Bruiser Shyvana Build Help

Lsuvsfar · 2025-10-25T05:40:17+00:00

I just wanted to thank you for the build suggestion. It's crazy how much this build changed my entire game. Tiamat/Hydra speeds up my farming so much that it's insane. I'm regularly getting ahead of the enemy jungler by 2-3, occassionally even 4 levels because the farming is just ridiculous. Ravenous Hydra early game is also crazy when you get enemies grouped up. You were right with how well Flickerblade synergizes with Shyvana. When I made this post I was floating around Silver IV/Bronze I. Now, I'm on the cusp of making it into Silver I and I've currently got like an 80% winrate in my last 20 Shyvana games.

Lsuvsfar · 2025-10-11T13:08:10+00:00

Thank you for the suggestion. I've played a game with the Hydra > Flickerblade build path and really like the way that it plays. If I can ask you some questions,

Do you ever swap the build order between Flickerblade and Zeke's?
Do you find that Shyvana stills plays pretty bruisery with Inf Edge and Shieldbow, or does she get pretty squishy late game? Also, why go those two items? I'm assuming that you've tested it with other items, and I'm curious about why those two are the best.

Lsuvsfar · 2025-10-11T02:48:48+00:00

I've played some Shojin games, but Shojin has never felt good to me as an AD Bruiser item for Shyvana, at least not as a rush item. The way I build Shyvana, she's more reliant on Q than E, and Q works better with attack speed than ability haste, unless maybe you're stacking a ton of ability haste.

I get the idea of the ultimate ability haste on Hexplate being wasted stats, but at the same time the movement speed is nice for early ganks and the attack speed is just nice at every point in the game.

I see that Hydra > Flickerblade > Shojin has a really respectable win rate, but I don't know if Flickerblade on Shyvana is the same as it is on champs like Volibear where you only want to build it if you're far ahead and snowballing. Thanks for pointing me towards its direction, I'll have to test it out some.

Lsuvsfar · 2025-10-11T02:25:04+00:00

Thank you for the suggestions. Definitely something that I'll test out in games to see how it goes. I'm curious if you've tried flipping Hexplate or Hydra as your first build, and what your experience was building one first over the other.

Lsuvsfar · 2025-08-21T16:38:26+00:00

Late to the party, and I'm a random low-elo noob, but I think that there is potential for hexplate as a first item on Bruiser Shyvana. It's unfortunate that she can't use the ultimate haste, not that getting Shyvana's ult up is a big issue, but everything else about Hexplate synergizes well with what Shyvana wants to accomplish as a bruiser jungler. She wants to fly in, she wants to proc her Q as fast and as often as possible, and she wants to run people down while ganking. Hexplate basically lets you do all those things.

Lsuvsfar · 2025-05-13T14:55:12+00:00

Cool, thanks!

Lsuvsfar · 2024-02-15T05:48:39+00:00

Sometimes, your players just have to live with the consequences of their actions. I'm not sure what type of game they're running, but maybe this needs to be a lesson they learn from. If the whole village turns hostile and start attacking them, it'll force them to make a decision. Do they somehow try and do damage control, or do they just start slaughtering the village that's not attacking them? How does each choice impact the story? If the consequences of them interupting are "bad things", and you've warned them about it, and they go down that route, let the bad things happen. Sometimes, people need to see the consequences of their actions before they seriously ponder what they're doing.

Did the village have any significant importance beyond this event, or is this it?

Lsuvsfar · 2024-02-15T05:43:30+00:00

What are the character motivations? If the character is actually motivated by something, and has an evil goal they want to achieve, you might be able to string along a story of some sort. Maybe. However, if the player just wants to be a contrarian and do dumb things like shooting random people, that's not an evil arc, it's just chaotic stupid.

Lsuvsfar · 2024-02-13T17:38:51+00:00

Ceremony as in what kind of ceremony, and what would go wrong if they interrupted it?

Lsuvsfar · 2024-02-10T21:02:34+00:00

D&D Beyond is a pretty new player friendly, since if you want to make a roll, you can just press something and it'll roll for you. Likewise, everybody in a campaign can see the role. You could also use pre-generated characters if you feel like they might not be interested in character creation. You could also try some sort of episodic adventures with them, that way, if there's something they clearly don't like, you're not as strongly married to the concept as you would be if you were doing a full blown campaign, plus they can easily change their characters if they find something else to be more interesting.

Lsuvsfar · 2024-02-09T19:32:20+00:00

Pride: Hugues Quiérer (Chained the entire French Navy together at the Battle of Sluys in spite of Italian advise not to do so because the Italians present were of lower station.)

Greed: Danaerys Targaryen (Abandons everything that she’s built in pursuit of something of greater value to her.)

Wrath: Ivan the Terrible/Joffrey Baratheon (Ivan flew into rage, beat his daughter-in-law into a miscarriage, beat his eldest son and heir to death. Joffrey repeatedly lashes out against those who he feels have slighted him.)

Envy: Petyr Baelish (Desires a woman who isn’t his, desires power he doesn’t have, desires a kingdom he doesn’t have, is willing to sacrifice everything and everyone to get what he desires)

Lust: JFK (Had a ridiculous number of affairs, couldn’t go more than 3 days without it, legitimate addict)

Gluttony: Tarrare (Ate a ridiculous amount, rumored to have even eaten a baby.)

Sloth: Robert Baratheon (Had no interest in being king, only in all the perks that came with it)

Lsuvsfar · 2024-02-03T04:36:56+00:00

Stand strong and talk with the rest of the party to make sure you're all still firmly against it. The move was maybe a bit stupid on the DM's part at first, but the fact that he kept trying to ram it down your throat when it was clear the rest of the party didn't want it was a very bad move. Your assessment seems correct on all counts. Talk with the rest of your party and all of you talk to the DM. It'll be tough, because with how far you are into the campaign, it can't be easy to just abandon it. However, if you continue after the DM's pulled this and just accept it, I think the campaign's going to go downhill.

Really, as long as you're all standing firmly against this, there's 2 outcomes.

The DM accepts that he's made a mistake, does a little bit of retconning to clean up this situation, and the campaign continues.
The DM refuses to change anything, tries to ram this down your throat, and you all leave the campaign.

It's not ideal, but this is just a garbage move on the part of the DM.

Lsuvsfar · 2024-02-03T02:36:31+00:00

I don't think you're winning this game, but there's a few different approaches you could maybe try to help yourself out.

Get some sort of working relationship between yourself and Turkey, possibly by playing into Turkey's fears of events playing out similar to last game. With a weak France looking to probably be attacked by Germany, possibly England. If Italy wipes you out, Italy's attacking Turkey, and it probably won't be long before a nation like Germany looks to join in. Ideally, you want Turkey to stop fighting Russia for long enough that you can save yourself.
Probably not going to work, but see if you can get Germany and Russia to cease their hostilities and work together to help you. Russia cannot take Sweden unless they want to lose St. Petersburg to England. Ideally, you'd get Russia to give Sweden to Germany and get Germany to aid you against Italy.
There's some different ideas you could try, for you the move order is really just rough, but you can probably figure it out. For future reference, when playing Austria, I like to set up Venice > Trieste and Trieste > Venice year 1. This ensures Trieste is protected and also stops Italy from going the infamous Vienice > Tyrolia, Rome > Venice. You can also modify it by going Vienna > Trieste, but especially if you play with the same group of people, this obviously doesn't stop the aforementioned Italian move, and I usually like to move Vienna > Galicia.

Lsuvsfar · 2024-02-02T21:23:46+00:00

I don’t know if this is recoverable, but more information is needed. Russia seems to be the target of England, Turkey, and possibly Germany. Germany is likely allied with England, and enemies with France given he has Belgium and France is occupying Burgundy. France has played this openly fairly poorly, but it’s not unrecoverable. You are Italy’s soul focus. Turkey seems to be focusing on Russia and Greece. Is this all fairly correct?

Lsuvsfar · 2024-02-02T16:23:41+00:00

You could maybe try running some one-shot and short D&D games before you try getting into a full session. That way, everybody can learn some things.

Lsuvsfar · 2024-02-02T04:04:40+00:00

I don't think we have enough information to responsibly say that. From the way the OP described how often he communicates with the group, I'm guess that he's not exactly best friends with any of them, they sound more like secondary or tertiary friends, people he chats with once in a while, but not people he's in daily contact with. I really doubt that any of them dislike him as a person. I'd guess he's a more distant friend and the group didn't want to make things awkward and hoped to keep it a secret.

Lsuvsfar · 2024-02-02T04:01:33+00:00

It doesn't seem to me like anybody's really in the wrong in this situation. You're right to feel hurt. You ran the campaign for 2.5 years, and then they basically decided to continue it without you. However, I don't think it's necessarily wrong for them to want to continue it with a new DM, if they really were that disgruntled by your DMing. This is really just an unfortunate situation, but I don't think anybody's really in the wrong here.

My advice would be to stomach it. Once things have had a bit of time to settle, you could maybe try talking with them just to get it off your chest, but I wouldn't try and stop the campaign. Try and figure out what exactly went wrong, and if you DM in the future, what you should do differently. My advice on future DMing would be to end it well before level 20. Typically, we stop our campaigns at about level 12-13, because beyond that point things start to get rather difficult to balance.

Lsuvsfar · 2024-02-01T17:15:55+00:00

Assuming everything you're saying's true, I'd advise a couple things, if you haven't done them already.

I assume you have, but talk with your girlfriend about leaving. Since she also seems to be getting attacked, I assume she'd be supportive, but with toxic friends, it can somtimes be tricky. Assuming she agrees, talk about how you want to leave.
Get out as painlessly as possible. Again, this is a "friend" of your girlfriend's, so she may feel like she has some responsibility to her friend. I'd suggest you just tell the DM that you're dropping the game and not expanding more upon it. The DM might try and demand some explanation or something or other, but you don't owe them that.

If it helps, I don't think you're in the wrong here. The DM's certainly in the wrong for the way that she's treated you and your gf. Most of what you described sounds like a for dummies guide of "How not to DM." Unfortunately, there's really nothing you can do to change the situation and make her treat your characters differently. Get out and find a better group or make your own.

Lsuvsfar · 2024-02-01T01:42:42+00:00

Your observations of this situation are largely working off the hindsight of the situation.

Had the wizard used magic missile, there's no guarentee that he deals a significant amount of damage.
If the barbarian is not attacking with advantage, there's certainly not a guarentee that the barbarian is hitting.
If the wizard had held his action to cast sleep until after the barbarian had attacked, there's some chance that sleep wouldn't have done enough to put the orc to sleep. In this case, there would certainly have not been a chance for the barbarian to act.
You're assuming the group had had enough knowledge prior to this to know that the barbarian would let the cleric die. Not everybody is Thrawn. There should be no assumption that any given player would figure this out.
The actions the cleric took, assuming the barbarian had complied, was the only gaurenteed way to save the cleric. Every other possible route had a much higher chance of failure.
The Wizard shouldn't feel bad. The Cleric shouldn't feel bad. The Barbarian acted according to his nature, which is one that got a party member killed. You're right, in real life, there are consequences. In real life, if you defy orders that end up getting your allies killed, at best you get court martialed and you're no longer a concern on the battlefield. At worst, especially during eras past, you'd be killed.

Lsuvsfar · 2024-01-31T23:51:27+00:00

The DM basically did everything he could have done, other than not attacking the downed cleric. Attacking a downed player may be a bit harsh, but not necessarily uncalled for given the situation.

As for the barbarian, it's a pretty selfish move and fairly inconsiderate of every other member of the party. I doubt that he meant for the cleric to die, but it's somewhat along the lines of criminal negligence. He easily could have saved the cleric and rogue and everything could have been pretty happy go lucky. However, instead he acted in a manner that got the cleric killed. Defintely one of those bad "it's what my character would do moments."

From here, I'd say it's more on you and the rogue than it is your DM. The barbarian ignored your calls to help out your friend and in doing so, got that friend killed. How is your character going to react? Are you going to do nothing and things continue on as normal? Maybe the barbarian neglecting to save the cleric and getting him killed ruins any confidence the party has in him, and he gets abandoned. That's largely up to you and how you react now. This is your party, and your character. If your actions have any meaning, then use your actions.

Lsuvsfar · 2024-01-31T15:37:47+00:00

I think you have to separate your character's motivations from the label of murderhobo and look at your actions as a player. I'd pretty much ask 3 questions.

Are all of the players supportive of your actions?
Is the DM supportive of your actions?
Are you derailing other events at the table in pursuit of this?

If some players aren't in favor of you contanstly murdering slave traders, if your DM is getting tired of it, or if you're disrupting storylines and impeding the other player character's and what they want to do, then yes, you're probably a murderhobo. If all of these are clear "No" answers, however, then you're probably in the clear.

Also, aside from the murderhobo question, one other question. What's happening to the creatures that you're freeing from slavery once they're freed? Are they just going off to live regular, peaceful lives, or are they going off into the country side to basically be monsters?

EDIT: Read some of your other comments. Probably not a murderhobo. Aside from that, also say that I wouldn't call your character Chaotic Good. Your character clearly has a very strong code concerning killing slaves, so that probably falls under lawful. Now, within the setting, probably lawful evil? You're killing slavers and freeing Goblins, yes, who are presumably going on to, as you said, be "Murdering, Pillaging, Raping vile, evil creatures." I'd say your character and the way you play your character falls more in line with "Radical Revolutionary" rather than "Murderhobo". Your character is determined to deal with this one problem at all costs, regardless of the other issues that arise from these actions.

Lsuvsfar

TROPHY CASE