If you replaced Shen's ultimate you would never know he was the same champ from pre-rework.

Lux Tizer·11/30/2018, 1:11:12 AM·8 votes·3,201 views

Different build path, different passive, different Q with a different passive that removed his health restore mechanic, weird power budget for his W that's useless against half the champions in the game, and now he plays more like some kind of duelist rather than a hypertank. Laning phase doesn't even play remotely similar.

You kept nothing from the original champion other than his taunt and ult. How is this considered a "rework?"

22 Comments

Infernape11/30/2018, 2:08:04 AM5 votes

Because Riot half arsed it and they KNOW they did because they admitted it didn't hit the mark. He got an update on a greater level than Ezreal yet he still has a minute of VO, visually looks like shit and has little to no particle effects outside of Pulsefire.

UnboundHades11/30/2018, 2:54:55 AM5 votes

literally everything besides his old point and click q was kept what are you talking about

BeatzBoyFTW11/30/2018, 3:50:06 AM3 votes

I'm highly certain his ult & taunt is what made Shen being "Shen". His old W was shitty af, and his Q is a point & click that does nothing but either tickles or annoy his enemy laner.

The Highest Noon11/30/2018, 2:43:17 AM3 votes

Um, what? They changed all of two abilities and his passive which is his old W plus some new things and you say we would "never know"? Are you daft? He looks the same to me, and I play him the same now as I did before the rework albeit with some changes such as I'm not mindlessly running at people anymore I'm actually considering my position now.

I don't understand how anybody wouldn't know that it's Shen from adjusted gameplay alone.

MorganFreemanBot11/30/2018, 1:20:28 AM2 votes

Shen was never a hyper tank; his only tanky elements previously were a weak self shield and a damage reduction (for himself only) on people he taunted.

Let's not throw around "hyper" without having any understanding of what it means. Malphite is a hyper tank, having both large tank steroids and massive AS shred. Cho is a hyper tank, due to health scaling. Alistar is sort of a hyper tank, because you pretty much can't kill him during ultimate.

Shen is not, and never was, a hyper tank. He's actually MUCH tankier in his current form then he used to be.

Tennousu11/30/2018, 3:31:14 AM2 votes

I'm not sure what you're trying to imply here. Are you saying that reworked Shen is bad? Or you saying that pre-rework Shen was good? Because if it's either of those two, I want to say that you're very, very, wrong.

Shen now has Actual energy regeneration mechanics. Pre-rework, Shen had the worse energy costs out of all the energy champions. Vorpal Blade Q costed 60 energy, with a 4 second cooldown at max rank. Shield W costed 50 energy on a 5 sec max rank CD. Taunt E costed 100-80 energy with an 8 sec CD. His only form of energy regen was the passive 10 energy regen/sec, along with 40 energy when landing a taunt, and a laughable 10/20/30 energy restored every 9/8/7 seconds on an auto attack. Landing a full combo literally costed his entire energy bar, and would massively punish you if you tried to taunt and miss. Not only that, even if you did land the combo, if you didn't hit more than 1 person with taunt you wouldn't have enough energy to do it again when the cooldowns came back up.
Shen now has actual damage. Old Vorpal Q did a flat 220 magic damage at max rank, while his taunt did 190 magic damage at max rank. They both had AP scaling only, meaning that any actual tank Shen was stuck with his crappy base damage, and would literally fall off a cliff and become irrelevant post laning phase. Compare that to his new Q, which does 18% max health damage, along with its scaling base. His new taunt scales with health as well, allowing him to take advantage of going tank.
Shen's old W shield was absolutely useless. It only shielded for 220 damage, and was skilled up last anyway. There was no point in using it since it would just drain your limited energy even faster. For all intents and purposes, post-rework Shen still has this ability, but now its in his passive, and with proper ability usage can be constantly maintained and available for free.
I don't think you understand just how massively powerful Shen's new W is. An AOE auto-attack dodge is absolutely insane, and well deserves the power budget it gives him. Laning phase, it allows you to avoid complete retaliation damage from the enemy minion wave. Block a single auto-attack in mid and late game, where empowered Auto attacks from champs like Nasus Q, Riven passive, Jax W, or on-hit effects like Irelia Q or Fiora Q can reach 300, 400, 500, 600+ damage or more with items like Triforce, and you've more than doubled or tripled the damage blocked by Shen's old W. For the Boards, which has a massive hardon against ADCS, I thought you would see the value in blocking 2, 3 or even 4 autos on yourself or on your teammates, and not take nearly 2000+ damage pre-mitigation from critical autos.
Old Shen was a hypertank in that he was absolutely impossible to kill, but in return was nothing more than a taunt and ult bot. Vorpal Blade was a dull, uninteractive point and click ability that basically gave Shen a permanent lvl 1 Garen passive. It meant he was a stone wall that couldn't be forced out of lane, but was basically a sack of cement in teamfights that needed to land that crucial taunt or else just uselessly walk around and do nothing.
New Shen is far more interactive and fun. Carefully dragging your Q through an opponent, dancing around and weaving auto attacks, properly timing your auto-dodge for that one empowered enemy auto; this is what defines a skilled Shen, and there is no greater thrill than besting an opponent in a 100-0 duel and showing off your mechanics. Compare that to old Shen, who just mindlessly pressed Q on an opponent and sat in one spot auto attacking.

As a Plat Shen main whose played both versions, I can very much say that new Shen is a far better and healthier version of him compared to his old incarnation. Almost all Shen mains (atleast those on r/Shen and the discord anyway) think he's perfectly fine and in a great spot balance-wise, including EUW Challenger OTP PetuTheBeast. Lolalytics also has him consistently around 48-49% win rate, while op.gg has him at ~50% winrate as of this patch. For a champion that Riot balances purely around professional play, that's pretty damn impressive for the team-reliant tank in the clown fest that is League's solo queue.

jocomotion11/30/2018, 3:37:10 AM1 votes

Yep just replace his ultimate. Oh, and his E since that’s the exact same. And probably change the passive name since it too is a dead giveaway of his old W honestly though you should probably just change the passive since both Shens had shields on low cooldowns. Oh, and of course change his look so he doesn’t look like Shen. He probably shouldn’t still be a Tanky bruiser either... oh and make sure to change his personality so you couldn’t tell.

THEN I wouldn’t recognize him, I agree.

Jerry SeinfeId11/30/2018, 12:37:08 PM1 votes

worst rework in the game. Completely dropped the champ, used to be one of my favourites.

Oleandervine11/30/2018, 2:21:07 PM1 votes

Riot had already acknowledged years ago that the Shen rework was a complete failure that didn't re-envision Shen in the same way.