Quick Go-To Guide For Why Rengar Is Too Strong. Simple And Balanced Fix.

First off, I need to nail down some points here:

1. • There are very few champions that are basically unstoppable late game unless the player controlling the champion makes a mistake himself which 9 times out of 10, is due to cockiness. Even then, a few cocky mistakes won't interrupt their Tier 1 Shitstompiness unless it's done persistently, with intent, and in careless disregard.
2. • There is a difference between a gimmick and cheese. Cheese, when defined in the context of League of Legends, is a strategy so uncanny, unexpected, and frankly, ludicrously simple that it typically works via the element of surprise and can most often be compromised with a few easy pre-meditated and cautionary steps. IE: Midlane warding and camping at the enemy Jungler's Red Buff after they went to Blue, wolves, then wraiths to snag a kill on the half-HP Jungler. Now a gimmick, on the other hand and once again in the context of League of Legends, is a technical quirk that can easily be abused with little to no counter play. And counter play, in this right, is required to be something that can be native to anyone despite the champion they play. A countering champion is known as a counterpick. For this case, lets just use Azir vs Rengar as our case in point. And now back to my original point; *an example of a gimmick could be something like Draven's old passive or in this case, Rengar's passive. *

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Now I will go ahead and right out say that I just lost a game to a Rengar top which is why I'm making this post. Feel free to look up my history and criticize w/e you want about my build or even my champion pick. I'm no top laner by any stretch. I'm using the pre-season to practice because I desperately need to learn. That point aside, regardless of my varied expertise, its still easy to spot a broken mechanic. I'm sorry. That's a little cruel. We'll refer to the appropriate term: gimmick.

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Let us head to Top Lane.

Now what makes Rengar's Passive a gimmick>cheese and therefore not susceptible to counter play? Now typically, a passive like this wouldn't be so bad were it not the fact that his kit boosts his passive's capabilities practically 10-fold. To answer our own question, lets look at some potential candidates for counter play. We'll go straight for the most popular one: warding. Unfortunately, seeing him or not doesn't necessarily make a difference because his passive isn't so gimmicky because it has a surprise factor to it(which it doesn't). Its that its an impending factor regardless of this counter measure. So, warded bush or not, seeing him merely walk into that bush already applies that pressure. Let's try another. How about exhaust? Well, for the next few moments, he'll struggle to get back into his bush and will most likely suffer a few hits. But once he hits that bush, it's pretty much free game for Rengar. There are a few things he can do:

1. • He can hop away.
2. • He can stall ridiculously effectively.
3. • He can turn around, heal, and flail at you in a flurry of low CD abilities that apply all damage, sustainability, and CC.

Now why doesn't this classify as counter play? Well mainly because it's not something every player can do. It's not a native action someone can take. It relies on a specified pick of something. Exhaust isn't counter play to AD, AS, or MS the same way that Ignite isn't counter play to someone's shield. If it requires a decision made outside of the game, it isn't counter play. An excellent and my personal favorite example of counter play is building a Randuin's against an ADC who has a Runaan's Hurricane. Despite their lack of focus on you; if you're properly clumped with your team, they'll suffer the consequence of the slow anyway. However, the bigger reason why it's not counter play is because Rengar can immediately do what he was doing before and almost immediately come back from his deficit. In the mean time, you're waiting a good long while until that exhaust is up again.

Lets try one more. How about Banshee's veil? Surely counter play correct? Wrong. Not in the case versus Rengar's passive. It's actually 100% detrimental against a Rengar as it's a waste of space. Why? His leap procs Banshee's Veil even though the leap itself does no damage. It just allows him to leap and 'extends' his attack range. So, purchasing a Banshee's Veil against a hop-happy Rengar will do nothing.

So I'm sure at this point, someone might be asking, "Well, since it does no damage, what's the problem then?" It creates a persistent and unwavering pressure. As I said earlier, it's an impending action. The same principle can be found in Orianna's old ball from 2-3 years ago. Back then, her Q had ridiculously long range; basically from turret to just past middle-of-lane. This paired with an untouchable low mana cost surmounted to pretty much 100% zoning. So despite your plans in lane, you always knew that ball would follow you to zone you.

Despite ALL OF THIS, the biggest issue with his passive is that its a massive safety blanket. I was actually surprised to see that Rengar doesn't classify as a fighter first because as Riot defined Assassin's 2 years back, they're extremely powerful but easily punished. That's not the case with Rengar. He can easily jump away or even over you to farm safely and even if you manage to do damage to him and slow him down, and lets use me and my Darius from last game as an example, he has 2 very effective options:

1. • He can run away and use his no-cost heal.
2. • He can turn with one hell of a nasty bite with his low CD and no-cost abilities that also basically get an additional reward for spamming them.

So, with all that under the bridge, I have a fairly simple and VERY balanced solution. In English, give him exhaustion from bounding so many times within a time frame. In numbers, give him a 3x stacking debuff on his bound if he uses it 3 consecutive times within 10-15 seconds. So basically, one debuff stack if he uses the ability within 5 second windows of each other. The debuff will reduce his bounding range by 20% per stack for a maximum of 60% range reduction. I'd personally like the debuff to be called "Hamstring". That's just me though. :P

20% on paper seems astronomically high, however, you may change your mind when you learn that Rengar can, indeed, jump more than half the width of top(and therefore bot lane as well) from the Top/Bottom middle lane bush. There is one last tweak I'd like to make to prevent instant-debuff stacking in clustered team fights around bushes if this fix was implemented. For the good of all that is Phreak-like, take away Rengar's ability to hop within the same brush he's standing in. Brush to brush is fine. But bounding in the same brush is ridiculous. Doing this with this new fix would prevent immediate Hamstring Exhaustion if a team fight so happened to take place within a bush.

Overall, I think that if Rengar is truly going to be relayed as an Assassin, he needs to be treated like it as well. This change will force the player to make 2 types of decisions. The first decision being whether the player wants to use his bounds for safe farming which will hinder his ability to appropriately retaliate or go on the offensive with his leap. The second decision being when the player wants to commit to stalking and assassinating someone because using the Ult leap will already give him a stack of Hamstring. The player better be confident that he can kill his prey or have a contingency plan if he can't. This is the full-commitment decision as it won't give him an avenue to effortlessly chase someone through a jungle and it won't give him the guaranteed security of escape.

Thanks for the read.

TL;DR: Gameplay Change -Passive:

1. • While in brush or in stealth, Rengar gains bonus attack range and his attacks cause him to leap at the targets location at the cast. This bonus lasts for 0.5 second upon exiting brush or stealth. Unseen Predator will happen regardless of whether or not his target has sight of him.
2. • Rengar's leaps apply stress to his hamstrings for 5 seconds per leap causing him to lose 20/40/60 % of his leap range. Rengar can fully stress his hamstrings at 3 stacks. The effect will reset at any level of stress if he rests for 5 seconds before another leap.

-Fix: Rengar can no longer leap to a location in the same brush he's standing in.