/bruisers just need to be able to last more than 3 seconds in a team fight and she will be fine again, like a lot of other champs. Its annoying when i have 250 armor on her and proceed to get shredded by and all ad comp because of one item.

CoolKnightSTJan 29, 20151 votes

She was crazy strong in the Renekton DrMundo Trundle meta. She's really not that bad. She litterly get free stats on her passive. Maybe they could make her cc-immune with the ult jump?

balbraakselJan 29, 20151 votes

The Golems buff should be pretty strong on her with her Twin Bite. (stun on AA) You just need 9 points in utility.

pleepJan 29, 20151 votes

Shyv is a tanky melee carry. She is already extremely powerful as is and doesn't need any changes.

WolfBVJan 29, 20151 votes

Maybe make her E add a slow. That's a start.

pleepJan 29, 20151 votes

The only thiing i would like to see changed on shyv is to let her E/Q mid jump.

AFK PushJan 29, 20151 votes

She is not the true definition of a "tank," but rather a very tanky bruiser due to her passive and dragon form, which allows her to build more damage instead of tank. I personally don't think she needs any kind of buffs/reworks maybe besides some built in tenacity in dragon form.

Fitz n The FoolJan 29, 20151 votes

Kited to hell end game, regardless of movement speed buff. You can Dragon Form onto Vayne's face but you'll never be able to stick to her and youll get kited and killed.

19 19 19Jan 29, 20151 votes

[{quoted}](name=Fitz n The Fool,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=8AU00VBr,comment-id=0017,timestamp=2015-01-29T17:21:10.333+0000)

Kited to hell end game, regardless of movement speed buff. You can Dragon Form onto Vayne's face but you'll never be able to stick to her and youll get kited and killed.

That's the problem, and not only that, when it comes to Orianna she can't even give a single attack on her without being slowed down heavily like any other champion who has a slow utility.

GundayMondayJan 29, 20151 votes

That's what your team is for! Ever try playing Shyvanna with Orianna? Ori balls shyv, then gets a free ult when shyv ults into the fight. Lots of burst cc holding the enemy team in place. Works well with J4 ult too (J4 ults, shyv jumps into the ring). She works well with heavy cc supports like leona, thresh, and sejuani too. Just need to use your team's cc!

SchneidRproJan 29, 20151 votes

Shyvana does a shit ton of damage, a top lane shyvana is nothing to laught at. She's only not getting played right now cause she has trouble laning against ranged top laners.

ArchAbyssJan 29, 20151 votes

I haven't read the comments but they should make it so that her E procs off of other champion auto attacks too. That would be a good buff. Although the wiki doesn't make it clear because the in game tooltip says its only Shyvana's basic attacks

chumblerJan 30, 20151 votes

{quoted}

I haven't read the comments but they should make it so that her E procs off of other champion auto attacks too. That would be a good buff. Although the wiki doesn't make it clear because the in game tooltip says its only Shyvana's basic attacks

No, that would be idiotic. Giving it percent health damage (their favorite band aid) was already stupid in the first place. That is not the fix Shyvana needs. If anything, that percent health damage is only giving them an excuse to keep her in bad shape, though I suppose that was kind of the point.

HalofireJan 29, 20151 votes

Shyvana benefits from having both power and tankiness; however, I do agree she could use a CC. Unfortunately, I also don't see a good way of incorporating it in. Often, when playing Shyvana, I pick up Frozen Mallet because it offers her a lot; some damage, plenty of health, and a slow so she can stick right up to people with her W and drop tons of damage, especially if she's invested in a Sunfire Cape for that purpose.

I would absolutely not agree with making Dragon Form immune to CC though. It's one of the main ways people can keep her from decimating everyone in a teamfight with her powerful AOEs. Most Shyvanas pick up Mercury Treads anyways, to get that helpful Tenacity. But a decent compromise would be that when Shyvana uses her ult, in the duration that she's in the air, she shrugs off and is immune to CC. This would force a "meaningful choice" for Shyvana; she can either ult into a teamfight, and be CC'd to death in exchange for a good engage or interrupt (and to put those CCs on cooldown), or she can run in, try to soak up CC at the risk of her life, then maybe ult if she's not a smear on the floor.

That said, I think Shyvana is still in a relatively decent place right now; the fallback she suffers is that of all tanks. That is, the fact it's easy to shred them right now.

JChaosMasterJan 29, 20151 votes

I agree that Shyvana could use a small buff/change. I posted my own thread and ideashttp://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/gameplay-balance/IUmU5EZF-shyvana-passive-needs-a-buff-hard?show=flat Getting a total of 30 votes sadly but 23 of them were for a buff. Where I think she needs the buff is in her Passive department. Her E can be useful early game to try to snipe last hits and her Q is nice. The W could use a bit more scaling to increase how much damage she deals, and her R well leave ALOT to be desired now with all the champs that transform. More the scaling on it is stupid with her "AP?" which as a fighter why would she ever build and her E scaling stinks to. I play almost all tree line so my experience isn't the same as rift player but I see alot fighter, bruiser, or tank in every game. Shyvana has really nothing compared to most of them. Garen is a great example because he is manaless, has a speed boost and spin to win style. Better passive for what he does. The only thing he Shyvana would have over him is her dragon which for what ever reason she is the only one who needs 100% energy and still has a cool down.

The passive is where if they change should happen. The passive itself has almost no interaction with Shyvana nor provides any real, anything. I mentions Annie in my own post and even now after they nerfed Her armor Tibbers the bear is more of a tank then Shyvana is.

ImpossibleGTJan 30, 20151 votes

She's really not in that bad of a spot. Honestly the only thing I really want on her is for her ultimate to be cleaned up a little: make the pull effect a little more reliable and make it so every skill doesn't knock her out of Dragon's Descent. That's it.

Also I've never been real clear on this; can she still multi-proc hydra with her cleave in dragon form? It used to work like that but I stopped playing for a year or so and since I've been back I haven't really been able to tell.

JChaosMasterJan 30, 20151 votes

For those who post about shyvana not being a Tank are wrong because if you click on her champion page's it say's Fighter/tank. "ImpossibleGT" I think your idea is great if it's what I'm thinking your saying. Don't ask, but allowing her to be immune from CC while Leaping in Dragon form would be logical. Seeing as it's a push but lack the Stun like other I think it would b a decent minor buff. On top of that almost every new champ has some kind of CC element which your idea would counter hard. In a very dragon like way ironicly. She would transform and "EAT" the adc or burst mage before she get's shredded.

I agree Shyvana is almost close to balance from what I read around post like this. Kinda like Annie who does that she does how she should do it. For what she can do and wouldn't require a complete rework just a few larger quality of life buff like they been handing out recently. Her Q is great and her W is decent in jungle and running back to lane. Her passive or Flame breath/ Dragon Descent are where she could use the help.

JChaosMasterJan 30, 20151 votes

http://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/gameplay-balance/qXi39lIh-the-strength-of-shyvana-and-dragons-descent?show=flat&page=3