Season 14 In-depth Shen Build Guide (Top + Mid)

Shenthe Eye of Twilight

Top

Hello everybody and welcome to my Shen guide! Wether you are looking to learn Shen as a champion or just to check the best builds of the current patch, you have come to the right place. This guide will cover everything you need in terms of Runes, Items, Skill Order and more. Enjoy :)

Grasp vs melee matchups

Graso vs ranged/hard matchups (beginner friendly)

Resolve

Domination

Shards

Grasp of the Undying is the best keystone for Shen, especially against melee matchups. Always take it.
Shield Bash is a must-have due to its incredible synergy with Shen's kit and item builds.
Second Wind is my prefered choice since it synergizes with Doran's Shield as well as Shen's short-trade pattern. Boneplating is viable against all-in champions that can't proc it from afar, but I prefer running Second Wind every game.
Overgrowth is a no-brainer because Shen has triple HP scaling in his abilities, as well as HP scalings on most of his prefered items. Revitalize can be good if you have a LOT of healing through enchanters, healing items or ocean soul, but is very specific.
Cheap Shot procs on your E, your empowered Q and items like Iceborn Gauntlet and some others. This rune gives you a lot of free extra true damage, making it the prefered choice. Sudden Impact is also viable against super squishy teams.
Ultimate Hunter is usually the best choice because of Shen's long Ult cooldown. However, if you want to play for yourself and reach your item spikes faster, you can also take Treasure Hunter against easy matchups.
The top row is mostly preference based between attack speed and adaptive.
Either take 2 scaling health or 1 adaptive and 1 scaling, choice is yours.

Aggressive

Passive

Flash

Ignite

If you want to have kill pressure in lane or the enemy utilizes a lot of heals. ALWAYS take this when playing Mid Lane. It can also be taken on Top Lane, but usually depends on the matchup.

Always take Flash.

Standard vs melee

Against ability users

Invade / Ranged Matchups

Most of your games against melee matchups should have a skill order like this.

Ionian Boots of Lucidity

Titanic Hydra

Iceborn Gauntlet

Kaenic Rookern

Jak'Sho, The Protean

Riftmaker

Elixir of Iron

The next section will cover item builds. While the build represented here is overall pretty solid, you shouldn't just blindly copy it, but rather look at all the available items and adapt to the gamestate.

Core Items

Starting Items

Early Items

First Item

Second Item

Boots

Doran's Shield

Doran's Blade

Ruby Crystal

Health Potion

Doran's Shield + 1 Health Potion is by far the best starter for Shen due to its stats and effects, making it perfect for Shen's early game power, sustain and short-trade pattern. Take this in most of your games, especially against ranged matchups.
If you feel SUPER greedy against easier matchups OR matchups that outscale you like a Gwen for example, you can take Doran's Blade and beat the hell out of the opponent early. If you are good at Shen, you can almost always gurantee an early lead, which can snowball into a win later on if you play your cards right. NEVER TAKE THIS IF YOU ARE NEW OR THE ENEMY IS RANGED.
Ruby Crystal + 2 Health Potions is another greedy starter that allows you to get your item spikes faster. However, you will lose so much additional early power that it is not worth taking on the current patch.

Situational Items

Armor

Magic Resist

Other Tank Items

Supportive

Damage

Iceborn Gauntlet

Dead Man's Plate

Randuin's Omen

Unending Despair

Thornmail

Frozen Heart

Sunfire Aegis

Iceborn Gauntlet and Dead Man's Plate have both been mentioned earlier.
Randuin's Omen is great against Crit damage. Even better if you bought Warden's Mail early.
Unending Despair can be insanely good in longer fights so you can proc the heal over time as often as possible. Even stronger with Frozen Heart due to their synergy.
Thornmail can be good against healing-based champions that are auto-attack based, as well as enchanters that want to heal auto-attackers. This item is also a must-buy against full AD comps because the armor will stack and deal a LOT of damage in the late game just by existing.
Frozen Heart should only be build as an exception against full AD teams because the Mana makes it not gold-efficient (but the high armor stat boost Thornmail a lot).
Don't build Sunfire. It only provides little armor, useless waveclear and low damage. Just build Bami's into another tank item.