How much money can you really farm?
Well, Shen can actually farm top pretty well, contrary to popular belief, so there is a steady income.
Have you tried playing with other item combos? Like Phage+Wits end? Hexdrinker+Brutilizer? Phage-Sheen?
Id focus on a bit hp stack early on and as much autoattack damage as possible and then build everything else.
I haven't tested wit's end on that build yet, but I'm p sure brutalizer wouldn't be worth much on Shen, not quite sure about hexdrinker either. Phage and Sheen are what I usually get right after building first defensive items (in this case, heart of gold + boots + either warden's mail or negatron cloak).
@Shen: I dont think Triforce is worth it at all, possibly as last item if you get extremly fed
As I said, Shen p. much uses everything Triforce has to offer (except mana) for good measure. It is, obviously, not a rush item, though.
Like an Aegis, very cheap and gives you all you need, defense health and damage, plus you get to share it with everyone else for that warm fuzzy feeling.
Bot supports usually get Aegis, though.
Stark's isnt realy needed when you already have Q, you could get another cheap item like Spirit Visage to help with healing and reduce cooldowns to spam more.
Q is good for a sustained heal, but the lifesteal sometimes is a difference between life and death when you are in a 1v1 showdown up top. Still, it's not by any means essential, hence why I want to get rid of stark's fervor. The auras are cool, though.
And spirit visage/cooldown reductions in general are a little counter-intuitive on Shen. That's because he has ridiculous energy problems, so being able to spam more kills you.
Frozen Mallet instead of Rylais, which only affects one spell, you can just dash then stick to them with melee attacks. And consider an Atma's Impaler, you get damage bonus from most items you'll be using, Aegis/Spirit Visage/Mallet/Randuin, and they all boost your passive aswell.
Rylai doesn't boost only one spell. Well, the slow does, but the combined AP from triforce + abyssal + rylai's (+ap quints) gives you something like 200 AP. That's a free +300 shielding on the ultimate and +150 damage on Q/shielding on W (which is almost doubling both). Frozen Mallet's +20 AD doesn't mean much, and neither does the difference of 200 hp compared to Rylai's.
Atma's is another thing I considered, but dunno where to stick it. Could sacrifice AS and get it on the stark's fervor spot. Otherwise, dunno. Thinking about it, it could also replace the triforce actually, but I'd lose AS, sheen burst, phage, movement speed AP and HP (sort of mitigated by +armour), which is a lot of cool utility to have, and it's all compressed in a single item. Would hafta test that one day, I guess.
Also, what needs to be noted, is that people often make the mistake of building nothing but HP on Shen just to 'boost the passive' (like that derper theoddone), but that's really not optimal. The passive takes 8 seconds to recharge (unless you are getting hit constantly), so building mostly for that isn't really effective.
