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Shyvanna and her Issues

CrazedPorcupine··2 votes·578 views

So, as almost everyone knows, Shyvanna's biggest problem is her kitability. This is her biggest weakness, and no one really complains about it much because of Burnout+Dragon's Descent allows her to really get into the thick of things.

Riot has continually buffed Shyvanna's Dueling potential. First it was some buffs to her Q, Now it's buffs to burn out. However, Shyvanna never get's picked as a tank because other tanks are more desirable, and Shyvanna's unique gameplay of diving in is mirrored by Hecarim, Except the difference between Dragon's Descent and Hecarims Onslaught of Shadows is Hecarim's ult is unstoppable, and has a hard CC attached to it. Shyvanna's Ult doesn't have any of that except a stun/knockback if she hits someone with her ult, but which can be easily cancelled.

Shyvanna's Numbers have never really been an issue. Her biggest issue is that other champions with similar styles just simply do Shyvanna's Job Better. This is most notable with Hecarim.

Skarner had a similar problem with his release. His numbers were fine, but his biggest issue was his mana. Riot kept buffing his numbers, but didn't fix his mana problems. When Riot finally fixed his mana problems, he was so bonkers OP, that he became 100% ban rate until Riot hit him hard reverting almost all of the damage buffs, and reverting even some of the mana buffs. (keeping his mana usage reasonable though).

Shyvanna is going through the same process, albeit slower. Shyvanna's most glaring weakness is her kitability. Her damage is actually pretty outright bonkers with massive amounts of mixed damage making it hard to itemize against, along with % HP damage. Overall, Shyvanna is to the point where if she catches you, YOU WILL DIE. YOU CANNOT OUTDUEL HER. However, if you can keep her at bay, she's useless. Hecarim has his ult that's unstoppable to catch up to you, so even if you manage to kit some, Hecarim can do what Shyvanna Can't. And that's catch fleeing targets without being kited.

If riot REALLY wanted to help shyvanna. They wouldn't have added even more dueling potential/damage in her auto bonus damage while burnout is active, they would've given her some slow resistance while burnout is active.

I'm not saying that Shyvanna is OP, but she's so held back by her weaknesses, that champions like Hecarim who do Shyvanna's Job but better, will simply be picked over Shyvanna. It doesn't matter how much damage shyvanna brings to the table, as long as Dragon's Descent is able to be stopped like other dashes and she can be kited super easily, Shyvanna will never be a power pick alongside hecarim.

14 Comments

AyRe CoNteMpT2 votes

your, and the communities/riots biggest mistake is to assume that every champion needs the same powers in order to be played the same way, shyvana is not hecarim and she cannot do what hecarim can, but its also not her job to do so. i like the buff alot because it focuses more on a real fighter shyvana with alot of attackspeed instead of this full tank bullshit. shyvana is not a tank and she has never been one, she is a full fledged fighter and as such, its not her power to jump on people and kill them instantly. all her power is in her power to stand and tear you apart.

this means, her way of being played is not to jump on people and not to dive into the backlines in teamfights. its to be so strong and so scary that people have to come to HER and they have to come in greater numbers because almost no one can duel her.

her power-uptimes are very constant as she has no long cooldowns and doesnt rely on flash, thus being able to bring another combat summoner spell to the table. the only defense against her is to literally run away and if she is stupid enough to try and chase you, kite her and kill her like a dog in the street because she just missused her power entirely. if it wasnt even possible to run away from her anymore, she would be flat out broken because now, the counterplay is running. if you cant run, no counterplay.

you cant really run away from hecarim, thats true, but hecarim isnt half as strong as shyvana. his initial damage might be high on E Q but his DPS is much, much, much lower and without his W, he cant even be considered a real fighter.

every champion has different powers. you cant just be like "omg champ X can do Y, why cant champ Z do Y too, its so imbalanced". you need to find the RIGHT way to apply your champions powers and if its a good champion, that way will be very strong and very hard to stop.

PS: i dont think that buff to shyvana was neccessary as she was basically the strongest champion before that, but as a shyvana player i certainly dont mind. lol. surely i would be happy too if her ultimate was unstoppable and if it dragged enemies the full distance instead of just dropping them half way, but that would just simply make her so powerful with basically no counterplay that she would jsut be banned all the time and then nerfed into the ground because riot has like no idea at all how to balance shit.

CrazedPorcupine1 votes

No, I'm not asking for shyvanna to have an unstoppable ult. In fact I'm not asking for her tanky stats to be buffed. What I'm saying is that, until shyvanna's kitability has been addressed, she will continue to be one of those champions that's never picked because why pick shyvanna when Hecarim can do shyvanna's job, and do it better.

Riot keeps buffing shyvanna's super strong dueling and she's probably the strongest champion in the game right now, and she doesn't even need items to be able to kill anyone.

I swear that if riot had buffed her mobility a tad bit by giving her some slow resistance during burnout, She'd become one of the strongest picks in the game. She's already strong enough that if she gets to you, you're dead. That didn't need buffing.

Hecarim's strength is his sheen spam damage. Shyvanna's is that you have to build both Armor and MR in order to negate her damage. They both have the ability to dive in. Hecarim has the advantage of being able to ignore slows and stuns with his Ult. Shyvanna has to rely on Tenacity/MS and Burnout in order to get to her targets.

Shyvanna's severe weakness to kiting is what is really gating her from being a strong popular pick in the LCS, even when Hecarim is banned, shyvanna isn't picked. Shyvanna's Burnout buff does nothing for that, and the pros will only pick her if they can figure out how to bypass her mobility issues. And once that happens, Shyvanna will become pick/ban worthy at all times because of her obscene numbers.

AyRe CoNteMpT2 votes

thats exactly what im talking about. hecarim cant do shyvanas job, not even remotely. i would even go as far as saying hecarim is HORRIBLE at shyvanas job. the problem here is that people try to make shyvana do HECARIMS job, and since hecarim is about the only champion in the game who can do his job properly, ofcourse it fails horribly. this misconsception is what leads to all the balance issues in the game because you are not the only one having it, riot has it aswell. the people working there actually often have trouble understanding their own game and how balance ACTUALLY works. a good example for that is their champ design especially since 2014.

it is absolutely perfect that shyvana has clearly defined weaknesses, and contrary to common belief, she actually isnt able to dive in anywhere at all at any time ever, and even if she is THEORETICALLY able to do that when tanky enough (as is every champion really) she then doesnt contribute anything because, as you said, she gets kited by literally EVERYTHING.

this means, and it should be obvious to everybody, that this isnt her INTENDED PURPOSE. or whatever riot "intends" with things nobody knows, but this is still just not her purpose.

her flat out fighting power is ridiculous, thats why she will never get any better means of sticking to her target and thats a good thing. if she did, she would have to be nerfed and then, while now shes able to stick, it isnt worth sticking with her anymore because her power is too low to justify not having cc or burst. could just pick jax instead then and be better off.

right now, shyvana fills a very unique role being only somewhat similar to maybe nocturne.

but its not that those champions have problems. they have WEAKNESSES, as should every champion. ofcourse since modern design philosophy doesnt want champions to have clear weaknesses except "targeted hard CC" (which is by the way the automatic weakness of basically every champion), it feels kinda weird for people to have old champions have clear weaknesses. but thats the point really. thats called balance. if those champions are not being played in the LCS, it doesnt mean they are worse than those who are played. it means they dont fit what people try to do in the lcs. it still COULD HAPPEN basically any day in korea.

like you saw last week faker played master yi mid? now you can either say "its not viable and only he can do it" or you can say "well, seems like my own horizon didnt cover all of leagues possibilities".

you should really try playing more shyvana and find out her powers yourself as i did. and i can tell you, im very impressed. no need to exchange any of it for more stickingpower.

CrazedPorcupine1 votes

Except, Shyvanna's job is diving in with ult, and causing massive disruption and then dueling anyone who tries to flee. Hecarim does all that better.

Hecarim has incredible sticking power, incredible dueling (albeit not as strong as shyvanna's but still really strong), and has massive teamfight disruption in the form of his ult.

The problem is that The weaknesses Shyvanna has, mean that any champion that does her job similarly, will be picked over her. And Hecarim is that champion.

Shyvanna's Strengths: The BEST 1v1 power in the game Good waveclear/farming power Good single target damage Mixed damage sources Long range engage Resourceless Good Synergy with onhit effects. doesn't need many damage items. has innate resistances through her passive

Shyvanna's Weaknesses: Kitable Ult can be negated with knockbacks/knockups

Hecarim's Strengths: Good single target damage Good AoE damage Sustain Highly mobile Unstoppable Ult some mixed damage Strong synergy with MS items Doesn't need to build many damage items has innate bonus damage through his passive

Weaknesses: slows reduce his damage easier to mitigate damage through itemization. Uses mana.

Overlap between the two: Waveclear/farming power Single target damage Long range engage don't need very many damage items outside 1 or 2 core items. large stat bonuses granted by passives

Overall, they have similarities in many areas, but Hecarim is picked because he can be super tanky, and also a pseudo assassin through his homeguard E gank with Trinity Force without able to really be countered.

The unstoppable ult with a huge AoE fear is incredibly strong and overbearing. Shyvanna's ult is able to be stopped and essentially negated. Especially in the current meta where stuns and snares and lockdown is so insane. Hecarim is immune to all of that.

Why pick shyvanna over hecarim? Shyvanna has innate resistances and lots of mixed damage meaning it's harder to itemize against her, but where tanks are really common and peel is easy to come by, Shyvanna just isn't worth a pick in organized play when Hecarim provides some mixed damage, but also is capable of reaching the backline and cause massive disruption and ignore the peel and tanks of the enemy team.

AyRe CoNteMpT1 votes

{quoted}

Except, Shyvanna's job is diving in with ult, and causing massive disruption and then dueling anyone who tries to flee. Hecarim does all that better.

no, shyvanas job isnt diving the back line. its pretty simple, you can only dive into the backline if you either have burst (like darius can flash into the carries, hook and kill them if others ate their cc) or if you have alot of cc to disable their damage (nautilus being the prime example, but also champs like zac and gragas) shyvana has neither burst nor cc, so diving cant be her job. also, since the same conditions apply to peeling, her job also isnt peeling.

so what is her job then? what job can you do with high movementspeed and incredibly high mixed damage? its pretty simple, isnt it? her job is to be a follow-up engage fighter, not a tank, who takes on anyone on the way to your carries, chases them down and makes them not reach your carries or die before they kill them. if nobody tries to dive your carries, her job is to kill whoever comes closest together with the adc if possible or, if you have another champion like hecarim, who causes alot of disruption, to kill people who scatter off from the group. basically a completely normal fighter job. only thing: shes probably the strongest fighter in the game right now, together with nocturne. tho nocturne has more teamfight flexibility, but generally speaking the job is the same.

Hecarim has incredible sticking power, incredible dueling (albeit not as strong as shyvanna's but still really strong), and has massive teamfight disruption in the form of his ult.

hecarims dueling power is good but far from incredibly as there are many champs who outduel him hard. this is not because hes not a good duelist from his kit, its because he is a horrible duelist from his itemization. whatever hecarim "likes" to build, its not for dueling. you most likely CAN build hecarim for dueling, but then his other powers would suffer. so in the end, hes just a somewhat good duelist because hes able to beat and chase down weaker champions, but hes far from being incredible.

The problem is that The weaknesses Shyvanna has, mean that any champion that does her job similarly, will be picked over her. And Hecarim is that champion.

Shyvanna's Strengths: The BEST 1v1 power in the game Good waveclear/farming power Good single target damage Mixed damage sources Long range engage Resourceless Good Synergy with onhit effects. doesn't need many damage items. has innate resistances through her passive

Shyvanna's Weaknesses: Kitable Ult can be negated with knockbacks/knockups

shyvana has no engage at all. not a short range one and not a long range one. if she wants to engage, she has to flank and drag someone into her team with her ultimate but because that doesnt drag a long distance, its just not an engage spell. its an old, weirdly designed gapcloser with some extra features, but its not an engage. also, she kinda does need many damage items because if you look at her, she has innate tankyness as you said. she has high hp and since she has no engage or diving power, she just isnt a tankbot. shes a killer. she needs damage. if you build her too tanky, she cant do her job anymore. its like you build master yi tanky. sure it can work and in some games may be important, but its generally not the way to use his full potential.

Hecarim's Strengths: Good single target damage Good AoE damage Sustain Highly mobile Unstoppable Ult some mixed damage Strong synergy with MS items Doesn't need to build many damage items has innate bonus damage through his passive

Weaknesses: slows reduce his damage easier to mitigate damage through itemization. Uses mana.

Overlap between the two: Waveclear/farming power Single target damage Long range engage don't need very many damage items outside 1 or 2 core items. large stat bonuses granted by passives

Overall, they have similarities in many areas, but Hecarim is picked because he can be super tanky, and also a pseudo assassin through his homeguard E gank with Trinity Force without able to really be countered.

The unstoppable ult with a huge AoE fear is incredibly strong and overbearing. Shyvanna's ult is able to be stopped and essentially negated. Especially in the current meta where stuns and snares and lockdown is so insane. Hecarim is immune to all of that.

yep, thats hecarims job. he can flank engage, straight up engage, dive carries, assassinate people, chase down and kill weaklings. tho that IS hecarims power, not shyvanas. no need to force her into things she isnt, just because both champions were played with smite top doesnt mean they fulfill similar roles.

Why pick shyvanna over hecarim? Shyvanna has innate resistances and lots of mixed damage meaning it's harder to itemize against her, but where tanks are really common and peel is easy to come by, Shyvanna just isn't worth a pick in organized play when Hecarim provides some mixed damage, but also is capable of reaching the backline and cause massive disruption and ignore the peel and tanks of the enemy team.

your greatest mistake, as everyones, is to assume shes a tank. she has literally not a single tank ability in her entire kit and the only reason to ever think that is the misonsception that she allready has so much mixed damage in her kit, she doesnt need more. get that botrk and you are cool, right? no.

the reason you can build jax and irelia tanky after one or two damage items (can, not have to, tho) is, that both of them have really good CC while irelia even has attackspeed based true damage that doesnt scale. that means, since really her main damage comes from attacking fast for 5 seconds, its just very important to give her that survivability to keep attacking and sticking for exactly those 5 seconds. jax on the other hand has his counterstrike that allows him to sometimes dive into carries and thus, some protection cant hurt, but also because alot of his damage scales on AP so most regular AD items are semi-wasted. he just likes to have that trinity and botrk and then just be able to keep ulting people.

shyvana on the other hand scales INCREDIBLY well with both attackspeed and attack damage and the only non-scaling damage being her E's percentage damage. this could be taken as a reason to build botrk+tank "because her main dmg comes from her E's effect". but its just a small part of her overall damage.

she COULD do that jax and irelia do if she had that stickingpower, but she CANT. thats why its not her job. tho she beats both jax and irelia 1on1 pretty hard even if she cant chase them down reliably. but as i said, thats also not her job. she is a dragon, not an assassin. she stands or walks forward and destroys whoever dares come to her. why would a dragon ignore warriors in her way to kill some archers in the back line? a dragon burns them all down. whoever comes first, burns first. and a dragon protects his eggs (squishies) with all his might.

hecarim is some kind of soulreaper thing, he wants to go in and harvest the souls of the weak. it all makes sense if you think about it. shyvanas design isnt that of a diver or assassin. i understand how you got that idea from watching her being played in lcs, but thats because they needed a champion to do that and they probably werent at the point where they understood the game enough to pick other champions over her. now that they DO understand, they dont pick shyvana anymore. she just doesnt do that job good enough. but its not that she doesnt do HER job good enough, its that she doesnt do THAT JOB THAT THEY WANT IN LCS good enough.

and remember, progamers are not perfect. their skill evolves every day and so does the state of the game. people find out new things that bring changes to the game and forgot about old things that stopped working or just were not used anymore for whatever good or bad reasons.

if you copy what people do in lcs because "thats just the way to go because pros do it" then you stopped learning the game, as most people did. if you really want to understand the game and the champions, you have to think like a pro would. do you think they just stick to this "Meta" because its "Meta" for them too? they change it every day and try to figure out how to beat it hard in order to beat the enemy teams who still use it. you are not playing against pros, you are playing against scrubs using champions the pros use in an entirely different way without understanding shit about them. it cant be too hard for you to find ways to abuse them.

SnugglePuggle942 votes

I agree. Shyv is not a person to dive into the backline by ulting . She is a fighter and not a tank. It is not her job to ult into the backline and pick off someone. That's an assassin's job where they jump in, kill someone, and jump out. Shyv can't do that. Her job is more likely to ult in to start a fight.

AyRe CoNteMpT1 votes

her job is also not to ult in to start a fight, her job is to go in when a fight allready started, a follow up engage, and pummel everyone who dares to go forward too much

SnugglePuggle941 votes

I agree, that is what I mainly do as Shyv, but sometimes when the teams are just dancing around I will say in chat "ult ready, go in when I do," and I ult in and they follow. But that's her main job that I agree with, is to ult in after the fight has started and pummel everyone.

Skia Asteri1 votes

It does not matter if you cannot catch up to people if they do not get to participate in the team fight. If all Katarina does is run from Shyvana until the rest of her team is dead, does it matter that she is still alive?

Also she is a better jungle pick than Hecarim at the moment. http://champion.gg/matchup/Shyvana/Hecarim/Jungle

CrazedPorcupine1 votes

The thing is, neither one of them is picked in the jungle. They're usually picked as tanky top laners.

the thing is, As shyvanna keeps getting buffed, she's going to get to the point that she gets picked simply because she has more stats and free damage than any other champion.

Skia Asteri1 votes

{quoted}

The thing is, neither one of them is picked in the jungle. They're usually picked as tanky top laners.

the thing is, As shyvanna keeps getting buffed, she's going to get to the point that she gets picked simply because she has more stats and free damage than any other champion.

Shyvana is picked more in the jungle because she is really good there at the moment.

http://champion.gg/champion/Shyvana/Jungle

CrazedPorcupine1 votes

because they've buffed her damage so much that she can clear so fast she doesn't lose as much HP, and then gank. She can pressure lanes, farm the entire jungle, counterjungle and pressure the enemy jungle, and outduel any enemy jungler.

At this point, Shyvanna is insane in the jungle because she can farm up a freaking storm, and come out of the jungle at 20 minutes with Cinderhulk and either BotRK or Black Cleaver and just wreck anybody.

Miraweave1 votes

Shyvana did not need any help. She was a perfectly strong champion before the buffs last patch, she just wasn't in the meta because the things she provides aren't really the things that people want in a tank or jungler right now.

ImpossibleGT1 votes

Why would you take Shyvanna anywhere except the jungle? She was clearly made for it. She has ridiculously fast and consistent clears throughout the game and is one of the better counter-junglers with her mobility. Her only downside is her lackluster ganks when not supported by CC from the laner, but that's easily picked around. She also scales much better than most junglers. Her ability to farm almost always means she's ahead against the enemy jungler, and health double-dips on her passive making her extremely gold efficient. Her innate dueling ability makes it so she doesn't need many, if any, damage items to still be a significant threat to squishies and even bruisers, allowing her to focus on survivability and utility to make her harder to kite.

She's absurdly strong right now but people still won't play her until they see her in the LCS.

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