Can Rek'Sai even be built damage anymore?
Whenever I see her she's just build ridiculously tanky and basically all she does is unburrow to set up a gank, it has been ages since I've seen a proper bruiser build for her.
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Riot has a fetish for destroying the scaling damage of melee champions. This results in folks with great base damage and no incentive to build more than one or two offensive items.
Rek'sai can still conceivably be built damage. AD ratios are there, and they're small because they're part of Rek'sai's pattern, passively contributing damage. It's not going to be as damaging as Yi, but 240% AD true damage isn't small.
Mid-game thing, tho Late game Rek'sai can't afford to be built glass cannon
I have a couple theories. a) Cinderhulk spikes later in the Game, Covering Rek'sais late game weakness. b) Because Junglers are becoming Sudo Supports. They don't really need damage to perform their role as a Jungler. or c) Tank stats are pretty ubiquitous among all champions who are not Glass cannons. (you don't need Warrior for Bruiser stats.)
Bruiser Rek'Sai is absolutely viable, especially for snowballing SoloQ games. It's also really scary top lane because her damage output with just a few items is ridiculous.
The reason most people build full tank is because that is usually what their team needs, and because the build works decently well on Rek'Sai, her mains would rather play her than a traditional tank such as Sejuani. That, and she has more early game pressure than late game classic tanks.
It's similar to why people build full tank Lee Sin; yes, building damage really helps him snowball, but the team he is being picked into needs a heavy tank, and Lee Sin mains would rather play him than somebody else.
If you were wondering, the reason the team usually needs a full tank jungler is because a lot of people love to go majority damage top laners like Riven and Hecarim, or people pick supports like Janna and Annie, meaning the jungler is stuck picking up the slack.
I would say that anywhere below Gold tier, Bruiser Rek'Sai is the better option unless you have faith in your lanes to supply the damage. She's better for carrying and snowballing that way.
Her unborrow radius is getting gutted aswell. She may not be good at ANYTHING! I hope Riot will understand that this will be the result and give back some of the AD scaling (not all of it, that was freaking OP!)
Also, Warrior enchantment is just in a really bad spot atm. Or... Cinderhulk just at a really great?
If rek'sai had damage, reliable CC, gap closer and a global ult I believe she would be waaaaaaaaaaaaay overpowered. Hence why she was broken as fuck when she was released. I'd say she's balanced now.
umm all she needs is ravenous hydra to make her q do double damage, she does true damage which is good
They hacked off a third of the AD scaling on Queen's Wrath, so...no, not really. Tank's all she's got anymore. If you want a bruiser, you pick a different champion. She shouldn't even be tagged as a fighter.
If Rek'Sai is going to be a balanced damage dealer she needs to make the most out of her unburrowed E. It takes a massive misplay or Flash to get to an opponent without burrowed E, so you can't rely on that. Instead, you need to build 100 Rage while in the middle of the enemy team as a melee champion whose gap closer isn't even that fast. Building high damage just isn't going to work most of the time, since she lacks any massive survivability options that most melee champions who go squishy have.
You can still go damage and do well, but it depends more on your opponents not being able to deal with a basic attack dependent melee champion with a slow means of initiation than any skill you have. It's just better to go tank and use your more reliable utility.
AP Runeglaive reksai for dayz. drop those cross screen AOE Qs like it's nuthin.
6th item is your choice (I usually go 
or 
)
Bruiser Rek'sai right there
Rek sai can still build AD but given the fact that cinderhulk is much stronger everyone is getting it. I even see Yi jungle build cinderhulk and can still do more damage than warrior Yi because he's slightly tankier with cinderhulk. Vi with cinderhulk is better than warrior as well. Plus the new cleaver give a lot of health so you can always build that after cinderhulk.
I see my friend easily slip in a 
or 
and do some insane damage on tank Rek Sai.
I've done nothing but play full AD Rek'Sai for the past few days and honestly it destroys most top laners.
Rek'Sai has huge base armor. It's absolutely stupid.
Fun as hell to play. A lot of map presence too. Makes for great dragon control, having a burrow in the top lane to defend, and then being able to use your teleport to go elsewhere on the map.
I'm hoping they don't gut her scaling.
You want your jungler to get assists not kills. When your jungler leads in kills, your team loses 90% of the time. Even full tank build, Rek still does pretty good damage.
Rek'Sai has virtually unlimited get out of jail free cards and can roam across the map faster than any champion.
Let's complain about her damage.
Riot doesn't like melees who aren't 
being able to carry. Therefore every Melee must either be a tank, or a bruiser that ends up being forced to build pure tank because otherwise they would get melted before they can even get in range.
I agree, she feels a little like gnar in the sense where you build 1 damage item then full tank
Her scalings are still decent, even after all those nerfs (which only shows how ridiculous they were before the nerfs). Imagine if you had a full AD Darius or Garen. She's now similar to them - huge damage potential, but most of the time will die before being able to deal it. For soloQ I recommend going standard tanky fighter build (with one or two offensive items), rather than full damage.
She did a complete 180, When she was released you would see some full damage builds or solid brusier builds with like hydra/trinity full tank. Now its full tank with a black cleaver.
http://i.imgur.com/vi37jUT.png
http://matchhistory.euw.leagueoflegends.com/en/#match-details/EUW1/2174219047/34191449?tab=overview
Went bot lane with Rek'Sai as the ADCarry with Riven as the support. Was absolutely hilarious; Rek'Sai can dish out quite a bit of damage when built AD, especially since she gets attack speed from her ult passive. With enough damage and attack speed, you can kill people like an assassin -- before they touch the ground -- and push turrets like nobody's business.
It works sometimes, but there's probably far better stuff out there. The question isn't whether Rek'Sai can be built damage, it's a matter of whether it's better than building something else or whether she pulls it off better than someone else, such as -- as an example -- Rengar.