Welcome to the League of Legends Champion Spotlight featuring Shyvana, the Half-Dragon.
Shyvana is a melee fighter who scales particularly well with attack speed.
Her play style revolves around sticking to a target and destroying its health bar. Also, she turns into a dragon.
Shyvana’s passive is Fury of the Dragonborn. Her basic attacks modify each of her basic abilities and ultimate in a special way.
Twin Bite causes Shyvana’s next basic attack to strike twice, applying on-hit effects with each strike.
With each basic attack after using Twin Bite, its cooldown is reduced. I take Twin Bite at level 2 and max it second.
Burnout empowers Shyvana for a few seconds, granting increased movement speed and damaging nearby enemies.
Shyvana’s basic attacks extend its duration up to a cap. I take Burnout at level 1 and max it immediately.
Flame Breath sends out a skill-shot nuke that damages the first enemy it hits and lowers its armor for a few seconds.
While its armor is lowered, Shyvana’s basic attacks will deal bonus damage against the target. I take Flame Breath at level 3 and max it last.
Shyvana’s ultimate is Dragon’s Descent. After a brief channel, Shyvana transforms into a dragon, damaging and knocking back everything along her path.
This ability passively gives Shyvana bonus armor and magic resist, which are further increased in dragon form.
Dragon’s Descent is available only when Shyvana has 100 Fury and ticks down her Fury bar each second while active.
Basic attacks grant Shyvana bonus Fury, which will allow her to morph into a dragon more quickly and prolong the duration of her ultimate.
While a dragon, Shyvana’s basic abilities gain bonus effects:
Twin Bite deals its damage in an area in front of Shyvana instead of just the main target.
Burnout leaves behind an addition trail of fire that damages enemies inside it.
Flame Breath damages and marks enemies in a cone instead of simply the first enemy hit.
Shyvana is actually a pretty quick jungler, but I play her as a solo top fighter.
Shyvana’s early laning is quite powerful with a significant amount of burst damage.
Turn on Burnout to damage and chase your opponent, then tag him with Flame Breath. Land a basic attack and immediately trigger Twin Bite.
This ability order will give you three triggers on your passive, maxing the duration of Burnout and dealing significant damage through Flame Breath
Skarner comes for a gank from the river. It’s important that you don’t give away your teammate by playing too aggressively.
Unless you can lead in with a stun, let your jungler make the first move.
After Skarner dives in, I head in for Wukong with Burnout and Twin Bite, saving Flame Breath because minions would block it.
Once he uses Decoy I head straight up, thinking he will try to escape. Instead, he runs to the bottom but has no escape route, so I let the turret pick up the kill for first blood.
When Wukong returns to lane, I have my ultimate, Dragon’s Descent.
It’s important to note that Dragon’s Descent doesn’t specifically grant extra single-target damage, so I start my harassment with just my regular abilities.
However, as he tries to escape me, I use the activation of Dragon’s Descent for two specific purposes: First, it allows me to charge across the screen, catching up.
Second, it deals significant burst damage, which is particularly useful partway through a fight because your opponents won’t easily calculate it.
Once again, Wukong uses Decoy, causing me to guess his retreat direction. He pulls back away from the turret so I Flash in and pick up the kill with Twin Bite.
We get into a teamfight in the enemy jungle. After turning on Burnout, I hit Wukong’s Decoy with a basic attack and with Twin Bite just to grow my Burnout duration.
After, I try to take on the role of support. Because Dragon’s Descent carries enemies with you, I try to stay behind Morgana, Miss Fortune, and Soraka so that I can pull away enemies who dive them.
It turns out our enemies don’t commit to the fight, so instead I push in and beat on Wukong for a kill.
Another application of Dragon’s Descent is chasing champions over walls. I get into a fight against the too-aggressive Rumble and Skarner.
After Rumble is forced out, I switch to Skarner. As he gets low he Flashes over the wall, but I simply activate Dragon’s Descent, taking him down with a basic attack and the damage from Burnout.
As we get into a large teamfight in the river, I want to use Dragon’s Descent offensively since it gives me significant area of effect damage.
I leap in and take down Wukong with Twin Bite as he’s the closest target and is killable.
After, Burnout allows me to chase down Rumble as I tag him with Flame Breath and take him apart under Morgana’s Dark Binding.
The enemy Shyvana piles in as well, but as I stay in dragon form, I try to spam as many abilities as possible since they will affect both enemy targets.
When Skarner comes in, I try to move toward the top of the fight so that both he and Shyvana are in front of me.
This allows my next Twin Bite to hit both of them as we take him down and win the fight.
Shyvana is an excellent pusher and duelist, which makes her phenomenal in Dominion.
I use Burnout to clear minion waves and use Flame Breath plus Twin Bite to bully out any challengers.
I also try to stay at the top half of the lane so I can always grab the Health Relic between minion waves.
As a result of this play, I’m able to push Wukong to his turret and if it weren’t for his Garrison, would have neutralized the capture point.
Either way, I take him down and draw one of his teammates to help.
Shyvana’s abilities as a duelist continue to pay out as Riven tries her hand at defending the Boneyard.
Just like before, I can win any engagements with Flame Breath into a basic attack followed by Twin Bite.
As in Summoner’s Rift, when she tries to escape, Dragon’s Descent allows me to catch up with my opponent and take her down to capture the Boneyard.
When fighting against Shyvana’s dragon form remember that most of her area of effect damage is focused in front of her.
As we get into a teamfight, we take down Riven and Shaco very quickly. Then we’re faced with the enemy Shyvana’s dragon form.
She ends up focusing me, so I continue to run to the right hand side, away from my team, keeping them safe from everything but her Burnout damage.
As she is about to fall, I leap in with Dragon’s Descent, knocking her around and setting my team up for a kill on Lee Sin.
He does eventually take me down, but my team trades back to take four kills for only two deaths.
When left to hurt enemies without interruption, Shyvana deals tons of damage. Shaco and I jump onto the enemy Shyvana.
While she takes him to near-death from almost 2/3 health, I finally take her down. I turn to the enemy Shaco as he kills my teammate.
While he tries to retreat, I chase him down with Dragon’s Descent and pick up another kill quite easily.
Then I spot Lee Sin chasing my teammate Wukong. Lee Sin turns to fight me and I move in between attacks, which allows me to dodge his Sonic Wave.
As Wukong knocks him up with his ultimate, we take down Lee Sin and move in to recapture the Boneyard.
For runes I take attack speed marks, health per level seals, attack speed glyphs, and flat health regeneration quintessences.
This setup is aimed at giving me extra damage output with attack speed, durability late game, and sustenance in lane.
My masteries are 14/0/16, taking magic penetration and attack speed in offense, and in utility, taking neutral buff duration, increased gold gain, and increased movement speed.
I take Ignite and Flash for summoner spells, mastering both.
In Classic, I open with Boots of Speed and three Health Potions. I transition into my first two major items, which are Wriggle’s Lantern and Wit’s End.
I continue to scale up for damage output with Trinity Force and Guinsoo’s Rageblade.
If you find you’re too squishy, postpone your damage items for durability with Sunfire Cap and Force of Nature.
In Dominion I grab a Prospector’s Blade at the beginning as a replacement for Wriggle’s Lantern, but my build is almost identical.
Thanks for tuning into the Shyvana Champion Spotlight. Please subscribe to the Riot Games YouTube channel above and don’t forget to thumbs us up just below the video!