Shyvana Counters: How To Counter Pick Shyvana

Shyvana is a half-dragon fighter champion in League of Legends. She’s mainly played in the jungler. However, you can also encounter her in top lane. In this article, we discuss how to effectively counter Shyvana.

Best Shyvana Counters

• Olaf
• Pantheon
• Trundle
• Lee Sin
• Elise
• Ryze

Boneclaw Shyvana

Shyvana Counter Picks

Now that you know who counters Shyvana, you can finally counter pick Shyvana in any matchup. Let’s take you through some tips on how to use a few of these champions who are counters to Shyvana. After, there is a general section explaining how to use any LoL champion as counters for Shyvana. After all, if you know how to play against Shyvana, you can play safely and effectively to defeat Shyvana in a lane.

Ryze

Save Ryze’s W for when Shyvana tries to walk up to you with Burnout on. You don’t want her to be in melee range for the duration of burnout and after a few levels, she can outtrade/all-in you this way if you make mistakes.

Trundle

Ulting after Shyvana ults will help Trundle steal even more resistances. But don’t get so greedy with it that you actually die to the ult burst damage and ignite.

Olaf

Both deal high damage, but Olaf has sustain as well and will win extended trades. Shyvana doesn’t have the burst damage to break through.

Championship Shyvana

Tips For Countering Shyvana

• Avoid clustering when team fighting against a Shyvana, as Shyvana’s abilities become AOE in her ultimate dragon form.
• Play more aggressively when you see that Shyvana’s fury bar is low. This means that she is not able to use her ultimate anytime soon.
• Shyvana does not have any CC abilities, making her fairly easy to kite.
• Champions that can slow Shyvana or speed up themselves and either kite or out damage her while her Burnout is not active are great picks against Shyvana. Examples of such champions are Kha’Zix, Aatrox, Kennen, Swain, Lulu, and Kayle.
• Don’t fight Shyvana while her mark is on you or she will deal massive extra magic damage equal to 2% or your max health per auto attack.
• While Shyvana is auto attack reliant and is likely to build attack damage items, Shyvana’s Burnout deals magic damage, which scales off bonus attack damage and the on-hit effect of Flame Breath deals magic damage based off the target’s maximum health – this gives Shyvana high mixed damage that is difficult to itemize against.
  • Overall, it is better to build magic resistance over health and armor to counteract her kit’s magic damage, though attack speed slowing items such as Frozen Heart and Randuin’s Omen may help to lower her damage output considerably.
• If you notice Shyvana using her Dragon’s Descent, move away from the spell path to avoid it damaging you – at full range, it will take her 1.3 seconds to reach you so you usually CAN hope to dodge it from a long distance.
  • If you have stun, silence, snare, knock-back or knock-up abilities, use them quickly on Shyvana when she casts Dragon’s Descent to stop her mid-flight.
• Shyvana has a lot of potential for AoE damage while using Dragon’s Descent. However, Twin Bite and Flame Breath strike in front of her, so splitting apart to make Shyvana unable to face as much of your team at once will reduce the effectiveness of Twin Bite and Flame Breath.
• Take note if Shyvana’s Fury bar is full while you are attempting to kill her. The long range of Dragon’s Descent can easily allow her to go over walls even while a fair distance away from them, so avoid wasting abilities with significant cooldowns and costs on her.
  • Dragon’s Descent is not limited by cooldown – quickly gaining Fury allows her ultimate to be ready long before yours if you misuse it.
• Dragon’s Descent requires Fury, which is quickly gained by Shyvana auto-attacking. This time period is a good opportunity to harass her from range and delay her ultimate.
• Shyvana shines in an extended close-combat fight over time. Use champions with many options to disengage and do your best to avoid such a fight against her.
  • Shyvana has no natural ways to keep you in place for her to auto-attack you. After using Dragon’s Descent, she has little ability to catch up if crowd-controlled out of melee range. Using crowd-control effects to hinder her movement during Burnout can also stop her from getting the ability to its maximum duration or damage.
• Burnout provides a very large amount of bonus movement speed at the beginning of the ability, which decreases a bit in effectiveness over time. Try to avoid using skill shots against Shyvana until after she casts Burnout, as the movement speed boost, especially at the ability’s initial use, can allow her to easily dodge them.
• Shyvana tends to jungle and normally, Shyvana’s jungle route starts at red. Thus, considering stealing her blue is a likely safe method to take experience away her early jungle and to prevent any enemies from having it.
• In her dragon form, Shyvana is more powerful than in her human form.
  • Her passive during her ultimate is doubled, therefore it is recommended to buy armor penetration or magic penetration items.
  • Keep your allies spread to avoid her Twin Bite and Flame Breath as the spells are turned into AoE spells.
  • Beware overextending into tense situations to chase her in her dragon form. Burnout increases her movement speed to make catching her difficult and leaves a fiery trail that can deal significant damage if you do not avoid it.
    • Following the burning trail allows you to find her easily, but you also take DoT – if you and Shyvana are both fairly weakened, underestimating the DoT can firmly put the tide in her favor.
• Shyvana lacks any gap hard gap closers save her ultimate, Dragon’s Descent and she is highly dependent on her movement speed with Burnout to get into range into the enemy. As such, ranged top laners with good kiting mechanics such as Teemo, Kennen, Jayce, Nidalee, Ryze, Lulu, and Kayle can easily zone Shyvana out and can harass and farm safely in a distance.
  • Keep in note that Shyvana is one of the few bruisers that do not use mana as a resource and can easily build life steal items such as Ravenous Hydra, Blade of the Ruined King, and The Bloodthirster to sustain herself in lane longer, so build accordingly to counter her.
• While Shyvana is extremely tanky, one of her biggest shortcomings is that she lacks any form of crowd control aside from her ultimate’s knockback, which has a fairly wonky hitbox. Because of this, a fatal weakness of Shyvana is that she lacks any meaningful ways to peel for her teammates, and instead must always try to dive the enemy. You can take advantage of this by just diving and killing the enemy ADC/mid laner as Shyvana cannot protect them. But don’t forget to protect your own ADC/mid laner, as Shyvana is fairly hard to kite and peel without hard CC.
• Azir is a good team fighting counter for Shyvana because he can counter her Dragon’s Descent with his Emperor’s Divide. Shyvana cannot dash over it, and cannot use her Burnout to go into an enemy unless she can circumvent the wall, which will hold her back.

Super Galaxy Shyvana

By using the champions who counter Shyvana and the LoL Shyvana counter tips above, you can now develop a strategy to help you, as a summoner, become an effective counter to Shyvana players.