The Eye of Twilight is back in force and looking great. Along with a visual update to smooth out some of his rough edges, Shen’s kit was given the tweaking treatment as well. Let’s take a closer look at the new and improved Shen.
Shen’s new passive is Ki Barrier. Much like his old W, this ability grants Shen a temporary shield to absorb incoming attacks. This ability is activated each time Shen casts an ability. That’s not all, though, the passive also receives a significant reduction to its cooldown for each time one of his abilities affects a champion, be they friend or foe. This mechanic makes Shen perfect for prolonged engagements as each time he lands a successful ability to anyone in the game, he continues to gain a shield, thus mitigating, even more, damage than he could with his previous
 build. This passive is focused a lot more on defense than the old passive.
Moving on to his first ability, Twilight Assault. To fully understand this ability as well as his W, players must get a feel for how to use Shen’s newest mechanic, his spirit blade. The spirit blade spawns in the vicinity around Shen and is always near him. Passively the blade does nothing, aside from looking pretty awesome. But when Shen uses his abilities, the blade comes to life. With his Q, Shen can call his blade to himself and empower his next three basic attacks to deal percentage of health based damage. If the spirit blade passes through an enemy champion while on the way to Shen he deals even more increased damage with his empowered attacks as well as gaining a temporary attack speed buff. Not only that but those struck by the blade also receive reduced movement speed when moving away from Shen for a short period of time. This ability is essentially Shen’s bread and butter in lane. Learning to successfully use the spirit blade both offensively and defensively will be the cornerstone between a good Shen player and a great Shen player.
His W, previously called Feint, has now been dubbed Spirit’s Refuge. This ability also functions in relation to the spirit blade Shen totes around with him. This ability may be one of his strongest, and is definitely the one that makes him an ever increasingly viable support choice. When Shen activates this ability he creates a small area around his spirit blade’s location. Allies inside this zone will dodge all
incoming basic attacks while the zone remains active. This ability in of itself can be an immense game changer, being able to completely remove basic attack damage for a few seconds in the bottom lane can be very impactful in a 2v2 skirmish.
His E has remained very much the same. However, now Shadow Dash also has a passive that helps Shen sustain in lane. Whenever Shen deals damage with Twilight Assault or Shadow Dash he regains a flat portion of energy. While seemingly marginal, having the energy to expend on abilities is still very important. Its active is identical to the previous kit’s E in that it lets Shen dash a short distance while dealing damage to all enemy champions he collides with and taunts them briefly.
Finally his ult. T
his ability was not touched at all and still remains one of the biggest reasons of why Shen has such a huge impact on games as a whole. Having a built-in teleport that also can shield allies is wonderful and comes in quite handy during any stage of the game. For those that are new to Shen; his ultimate, Stand United, allows Shen to shield an ally anywhere on the map. After a brief channel, Shen then teleports to the selected ally and brings his spirit blade with him to join the fray.
Shen’s rework was a welcome addition to League of Legends, and after taking a look at all the abilities and how they were tweaked, he definitely has a much different feel and play-style. But he is still a great choice for top lane and jungle, and now is even more viable in the support role. The added mechanics make him, even more, fun to play as well, not to mention the killer look that he now has the courtesy of a visual update. Give the Eye of Twilight a spin on the rift and let me know your thoughts!
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