Shen rework was a failure, and here's why ...

http://puu.sh/qeozY/045c806754.png

Let me put my two cents into here now that it has been a while since Shen has been reworked.

Let's first start with his old kit.

In his old kit, his passive was Ki Strike, which did bonus damage on his next auto attack scaling on his HP, restoring some of his energy, and then going on cooldown for a period of time, which he could accelerate with further auto attacks OR through the use of W.

This skill right here was central to his balance and it was what made Shen "Shen" in my opinion, minus the obvious Ult and E. Why do I say that? I'll get to that in a little bit.

His Q was a medium ranged dagger he chucked, dealing damage, and restores health when he auto attacked the target for a period of time.

The W was a basic little shield with a catch; it has a short cooldown AND it further reduced the cooldown on his passive when he auto attacked while the shield was up.

His E and Ult are the same, a taunt dash and global TP/Shield, only now the E scales on HP instead.

With the old Shen, all of his abilities had synergy in some way; the passive relied on auto attacks, the Q heals from marked targets with autos, the W reduced the cooldown on the passive, and the passive restored energy and enabled you to continue a string of abilities when you manage to land them. It didn't take away from his melee center, he had ways to be countered via peel, grievous wounds, or by being heavily harassed, and he wasn't completely dumpstered by anyone really, but didn't completely dumpster anybody else.

He was balanced.

Here's where the problem begins.

He has three new abilities that feel very out of place and make Shen extremely vulnerable to ranged threats. The new kit essentially transforms Shen into a one-trick-pony, further drawing incentive on landing his E.

With his old kit, it was fine for Shen to have a ranged Q harass tool and a self-shield on W because it made him have options to deal with ranged threats without taking away his melee identity since his passive, and ultimately the source of his burst damage and energy restoration, was centered around his auto attacks. His huge energy costs disabled him from hanging around, spamming abilities forever, but he wasn't entirely out classed if fighting a ranged opponent.

Now, there is no good way to actually utilize the empowered Q without either the enemy making a huge positioning mistake or you hit your E; if you miss the E, you'll mostly likely miss the Q empowerment too since it relied on hitting a champion. Taking away his old Q removed his ability to even try to counter any poke done by ranged harass if using E is not an option.

Furthermore, the old W was a better tool to defend against champions since it covered a larger range of abilities with a regular shield as opposed to the new auto attack shield, which only stops like, what ... ADCs and Teemo? It's not even useful to defend other champions with because it has such a small range, it's dependent on the location of your Q, and you can't effectively use your Q then since it will move away from whoever you're trying to protect. It's just a poorly thought out and clunky skill in my opinion.

Finally, the passive doesn't really work with Shen's other abilities either. When you taunt somebody, you'll instantly gain a shield, which is nice on paper, but in practice, it actually involves dragging your Q through them, which is another missed opportunity to gain a shield, and it probably means you'll follow up with W after the taunt ends, which is pulled away from whoever you might have been trying to protect since you need to Q after your E . Do you see the problem here?

I suggest some fixes to the way the abilities work together and overall just tweak his functionalities, even if it involves outright buffing him, because at the moment, I don't see him in a good state at all. Perhaps his W should be cast where he stands, lasts longer, and doesn't move with his Q instead? Perhaps his Q should give him a burst of increased movement speed during its travel so he has another way of hitting a champion with it besides his E? I just think he needs more than a simple numbers tweak.

Discuss please and thank you.