League of Legends ninja Shen is getting a champion update

I’m a ninja! It’s your birthday! I’m a ninja! It’s your birthday! I’m a ninja!

Now that we’re all in the right frame of mind, let’s take a minute to talk about Shen. The League of Legends ninja is getting a good ol’ spit and polish from Riot, who felt his kit needed some tweaking:

Shen’s a bit of an odd duck. He’s a ninja who likes to be punched in the face (spoilers: that’s not changing), and while bits of his kit are super unique and impactful, he also sports two painfully generic abilities. He’s been suffering from a pretty severe case ofold-schoolitis, basically, making him a prime candidate for some champion update TLC. So we’ve given him some.

Alongside brushing up the big guy’s model so it’s closer to his awesome splash, we’ve also spent a bunch of time updating some of his abilities. Now Shen’s power manifests as a ki blade that joins him as he enters the Rift, and which he controls with his abilities.

So what’s changed? Some of Shen’s abilities have remained more or less the same. His Q, W, and passive however, have been overhauled. Here’s an overview of his entire kit:

Passive: Ki Barrier

After casting an ability, Shen gains a temporary shield. The shield has a relatively long cooldown which is significantly reduced if one of his abilities affects an allied or enemy champion.

Q: Twilight Assault

Shen calls his spirit blade, empowering his next three basic attacks to deal damage based on a portion of his target’s max health. If his spirit blade collides with an enemy champion on its way to him, Shen deals increased damage and gains greatly increased attack speed. All enemies struck by the returning blade briefly suffer reduced movement speed when moving away from Shen.

W: Spirit’s Refuge

Shen’s spirit blade creates a protective barrier that allows Shen and his nearby allies to dodge all basic attacks for a few seconds. The ability triggers when there are allied champions in the zone – if there are no allies are in the zone, it waits to start until one gets close enough.

E: Shadow Dash

Passive: Shen recovers a flat portion of energy whenever he deals damage with Twilight Assault or Shadow Dash.

Active: Shen dashes in a target direction, dealing damage to all enemy champions in his path and taunting them briefly.

R: Stand United

Shen channels as he prepares to teleport to an allied champion anywhere on the map. As he channels, he grants his target a shield, and once he arrives, he brings his spirit blade with him.

Having only played the champion a handful of times myself, I can’t really comment on whether these changes were much needed or not. What do you think? Do you like the look of this brand new Shen?

Last Updated: January 14, 2016