I understand that shyvana's core items have all been nerfed. I believe they were Frozen Mallet, Wit's End, and Atma's Impaler. Either its been through cost or a lowering of stats. I'm assuming people are playing a tanky Shyvana.

I've been playing Shyvana since Season 2 when she came out, but only recently started playing her again since seeing these threads. A good idea I picked up from another thread was that with the Season 3 Item overhaul, we need to change how we build Shyvana.

To be able to do this, we have to understand her basic kit. These are generalizations.
Passive: Some Attack Speed is essential. And in Dragon form, all abilities become AoE.
Q. Twin Bite: Scales with AD and on hit effects
W. Burnout: Scales with AD, but does MAGIC DAMAGE
E. Flame Breath: Scales with AP
R: Dragon's Descent: Scales with AP

What can we determine from this? Shyvana is a hybrid, an abnormal Hybrid at that. It also means that she has a very flexible build. While I do say she is a Hybrid, I don't suggest you focus on building AP, Shyvana is like Jax in the way that a little AP goes a long way. That also means magic penetration will maximize your damage output. Having said all that, what possible item gives AP, AS and MR shred?

The answer is Malady.

+25 ability power
+45% attack speed
Passive
Unique: Your basic attacks deal 15 + 10% AP bonus magic damage.
Unique: Your basic attacks reduce enemy magic resistance by 4 for 8 seconds (maximum 7 stacks)

This will replace Wit's End as a core item. Since most builds go R<W<Q<E, that means W. Burnout is ranked first, it does AoE MAGIC DAMAGE. Each second an enemy is close enough for you to autoattack them, the worse Burnout is going to hurt. And when it comes to teamfights, every time you Q in dragon form, everyone is going to lose their MR.

Frozen Mallet (or Trinity if you prefer) is essential to keep targets close.

Whether toplane or jungling, an early Wriggles lantern will help with sustain, which can be later sold for Ravenous Hydra. After Malady and Frozen Mallet, the build choice depends on the game.

Good items on Shyvana:
AS: Malady, Trinity Force, Zephyr, Wit's End, Nashor's Tooth, Statikk Shiv.
AD: Frozen Mallet, Black Cleaver, Blood Thirster, Youmoo's Ghostblade
Lifesteal: Ravenous Hydra, BoRK, Hextech Gunblade
MR: Runic Bulwark, Maw of Mallortius, Mercurial Scimitar, Spirit Visage
AR: Sunfire Cape, Randuin's Omen, Spirit of the Ancient Golem
CDR: Nashor's Tooth, Zephyr, Black Cleaver, Ionian Boots of Lucidity

This is a build I put together for a Tank Shyvana. It gives enough survivability and damage to be able to peel.
Merc Treads, Frozen Mallet, Malady, Randuin's Omen, Maw of M., Ravenous Hydra

Soviet Swain Approves Shyvana Builds
-Rockjockey

TLDR: Try building Malady early, it will help with your damage output since 3/4th of your abilities deal magic damage. Just try it out for one match, then look at the stats and see if you deal more Magic Damage or Attack Damage at the end of the game.

P.S. I was surprised, the stats told me 2/3s of my total damage was magic as Shyvana.

wits end and impailer got nerfed?

Wow, that actually sounds okay. Might give it a shot.

@ CerealBoxOfDoom

Yes, in Season 3, WIt's End had 10 MR shaved off. It's not the hugest difference, but tell me how often you see people building it? (Except on Tank-Teemo)

Season 2 old news, Atma's got its Health scaling AD ratio reduced to 1.5%, compared with other armor items, it's become a niche pick, for the likes of Gangplank and Garen. The Avarice blade is a buff, I agree.

Irelia has actually suffered as well since Irelia and Shyvana had pretty similar builds in S2, Tanky with a bit of damage and attackspeed.

Look around the threads and you'll see a couple of Irelia boohoo threads. It was saying the same thing that building like Season 2 wasn't doing quite enough. Season 3 items are definitely better, Zephyr has been seen as a better item for Irelia than Wit's End now. It gives AD, AS, CDR and Tenacity.

i think that shyvana is good, coz in season 2 she was a lit of bit op.

I don't see malady being greater than wit's end for the simple fact that she won't build any other ap item. Wit's end also does more damage, not to mention it's real use is the MR. It's not to bad on Shyvanna as her Q will proc it about 3 or more times in about a second. Also it just slows her down from becoming an off tank. You have the Maw in your build to compensate but that thing is expensive.

Her problem for me is her build can't be customized. You can cut corners and delay the frozen mallet and keep the phage for most of the game, but you need certain items asap or her ult is pretty useless. I also play her in jungle so I have to pick up an early wriggle so normally my build looks like this:

machete>5 pots>boots>madreds>vampiric scepter>wriggles>wards>pots>(dragon thirty)>upgrade boots>phage>wit's end

By the time I even finish wit's end the laning phase is over. Basically the gold from jungle barely gets her by and she's lucky to even have any assists from a gank to help her out. When it's over she needs to be an off tank in my opinion to be of any use in team fights and malady just doesn't fit.

@Gadius
Its true that the gold from the jungle and ganks is not always alot. But consider that Malady is 165 gold cheaper.
Wit's End does 42 magic damage and Malady does 17.5 bonus damage. But the difference is that Wits end does not actually give the penetration that Malady's MR Shred gives. So Shyvana's W, R and E (including the 39 Additional On-hit Magic Damage) will all now deal more damage. Also, Because Shyvana's Q in dragon form is an AoE cleave, she will shred the entire enemy team's MR so that your AP carries in back can blow them up.

All in all, you will deal more damage and help your team out more by using Malady. If you absolutely need MR, you can pick up Hexdrinker early and finish it depending on the amount of AP damage the enemy team is doing. Likewise, Runic Bulwark is very tanky and has MR. And if you absolutely need Wit's End, you can build that too on top of Malady.