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How come Shyvana has no innate AS steroids?

Reaversal·8/6/2019, 1:56:23 AM·10 votes·6,874 views

As far as I can tell, she's the only AS-intended melee champion who doesn't have a single AS steroid in her kit.

Is this why traditional Shyvana basically doesn't work and she now builds AP, just relying on her E and R as nukes (I also like to assume people just noticed how much of a tactical nuke AP Shyvana was in URF and decided to try it in normal play)? Her Q and W both require a good deal of attack speed to be viable DPS, but unlike similar champions she doesn't get any of that attack speed on her own.

Hell, even some fighters who AREN'T strictly designed for fast autos have AS steroids anyway, like Camille and Gnar.

If I had to make a relatively uneducated guess, Shyvana doesn't have one because of fear that it'd be too much DPS with how Twin Bite and Burnout work together. On the opposite end, though, we have the currently most viable Shyvana build being AP, to which her Q basically makes no contribution whatsoever unless you have Nashor's Tooth.

16 Comments

True Garen8/6/2019, 4:23:20 AM4 votes

I feel like, if they put actual AS into her power budget, then it would be kind of a waste. Because Shyvana is going to build Attack Speed anyway, the on-hit items that she uses come with AS. AS going much above 1.6 starts to have diminishing returns on Shyvana, and that's about as much as she gets from the 2 or 3 items that she builds that have it.

The Ecdysiast8/6/2019, 2:05:08 AM4 votes

It's because of Twin Bite in its entirety. It applies on-hits twice and has its cooldown reduced with autos. It's her replacement for AS.

And the fact Shyvanna's now meta with the damage stat she actually scales is fantastic. It's never made sense that she has AP on 4 of her abilities but built like she had none on any.

If anything, the bonus damage on her Q should be AP, not AD, to go all the way and make her a completely cohesive champion.

SEKAI8/6/2019, 3:17:40 AM3 votes

She has a bunch of on-hit steroids.

Her Q resets AA, comes with an on-hit of its own, and apply on-hit effect TWICE; her W gives her access not just AoE damage, but AoE on-hit as well; her E marks enemy and deals even more on-hit procs, this time it's %HP. Needless to say, casting W and E before Q makes it really hurts, and her kit full of on-hit that also distributed via AoE makes her jungle clearing monstrous indeed.

Her W is also a MS steroid, so I guess that's something fast.

But really, it's not like Shyvana can't attack fast, she absolutely could as long as you use her Q well. And when you do, her on-hit damage is absolutely massive while also attacking relatively fast.

Pierce The Veal8/6/2019, 4:58:47 AM2 votes

Ok so here’s how it goes.

She used to only be an ad champion. Her every skill had a very high scaling in AD.

Afterwards Riot released devourer. Shyvana having E and her auto reset Q loved devourer. It made her jungling very fast, but even then she used cinderhulk quite often too. At that time she also used guinsoo’s which gave a cheap on hit aoe that scaled with ad and ap and gave lots of cheap and useful stats. Together these items were strong. Prior, on hit shyvana had been hilarious but pretty much a joke, but when riot decided to turn devourer into the current guinsoo’s while removing the old guinsoo’s, riot mistook shyvana liking it as her being an on hit champion, and rebalanced her entire kit around on hit, giving her W the AP ratio on hit and whatnot. Previously full ad shyvana, while not necessarily meta, did an absurd and hilarious amount of damage and was a decent off meta pick. Now, AD became garbage, on hit was meh (because she was never really an on hit champion!), and there was a newly arising AP shyvana that had been lurking in the shadows for a long time. After Riot saw this and was like heck, we’ll give her a mini rework and then give her better AP scalings, suddenly all the other builds became garbage in comparison. AP shyvana with her crazy ult E burst is now the best Shyvana build because AD and on hit shyvana are both garbage and tank shyvana is lackluster compared to any juggernauts, divers, or tanks.

Sincerely, a man who misses old AD shyvana.

Sire Hippington8/6/2019, 8:50:47 AM2 votes

She was designed to synergies well with AS and get it from items, where as most other AA melees are designed around building AD and relying on their in kit steroids for AS, which was a fine concept back in the day. But the lack of def+AS options is an issue and she doesn't have enough survivabillity to compensate that. Wit's end is nice, but that's about all there is.

As for her ap poke/burst built beeing dominant: More AS wouldn't help her at all, it's just a result of damagecreep. DPS based melees with no hypermobillity and strong defensive mechanics are basically usless, she just dies to fast in a teamfight to ever use her dps, even when going fulltank.

Zane Zephyr8/6/2019, 3:11:23 AM2 votes

because of her on hit steroids

True Garen8/6/2019, 3:17:31 AM2 votes

"cdr on shyvana is converted to attackspeed your q all your spammable abilities scale with cdr more cdr= more bloodrazor procs on q cdr is a very strong stat on resourceless champs"

Saltyfruits8/6/2019, 10:32:17 AM2 votes

Try Shyvana with item 3161 , item 3115 and item 3748 , it make you like some sort of triple hydrid Tank-AD-Ap ,and you get enough attspeed for your Q and W to make them contribute to your DPS . As weird as it look ( or sounds) those 3 items items synergise EXTREMELY WELL with Shyvana as she is , you can get perma W , a Q every 2s (wich proc shojin passive and nashor tooth twice -> insane damage ) , your E every 4/5 s AND ALL OF THAT IN AOE. Thanks to your passive and stats you are kinda tanky espically with Conqueror , wish make you heal liek crazy.

Shyv is actually in a really great spot top lane [slayer-jinx-catface]

Reaversal8/7/2019, 11:28:06 PM1 votes

What I've gathered from the comments is that she can't have an AS steroid because she has too much on-hit damage, between her W and E in addition to her Q's CD-lowering mechanic.

Which is fine, except for the part where she's a melee champion. The itemization to enable her to utilize this on-hit damage and not instantly die just isn't there.

Which is the entire reason why champions like Jax have AS steroids. So that they're free to build the defenses they need to actually survive while putting out high-speed autos.

Hell, Yi's allowed to have an AS steroid (granted it's on his ultimate, but still) when he can output more than enough damage (passive double-hit, autos reducing Alpha Strike CD, true damage while Wuju Style is active) and has defensive tools / sustain on top of that (Alpha Strike and Meditation). I know Yi has mana compared to Shyvana being manaless, but Yi's mana costs aren't exactly back-breaking.

Most of Shyvana's power budget is shoveled into on-hit effects, leaving no room for any of the things that enable said on-hit focus to actually work.

Darkdemon6538/6/2019, 10:37:55 AM1 votes

All four of her abilities scale with AS.

loligotboosted8/6/2019, 1:03:09 PM1 votes

shyvana really does feel awful without attackspeed and her kit has no stick meaning you need to get a frozen mallet or go AP and rylais. The sad thing is she is so much fun playing AP as a death ball of fire and really hope with the new riot rework they capitalize on the AP bruiser potential

DogshítPlayer8/6/2019, 5:18:28 PM1 votes

Tbh i would love if they swapped the thematic of shyvana and rumble. Why is a firebreathing dragon not breathing nonstop fire and auto attacking so much, but a weak yordle who built a machine to make up for being physically weak using fire magic.

Anu3isII8/7/2019, 8:22:25 AM1 votes

Shyv's base kit has a lot of synergy with AS through her inbuilt On-Hit effects. Because she has no initial AS steroid and she hard scales with AS, she is a scaling champion, that has her power level based on how many items she built.

Giving her AS would definitely improve her Early Game, but as a result, she would be stripped of some of her Innate On-Hit power, resulting in a lower impact when building AS and, possibly, less AS focused builds (Tank, AD Bruiser).

Her major issue currently is the lack of survivability. For a melee DPS champion, she needs a lot of defence to be able to keep fighting, while her AP version doesn't. She currently gets only some resists, which aren't enough for a Damage focused meta.

JuiceBoxP8/6/2019, 8:14:01 AM1 votes

Who needs AS when you R>E>pentakill