Talk:Shen/@comment-168.8.249.173-20130118192858/@comment-4677525-20130123052050

^This. Trust me, I love the Monkey King and even own a skin for him and everything (he's one of my main top laners); but his early laning is among the worst for top lane. That said, he snowballs really well in lategame so if he can even get slightly ahead of his laning opponent (with jungler assistance) he can easily carry games. Also, Wukong is not a bad bruiser to go mid with either (might be a better fit for him, actually).

But this topic is getting out of hand...we are supposed to be talking about Shen here. His whole viability does NOT just come from his ult; if that were the case then he would have been top pick/ban BEFORE the rework. People are quick to forget that the Shen rework actually nerfed his ultimate at the cost of overtuning the rest of his kit. However, now that he doesn't guzzle energy like a frat-boy guzzles booze, he can actually USE the rest of his kit more than once in team fights without being completely useless.

tL;dr - It is the fact that the rest of his kit works so well in tandem with his ult that makes him so strong, not his ult alone.