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Why Does Renekton Have a Heal?

Eve The Ripper·12/28/2015, 6:55:04 AM·2 votes·995 views

I realize the gator is supposed to be a lane bully, but I don't think that means he's supposed to be some sort of dominating potato champ. His interactions with opponents leave much to be desired and there's not much room for counterplay...so why does he have such a comprehensive kit?

It's especially frustrating since, due to the aforementioned lack of outplay potential, he is nearly impossible to beat if he gets slightly ahead or hits level six while even. He basically blows his abilities on an opponent and safely retreats w/e he wants, whittling them down until he can just bite their head off. If they try to retaliate, they have to deal with minion aggro and likely lose the trade even harder. Thus, in that lopsided game of attrition, the nail in the coffin is his ability to sustain for free.

The problem is likely bigger than him having a heal, but I'm not up to a solo inspection of his kit right now. I need to ask a few more questions (like this) before I start putting out answers. I suspect that his easy trades and natural beeftank tendencies are the major culprits--thoughts?

8 Comments

Dreadlocks12/28/2015, 7:06:53 AM2 votes

Feels like a loaded question.. its like, why does Ahri have a heal? Why does Darius? Why does Maokai? Why does Shen? In all seriousness though, it helps him not only win trades but stay somewhat relevant after lane-phase. If he didn't have a heal, he would likely have power injected to other parts of his kit to make up for it which would potentially just lead to bigger problems.

Slamurai Jack12/28/2015, 7:08:31 AM2 votes

Because his fighting ability is actually rather bad overall. His trading is entirely burst based on long cooldowns and his combat ability in drawn out fights is actually rather low. All of the good duelists like Jax, Irelia, Xin Zhao, Aatrox, etc. actually beat him pretty hard if they can keep healthy enough to potentially all in him. Renekton is all about chipping down his opponents without meaningful retaliation until they're low enough to kill. The Renektons that don't do this almost always get destroyed by champions with far superior DPS.

Beldair12/28/2015, 7:13:08 AM1 votes

As a Renekton player, they are both right. When i first started using Renekton, i tried going all in and would easily crumble to champs like uas and fiora.

But now, i learned from those early mistakes and will dash in, stun, spin, dash out behind my minion wave. That is how renek needa to play. He uses hit and run guerrilla warfare tactics basically. (i'm not a Renek main. But i have some experience with him)

Eve The Ripper12/28/2015, 9:10:29 AM1 votes

I don't mean to say that Renekton is OP, sorry I wasn't clear on that. Rather, I would say he is needlessly oppressive. He does his lane bully job so well that it kills any sort of meaningful interaction in the lane. Yes, he falls off later if not fed, though I wouldn't say he ever drops to worthless. He does well enough late that he could stand to lose a bit of his guaranteed early power and have it put somewhere where it creates interactions instead of discouraging them.

Ideally, like Apex said, the heal would go and the power would go somewhere else in his kit. Also like Apex said, this would cause problems and he'd likely need to be retouched. In the end, I think it would be more interesting all around.

As Beldair said, the right way to play Renekton is to chomp on your opponent and then wait for CDs. This either works marvelously or is iffy if they have the ability to trade back. Of the few that can trade back, they're going to spend more time eating minion aggro than Renekton which makes it rather precarious. I think that a healthy champion has more dynamic options than that.

Since you've all played Renekton more than I have, do you have any ideas on how to keep his power about the same while making him less one-dimensional? Perhaps if his ult scaled based on how many people were near him, even if what it did exactly changed?