Sadge.
Why Doesn't Anyone Play Shyvana?
Shyvana has been snubbed once more in the VGU poll of 2022 and the Shyvana community, now matter how small, is furious. She’s been on the list of reworks for a while and no champion is in more need than her.
So let’s check out quickly what the problem with Shyvana is, why no one plays her and why she is in need of both a visual and gameplay update. Please Riot, give our dragon goddess some love!
What Type of Champion is Shyvana?
There are multiple ways that you can play Shyvana. She’s got both AP and AD abilities and depending on the items you build, Shyvana can either be played as a skirmisher or an AP burst mage in the jungle.
The fact that she does both AP and AD damage should be a plus, right? Well, not exactly. Shyvana might have some insane scaling, but not all her abilities will be doing huge amounts of damage because of this.
Thanks to her passive, Shyvana is a power jungler like no other, gaining armor and magic resist, but is it enough to make her a top tier jungler? No, because there are a few problems with her kit.
Shyvana and her Item Problems
Shyvana Abilities
Let’s quickly go over Shyvana’s abilities to highlight why she isn’t in the best state right now.
- Her Q, Twin Bites, is an auto-attack reset that lets her strike twice, applying on-hit effects both times. The cooldown is also reduced by auto-attacking. So, what will you build for this ability? Attack speed!
- Shyvana’s W, Burnout, gives a boost of movement speed and when she hits with her W active she does bursts of AoE damage and more attack speed will mean more applications of Burnout.
- Her E, Flame Breath, shoots a fireball which marks enemies, letting her deal percent max health damage against that target. When in dragon form the damage she deals with her E is even bigger.
- Her ultimate, Dragon’s Descent, operates on a resource bar instead of a cooldown system. Auto-attacking and basic attacking can regenerate the bar quicker.
Shyvana is Dependent on Items
So, now that we have taken a look at her abilities, we need to point out just how dependent on items, Shyvana is. The problem on her dependency is that there are two ways to play her, either as a melee bruiser like Udyr or you play her as an AP jungler who just whips fireballs at anyone who gets in her way.
Sadly, you cannot play her both ways, since half her kit will scale off of attack speed and on-hit, while the other half off of ability power. So, building items to boost Flame Breath and Dragon’s Descent will do absolutely nothing for Twin Bite and Burnout.
Therefore, Shyvana might have insane scaling in the game, she can only utilize half her kit depending on the items you decide to build. The only item which encompasses her kit currently in the game is Nashor’s Tooth, which has Attack Speed as well as AP damage.
Her Lack of CC and Gap Closers
If you do decide to play Shyvana as a skirmisher, since she can do some insane damage in the late game, then you will have to build Blood Razor or Blade of the Ruined King to capitalize on her attack speed scaling and percent damage.
So, yes, Shyvana can deal insane amounts of damage, but she has no way of consistently closing gaps and going in for fights. She also has no way of truly defending herself. If she jumps into the fight, she won’t be tanky enough to survive for very long.
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Therefore, if you’re going for this build, you’ll be forced to buy a third protection item as well. Unlike other gap closing champions like Jax, who have abilities to shield themselves once inside the fray of a fight.
Shyvana lacks this protection and therefore she has to use precious item slots to become tanky enough to survive fights, thus not having enough damage to really have much impact when building on-hit.
Conclusion – Please Rework Shyvana
Shyvana could be such a cool champion. Not only is her design unique, but her visuals are also unlike any other champion. She deserves some love and a way to be playable in the current state of League of Legends. So please Riot, make good on your promise to rework Shyvana in the coming two years as well!