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Can we talk about how Warwick's, Urgot's, and now Irelia's reworks utterly puts Shen's to shame?

Alhazred The Dad·3/20/2018, 8:53:34 AM·5 votes·912 views

I've been a longtime Shen fan, from way back in the early days when he was permabanned in rank by default ( and you only had three bans per team o: )

I was ultra-stoked when his rework was announced two years ago, and of course, the visual update that accompanied him. When it hit, apparently there were complaints centering around the Q mechanics, and the fact they felt gimmicky. I personally didn't mind, as I was just happy for a chance to play a new papa Shen after so long, and I felt the sword helped contribute to the fun factor of controlling a lane rather than just tossing a free point and click sword compared to before. During the 2 years in the interim, nothing spectacular ever happened aside from nerfing of his ultimate during Riot's turn toward eliminating global ultimate abilities, and the meme about his lack of skins was ever-present.

What I'm mostly concerned about is the fact that Irelia's ability design visually crystallizes what she is in the lore, the descendant of a blademaster wielding a mysterious, deadly, beautiful weapon. She is elegant, agile, and lethal. And this is all gathered from just the trailer, mind you, I watched the same thing you folks did.

It could absolutely be a symptom of time; evolving tech and increasing abilities of the art design teams at Riot may make this possible, and let this "skill expression" be so fluently executed in this upcoming rework for a top laner, which is outstanding! However, with Shen, I don't feel the power he is supposed to be wielding at all in his kit or his character. Irelia is getting new voice lines, firstly. Shen has the same minute worth of dialogue he's had since day one, which strangely enough went unaddressed by the rework. Irelia has six skins in total, one of which is legacy; Shen has seven, three of which are legacy. Here's the problem: Irelia will undoubtedly be receiving completely unique visuals for each of her skins apart from just having a fancier, shinier model.

Shen has the same purplish hue following him and his sword for every one of his skins, with zero variation. For all seven skins.

A bit of history from me in regards to this: I'm personally let down by the recent Ultimate skin release. Not for the sake that it underperformed visually, or what have you, but for the fact that any perceived notion that there was a pattern to the releases was utterly shattered. Some of you reading this may remember that there was a thread predicting what the next Ultimate skin ought to be based on actions Riot has taken in the past. The number one spot in that list was taken ( in my opinion, rightfully ) by Shen. The creator of the thread noted a few things that made the likelihood of seeing an Ultimate skin for Shen very compelling, such as:

  • Shen was released 8 days after Ezreal, who received the very first Ultimate Skin in the form of Pulsefire Ezreal.
  • Shen has been passed over for literally every skin line, multiple times, since Blood Moon
  • The "Sacred Sword" teaser art for what turned out to be.. Janna's.. skin.. was super purple, and was hinted to be wielded by someone powerful

Now, a lot of you may think it's our fault for sewing such a rumor in the first place, but let's go ahead and just reference the release of No Man's Sky real quick: if it wasn't true, it would've been infinitely better for Riot to just come out and quash any hopes from the start to prevent us from getting fanciful. I'm entirely willing to admit the blame for the hype train rests squarely on the fans, at heart, but Riot knows that Shen is overdue for a skin, as evidenced by their most recent video on the matter.

So they say they're releasing a skin for him. Okay. My question is: what step are you, Riot, willing to take for him? If it turns out to be just some pity skin, like a Pool Party Shen, or something entirely lazy, fine. I clearly cannot assert any creative directive, no matter how much I want it to happen. But, please, from a main of this champion, listen: his current representation is an incredible disservice to his lore. Shen supposedly helps keep the balance of all Runeterra, and possibly even more, but you do not feel even remotely near what Shen should be: A man who presides over both the realms of the living and spirits, not as a guide, or a caretaker, or a reaper, but a tender of the scales.

To quote the page announcing Shen's rework directly:

> " Shen’s a bit of an odd duck. He’s a ninja who likes to be punched in the face (spoilers: that’s not changing), and while bits of his kit are super unique and impactful, he also sports two painfully generic abilities. He’s been suffering from a pretty severe case of old-schoolitis, basically, making him a prime candidate for some champion update TLC. So we’ve given him some. Alongside brushing up the big guy’s model so it’s closer to his awesome splash, we’ve also spent a bunch of time updating some of his abilities. Now Shen's power manifests as a ki blade that joins him as he enters the Rift, and which he controls with his abilities. "

I think these words seriously need to be re-evaluated at this time.

18 Comments

GreenLore3/20/2018, 9:58:15 AM9 votes

Shen was simply unlucky that he was the last one to receive a smaller scope VGU,when he needed a full one. He got a VGU comparable to Fiora when he needed one like Galio Warwick Evelynn etc.

Riot themselves admitted that,but now that Shen is in a better spot,he likely won't receive an update anytime soon.

And A Real Hiero3/20/2018, 7:00:04 PM2 votes

Preach, the only love Shen gets from Riot are nerfs.

JackMcSnipeyz3/20/2018, 9:06:13 AM2 votes

I think it wasnt a full rework, it was back when they did mini updates like alistar and maoki (not the tank update one). He didnt even get new voice over so i dont think you can really call it a VGU

RosaElia3/22/2018, 5:45:21 AM2 votes

Personally, I feel like Shen's Q and W needs some improvements. When I look at Shen's lore, I think of a ninja that walks through the spirit realm and the living world, but when I look at his kit I see a boring aa buff and a short aa dodge zone. With the Irelia rework giving her extra damage to shields, damage reduction, and ranged poke, how will Shen fare in the top lane now? Shen struggles with quite a bit of match ups, especially against ranged champs and magic casters like Vlad or Quinn. Now with Irelia doing more damage to shield and having more attack speed, she will destroy Shen's passive and out damage his 3 auto attacks. Shen also has some problems farming under turret since his Q got nerfed. Ranged minions are impossible to farm unless Shen is lvl 6 or built some ad. I feel like Shen should have his Q changed to be a ranged ability. An idea that I had was to have his Q be like Syndra's Q where Shen cracks open the spirit realm in the living world causing an explosion dealing dmg and spawning his spirit sword. Shen can then recast his Q to drag it towards him and if it collides with an enemy champion he gets his aa buff and attack speed. His W could be changed to originate from Shen and be something like Irelia's W which reduces spell dmg or just be a complete dmg nullification zone, but Shen is rooted during the duration of the spell and it can be disrupted by cc. But that's just my idea of what Shen could be. If Riot can change Rengar and Leblanc back to what they used to be, I think that they should be able to fix Shen up to make him more ninja and be someone worthy to be called The Eye of Twilight.

Muten Shensei3/20/2018, 9:10:34 PM1 votes

Well good thing I found this post.. I was about to make an angry thread about how unfair it is that Irelia gets 17 minutes of dialogue while Shen's rework still gave him the same 55 minutes dialogue... Maybe it's too soon to say this, since they're doing something with Shen "soon", but I can sense a form of favoritism...

Alhazred The Dad3/20/2018, 4:45:55 PM1 votes

I can only hope that, eventually, Riot will do something big, maybe in the form of another tank update that would include Nunu DrMundo and Amumu

Fiora managed to get a much, much more interesting design overhaul compared to her previous iteration. True, there is still the general theme of shuffling abilities around, but her passive alone is more impactful than almost all of Shen's kit in lane. She's supposed to be a godlike duelist, and she pretty much is, and playing her feels fun.

Shen is a pretty basic damn tank. Aside from his Spirit Blade, he is utterly bland. His story is about how he exists between worlds to eke out balance wherever it may be needed. He doesn't feel spirit-y at all, aside from the fact his Spirit Blade teleports when he walks far enough, and can travel through stuff. Why can't Shen travel through stuff without having to use his taunt? The story about his facing a creature amidst a crowd of onlookers in the capital of Noxus goes almost completely ignored. He supposedly blinks in and out of existence when he fights, and being one of the most fearless ( literally emotionless ) figures to exist in the world, he would be an ideal candidate for slaying wretched horrors no other could brave. Why doesn't Shen have, like, bonus tenacity? He doesn't feel like a ninja tank, he just feels like sponge who looks like a ninja.

Like me when I was 12.

I feel like Riot has been taking half-measures with certain champions to refresh an imaginary timer of obligation they have to themselves and the champion for being so old. For example, the change to Amumu's passive where your teammates who do magic damage just do more to the people you mark. Also, Nunu and his free AP buff that he just has now. Or the newly revealed Wukong and Rumble skins. I dunno.

Maybe I just feel like Shen is more important than he is.

I know I love him more than Riot does. :/

EDIT: Added more.

rougeric873/24/2018, 6:41:23 PM1 votes

Fun (Sad) fact; Shen has the record for the champion who didn't got a skin since his rework for the longest time.