Rek' sai needs to be reverted to her previous state

HeroicSuitcase·Oct 10, 2018·31 votes·12,816 views

I saw that Rek' sai was mentioned in one of the previous gemaplay updates and I wanted to express my thoughts on the champion currently. Rek' sai has been pretty underwhelming for almost the entire season, and I feel that she needs to be reverted so that she is played as a full tank. Currently she is the worst champion in the game after 15 minutes. A former LCS analyst agrees with me on that point. She has the same pitfalls as Rengar before his initial rework, being that she is a squishy champion that has to dive into a team and will either trade a kill or simply die. Rek' sai is even worse than old Rengar because she cant simply instakill a squishy target, due to the fact that she has to first knock the squishy up, Q-AA-AA in order to get full rage and then E for the true damage. Most of the time this isn't even enough to kill a squishy, whereas old Rengar could simply triple Q and instakill.

Furthermore, Rek' sai's ultimate is one of the worst abilities in the game. This is due to the fact that it is so telegraphed; everyone can see the animation begin, and the animation is quite long. Additionally, her ultimate can be dodged by every single champion in the game because essentially everyone takes flash. Champions with a dash such as Lucian or Graves can also avoid her ultimate simply by dashing away. Her ultimate does a good amount of damage, but it's simply not enough to make up for how bad the rest of it is. Also, if a champion survives your ultimate, it is very difficult to continue chasing them down with autos because of the animation of the leap. This is one of my biggest problems with this champion. She feels clunky to play in that regard.

Rek' sai is also very immune to CC, which isn't a problem only she faces, but when built damage oriented, she gets blown up before she can do anything.

Another glaring problem with Rek' sai is her W. Her W is very bad currently, much worse than it was before her rework. The knock-up only affecting one target is pretty bad, considering most champions can simply just kite away from her. Another obvious problem with her W is that it does not prioritize champions. This leads to situations where an enemy can simply run into a minion wave to avoid being knocked-up, which makes Rek' sai's ganks useless. This would be solved by reverting her so that the W can knock-up multiple champions, with the knock-up duration dependent on how close Rek' sai is to the enemy champion.

Additionally, her passive healing is pretty much negligible; when clearing with her you still get relatively low.

Reverting her to her previous form would fix all of these issues. When built as tank, she could dive into a fight and knock up multiple champions. She still has no escape, but she is meant to soak up damage so this is not an issue. As tank, she can also face-check without dying instantly. If reverted, she could also get multiple knock-ups off in a single team-fight, due to the fact that she would be tankier and her per-target knock-up CD would be lower. As a said before, current Rek' sai is completely useless in team-fights because enemy champions can simply walk away from her to avoid the knock-up. Tarzaned recently released a tier list video and he placed her in the lowest or next to lowest tier. Valkrin also expressed that Rek' sai is an awful champion. I haven't exactly kept up on pro play this season, but I don't think she has been picked at all, and typically only good champions are picked in pro play. It would make sense for her to receive the Rengar/ Leblanc treatment.

TL:DR Rek' sai is a bruiser with assassin scaling. Her passive, W, and ultimate are very bad abilities with glaring problems that have yet to be addressed. Even after her recent buffs in patch 8.14, she is still one of the worst junglers in the game at all levels of play. Rek' sai needs to recieve the Rengar/ Leblanc treatment.

39 Comments

Power CosmicOct 10, 20185 votes

Figuring her best role as a playmaker that only sometime can build AD, her ult is a bad fit.

XavanicOct 10, 20181 votes

[{quoted}](name=Power Cosmic,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=oA0U2fU7,comment-id=0001,timestamp=2018-10-10T21:52:57.266+0000)

Figuring her best role as a playmaker that only sometime can build AD, her ult is a bad fit.

Rek sai's ult is kinda meh, but it can be a good gap closer

Power CosmicOct 10, 20183 votes

{quoted}

Rek sai's ult is kinda meh, but it can be a good gap closer

I get what you are saying, but in practice the Q will be on cd.... The R is just to do some unspectacular burst 90% of the time. Not often is there a great unburrowed dive play after hitting a burrowed Q. So with that, and figuring the other gap closers in the game, it is not good.

TerozuOct 11, 20182 votes

50% of their hp is not unspectacular.

General TherittOct 11, 20182 votes

The total damage is 100/250/400 base damage and a 200% AD ratio, plus a bonus 20%/25%/30% bonus damage scaling off of missing HP. 50% total might be manageable, but note the ability has a 1.5 second cast time. If you've ever been CC'd before, 1.5 seconds is a long as time in League Time, and since most characters have at least 1 form of mobility, + flash, you're almost guaranteed to dodge this ability considering her screech is heard MAP-WIDE by all players. If you hear it, its easy peasy to just move into safety and punish her from her moment. 50% of their HP would be a godsend for this ability, hell, 100% would, considering it will almost never hit its intended target. Its a point and click delayed ability. DELAYED. You can't have delays in a point and click or else in almost all cases you will miss a target because its still a "skillshot" when she exits.

TerozuOct 11, 20181 votes

If you are attacking a squishy and building AD 400+ 200% of you AD is Alone almost half their HP.

General TherittOct 13, 20181 votes

Quick reminder that you're building a bruiser to 400AD so you'll be sacrificing a lot of durability. The ability simply has too long a timer to be warranted as a good ult. If it was instant with 0 delay, skillshot or not, and only had a 100% scaling, that would be perfect since it would act as a strong finisher that could easily compete with the likes of Warwick in damage gapclosers or Akali's finishers. Rek'sai simply can't afford to build super damage oriented builds because she gets blown up in seconds, and if she builds tank, her stats simply don't match up to any other midgame tank that she wants to compete against.

And to quickly remind you, its 1.5 second cast time, even building 400 AD chances are you'll still miss or whiff anyways because mobility in the current metagame outside of toplane tanks is insane.

TerozuOct 13, 20182 votes

It has a 30 second cooldown late game with no cdr.

During that 1.5 second cast time you are untargetable giving it a defensive use.

Rek'Sai is a diver.

She's basically an assassin who builds some slight durability and she works as such.

And here's an idea, don't play the slow moving diver into a mobile team that hard counters her?

She's countered by mobility, she shits low mobility characters, like Teemo, or Heimer, or Annie or almost any marksman.

Being able to hop in from super far away and pretty much insta kill a squishy then tunnel out is really fucking strong.

Rek'Sai isn't weak, people just don't know how to play her. They're expecting tankiness when that's not what she is.

General TherittOct 15, 20181 votes

You're missing the entire point: its a finisher that can hardly work with its own delay. You can't just say "only pick her into low mobility champions" because even then they can outpace her ult, its not hard to dodge at all. You wanna know who is ALSO a diver, retains healing, sustain, solid tracking, a long range gapcloser that instead is almost instant and on nearly a 30 second lategame cooldown? Warwick If you've never seen the history of rek'sai, she is a direct offtank. Divers are usually in most cases direct offtanks or assassins with more durability than usually. Rek'sai falls under the tankiness scale, and the ult change they preformed on her was because people were annoyed with a pseudo-tank suddenly arriving onto the battlefield causing utter chaos. Her abilities don't match her with an assassin damage timer either. Her Q takes three AAs, and rek'sai isn't exactly known for demolishing people with AAs instantly, so its mainly for her jungle clear. Her burrow can only work on one target since Riot so heavily neutered the character when it could work in a teamfight where the threat of an unburrow was terrifying. Building her pseudo-assassin just doesn't supplement her kit. You're likely to get a few kills purely off your burst rotation of firing off a in burrow, diving under towards them, dig up to get knockup damage, then Q and E to push max damage if possible, but that just makes 0 sense kitwise. In this time, likely an entire Kled or Camille would've gotten their entire rotation off, and neither of their ults have a delay and provide valuable assets to an entire team.

Rek'sai's ult was moved from a map-presence devastating teamfighting ult that could potential tide-turn a battle with the arrival of a pseudo-diving tank, but now its just "me go untargetable, then me do damage". Those don't make for good ults, we all know delayed ults in the game require heavy setup and usually want to hit multiple targets or get an amazing catch. Rek'sai might get one or two kills across the entire game, and then never provide her team with the utility they need that other junglers can far more easily provide.

She's inclined to be earlygame, but her passive is too weak to sustain that counterjungle she is designed for when monsters like LeeSin exist, and apparently she's not meant to be durable, so counterjungling is then almost pointless on her. then midgame should be her spot, but her itemization doesn't have the damage necessary to get that full burst she really wants, and lord knows everyone will be smart and keep and/or pick mobility or still have a flash or some way to avoid getting ulted, and reminder, once she locks her ult target, shes stuck flying at them. If they move to the side still, she can STILL miss.

You clearly didn't really watch many of the pros use OG or pre-ultchange Rek'sai, because her playstyle was a counter-jungling monster of a mobility threat with good tank-item synergy to make her a mobile bruiser that would sustain through fights and skirmishes in the jungle, not act as a half-burst idiot. She's currently in one of the worst spots of all champions in the game, only boasting 50%+ winrates almost purely by her mains.

Power CosmicOct 11, 20182 votes

{quoted}

50% of their hp is not unspectacular.

In effect it is, bc he is a weak champ atm

TerozuOct 11, 20182 votes

She.

And the only reason she's weak is her shitty passive.

Power CosmicOct 11, 20182 votes

{quoted}

She.

And the only reason she's weak is her shitty passive.

I am a fan of Rek'Sai and want her to be good, and her ult doesn't serve the champ she is well. But you are entitled to whatever opinion you have.

MorganFreemanBotOct 11, 20185 votes

Put simply: No.

Put longer: Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo.

http://na.op.gg/champion/reksai/statistics/jungle

Outside of the pro scene, Rek'sai is a surprisingly strong pick. Over all she has the 6th highest jungler win rate in the game, sporting the 3rd and 5th best winrates from 15-25 and 25-30 minutes respectively.

She's also in the top 20 winrate champions (not junglers, -champions-) for diamond within the last month. Challenger as well, but there are so few games in Masters and Challenger that those stats are kind of neglible.

Rek'sai is not bad. She is not weak. She is not subpar, lacking, or deficient. She is well balanced.

Rek'sai's niche is instituting a reign of terror for the first 20 minutes of the game and setting her team far ahead. She is one of the best junglers in the game at this. Her E gives her tricky and murderous gank routes, her W gives her strong gank engage, and her damage makes him very tough to survive. She's more than capable of slaughtering enemy junglers and taking over their jungle.

With that said, Rek'sai falls off like a rock. As has been stated, she lacks the tankiness to be a main-line tank in the mid game. So once laning phase is over she has depend on her lead, & laners she set ahead, to carry the day.

Even then she's still dangerous. When it comes to picking up out of position enemies, tremor senses make Rek'sai second to none. She's also great at protecting her carries, and in a pinch you can engage with E > W > immediately ulti to go untargetable and (hopefully) live.

Buffing Rek'sai will absolutely put her over the top and make her too strong, which will warrant heavy nerfs and see her weaker than she currently is. Reverting her W would be one of those buffs; giving her freaking Malphite R on a 4 second cooldown, with a mere 10 second lockout, is not the correct way to balance her.

If Rek'sai needs ANY changes, it's to her passive (the healing could be safely doubled to 4% and she'd be fine) or her tremor senses.

Atm tremor sense is bugged so that there's a 1.5 second delay between someone -entering- its detection range and them showing up, which is frustrating. More-over though it renders her entirely blind to close-by enemies, and it's hilariously easy to juke her if you're nearby but not within her miniscule vision range while burrowed. Giving her a couple of 'rings' for her derection, say 1.5 update on the outer, 1.0 on the middle, and 0.5 on the inner, would go a long way towards helping her fulfill the 'apex predator landshark' fantasy without actually giving her much more strength.

HeroicSuitcaseOct 11, 20182 votes

While it's undeniable that Rek' sai has a pretty high win rate, that statistic is skewed for a few reasons. One of them is that almost every champion in diamond has a higher win rate than they actually have. In the last month, over 113 out of 141 champions have a win rate of 50 or higher, which statistically doesn't make sense, especially because the lower win rate champs usually have very low play rates. Also, Rek' sai has a play rate around 1-2%, meaning that only the OTP's play her, and they of course have way more knowledge on the champions and her match ups than everyone else. I actually am a diamond player and I haven't seen Rek' sai in one of my games in probably 80 games. I would estimate that her actual win rate is somewhere between 50-51%, but of course I could be wrong.

I would also argue that she only has a decent win rate currently and for the past few months due to how short the games are. As you stated she is a pretty decent champ up til 20 minutes, but the average game length from diamond to challenger is ~26 minutes. This leaves her very little room to actually fall off. Rek' sai isn't the only champ that can end games fairly early too. Of course I cant know this for sure, but I'll bet that after the preseason changes when the games are hopefully made to last longer, her win rate will drop off to some extent. Reverting her would make her less of an early game menace and transfer her power to later in the game, which I can only assume would make her better in season 9 (tentatively).

Rek' sai's tremor sense isn't actually a very good tool for picking off enemies. While you can see the blips that indicate that a champion is there, you don't actually have vision of the area where the blips are, making tunneling in extremely dangerous as the whole enemy team could be waiting there. On old Rek' sai, because you built tank mainly, it would be more ok to tunnel in in a situation like I described above because you wouldn't die instantly like you do now.

Whenever I do play Rek' sai, the experience is pretty annoying. She feels very clunky, especially while using her ult, which I already expressed is a terrible ability. The damage is fine, but typically an assassin type champion wants to kill squishies as fast as possible. An ult with a 1.5 sec cast time and probably another 1.5 sec animation time isn't exactly good for killing champions quickly.

Another thing to remember about win rate is that it is not an end all be all. Garen has a higher win rate than Rek' sai, and he's one of the worst champs in the game. LS has expressed the danger of relying solely on win rate as indication of a champion's state in the game.

CIaymanOct 15, 20181 votes

{quoted}

http://na.op.gg/champion/reksai/statistics/jungle

Outside of the pro scene, Rek'sai is a surprisingly strong pick. Over all she has the 6th highest jungler win rate in the game

Gonna ignore the 31st highest pick rate out of 38 champions?

MorganFreemanBotOct 15, 20182 votes

{quoted}

Gonna ignore the 31st highest pick rate out of 38 champions?

Which is fine.

Rek'sai is a champion which pretty much defines the "better jungler wins" ideaology. She's a solid pick even into her hard counters, capable of managing them far better than most champions can deal with their respectice counters.

She heavily rewards players who practice her, but isn't new-user friendly. Her kit isn't flashy or twitchy in its reaction. Her primarily forms of unique gameplay, tunnels & tremor sense, reward planning and awareness (macro play) rather than flashy execution and twitch plays (micro play).

SweedishGunnerOct 11, 20183 votes

She needs a passive buff or update.

BLIGHTBRINGEROct 11, 20183 votes

I agree with all points made in this post after playing a few games of Rek'Sai for a while.

I like that she's somewhat of a damage dealer since that's what idea I got from her trailer teaser, the first time I saw it.

But I would be willing to sacrifice any needed damage if it meant I wouldn't get one shot by everything. And could actually survive to have a difference in teamfights.

Something that crossed my mind is... What if her current R could only be triggered when she has full Fury, and when she doesn't have any Fury, she can use her previous iteration of her ultimate ability?

But this alone wouldn't solve an issue that she has, she needs a gameplay update. The most important change has to be, her Passive and how it interacts with the rest of her abilities since only her E benefits from Fury.

Warlord RhinarkOct 11, 20182 votes

[{quoted}](name=Darkin Hybrid,realm=EUW,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=oA0U2fU7,comment-id=0004,timestamp=2018-10-11T08:13:32.804+0000)

I agree with all points made in this post after playing a few games of Rek'Sai for a while.

I like that she's somewhat of a damage dealer since that's what idea I got from her trailer teaser, the first time I saw it.

But I would be willing to sacrifice any needed damage if it meant I wouldn't get one shot by everything. And could actually survive to have a difference in teamfights.

Something that crossed my mind is... What if her current R could only be triggered when she has full Fury, and when she doesn't have any Fury, she can use her previous iteration of her ultimate ability?

But this alone wouldn't solve an issue that she has, she needs a gameplay update. The most important change has to be, her Passive and how it interacts with the rest of her abilities since only her E benefits from Fury.

I love the idea of having the old ult at 0 Fury and the new one at 100 Fury.

Maybe even make it so using the old ult gives you 100 Fury upon arrival?

BLIGHTBRINGEROct 11, 20182 votes

Maybe even make it so using the old ult gives you 100 Fury upon arrival?

That seems a little strong, but it's not for me to decide what is or what isn't lol.

Warlord RhinarkOct 11, 20181 votes

[{quoted}](name=Darkin Hybrid,realm=EUW,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=oA0U2fU7,comment-id=000400000000,timestamp=2018-10-11T13:45:07.196+0000)

That seems a little strong, but it's not for me to decide what is or what isn't lol.

The 100 Fury is only going to be useful if someone is near the location you're ulting to, which is their own fault since they didn't take time to destroy the tunnels.

SangreDeNocheNov 9, 20182 votes

[{quoted}](name=Warlord Rhinark,realm=EUW,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=oA0U2fU7,comment-id=0004000000000000,timestamp=2018-10-11T13:50:30.150+0000)

The 100 Fury is only going to be useful if someone is near the location you're ulting to, which is their own fault since they didn't take time to destroy the tunnels.

And you'd still need to land your skillshot after announcing your presence tbf.

HeazonZOct 11, 20181 votes

Switching between both iterations based on whether you select an enemy as your target or a tunnel entrance, regardless of fury, would be best. If they decided to truly put effort into her, she could be one of the coolest champions ever. Her thematic is really appealing. Sadly, they have a tendency to leave unpopular champions in the dark for years, while coddling the handful that are played in 90% of games.

The Bad TouchOct 10, 20182 votes

Paragraphs are hard.

NaturesMayhemOct 11, 20182 votes

She needs her ult to be reverted and receive some compensation buffs to her fury healing for jungle clear and Q for better damage scaling into the late. I loved Rek'sai's old ultimate. Even though it felt like a glorified teleport, it gave her a lot of power over the map and allowed for split-pushing and grabbing objectives at times that most champions can't.

Revert SkarnerOct 11, 20182 votes

I support this thread overwhelmingly, shes what I used to climb to gold V this year and it was pretty unsatisfying.

kargishOct 11, 20182 votes

Why not give her some sort of Skarner treatment?

Put some undestructable tunnels around the map and allow her to use her old ult to those tunnels of her choice.

5050BSOct 12, 20182 votes

She just needs her AOE knockup back and her passive healing boosted again.

Tahminatrix Oct 10, 20181 votes

I just want the true damage to be taken off of her E and instead do more physical ….or even amplify damage (its an open wound from her biting as hard as she can after all) done to the victim because rek is one of the best junglers when it comes to stacking black cleaver on the enemy team already, true damage on her e is power that she doesn't make full use of (mostly being used to execute enemies rather than praying your R hits.)

And for the love of god change her R....her attack speed passive and fast travel active (somehow) felt a lot more interactive than just pressing R to dodge something and hoping the enemy you used R on isn't smart enough to put you in a stupid spot or dodge it...or both..

RekSaiiOct 10, 20182 votes

[{quoted}](name=Super Cow Swag,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=oA0U2fU7,comment-id=0002,timestamp=2018-10-10T23:07:07.273+0000)

I just want the true damage to be taken off of her E and instead do more physical ….or even amplify damage (its an open wound from her biting as hard as she can after all) done to the victim because rek is one of the best junglers when it comes to stacking black cleaver on the enemy team already, true damage on her e is power that she doesn't make full use of (mostly being used to execute enemies rather than praying your R hits.)

And for the love of god change her R....her attack speed passive and fast travel active (somehow) felt a lot more interactive than just pressing R to dodge something and hoping the enemy you used R on isn't smart enough to put you in a stupid spot or dodge it...or both..

Having full fury DOUBLES the damage and converts it all to true damage. However yes i do wish her ult wasnt just some dumb execute..i miss old rek

Tahminatrix Oct 11, 20181 votes

That's why im saying , take power away from it (no true damage, she doesn't utilize true damage that much anyway) and either change the effect of having max fury or migrate that power into her R.

RekSaiiOct 13, 20181 votes

[{quoted}](name=Super Cow Swag,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=oA0U2fU7,comment-id=000200000000,timestamp=2018-10-11T23:04:02.947+0000)

That's why im saying , take power away from it (no true damage, she doesn't utilize true damage that much anyway) and either change the effect of having max fury or migrate that power into her R.

That would simply ruin rek'sai. And the game, we don't need more damage in the game and neither does rek.

Tahminatrix Oct 13, 20181 votes

I never said more damage?

I said take away the true dmg and change the form of that power, if it be a cc or debuff, or just make her ult more reliable, its all in the powder budget.

If youre gonna assume power means damage then that just goes to show how bad the state of the game is and how it reflects on the playerbase.

JohnnyNeverSinsOct 11, 20181 votes

I deal about 300-400 damage with AA,Q,Q,Q E What are you talking about? She is a beast early game...

HeazonZOct 11, 20181 votes

{quoted}

I deal about 300-400 damage with AA,Q,Q,Q E What are you talking about? She is a beast early game...

You’re right, her early game feels good. But mid to late she becomes irrelevant unless she gets ahead early, which you can’t rely on. And even then, when you do get ahead, you still feel weak compared to other champions. By design, she is easy to play against. Almost every aspect of her kit can be countered by a player who knows what they’re doing. And there’s not much she can do about it.

HeazonZOct 11, 20181 votes

I can’t agree with this more. Her design is so messy atm. She has to build AD because all of her damage is in her scaling, but has to build tanky to dive and not get blown up immediately. She makes a poor assassin, tank, and fighter. Her unique strengths (old R map presence and tremor sense awareness) got completely gutted. There’s no reason to pick her over any other jungler.

BârdOct 12, 20181 votes

Passive

Not as weak as many people make it out to be, but it's not very strong in her primary role. It's like Morgana's W in that respect. If you play her in lanes, you can get two heals off per wave and that adds up pretty damn quick.

Reverting it to the old form would (ballpark numbers) double its healing, but also make it take nearly twice as long to both generate the fury and to consume it.

This change would be a small nerf, since even though the heal change would be about power neutral, this would be an indirect nerf to her E by making it so you can't get the true damage bite as easily.

For that reason, I'm not in favor of reverting it.

Something needs to be done with this spell to make it scale with levels aside from its raw damage.

Candidates include

CD
Per target CD
CC duration
Movement Speed bonus
Tremor Sense refresh rate.

The AOE knock up needed to go, but the spell does need some small buffs.

The core concept is actually really solid, it just needs a few changes.

The damage portion of Void Rush will follow them even through blinks/dashes.
Void Rush refreshes the CD of Burrow and Tunnel, as well as the per-target CD of Unburrow on the pounce target.

The spell opens up a lot of outplay potential with the untargetability and I find it hella fun.

Meanwhile, the old ult was lame as hell. If the ultimate ability of your apex predator is nicknamed the "Farm Alarm", there's a problem.

The only part of the old ult I'd like to see reincorporated is the passive attack speed, which I personally think should be added to her Q when it's active.

CIaymanOct 15, 20181 votes

As always, her ult being too good in pro play was what made them delete it

TontunatorNov 9, 20181 votes

She is very strong. I dont see her falling too much in late game as many people says here. However its true that she needs some fixes in it tremor sense and in the passive, what is pretty shit.

Also I will put that the tunnel travel longer than now, to differentiate it of other gap closers. Think that the tunnel is what define Rek'Sai, and at this moment it is a bad version of a gap closer. Also I will augment the duration of the mark, so you can surprise enemies, or force more situations, more easily.