Aftershock Renekton Gameplay Breakdown

For purpose of this breakdown, I will be using YouTube times - not in-game times - to make it easier for people to search.

Note: this build is designed exclusively for situations where 1. renekton is intended to be the sole or primary frontline for his team and 2. the enemy team has 2+ tankier cc champions. In other situations, there are better builds; however, in a situation like this, I have found this build to be the best mix of damage and durability.

1:34 - here you can see how well aftershock works early game - even though yorick trades damage back, thanks to the extra resistances and strong early game damage from aftershock (comparable to electrocute lvl 1-3) it is as though yorick literally does no damage. While it's normally better to take e lvl 2 on renekton, the wave was pushing in, jungle should not be done with their 3 camps yet, and it maximizes damage my minions do to him.

1:44 - gametime is not yet the magic 2:50 around which most junglers have done 3 camps and are looking to gank, so it's the perfect time to ward. Because the enemy jg is j4, the river bush is the best place to ward or by his blue. J4 ganked at level 2 with double buffs - which tells me he only cleared 2 camps (his buffs). I don't know why he didn't flash aa for the kill on me.

3:30 - j4 get's off a nice gank bot with leona. Notice 2 keys of being a good jungler here:

1. he's patient, he waits more than 2 sec for the perfect setup and knows who should engage first and who should follow up.
2. he looks at the map and sees bot lane is low hp from fighting and the wave is in a position that will let him gank. He chooses the right lane with kill pressure. Ex: pre-lvl 6, mid is a weak lane for him to gank because mid has no cc and malz's damage isn't amazing without ult since people can just run away from voidlings. Also, his opponent mid is on zed - not an easy champ to lock down. Ganking the RIGHT lane(s) at the right times is key; not all lanes are equally valuable or easy to gank at all phases.

5:50 - yorick just took 2 losing trades with me. From this, he should know that he's low enough a flash full combo from me will kill him; don't greed for cs - just leave and tp back. He did one good thing though in summoning his ult - it gives him more damage, discourages tower dives, and makes it easier for him to farm. After the kill I SHOULD immediately back so I don't get ganked and die, but I greed to get proc on tower for more damage.

10:33 - trist rotates top. Bot lane is pushed in and she's been getting bullied around in lane, so it would just increase chance of dying if she goes there right now - rotating top was a good call because she can help me take tower, then recall and catch a giant wave bot as it pushes to her tier 2 tower where she can more SAFELY farm it. Little decisions like this can make a big difference. Speaking of decisions though, she jumps in way too early and ends up dying to yorick. She should have helped me kill yorick's maiden and THEN go in. This would give us easy 2v1 kill and probably net us a kill on j4 with one or both of us living.

13:11 - I tp to help mid and make it a 3v3 instead of a 2v3 tower defense. This is one more reason for people to ward. I pop ult early to maximize fury. Notice, I target the squishiest carry first, being sure to break malz's shield BEFORE using my stun on him. My jungler, watching THE MAP, collapses and makes it a 3 for 0. Then I rotate for drag because top is already pushing in and I don't need to immediately run there. For going dragon instead of running top right away, I miss only a few cs. Definitely worth.

16:55 - this is when you force herald... you've picked up a few kills on the enemy team AND the enemy has a giant minion wave to deal with (at top tier 2 tower). Because if the do contest in such a scenario, they are missing out on a ton elsewhere (minion gold and xp, protecting tower) and you would still have even numbers in such a fight.

18:40 - fight in bot river. Again notice how my team actually has wards placed in some decent locations - I don't know how many games I have to tp to some minion wave halfway across the map because my teammates don't ward; having a decent tp ward let's me zone enemy top and mid out of the fight - giving my team a 4v3. Team wins the 4v3 and I pull off a 1v2 kill. I'm safe to push top even though very low hp because I know no one from the other team is anywhere near there to kill me. I then secure baron vision and rotate back bot to help contest dragon. Thanks to some good spacing by trist and zoning by me, we win a 2v3 and secure infernal drag for team. Diana sees top is pushing in and goes to protect tower since the rest of our team isn't there to do so - again, she's choosing the OPTIMAL play by looking at the map; jungle farm will wait - minions pushing a tower won't.

22:30 - so it might have looked like my team was just carrying me with how fed jg and mid are, but... look what happens to my team when they 4v4 without me. Zed ults j4 from full hp instead of a carry - making his ult a waste. Malz ults diana to save his low hp teammate and pick up a kill. Leona and j4 lock down our squishy carries after they've used all their mobility trying to escape from overextending and fighting without having secured proper vision and setup first.

23:05 - yorick vs renekton. Sure I'm fed, but just look at that damage trade. While electrocute would deal more damage to yorick, the resistances buff I get from aftershock means yorick tickles me while I still do half his hp in damage. Malz roams top and while I believe I could have 1v2 beat them, I respect lack of vision. They could havevarus there as backup AND I need to rotate mid to help team protect inhib tower.

24:50 - team gets a nice pick and I move to cut off enemy escape route. While it's a 5v4, two of our team are very low hp. I force malz to zhonya so he doesn't immediately die, this let's me turn on the next priority target while knowing malz is basically guaranteed dead when zhonya's ends. Initially it looks bad for us; however, I'm that tanky with this renekton build so I can stay in the fight when a titanic renekton build user would have to leave or die for staying. I then go to clear bot so the farm doesn't go to waste. This also puts me in position to pressure bot and be able to tp to baron fights.

26:40 - my team kinda overstayed mid and could have gotten run down and killed, so I preemptively tp'd to protect them. Again, they overzealously try to force a fight instead of using OBJECTIVES to force the enemy to come to us. Drag is up - let the enemy walk through the choke point into river and THEN we can easily force an engage on them.

29:50 - start baron because enemy varus is bot lane. When baron is up, a teammate with TP should be bot to clear lane - not adc - so that team can contest baron. Trist then greedily solo pushes and dies for it - wasting time we could be pushing with baron. I slow push - waiting for my team to apply pressure so the enemy can't 5 man collapse on me. Because I waited, diana and I get bot tower and a kill 2v2 while the rest of our team pulls 3 top.

34:20 - the chase. I engage on malzahar into a potential 1v4. I do so because braum and trist were close by and could have easily collapsed and made it a winning 3v4 (as well as that I didn't know for sure 4 enemies would collapse). But they don't come, so I just look like an idiot. Still, this highlights just how absurdly tanky the build makes me - 1v4 I nearly kill malzahar and require several ults and summoners just to kill me.

41:00 - finally getting it right. Team stops trying to 1v5 or 2v5 and ends game.

That build though... The reasoning behind the build (namely frozen heart on a non-mana-user) is to maximize durability and cdr. Because we get bonus ad from excess cdr, frozen heart gives us nice early tank stats and eventually our build gives us 70% cdr along with runes... which equals 36 bonus ad. Also, renekton gets a lot of hp from cleaver and his ult, so building something like randuin's or deadman's leaves him feeling a bit overstacked in the hp department but understacked in armor. Add in the resistances multiplication we get from aftershock, and the extra armor and ad frozen heart provides is multiplied even more. Over 300 armor, over 150 mr, over 4k hp and we still have over 300 ad? Now that's what I call a build.