I felt useful. I had options to beat him. The lane was engaging, tense, and fun. The game felt more under my control when I pulled off my ganks right.
Thank you, Riot. I know you might not hear it much, but thank you.
Sincerely, an unranked Shen main.
Dreadlocks36 votesI always beat Jax with Shen man.. this rework didnt change that lol.
Melledoneus20 votesYes, that was usually the case for me. But once Jax got a shred of lifesteal and his Guinsoo's, I lost my only advantage. It wasn't impossible, but old Shen had pretty much the worst sustain out of any top laner, from all who have sustain in their kits. The new Shen actually feels strong, and rewarding when you pull off good ganks.
I lagged that whole game and still carried because not only is Shen extremely faithful to his old playstyle, but now his kit feels better overall. His shields, his abilities, his autos... it actually flows together now.
Want to save an ally from the enemy top or ADC? Ult to them, then W as soon as you arrive to negate that damage, then punish the offender. That is good design. I know my only gripe was his scaling armor, but building him as an off-tank bruiser is so much more fun and rewarding now.
Dreadlocks5 votesI'm not here to pick part how 1 kit is better than the other, just saying Shen has always been really good vs Jax. Even if he got lifesteal/guinsoo's. :)
Melledoneus7 votesTrue. But since Shen has more options, he can play around Jax's strengths instead of hope that the enemy Jax is bad. Because Jax scales HARD.
Dreadlocks3 votesCurious what you mean by more options?
Melledoneus24 votesLet me recreate a typical scenario to make this easier for everyone.
#Pre-rework Shen: Laning against Jax. You can choose to farm with Q's or harass Jax with them. You can try to taunt Jax, but you won't get punished as hard if you baited out his E, which is difficult to do since Shen's only threatening presence is his E. Jax can counter Shen's passive hard by using his E to counter the onslaught of Shen's autos and punish him back. If Shen tries to run, you can jump after him. If he fights, he's most likely going to lose. Shen has windows, and plenty of them, but they are all the same.
#Reworked Shen: Walk into lane, start Q. You have a pretty good damage boost to help you farm and weave in harass with your Q's autos. If Jax tries to harass you near your sword you can easily destroy him because the slow and damage you get is overpowering compared to the lack of reliable damage Jax has now.
Additionally, should Jax jump on you and attack you, pull in your sword and attack him back. When Jax uses his E to stun you, use your W to block his autos when you're stunned and counter attack with taunt OR Wait for Jax to jump then taunt him instantly, get a free trade by activating W and forcing Jax to back off OR Utilize your shield to tank Jax's damage, then swiftly counter attack and get him running. Then taunt him back, wither his health bar down even more OR Any other scenario.
See, the thing is that Shen's W and new Q gives him a lot of dueling power when it comes to melee champions like Jax. Jax may outscale Shen, but since the rework Shen is far from helpless. In fact, the loss of sustain was more than made up for with Shen's plethora of shields. If you get a lead on Jax, then build Titanic Hydra and he can't outdamage you. Rush armor items to counter his blows. Starting Doran's shield will be detrimental to his damage. Starting Doran's blade adds some more value to your auto attacks. Rushing HP gives more shielding and damage on E. Null magic mantle isn't really recommended unless you know it's AP Jax, but it can help against Jax's W and E damage.
That's what I mean by options. You can do so much more with Shen's new mechanic to trade, peel, protect, nullify, etc. You can screw over people who need to get their autos off like 
or 
.
Verxint6 votesSomeone downvoted you. I give you an upvote.
Also, as a Jax main, Jax wins that matchup past 20 minutes unless Shen's ulti game is on point. But I'm sure you knew that-after a certain point Shen can't 1v1 Jax, but hes usually tanky enough to run away.
EmollientNut02 votes
Game set match, Shen
Drehirth6 votesshen destroyed jax pre-rework loll he has no sustain and 9/10 times they tried to go aggresive and die. Or I would just stand in their minion wave and constantly spam q on them until they had to back.
Melledoneus3 votesMust've been a bad Jax. Once Jax gets Vamp Scepter the lane starts going in his favor. After Rageblade the game goes in his favor.
Not to mention how useful the lifesteal from Doran's Blade was. Jax is surprisingly weak early on, so it's understandable if anybody beats him then.
EmollientNut02 votesYeah sorry, but I really don't think you're pre-rework analysis is accurate. Shen had plenty of threatening presence without his E. You could constantly Q and walk up for autoattacks with W, baiting out his ability rotation and punishing him hard for it. Being that you WERE a sustain tank (That identity's been expunged) you would win any basic autoattack trade in a minion wave, especially with Grasp of the Undying and the on-request shield. Why would you sit back and farm with your Q against a champion that's basically all autoattacks? Not to mention the damage from Shen's Ki Strike wasn't blocked by his parry.
Shahamut2 votesWhen they updated dodge mechanics not that long ago, jax's parry also blocked the damage.
Nanuk Pihoqahiak3 votesNot downplaying the entirety of your post, but Shen actually had some of the strongest sustain in the game. Ki Strike paired with Grasp of The Undying made it impossible to trade with him in a lot of matchups.
Sammystorm5 votesI have not yet played shen yet but it looks like Riot has taken his old kit which I enjoyed to a more modern kit which I tend to not like as much. So not hopefull
Melledoneus2 votesI enjoyed Shen's old kit, too, but it was lacking. There were just some lanes that were virtually impossible. You just have to play it a few times to truly understand how fun it is.
Sammystorm1 votesI like the simple kits. The trend for me is that the newer the kit the less I usually like it. The simpler the kit the more I usually like it. However I am sure his new kit is fun for some people and has more options/counterplay.
Melledoneus2 votesShen's kit is still simple, but more flexible. Trust me, I like the simple kits, they have their own charm.
I don't like reading tooltips that could be used as filler paragraphs in my English essays.
Penns4 votesNow that his Q works pretty much like Orianna shield on herself, he actually has something to think about other than "Ill just spam my Q and win basically every lane" lol.
Melledoneus4 votesExcept you could just build a shred of MR and his damage is non-existent. Now, he's actually a mixed damage threat that can screw you over if you're not careful.
Penns3 votesIdk.. I often saw quite a lot of physical damage in death recap when I was laning against a Shen. And when I built MR, he still just rekt me with aas and his sustain.
Melledoneus4 votesMust have been a knowledgeable Shen. To be honest, you can't really complain about a champion being hard to beat if the opponent is skilled. I've beaten Shens on so many occasions because I learned the champion through and through. Shen's sustain would hardly hit the 100 regen over 3 seconds mark with a full tank build. Sure, it helped a bit, but skirmishes were where old Shen shined. Now Shen can chain abilities and keep a fight going without having to jump out and heal up.
Bhagswag3 votesMan I thought I was decent Shen (my safe toplaner pick) but Darius always rekts me.
he just spins on me and I don't know what to do. HELPPPPPPPPPP
Only Play Darius4 votesI thought the general consensus was that the rework was poorly thought out
Jhin UItd JFK13 votes[{quoted}](name=Jelly Mac,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=qo2EZue2,comment-id=0005,timestamp=2016-01-28T22:18:58.522+0000)
I thought the general consensus was that the rework was poorly thought out
That was what happened with the Fiora rework... now people are both loving her and bitching about her OPness.
KaisadiIIa5 votesI guess most of the complaints about Fiora came from her ultimate, that makes zero sense thematically speaking.
Monkey D Luffy1 votesI was just hoping his toxic AF ult would be changed but nope.
The Ginger Ninga11 votesThe day has come, where a nearly pure defensive ult is being called toxic. I never thought I would see it.
Monkey D Luffy1 votesAbout to make an outplay? NOPE free kill, its actually op and try to explain how it isnt... if you can And no most of the time its used for aggression
The Ginger Ninga6 votesIt is used as a way to protect out of position allies from assassins. If anything Shen is outplaying the assassin focusing on his ally and stopping them from getting a free kill. And it's more counter aggression then anything.
Oh no! A Zed is trying to kill me!
Yay 300 gold.
Not today man.
Ults
Wow! You're my hero!
Darn, foiled again. I'll get you next time Shen!
Not really but you get the gist of it. The Jinx really said Shen was an asshole for not ulting half a second before zed even appeared.
Monkey D Luffy1 votesOutplaying by pressing r... :l
The Ginger Ninga9 votesOutplays can be as simple as pressing R. It's about decision making not how "cool" the spell combo is. You can't really say Talon pressing E-Auto-Q-W-R is that skillful. Shen's kit is there to create plays that allows one to survive where they usually would not. He isn't supposed to make super flash plays, he is there to be a reliable source of survivability.
Monkey D Luffy1 votesman what a hard decision that takes so much thought process
OyddAWqJ5r6 votesWoah there high horse, heel.
When the enemy Mundo is tossing cleavers at you top lane it's kinda hard to keep an eye on every ally.
Monkey D Luffy1 votesyou find that hard? if you have map awareness and look at your allies little health circle things with their ult indicator hp and mana then it's easy.
Melledoneus7 votesYeah, because his ultimate is totally guaranteed to save your ally EVERY SINGLE TIME.
I bet we should just call him Kayle because his target is _virtually unkillable _with a 250 HP shield, amirite?
Dude, let's be honest. Half the champions in the game, if not more, have easier ultimates to utilize than Shen's. You know, like 
's "lel nope" button.
EmollientNut03 votesDude's acting like his ult makes 2 opponents disconnect
Electro5224 votesMay I ask why her old ultimate getting most of her complaints doesn't make sense?
Unlike the conversation below, where people are trying to justify Shen's ult as a non-toxic ult, and one that actually revolves around meaningful decisions, Fiora's ult was honestly a "press R and win" button. There was honestly nothing you could do against it. Flash away from her? Nope, she follows you. Build tanky against her? Nope, it has enough damage to work through your armor. Try and burst her down before she has a chance? Nope, it procs on hit affects, including lifesteal.
Her old ultimate was the definition of toxicity, and lack of counterplay. You didn't need any skill, you didn't need to think about it, just "press R and win". Other point and click ults at least have some counterplay and decision making:
He needs to work at chipping away your health in order for his ult to do any meaningful damage.
Similar to Garen, he needs to work at it for it to do any meaningful damage.
Used more as a utility lock down spell, and can be cleansed.
Similar to Skarner, used on herself half the time, and can be cleansed.
Doesn't do alot of damage on its own, and can be cleansed.
Mainly used defensively instead of offensively
Used as a tank killer, useless against squishies.
Needs to be set up before being able to do any meaningful damage
Does nearly no damage on its own, and is used to get to a target instead of kill it.
Her old ult didn't need any set up before it, couldn't be cleansed, and no utility use whatsoever. It didn't matter who the target was, or where they were, all you had to do was "press R". The ONLY way to counter her ult was a 
ult and 
. NOTHING else countered it.
So, again, how does it not make sense?
LynXerf1 votes[{quoted}](name=Paleo Electro,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=qo2EZue2,comment-id=0005000000000002,timestamp=2016-01-29T09:30:53.328+0000)
May I ask why her old ultimate getting most of her complaints doesn't make sense?
Unlike the conversation below, where people are trying to justify Shen's ult as a non-toxic ult, and one that actually revolves around meaningful decisions, Fiora's ult was honestly a "press R and win" button. There was honestly nothing you could do against it. Flash away from her? Nope, she follows you. Build tanky against her? Nope, it has enough damage to work through your armor. Try and burst her down before she has a chance? Nope, it procs on hit affects, including lifesteal.
Her old ultimate was the definition of toxicity, and lack of counterplay. You didn't need any skill, you didn't need to think about it, just "press R and win". Other point and click ults at least have some counterplay and decision making:
Her old ult didn't need any set up before it, couldn't be cleansed, and no utility use whatsoever. It didn't matter who the target was, or where they were, all you had to do was "press R". The ONLY way to counter her ult was a
So, again, how does it not make sense?
used COUNTERSTRIKE
used REPEL
was confused as to why he just lost 1% HP, so continued wandering around throwing cleavers
Not saying I don't agree with your sentiment, but your last statement was incorrect :)
Electro5221 votesCounterstrike doesn't block abilities, only auto attacks. Though, the other 2, I can understand.
Serika Zero3 votesfiora's Blade Waltz was regarded as an auto attack Jax's counterstrike was able to block the entire ultimate; even if the counter strike time ran out, as long as he had Counter Strike activated when the first AA from ultimate hit him. In addition to this, him activating Counter Strike would've blocked the rest of her ultimate.
Just like Jax. Phanteon had the same interaction. His passive blocked THE ENTIRE ULTIMATE. All he had to do is W a darn minion. Then there's everyone having invulnerabilities: Zed, Fizz, Vlad, Echo
edit: now we would've even had Tahm and Bard and Kindred as more counters for her Blade Waltz. Or Soraka Silence under her before landing and starting R... whatever, she's gone.
edit2: something really fun: Banshee Veil used to have like 30s cooldown before resetting itself on the owner. But Riot decided that Zed didn't have enough openings to use his ultimate and kill targets with Banshee, so they pushed the refresh timer to 40s.
Now, something to note about Zed: His CD on his Q or W are 6 and 18 seconds respectively. Zed could've Q a target and had then to wait 6 seconds and could've all in the target and kill them. That's a total of 24s window open to take action. Or even WQ and having a 12s window to take action and kill target. This was not enough so Riot nerfed Zed.
Fiora vs Jax. Fiora forces Jax to use counterstrike in a trade. Jax E CD: 16s Original Fiora Q CD: 12s or 10s. In order to win the match-up, Firoa had a window of barelly 1-2 seconds in which she could all in and kill Jax using her ult. Yet riot didn't give a shit. But precious Zed, had to even nerf Banshees for his sake >.> Fiora? lets just delete her
Serika Zero4 votesAs an Original Fiora main:
made my ultimate do 10% less damage. Not just my ultimate, my entire kit was about auto attacks, so building just that cheap item dropped my entire damage output by 10%.
overall the ult damage was raging from 300 to 1400 on a single target across lv 6 to 18 and item builds. Targets having low armor.
If I were to use the ultimate 1v1 vs a tank, the damage would drop by half.
If you were a an ADC or Mage. As Original Fiora. My ult range was 400. Which is lower even than current Grave's auto attack range. You had a lot of time to burst me from afar. Yes, I could've Q minion Q minion and then ult you, closing a gap of ~1100 range or so in less than a second. But, then, you would not die. Even as an ADC, you have more than 1400-1500 hp in late game. Don't you? I actually had to Q aa Q aa R to score a kill. Most of Fiora's damage came from auto attacks speed up by her E (which gave her AS and MS for like 3s or so).
Was there counterplay to Q Q R on the enemy adc? Yes, peal from your carry. The same counterplay there is for almost every kind of engage champion (the few exceptions would be stuff like Leona, Malphite, Gragas) Fiora was just like Rengar, strong vs teams that were disorganized and refused to peal. The only difference is that you could see Fiora approaching you, while not so much for Rengar. Also, the majority of her top lane match-ups were skill match-ups or counters. She had advantage vs Teemo, Jayce, Gnar. And that's it, everything else skill match-up or counter (some hard counters, like Jax).
In addition to all this. Shield used by your team. Such as: Shen ultimate, Lux shield, Lulu shield, Oriana shield, Janna shield. Or heals such as: Soraka, Sona, Janna. Were again cock blocking for Fiora.
But nobody was COUNTERPLAYING her, everyone was complaining. At least in lower and mid elos. Haven't seen Dia players complain about Fiora and her being OP. Sure, she was strong when she was ahead. AS ITS EVERY SINGLE SNOWBALLY CHAMPION IN THIS GAME.
Fiora had plenty of counterPLAY. Just everyone wanted to have braindead solutions given to them. So, riot gave her %hp true damage. Ok boys, go counterplay that >.>
Dominick Destine7 votesThat was what happened with the Fiora rework... now people are both loving her and bitching about her OPness.
Fiora got massive buffs after her release because her immediate rework was pure garbage.
sp4413 votesSo numbers being a bit off = Garbage.
Is everybody on this fucking board Japanese? Why the fucking perfectionism? Get it right straight out of the gates or it's fuckawful and you should commit hara-kiri to preserve your honor.
OyddAWqJ5r2 votesOkay, a little bit on the crazy side there bud but i agree with your point. They didn't change anything other than numbers -- the fundamental design of the rework stayed the same. Dunno how that ='s a pure garbage rework.
SirHeavyScrotum2 votes( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) O Pness ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
Catastrop3 votesI love his new Q, last hitting has never been so easy. Plus with the Sunfire Buff in the next patch, I might actually try and learn the Jungle role better for Ranked. Devo Shen will be a thing I swear.
Melledoneus3 votesNah, Devourer Shen's always been a thing. River Shen will become the new meta.
Catastrop2 votesPeople always flame me when do it though T-T.....then again, that could just me being sub-par at best when jungling.
Melledoneus4 votesJust trust in Shenpai.
KaylaDaBamf2 votesNice to see Riot finally getting some appreciation for their hard work, rather than consistently being slandered. Thank you for not being a permanent douche bag forever :^)