Thoughts on Shen (Why I think he is bad now and why the rework was probably a waste of time)

Before you automatically assume this is a shen rant please read because hopefully this sounds constructive.

Overall I am very disappointed in the shen rework and as him being my favorite champ hopefully I can give some insight as to why he really is bad, as opposed to even some high elo player claiming he is overpowered.

First of all lets start with the rework itself, I believe people are too concerned about how his new kit looks rather than what it actually provides. The only new thing this rework brought to the table and this is a fact, is his new W which was essentially traded for his previous Q which is the only thing in his new kit that still isnt there in some form from pre-work shen. Overall however his passive is his previous w however way less reliable and even if as many procs are made as possible its still relatily low amounts requiring perfect execution. His Q can be thought of as his previous passive except much less burst and more prolonged. his e is simply a worse version of his previous e. In other words the new shen simply recycles his previous skills for a much more unreliable versions of them and trades his in reality previously great Q for a somewhat useless W.

Now after all the basics we can look at the playstyle that this new kit brings by analyzing the individual abilities. While in theory it can sound pretty great it essentially never achieves the theoretical potential. Using his Q becomes very awkward throughout the length of the game, as it scales with health however relies completely on auto attacking, meaning that you need to get up close and personal and simply wait for the skill to complete which sounds great, you can build full tank while having an ability that scales with hp and thus go and attack dishing out some good damage and taking much less in return, though in most cases for shen to effectively complete this rotation he requires some heavy investment into attack speed items which in turn do not scale with the ability itself and thus creating a great gap in terms of build style, weather you want to effectively rotate your abilities while getting destroyed or have a useless Q while being a walking health-bar. Next up is his W, this is the greatest cause of people quickly jumping on the "shen op" train, however once again when broken down is quite useless and is probably the biggest waste of an ability slot in his kit. The W only blocks autos, which is great is you are fighting a completely auto reliant champion however even many top lane melee brawlers have many skills that aren't auto attacks while scaling well with a brawling style build unlike shen, for example renekton or fiora or olaf, even taking the most auto reliant out of those 3, olaf like most melee brawlers could not care about the 2 auto attacks shen will block with his W since olaf has such a great scaling kit with his own playstyle all that lost damage will be negligible compared to the total amount olaf will dish out in the time shen needs to complete his damage cycle (mainly reliant on the slow autos enhanced by his q), all while this during shens W other brawlers can simply negate this by quickly spamming their abilities instead of auto attacking which will render the 1.75 seconds of basic attack invulnerability for shen useless as it is extremely easy to hold on to your abilities and wait for shens W. His E was extremely disappointing since the rework simply traded his previous one for a lesser version, before it was amazing since building tank and having damage reduction scaled well, however now the E is basically the same thing as walking up to another and asking them to attack you and is on its own extremely irrrelevant. His ultimate is the same so there is no need to talk about it, however his passive is quite dreadful as it is a recycling of his previous W while relying on his rotation which in theory once again may be strong however in reality simply becomes unreliable, the previous W was a small shield however was very useful for negating damage when needed and had a short cooldown which in my opinion is much better than any amount of procs that can be achieved on his new passive which simply grants you shields in very unconventional times.

Summing up his playstyle, the only way I have really achieved anything out of this new kit is when really coupling all of his skills together allowing me to utilize what I think is shens new full potential. That is to E someone then W to negate the self induced damage of the taunt and Q in order to slowly dish out some damage and painfully watch it on my screen. This is what most people say is the way to play the new shen however it becomes extremely ineffective once tested. In this combo you are essentially getting the same results from his new W and E as you did from just his old E and you have only one ability left, however the effectiveness of this ability now really ties into what you went for with your initial build since you can try building attack speed in order to simultaneously complete the rotation of your Q with your W and E, or you could have went tank and landed ONE enhanced auto for the duration of your taunt and W and simply watch the enemy walk away wait out the other two autos and quickly turn on you with their own rotation which will be more effective as most other champions at this point have the full choice of when to rotate and what, while the unreliable nature of shens skills leave him with many spots of vulnerability. In either case you can chose to have good rotation with shen however bad scaling and therefore get destroyed regardless after completion of rotation, or you could build tank and simply get out rotated. The last piece of this is the fact that having to rely so much on this new combo which essentially costs his whole energy pool (140 Q + 40 W + 180 E = 40 energy to spare and heavy cooldowns) leaves you much of a moving practice target once done as you simply must wait for everything to come back up again, and trying to use the skills individually simply wastes the energy and turns abilities useless as explained earlier, more so his new kit seems to be very individual target based and very delayed meaning if you fail to use it on an enemy champion you simply lose all of the pressure you place on your enemy. All of the above statements as well make it extremely difficult to do much of anything in lane especially, against an opponent champion or minion waves which count heavily in early game, since his kit bring nearly nothing for sustain or minion clear speed unlike for example shens old Q or a renekton Q.

Some extra thoughts, IF YOU READ THIS FAR THANKS, THE ABOVE BASICALLY SUMS UP MY THOUGHTS ON NEW SHEN, READ BELOW FOR SOME EXTRA COMPARISONS BETWEEN PRE-WORK AND REWORK.

Now since you read this far you should already know how I feel the new shens playstyle is very much divided and simply does not synchronize within itself, which is why I think it is important to take a look at the old shen and why the old shen never really needed a rework at all. Previously his passive granted him extra burst damage on a lengthy cooldown which could be shortened with autos, even though this is much of the same concept as I was saying where you need some attack speed for the new shen to utilize his potential it really didn't matter for old shen and was extremely great with his kit. This old passive allowed shen for great early play where he could go up against some of the other toplane brawlers and aided in other roles where when needed shen could come in do some big damage and get out which was great especially early when no full tank items have been completed yet, however this did not mean free damage as this would also proc on minions and monsters meaning the enemy could easily time it and counterplay in the end the skill becoming extremely useful and balanced while also scaling with health much like his new Q except it was all in one burst, and even though in total it was less damage than the enhancement from the new Q it allowed much greater control over when to use it and against who. The old Q was what brought a lot of people to scream terrible, however in my opinion this was PURE GOLD, the Q was some heavily needed poke that nearly all other champions have (olaf axe, fiora Q, mundo Q, even renekton can come up and press Q without getting directly into your face and initiating) as well as the Q provided some great sustain which in my opinion was much better than the many shield procs on the new passive, more so the old Q was a great aid to farm in lane whereas the new shen unlike all other champions has no aid in this matter. His old W is not much to talk about, it is now his new passive but was way better before. and his E was also GOLD as you could dash and with the right amount of defensive stats not feel the heat, while on the new shen I don't even think of using my E unless my energy bar is full and all my other skills are up. All while utilizing his old combo you could actually sustain in long fights with his old Q after cycling meaning that you don't get destroyed just because you already used your E, the new shen just as riot put it IS A NINJA THAT LIKES TO TAKE PUNCHES TO THE FACE, however he is no longer very good at it. Now you may think I am simply describing a much easier playstyle for shen however it was very much centered on timing aggression and analyzing your enemy which actually requires a great amount of skill and patience which is what SHEN used to be and what his identity is, while the new shen is simply a mess of some good ideas that really don't work together meaning overall the kit just doesn't work. I know riot you may have wanted people to pick shen up again, however it really seems as though people simply got excited over the rework tried him and didn't like him (I don't see any in game except me) and even the big league youtubers didn't see any good in him. It really is saddening that this character now seems like he can only be played by the pros properly (and even they don't play him) in a game fueled by average consumers (players), it was really unnecessary to cater shen for the big leagues when there are plenty of players like me who greatly enjoyed his playstyle before.

THE NEW LOOK

Now I'm not gonna lie the new look didn't appeal to me before but is growing on me, in the release page the textures and models look amazing, however I do not think the full extent of the new textures was considered before release. The old shen used to attack fiercely and looked as though he was marching to battle, especially on the warlord skin he used to look as though he is truly leading in the time of war. Now the new textures look good, however once loading up into game is entirely a different story, the new warlord shen looks much like regular black clothed shen with an awkward yellow jacket and a mask, once in game all of the great details of the skin models fade away into non existence (I run full HD when i play still don't see what I paid for). The only relevant skin I think now is the surgeon shen however the great look of the models once again doesn't quite resemble the in game surgeon shen, by the way the surgeon shen is really close to the in game though he seems much skinnier in game which in turn looks very awkward and this goes for all of the skins, beef him up a bit. Lastly as I have said shen, more so on the warlord skin, used to feel as a leader of battle, however now he just awkwardly wabbles around looking like he will fall at the slightest wind, in my opinion this is quite lame and unappealing, though while standing still he does look better. And the new auto attacks are i have no clue what those are, yes he is a ninja, but for someone thought of as a tank and a leader HE NOW STANDS FIRMLY AND FIERCELY AS HE scratches you, if you get what I mean, and the new enhanced attacks they don't look like enhanced attacks very much at all instead it looks as though shen is simply practicing some kind of pose, great theater, not very threatening. And to end this quite lengthy post, once again yes shen is a NINJA however many can agree that even though he may have looked like one he certainly seemed much sterner than one and more so like a great samurai which is what I think shens identity is and he needs to be brought back to that.