Katarina's new dagger mechanic and how I think Shen's kit could benefit from something similar

Hey all! Now that the assassin updates have hit the PBE and I've gotten a chance to see everything in action, I'd like to start a discussion about Shen and how some new mechanics (specifically, Katarina's placeable daggers) have gotten me thinking about ways to clean up his Q and W abilities in a way that would make them feel much smoother.

First of all, if you haven't seen the Katarina rework yet or are simply confused, I'll try to explain it in the most basic way that I can. Katarina's Q, Bouncing Blade, is essentially the same spell as on live, except now after bouncing, her dagger falls to the ground behind her initial target and remains there for a few seconds. Her new W, Preparation, spawns a dagger at her current location that falls to the ground. The kicker with these daggers comes in her updated E, Shunpo, where she can now blink to these daggers and reset her E cooldown.

What does this have to do with Shen you ask? Well, after seeing Kat's new skills in action, specifically these daggers, I realized how similar they were in form to Shen's Spirit Blade. Different in function, yes, but essentially they are both objects on the map that can be interacted with in meaningful ways by the player and the opponent by way of positional counterplay (i.e. simply trying to avoid Kat's daggers or not standing between Shen and his blade so that he gets his bonus damage). They are also both objects that do no damage or CC on their own. They're not a Jarvan flag or a Trundle pillar. They have to be interacted with by the player to be useful.

So, naturally, seeing all these similarities, it got me thinking about how Shen's current Q and W could be updated with this different tech in mind to remove a lot of player frustration with the "ball and chain" style of gameplay that Shen currently has. This has been a major frustration of mine, and admittedly a lot of the Shen playerbase feels the same way. Shen currently feels restricted to a style of gameplay where he relies so heavily on dragging his sword through enemies to do any meaningful damage. While this could be a fun and interesting mechanic in concept, in lane it often feels like a game of "oh the enemy is walking in between me and my sword, if I want to get a good trade I need to all in right now or else I'll lose future trades because my base stats are so poor." Being dictated in lane by something akin to random chance (are our paths going to line up perfectly so that I can drag my sword through him?) and also having the very predictable gameplay of taunting behind the enemy, dragging a sword through them, using W to block their autos, and then hitting them with three empowered attacks, leaves no real room for outplays or displays of skill. You do the E-Q-W-3Auto combo every time you fight, and that gets extremely stale and boring after 100 games. I love Shen, he's been my main ever since I found him back in mid Season 5, right after I started playing, but at this point his gameplay outside of his R has become extremely one dimensional with no real room for improvisation.

So, how does this all fit together? Well, in my eyes, Shen is currently a hybrid peeler/area control tank. He can initiate, but he does this much less effectively than many other champions. He's at his strongest when he ults into a fight and manages to disrupt the enemy initiators long enough for his carries to clean up. His E and W strengthen this identity a lot, and so I'd like to build on these aspects especially. His Q, on the other hand, feels stuck onto his kit, as it does nothing to aid him in his job as a peeler, it's literally only damage and a very situational slow. Another point of contention is that his Q feels like there are no tradeoffs to it, i.e. he can pretty much always summon it as long as he has the energy. Why then is summoning it even necessary? If it's pretty much always up late game, then what's the point? It just adds in an unnecessary mechanic. Shen should have the option to choose how his abilities function, and whether he needs more damage or more utility. So, here are some changes that I came up with.

Passive- Ki Barrier Shen's power manifests as a Spirit Blade that he can control with his abilities. Shen's basic attacks do bonus magic damage on hit, equal to a percentage of his maximum health (does bonus damage to minions).

Basically, Shen no longer has a big sword dragging behind him. Also, he now passively gains a small amount of damage on his basics. This damage is really negligible, comparable to his current Q, it would be a lot less. In my eyes Shen shouldn't do a lot of damage.

Saving Q discussion for the end of the post.

W- Spirit's Refuge: Shen now casts his W at his current location, or the location of his Spirit Blade if it is active.

This change is pretty simple. Shen doesn't have a Spirit Blade unless his Q is active, so if it's not active he'll just cast it on himself.

E- Shadow Dash: Nothing fundamental to change.

Possibly some passive energy recovery rebalancing if needed with the new Q. Basically though the functionality would be identical.

Q- Twilight Assault: Shen summons his Spirit Blade and throws it into the ground at his current location, creating a Circle of Twilight for 3 seconds. Circle of Twilight: While inside the Circle of Twilight, Shen has increased movement speed and resistances, and the first cast of W or E, but not both, will reduce their cooldown by 10/20/30/40/50% (based upon the level of their respective skills). If W or E are used while the circle is active, Circle of Twilight will go on a 30/25/20 second static cooldown at levels 1/11/16. Shen can right click on his blade to summon it to him, losing all bonuses of the Circle of Twilight but gaining bonus attack speed and double magic damage on hit for 3 auto attacks. While Circle of Twilight is on cooldown, casting Twilight assault automatically triggers the bonus damage and attack speed portion of this ability. Casting R automatically creates a Zone of Twilight at your target's location when you arrive.

My idea for changing his Q so much came from two ideas.

First, I felt that Shen should have to decide between damage and utility. Giving him reduced cooldown on his W or E while in his Circle felt like the best way to do that without making him broken. If he chooses to pick up his sword and goes for the empowered autos, then he loses out on a lot of potential boosts to his utility and tankiness. On the other hand, if he goes for the Circle, he loses his damage potential unless he picks up his sword, which causes him to lose his resists and bonuses...see where I'm going with this? Also adding in the static cooldown to his Circle prevents abuse cases of him having unlimited taunts. TL;DR, does Shen choose damage or utility/tankiness? In lane this gives him an interesting dynamic as well, forcing him to make a split second decision based on what he needs at the time.

Secondly, I wanted to better implement the idea of Shen as an area control tank. If you engage on Shen while his Circle of Twilight is active, he'll not only taunt you or block your auto attacks, he'll also be able to do it again in a much shorter amount of time. This gives Shen a very dynamic way to play; he can try to predict when the enemy will initiate in order to make sure his Q is up again as soon as possible, or he can save it if he's not 100% sure because of its extremely long cooldown. It also gives nice counterplay to the enemy team, i.e. if they see Shen cast his Q and start killing minions then they know that they will have a much easier time of initiating for a few seconds.

I think that a change like this would really make Shen feel so much more dynamic and give him some more options to really enhance what his role is as a champion. Obviously, he might have to have his damage numbers reduced, or cooldowns increased to make up for some of the power that lies in his increased utility, but I think it would be worth it if Shen is given more tools to do his job effectively.

Curious to see if anyone else has thoughts on this. Is this idea complete garbage? Does it need more? Less? More effects on his W and E? Am I a completely biased Shen main? I'll never know if you don't tell me. [slayer-jinx-wink]