you have to ask... how dog shit is their balance team?
buff morde? revert
buff nasus? revert
at what point after 15 years do you have enough data to roll out patches in a way where you dont AB test in live servers?
TL;DR:Heartsteel → Zeke’s trades some early tempo for a cheaper two-item spike, strong ult haste, better scaling, and more flexible third-item options. In my testing, it feels better overall than Proto once you get past the first-item spike.
To start, I played A LOT of Heartsteel Shen jungle games across roughly Emerald 2 → Master.
Throughout that testing I changed the item path, runes, third items, etc. pretty consistently.
One thing I basically never changed was Heartsteel rush.
This is because I could feel I was on to something, yet something surrounding the setup always felt slightly wrong / unoptimized.
Initially I was doing:
Heartsteel → Unending Despair → tank
with:
Guardian → Sorcery
Scalability wise this was cool, but economically it was dogshit.
What I eventually landed on is:
Heartsteel → Zeke's Convergence → Riftmaker / Sunfire / Spirit Visage
with ..
Diamond+: Glacial Augment + Inspiration
Below Diamond: PTA
and for both:
Axiom Arcanist + Transcendence secondary
It sounds weird, especially because current Shen jungle is so heavily associated with Guardian + Inspiration + Protoplasm.
But when I actually started breaking the costs down by 1 item, 2 items, 3 items AND boots, Heartsteel setup wasn't nearly as expensive as it looks.
At certain breakpoints it's actually cheaper.
Current Guardian generally takes Inspiration secondary, meaning it can get:
So economically, the standard Protoplasm setup is already extremely clean.
Something like:
Protoplasm → Unending Despair → Abyssal Mask
item costs are:
| Breakpoint | Guardian / Protoplasm |
|---|---|
| Protoplasm | 2,600g |
| Proto + Unending | 5,400g |
| Proto + Unending + Abyssal | 8,050g |
Then there is Magical Footwear.
Instead of needing to spend 300g on basic Boots, the rune supplies that Boots value for you.
For the comparisons below I'm using a 1,200g completed boot, meaning after Magical Footwear the remaining actual purchase is:
1,200 - 300 = 900g
So the full Proto economy is like:
| Breakpoint | Items | Boot upgrade | Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 item + boots | 2,600g | 900g | 3,500g |
| 2 items + boots | 5,400g | 900g | 6,300g |
| 3 items + boots | 8,050g | 900g | 8,950g |
This is VERY economical.
And I want to say pre Guardian changes and pre repeated Protoplasm nerfs, I think Protoplasm would've basically been the item made for Shen jg.
Even now the item makes good sense.
But for me it still FEELS inefficient / weak relative to what I'm trying to get out of Shen.
Diamond+ Heartsteel page I'm using is:
Glacial Augment
with:
Axiom Arcanist + Transcendence
The important economic part is:
| Rune | Quantifiable value |
|---|---|
| Magical Footwear | 300g Boots value |
| Triple Tonic | 60g direct gold |
| Fixed quantifiable total | 360g |
Important distinction:
The 300g from Magical Footwear isn't gold.
I'm not pretending it literally discounts Heartsteel by 300g.
It removes the need to buy basic Boots. (i sit on magical footwear forever)
Triple Tonic actually gives 60g direct gold, while also giving the temporary Adaptive Force + later skill point which I'm NOT assigning some fake gold value to.
This is the obvious argument against Heartsteel:
| Build | 1st item | Item cost | + boots | Full total | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Heartsteel | Heartsteel | 3,000g | 900g | 3,900g | +400g |
| Proto | Protoplasm | 2,600g | 900g | 3,500g | — |
Proto finishes 400g earlier.
That's a 15.4% difference in first-item cost.
So yea:
Protoplasm has the earlier completed-item spike.
Tho, i think stopping the econ comparison here is kind of bait.
Because Shen jungle doesn't experience these builds only as completed 2,600g vs 3,000g purchases.
The component states matter A LOT.
On Heartsteel I'm commonly sitting on:
2x Giant's Belt
For roughly:
1,800g → 700 HP
Compared to something like the Proto path:
Giant's Belt + Kindlegem
roughly:
1,700g → 550 HP
Purely looking at raw HP tempo:
| Components | Gold | HP | Gold / 100 HP | HP per gold |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2x Giant's Belt | 1,800g | 700 | 257g | 0.389 |
| Belt + Kindlegem | 1,700g | 550 | 309g | 0.324 |
So for only 100g more, the Heartsteel path is giving me:
+150 HP
and roughly 20% more HP per gold spent.
Now obviously Kindlegem is also buying Ability Haste.
So I'm NOT saying 2x Belt has universally better component efficiency.
I'm specifically saying the raw HP tempo is extremely good, and on Shen jungle that matters because I'm walking around on 700 component HP before the item is even completed.
>That was one of the first things that made the supposed 400g Heartsteel disadvantage feel much smaller in actual games.
This was the breakpoint that surprised me the most initially.
Heartsteel → Zeke
3,000 + 2,200 = 5,200g
Protoplasm → Unending
2,600 + 2,800 = 5,400g
So:
| Build | 2-item cost | + boots | Full total | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Heartsteel + Zeke | 5,200g | 900g | 6,100g | -200g |
| Proto + Unending | 5,400g | 900g | 6,300g | — |
By two items:
Heartsteel + Zeke is 200g CHEAPER.
So the curve is basically:
1 item: Heartsteel is +400g 2 items: Heartsteel is -200g
This is where I think saying "Proto is the economical build because it's 400g cheaper" becomes misleading.
It's true for the first completed item.
It stops being true immediately afterward.
This is another reason I specifically ended up on Zeke instead of continuing into expensive HP/tank items.
Zeke gives:
Its supplied base-stat value is about 2,300g on a 2,200g item, or roughly 104.55% base-stat efficiency, before even assigning value to the separate Ultimate Haste.
Heartsteel gives giant HP pool. Zeke then gives basically everything Heartsteel doesn't: cheap mixed resistances + haste + R haste.
And this also changes the R comparison.
| 2-item build | Effective R haste | R2 cooldown |
|---|---|---|
| Heartsteel + Zeke + runes | 43 | 125.9s |
| Proto + Unending + shard | 38 | 130.4s |
So at the same breakpoint where Heartsteel/Zeke becomes 200g cheaper, it also actually has the lower raw Stand United cooldown.
And this is BEFORE Axiom procs.
This is why I don't think Heartsteel should have one mandatory third item.
After:
Heartsteel → Zeke
I branch into:
Riftmaker / Sunfire / Spirit Visage
depending on gam
A standard Proto comparison is like
Proto → Unending → Abyssal = 8,050g
Here is the actual relative economy:
| 3-item build | Item total | + boots | Full total | vs Proto |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Proto + Unending + Abyssal | 8,050g | 900g | 8,950g | — |
| HS + Zeke + Riftmaker | 8,300g | 900g | 9,200g | +250g |
| HS + Zeke + Sunfire | 8,000g | 900g | 8,900g | -50g |
| HS + Zeke + Spirit Visage | 7,900g | 900g | 8,800g | -150g |
This is the part I find REALLY interesting.
Because at three items:
Riftmaker - I'm paying 250g more than Proto.
That's basically nothing relative to the total build cost, while getting the Heartsteel permanent-HP engine + Riftmaker conversion + Axiom.
Sunfire - 50g cheaper.
Spirit - 150g cheaper.
The three branches are doing completely different things.
| Third item | Cost | Supplied efficiency | Why |
|---|---|---|---|
| Riftmaker | 3,100g | 103.98% base | Default offensive HP conversion |
| Sunfire | 2,800g | 86.9% | Armor + close-range / jungle DPS |
| Spirit Visage | 2,700g | 111.73% quantifiable | MR + healing/shield amplification |
And this is where Heartsteel changes how I look at the third item.
Riftmaker is my standard third if I don't urgently need specialized defense.
The completed:
Heartsteel + Zeke + Riftmaker
core already gives 1,550 bonus HP before Heartsteel permanent stacks.
Riftmaker's supplied base efficiency is:
103.98%
but because its conversion scales from bonus HP, that number rises as the build gains more Health.
With the completed 3-item core, before permanent Heartsteel stacks, it's already roughly:
123.98% supplied efficiency
before even pricing the fully stacked melee omnivamp.
Then permanent Heartsteel HP continus increasing it.
| Permanent Heartsteel HP | Heartsteel efficiency | Riftmaker efficiency |
|---|---|---|
| 150 | 103.34% | 125.91% |
| 280–400 | 114.89–125.56% | 127.59–129.14% |
| 500–700 | 134.45–152.23% | 130.43–133.01% |
| 800+ | 161.12%+ | 134.30%+ |
>BTW i think from all of my heartsteel shen jungle games, I would say on average i would get 300 - 500 heartsteel stacks by the end of the game for reference.
Especially into multiple melee champions.
And Heartsteel HP still feeds the item.
Every 100 permanent Heartsteel HP adds approximately:
So at normal Heartsteel stack ranges:
| Permanent HP | Extra champion DPS | Extra monster DPS |
|---|---|---|
| 150 | +2.25/sec | +4.05/sec |
| 280–400 | +4.2–6/sec | +7.56–10.8/sec |
| 500–700 | +7.5–10.5/sec | +13.5–18.9/sec |
| 800+ | +12/sec+ | +21.6/sec+ |
Spirit is probably the easiest one to misunderstand.
Economically it's also the cheapest of these three 3-item cores while having insane utility + synergy with shen.
7,900g items
8,800g including the 900g post-Footwear boot upgrade.
That's actually 150g cheaper than Proto → Unending → Abyssal.
There's also a funny result when looking at Stand United.
| Build | Effective R haste | Raw R2 CD |
|---|---|---|
| Proto + Unending + Abyssal | 53 | 117.6s |
| HS + Zeke + Riftmaker | 58 | 113.9s |
| HS + Zeke + Sunfire | 53 | 117.6s |
| HS + Zeke + Spirit | 53 | 117.6s |
above is without Axiom Arcanist
which removes 7% of Stand United's current remaining cooldown per champion takedown.
| Breakpoint | Heartsteel route | Proto route | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 item | 3,000g | 2,600g | HS +400g |
| 1 item + boots | 3,900g | 3,500g | HS +400g |
| 2 items | 5,200g | 5,400g | HS -200g |
| 2 items + boots | 6,100g | 6,300g | HS -200g |
| 3 items — Rift | 8,300g | 8,050g | HS +250g |
| 3 items — Sunfire | 8,000g | 8,050g | HS -50g |
| 3 items — Spirit | 7,900g | 8,050g | HS -150g |
| 3 + boots — Rift | 9,200g | 8,950g | HS +250g |
| 3 + boots — Sunfire | 8,900g | 8,950g | HS -50g |
| 3 + boots — Spirit | 8,800g | 8,950g | HS -150g |
