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Bruiser/Tank Rengar item choices

Vicarious117··1 votes·1,198 views

So first things first, yes I enjoy playing a Rengar that isn't a glass cannon one shotting assassin. Yes I know it can't carry quite as hard, can't insta gib as easily, and is slightly more difficult to play. No, I don't care, I really enjoy Rengar's kit and always have, but I also perform better more regularly on tanky/fighter champs, and when you play Rengar enough and get good with his kit, you can play him as nearly anything.

My question then is for those of you who also play tankier/bruiser Rengar or at least have enough knowledge of him and these items to help me out. Basically I always build Warrior's on him, having early game damage even if I'm building tanky is still more effective I've found, but it's the second item I'm wondering about. Basically I'm torn between Titanic Hydra and Sterak's Gage. I want a damage item that scales well with tankiness and both of them do this well, but I'm not sure which is more effective on Rengar and which is better overall, or if I would be best off building both.

I understand builds change based on the game, which items have a higher return for the effectiveness of their stats, but early game I typically get ahead as Rengar so I want more damage but I will still plan on building tanky for late game teamfighting (since everyone at my elo only ever understands that, try to do anything else and if you're not hella fed enough to 1v3 or 1v4 they will not know wtf to do without you there for the standard 5v5s..... annoying but we all must adapt to our environments...). But most of the variations in my builds typically come on the third item, my first two full items are generally the same since I usually perform well in the early game regardless. Exceptions are against full AD teams I tend to just stack armor or I will sometimes squeeze a hexdrinker in there if it's needed.

Anyway, the cone AoE damage that scales with health and provides another AA reset, or the base AD increasing item that also scales with health and rewards jumping into backlines with a large shield and bonus damage? Or would you guys recommend getting both if I don't need armor or MR right then since they scale well together?

Also, if neither are the best options for bruiser Rengar then let me know what is, like is Black Cleaver a better choice or should I just go full tank after warrior's completely?

11 Comments

Pluie Battante1 votes

[deleted]

Vicarious1171 votes

So you recommend going with the Cinderhulk even though it has much lower effectiveness early game (especially on high damage champs like Rengar) and it's mid game was nerfed as well? The health scaling is still worth the trade off?

Dreadlocks1 votes

I pretty much play rengar in 80% of my games now a days. (past 2 months probably) mostly on my smurf, and i too like to build him in different ways. Generally if i early pick him and the enemy team picks champions that i'll have troubles snowballing off of with a glass cannon build, ill go bruiser. The most important thing for me is that i have a solid amount of CDR with my build so i'll always consider that with my build.

I run 15% cdr per lvl with 5% in masteries and when im doing bruiser rengar, i usually don't mind overcapping my CDR if it means i'm getting a good item for the situation.

I almost ALWAYS get a item 3142 even if i'm going tanky, the item is just THAT good for rengar. The movement speed for its cost and the little attack speed is generally enough for an "offensive item" If you are fed, item 3723 -> item 3077 is absolutely amazing. You can use these 2 items to continue to snowball with the item 3077 active and then transition it into a item 3748 later in the game when u want to start tanking up.

If you don't need armor shred or CDR then item 3071 doesn't "need" to be in your build. But definitely consider it if they are a tanky team stacking armor.

A decent build would be something like this (in this order even) item 3723 item 1001 item 3142 item 3053 item 3102 item 3143 and then finishing item 3111 at the optimal time. Rengar can usually get away with less defense items than most because of his W. If you are playing a "tanky" initiator for your team, you will likely hit more people with your W to make up for the lack of resistances of most tanks. Hope this helps. Sorry for the wall of text, i'm slightly obsessed with this champion lol.

Vicarious1171 votes

Yeah I have nearly 200 games on Rengar this season with roughly a 4.0 kda, so I can say that I can relate to being obsessed with this champ lol

I was doing item 3723 then into item 3077 and finally a item 3142 , then rounding it out into item 3748 and a few tanky items, like you suggested, and sometimes instead of item 3077 I'd get item 1011 then into item 3142 if I was either behind or simply needed some more beefiness quickly. It varied.

The issue I found was this left me very squishy for quite a while, and unless I was already snowballing this left me as an initiator who couldn't initiate, so I'd have to keep playing safe as a glass cannon and trying to make picks until I got enough gold to get tankier. Worked out when I was ahead, obviously, and when my team had another initiator in it or they for once actually understood the concept of splitting and not grouping 5v5 when we weren't running a 5v5 comp into the oh-so-common teamfighting comps.

So that's when I started doing item 3723 then straight into item 3748 and then the slightly cheaper item 3053 before going tank.

As you mentioned when maxing his W second you can afford to just build health and still be tanky enough, plus the shield from item 3053 made diving easier and more rewarding. What I was more curious about was whether both were necessary or not to accomplish my goals as a bruiser, I thought maybe I only needed one before going full tank, but I just wasn't sure which lol

I used to build item 3117 first for the easy lvl 6 initiations, like the Koreans were doing for so long, and then building item 3723 and then straight into item 3071 . However, over the past year I've found item 3158 as an early buy to be faaaaaaaar more important for those early ganks, I can make a much stronger impact early game with them, so I stopped building item 3071 due to the overabundance of CDR lol

EDIT: Also I've found item 3742 >>>>>>>>> item 3143 for the armor item, initiating with the same effect as mobo from stealth AND an slightly more powerful AA on your first jump to be a thousand times more useful then slightly more armor with less health a little bit of reduced crit damage lol

Dreadlocks1 votes

Yeah i love item 3742 as well, If you get item 3742 and item 3748 You can almost 1 shot carries late game as quickly as you could with an assassin build. If you want a bruiser build, i think you need to think back to what you said you understand and that is, it depends on the situation. For rengar, I find him to be extremely flexible in build paths. I don't think their is 1 perfect bruiser build for Rengar and you should take advantage of his ability to pretty much build w.e he needs for the situation. The reason I prefer item 3111 on bruiser rengar is because if i'm not instagibing sm1, then i'm going to need to be a little more slippery than usual. And if you are taking a fight mid lane, then you won't always have the luxury of using a bush to stick to your targets. I will say that if you are going item 3723 item 3748 item 3142 then you are not really going "bruiser" because you are investing a lot more of your gold into offensive items.

Rengar doesn't scale insanely well with AD, Items like item 3142 item 3077 and item 3035 albeit AD offensive items, really maximize other areas. Armor pen, crit chance, the active on item 3077 for added burst. So don't feel to required to build a crap load of damage items when playing Rengar as a bruiser. item 3053 and item 3742 are generally enough added damage to do the job, assuming you are utilizing a 5 stack E for initiating, and item 3142 to help close the gap and give you some added armor pen/crit chance.

item 3725 item 3142 item 3053 item 3111 item 3742 item 3065 is a perfectly fine bruiser rengar build. I wouldn't build item 3748 on "bruiser" rengar, unless you are really far ahead early game. But thats my 2cents, I am afterall only g4 with rengar lol.

Edit: If you don't want item 3142 you could always get item 3117 and rush item 3742 and have a similar amount of MS to initiate.

Blue Collar Bear1 votes

I think you'd find my ranked match history helpful. I'm a Platinum I tank Rengar main.

If you want damage early, just do what a majority of high elo Rengar players do. Rush a Tiamat. However, I would in most cases suggest buying boots and Cinderhulk first. Why? The core reason Rengar is picked is because of his assassination pattern. He can cc and burst one target faster than they can react. Obviously, you've found out that you don't need a ton of damage to burst squishies. The mobility still remains core. I would buy the Cinderhulk for the improvement in clear. If you do not have that mobility, you rely on your target, which is something you can't count on. There's a trick to ganking without boots. Try to let your enemy walk into your ultimate range as you are walking to them. There's less time to react.

In team fights, I dislike the assertion that you shouldn't with Rengar. You definitely do want to. Single target engage is weak, but it's still locking up a target. What usually happens is multiple people burn their cc and damage on you, which is the green light for your team to safely engage. Usually, I've either chunked or killed the enemy carries and I'm still alive. Even if your team is straight up sieging, just use your ultimate outside of range and wait for the enemy carry to walk forward. Even in Platinum, this still happens.

I'll go into builds when I get home, but as a precursor, health stacking on Rengar is generally an effective strategy because of his W. It gives a ridiculous amount of stats for the time that you will be being bursted.

Vicarious1171 votes

Well I mean I did say I like building him bruiser/tanky because I do like and need to teamfight with him, so I'm not really alluding to not wanting to teamfight with him lol

And you also like Cinderhulk over Warrior's for bruiser Rengar? Is it just because of the scaling with tank items or do you simply like the early health boost over the early damage boost? And are there any boots in particular I should look for buying early? Like how assassin Rengars almost exclusively get Lucidity while many of the Korean soloQ players rush mobo boots no matter what kind of build.

Finally, in your match history you seem to be building attack speed Rengar most often with devourer, which is an item I simply do not like to buy most of the time, but I'm still curious, why Devourer -> Ghostblade -> BotRK instead of Warrior's -> Ravenous -> Ghostblade? Seems to me like both have the exact same goals but building AD and armor pen over attack speed and on hits just accomplishes the same thing but more efficiently. I have not tried it out myself however, so that's why I'm asking, my opinions are only presumptions atm lol

Blue Collar Bear1 votes

{quoted}

Well I mean I did say I like building him bruiser/tanky because I do like and need to teamfight with him, so I'm not really alluding to not wanting to teamfight with him lol

And you also like Cinderhulk over Warrior's for bruiser Rengar? Is it just because of the scaling with tank items or do you simply like the early health boost over the early damage boost? And are there any boots in particular I should look for buying early? Like how assassin Rengars almost exclusively get Lucidity while many of the Korean soloQ players rush mobo boots no matter what kind of build.

Finally, in your match history you seem to be building attack speed Rengar most often with devourer, which is an item I simply do not like to buy most of the time, but I'm still curious, why Devourer -> Ghostblade -> BotRK instead of Warrior's -> Ravenous -> Ghostblade? Seems to me like both have the exact same goals but building AD and armor pen over attack speed and on hits just accomplishes the same thing but more efficiently. I have not tried it out myself however, so that's why I'm asking, my opinions are only presumptions atm lol

I'm currently at work, but I'll respond when I get home in depth.

Blue Collar Bear1 votes

{quoted}

Well I mean I did say I like building him bruiser/tanky because I do like and need to teamfight with him, so I'm not really alluding to not wanting to teamfight with him lol

And you also like Cinderhulk over Warrior's for bruiser Rengar? Is it just because of the scaling with tank items or do you simply like the early health boost over the early damage boost? And are there any boots in particular I should look for buying early? Like how assassin Rengars almost exclusively get Lucidity while many of the Korean soloQ players rush mobo boots no matter what kind of build.

Finally, in your match history you seem to be building attack speed Rengar most often with devourer, which is an item I simply do not like to buy most of the time, but I'm still curious, why Devourer -> Ghostblade -> BotRK instead of Warrior's -> Ravenous -> Ghostblade? Seems to me like both have the exact same goals but building AD and armor pen over attack speed and on hits just accomplishes the same thing but more efficiently. I have not tried it out myself however, so that's why I'm asking, my opinions are only presumptions atm lol

Alright, bud. I'm home now. I use two builds on Rengar. I commented on the one we're talking about, the Cinderhulk build. I like Cinderhulk over Warrior, because by the time you're fed or snowballing your teammates, you should already be transitioning into your role as a durable assassin. I also like it for the scaling, since building flat health is very effective on Rengar.

Why do I build Devourer - GB - BORK? In a word, resets. Rengar has an auto attack reset. With enough CDR and five stacks of ferocity, you can reset your auto attack twice in quick succession. The combo goes AA - Q - AA - empowered Q - AA. With this build, you easily have 2.0+ attack speed, and resetting your auto attacks becomes a quick and seamless combo. You have the late game burst to deal with carries, and the dueling capability / tank stats to mop up the ensuing fight. I got the idea from World's last year. DandyLion, the jungler for SSW, used a similar build (FF - GB - BORK). I'd also like to point out that Devourer has an overall higher combat effectiveness when compared to Feral Flare. Just to take a look, each attack would deal (100% AD + BORK passive + Devourer passive), and the second hit would apply BORK/Devourer twice with Sated. Compared to the full assassin build, this build has much more variation in which order you build items. Either you get your durability first or your damage stats first. You can build to suit your needs.

As for what boots, I generally always buy Mobility Boots for the ease of counter ganking. It's very important that you're where you need to be when it happens. I usually buy these immediately after the upgrade from Machete when getting stacks on Devourer is not important. On bruiser/tank Rengar, don't be afraid to buy another item. For example, Veigar and Annie are very dependent on their stun. Treads might be a better option.

Vicarious1171 votes

So the devourer build is less for blowing up a carry and more for just consistent damage to any target? And I thought Dandy built that BotRK cause he was hella fed that one game and flat out bought it from nothing as his like 4th item lol

The versitility does sound nice though, cause as AD assassin Rengar your kind of stuck in what builds are good. I just don't like having to stack devourer, is getting it sated really important like it would be for Yi or Xin, or is it just mainly good for the magic damage and ASpeed?

Finally, getting warrior's early when going tanky seems to help with snowballing better, or at least it always seems to make a bigger difference. Does going cinderhulk still provide you with the enough damage to still be a threat in the early levels, or do you want to avoid starting anything and focus more on countering and the such?

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