Shen's Rework is really dissapointing

This is a copy paste of my PBE post

First of all, i wonder why there is no official feedback thread for his rework

So about the rework it's self, first looking at the things he lost:

• a bunch of base stats. He now has nearly 200hp, 22armor and 4ad less at 18

• Ki Strike. I really loved that passive. The sound, animation and damage where just so statisfying, and the AS-scaleing opened up interesting builtpaths. It actually was one of the main reason for me to play shen.

• Vorapal Blade. I honestly won't miss the point n click poke, it made laneing vs him rather obnoxious on many champs and wasn't exactly interesting. However, the Q did way more than just providing easy poke. It provided a unique sustain mechanic that also affected allies and helpt coordinateing teamfights by marking a focus target. I really hope they will either return the 'healing mark' to shen or use that mechanic on a new champ. Aditionally, his Q gave a fallback patern for when the lane wnt bad, allowing to farm from a rather save range. Now he has no fallback pattern, so if he is played top, he will either dominate his lane or loose rather hard, as all he has is the all-in trade. Also, haveing some form of ranged damage certainly would be nice, it just was the combination of energie based and point n click that made it opressive as a poke tool in many matchups.

• Feint . While he got some general damage mitigation on his passive now, he can't really use it that reactive to counter poke as his old W, it's more a ' i win this trade' shield now.

And what does he gain in return?

• More hp/5. Probably to compensate the lost Q sustain, but not nearly enough to make up for that loss in any way.

• Ki Barrier. Nothing wrong with that, but not nearly as statisfying to use as his Ki Strike.

• The~~ floating phallus~~ spirit blade. This is a horrible thing, not only does it look rather ugly(imo it's more the kind of sword that Garen would use if he wanted a 1-hander than one that a ninja would use), it feels like a horrible bandaid to introduce some counterplay to his new Q and ad a new 'unique' mechanic. Imo it doesn't fit to shen at all, and it is poorly worked out. Such a mechanic needs an kit being built around it, rather than getting slapped on a finished built last minute. He can only manipulate it with one skill, and that doesn't even allow free positioning but only calls it to your poss, and he only has two spells that itterract with it in any way. If we look at the two most similar mechanics, orianna's ball and syndra's spheres, we notice that theire entire kit, every single active abillity, does interact with the ball/sphere, which leads to the kit feeling great and complete, while shen's feels incomplete.

• Twilight Assault. Basicall not a bad skill, it adds some nice damage that scales into late on a tank and offers some counterplay, though the duration is to high and the fact that the cd starts upon activation rather than after the last hit removes alot potential counterplay, as disengageing and waiting for the buff to run out is not an option that way. It also feels like it needs an AA-reset. However, the interaction with the spirite blade feels forced and tacked on rather than truely interesting.

• Spirit's Refuge. The idea is somewhat interesting, but it felt bad to use most of the time. In lane, it is a way worse jax E, and in teamfights it is hard to utilize, as it appears around the spirit blade, and your means to move that blade are VERY limited. It also has a really low aoe and a short duration. It forces people to stay in a small area if they want to benefit from it while running away often would be the better option for dquishys, and dive champs would need to continue the chase of their backline and can't affort to stay in that aoe either. And of multiple people try to use it, you become really vulnerable to aoe... it seems to have more drawbacks than benefits in teamfights, unless the oppseing team is very, VERY AA-focused.

What does stay the same?

• Shadow Dash This is probably his signature skill and what most people associate shen with besides the ult. It certainly was mandatory that this skill stays. Adding the %health scaleing from Ki-strike onto it isn't a bad call i guess. How ever, i wonder why the damage was changed to physical damage, that doesn't make any sense to me.

• Stand United This is one of my biggest issues with the rework. I think his ult was one of the main problems for old she's balance. It just cunsumes so much of his powerbudget and by the virtue of beeing a no-combat ult it also means his base kit and thus the pre-6 has to be more very powerfull. this results in him beeing a very dominant laner that looses fight impact as the game goes on. I really hoped they would nerf the ult in some way and add some passive combat power to it to smooth out his powercurve and ad a bit more power to his base kit.

What would i change?

• Return Ki-Strike as his passive, maybe tune some numbers but leave it mostly as it is. °I really love that passive

• remove the ~~ floating phallus~~ spirit blade. It might be an idea for a new champ, or even better on a Irelia rework, but i don't see it working on shen.

• Change the Q name to Vorpal Blade, make it a line skillshot with not to much damage(but maybe bonus damage to minions) and a big damage fall-off per target, let it stop briefly in the air at the end, turning into a spirite blade and returning to shen, applying all the Twighlight Assault effects(slow if fleeing, bonus damage on next 3 AAs, more bonus damage and AS if a champion was hit, no damage on the returning balde it self), just with an AA-reset. °This adds the desired counterplay to his Q without the stupid spirite blade while adding a way to pick up cs from afar without really granting waveclear or strong poke

• Increase the W area a bit and center it on shen, activateing either if an ally or his spirteblade(the returning Q) enter the zone, or after 2sec. Add a heal over 5sec scaleing with his maxhealth, haveing a low base value/scaleing but increaseing greatly based on the number of Attacks dodged from champions/monsters so it isn't as effective as sustain in lane but can get nice in teamfights while helping his jungle. °This should make it a bit more useable ingenerall without needing a spiriteblade, adding more reward for good useage in teamfights.

• Take the maxhealth scaleing from his E , change it to magical damage and ad an ap-scaleinng. °He already has health-scaleing on Ki-Strike, doubling down on that wouldn't be balanced

• Change the Ult shield to 150/ 275/400 but reaply it after the channle is finished, stacking with the first shield, increase the cd to 240/180/120, increase the channle time to 4/3.5/3 sec and reduce it by up to 50% based on distance, starting at 2500range, reaching the full 50% at 1000 range maybe add a shield on she himself that if destroyed deals damage to him and stuns for 0.1 sec so no-cc champs have a way to cancle it aswell °The numbers obviously need to get itterated upon, but i hope it gives an idea on how to nerf the ult, freeing up the power for the passive part, puting more focuse on cancleing his ult while makeing it more usefull for him if he already is in a fight