State of Rengar

Can someone explain why Riot took the direction they did with the 6.2 Rengar nerfs?

I am very confused with the direction Rengar is heading. I have mained him on and off since season 4 and he is my most played champ every season. I just would like some clarification on his current state.

I understand he was a little over the edge with the new AD items and lack of vision options regarding to him specifically, which is why I'm not as upset with the Savagery nerf or the Thrill of the Hunt nerf (I don't like that it is based on having Youmuu's Ghostblade, but that is another battle for another day). These are just numbers that needed to change.

Why give the airborne bola a cast time?

I've seen phroxz0n's posts too the r/Rengarmains page and have read his responses. Putting a cast time on the airborne bola doesn't increase his skill cap. All it does is make it unreliable. At least as it is right now.

It used to be that a Rengar player would have to spend time practicing his "1-shot combo" and it was just one of his mechanics that you have to master to fully utilize his potential. It's just like animation canceling on Riven. Sure you can play without the ability to pull off these mechanics, but it gives more consistency to what you are doing. For example:

Rengar sets up a slow push bot lane and sets up a couple wards in the enemy blue side jungle. Then some squishy champion goes to farm the massive wave that has built up before it goes to town on their tower. Rengar set up this play and if he doesn't step over any wards (lol who am i kidding), or even no one is backing up the squishy champ baiting him in, he will probably get the kill whether or not the bola hits or flies over their head or in some random direction (assuming they are about even in gold). This doesn't matter in low elo where people don't know how to conterplay that. This is now a problem but it's not "Rengar is OP," but Rengar stomps noobs who don't do anything about it. But when you are playing against competent players, you have already set them up, you have out strategized them and should have an advantage. This is where keeping your mechanics clean should essentially guarantee the kill. If the ADC overextends without vision or backup against a Rengar, they have already made a mistake and should die quickly to any assassin.

The reasons I've seen from Riot for this just don't really make much sense. In the 6.2 patch notes, you start off with, "We want to give players a slightly larger window of opportunity to react." You increased Thrill of the Hunt's ! radius so now if i was texting and look up at my screen and I already have ! above my head, I can still probably get away/at least have enough time to at least make an attempt to defend myself (for this case I'm a squishy ADC). OK that hurt but maybe almost deserved due to the vision changes (maybe buff his base MS to compensate? That might be too much, just an idea).

Now comes the part that I can't seem to wrap my head around,

"We want to at least slow Rengar's ability to one-shot someone with his uncounterable burst combo."

Now coming from someone who has roughly 200 ranked games as this champion and countless normal games trying to perfect my skills/try new builds, this statement is flawed at the core/doesn't line up with what the patch notes did. Let me just edit this for you (Sorry about the all caps just trying to point out where I made changes).

"We want to at least REDUCE Rengar's ability to CONSISTENTLY one-shot someone with his 'uncounterable' (against low elo players) burst combo."

His burst is not uncounterable. There are many champions who could have avoided this just based on their kit. The bola is a root (not a stun) so champions like Tristana and Vayne can both knock Rengar back while they are rooted and then Rocket Jump/Tumble away and proceed to go ham on the melee champ now at the edge of the ranged champ's attack range. There are items that counter this as well: Zhonya's, Sterak's, QSS. Zhonya's just makes the Rengar sit there waiting for the Zhonya's's(?) champion's team to come help (which is what should happen, but doesn't all the time because bronze). Sterak's is more or less self explanatory (Rengar's burst vs an anti-burst item). And then there is QSS. The enemy squishy can easily escape this combo by using QSS and flashing away(arcane shift, rocket jump etc.). Competent players usually do (or attempt) at least one of these things, and as long as they have practiced it or thought about it, they cause Rengar to be stuck in the enemy team waiting to get collapsed on because he has no escape abilities once his ult is on CD.

So what did adding a cast time do?

Basically it made a combo that has been tweaked and perfected by millions (maybe) of Rengar players that if originally executed perfectly has "low counterplay" (by that point sure i guess there isn't much counterplay, but how is that different than a Zed shadowing over the wall and one shotting you + he can escape), into a combo that basically only works if they are running away from you, in a straight line. That's not where the counterplay is supposed to happen against Rengar. You have to set up your vision or even if you can't figure that out, just stand on top of each other.

So where does this make Rengar now? A unreliable assassin who even if he kills his target has no way to escape the fight, or are you trying to turn him into some sort of bruiser/tank, in which case he is also unreliable due to that same combo now being the only important one in extended fights now is very clunky/buggy/just plain old bad.

This also makes Rengar competitively unviable. In the pros, they mainly pick champions/teams that are very consistent because they don't want something weird to happen and have them loose because of it. Rengar in the pros was OK at making picks. There are champs that do that job better, which is why he didn't get much play this season (I think 2 games both on patch 6.1)

So where does this change come from? Was this all comming from salty players on reddit? Why does he need to be nerfed into oblivion? Yes he is sorta freelo when super fed but it does take quite a bit to get to that point and he is an assassin. A fed Talon/Zed/Yasuo (Zed a little less but WAY safer than other assassins) (Yasuo is a much more riskly but can obliterate everything) can/will do the same things. A few spells/autos and the ADC will be crying on reddit for nerfs. I will be one of the first to say it is NOT fun to play against a fed Rengar as a squishy champion (or any assassin for that matter), especially if he knows what he's doing; but he is one of the easier ones to shut down if the effort is put in. One of the easiest things to do is have the whole team just stand right on top of each other. A fed Rengar can't kill you if he can't click on you.

So to conclude, this change really hurt Rengar. I have never seen a change to a champion that removed a mechanic (except Nidalee when Riot first changed her into a jungler, but it was only for one or two patches and, it was unintended resets) from it's kit I just don't understand why you want to start now with a champion without an extrodinary win rate.

Thanks for reading this far and I apologize for my rambling/ranting. Its just important to me.

Sincearly, A concerned Rengar main|