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A Modest Proposal: Shen's Gameplay Update (Part 4 of 4)

turkeyBACON··3 votes·1,027 views

Admittedly, I’m not a Shen main or even like playing him. I'm honestly willing to nuke the entire kit and start fresh. BUT for the most part, I changed everything else about Shen to try and preserve his kit. Why? Because I don't want to disrespect his fans. You guys love him for various reasons and I can't possibly guess what exactly it is you like. So with that in mind I'm going to go with the shotgun approach with his gameplay update. I'm going to throw out every idea I have without regard to balance/cooldowns/damage. But I'll try to maintain the integrity of his overall kit while trying to add elements that reinforce his character and story. Feel free and pick and choose what you like and dislike. Then combine to make a new kit entirely or add it to his current kit. All I'm trying to do is present ideas for exploration. Personally I would like to see a kit that allows Shen to be built and played as fighter, tank, or slippery ap mage but ideally none of them at the same time. It'll be hell on Riot's balance team but I don't care about that right now.

Passive's:

Sight Unseen - Shen speaks of visions of the enemy while in combat; Enemy units affected by Shen's abilities have their vision reduced by 33% from all sources.

Well-traveled - Shen regains energy as he moves. This is affected by all abilities and summoner spells. At full energy Shen's next auto attack deals additional magic damage.

Q Abilities:

Vorpal Blade - Shen throws his blade at and enemy unit, dealing magic damage and marking them. Damage dealt to a marked enemy will heal over 3 seconds. If the unit is killed by the blade then the ability's cooldown is refunded and triggers Ki Strike (or passive).

Knife Toss* - Shen throws a knife at the nearest enemy, prioritizing Shen's basic attack target and then enemy champs, dealing magical damage. Enemies struck by a knife take increased damage from Shen for 5 seconds. This effect stacks twice, but Knife Toss cannot target an enemy with a knife already in them. Shen generates 1 knife every 6 seconds and can hold up to 2 knives.

*This is a near exact copy of Viridian’s Q from Dawngate(RIP). It's a nice, snappy ability that can suit a more fighter or mage Shen.

W Abilities:

Feint v2 - (Passive) Shen receives reduced damage as long as he doesn't take action and stands still for .75 seconds. (Active) Shen will stand still/channel for 1 second and can pseudo cast any of his other abilities if they are not on cooldown. To enemy champs Shen will appear to cast his ability normally. Shen will send out a decoy for dashes or teleport. The real Shen will however remain still and be invisible for X amount of time or until detected. Pseudo casted abilities have no effect and do not put the original spell on cooldown.

Feint v3 - Shen gains a shield for 3 seconds. While shielded, Shen's Passive or Q Ability will apply the Fumble debuff. Fumbled units' next ability cast will be X% less effective. This includes buffs/debuffs/damage/duration/cooldown.

Feint v4 - Shen gains a shield for 3 seconds. While shielded Shen's passive and abilities will apply the Flinch debuff. Flinched units’ next ability cast will deal X% less damage and rebound damage on the attacker for X% of the damage dealt.

Sight Unseen v2 - Shen gains a shield for 3 seconds. While the shield persists Shen gains X units increased vision radius and may see into brush and over walls for a radius of Y units.

E Abilities

Shadow Dash v2 - Shen dashes along target line becoming invisible during. Shen deals magic damage and regains energy if he passes through an enemy. If shielded (from any source) Shen taunts enemies into attacking him. Taunted units deal reduced damage.

Shadow Dash v3 - Shen dashes along target line dealing magic damage to enemies passed through and regaining energy for each one. Shen leaves behind a decoy that enemies are taunted into attacking if passed through. Shen recedes into the shadows and is invisible to taunted enemies for X seconds.

Shadow Dash v4 - Shen dashes along target line dealing magic damage to enemy champions passed through. If Shen passes through a Q marked target, Shen rips the blade from the enemy dealing significant magic damage and X% of the damage dealt restores his energy and refunds Q's cooldown.

R Ability As I mentioned earlier, I'm more than willing to redo Shen's abilities but frankly Stand United is just so damn iconic to Shen, that I'm not sure it can be changed or improved without pissing off Shen players. So I'm leaving this one as is. My lore changes make this ability make some sense to his character at least. Feel free to suggest variations; you're more than welcome to raise the ire of angry Shen mains but I won't. Not on this one anyways.

TLDR: Mix and match the abilities above to suit your needs.

The Nature of Ninjas & Shen: An Overview (Part 1 of 4) A Modest Proposal: Shen's Lore Update (Part 2 of 4) A Modest Proposal: Shen's Lore/Visual Update (Part 3 of 4) A Modest Proposal: Shen's Gameplay Update (Part 4 of 4)

1 Comments

HigeR1 votes

uhm, I read most of your posts, I'll answer here because I think it's the last one on your project.

I think Shen brings an unique flavor to league of legends ninjas that shouldn't be overlooked... yes it goes against what we typically hear about ninjas but how bad can it be to have a ninja/tank if we already have crazy good typical ninjas like Akali and Zed or even Talon (who works more like a ninja than pretty much anyone else xD).

What I'm trying to say is that Shen could use a couple changes but nothing too far away from his current self... What I love about him being THE ninja tank is that it feels like he's the head of the kinkou order, it makes him resilient to damage and he will tank anything you throw to his team, he needs no decoys, he'll hold your sword with his hands and he.will.win.

That said, I think some of his gameplay is pretty outdated or not in sync with his theme, though I don't think drastic changes are needed in here, instead we need to refocus or see things differently... I'll hover over your suggestions a bit and will ultimately give my own suggestion:

Passive, Ki strike -Playing with the enemy's vision is potentially OP and since we want Shen to be powerfull upfront I don't think giving him this much utility could work. -The idea of Shen gaining energy while moving is awesome since though energy regenerates quite fast already, Shen has a lot of troubles for managing his resource. -His current passive is quite powerful and taking this away means we need to buff Shen somewhere else, do we really want this? I'd say no since managing this passive is pretty much what a good Shen does, changing his scaling though to total AD could be nice in order to pull him towards fighter.

Q, vorpal blade -No need to activate Shen's Ki strike if the enemy dies, since there are enough rewards for dealing the killing blow, his heal. -Your Knife toss sounds cool, though instead of dealing increased damage to the enemy marked it could work just heal just like vorpal blade does. -Vorpal blade heal works for deception, you think you're hitting Shen, but in reality if you stick around you'll be healing him instead, this skill makes him feel tankier while not being quite so, I would vote to keep it that way but use your new targeting suggestion a-la-sona-Q.

W, Feint -Feint is a huge issue in Shen's kit, since a shield doesn't really screams Ninja, neither does standing still nor rebounding damage ._. -The skills that screams ninja in league of legends are quite specific, I'll name a few, Fiora's ult at the right time, Zed's ult at the right time, Leblanc's clone trigget, Shaco's Q, namely the idea of dodging something with a skill is very cool and it works more effectively to reduce dmg than anything else. -I propose then taking away shen's shield and instead giving him a disappear effect as if he was actually feinting, imagine a Zed's ult without the mark and he appears in the same place with Ki strike active. It'd be cool if while he disappear he could gain increase vision as you said in Sight unseen V2

E, Shadow Dash -It's cool if shadow dash could do damage, though I'd make it physical and scale with AP since taunting enemies in AoE is quite powerful already -Reduce Shadow dash cost a tad for it to be a little bit more forgiving when running away -No need to add anything else honestly :S making the taunt conditional wouldn't work with my suggestion for feint though being able to cast shadow dash while "feinting" could increase its damage.

R, Stand United -I hate this skill ._. it's way too powerful utility wise -I'd propose for it to be time frame gated, like Shen doesn't stays there with you forever but he comes back after a few seconds or until allied shield is broken. He should be able to use his ult instantly is he feints beforehand.

Well... this was way too long XD but I've been thinking a lot about Shen lately since I tried Shen support and was a huge fail xDD so I kinda had this bottle up inside, thanks for trying to give Shen some love, he needs it u.u

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