Let's Discuss Shen Q
So Shen got reworked recently in patch 6.2 and this had the affect that Shen went from being a popular and wide spread pick in Pro play and to some degree solo queue, to being not played at all in pro play, and reduced play in solo queue.
I believe that his new kit is over all, is better than his old one, all except for one factor his Q.
The problem with his Q is that it brings his spirit blade to him, the ability currently reads as:
ACTIVE: Shen recalls his Spirit Blade to his location and empowers his next 3 basic attacks within 8 seconds to deal bonus magic damage. Enemies the blade collides with are slowed by 35% for the next 2 seconds when moving away from Shen.
MAGIC DAMAGE: 3 / 3.5 / 4 / 4.5 / 5% (+ 1.5% per 100 AP) of target's max. health.
If the Spirit Blade collides with an enemy champion, the empowerment is Twilight Assault Strong enhanced, dealing 2% (+ 0.5% per 100 AP) of target's max. health bonus damage and gain 50% bonus attack speed.
ENHANCED MAGIC DAMAGE: 5 / 5.5 / 6 / 6.5 / 7% (+ 2% per 100 AP) of target's max. health.
Empowered attacks against non-champions deal additional damage, but their damage is capped.
NON-CHAMPION BONUS DAMAGE: 30 / 50 / 70 / 90 / 110
Now the problem with this is the fact that in order to get the full effect from the bald you have to get it to go through an enemy which means that the enemy has to be between you and the blade. which is often much harder than it seems due to the blade being easy to see and you know he can only bring it to himself it makes it very, very easy to avoid, and often the only way for him to get it to hit anyone is to Shadow Dash through them followed by a Q.
Now I would like to see the Q changed into a Target Move, this would mean that when you press Q the spirit blade will move to the location of your cursor.
If you hit a minion or monster you get:
Empowers his next 3 basic attacks within 8 seconds to deal bonus magic damage.
ENHANCED MAGIC DAMAGE: 5 / 5.5 / 6 / 6.5 / 7% (+ 2% per 100 AP) of target's max. health.
While if you hit a champion you get:
If the Spirit Blade collides with an enemy champion they are slowed by 35% for the next 2 seconds when moving away from Shen. the empowerment is enhanced, dealing 2% (+ 0.5% per 100 AP) of target's max. health bonus damage and gain 50% bonus attack speed.
ENHANCED MAGIC DAMAGE: 5 / 5.5 / 6 / 6.5 / 7% (+ 2% per 100 AP) of target's max. health.
When attacking a minion it does:
Empowered attacks against non-champions deal additional damage, but their damage is capped.
NON-CHAMPION BONUS DAMAGE: 30 / 50 / 70 / 90 / 110
So this allows Shen to more freely move around his spirit blade and have better control over it, it makes using his W much more meaning full as you can create areas of no AA or move the blade over a friendly to protect them.
Since the Spirit Blade does 0 damaeg to enemies it hits (only slows) it would not become to powerful and would not be able to be used for poke or damage on enemies, Shen wouldn't gain any extra damage or masisve advantage over his opponent. The only extra ability that this would grant Shen is he would be able to use his Q to slow his enemy from a distance, which would probably work really well in his kit.
This would make Shen much more open to give the player the ability to do interactions, not give them an over bearing power and would make the match ups more skill dependent, it would mean that he then has to land his Q on a target (weather minions, monsters or champions) in order to get the Q damage for his AA and would have to hit champions to get the enhanced damage,
With all of Shen's damage being based on his AA he could in theory land 1 Million Q's in a row and all it would do to the enemy would be to slow them, he would do 0 damage, so in order to fight and duel enemies he still would have to go in and AA the enemy, so for Shen to deal damaeg he would still need to dash in to deal damage other wise all he could do is apply a slow on the enemy and occasional put up his W.
