Thoughts on Rek'Sai

After playing Rek'Sai for a while here are my thoughts and feedback on her.

PROS

1. Tunnels are a fun and unique gameplay element. There isn't anything like surfing through your tunnels during a game to move from one end of your jungle to the other faster than anyone else in the game.

2. Having a short cd knock up is really nice. It allows Rek'Sai to get a lot of use out of her cc and is very forgiving making one failed unborrow not ruin you entire fight.

3. Tremor sense is amazing. You feel like daredevil. And the ability to sense invisible champions is amazing type of counter. This along with the tunnels are the best parts about her.

4. AP Rek'Sai is extremely fun and satisfying as you feel like a sniper with borrowed Q. Take a quick shot, then reposition with a tunnel, shoot again, rinse and repeat. Tremor sense gives you a cool radar like effect to find "hidden" enemies. It fulfills the sniper fantasy more than even Cait. By far the most fun way to play her I've had.

5. Consuming fury to heal is actually something I've really enjoyed. Much more than I thought I would. You can feel the heal, but at the same time you have to do a little work for it. It isn't just free.

CONS

1. Her ultimate. If it wasn't for the passive attack speed there would be really no reason to level it up past 1 point. It is a very low impact ultimate that is only really useful as a win more mechanic or to get back to your jungle quicker. Tunnels are very easy to get rid of and it is hard to impossible to have any tunnels in places you don't have zone control over. The added global shriek lessens the impact of the few times I or someone else has a tunnel in place to get off a good ult. Even if you lower the cooldown drastically and/or get rid of the global shriek I am not sure it would fix the whole tunnel problem with it.

2. Her borrowed Q, outside of AP builds, is very unsatisfying as it has little damage even at rank 5. The range is great, but its use as a scouting tool is limited since it fulfills pretty much the same purpose as Tremor Sense instead of complementing it.

3. Unborrowed E is similar to borrowed Q, in that it is very unsatisfying. It doesn't feel good to use unless you have max fury, but that takes a long time to get up especially in a teamfight where you are switching back and forth between unborrowed and borrowed. In addition several times in a teamfight it looks like my fury bar is full and I use E only to see it not do true damage and realize I actually had something like 97 fury. Rek'Sai needs a particle above her (maybe something only she can see) that indicates she has full fury.

4. Tunnels are too easy to counter because once you see it, it never leaves the mini map. If you don't have vision on the tunnel it shouldn't appear on the mini map. This would make it easier to keep tunnels in the enemy jungle and such since they wouldn't have a reminder of it every time they look at the mini map. It would probably help her ult a ton as well.

5. Rek'Sai doesn't deliver on the whole predator aspect. She has limited chasing power as her gap closer is a slow gap closer and no cc outside of a melee range knock-up. Unless Rek'Sai has tunnels up to use, she is easily kited and almost no sticking power. Predator also implies burst, but her biggest burst skill Unborrowed E has a long ramp up time meaning she is more of a duke it out duelist in a similar vain to Jax or Volibear with their ramp time.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Rek'Sai has some really fun and unique things about her, but a lot of problems that are being hidden because her numbers are overtuned. Once her overtuned numbers are tuned to be more inline with what they should be, I feel Rek'Sai's problems will come out in full force. While fun and delivering a unique experience she fails to deliver on the predator fantasy and instead either fulfills a Sniper fantasy (AP builds) or Duelest fantasy (Tank/AD builds).