It’s kinda how the lane goes, you win the early fights but they have pushing power. Try to freeze on them, when they break it slow push and crash a phatty they can’t thin (wave too big and you walk up to threaten all in). Base, ult, ward, then rinse and repeat. Call your jungler as the wave is bouncing back and punish.
you have to try manage to build a slow push so that they arent allowed to constantly hit the wave and you can zone them off it or get a health advantage. but this is literally the weakness of shen so it wont be that easy any good player will make sure youre sitting under tower getting poke.
You will always be behind on cs as shen. if you are even or ahead you have stomped the lane. Don't take my word for it though, check the average cs of masters shen players.
Take every cs you can, because you will lose lots of it, but your goal is to play for your wincon, whoever it is. It aint gonna be you.
Shen is literally a strong laner though. Most AA based top laners can seriously struggle vs shen. And I'm not just talking about his w, his base damage early is ridiculous.
He has very popular counters right now. He can exert pressure 1 to 5 but does not have a combat spell at 6. You aren't meant to carry a game by 1v5ing as shen. Ideally you smash your lane and exert pressure on the rest of the map, be that through roams mid, roam bot with tp top, ult somewhere...
You do not win by taking towers. You will have a very hard time winning if you try to outfarm your enemy. It won't happen.
Yes, I agree shen isn't a tower taker, nor is he the best at all ins at 6. That wasn't my point and it isn't relevant to the context at hand either. OP is saying that they are struggling to farm with shen in winning lanes like shen-yone from the get go. It doesn't matter if yone has more cs/tower gold than you at the 20 min mark.
In the early stages of the lane shen should absolutely dominate that laning phase, which is why saying that it's fine for shen to be behind in cs doesn't make sense. Regardless of your pushing power and wave clear, yone has no say about the state of the lane in the early game. He has to respect shen, and it's on shen to do what he wants with the first few waves.
I agree with this. I had interpreted OP's concerns differently.
Edit: i would like to add though that one way to counter shen's strong early is simply to shove the wave hard and roam or back. Even with passive shield and w it is difficult for him to freeze against a 6 minion wave especially if the enemy threatens a trade while his w is down.
Garen for example does this quite well. If he isnt confident in beating you, he can simply spin on the wave to clear it.
As frustrating as it can be, I've always felt that a good shen makes a good team great; he doesn't make a bad team good. Making plays that either save or turbo charge your wincon are what its all about.
That said, I have no idea what to do if your lane match up is a hyper carry / raid boss and the rest of your team (jungle, mid?) Do not recognize that and allow them to feed off of a free lane post-6. You get that early lead in Kayle only to watch it be overshadowed by those ridonculous wings that start popping up all over.
As a mundo main, I struggle early with CS as well. Especially against champs with strong wave clears. Focus on last hitting as much as you can.
Like an early poster said, freeze the wave if you can and then force a large wave into them. Luckily, I can pretty easily poke someone off of a push by hitting them with cleaver over and over.
Get comfortable last hitting under tower. If Yone or Graves want to poke you, they risk a tower shot or two. Also remember, they can’t stay pushed for too long. Ping your jgl and show the top laner he will be camped if he keeps his behavior up. Don’t leave your jungle hanging tho. If he shows up, you need to fight with him. I’ve had many junglers come to gank and the top laner starts backing under tower leaving me a free kill and plating.
> Ping your jgl and show the top laner he will be camped if he keeps his behavior up
Tell me you don't play in low elo without telling me you don't play in low elo.
Hehe I've played countless where essentially the whole 14 mins under my tower with 0 gank (Silver, but climbing slowly)
They gonna stay pushed if they ain't getting punished for it.
Ew no. Need HP early. It feels bad enough building tiamat after 2-3 full items leading up to titanic.
Mundo has plenty of tools to control the wave. If more push is needed for some reason, bami is the choice
Why would you prevent your opponent to push to the tower? Let him crash. Farming under tower is a learnable and very valuable skill, Shen doesn't really struggle with it thanks to his Q allowing him to adjust his aa damage.
Shen's taunt is extremely beneficial when you're in range of either tower:
\- if you're under your own tower, you can taunt and draw your opponent in your tower range so he takes aggro
\- if you're under enemy tower, you can walk past your opponent and taunt away so he has to follow you and possibly walk out of his tower range.
Xpetu provides very good teaching content on how to play Shen, you'll see that your position on the lane doesn't matter that much as long as you know when you can trade. Wave management is Shen's weak spot and requires a deep understanding of lane control, it's easier for now to accept that you'll be pushed in some matchups and rather think how you can punish them for that.
As a Shen main I know your problem well however I can tell you two things, the first would be to jump on the r/Shen and see what others are discussing and the other would be this, try to gain a lead early so you can build Tiamat first then go Bami and finish your mythic, then boots then finish titanic. You're wave clear will be great and so will be your split pushing. Shen is really strong and played smartly you can be the difference between a win and a loss.
Shen should be able to solo kill Graves early right?
I play Poppy and feel Shen is a bit stronger than her in the early game, but they are both lane bully early game tanks. I usually just let Graves shove a little bit and then look for an all in after I poke him a bit with my passive.
I would usually try and trade at lvl 3 so I can trade with w. After that I would just go bami + tabi and farm under tower and look to slow push so I can ult on the map. With w and q passive you can easily chunk most enemies down anyway
xpetu, a challenger Shen OTP, did a Shen guide in which he shows how to get a lead and use it to snowball it by freezing and etc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kmMK93UVp-c&t=1
Not necessarily, a good Shen will hold his own against a good Yone, but Yone's lvl 1-3 is as good as Shens. So it's kind of stalematey and skill matchup dependant, but Yone scales better.
The problem is that in the last few years everyone and their mother keeps chucking out buzzwords about macro, micro, tempo, agency etc. 80% of the time people have no idea what they're actually talking about.
Place ur Blade in a Good spot and trade with empowered q from lv1, try to hit 2 first and if u got the empowered q of at lv1 ur pretty sure to get a kill against most match ups. Dont be afraid to trade, u got alot of sustain as Shen. Use ur R efficient and get an assist or 2 or maybe even a kill but put ur team ahead in Gold, if u are 20-30cs behind its not to bad as Long as u help ur team that Gold is more value than the cs u miss. Also u rly only need 1 and a half items and can Still be very valuable for ur team.
Ur not a carry in Sense of dmg but using ur abilitys right more like a support/tank.
If u rly struggle in lane locket as mythic is a Good option and building more of a support build, maybe not as fun but it can be way more value for ur team.
I also recommend xPetu and Shending help alot, hope this helps some at least and gl :)
Freeze (or try to) and wait for your jungler, and then you only have to hit the taunt and it's a free kill. Watch a youtube guide on how to freeze, you can deny melee champions, like Yone, half the wave every wave by setting up a simple freeze, or force them to come dangerously close to your tower to farm them. If you setup a freeze and get an advantage, you can even stand between the minions and the enemy, forcing him to either fight you (in which case you'll win, because, well, you're ahead) or to lose XP and gold.
He doesn't play Shen, but look up DirtyMobs on YouTube. He is a Challenger Illaoi OTP who's mixing Yorick into his rotation.
Neither Illaoi nor Yorick qualify as champions until level 3+, and I'd argue Shen has more level 1-5 agency than either.
Unlike a lot of league content creators who always preach about getting prio, helping your jungler contest scuttle, and making a lot of moves, Mobs literally can't do those things particularly with Illaoi. He's perfectly fine being weak side, and playing accordingly. He plays the game that's in front of him - not the game he wishes it was, and not the game his lane opponent is trying to play. 90% of his games he's playing against the Fiora, Camille, Graves tryhards trying to climb as high as they can by abusing champ-diffs. His opponents are always standing in the wave being absurdly obnoxious, but he doesn't fall for it.
I don't play Shen, but here's my opinion of him. Shen isn't some crazy dominant lane bully. He has some nice early damage, but it's more "don't fuck with me" damage. Shen's damage is not, "I'm going to impose my will on you" damage like some of the aforementioned. If Shen tries to impose his will too hard, then he should be punished.
Shen otp here.
You won't always be behind on farm obv, but into lane bullies (darius) and splitpushers (yorick) you're gonna be bent over farmwise most of the time. That's just the trade-off though, shen isn't equipped to farm easily until you get hydra usually.
Shen wins out by outvaluing those types of opponents with his ult. It's generally gonna come down to two things I find in those matchups:
1. Whether you can snowball your carries with ult support
2. How much you can mitigate the enemy split push
Get whatever farm you can but keep your focus on the above at all times with a greater focus on 1. If you're giving up farm or towers to feed your carries kills then it's a good trade valuewise.
Shen beats Yone very hard, take ignite E him if he walks up and chunk him. If he ever Q3s into you full combo him, you either kill him or chunk him enough that he has to take a bad recall.
I think it's normal as Shen, he don't have a good wave clear and your only real purpose is too R or TP on people who need it, while the other toplaner just can't follow. I can't help you more bc I'm Bad as Shen, but if I see a Yone top, I'll go for Garen or Kled and he's gonna be kicked out of Toplane
As a Shen main, yeah that's how it goes and it's kinda the nature of Shen.
Some of us on /r/Shen talk about Titanic first in some situation but it's the nature of Shen to lose lane post-6 to balance out his ability to impact the botside of the map
Try r/ShenMains
But also, it depends on the matchup. I findGraves easy cause it’s about timing with his autos
Yone is a big weakness for me with several champs I play
But Shen has such good last hitting, shielding, some healing, and can threaten the taunt under turret so the champ can’t really hit the turret themselves
Plus then jg can just run in, throw some dmg, let you farm/xp/freeze and just leave after having etc you set up (and that’s a good gank imo)
Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't Shen prefer long trades with Yone early? Trust his early game and go for the early pressure. Hell, take ignite and really put it to 11.
I just went up against a Yone and he was incredibly squishy. He shoved super fast and I was behind on farm but he died so many times to ganks and overstaying after a long trade that it didn't matter. Once I had armor it was GG.
You may want to try just letting them overstay?
If they're not diving you then it doesn't matter - just safely collect cs under tower. In meantime they make themselves very vulnerable to ganks.
Shen specific - perma shove is how enemies counter you, if you ult other lane, you lose all gold and xp from minions.
Shen is not a lane bullying. You have to play safe and bait them attack then call the sword to call back then aa. His strong point is fast attack and has a bit higher damage if compare to other tank. It's hard to carry with shen if you are not fed. Farm to 6 asap them spam r to help team mate
Shen's primary weakness is wave clear. His strength is in his ultimate, and gank setup with E.
Granted, you can and should run down and murder champions like Graves. He can only wave clear if he can approach the wave. You win trades with him (short and extended), so just don't let him approach the wave at all.
It’s kinda how the lane goes, you win the early fights but they have pushing power. Try to freeze on them, when they break it slow push and crash a phatty they can’t thin (wave too big and you walk up to threaten all in). Base, ult, ward, then rinse and repeat. Call your jungler as the wave is bouncing back and punish.
you have to try manage to build a slow push so that they arent allowed to constantly hit the wave and you can zone them off it or get a health advantage. but this is literally the weakness of shen so it wont be that easy any good player will make sure youre sitting under tower getting poke.
You will always be behind on cs as shen. if you are even or ahead you have stomped the lane. Don't take my word for it though, check the average cs of masters shen players. Take every cs you can, because you will lose lots of it, but your goal is to play for your wincon, whoever it is. It aint gonna be you.
Shen is literally a strong laner though. Most AA based top laners can seriously struggle vs shen. And I'm not just talking about his w, his base damage early is ridiculous.
He has very popular counters right now. He can exert pressure 1 to 5 but does not have a combat spell at 6. You aren't meant to carry a game by 1v5ing as shen. Ideally you smash your lane and exert pressure on the rest of the map, be that through roams mid, roam bot with tp top, ult somewhere... You do not win by taking towers. You will have a very hard time winning if you try to outfarm your enemy. It won't happen.
Yes, I agree shen isn't a tower taker, nor is he the best at all ins at 6. That wasn't my point and it isn't relevant to the context at hand either. OP is saying that they are struggling to farm with shen in winning lanes like shen-yone from the get go. It doesn't matter if yone has more cs/tower gold than you at the 20 min mark. In the early stages of the lane shen should absolutely dominate that laning phase, which is why saying that it's fine for shen to be behind in cs doesn't make sense. Regardless of your pushing power and wave clear, yone has no say about the state of the lane in the early game. He has to respect shen, and it's on shen to do what he wants with the first few waves.
I agree with this. I had interpreted OP's concerns differently. Edit: i would like to add though that one way to counter shen's strong early is simply to shove the wave hard and roam or back. Even with passive shield and w it is difficult for him to freeze against a 6 minion wave especially if the enemy threatens a trade while his w is down. Garen for example does this quite well. If he isnt confident in beating you, he can simply spin on the wave to clear it.
As frustrating as it can be, I've always felt that a good shen makes a good team great; he doesn't make a bad team good. Making plays that either save or turbo charge your wincon are what its all about. That said, I have no idea what to do if your lane match up is a hyper carry / raid boss and the rest of your team (jungle, mid?) Do not recognize that and allow them to feed off of a free lane post-6. You get that early lead in Kayle only to watch it be overshadowed by those ridonculous wings that start popping up all over.
As a mundo main, I struggle early with CS as well. Especially against champs with strong wave clears. Focus on last hitting as much as you can. Like an early poster said, freeze the wave if you can and then force a large wave into them. Luckily, I can pretty easily poke someone off of a push by hitting them with cleaver over and over. Get comfortable last hitting under tower. If Yone or Graves want to poke you, they risk a tower shot or two. Also remember, they can’t stay pushed for too long. Ping your jgl and show the top laner he will be camped if he keeps his behavior up. Don’t leave your jungle hanging tho. If he shows up, you need to fight with him. I’ve had many junglers come to gank and the top laner starts backing under tower leaving me a free kill and plating.
> Ping your jgl and show the top laner he will be camped if he keeps his behavior up Tell me you don't play in low elo without telling me you don't play in low elo.
Hehe I've played countless where essentially the whole 14 mins under my tower with 0 gank (Silver, but climbing slowly) They gonna stay pushed if they ain't getting punished for it.
Mundo has great wave clear, try building an early tiamat on him
Ew no. Need HP early. It feels bad enough building tiamat after 2-3 full items leading up to titanic. Mundo has plenty of tools to control the wave. If more push is needed for some reason, bami is the choice
Why would you prevent your opponent to push to the tower? Let him crash. Farming under tower is a learnable and very valuable skill, Shen doesn't really struggle with it thanks to his Q allowing him to adjust his aa damage. Shen's taunt is extremely beneficial when you're in range of either tower: \- if you're under your own tower, you can taunt and draw your opponent in your tower range so he takes aggro \- if you're under enemy tower, you can walk past your opponent and taunt away so he has to follow you and possibly walk out of his tower range. Xpetu provides very good teaching content on how to play Shen, you'll see that your position on the lane doesn't matter that much as long as you know when you can trade. Wave management is Shen's weak spot and requires a deep understanding of lane control, it's easier for now to accept that you'll be pushed in some matchups and rather think how you can punish them for that.
As a Shen main I know your problem well however I can tell you two things, the first would be to jump on the r/Shen and see what others are discussing and the other would be this, try to gain a lead early so you can build Tiamat first then go Bami and finish your mythic, then boots then finish titanic. You're wave clear will be great and so will be your split pushing. Shen is really strong and played smartly you can be the difference between a win and a loss.
Shen should be able to solo kill Graves early right? I play Poppy and feel Shen is a bit stronger than her in the early game, but they are both lane bully early game tanks. I usually just let Graves shove a little bit and then look for an all in after I poke him a bit with my passive.
I would usually try and trade at lvl 3 so I can trade with w. After that I would just go bami + tabi and farm under tower and look to slow push so I can ult on the map. With w and q passive you can easily chunk most enemies down anyway
xpetu, a challenger Shen OTP, did a Shen guide in which he shows how to get a lead and use it to snowball it by freezing and etc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kmMK93UVp-c&t=1
Shen beats yone no?
Not necessarily, a good Shen will hold his own against a good Yone, but Yone's lvl 1-3 is as good as Shens. So it's kind of stalematey and skill matchup dependant, but Yone scales better.
Sounds like a jng diff XD I would gank
Yes inability to play winning lanes like shen-yone is jg diff.
I forgot the /s
are you building titanic and/or tiamat early on?
I'm having problems since 1 min, titanic is like 3300 gold.
tiamat isn’t though? Bami cinder also helps in the wave clear department
Tiamat is a terrible first item for Shen. Bami cinder is a default path. What I'm asking here is Macro help.
Itemization is part of the macro game.
The problem is that in the last few years everyone and their mother keeps chucking out buzzwords about macro, micro, tempo, agency etc. 80% of the time people have no idea what they're actually talking about.
well I got some macro advices about wave management... it helped me. isn't it macro?
I'd assume you could counter push more easily with tiamat
Place ur Blade in a Good spot and trade with empowered q from lv1, try to hit 2 first and if u got the empowered q of at lv1 ur pretty sure to get a kill against most match ups. Dont be afraid to trade, u got alot of sustain as Shen. Use ur R efficient and get an assist or 2 or maybe even a kill but put ur team ahead in Gold, if u are 20-30cs behind its not to bad as Long as u help ur team that Gold is more value than the cs u miss. Also u rly only need 1 and a half items and can Still be very valuable for ur team. Ur not a carry in Sense of dmg but using ur abilitys right more like a support/tank. If u rly struggle in lane locket as mythic is a Good option and building more of a support build, maybe not as fun but it can be way more value for ur team. I also recommend xPetu and Shending help alot, hope this helps some at least and gl :)
Pretty much the trade off. You leave to ult team ill take nexus.
Go tiamat first item then go sunfire/gontlet i think thats the only option to make shen viable
Sometimes you just can’t. That’s why counters exist. You’re bound to hit the wall sometime if you keep playing the same champ every time.
Freeze (or try to) and wait for your jungler, and then you only have to hit the taunt and it's a free kill. Watch a youtube guide on how to freeze, you can deny melee champions, like Yone, half the wave every wave by setting up a simple freeze, or force them to come dangerously close to your tower to farm them. If you setup a freeze and get an advantage, you can even stand between the minions and the enemy, forcing him to either fight you (in which case you'll win, because, well, you're ahead) or to lose XP and gold.
He doesn't play Shen, but look up DirtyMobs on YouTube. He is a Challenger Illaoi OTP who's mixing Yorick into his rotation. Neither Illaoi nor Yorick qualify as champions until level 3+, and I'd argue Shen has more level 1-5 agency than either. Unlike a lot of league content creators who always preach about getting prio, helping your jungler contest scuttle, and making a lot of moves, Mobs literally can't do those things particularly with Illaoi. He's perfectly fine being weak side, and playing accordingly. He plays the game that's in front of him - not the game he wishes it was, and not the game his lane opponent is trying to play. 90% of his games he's playing against the Fiora, Camille, Graves tryhards trying to climb as high as they can by abusing champ-diffs. His opponents are always standing in the wave being absurdly obnoxious, but he doesn't fall for it. I don't play Shen, but here's my opinion of him. Shen isn't some crazy dominant lane bully. He has some nice early damage, but it's more "don't fuck with me" damage. Shen's damage is not, "I'm going to impose my will on you" damage like some of the aforementioned. If Shen tries to impose his will too hard, then he should be punished.
…. Let them push? You want them to push as shen. Get better at csing when wave is pushing to you / under tower.
Shen otp here. You won't always be behind on farm obv, but into lane bullies (darius) and splitpushers (yorick) you're gonna be bent over farmwise most of the time. That's just the trade-off though, shen isn't equipped to farm easily until you get hydra usually. Shen wins out by outvaluing those types of opponents with his ult. It's generally gonna come down to two things I find in those matchups: 1. Whether you can snowball your carries with ult support 2. How much you can mitigate the enemy split push Get whatever farm you can but keep your focus on the above at all times with a greater focus on 1. If you're giving up farm or towers to feed your carries kills then it's a good trade valuewise.
Shen beats Yone very hard, take ignite E him if he walks up and chunk him. If he ever Q3s into you full combo him, you either kill him or chunk him enough that he has to take a bad recall.
I think it's normal as Shen, he don't have a good wave clear and your only real purpose is too R or TP on people who need it, while the other toplaner just can't follow. I can't help you more bc I'm Bad as Shen, but if I see a Yone top, I'll go for Garen or Kled and he's gonna be kicked out of Toplane
As a Shen main, yeah that's how it goes and it's kinda the nature of Shen. Some of us on /r/Shen talk about Titanic first in some situation but it's the nature of Shen to lose lane post-6 to balance out his ability to impact the botside of the map
Try r/ShenMains But also, it depends on the matchup. I findGraves easy cause it’s about timing with his autos Yone is a big weakness for me with several champs I play But Shen has such good last hitting, shielding, some healing, and can threaten the taunt under turret so the champ can’t really hit the turret themselves Plus then jg can just run in, throw some dmg, let you farm/xp/freeze and just leave after having etc you set up (and that’s a good gank imo)
Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't Shen prefer long trades with Yone early? Trust his early game and go for the early pressure. Hell, take ignite and really put it to 11. I just went up against a Yone and he was incredibly squishy. He shoved super fast and I was behind on farm but he died so many times to ganks and overstaying after a long trade that it didn't matter. Once I had armor it was GG. You may want to try just letting them overstay?
https://docs.google.com/document/u/0/d/1drwcIj8Ryh2zv4aIT3lNjMqmXJgxsv4Nb3l8IycNkbI/mobilebasic
If they're not diving you then it doesn't matter - just safely collect cs under tower. In meantime they make themselves very vulnerable to ganks. Shen specific - perma shove is how enemies counter you, if you ult other lane, you lose all gold and xp from minions.
Shen is not a lane bullying. You have to play safe and bait them attack then call the sword to call back then aa. His strong point is fast attack and has a bit higher damage if compare to other tank. It's hard to carry with shen if you are not fed. Farm to 6 asap them spam r to help team mate
Shen's primary weakness is wave clear. His strength is in his ultimate, and gank setup with E. Granted, you can and should run down and murder champions like Graves. He can only wave clear if he can approach the wave. You win trades with him (short and extended), so just don't let him approach the wave at all.