Just hours ago, a member of the League of Legends design team – RiotPhlox shared the goals and details of the changes to the champion Rengar with players. According to RiotPhlox, the aim of the upcoming adjustments is to make this champion more accessible to players in lower ranks.
RiotPhlox: “We have read a lot of feedback about how Rengar could be improved, so the team decided to implement some changes. We hope you will try this champion and give us your feedback. The goal here is to help players at lower ranks access and play Rengar effectively in the jungle role.”
Passive – Unseen Predator
Maximum Fury stacks reduced from 4 to 3.
Rengar will no longer gain Fury points when jumping from bushes while at 0 stacks.
Movement speed bonus when using empowered abilities decreased from 30/40/50% to 20/25/30%.
Duration of movement speed increase increased from 1.5 seconds to 3 seconds.
Time to gain Triumph stacks on the Tooth and Nail after defeating an enemy champion increased from 1.5 seconds to 3 seconds.
W – Battle Roar
When using the ability, Rengar gains an additional 10/15/20/25/30 armor and magic resist.
The damage of the ability will increase by 50% for each enemy champion or large monster hit after the first target.
When at maximum stacks, the healing ability will also be enhanced in the same way.
E – Bola Strike
New: This ability will have no cast time when Rengar is jumping.
New: Reveals the enemy hit for 2 seconds.
Immediately after Riot Games announced these changes, a streamer who specializes in using Rengar to climb to Challenger reacted strongly against them. The streamer known as ScrubNoob argued that the aforementioned changes would significantly reduce the “skill ceiling” required to play Rengar effectively. He even compared the “new” Rengar to becoming as easy to play as Xin Zhao.
One of the main reasons ScrubNoob reacted so strongly is the fact that Riot has reduced the maximum Fury stacks to just 3 points. If you are not too bad at the game, every time you dive into an opponent and use all 3 abilities, the “new” Rengar will always have Fury stacks at maximum. This makes it too simple for the new Rengar to use empowered abilities.
Meanwhile, current Rengar players have to calculate these stacks carefully in different situations to ensure they can take down the enemy. It would be terrible to lose a kill just because you don’t have enough Fury stacks to deal extra damage with Q – Savagery or to root with an empowered E – Bola Strike. This level of detailed calculation contributes to the difference between an excellent Rengar player and a “noob” gamer.
Of course, these adjustments from Riot are still in testing and may be subject to change. Hopefully, Riot will receive feedback from a master Rengar player like ScrubNoob to make reasonable adjustments in the future. An update to make Rengar easier to play is good, but keeping this champion’s difficulty level high enough for players to explore is also important.