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Rek, Sai, Thoughts?

Epsilaun·11/26/2014, 2:42:04 AM·1 votes·1,998 views

Ok, this is a place for meaningful dialog, not random blurts of, OMG too much knockups of new champs or blah blah blah

honest thoughts with actual reasons/evidence for appropriate situations

Quick summary of spell details (that are not 100% apparent from ability text but are from vids of sampling spells)

passive: fury gen, heals....some ammount when burrowed, consuming fury, this is only ability that consumes her fury, generates on AA speculation: passive says " dealing damage when unburrowed" not basic attacks or abilities, could imply synergy with things like hydra, but probably doesnt.

Q: un: next 3 hits bonus dmg and AoE burrow: skillshot that reveals, important for keeping track while burrowed. Unclear as to if this resets your attack timer or not (probably does)

W: un: burrow into ground, gain MS, lose virtually all visuals (from your character, other sources such as wards, and allies still show) and your "footstep" tracker, cannot use basic attacks while burrowed Burrowed: burst out of ground, doing dmg and knockup, cooldown is SHORT but has a per target CD (like udyrs stun)

E: un: bite, more fury, more dmg, true dmg at 100 fury. Good if you have extended trades but since you likely will be closing the gap with the MS from burrow and its knockup getting the true damage might be....limited and mostly effect jungle.

Burrow: dig a tunnel, dashing you forward (relatively slow for a dash) but leave tunnels behind. These tunnels can be destroyed by being stepped on (like zyra plants) but last for 10 minutes if left alone, max of 8 tunnels, Tunnels can be REUSED to replicate the movement of the ability on a relatively short CD (unknown time, but you do have to wait between when you reuse the tunnel again), these can be used to cross walls even on secondary uses.

R: passively gives AS: good for generating that fury, overall DPS increase. Synergy with on hit based factors

active: Global ( or virtually global at least) teleport to existing tunnel from burrowed E. 1.5 sec cast time+ travel time (quick but not instant) ANY hero or tower dmg (not just CC) will interupt the channel, unclear as to whether this interupt puts it on CD or if CD only if spell successfully goes off. Speed boost on successful Teleport. Also causes you to be burrowed when you exit

Personal Thoughts: An unusual champ like Kalista with boat loads of Utility at the cost of raw power. burrowed Q likely to be a low dmg spell all game if it scales with AP for some reason (does magic damage, it might, unclear at the moment) but i could be wrong. Follows a recent pattern of Riot of making champions with "easily defined weaknesses" SIon rework had MASSIVE telegraphing, Kali has relatively low firepower (relative......) Gnar has the forced split playstyle allowing different champs to capitalize on one form or the other.

Rek sai's appears to be Risky Vision. You are NOT invisible while burrowed, and you have VIRTUALLY 0 sight when burrowed, sure you might be able to follow a juke due to the sonar like effect of w....but you WILL NOT be able to see spells!!! if you are running at low health and need that SLIGHT dodge to avoid a hook or skillshot, you likely will never see it coming to know when to dodge if you are burrowed (for that extra MS you want).

That being said the map mobility and control is HUGE, able to scout out enemy junglers from a safe distance with echo location, create quick travel highways with long duration tunnels, and the ability to split push with the freedom of ultimate, combined with teleport, can always be ready to show up at a key location or capitalize on an opportunity. Also capable of massive jungle objective stealing. The first use/return of the tunnel is ready immediately, a well warded Rek sai can hop over a wall with cast of E, smite steal Drag/barron/red buff, use the tunnel to go right back over.

Also synergy with on hit based effects, which are quite strong (i know the devour er is getting nerfed) due to the permanent AS steroid in her passive, also works on waveclearing with hydra for that split pushing monster.

While clearly advertised as a jungler due to the pathing from tunnels i see no reason for this champ to do well as a top laner. Fury Consumption on her passive helps sustain the lane, you are a manaless champ so you can go ham with spells even on minions, your tower is likely to almost never be touched due to short CDs on Q and W. You can run TP to gank another lane, then return to your lane with your R (and leave behind tunnels for future ganks as well. If well coordinated with jungler can easily be ready to invade enemy jungle with them if they help your lane enough (or you dominate it). can do some harrassment pretty easy with burrowing in with a tunnel then using the tunnel to back off to avoid trade damage, your AS should let you build pretty tanky (thinking tri BorK/Hydra depending on pref and need then rest tank) Sounds to me like a pretty strong top laner (though probably still best in the jungle)

How do you plan to build/play her? What kind of champs do you think she will excel against and suffer against? How do you plan on playing against her?

4 Comments

EnvyDragon11/26/2014, 3:16:01 AM1 votes

Tried her in jungle on PBE just now vs bots. I can answer some of your questions.

Passive: Generates fury ON AUTOATTACK. Damage and number of enemies hit doesn't seem to have anything to do with it, though the first attack after unburrow will generate bonus fury. Fury dissipates REALLY fast outside of combat - there's no point in holding onto it, and no way to spend it outside of burrow.

Fury does two things: 1) your E does bonus damage based on your total fury WITHOUT SPENDING YOUR FURY, and 2) it puts a limiter on your burrowed HP regen. After you burrow, your fury starts draining rapidly, and while it's draining (before it hits 0) it's sort of like having a free potion. Didn't get exact stats, and now servers are limited so I can't try it vs bots again yet - what I can tell you is that it wasn't enough to feel like a boon while jungling, that's for sure.

Q: While unburrowed, it makes the next 3 autoattacks point-blank AoE. Yes, it is an autoattack reset. Really short cooldown - I expect Rek'Sai's generally going to be attacking the entire team at once.

While burrowed, it shoots a pretty standard skillshot. Hit reveals the target. Cooldown is nothing special, but nothing too terrible either. Scales off AP, deals magic damage, and the flat damage is unimpressive. Honestly not a fan... but I've only played one game as her, and again, it was vs bots.

W: Burrow. While underground, you have bonus movespeed - chances are you'll be burrowed 90% of the time outside of combat. Within a certain radius, moving targets in Fog of War (champions and minions alike) make little tremor boops in the ground that you can see. If they know you're around, they can stand still to be invisible to you as normal; while moving, it's impossible to hide from you.

Unburrowing knocks up and damages enemies in the radius, but a given enemy can only be hit by an unburrow attack once every 10 seconds or so. You can't just spam W and waste a whole team, but you'll probably want to use it regularly in big teamfights (particularly because of the sustain you get from burrow regen). While burrowed, you can either click W to unburrow on the spot or autoattack a target to unburrow (and attack) there.

E: While unburrowed, damages a single enemy for a percentage (80-120%) of your AD. Does X% bonus damage based on fury. DOES NOT cost fury to use. At 100% fury, deals true damage instead of physical. 12 second cooldown at all ranks.

Honestly, feels kind of crappy to use. Either: -You use it as part of your burst ...in which case it's a mediocre physical damage nuke with nothing special attached. Or: -You save for 100% Fury ...in which case it does Darius Ult levels of true damage. But saving fury means you can't burrow, and that cuts off more than half of Rek'Sai's kit mechanics.

While burrowed, it lets you tunnel. Tunneling functions as a dash or leap, but spawns a tunnel entrance at the start and endpoints. You can re-enter either of these to effectively redo the dash for free as many times as you like. Tunnel entrances last for 10 minutes, but can be attacked; if you place them wisely, you have practically infinite strategic mobility.

Ult: Passively gives attack speed. Lets you teleport to a tunnel entrance anywhere on the map. Really self-explanatory; just as effective as you'd imagine, no real surprises in mechanics.

Yeah, Rek'Sai feels like somebody went to a whiteboard and wrote something like...

PROS: Nigh-infinite mapwide movement.

CONS: No burst, very little tactical (teamfight-level) flexibility.

And then they designed her around that.

Buildwise... It's tough to say. She doesn't have enough CC for a tank (just her unburrow-knockup), she doesn't have enough burst for an assassin. Attack speed is nice, so on-hit effects are probably useful. Ravenous Hydra might work, but it feels redundant with her Q. BotRK is probably cool, as is Black Cleaver. Rek'Sai might be a Wit's End champion as well, though it isn't in her recommended items.

She NEEDS COOLDOWN REDUCTION. REALLY REALLY BAD. All of her power comes from her tunnels. You can have up to 8 sets (16 total) of tunnel points on the map at any given time, but if an enemy spots them they die incredibly easily. You need to be able to drop tunnels on demand. (Also, her unburrowed E has a stupidly long cooldown for what it does, but she has so little ability-based damage that every little bit counts.)

I can easily see a Rek'Sai build that completely sheds all concept of teamfighting in favor of ridiculous splitpushing - her tunnels let her get from one end of the map to the exact opposite end terrifyingly fast, her burrowed Tremor Sense lets you see incoming ganks without wards, and her ult lets her relocate freely with about a second's notice. She doesn't bring much to the table in a face-to-face fight but the psychological pressure is incredible.

Looking forward to her actual launch. I'd consider getting her skin bundle.

Epsilaun11/26/2014, 3:38:09 AM1 votes

Thoughts on her being a toplaner though? she can clearly sustain and waveclear well enough to hold the lane, and can certainly follow up on a junglers gank then proceed to raid the enemy jungle while her lane is open.

CDR does seem to be a problem, her natural AS would lead you to want the FF like jungle enchant but the CDR on the AD one is tempting, combo it with BC and something else and you got most of your CDR.

as for split pushing power, if your really wanting to sacrifice team fighting, Boots, Shiv, Hydra, tri for that MS, and then fill in what you want(cleaver zepher for CDR, dmg AS and MS) and you can cleave a lane with your hydra and Q in no time flat and scamper away.. I could see that. Might have enough dmg on it to jump squishies as well

Epsilaun11/26/2014, 3:39:27 AM1 votes

Also i think the Q while burrowed is mostly intended as a face check, as in instead of my face i want to see whos face im charging at. Obviously wasnt meant for much dmg

DIVINEN8TIVE12/12/2014, 9:00:03 AM1 votes

OP burst dmg with mobility and a poke in one package get rektRekSai