Hello all, this is a guide by a bunnie; Rikkybunnie to be exact. Today I'm going to show you how to jungle my favorite champion Shyvana. She's one of the best, if not the best, early game junglers in the game. With her quick clear times and natural tankiness, she's one hell of a force to be reckoned with. Plus she turns into a big dragon, which is cool.

This guide will go show you how to jungle with great speed and will go into even further detail, showing you how to gank and even counter jungle your opponents. I will also include ways to maintain your presence on the battlefield in late game.

Let's take a look at the pros and cons of this champ
PROS:
Great early game
Quick jungle clear times
Has flexibility in both ad and tank roles
Transforms into a big dragon
Strong defenses without any defensive items

CONS:
Her ult can be cc-ed
She lacks cc
Hard to land successful ganks
Falls off pretty hard late game.

First off you want to start off with some Greater Mark of Desolation runes for armor piercing; WE ARE NOT DOING THIS FOR CLEAR TIME, Shyvana's clear time is already great, it would go slightly quicker with just plain Greater Mark of Attack Damage runes but armor pen is where it's at. Trust me, I tried both options and ad runes give you a 2-3 second faster clear time than armor pen, however your damage is poor late game.

"Why Riky? You're so dumb you noob, armor pen sucks"
- You are wrong Mr. Imaginary Troll, armor pen will be MUCH more useful with Shyvana as it keeps her damage high even in late game settings where her damage severely falls off. Armor pen is a MUST for shyvana, don't listen to these other guys, they're liars.

After the attack damage runes, we want armor and magic resist. This coupled with your initial item which should ALWAYS be Cloth Armor and your masteries will give you a whopping 58 armor and around 49 magic resist early on.

You mad bro?

Now with Shyvana, I like to build her with lot's of armor early on. The masteries balance out her tankiness and damage so you can abuse your opponents when you gank and clear the jungle quicker. Shyv's natural tankiness allows for you to neglect your tankiness just a little bit and rack up them early game kills. Follow a 21/9/0 build as I have put up above. I've also include another mastery build that would help those who would like a more tankier route.

Note that none of these contain anything about utility;

"But Riky, what about my utility?" ; Good question.

Starting out items with Shyvana has been widely debated against top junglers. As for me, I say that theoddone can suck it with his Boots and 3 Health Potions. Let's face it, Shyvana is a quick jungler and we can abuse that sooooooooooo much to get a big lead on other enemy players. Buy Cloth Armor and 5 Health Potions to get the most out of Shyvana. She doesn't need boots of speed when the first skill you get is Burnout, which is a speed boost. After your Cloth Armor buy some Boots, more Health Potion and as soon as you're able, get a madred's razor. Upgrade that to Wriggle's Lantern and BAM, your early game build is complete.

After you get these items, upgrade your boots to Mercury's Treads or Ninja Tabi depending on which champs are giving you the hardest times. Get a Phage to slow your enemies down during ganks and mix that with your Burnout for maximum effect.

The item Wit's End works well with shyv's passive and I advise getting it, although you could switch it with a Youmuu's Ghostblade if you're up against a tankier team.

After that, buy a Vampiric Scepter for additional life steal. You'll need this because whenever you ult, you're going to be the center of attention. This means you'll take damage and lots of it. It never hurts to pay a few bucks for this item.





At this point it's late game, I offer a recommended build for this up top. I suggest using it for a good balance of tankiness and damage. Finish off your Frozen Mallet first and couple it with a Randuin's Omen and you're pretty much unstoppable as long as the enemy isn't fed off your noob teammate that call mid first pick in ranked and fed 0/13/3 although you ganked his lane 4 times and each time he continued farming and didn't respond to your pings in time to pick up the kill....

But I digress, if your opponent isn't fed off your potentially horrible lanes, then you will be unstoppable, add a Bloodthirster in there for additional damage and awesomeness.

Not much to say about the skill sequence, just make sure you start with burnout and follow the sequence I laid out for maximum jungle speed and damage

Smite is a must have for any jungler, take it and love it. It's going to be your best friend
Exhaust is great because of your lack of cc. It can help you win close engagements and chase down foes early on.
Ignite - Personally I don't like this on my jungler, but it works for some quick and easy kills you can't finish off.
Ghost - If you don't choose Exhaust with your Smite then choose this, it will help your ganking considerably
Flash - personally, I don't like this move, it's too unreliable and only gives you a short distance, it's not great for shyvana who ALREADY has her ult Dragon's Descent which can let you leap over walls and jump at target's quickly.


After these summoner spells, ignore everything else.

Shut up and don't argue with me!

Okay, now that you're set up for Shyvana, I'm going to teach you how to jungle her.

While Shyvana doesn't need a leash, it's best to get one just to save your Health Potions

Jungle Route
1. Wraiths
2. Elder Lizard
3. Wolves
4. Ancient Golem

The first run with Shyvana is the most important one. If you followed everything I have listed earlier, you should clear this route before the enemy jungler has even gotten to their second buff. At this point you're also level 3 and have 2-3 health pots left depending on how good your leash was. At this point you have 3 choices gank top/bot (depending on your team color), gank mid, or gank the jungler at his red buff.

Personally, I like killing the enemy jungler and shutting that guy down, but this route and tactic combo really only works well if the enemy jungler starts blue. Champions such as Amumu, Nocturne, and Warwick fall pretty easily to this trick if they don't ward.

IF THE ENEMY JUNGLER STARTS BLUE: Make sure you're not spotted and run quickly (you only have a 3-15 second time frame for this) to the bushes behind the enemy red buff. Hide in the bush next to it and you can see if it's still there. If the Elder Lizard is still there, that means your enemy jungler is most likely already fighting it or is coming to it soon. Just wait, relax, drink a cup of coffee and scratch your butt as you watch the pathetic enemy jungler fight the giant lizard. Once the enemy jungler has gotten extremely low in health, smite steal his red buff and take his life. If he tries to flee with flash, the exhaust him and kill him anyway. If the guy has more health than you and he's somebody like Nocturne or Xin Zhao, then don't fight him because that would be a fair fight, and that does not bode well for Shyvana. If you encounter these guys, and they do not have less that half health, smite steal their red anyway and then run away like the girly dragon you are.

IF THE ENEMY JUNGLER STARTS RED:Then at this point he's Most likely Dr. Mundo or Lee Sin, anyhow, his wraith camp has most likely just spawned and you won't find him here. Take his blue wraith and gank mid.



GANKING: Ganking is an art that shyvana has no good tools for. If Ganking was a Painting, Shyvana's skill set would be crayons. The good thing about this is that YOU, yes YOU, have a brain and if you thumbs up this guide, are most likely smart enough to work around this handicap. Burnout is your best friend for ganking. Wait for the enemy to use their escape moves to go in on a gank. For example after an enemy Katarina uses her shunpo ability to damage your mid lane champion run in and beat the living hell out of her. I hate Kat. Other than that, time your gank right and work your way around wards. YOU OWN THE ENEMY JUNGLE, so that means roam around in it and gank from Tri-bush whenever you want, because you're a strong black woman who don't need no black man *triple snap*

SHYVANA'S ULTIMATE Dragon's Descent IS NOT A GREAT INITIATION STOP USING IT TO INITIATE FIGHTS THAT HAVE EVEN THE SLIGHTEST POSSIBILITY OF GOING WRONG.

A lot of things I see about other players using Shyvana poorly is their usage of her ultimate. Her ultimate is pretty much her only cc and can be used to stop pesky Nunu & Willump and Katarina ults. You can also use it to chase your foes, make quick tower dives, and run away from try hard enemies. One of the best times to use your ult is to run away. Do not start off a fight using your ace in the hole. You will have nothing to escape with if things go bad and if the enemy flashes away, you just wasted your ult.

To make it simple for everybody I'm just going to list a few basic situations you do and don't ult with Shyvana:


WHEN TO ULT:
Kat ults
Nunu Ults
Turret Diving 1 enemy champ under 30% hp
To escape chasing enemies
Jumping over a wall for funsies
To pursue a fleeing enemy (only if you know the position and placement of other enemy champions)
To smite steal baron (It takes big balls)





WHEN NOT TO ULT
At the beginning of a fight,
Directly towards an enemy who is fleeing and is near his turret (it will push him back)
To tower dive when outnumbered or the enemy team has lots of cc
When a enemy Singed is around

DO NOT ULT WHEN Singed IS AROUND THAT JERK WILL FLIP YOU IN THE MIDDLE OF YOUR ULT. REPORT SINGED PLEASE.

Well, I think that's it for my guide. It's pretty straight forward. I've only played hundreds of ranked games with Shyvana though so it's only logical that you don't trust me. For every one person who doesn't thumbs up this, I'm going to eat a kitten. A cute one too.



Thanks for reading and I hope this works for you like it works for me. If you have any other questions or you think I missed something, feel free to post and I'll get back to you and most likely update the guide.