Jungle Rengar: Squishy assassin or tanky-bruiser?

[Deleted]

I see two main builds for Rengar being thrown around; either mega burst or bruiser-type.

Assassin mode in action:


This build revolves around maxing offensive masteries and building a crap ton of AD, with the addition of a Sword of the Divine for mega-burst as seen above.

As for tanky-mode, it revolves on maxing defensive masteries and going a similar route to a champion in the top lane.

So which should I go for?

[Daetur]

Bruiser. That bursty SotD build is gimmicky, and having a glass cannon top laner is usually harder on your team than bruiser.

With SotD you're a one shot assassin who's going to die as soon as you get caught in a fight, and there are so many top lane assassin who fill that niche better because they have escapes.

That's not to say you can't have fun with a burst build, but I think you'll get better mileage in general out of bruiser.

[Shiny212]

Rengar is usually more successful as a tanky bruiser than he is as an assassin. He still 1v1s carries in midgame, even without too much offensive items.

[Isrozzis]

Imo, in the jungle, Rengar is better built as an assassin. The thing about jungling him is that since you will have less gold than if you top laned (unless you get really fed) you want to build the most efficient items that you can. While SotD, Ghostblade and IE is hilarious, because you do literally just destroy someone in about a second as the video shows.

There are several reasons that I think he's now better as an assassin than as a tank. I explained the first a bit, so I'll touch on the second now. His heal used to scale off of % health, but it is now a flat heal, meaning that if you stack a bunch of health, the heal doesn't become more powerful. I think that double shouting still grants two MR/Armor boosts, but I could be wrong on that one. They have changed him so much that I don't recall how everything works exactly.

Since you want to build the most efficient items there are to maximize his potential, I believe that building him as an assassin works out better than a bruiser. Two of his abilities substantial AD scaling, and his kit is designed for him to be an assassin. He has a stealth that grants you a leap, double empowered auto attack, and a slow/snare. That doesn't scream bruiser, it screams assassin.

However, he tends to end up a bit like Lee Sin in my experience. If Lee does well early, then he can build damage and become a menace through the mid game, but if he doesn't get ahead he has to build tanky and ends up as support Lee Sin, which really doesn't do a whole lot. Same thing happens with Rengar. If you build full tank with a little damage, you don't have the power to shut down a carry because your damage is underwhelming, and you also don't have the cc to lock them down. The empowered Bola is a strong tool, but many other bruisers bring much more to the game than just a snare.

And about the video. It's from Dec. 2012, which if I remember is somewhere in the time that Rengar was getting the nerf and buff bat in quick succession. He was more powerful then, than he is now. If you notice his ult stealths him immediately, rather than there being a delay. Also, Dyrus was playing him top lane (unless he was jungling without smite) which means he would have more gold than if he had been jungling. He also looked to be rather fed.

So that's my two cents, some AD items are more efficient than bruiser items in the jungle since you want to efficiently spend your gold, his W no longer scales off of max health, and his kit is designed to be that of an assassin.

[Deleted]

I suppose I'll go all out assassin, Rengar doesn't seem to be able to fill the role of a bruiser/tank properly and if I try to go that way I'll be less efficient overall it seems as I'll be going half and half between damage and tanking. I just played him quite a lot during his free week because I loved his raw damage and the 1:1 scaling of AD seemed immense through the entire game instead of dropping like as tone in the early or late game. However, I am still open to suggestions on how to build bruiser/tanky Rengar.