Recent Rengar changes make the champion feel awkard to play

Hello fellow kitten adorers and Rengar players,

as you surely noticed, out beloved knife cat recieved some significant changes in the last few patches (most notably in 6.2 patch). I decided to make one thread concerning my issues with this sweet ball of fur instead of complaining in other threads.

Why am I bringing this up now?

I felt like giving Riot some time to monitor the changes they made and possibly adjust them in the future patches. This, sadly, didn't happen. The latest patch brought some handy bugfixes yet did nothing to improve his gameplay experience.

Who am I?

I'm currently a Diamond 3 jungle player, ex-master from season 5 who've been maining Rengar since his relase in season 2. I'm not a professional player and surely there are better jungle players than me, but I feel like I've played enough of Rengar to understand his playstyle and his kit.

What am I talking about?

There were many changes to Rengar since his relase, one of the highest impacts had the patch in season 4 that drastically changed how his ultimate functions. Since that moment, there wasn't that many Rengar players until season 5, where he once again experienced a huge popularity boom. Since that moment, it was pretty clear that Rengar will be nerfed sooner or later and I expected it. However, what they did more than ruined my (and surely many other's) gameplay experience when playing the knife cat.

The added delay to his mid-jump E makes his jumps super, super clunky while casting it and it just doesn't feel like a ferocious hunter jumping from a bush on top of you anymore, it feels like a crazed cat who got stuck in his own bola while attempting to throw it - then, you somehow appear next to the enemy champion trying to dish out your combo before they ran away.

I am willing to fully accept the other changes made to him in the recent patches (ult ! indicator range increased, Q powershift from the initial burst damage into more susitained damage), I understand that for the sake of our fellow ADC players it was necessary. I understand that he was probably a bit too strong after the items and master changes and needed adjustments in his power to compensate, but there was no need to make him feel weird to play (which seems like Riot's new favourite tactic of dealing with champions - and "reworks" as an example).

I understand the reason behind the E change, it is there to limit the instantaneous burst combo and give some counterplay to his kit, but the current change is more harmful to the Rengar player than helpful to his prey (as it delays his burst by 0,25 seconds at best while forcing the Rengar player to break his fingers trying to not mess up the combo).

My proposed solution?

Removing the mid-jump E delay (not the basic "ground" E one) to make the jump once again feel smooth and natural. Decreasing his base damage or ratios on his E to compensate for this change, going hard on the damage reduction if it's necessary, nerfing his other abilities's damage to limit his burst.

I am not sure if this thread is going to get noticed by Riot and I acknowledge that there was probably a lot of other ones in the past regarding the same issues. I just felt like expressing my feelings and trying to make my sweet hunter feel good to play again.

I also feel like I'm being a bit selfish for bringing this up now when there are a lot more pressing issues that came with the recent mid season mage update, but I believe that Rengo has waited long enough and deserves some QoL changes too.

Feel free to discuss my suggested solution or contribute with another one. Anyone who wants to help the kitty is welcome.