Boards›Gameplay

Is Rek Sai being nerfed beyond viability for the sake of competitive diversity?

DeadUnborn··14 votes·1,361 views

As a Rek Sai main on LAN ( I have the same summoner name there), I am quite unhappy with the constant barage of nerfs that Rek Sai has been recieving lately. I totally get that she is currently hampering champion diversity in competitive play, but for regular players (ranked she is just good). Since the sonar nerf my win rate with her went from 70% to around 50% (after an adjusting peroid it has been climbing back). The thing is, having played over a 100 games with her and having a champion performance that peaked around 40% above the average rek sai player, I believe I know what Reksai's core strengths are, and they are all being completly obliterated, turning her into an item dependant tank that doesnt scale as well or has as meaningfull cc or engages as other similar ad bruiser junglers.

Rek Sai is all about getting an xp and gold advantage over the opponents; she is a text book control jungler. Her core strenght is build up an effective tunnel system (which after countless games I was able to learn), farm tu get a lead and put preassure on lanes when possible/needed. Her ganking is good but not the best (her ganks are countered by good warding because she needs to set up tunnels and loses her gap closer) and she needs follow up to secure kills most times. Where she truly shines however, is in her counter jungling: her tunnels are excellent bypassing wards and stealing enemy camps.

This last core strenght of rek sai was however gutted last patch. Having her tunnel start out at 26 seconds means that she cannot counter jungle because she trades off creating a tunnel system for her own jungle and would not snowball as effectively. rek say NEEDS to stay ahead in gold and xp because she is not ineatly tanky, she needs to get tanky by spending gold. Moreover her competitive build consist of only one damage item, which means that to really be meaningfull damage wise she needs to stay ahead in levels. By increasing the cd on her e and r, she is farming camps a lot slower and can't gank or counter jungle without severly hampering her own clear times. A knowleadgeable Rek Sai player should know that now counter jungling is not efficient until you get some CD/points on e and ganking can't be done unless the enemy is overextended. I understand Riot is all about trade offs and making a champions strenghts/weaknesses shine... but I have to ask: At this point what exactly are Rek Sai's strenghts? Her sonar is now just meh, her counterjungling is meh, her stats are meh and she is gold reliant. The worst part is she wasn't even a problem for 90% of the the player base before this nerfs started kicking in.... she is no longer the best at anything it seems like to me

I am also worried because I just saw on the PBE her base armor and health regen are being nerfed... this would completly wreck her early clear. On top of all that I have said... she would become unflexible in her early clears which is the only strenght she has left (only a couple other champs like lee sincan start in any camp and still have a healthy clear). A core strategy of mine (I was plat 2 before they nerfed rek sai and I dropped 2 divisions) is starting at the enemies red by myself, then do their raptors and continue to the scuttle (yes it is complete cheese but in my elo it works out 4 out of 5 games). If these nerfs proceed that strategy would be unviable.. which really makes me sad.

I have to ask again... taking into account all of rek sai's recent nerfs, why should I pick her over any other AD champ? I want ganking? Vi does it better I want engages? Jarvan and wukong do it better I want early pressure? Pantheon and Udyr do it better now Want counterjungling and farming nonstop? Shyvanna does it better now

The only legitimate reason to pick Rek Sai now is her sonar (since pantheon also has R mobility AND his R does not require his team to stay ahead so that I have tunnels to tp to) which frankly now has no use on solo Q (it used to allow for save jungle invades but having the tunnel at 26 seconds makes it extremly unsafe if your tunnel is detected and destroyed) outside of some objective control and general map awearnessif your team is not good at warding

28 Comments

Jbels4 votes

Short answer: Yes.

Long answer: Reading through this, I can tell without a doubt you care very deeply for this champion. No doubt I would be making a thread just like this if Sion ever fell under the same scrutiny that Rek'sai did. As someone who appreciates what it feels like to invest time and experience, and then eventually love into a champion on multiple occasions (Hello Morde, Sion), it burns me when I see a champion that doesn't make any sort of disruption on live gutted simply because they are picked way too much in LCS, and that makes the viewing experience "stale". But this goes beyond that. Not only have they nerfed her core strengths repeatedly, now they are targeting her clear again. Every time they try to throw her out of the meta for LCS, they hurt the people who play her normally even more, and that's a damn shame. Is it fair? No. But will it happen to the next champion that refuses to go away after constant nerfs? Pfft, get in line GP. You're next.

DeadUnborn1 votes

Yea I mean I can handle her not being top tier anymore... but for her to lose what made her fun to play in the first place is very frustrating. I understand someone at Riot figured out her play rate wasn't high enough outside of competitive play so nerfing her neyond remedy would only piss a minor portion of their player pool. What irritates me is that Yasuo can get away with minor nerfs just because he is so dam popular; is even worse if you realize he is in a situation totally opposite to rek sai: he disruptes regular play but not competitive. They are nerfing his early trades with an attack speed reduction and his team fight contibution by making armor pen from his ult only apply to damage dealt by him (I actually think this is a well thought out nerf, but not enough). Yasuo is rampant because his e cd is so low that he can push waves like a mad man and totally incapacitate any ability for his opponent to wave clear back with his w (in mid lane). If the same logic was made following rek sai's nerfs he would get scaling per lvl on ability cd on his e so that he has meaningful choices on when to dash early game (i would asume starting cd on e aroind the one second mark and going down 1/5 per skill point should suffice) but because he is popular they only nerfed things that the majority of players won't notice.. only dedicated ones. But o well... at least I'm starting to fall in love with kled and Riot won't realize his ults CD is ridiculous short until next years LCS because no one plays him now

Profirix1 votes

I would actually see Gnar or Gragas getting the nerf bat before GP.

Calabok2 votes

nerfed for balance.

Forhonor3212 votes

I have to agree with everything you say here. I actually picked her up on one of my matches today to try and get a feel for her again and holy fuck she doesn't feel the same. Before when she first came out she was amazing and fun to play. Now she just feels somewhat mediocre and a lot weaker then she was. And this is somewhat lead me to have a personal hatred for Riot at the moment. I know they want more diversity in the LCS, that's fine, but having to heavily nerf a champion to the point of near uselessness is not the way to go. Honestly it just feels like when worlds comes around they then immediately base all of their balancing towards that and just completely forget that there are other people who play the game casually. And by having these huge nerfs just to make the LCS better, they drastically hurt the people who want to play these champions for fun. Almost a reason why I completely hate the LCS, it just makes League feel more like an actual sport more then a fun video game.

DeadUnborn2 votes

LCS is important from a business perspective to riot because it ideally generates long term engament on its player base as well as revenue from merchandising and sponsorships as well as general awearness to the public. What I feel Riot is failling to recognize is that LCS champions are people too, not blank slates that adapt to whatever is optimal immidiatly. They nerfed Rek sai last patch and hoped she would stop being picked competitevly in that instant.... but they fail to recognize that a proffesion player is not going to give up a comfort pick that he has been practicing all year just weeks before and important match. The LCS meta is partly immobile because well quite frankly, the amount of actual people playing at that level is extremly small, and we all have mains and comfort picks

LankPants2 votes

I want ganking? Vi does it better

At low levels, hell no. A better example would be Elise.

I want engages? Jarvan and wukong do it better I want early pressure? Pantheon and Udyr do it better now Want counterjungling and farming nonstop? Shyvanna does it better now

Rek'sai strength is that she's above average in all of these traits. Sure Shyvana can clear quicker than her, but Shyvana is much weaker if you catch her counterjungling and has abysmal ganks. Udyr can pressure early but his ability to teamfight is pretty bad due to how kitable he is. J4 can engage, sure but his clears are slow and dangerous.

Rek'sai is good enough at all these things to be a competitive pick while all the other champs you listed aren't. When Rek'sai was on par with some of these champs in a single trait she was utterly absurd because she doesn't make the same tradeoffs that these other junglers do.

DeadUnborn1 votes

I talked about Vi because I'm comparing AD bruiser junglers. Therefore it does not make much sense to compare and ap mage/asassin to rek sai on this particular contest

On the other hand, yes Rek sai is a generalist that is good at many things, but thats exactly my point! Instead of defining her strenghts and weaknesses, Riot is just gutting her across the board in all categories.

Like you said, jarvan's clears HAVE be slow because he is a great engager (have no idea why you say they are dangerous, since his armor buff first clear he ends at half health and after buying tiamat/ hunters potion he is totally fine. Sure he does not have top tier clears put is not as abysmal as you make it out to be.

Shyvanna also has defined strenghts and weaknesses, she is not played competively because if she falls behind she is uselss and as you say can't ganke (again she has core strenghts and weaknesses). Rek sai's counter jungling since the last nerf to her e is also now unsafe because her tunnel can get destroyed, and her clears are slower. Udyr is basically same deal as shyvanna by the way except that his counter jungling and early ganking is better

I feel like you are trying to generate counter points to my arguments but you are just saying the same stuff I do but in a different way. Yea Rek sai is good enough accross the board, but instead of increasing her farming and counter jungling potential (her core strenghts) and accervating her intended weaknesses (necesity of gold lead, reducing team fight potential by trimming off tankiness mid game) they are just making her useless it feels like. Besides since I am not an LCS player (like 95% of the player base) my examples where aimed towards ranked play, not competitive. Also take into account next patch if nothing changes her base armor and health regen will be reduced, making her early clears terrible unless you start at krugs

PermabannedGaren1 votes

Yes and no. Rek'sai is in a similar but somewhat distinct spot from Shen. Shen is very strong in professional play while being merely an okay pick in solo queue. Rek'sai is similar, with a caveat in that she's also incredibly strong in very high elo solo queue. This makes her nerfs more justified IMHO.

DeadUnborn1 votes

I would understan if rek sai were to be adjusted just like nidalee was some patches ago. Nidalee is still viable albeit her nerfs being a kick in the taint to anyone who spent time mastering her auto resets. However Rek sai has been straight up nerfed for the last 4 patches without accervating her strenghts whatsoever. She is a strong strategic pick in a good jungler in high elo... but I differ on her being just out right broken. She is just being picked in high elo because all other tanky junglers have been nerfed recently making him one of the only ones with any sort of resemblance to dealing damage left in her (which is adequate because she has an utility ult and scarce cc as opposed to a vi or jarvan which can lock you down for longer)

Getcuxcd1 votes

ne she is beyond good in ranked too ur just bad mate now deal with it and try to improve instead of whining did u even say VI LMAO LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL bronze alert reksai can get 30 more nerfs and will sitll be better than vi

GULAG 4 U4 votes

PS.

You're silver >_>

so just like me we don't get to flame bronzies.

Getcuxcd1 votes

{quoted}

PS.

You're silver >_>

im gold actually and ur silver 3

CeexSett4 votes

And you are also a troll. Case closed.

Getcuxcd1 votes

{quoted}

And you are also a troll. Case closed.

no you are troll.

GULAG 4 U2 votes

I am silver 3, and since we're both not so better than bronzies, why the fuck are you flaming them?

Getcuxcd1 votes

{quoted}

I am silver 3, and since we're both not so better than bronzies, why the fuck are you flaming them?

you are nowhere near me dont insult me with that im way above u

DeadUnborn1 votes

Vi just got buffed this patch and is decent now... once the assasins get their update she will become meta, I garantee you that. I would appreciate if you tried to made well constructed and founded arguments, those tend to make discussions more interesting IMO. You can check my statistics and see for yourself if I'm good with rek sai or not anyhow (Check Dead Unborn in the LAN server ;) )

Getcuxcd1 votes

{quoted}

Vi just got buffed this patch and is decent now... once the assasins get their update she will become meta, I garantee you that. I would appreciate if you tried to made well constructed and founded arguments, those tend to make discussions more interesting IMO. You can check my statistics and see for yourself if I'm good with rek sai or not anyhow (Check Dead Unborn in the LAN server ;) )

mate u dont deserve well constructed and founded arguments when you say that REK SAY IS GUTTED beyond viability thats the dumbest thing ever and u lose all my respect just by that statement

Spoofghoul1 votes

Yes

And its simply the fate of overloaded champions for the next 2 years at least

broader kits is what riot has been doing for a while and thats ok but it leaves many champions out of viability

while some older kits are also way overloaded they also often carry ''hidden'' power and lack of counterplay and will likely get changed

meanwhile new champions will keep getting overloaded kits

and whilse older overloaded kits get redone give more counterplay aswell as new ones being designed around some counterplay

some champions will simply be too overbearing wheter its pro play or normal, eventually all champions will catch up through reworks but untill then any disturbance in pro play will be gutted

gragas is also on the chopping block and gp will be next

Riot wants this to be a sport like experience which people enjoy viewing but with the same old champs being picked everygame the experience has gotten extremely stale and people stop watching So they kind of have to to keep lcs alive Meanwhile its going to take a bit of time to make the rest of the roster catch up because riot wants to make overloaded kit the new standard for the future so untill then we will likely see more of these situations

DeadUnborn1 votes

Could you please elaborate on how exactly Rek Sai's kit is overloaded? her Q and E unborrowed are basically auto attack buffs (e is extremly close ranged targeted ability), her ult is a glorified tp and her w is a change state. Out of all the transforming champions I would say she is the least overloaded just behind Shyvanna and Swain which tie as tranformanion stat boosts basically. On the other hand if you were to say rek sai is a generalist in that she is ok at many things I would agree with you. The problem is that rather than making rek sai strenghts shine (farming and counter jungling) they are just slowly turning her into shit. If need be they could make her be less tanky mid game but accelerate her farming a bit or take which ever other option they find appropiate...but right now it feels like they just want to kick her out of LCS at all cost and resolve the matter later

Spoofghoul1 votes

overloaded =/= amount of abilities

its what you can do with them aswell

reksai can get a ton of use out of her vision for example and whilst i wouldn't call her the most overloaded champion either compared to alot of junglers she offers some of the best abilities

another one is that her ult gives her very little downtime

she goes where shes needed in the blink of an eye which allows to put great pressure or counter it

between being resourceless with good clears and having acces to some of the most powerfull utility (vision) and global presence she also offers good gank potential because of her mobility allowing ehr to bypass the usual ward spots and her ult offers great countergank power aswell

she offers alot more then say a volibear or khazix

her utility never falls off and she has aoe hard cc in the form of a knockup which isnt affected by tenacity nor can be cleansed Using flash when burrowed also makes for a strong no counterplay engage option jsut like gragas can

for a team with great synergy and communication she is one of the best junglers you can get for lcs level of teamplay there is almost no equal

DeadUnborn2 votes

I agree with what you say except that you are confusing terms. Overloaded refers to the amount of decisions or options that can come out of a champions kit, not what they are good at doing. Overloaded champions are, for example, Azir, Rengar and pre rework Ryze. This champions are/were overloaded because they have an outstanding amount of desicions based on what their kits can do and how each spell affects the desicion making of which spell to use next in a truncated pattern.

For example, Azir is can use his soldiers to attack, zone, engage and disengage, and depending on this decisions to anyone that hasn´t used azir for a sizeable amount of time the decision process of what to do becomes confusing and its unclear to know when you were successful and when you didn't. Rengar presents similar patterns with his ferocity system and Ryze did with his old 5 stack passive.

On the other hand, rek sai is a generalist, this means she is as you stated, good at doing many things well but isn't outstanding at almost anything. Champions that fall under this category are pre rework lucian and ahri for example. The difference that this champions have with rek sai is that rather than being nerfed they were transformed to have more well defined strenghts and weaknesses (ahri is a kite mage and lucian is a middle/ short range mobile squishy destroyer... at least in theory)

Now if you check my original post I make no or little stress in debating the ult cd nerf or the sonar nerfs that happened a couple of patches ago. This is because if you knew how to play her she did indeed have no down time and outsie of competitive and some occacional q burrowed snipes the sonar is a well deserved lcs nerf. However I have to disagree on rek sai being wherever she wants and having good cc.First of, her ult needs set up and is useless when behind because of the lack of tunnels. Second, Flash w is great but unless the enemy is in close range is telegraphed and comes up ever 5 minutes only. Moreover although her w is aoe this area is pretty small, so knocking up more than 1 person almost never happens and ones it does it goes on a cd. I think rek sai's cc is fine

The reason kha and voli are not picked as often competitively is because of the tank meta and that there are better engagers respectively. Kha also struggles in the jungle early on and voli's clear speed is average but safe

After saying all of this, I do agree that rek sai needs a shift, but rather than being nerfed accross the board, I would welcome her becomes a focused farmer that needs to control the match to win. This can be done by reducing the amount of time her tunnels last and reducing her tankiness mid game by reducing her health/ armor growth and making her even more dependant on gaining gold and xp to stay relevant throughout the game

Earl Eulrich1 votes

well, just play nid instead till she´s getting the next hit sigh or hope riot someday will learn to make champs that actually aren´t inherently broken and can be balanced eventually

DeadUnborn1 votes

I don't think rek sai is inherently broken, she is just really well rounded (at least she was before the recent nerfs). The problem arrises when riot nerfs a champion without accervating their core strengths. Rek sai is ok at many things (tanking, cs, ganking and mobility) and good at farming and map control, which makes her more attractive for competitive play than some other junglers that while great at one or two things, have core weaknesses in other areas. My problem is that if Riot wants to nerf rek sai, they should not be inhibiting her core strengths (farming and counter jungling), they should be making her weaknesses more apparent (somehow make her ganks not as good early game by making knuck up duration on champions increase by skill point or make her tunnels not las as long so that she has to keep using them to farm her jungle effectively). The problem is that by increasing the cd on her e and reducing her base armor her early clear will be frankly.... average shit at best

Earl Eulrich1 votes

the thing is...what makes her broken in competitive is being a wardbot with a global ult and tremor-sense, while in soloq most of this won´t be used to much effect - so she´s either overtuned for competitive or undertuned for everything else currently and it feels just bad either way.

DeadUnborn2 votes

This could be fixed by making her tremor sense spurr out form rek sais location at intervals like an actual sound wave would. At extremly short distances it should work as it does live just so that you don't go completly blind when burrowed but at lets say, 500 units, a subtle effect of a curcular wave expanding could be shown to allies and enemies when rek sai is visible to them, indicating she is detecting them. These could work out by making the waves slow down as they grow larger and go further from rek sai. In practice it would make enemies safer the further away they are from rek sai and create clarity on what rek sai can and can't detect with her radar

More from Gameplay

3 Refunds per season, upvote if you want 3 refunds per season.
Gameplay764 comments
7,167
votes
3 Refunds per season, upvote if you want 3 refunds per season.
Gameplay156 comments
3,510
votes
UPVOTE FOR URF
Gameplay606 comments
2,440
votes
Yes plz.
Gameplay456 comments
1,721
votes
3 Refunds per season, up vote if you want 3 refunds per season.
Gameplay114 comments
1,716
votes
When is ANYONE at riot going to address the awful new player experience?
Gameplay634 comments
1,383
votes

More by DeadUnborn

Calling Yasuo mains to save his rework
Gameplay243 comments
54
votes
Warwick Q heal buff next patch is a mistake (OTP WW)
Gameplay42 comments
52
votes
Rengar's Q is being reverted next year!
Gameplay102 comments
39
votes
Isn't Kai'Sa's VO TOO Flat? [VIDEO]
Story, Art, & Sound42 comments
22
votes
Kai'sa's Face transforms! [VIDEO]
Story, Art, & Sound109 comments
21
votes
Rek'Sai needs more particles for her new ult
Story, Art, & Sound6 comments
19
votes