When doing the invariable balance pass, please consider supporting support rek'sai

Invariably there will be initial balance passes, quality of life adjustments, and tuning to any newly released champion. That is part of the process. When you are deciding what roles to solidify rek'sai into, please consider prioritizing jungle/support over a jungle/top combination.

I, as everyone, love trying out the new champions. I spent my first few matches playing rek'sai as the suggested jungle. I tried her vs bots. I tried her on dominion. (as an aside- she's really fun on that map.) My main impression was that this champion felt really, really snowbally. If you build damage, you can shred people but you'll be turned into sushi the moment a hard crowd control lands on you. I understand this approach totally and find it to be necessary from a game balance standpoint. It just also felt really unsatisfying from a gameplay standpoint. I'm supposed to be this hunter-stalkerish thing and If I don't kill them in my first leap from the shadows they blast me with their laser beams and I'm goo all over the wall. It's like being an alien shot by a space marine, it sucks. And as a jungler I'm pidgin-holed into building damage because if there is one thing that sinks teams the quickest it is a jungler that can't kill anyone.

Also a second problem with rek'sai is I have all these tools and I can't possibly juggle and use all of them. I have the ability to go set up tunnels all over the map but walking takes time, time as a jungler I need to spend generating gold. As a jungler, rek'sai runs out of attention span to make use of all her tools.

It was at this point I had a thought, if I played rek'sai as a support I can disavow myself of all expectation to provide damage and all expectation to spend my time generating gold. And in doing this, suddenly a much more crystalized play pattern emerged. I suddenly found all of my utility capable of being used at all times. Where in the jungle my tremor sense would only be truly used when an enemy champion happened to be nearby, in the bottom lane my tremor sense is being used every moment of the game because there are always champions nearby. It allows me to elucidate my adc on just where exactly in that bottom lane brush the enemy blitzcrank is pacing around. It allows me to not just have my own spider sense tingling when its 7:30 and the enemy jungler just did red a 2nd time but allows me to show my adc with BRIGHT WHITE FLASHING LIGHTS that udyr is about to make them into a scratching post. Suddenly, through the use of teamwork, that crippling vision loss while burrowed aint so bad because good-girl Caitlyn is here to share vision with me.

I have a ranged poke on q which isn't going to decimate the enemy but will cancel out their health regen. I have the ability to constantly be laying tunnels from brush to brush, from brush to river, and from brush to corki for a knockup. I have a small health regen that I can't heal my adc with but can keep me somewhat intact after a trade. My dash + crowd control functions similar to Leona and adc's seem to be familiar with it and able to key off of it.

Without being mandated to provide damage I can build health items to stay alive with. One of those health items is a . Because I can exert brush control with my w, q, and e, I don't need to ward the lane bushes or even necessarily river bush. I can start with a red trinket to deny the enemy brush vision all game long while making it my burrow. Once I have my sightstone, tunnels are a revelation for creating deep wards. Because I'm not focused on making money, I can focus on spending my time walking out to make a ward on all of the enemy jungle camps.

And the ult... for a jungler every ult had better darn make a kill or you've wasted so much of your power tied up in it. As a support I can use my ult to get back to lane and do so rather frequently. This security of returning to my adc liberates me to take risks such as going to ward knowing that my adc wont be in a 2 or 3v1 for very long. It liberates me to be the one to tank enough damage from the tower or enemy skillshots that I am the poor chump who gets forced out. I have the option to back, (or even die) and return to lane quickly.

Once you decouple the necessity of providing damage or being a viable solo laner/jungler from rek'sai you'll find out that she is full of protective motherly love for her adc. To this end I would like to suggest that when you do balance passes, please consider keeping intact or enhancing the utility that makes her a wonderful support instead of taking away or throwing gobs of stats on her to make her a dominant top laner or jungler. Believe me I understand how she could be a very toxic top laner on par with the pre-nerf AP trynd if she is given gobs of damage, sustain, and escapes to work with. So in terms of what tweaks can be done, if power is needed please consider keeping/enhancing her mobility in both the cooldowns of the tunnel and the dash speed it provides (the low windup and high dash speed contributes greatly to her combo success). If power in fact needs to be removed please consider moderation of damage/sustain to reign in any solo lane rampancy.

I think that this champion will find a home as a jungle/support champion (are there even any others in that role than nunu?). If/when teaks are made please consider further solidifying this combination of roles instead of a jungle/top combo.

Thanks