League of Legends champion profile: Shyvana, the Half-Dragon

Ability Description

"Passive (Fury of the Dragonborn) – Shyvana deals 20% bonus physical and magic damage to Dragons and to Vilemaw (Twisted Treeline). Additionally, Shyvana starts with 5 bonus armor and 5 bonus magic resistance, which is permanently increased by 5 for every elemental drake (Cloud Drake, Infernal Drake, Mountain Drake, and Ocean Drake) or Vilemaw her team slays."

Shyvana’s passive is, quite frankly, underwhelming. It’s a straight block of stats that Shyvana gets for taking neutral objectives and really isn’t that impactful unless she is taking down three dragons or so. That said, it does give Shyvana a unique identity as the premiere dragon-taker in League of Legends, enabling her to solo dragons very easily.

"Q (Twin Bite) – Shyvana’s next basic attack within 6 seconds strikes twice in one swift movement, dealing Attack damage bonus physical damage and applying on-hit effects twice. Twin Bite can Critical strike icon critically strike for bonus physical damage. Shyvana’s basic attacks against non-structures reduce Twin Bite’s cooldown by 0.5 seconds. Twin Bite resets Shyvana’s basic attack timer. DRAGON FORM: Twin Bite damages all enemies in a cone in front of Shyvana, generating Fury resource fury and applying on-hit effects twice to all enemies hit."

So, as you can probably guess, Shyvana’s abilities will differ depending on whether she is in her base human form or her dragon form (more on that when we talk about her ultimate). In the base form, Q – Twin Bite makes Shyvana want to spec hard into auto-attacking for a lot of her damage because the cooldown is reduced on any auto-attack, not to towers or inhibs and the ability itself is an auto-reset.

In her dragon form, Shyvana swipes her claws to do able to do AoE damage, but also apply on-hit effects to enemies hit. Her dragon form isn’t quite as auto-reliant as her base form is, but keeping the on-hit effects on this ability makes it very formidable to face.

"W (Burnout) – Shyvana surrounds herself in flames for 3 seconds, gaining bonus movement speed and dealing magic damage to surrounding enemies each second. Basic attacking an enemy while Burnout is active deals 25% of Burnout’s damage to all enemies surrounding Shyvana and, against non-structures, extends Burnout’s duration by 1 second, stacking up to for 4 times for a maximum total duration of 7 seconds. DRAGON FORM: Burnout has increased effect radius, scaling with Dragon’s Descent’s rank."

Shyvana’s W allows her to clear those pesky AoE camps, by doing magic damage around her and also being extended with each auto (again, driving her towards wanting attack speed). That potential is ramped up when she’s in dragon form. She’ll do a ton of magic damage around her, making melee champions struggle to touch her without tanking a bunch of damage.

"E (Flame Breath) – Shyvana unleashes a fireball in the target direction, dealing magic damage to all enemies hit. The fireball stops upon colliding with an enemy champion, marking them for 5 seconds. Shyvana’s basic attacks against marked enemies deal 3.25% of target’s maximum health bonus magic damage, capped at 100 against monsters. DRAGON FORM: Flame Breath explodes upon hitting a champion or reaching the target location, dealing increased magic damage to them and surrounding enemies (area radius scales with Dragon’s Descent’s rank) and scorching the earth for 4 seconds. Enemies standing on scorched earth take magic damage per second and are persistently marked."

The AP ratios on this ability are what has given rise to the recent trend of AP Shyvana because buying a mix of magic damage and attack speed can allow her to do a ton of damage. In dragon form, that fireball she spits out will do a deceptively high amount of burst.

That said, this ability also gives Shyvana some big tank-shredding ability on enemies it hits. It also helps with her jungle clear, especially taking down those high-health, single-target camps like the buffs and gromp.

"R (Dragon’s Descent)   PASSIVE – FURY: Dragon’s Descent has no cooldown or initial cost but can only be activated when Shyvana has 100 Fury. Shyvana passively generates Fury per second while in human form, 2 Fury per basic attack in either form, and 100 Fury when Dragon’s Descent is first learned. ACTIVE – DRAGON FORM: Shyvana transforms into a dragon and dashes unstoppably to the target location, carrying and dealing magic damage to all enemies she runs through. Shyvana’s dragon form grants her basic attacks bonus range, bonus health, and empowered basic abilities at the cost of 5 Fury per second, returning to human form once depleted."

The tl;dr is that Shyvana can ult into her dragon form once she has full fury, which she gets when she hits level 6 and then gets by moving or basic attacking. While in dragon form, her attacks do more damage, but they cost fury (aka cause the ult to last less time).

So getting to Shyvana’s ult can be very impactful because of all the bonus stats she gets in dragon form. The fact that her ult costs Fury every second that it’s up also gives another incentive for Shyvana to build attack speed, as she can replenish some of the Fury that she’s losing if she’s in the middle of a fight.

Types of Scaling

Passive – per dragon killed
Q – bonus AD
W – bonus AD (does magic damage)
E – AD and AP
R – AP

Crowd control

Knockback/displacement on her ult