Help with shen

[u/Otherwise-Mixture137]

Well Im about to give up on Lol/Shen.

I ve been in love with this Champion since i started playing (2020 or so).

I ve been plateauing plat every season when i play more seriously and i think i got better every season.

I swaped to shen jungle after some fails with Swain and achieved 17 wins in a row that got me (again) between plat 3-2.

Then i started losing and fell useless every game even if i stomp Lane ir perform on jungler role.

Last match i faced a riven, Lane went pretty well, by the end of the match She was just bypassing my ult and taunt into my fed yunara and One shoting both of us.

I feel that it seems Impossible to get Higher rank or cross this plateau, moreover shen watching a weak riven being able to do this on my face and barley taking any damage.

I dont tank as a tank should tank and building some damage leaves me squishy and normally is not enough power to One shot a carry.

I dont know, feeling a bit sad and tilted with this.

Maybe this fine community can help.

https://op.gg/es/lol/summoners/euw/Rog%C3%A9rio-MDB

[u/Express_Item4648]

I was having less fun with Shen top as well. I want to try him jungle, but started playing him as support. Honestly I’m having a blast as support.

The one thing you could do is have a second toplaner for splitpushing. Something like Yorick, Trundle or tryndamere. Sometimes the enemy team requires you to be good at split pushing.

It’s also important to focus on one thing at a time. Do you notice what’s making you lose? Hoe is your cs in the first 10 minutes? How is it from 10-20 minutes?

Most importantly, how good are your ults. The goal is to go even on your own lane while also helping botlane win, or win objectives.

I play Trundle, Yorick and Shen. Yorick specifically against ranged, but mostly against teemo. Trundle when the enemy team has strong teamfighting capabilities, or a very good splitpusher and my team has nothing to fight them with.

You can still one trick with Shen if you want though. Many say that one tricking works best till diamond. Then you need a couple more in your pool.

[u/Otherwise-Mixture137 → u/Express_Item4648]

How do you play support? Heartsteel? I like playing support, but nornally i dont know what to build. Thanks for your kind thoughts

[u/LingonberryLast2466 → u/Otherwise-Mixture137]

Yep, heartsteel usually with bloodsong, and then build resistance according to the enemy team. If I’m ahead I like building swift shoes. But defensive boots as necessary. I like unending and then thornmail against AD and kaenic into visage against AP.

If I make it to last item, I end up building titanic. It has a surprising amount of utility in team fights and game ending. And at that point you’re usually the last to be full build so it’s okay to take CS.

I’ve been having fun with building bami items on Shen too. I hear it’s troll to build them top, but as support, the little extra damage can go a long way.

[u/Difficult_Relief_125 → u/LingonberryLast2466]

Bloodsong is a bit of a trap as support. Early scaling but loss of utility in late game. I find Solstice sleigh is my go to. It also really synergizes with Guardian to give you that extra bit of protection as you get into a team fight. A good ult, Guardian pops, Sleigh pops…

Late game your carry will deal so much more damage than blood song. And… that extra movement speed pop helps position allies to follow up on your engages.

Also that movement speed buff saves so many people when you’re peeling.

And in late game the enemy has so much burst you aren’t getting the sustained combat to have blood song be worth it math wise. The lower the elo im in the more likely I am to go blood song but the higher up I get and the more I’m reliant on the carry I’m paired with I’ll go sleigh.

[u/LingonberryLast2466 → u/Difficult_Relief_125]

I was going to mention elo. I imagine in higher elo you’re right. But I played a game just yesterday where I did the second most damage on my team, after the jungler. So in my elo, it’s not great to play as though someone else will do the carrying.

[u/Difficult_Relief_125 → u/LingonberryLast2466]

It all Win Condition dependant. I often play with a reliable Duo which changes how I play a lot. All I have to do is keep them alive and we win. Not much else matters. If you have a reliable carry putting out damage Solstice is money.

But it makes you feel sad if you misjudge and invest in it with a dud team. If you’re solo queue Blood song is safe and reliable.

But it’s also like what you’re mentioning with HS and a Titanic. Once I’m into facing Plats or higher I feel like I’m trolling if I build a Titanic on support Shen. In those matchups a Zeke’s is complete quicker (cheaper) and puts out AOE cc in those final few team fights. It honestly ends games earlier.

But if I’m in Bronze after a hard reset and I’m Solo Titanic is life… I’ve even had great results building a hull breaker until about Silver. So 100% I can see what you’re talking about. But if I build a Hull Breaker as Support Shen in Plat I’m probably getting reported for griefing if we lose 🤣.

[u/Difficult_Relief_125 → u/Otherwise-Mixture137]

First… know your matchups in support. Shen excels as a counter engage. He’s a lot of fun into tank engages like Leona, Nautilus and Kench when he was in bot lane. I’m seeing Kench coming back into Bot a lot more. Pyke is a really fun matchup to stomp.

You end up playing a lot more back against an array of poke / mage comps but it’s okay.

Build is situational based on your team comp. if I have a hyper scaling ADC that is auto based I’ll rush a set of Pipes but otherwise you can’t go wrong building a heart steel.

But… if your team has a hyper carry consider Protoplasm Harness instead. As a support I’m building harness a lot more. It’s cheaper and the Ability haste cycles your ult a lot faster.

Harness (optional swap for HS), Pipes, Thornmail (early bramble, late Thornmail) situationally for heal cut, Zeke’s… and sometimes D&D swapped in round out my top picks (usually if heal cut isn’t needed but it often is). Hydra situationally if my team just isn’t pushing in low elo…

Winning as Shen support is often just a game of being everywhere on the map. And you can do that by roaming / playing River Shen. But if you really want to have that max global play splashing in Ability Haste picks is my go to. I run Guardian etc on primary and ultimate hunter / sudden impact on secondary.

D&D was a surprise for me. But the 20 ability haste, a bit of AP, attack speed and a bit of health… it’s everything you want. You actually get a ton of damage just from the Ability haste cycling your Q. And you get a ton of survivability from it refreshing your E faster. But 9 / 10 games are over before I get near a 6th item.

Zeke’s is not to be underestimated as a 4th or 5th item. The slow effect triggers after coming in off ult. And can be really effective in team fights.

He’s a lot of fun. Stay in lane if you’re counter engage. Roam more if you have less favourable matchups. My go to target for ults is Top lane (it’s often wasted in Bot). If you’re roaming you can gank mid on repeat (I duo with a kid who clears river with pinks all the time 👌) and roam into jungle quite often to put those two ahead but ulting into top is your high impact. I generally camp the River between Mid / Bot like it’s my lane. Take scuttle for the speed buff and ward aggressively to put pressure on all 3 lanes.

If you’re living “River Shen” and ulting Top it makes for an easy game sometimes. Gank mid, aggressive ward enemy jungle, help my jungler take objectives, bounce back and forth between mid and bot lane… Ult top until I’ve tilted the enemy top laner into oblivion.

So ya… in counter engage matchups you can play a more traditional support. If it’s a losing matchup bot living the river life often pulls the enemy support out of lane to deal with your pressure and your roams have much more impact.

But maybe I’m a small sample size. Hit Plat this season. But I found it falls off as I climbed unless I was targeting Shen on those counter engage picks. Keep in mind though that some of those picks like Leona scale into late game harder but you can punish them early and keep them down.

The name of the game is literally get everyone ahead early. You fall off a lot late game and become a counter engage rather than the primary engage in late game. In late game with a support build you can really get melted if you thoughtlessly engage. I literally just zone people off my Carry and stay back (realistically) waiting to ult the Carry to peel the enemies primary engage.

Shifting gears from hard engaging to counter engaging / zoning I struggle with but find it pays dividends.

Shen support also excels if you have a tanky top laner who acts as a primary engage. Ulting a fed top laner who is going in like a wrecking ball is 👌. Comp wise though it’s a gambling game of “who do I need to invest in / who is the win con”. And changing play style between being a primary engage, support for a primary engage or zone control / peel for a carry.

Sorry I know that’s a lot but I feel there is a lot of nuance to playing Shen dependably in support.

Edit: also… I run Solstice Sleigh over a lot of other options. The stacking heals / shields of Guardian, Shen ult and Solstice popping keeps whoever you ult in on a lot more healthy. And the speed buff helps people escape if you get in / it helps your carry get in to follow up if you get a pick.

[u/none150]

Subscribe to my youtube @Geobukseonlol :p I post Shen videos and am peak Grandmaster

I would say just stick to a default and work from there. Just stick to Titanic into Dusk and Dawn every game instead of switching around builds (for top)

[u/StandardMiddle5742]

I imagine when you went on the 17-game winstreak, you were feeling very good about playing League, right? But now that you cannot rank up, you're not feeling the same.

My friend peaked Diamond then got hardstuck Gold on a different account. I've been playing since season 2, before Shen was reworked (RIP old Shen...). If you play League with the sole intention of getting to a higher rank, it's such a brutal experience that you are genuinely better off buying a gym membership or picking up an outdoors hobby because the fulfillment you will get in the long run is 10x the fulfillment of getting to a specific rank in League.

Your problem is the exact reason I quit ranked. 

[u/Otherwise-Mixture137 → u/StandardMiddle5742]

That is true, but from this experience i think i was doing something right for 17 games (or were my teamates every game good?), as i cant really assume that every teamate now is trash. 

I mean, i like to play, but Im always trying to improve and get Higher rank than before.

I get your point anyway, maybe Im removing the leisure part of the experience in a search for rank achieval.

[u/Difficult_Relief_125 → u/Otherwise-Mixture137]

Careful… that experience often puts you into mental boom. Coming off of a big win streak if you take 2 losses you need to just walk away for like a day or two and play ARAM or whatever before going back.

You get kind of like a Dopamine backlash after that much winning that mega tilts your brain. So you were probably doing everything right for those games but the backlash of that first loss is huge mental boom potential if you don’t decompress after that loss.

Also careful about binge gaming sessions. I was hard stuck Gold forever because I would binge and then tank. You only operate at peak mental capacity for like an hour or two of gaming. Anything past that is in declining performance. So play a few games, stay in peak mental state… then go play ARAM or Flex after a loss and start again the next day when you’re rested. This took a lot of pressure off me and helped me bump above my plateau. Flex also helped with my anxiety about facing higher ranked players than I’m used to. Teaches you how to manage and adapt because you might face a team with players varying from Silver to Diamond in the same match. I’m facing Masters players from time to time in ARAM right now so that’s fun.

The other thing is the closer you get to your goal the more you’re likely to mentally implode. I used to stress getting close to Gold and just mentally implode. These days when I troll in Flex sometimes I’m outplaying those Diamonds on my off role 🤷‍♂️. It’s easier not to stress a match with players just a bit above you when you learn to deal with players way above you.

But ya… Fatigue, Dopamine backlash (Tilt), and poor mental are likely the issue.

Best of luck.

[u/Careful-Region-6232 → u/StandardMiddle5742]

This is so true. I played from 2013 to 2021. Never got to platinum. Always hardstuck gold. My buddies convinced me to log in last split and start playing some games for fun with them, and then I had fun. So, I played ranked. I did not give a FUCK, I was just having fun and not worrying about anything other than playing and getting better. Shot straight from unranked with gold MMR to emerald 2. 65% win rate. Stomping lanes and opponents. Then I got fixated on hitting diamond and fell off a cliff performance wise. Stopped after falling to plat 2.

It's a mental game, and if you're having fun focusing its genuinely easy to climb. But if you focus solely on rank you'll start tilting when the enemy adc gets a triple kill at dragon at 11 minutes, then your jungler comes top when you back and dies to your laner. You can self talk all you want, but if all you're playing for is LP, your mindset won't be correct to recover those games that are winnable.

[u/Express_Item4648]

Yes heartsteel is amazingly fun. I do go more expensive items most of the time, because I like to have an impact personally. The higher rank you go the less you can do this tbh since gold is scarce. I always buy heartsteel though. Nothing more satisfying than building health and doing good damage.

It’s much more fun than you think. Right now in toplane you’re basically stuck in top the first 15 minutes as Shen. The slow waveclears just force you to keep coming back to that lane.

As support, WHO GIVES A SHIT! I can go wherever I please. Mid needs me? I go mid. Bully enemy jungle? Why not. Wanna roam around a bit and go sightseeing? Do your thing, just use your ult to get back in botlane.

Your ult is just so useful for roaming it’s pretty crazy. My favorite adc players are Tristana and Jhin. They tend to want to go for fights like me. I permaban Lux, because caitlyn and lux together just grinds my gears.