AWKWARD ZOMBIE

Shoolis wrote:See also: Any of the tenacity items other than merc treads and cloak and dagger

The funny thing about Tenacity is, if you need it, there is bodaciously no better item that provides it than Merc's Treads. This is because of two factors:

1) Every champion needs boots. That movespeed bonus is critical to killing and not being killed on so many champions. (Unless you're Karthus and you mow the lawn with your stacked Archangels so well that nobody dares get near you one-on-one.)
2) None of the boots have unique secondary effects that fill a niche better than other items do mid-to-late game. The exceptions are Merc's Treads and Boots of Mobility. The only reason you ever buy other boots is if you need a stat advantage early game. (Ex: Ninja Tabi is the cheapest and gives you a nice defense boost against AD carries.)

These two problems combined mean you will never find yourself in a situation where a minor attack speed / crit boost plus tenacity would be better than boots plus tenacity. The only time you'd ever THINK about it is if you need Boots of Mobility to run around the map as a jungler, but being in that role, you either have enough escape mechanisms or are tanky enough to not have to worry about crowd control. Because of this, Cloak and Dagger, and its other alt-tenacity brethren, are useless. The only way Riot could make them appealing options is to make the stats attached to the items way better OR have a wider variety of boots with unique functionality. (This wouldn't be a problem if we had boots to replace Flash and Teleport, but let's get real, Summoner Spells are never going away.) Pretty much everyone knows this already without me needing to explain it, but sometimes I feel like ranting about what Riot could do better.

I think I would use Cloak and Dagger if it had a tiny movespeed bonus on it, like a Zeal, but the downside is its more expensive and doesn't upgrade to a PD.

Ablu2 wrote:

Chinmaster wrote:Pretty awesome game

Although I did pretty terrible

You had two tanks

(our Cho'gath was pretty terrible)

(constantly called us noobs and then went off on his own to get killed immediately)

>Be Lux
>Go against Katarina in mid with Rengar as their jungler
>Get told you don't know how to play your champ right after getting ganked by Rengar twice, even though you have wards he ults before going anywhere near them so you don't know he's there


Also I knew I was gonna do bad against Kat because she can jump over all my skills and close the space and have free range to kill me

"Oh new patch is there"

Rengar
-Savagery Cooldown increased to 8/7.5/7/6.5/6 seconds from 6 seconds at all ranks

Yeah okay I can see that, as long as it stays 6 second at max rank, that's no problem. Just have to get used to it a little bit now, but shouldn't make too much of a difference.

Battle Roar
-Damage reduced to 60/100/140/180/220 from 75/120/165/210/255

Another W nerf? With the Q nerf now too, AP sure is going to be harder to play now, and only good in late game with many items.
Oh there is another note for it?

-Armor and Magic resist bonus reduced to 15/22/29/36/43 from 20/30/40/50/60

HOLY JESUS ON A HOBBYHORSE
Yeah he's so squishy, lets take away his only defense! That totally makes sense!



Ugh
Ugh
Ugh
Early game is going to suck so many hairy monkey balls now

Yeah. Now Rengar can't clear an entire wave at level 5. What a shame. These nerfs are pretty justified from a pro level. Also, Rengar isn't as squishy as you think. You make him sound like he's Yi or something.

Oh Rengar is very squishy. The only thing which makes him look tanky is that he needs to build a lot of sustain, but seriously just focus him and he'll melt nearly instantly (which is why I often don't understand why people don't focus the character who is exactly supposed to take out carries).

The only sustain you should build on him is a vamp scepter for a bloodthirster. Other than that, it should be a typical bruiser build. Frozen mallet, Maw, Randuins, Atmas, maybe a triforce or a GA, and his bonetooth necklace because unless you're doing really awful, that thing is great.

I really don't know why you think he's squishy though. If you're farming properly, you should be about as tanky as most bruiser champs. Yes they're going to be kinda squishy early game, but if you're still so squishy by mid game that you're blowing up instantaneously, you might be doing something wrong.

Typical bruiser build doesn't work so well on Rengar. Sure you get tanky and can still deal some damage, but it's really sub-optimal. Honestly you just want in and out with him, and you want and need burst for this. Even in the beginning I haven't seen any Rengar's building regular bruiser build; I tried it, a lot, and it just doesn't work on him too well. Buying tank items other than GA or Frozen Mallet is cheddar and inventory space you could have used on another damage/burst item. It's because Rengar has no real/easily available CC, no gap closer (unless you have a bush available) and especially no free ar. pen. like a lot of champs. The only thing you can do is burst, so you need to build accordingly.

Granted, the W nerf is not the world, but it's still hurting. Because if you don't hit anything with it at all, you don't even get a buff from it in the first place and you're defenseless until your cooldown is ready again. I still don't see why a Rengar, if not AP, would put 5 points in his W first? Especially in top lane, "Hey Roar I can push but I'm not a threat to anyone at all!" What good is it if you get a bit of farm, but you can't effectively defend yourself or help in fights when your jungler comes to gank or you're ganking yourself.


On another note, I played the new Soraka and oh my god the new model is so goddamn beautiful and hnnngh I can't
Too bad she's sort of weak compared to other supports, super long cooldowns on her W are getting annoying.
And Kha'Zix can go suck a dick, seriously. He's even more unkillable than I thought.

He's not tanky because he's not a bruiser, he's as much of a bruiser as graves is.
he's an assassin with some sustain, his entire kit revolves around picking off squishies and stranglers with low hp.
He's so much better in the jungle since his strength is his ganking, even supporting is great with his snare into a slow they cant get away.

I agree he's better in his jungle due to his kit, but building nothing but AD burst? No. No no no no no no. That's a giant taboo for any melee champ unless you're Trynd or Fiora. Even Fiora I'm tentative about. If you build nothing but AD on a melee champ, of course you're going to explode instantaneously once you jump on someone, especially if you're Rengar. Talon is an AD assassin and I still wouldn't build nothing but AD on him. Can an assassin build work on Rengar? Of course, provided you don't get caught up and die over and over, which can happen easily due to Rengar not having any escape mechanic besides his ult, and become useless by mid game which is Rengar's moment to shine.

I wish Ganelon were here. He could explain it better than anyone could.

Oh I'm not saying to forgo all tankiness, but overall he seems to be a pretty shitty duelist.
Brutalizer is also really really good on him early game.

I wouldn't say he's a bad duelist. It's just that the fight has to start on his terms.

Probably the best match i've ever had. Jax fed lee sin several kills then quit, but me and nunu 2v4ed with our ults and I got a triple kill and nunu got a kill, and I ended up getting half the kills and 1v1ing lee and rengar.

Eat_box wrote:I wish Ganelon were here. He could explain it better than anyone could.

I haven't been needed. I have been watching.

Before I even get into the differences between AP and AD assassins, it's rather important to establish just what an assassin in this game is. The most immediately recognizable quality is that they are capable of choosing their targets, reaching them regardless of the obstacles in their way, and dealing large amounts of damage very quickly, often enough to kill or seriously injure anyone without defensive items before cooldown timers become an issue. These qualities typically manifest in Riot's design as a lack of important skillshots (people can get in your way otherwise), a gap closer (simply the easiest method to get to your target unhindered), and one or more high damage single-target burst abilities to help you do your job before anyone manages to stun you. A less common but extremely important type of skill for assassins is the escape skill, and this is usually what separates the good from the bad. Shaco isn't a great late-game assassin because his only escape skill is also his gap closer - he can only get in or get out, which just isn't safe in the midst of a proper teamfight. Akali and Talon are better because they both have dashes and the power to go invisible to drop attention from themselves on separate abilities. You see less Akali and Talon players dying before they accomplish anything in teamfights because even though they stack damage items relentlessly, their abilities cover the holes left in their survivability.

Now then, the primary difference between an AP and AD assassin is that AP assassins can only deal damage from their abilities while AD assassins also get auto-attack scaling. This means that guys like Rengar are expected to auto-attack in order to compete with their AP counterparts, and as a result most of their abilities won't be as powerful, except the "heavy-hitter" which is almost always an auto-attack replacement. Usually, the increased need for you to stay on your target in order to do this is compensated for with slows and/or movement speed buffs (see Nocturne for this. Not so much burst damage but good luck getting rid of him), and by necessity, better tanking capabilities since your opponents have so much more time to react. The tanking becomes less important the more assassin-like the champion is, simply because your greater damage output (in whatever form it takes) will put you in danger for far less time. Talon and Shaco make good examples here because their burst damage is comparable to casters, but guys like Nocturne and Rengar need spell shields and self-armor/MR buffs respectively to keep them around long enough to finish the job.

Eat_box is absolutely right when he says that you're going to die constantly if you try a full-assassin build on Rengar. His weakness lies in the fact that his passive is a situational gap closer that your enemy has too much control over, and his ultimate is his escape skill... when you aren't forced to use it like a gap closer because a fight started on the enemy team's terms. He has the qualities of an assassin but the design is incomplete, leaving him to the same kind of problems Shaco has where he can gank and he can get into a fight, but he's dead meat if things ever go poorly, and you can't play an assassin by just waiting for teamfights to start playing in your team's favor before you show up, or your team might as well be fighting 4v5.

So, my suggestion? Do what the Shaco players do. Jungle, gank like hell, and hope that the early momentum you bring to your team saves them. If it doesn't, get a Guardian Angel or Banshee's Veil and wait for the attention of the enemy team to be focused on something that isn't you. It's easy to force people to give up on waiting for you to strike when there's four other champions still in the fight and demanding their attention, but it's also very important that you do so. Just remember that you're always going to be walking a thin line between "waiting for an opportunity" and "leaving your team to die without even trying to help".