The Problem With Renekton: He's essentially unbalancable

Hyrum Graff·May 2, 2014·1 votes·763 views

Let's look at what Renek has in his kit:

Point-and-click stun
Mobility
Harass/waveclear
Sustain
All-in
All these things forever, as a resourceless champ.

So, Rito: I agree with you that Renek's power level is around right, and that buffing other top laners is a more appropriate solution than simply lowering the renekton bar. However, because he has everything in his kit, he's always going to be a nightmare to balance: either he'll always be able to do everything well, or he'll be so weak as to do nothing well. Right now he's in a decent spot because of how hard he falls off late, and maybe that's ok. but if it's not, he needs a look.

TL:DR In addition to the other top laner buffs, unless we're ok with how hard Renek falls off, he needs a look at, not to nerf, but to redistribute power in his kit so he has clearly defined strengths and weaknesses.

15 Comments

RockmanMay 2, 20142 votes

[deleted]

Hyrum GraffMay 2, 20141 votes

That's a really good point that I hadn't thought about before!

ILoveTiramisuMay 2, 20141 votes

Dude, you think Renekton is unbalanced. Also Champion like Pantheon, Jax, Rumble, Ryze and Trundle are very strong pick. Actually the most strong toplaner seems Ryze.

At the moment, the game is very unbalanced.

Hyrum GraffMay 2, 20141 votes

The difference, IMO, is unbalanced vs. unbalanceable.

I didn't know they were also making changes to him on the PBE; they sound reasonable, because it cuts his sustain and makes trading with him possible. We'll see. I think his power budget was actually reasonable on live, because he scaled so poorly, so maybe after this we'll see him get a couple small buffs in other areas.

Sir ArmaMalumMay 2, 20141 votes

The current PBE changes are actually not bad. As a Renekton main, they're a bit jarring but understandable.

per level healing % on Q, rank 5 being current live %
Armor pen on rage E switched to a small slow
The already implemented bonus health redistribution on his ult

We'll see how it works out but there are some nice changes coming.

Water of EdenMay 2, 20141 votes

There's champions that beat him fairly hard in lane, like Jayce and Ryze. Renekton also falls off late game and turns more into a tank than an all-in bruiser like Riven.

Hyrum GraffMay 2, 20141 votes

I honestly don't understand what jayce's weaknesses are, either. He's got hella poke and a good all-in/disengage if he can't win.

Water of EdenMay 2, 20141 votes

He's fairly mana heavy and has no actual sustain early.

Hyrum GraffMay 2, 20141 votes

Take teleport, now neither of these are a problem. (Why my topnivia works)

CarbonWyreMay 3, 20141 votes

Let's look at what Renek has in his kit:

Point-and-click stun

Mobility

Harass/waveclear

Sustain

All-in

All these things forever, as a resourceless champ.

You just described Irelia.

Hyrum GraffMay 3, 20141 votes

Irelia's stun is more limited in its use, and she's mama gated. And her sustain is tied to her ult.

And despite this, she's still so hard to balance that there's a meme about her.

TL:DR better nerf Irelia

WhyuMay 3, 20141 votes

"Point and Click" stun does not mean the same as "Click and Melee Attack" stun.

An example of a "point and click" fear would be Fiddlesticks. You point your cursor at the target (the "point" part) and you smart cast his Q (the "click" part) and the target is feared. Renekton DOES NOT have a Point and Click stun. He has to melee attack his target to stun. That requires certain conditions to be true and therefore allows for some counter play. Certainly more than a "Point and Click" stun would allow. Veigar's stun is point and click. Renekton's stun is not.

Sustain is a pretty common mechanic in LoL. Dozens of champions have some form of sustain in their kit. His sustain is fairly weak unless he uses it with fury. Even then he really wants to use it on champions for the extra % healed (it's 40% of damage dealt when used with fury against champions compared to only 5% of damage dealt when used without fury against minions). I'm not saying his sustain is poor, I'm just saying it's normally increased with a doran's blade (which provides decent health returns on it's own).

His stun is short duration -> 0.75 seconds, unless you use it with fury in which case you'll lose a lot of damage and it's only 1.5 seconds worth of stun then. It's not that long a stun either way.

He has no "real" range on his abilities making him basically melee based.

He does have a gap closer though, let's talk about that. His gap close ability is fairly short ranged (450) and can be used twice if it hits something. That's a decent 900 range if you can get something between you and your target. Worst case scenario it's only 450 which is well below average. Best case scenario it's 900 and well above average. Either way with champions coming out with multiple gap closers (Vi, J4, Lee Sin, etc) now ... Renekton isn't look that special. Also if he's using it twice just to cover ground he's losing out on damage. Plus it's got a decently long cooldown on it.

I think part of the reason why Renekton is doing well is that Doran's Shield got nerfed. This moved the advantage to Top Laners who do well with Doran's Blade (the other common strong pick for early sustain in top). In my opinion, I feel Renekton is one of those Top Laners who does well with Doran's Blade. Furthermore Doran's Shield was a really strong pick against Renekton players (before it was nerfed) but with it's reduced effectiveness now (after being nerfed) it feels more like a trap. It's the only Doran's item that's gold inefficient (based on it's stats alone - ie: not including it's passive).

Hyrum GraffMay 3, 20141 votes

"Point and Click" stun does not mean the same as "Click and Melee Attack" stun.

An example of a "point and click" fear would be Fiddlesticks. You point your cursor at the target (the "point" part) and you smart cast his Q (the "click" part) and the target is feared. Renekton DOES NOT have a Point and Click stun. He has to melee attack his target to stun. That requires certain conditions to be true and therefore allows for some counter play. Certainly more than a "Point and Click" stun would allow. Veigar's stun is point and click. Renekton's stun is not.

ok, fair enough. I meant, a non-skillshot stun. Although veigar's stun is aoe, not point-and-click (that would be taric). But your point stands nonetheless.

Sustain is a pretty common mechanic in LoL. Dozens of champions have some form of sustain in their kit. His sustain is fairly weak unless he uses it with fury. Even then he really wants to use it on champions for the extra % healed (it's 40% of damage dealt when used with fury against champions compared to only 5% of damage dealt when used without fury against minions). I'm not saying his sustain is poor, I'm just saying it's normally increased with a doran's blade (which provides decent health returns on it's own).

His stun is short duration -> 0.75 seconds, unless you use it with fury in which case you'll lose a lot of damage and it's only 1.5 seconds worth of stun then. It's not that long a stun either way.

He has no "real" range on his abilities making him basically melee based.

He does have a gap closer though, let's talk about that. His gap close ability is fairly short ranged (450) and can be used twice if it hits something. That's a decent 900 range if you can get something between you and your target. Worst case scenario it's only 450 which is well below average. Best case scenario it's 900 and well above average. Either way with champions coming out with multiple gap closers (Vi, J4, Lee Sin, etc) now ... Renekton isn't look that special. Also if he's using it twice just to cover ground he's losing out on damage. Plus it's got a decently long cooldown on it.

I guess that puts him as a "jack of all trades, master of none". But he does everything well. Yes, there are conditions on it. Yes, no single ability of his is OP. But he has a lot of stuff in his kit, which makes him very difficult to balance, because if he gets ahead, he goes from being able to do everything to being able to do everything well, which is not a healthy place to be at.

I think part of the reason why Renekton is doing well is that Doran's Shield got nerfed. This moved the advantage to Top Laners who do well with Doran's Blade (the other common strong pick for early sustain in top). In my opinion, I feel Renekton is one of those Top Laners who does well with Doran's Blade. Furthermore Doran's Shield was a really strong pick against Renekton players (before it was nerfed) but with it's reduced effectiveness now (after being nerfed) it feels more like a trap. It's the only Doran's item that's gold inefficient (based on it's stats alone - ie: not including it's passive).

I'd agree with this. The issue here is balancing the doran's items across lanes (specifically shield and blade, in top and bot). Doran's shield got nerfed because it was OP in botlane; the repercussion now is that shield toplaners got a nerf, too.

WhyuMay 4, 20141 votes

ok, fair enough. I meant, a non-skillshot stun. Although veigar's stun is aoe, not point-and-click (that would be taric). But your point stands nonetheless.

Yes, I know, but it's important that that distinction is made, and that you made the distinction. I'll be using it later ;)

I guess that puts him as a "jack of all trades, master of none". But he does everything well. Yes, there are conditions on it. Yes, no single ability of his is OP. But he has a lot of stuff in his kit, which makes him very difficult to balance, because if he gets ahead, he goes from being able to do everything to being able to do everything well, which is not a healthy place to be at.

The problem is that he doesn't have everything in his kit.

He lacks a number of things that would put in over the edge:

No additional tenacity,
No point and click (as defined by you above) gap closer (it's actually a skillshot gap closer with additional conditions (requires you to hit someone to get full distance))
Doesn't push towers particularly well (partly because he doesn't have an offensive steroid)
No aura/AoE buffs
No offensive steroid (ie: no AD/AS/etc steroid)
He's basically entirely melee based.
Limited scaling (his Q, W, E all scale with AD, but his ult only scales with AP .... no steroid, and a wierd mix of bonus AD scaling/full AD scaling).

These all mean he lacks certain strengths that other top laners bring:

Renekton is not as effective against objectives as other top laners
Renekton is not as effective as a split pusher as other top laners
Renekton is not as effective as a carry as other top laners

Renekton does have other strengths that are important and are currently emphasized in the current meta because of changes like the Doran's Shield (as discussed previously). Although, there are also other issues that also make Renekton strong in the current meta.

I'd agree with this. The issue here is balancing the doran's items across lanes (specifically shield and blade, in top and bot). Doran's shield got nerfed because it was OP in botlane; the repercussion now is that shield toplaners got a nerf, too.

I feel like there's a real need for a decent armor/sustain item for top against champions like Renekton. I feel it would solve this top issue more effectively then buffing random champions for top (which will buff those champions in jungle as well, as an example) which will just cause further problems (probably in the jungle, although, it's possible that it could cause potential problems elsewhere) at a later point.

This is just a cascading issue, one little domino gets pushed and it causes bigger issues elsewhere. The doran's shield changes caused more problems for top then it ever solved for bot.

Why doesn't the list function work properly? .... WTF?

EDIT: that's so poorly explained in the formatting guide. working now.