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Shyvana has to be the most disappointing champion in the game

Moody P··79 votes·18,690 views

Just a complete disconnect from her fantasy vs her delivery.

Shyvana is quite possibly the most barebones champion ever made. She runs at you, she runs at you a little faster, and she hits you. Sometimes she jumps at you. I don't like the "muh stat check" non-argument but when you get a champion this 1-dimensional I feel like it's impossible to not bring up. Shyvana is the worst sort of stat check; one who has literally nothing else going for her but her numbers. Even the other shit champs that do this at least offer you something to make your team tolerate having you there. Tryndamere can reduce AD by fucking 80 for 4 seconds. Trundle has his pillar for god-tier utility. Volibear is a great hard shut-down to mobility and dash-based all ins like Alistar and Irelia. Voli's even showing up in challenger games as a support just to counter Alistar in EUW and KR.

Shyvana? Well, if Shyvana's numbers ain't good enough.. you just aren't gonna play her. That's it. That's all there is to her. And it's so disappointing because a champion who transforms into a fire-breathing dragon really deserves to hold the title better than she does. There's no fallback plan; there's no "niche" that she slots into. She's just good, or she's not, and that's a shame.

I'm amazed that Shyvana isn't complained about more. IMO she's been done dirty.

95 Comments

Rock MD19 votes

Not if you play her AP : )

Moody P41 votes

Mage advocates are not allowed to post their filth in my threads.

Begone. item 3155 item 3194

Tahminatrix 10 votes

item 3135 new challenger approaches

But ya, full damage / drain tank shyvana is so much better than tanky raidboss shyvanna. ;-;

NemeBro2 votes

[{quoted}](name=Super Cow Swag,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=WKoV1efU,comment-id=000100000001,timestamp=2018-12-15T03:00:33.247+0000)

item 3135 new challenger approaches

DrMundo item 3065 item 4401 item 3083 item 3194 item 3111 item 3005 You have no power here.

Tahminatrix 7 votes

Tbf I don't think anyone has power against that.

Arammus5 votes

Vayne item 3124 Jax item 3124

3TWarrior1 votes

MasterYi

LordGeovanni1 votes

Vayne - crit.

AirKingNeo1 votes

Jax doesn't build Rageblade and also that is still countered by Adaptive Helm and Thornmail.

Mael bro2 votes

KogMaw item 3153 item 3124 item 3046 Nice armor though

Eleshakai2 votes

Vayne item 4403 item 4403 item 4403 item 4403 item 4403 item 4403

DearPear12 votes

AP Shyvana is best Shyvana

Frosted Tips7 votes

Moody what is going on? We actually agree on stuff. Like atleast 50% of your recent stuff has been on point. I just posted about how bad her and Wukongs passives are. Yeah she needs something.

Moody P5 votes

I take an interest in every juggernaut. I'm close to M5 or better on all of them but Shyvana might end up being my wall. I legitimately cannot stomach playing her. It might just be current meta because I've got a decent amount of games on her before the mastery system, but... I don't know how she actually manages to have dedicated one tricks.

I'd like Shyvana to actually do something. At this point it doesn't even need to be something unique to Shyvana; just.. something.

Frosted Tips4 votes

I actually have her at lvl 7 and honestly it is really only worth playing AP with Dark Harvest right now. Without her Ultimate she has no CC and and tiny Movement Speed buff.

Linna Excel2 votes

You know, I stopped playing league for awhile but when I gave it a try again, playing shyvana felt a lot worse than it used to. She was my last jungler so if I ever want to play SR again, I'm either going to have to deal with that painful experience again or start going mid/adc as my second role.

I think some of the problem is they took away her invades, her early dueling power, and then her powerfarming. Her kit was simple but at least in the past she could keep herself busy owning the jungle and getting big. Now she doesn't have any of that between nerfs and jungle changes.

Moody P2 votes

She builds AP and pokes with dragon E now

I'm not very happy about it either

Frontline Fury6 votes

Udyr XinZhao Shyvana basically the same champ with different flavours

Frosted Tips30 votes

Xin? He is definitely different then the others by a lot.

Frontline Fury1 votes

{quoted}

Xin? He is definitely different then the others by a lot.

He does practically the same thing as Shyvana, but worse.

kargish9 votes

You're joking?

Here are things Xin has that Shyvana doesn't

  • Non-ult gap closer
  • Attack speed increase
  • Inbuilt sustain
  • Lots of CC
  • Awareness

There's no way Shyvana can ever compete with Xin Zhao

Frontline Fury2 votes

{quoted}

You're joking?

Here are things Xin has that Shyvana doesn't

  • Non-ult gap closer
  • Attack speed increase
  • Inbuilt sustain
  • Lots of CC
  • Awareness

There's no way Shyvana can ever compete with Xin Zhao

I didn't make that post to argue champ vs champ with you. My personal experience differs.

Anyway, all three does roughly the same thing OP described in the post - Run at you and hit you.

Ralanr3 votes

By that logic you are right, though Xin’s last rework gave him more abilities to chase and express skill with his new W, and his ult has become a much more unique tool.

TehNACHO5 votes

I would've said DrMundo

Magic Damage Skillshot, semi-unique Auto reset, Fiery AOE that speeds her up/gives him tenacity, "Super Mode" Ultimates; the devil may be in the details but it's easy to see that the two of them were built with the same frame.

UlyssesISR6 votes

Try playing malphite if you really want to see what narrow game play feels like.

Moody P1 votes

Malphite's fine. He has great utility and a unique role in being one of the best counters to AS-based divers and skirmishers. The only issue is that his ult gimps the rest of his kit by being unblockable, hard to react to, and AOE. The base kit is fine, even if Q is rather boring.

UlyssesISR2 votes

Nobody said anything was wrong with his kit.

He is simply boring to play.

Bârd1 votes

He's kinda cathartic.

With all these fast paced champions with flashy mechanics running around, it's nice to play somebody with the complexity of a rock from time to time.

UlyssesISR1 votes

I see where you are coming from with this. At times I do wish they could cut down on all this mobility, but there is no telling what kinda consequences that would have on balance.

SpecterVonBaren1 votes

No where close to Shyvana though. Malphite has a high impact ult and utility, Shyvana just exists to slap you to death.

True Garen4 votes

Isn't that a quote of hers from somewhere? "I run at people really fast, and then I punch them" ?

The late dragons have probably hurt her even more.

Nobody said much (and certainly nobody complained) about it, but new Death's Dance is a Shyvana buff. It's just not nearly enough.

Somebody posts just about every week asking for some Shyvana buff. There is an open post started by AIQ, looking for some acceptable ways to improve Shyvana. You might want to take a look at that...

Bouncemaster Zac3 votes

At least she's vaguely more 2-dimensional than Udyr , a Champion who literally does not have abilities, but rather a series of buffs to his right-clicking.

This Is Your Dad3 votes

They're dragon their feet on reworking her aren't they?

The Trent2 votes

She's not complained about more because she's so boring no one cares about her.

Krofinn2 votes

DrMundo Is waaay more statchecky if you ask me.

T R E L L D O M2 votes

It's sad that she's just another autoattacking champion. I like shyvana one my favorite champs and thats because she is manaless and i love the fury mechanic however i dislike autoattackers with a passion.

She just has so much potential as a champ and im surprised shes not in the tier 1 candidates for a vgu list.

Netorare2 votes

Name a more iconic duo: Shyvana and a passive oh wait...

Cheini2 votes

http://goo.gl/images/XJ8BhT

well she just needs a bit more ranged power pre-drake form

Mimr2 votes

Couldn't disagree more. No, Shyvana isn't a very mechanical champion but she is a very strategic one. She's not a very good ganker pre-6 (post-6 is quite nice though) so she has to find other ways to get her team ahead (and pray that her teammates aren't complete idiots that feed their Jax 5-0 in 8 minutes). She takes objectives extremely fast, takes little time to clear her camps, is a solid counterjungler (once she's got a few levels under her belt) and later in the game is an absolute monster in teamfights. It's just not the typical jungler most SoloQ laners want to play with (she's not about force-feeding her laners kills through ganks). Your teammates will have to play a little more conservative and careful than usual earlygame because Shyvana has very few ganking options pre-6 and is also a subpar-counterganker before gaining dragon form. In return your team is very likely to get dragons and rift herald.

So the skills that set a good Shyvana player apart from a bad one are are map awareness, keeping an iron grip on objectives and finding the right angles and positions to make dragon form dives. But no, it's not about having 1 million APM or attaining a 100% hit rate with Lee's Q. Which isn't a bad thing. Champion diversity is a good thing and not everyone needs to be a "muh outplayz" champion. Personally I suck at mechanics and it makes me sad that an increasing number of mechanically easy or medium difficulty champions get turned into hypermechanical abominations that take the time investment of a fulltime job to get a proper hang of (Akali and Irelia being the most recent examples). Time that I and many others do not have nor want to spend on League.

Thing is though that the meta doesn't really favor her at the moment. Shyvana shines in tank metas because she can blow them up very well with her E + Bloodrazor, and we all know we're in the middle of an assassin meta.

Moody P4 votes

She takes objectives extremely fast, takes little time to clear her camps, is a solid counterjungler (once she's got a few levels under her belt) and later in the game is an absolute monster in teamfights.

this is kind of my point. I can get all of this stuff from other champions who also won't ruin the comp by being immobile no-CC melee champions. Shyvana doesn't stand out in any meaningful way and there's really no reason I'd want one over, like, Nunu or Elise. Hell, if I want fast clears, lock in Mundo; he's perfectly fine in early duels and scales into a massive meat wall. She counters tanks because they don't win the stat check, but that's about all she's good for.

Shyvana doesn't need to be complex but she certainly needs to have more to her than being viable just based on how good her numbers hold up to other meta champions.

Mimr2 votes

[{quoted}](name=Moody P,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=WKoV1efU,comment-id=00170000,timestamp=2018-12-15T11:27:44.235+0000)

this is kind of my point. I can get all of this stuff from other champions who also won't ruin the comp by being immobile no-CC melee champions. Shyvana doesn't stand out in any meaningful way and there's really no reason I'd want one over, like, Nunu or Elise. Hell, if I want fast clears, lock in Mundo; he's perfectly fine in early duels and scales into a massive meat wall. She counters tanks because they don't win the stat check, but that's about all she's good for.

Shyvana doesn't need to be complex but she certainly needs to have more to her than being viable just based on how good her numbers hold up to other meta champions.

Shyvana isn't really immobile though. If you get your angle right she can be a pretty good initiator and ganker with R, unlike the likes of Mundo. Comparing her to stuff like Elise is moot because they serve completely different functions. Elise is an early game gankmonster, Shyvana is an objective taker and mid-lategame teamfighter. I dare you to pit an Elise against a Shyvana who has an equal amount of gold in a teamfight at the 30 minute mark and see who is more effective.

About stat checks: yeah, guess you're right about that, but the again, every tankbuster wins by virtue of "stat checks", whether you're talking about Vayne, Shyvana, Kog, Fiora or whoever. The common trait between them is that they all have easily applicable true or %HP damage and the common trait between tanks is that it's not very hard to hit them with said damage (a properly played Fiora will have no trouble hitting all her R vitals on a tank) because of the very function they fulfill in a team (locking down enemy damage dealers, protecting allied damage dealers and being a general damage sponge). The skill expression here for tanks is locking down the tankbusters so that their teams can deal with them while the tankbusters need to avoid said lockdown in order to kill the tanks. But in an isolated 1v1, a tankbuster should kind of autowin against a tank because of how they work. Just like an immobile ADC should lose to the likes of Zed and Kha'Zix if he's caught farming alone. In other words, that argument is kind of moot as well.

And again, Shyvana's numbers don't need to hold up very well to "current meta champions". While she can be played quite successfully in this meta it's no secret that it doesn't really fit her. Like most tankbusters, Shyvana is a counterpick because tankbusters by definition do not have the kits to be meta by themselves (they wave in and out of the meta depending on how meta tanks are). Wait until the next tank meta rolls around and watch her pick and winrate skyrocket again.

Summonah123692 votes

FUCKING change her E range (human form), it's a shit ability with a shitty short range that barely hits like a poking ability at all.

Ionian Vulpix2 votes

As a M7 Shyv, she's not complained about right now because she isn't good due to all the jungle changes. Shyv usually just wants to farm harder than a Nasus so she can hit 6 and stay above the opponent in levels, then beat them over the head with a sack of gold. With the increased spawn timers on jungle camps, she really can't do that unless she tries to invade, and that's risky. She might do a lot of damage just punching someone in the face, but most other junglers have a way to reduce her damage. She also really can't control the scuttle since all she can do to it is basic attack.

She's not complained about because she's not played. When she's good, plenty of people hate her.

Thilmer2 votes

Since Elise and Nidalee can turn into animal form whenever the fuck they want, I think Shyvana deserves the same treatment.

Rıots Bad Client2 votes

I find a few champions disappointing.

Elise, Volibear and MonkeyKing being mine.

For elise, I only like her Spider Q, and Her E. The rest falls flat for me.

ZaneShadow2 votes

Well, this is what I run on Shyvana top and im finding decent success. Plus i feel like it helps with the lore aspect connecting with the game, a flurry of claws AND fire.

item 1043 item 3116 item 3047 item 3091 item 3151 item 3026 item 3071

Runes: Grasp, Demolish, Revitalize, Overgrowth. Transendence, Nimbus Cloak. 1-10% CDR, 10 armor

Skill Max: E-->Q-->W

She Makes great use of all these items, acting as both utility and damage.

  • WIt's end: 42 on-hit is extremely powerful early, provides 70 MR, and 30 team wide magic pen in large fights.
  • Rylize Crystal Scepter: The slow works with her W, slowing everyone near by. Ap creates satisfying E burst and the slow works as a weak zonning abiliity in team fights.
  • Liandrie's Torment: 10% damage increase works on her Q and auto attack physical damage, making the shift over into AD actually very powerful.
  • Black Cleaver: Shredding armor for your team, bulk, and lets you cast more of those fireballs in a fight.
  • Guardian Angel: The build was lacking armor and with Black Ceaver that AD becomes really powerful. Also, the armor shred, MR theft, and Damage boost last for 5 seconds... GA revives in 4. You come up as a powerful damage threat that cant simply be moved past without you nuking one of their squishy allies.

All in all, this build really made me enjoy the champ, since i don't think anyone else in the entire game could pull it off. There is a lot of natural synergy with her kit and enables a playstyle that offers a lot to her team. Increadibly fun to start AP too, since those empowered E's are very satisfying. She truelly feels like a powerful dragon that fights with claw and flame, since both of them are actually huge parts of this build. Deffinitly recommend you take her top and try this out for 5 or more games. It will totally be worth it. My elo isn't particularly high, but the theory is solid and numbers all add up really well.

Also, i like her lore. Might be alone in that.

The ONE thing that needs changing is her passive. I forget it’s there most the time, and really wish they’d replace it.

P.S. Two little additions: Rylize + Wit's = 4000 gold. Triforce = 3733. You wind up a lot more powerful than your lane opponenets with two finished items when they have 1. secondly, Rylize slow from your E skillshot is the only reliable way to make sure you can get ontop of champions with dashes, adding a small, samll bit of extra skill with no phage or deadman's plate until Very late in the game

Tychusfindlay9182 votes

She's not as bad as yi, at least she has two skillshots you can somewhat play around.

I want yi reworked before shyvana

/thread

StarGuardianWeeb1 votes

filed under "needs a rework but lol like they ever will"

Hell give her a better dragon interactive passive and that'd even be a little fine. Tank stats, as a passive, and requires taking a specific objective??? One that might not even benefit you since it could be cloud or earth??? Like what is this season 3 lol

True Garen3 votes

{quoted}

filed under "needs a rework but lol like they ever will"

Hell give her a better dragon interactive passive and that'd even be a little fine. Tank stats, as a passive, and requires taking a specific objective??? One that might not even benefit you since it could be cloud or earth??? Like what is this season 3 lol

I've mentioned this elsewhere, but I'll repeat it here. Her passive is currently worth ~200g/stack. It really needs to be raised to 300g/stack. In light of recent changes to her AP rations, it would be nice if they just added 5AP to each stack. Alternately, they could give her %5 Tenacity with each stack. And let her stack off of Elder Drakes, just in case anybody ever sees one again...

Mimr3 votes

{quoted}

filed under "needs a rework but lol like they ever will"

Hell give her a better dragon interactive passive and that'd even be a little fine. Tank stats, as a passive, and requires taking a specific objective??? One that might not even benefit you since it could be cloud or earth??? Like what is this season 3 lol

Both cloud and earth can be of great benefit to Shyvana. With Earth Dragon you destroy Dragons and Rift Herald even faster and it's also nice to push towers with because that normally isn't Shyvana's forte. Air is good on everyone including Shyvana because more ms means less time taken to traverse the map, easier time to get into position for a good play and being less kiteable in combat.

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