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So Rengar can 100-0 me, is there anything I can do about it?

RiotCombatCube·6/1/2014, 10:34:43 AM·4 votes·1,598 views

No. Even though I have a Zhonya's, he will kill me from full health before I can use it. No other assassin can do that - Rengar is broken.

I don't understand how this fits into League of Legends' design values of Counterplay and Meaningful Choice. There's no counterplay for the squishy player unless you have superhuman reflexes. There's no reason to pick any other assassin over Rengar. Rengar in his current state is just as offending as Season One Evelynn when it comes to broken, except true vision is more difficult to get now. His play-pattern is similar to LeBlanc's, but he has faster damage output. And while LeBlanc is next on the nerf table, I can't find any indication that Rengar will be, too.

Let me elaborate: The victim has not even a second to react to a max armor penetration Rengar on Thrill of the Hunt. He will have a whole 12 seconds to find you (and he will have vision of nearby champions). He will kill you, and there's nothing you can do. He doesn't need to wait for you to blow Zhonya's or escape spells; he will kill you before you can react.

All assassins have high damage, but some deal it out all at once, and others do it considerably more slowly. Also, all assassins have some kind of gap closing ability, but some are more predictable than others. Most assassins do some kind of trade off. Assassins that have all-at-once damage, but predictable gap closing ability include Talon, Zed, LeBlanc, and Fizz. Assassins that have great gap closing ability but slower damage output include Akali, Evelynn Nocturne, Shaco.

Rengar makes no such tradeoff. He has all-at-once damage at perhaps the fastest output in the game, and he has ample time and cover to strike. He ultimate makes it extremely difficult to predict where or who he will strike. He has what every assassin covets but lacks: the ability to instantly and reliably kill a squishy champion. This is why he seems to outclass most other assassins, and why I think he should be nerfed. I'd love to hear a Rioter's thoughts on this.

33 Comments

Earl Eulrich6/1/2014, 12:18:23 PM3 votes

yea, it´s just kinda like with the lee rework plans...the main goal of the rework had been to make him a fighter instead of the assassin without proper counterplay, then most people cried because they failed to see that jumping in and locking a primary target down for their team is a very strong contribution to a fight...and now he´s back to the ridiculous release state.

Just a shame they don´t stick to their design-goals if the puplic outcry is too loud.

(On a side note...also the quadra-dorans really have to be disabled, this item was meant as a starting item, not as a flawless comebackplan when you got outplayed hard early on - limiting it to 2dorans items should really be enough)

Thales6/1/2014, 2:20:43 PM2 votes

Eh, he's better in that respects than he used to be. With his new ult, you have some way to expect that he's nearby, and even if he's using SotD or some such, he's still fully visible from the start of his jump. If he gets that far ahead, it's not unreasonable for him to be able to kill you. Outside of extreme cases like that, Rengar's damage is way, way slower than it used to be.

Hyrum Graff6/1/2014, 4:09:07 PM2 votes

Rengar only has one gapcloser (ok, two if you count his movespeed burst after ult), and he has no escape. He's hard to deal with 1v1, but if your team helps you out, you should be able to deal with him.

Kind of like diana.

Hrki6/1/2014, 4:58:45 PM2 votes

GA? Zhonya? His ult combo is his only kill potential. Without it (or after it) he's a sitting duck. Both these items screw him up, and if you are going as a team, they'll kill him after his leap.

Lneacx6/1/2014, 5:27:36 PM1 votes

Rengar's burst is definitely broken . . . but my question is: why does he only have a 49.92% winrate according to LolKing?

We know from RyanChoi's highlight reels that 4 dorans is an instant death sentence, so why is Rengar's winrate so close to 50%? What's keeping him back?

Angry Monster6/1/2014, 9:08:28 PM1 votes

one counter to rengar is to have a pink ward in your inventory. when the ult notification happen drop the pick and the proceed to blow up rengar as a AP.

If you are a ADC u have to hope your team can CC him so u can kill him. but teh pick ward thing still works to at least see him.

Dvolt6/2/2014, 12:05:25 AM1 votes

I am quite honestly confused as to what situation your thread is talking about. You mention Zhonya's, then show videos of AD Carries being wrecked by a fed Rengar. Is this the sound of an AP Midlaner being angry that they can't burst someone down, a Marksman who got focused down by himself?

Also, I'm questionable about "Slow" damage output. For instance, Akali's Mark into Dash, Auto attack, and so forth isn't a slow combo. It's speedy, and deals a ton of burst damage once you add in things like Lich Bane, Gunblade, or any AP item, due to the bonus magic damage on hit she gets from her passive. It takes more button presses, if that's what you mean.

I'd care to hear about what you mean by "Predictable" gap closing ability. If a Leblanc uses both her Distortion and Mimicked Distortion, it's rather hard to keep track of which is which, even if they have different colors. Fizz has two great gap closers, one coupled with a moment of untargetability. Talon's gap closing capability is pretty scary, as it's a silence coupled with damage amplification, and basically 2.5 second stealth every minute. I agree about Shaco's and Nocturne's gap closing capability, and Eve's if only because of her dark frenzy passive.

So, going back to your initial premise, "if an Assassin is able to Instantly KO me, they must be broken," I find it hard to take you very seriously. If you are a somewhat tanky champion, then you laugh at Rengar. If you are squishy, you're very scared. This is what an assassin is supposed to do. When Katarina Shunpos to you, then ults with Rylais, is that OP? Sure, it's over 2.5 seconds, but I rarely find that a squishy marksman can handle more than 1.5 seconds of Death Lotus.

In all honesty though, Rengar is not someone I go into Champion select worrying about. If you are tanky, have armor and health regen, counter jungle him early on, he's basically useless for the rest of the game. Unlikes some Assassins (namely, Katerina, Kassadin, etc), Rengar takes a lot of kills to gain usefulness.

ChaosThief6/2/2014, 2:22:19 PM1 votes

Rengar is immensely frustrating. It think that the 40% cast speed was good, but MAYBE too much.

I was thinking if he had to wait something(0.5 seconds for example) before being able to do ANYTHING, then it might be easier to deal with him.

Auz the Ripper6/2/2014, 5:22:10 PM1 votes

The reason he's overbearing at the moment is that his Q is bugged so that all the bonus damage critically strikes, allowing him to literally one-hit people with an empowered Q. I'm gotten numbers like 1580, and I've seen screenshots where someone got 2600 from a single Q. They fix that and he wouldn't instagib nearly as much. They could also tone down the % increased resists to 30% more per champion hit instead of the current 50%