[Discussion] Is Anyone Actually SATISFIED With The State Rengar Is In?

So Rengar has been showing up a bit in LCS and has a pretty high ban rate at the moment, but that isn't what this discussion is about. I'm not here to beg for nerfs or plead for buffs, I just want to start an honest discussion based around a simple question:

IS RENGAR A SATISFYING CHAMPION?

I'd like us to look at this from a few different angles, namely:

1. What is Rengar supposed to be based on his lore? (fighter? assassin? tank? initiator? hunter? etc.)
2. What do Rengar's kit thematics express about his intended identity? does it succeed? does it fall short?
3. When you play Rengar, does he fulfill your vision of what he is supposed to be?
4. How does his play style relate to his balance?
5. Can his identity be made into a real world kit? If not, does his identity need to change?
6. Is his identity inherently a toxic design?

(if/when you comment, I would love it if you addressed these questions in addition to just responding to my own opinions about them)

1: Please keep in mind that my opinions are based largely off of his current lore, so if the retcon changes it dramatically, my opinion may be a little outdated. In his lore, Rengar is one of if not the finest hunter in Valoran, but he is also shown to not just be a great hunter, but an impressive fighter as showcased in his day long brawl with Kha'zix. Not all hunters are centered around killing their target swiftly and safely (and based on his lore and VO, Rengar scorns those who kill creatures weaker than themselves) He is also a phenomenal stalker (as showcased in Gnar's lore). One important thing to note though, is that while Rengar scorns those that hunt weaker creatures, he is not in any way put off by being a tactical hunter that keeps after a target once he's weakened it. This tells me that while Rengar is an extremely tactical character who plans his attacks, he is also not afraid to get in deep and scrap it out with a foe, although it is clear that a long fight is less than ideal for him. In my opinion, this means Rengar should be centered around tracking and killing a single target as a sort of patient assassin, he should be able to duel for moderately extended periods of time, but in general, the longer the fight goes on, the lower his advantage should become. He also should not be oriented towards team fighting outside picking off an individual or at least forcing them into a 1v1 fight with him sort of parallel to the main fight. He also has to be able to transition smoothly from combat into returning to the hunt quickly in order to stalk his (now wounded) prey. In general, I'd say Rengar fulfills this identity moderately well, although he has limited benefits to stalking a particular enemy and his pattern remains centered around flailing his knife around until he kills the target instead of being precise and lethal.

2: Rengar's kit thematics are... interesting. His passive highlights his aggressive nature and trophy hunting style through his leap and necklace stacks, while his unique resource gives us a taste of the patient assassin play style I think he really deserves through needing to set up his stacks before going in on a kill. Q shows absolutely no thematic tie ins to anything about his design. Reneger is a hunter, and although he may fight viciously, having a simplistic AA steroid ability called savagery does not make sense on a hunter. a hunter, even one willing to get into a brawl to kill his prize, would be focused on attacking an enemy in their weaknesses, like stabbing them in the jugular as opposed to just lacerating their side for 10 minutes before they bleed out. being willing to scrap and being bad at finishing a kill are not the same thing. W also shows no thematic tie in to a hunter's kit. A hunter who relies on the element of surprise would not just turn and shout you to death, and roaring would be even less an ability to heal you, although gaining some resists from a roar makes sense in the way that pumping yourself up during a fight a-la a berserker would make you more resilient, but how on earth does having a berserker-like ability make sense on a hunter who's goal is to kill a single target quickly and efficiently after setting up a kill? E and R in my opinion are the two abilities in Rengar's kit that actually fit quite well. Overall, his kit thematics do not deliver on what his lore and general appearance say he should be.

3: For me, since I play Rengar as a full assassin, he does fulfill his identity to a certain extent. I have to stack ferocity before going in for an ult gank to sort of set up a kill, I get to feel like I'm trapping an opponent with his bola, and I get to be tactical about my positioning in a fight. However, his gameplay also fails in many ways, for instance, his Q does not leave me with any sort of satisfaction, his combos don't leave me feeling skillful, they just leave me wishing it weren't so complicated a sequence of buttons his passive stacks help me feel the impact of my gameplay, but only in extreme cases of snowballing, which leaves me feeling like it is useless when behind. His W incentivizes two contradicting things: playing super squishy so that the flat heal means more relative to my champion, but also play as a super dive tank so I can get all the resists from tagging a bunch of enemies. this is completely the opposite of what Rengar ought to do; he isn't one to shy away from a kill, but he ins't a fool who tries to attack a full pack of prey.

4: I feel like his play style currently is very bad for balance, since he is caught in the middle as a fighter with AD, AP, per level, and CDR scalings, while not being that good at what he is thematically supposed to be. when he is a good hunter with his current kit, he murders everything in sight and is a pain to hold back. when he isn't a good hunter, he has an atrocious win rate and suffers as a cheese solo queue kill farm champion with little relevance in any sort of coordinated play.

5: Rengar's goal identity as a hunter/stalker/duelist can be realized in my opinion. to do this, Riot needs to trim the fat from his kit by removing extraneous random scalings (make him actually have damage outside of Q, right clicking, and level based empowered abilities), most of his team fight oriented ability functions (no more armor/MR for tagging enemy champions, limited AoE (if any at all), and a way for him to transition an initial confrontation with a target into a prolonged hunt centered around stalking and ambush rather than raw killing power.

6: I don't think that Rengar's identity is inherently toxic. what is toxic about him currently is the assumption that a hunter must kill his prey instantaneously after jumping on it, or if that fails, proceed to bludgeon it to death. His ult should not give any warning that he is nearby, and it shouldn't have to, because Rengar shouldn't be able to instantly kill anyone, he should instead attack a target and then follow up through repeated assaults from stealth, allowing a coordinated team time to respond and protect an ally or peel off Rengar. That would make him much healthier and more satisfying in general.

Rengar has great potential to be an amazing champion, but over simplistic attempts at fixing him have left him very unsatisfying and leaves him in a state of limbo as a binary cheese pick that can't become anything great until major changes are made to his design.

Now I open the discussion to you, Riot and the community in general, are you satisfied with Rengar?