Hey people and welcome to my first guide. I will be showing you how to build Shen, for that top lane role. If you have any advice or feedback, please let me know :)

My main character at this moment is Shen undoubtedly, he is just perfect for my playstyle and sometimes can be extremely fun to play. He is an amazing Lane Champion, with an immense skill set for tanking and in my opinion, one of the best ults in the game. It has the ability to instantly change a fight, and can potentially win the game if you utilize it correctly.

Pros + Incredible Survivability + Amazing Ultimate Stand United + Good early harass + No use of Mana + Nice ganks with your Shadow Dash

Cons - Not the best damage output - You don't usually acquire many kills - Rarely available in ranked games - Quite easy to zone - Slightly harder to farm early game - The build is unfortunately somewhat expensive

9/21/0. Granting some damage but mainly focusing on defense, i will explain in-depth why i choose this.

Before i start i would like to thank Roronoa EvrIs for letting me use his mastery page images and give him credit for it ^^

Grants you some Attack Speed (AS) earlier in the game, giving you the opportunity to farm better, but also procs Ki Strike faster. Grants 1 Ability Power (AP) per level. But the reason I got this mastery, is because we need it for Arcane Knowledge. This is an excellent choice for Shen. It provides Magic Penetration to allow Vorpal Blade to do substantial amounts of damage early game.

This, combined with Veteran's Scars will give you an extra 36 HP at level 1, and will lead up to having an extra 138 HP at level 18. Will equip you with an extra 5 extra armor, and at level 1 that can surely be the factor of escaping or death. The explanation of why this is useful is pretty much the same as Hardiness just against AP. The damage blocked will not look like much, but early game it will take effect. Plus 30 HP, will help early game. Will block 3 damage from basic attacks, but combined with Unyielding it will block 5, which could potentially change the outcome of a early game fight. Gives you some extra Crowd Control (CC) reduction, to assist you throughout the game. +4% maximum health, which at level 18 means 146 more HP. Will change the outcome of nearly every fight, and will make you overall much more tanky as you can absorb more damage.

Greater Mark of Magic Penetration - Enhances your magic penetration, which increases the damage output of [[vorapal blade].

Greater Seal of Armor - More armor to reduce damage of AD damage, and help you lane better early game against AD champions.

Greater Glyph of Scaling Magic Resist - It will slightly increase your magic resist early game, but is a more game changing factor as the game progresses.

Greater Quintessence of Movement Speed - Picking this as your Quintessence will increase your movement speed by 4.5%, granting you the ability to get the range to be able to Shadow Dash champions. Also, it could ensure your get away from a chase or the opposite help you close down the distance from you or and opponent faster. Plus everyone likes to Roam around the map much quicker :)

For Shen i use these 3 summoner spells, i will also list others but i will mainly focus on the recommended ones, and explain them in more detail with examples and explanations.






Is a summoner spell i use some games for Shen, his ultimate Stand United already grants him with global presence, but if you also you teleport there are many things that you can also do. Say Stand United was on Cooldown (CD) and bot engaged on a fight you could teleport to a ward and assist them. Another use of it is the ability to split push with it, this will create pressure for the opponents.



This is one of the most handy spells, it will help you escape from the most dangerous situations and will make you avoid many deaths. utilitizing Flash offensively with Shen can allow you to initiate a fight with Shadow Dash or defensively, escaping Enchanted Crystal Arrow or Trueshot Barrage.



This is a spell which is good for eliminating champions who escape with 30 HP who are referred as 'luckers'. It also grants extra AP on Cooldown to increase the damage of Vorpal Blade. It is also strongly advised to use it if they have a self healing champion like Warwick etc...





It is a good choice for Shen it can be used to get back to lane quickly, however i prefer Teleport.



It can be a good choice, if you want to shut somebody down and ensure the kill, and Exhaust can be used defensively to slow down your chaser.

Ki Strike is Shen's passive, it is very useful both early and late game. Early game it will allow you to get those minion last hits easier for Shen, as he isn't the best farmer in the game early on. It will also allow you to harass much better as it outputs extra damage with specs of your Bonus HP. Ki Strike has a 9 second cooldown, and with each auto attack the cooldown is reduced by 1 second, this is my reason for needing to buy some Attackspeed. In additon, because it specs of your Bonus HP it will also be very useful late game.



Vorpal Blade Will be the skill that you would want to max first. it will be the skill you use most, you will use it to harass, to mark your target which is a very useful skill for team play as it will heal everybody who attacks whoever it has marked for a percentage of your Max HP. Also you will be able to completely spam this spell because the Cool Down is short and by the time the Cool Down would have finished your energy would have regenerated.



Feint Is Shen's shield. But it also takes part in reducing your Ki Strike's cool down. basically, how it will work is whilst Feint is active on Shen, everytime you auto attack it will reduce the cool down on Ki Strike by 2 seconds instead of 1. Also before you taunt, if it's either for a engage or a gank this skill will be needed, you will want to activate Feint and then taunt. therefore, another reason to max it second.



This will your main ganking skill if you are using Shen in the Jungle. It is basically your engaging move, it allows you to dash through an enemy(ies) taunting them, which forces the taunted enemy(ies) to attack you. Shadow Dash actually makes the taunted enemy(ies) deal 50% less physical damage, allowing you to tank the attacks better. It is not only used for attacking, it is also Shen's escaping move. Shadow Dash allows you to dash over walls or even get away from pursuers faster.



Stand United This is the skill the everybody knows Shen for the most. It is also why he is a great team player champion, Stand United allows Shen to teleport to any ally anywhere on the map, which grants them a shield which can be used to save somebody, or to surprise an enemy by being able to get in the fight and hopefully turn it around. It also scales 150% of your AP allowing the shield to absorb TONS OF DAMAGE!

Ok so the starting items are pretty self explanatory right?

The Cloth Armor gives you the simple armor to just simply reduce the damage income from AD champions, which you will most likely be laning against. The 5 Health Potion's give you that needed sustain against high poke champions, always try to remember to use your Feint to reduce or prevent some of the damage delt by poke and remember you have that slight Vorpal Blade sustain too ^^

So the standard thing i do with Shen in top lane is to contantly harass with my Q Vorpal Blade, unless it is on CD (cooldown) from farming. Some times as you go to harass the enemy laner and they are somebody with some poke such as a Elise or something like that with her Neurotoxin etc.. you will want to activate Feint then Q and back away, repeat this. It will frustrate your enemy, especially if they have no sustain

Another thing to keep in mind, and you would of heard this a lot, is if you get snared or stunned whilst playing Shen, and this happens to me ALL the time you need to keep calm and analyse the situation you are in BEFORE blowing any summoners. I can't seriously say this enough, you get snared put your shield up wait for it to finish and dash away, theres no need to blow your Flash because you're Shen! You are a TANK. Unless it's Jarvan IV or something and he uses Cataclysm you may need to flash then ^^

I will only post 1 in every few games so the list wont be flooded with image ^^

I will also accept any submissions if you have any :D
Please leave them in comments section or PM me ^^

A game i recently just played :D
The game straight after that one ^

Thanks for reading my build, hope it will improve your Shen games :D

I will still be updating this build, whilst it is published :)

So if you have any ideas or notice anything wrong or misplaced please inform me, by leaving feedback!

Update Log :

03/04/2013 - Build Published
04/04/2013 - Updated the boot enchantments
04/04/2013 - Included the new ability explanation
25/07/2013 - Back to updating, and tweaking a few errors because of the new patch ^^
25/07/2013 - Started the Item explanation
25/07/2013 - Added Screenshot and Submission section
26/07/2013 - Working on the tactics and combo section
26/07/2013 - Added another example build
27/07/2013 - 5k Views Guys, Thanks! ^^