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The quick answer is anything that gets you to level 3 quickly with Red buff, since you want to be able to gank as soon as possible. The best paths for this are as follows:
1. Red -> Krugs -> Raptors -> Transition gank mid -> Gank side lane / Counter jungle / Do your own Blue side
2a. Red -> Blue -> Gromp -> Gank side lane / Gank mid
2b. Blue -> Gromp -> Red -> Gank side lane / Gank mid
Choose your starting location based on which side lane you want to pressure (path towards gankable lanes and away from safe lanes). If you're on blue team and you want to gank top at level 3, start at Red, for example.
If you know where the enemy jungler is starting you can choose to match their pathing direction to deny them scuttle / invade them, or you can choose to path in the opposite direction to avoid them.
Other viable routes include 5-camp clearing (everything except Gromp or Krugs) and then taking Scuttle, or 4-camp clearing with Blue Gromp Wolves Red. These routes are more situational since they delay your first gank timing, so only do longer clears if you're sure you won't be able to gank until after scuttle.
There are a couple other routes involving early invades, but they're more complicated to figure out, as you need to be able to analyze the jungle matchup and also track the enemy jungler to invade at the proper time. Use these ganking routes first and you can start experimenting with invade timings once you have a solid baseline to work with.
Hope that helps. Let me know if you have any further questions.
I wanted to know why you don't build Titanic except in the "Max Damage" build ? I think it's a good item, providing HP and damage. My guess is that it's a little too expensive ?
Oh also, what do you think about Wit's End on Rek'Sai as an MR item ? Or maybe botrk for early fed into squishies ?
I don't use Wit's End or Blade of the Ruined King on Rek'Sai. I think you can get more out of HP and AD than you can out of attack speed in general. More survivability and damage will let you kill someone with your main combo while minimizing counterplay since you can do a lot of damage while they're knocked up and later when you go untargetable by ulting. If you're just standing there hitting them for several seconds, you're going to take a lot more damage.
I think BotRK works better on split-pushers since they can go for longer 1v1s with the attack speed, so you'll usually see the item built by top lane bruisers. Wit's isn't a bad item since it does give MR, but I'll pretty much always build Spirit Visage or Adaptive Helm over it on Rek'Sai.
on your first back should you instantly buy serrated or go for stalkers blade first?
in what circumstance should you rush black cleaver even if the enemy team is not really building armor.. I just always rush it but I feel it sometimes is a mistake.
thoughts on tri or even Deaths dance? my full build is typically warrior, cleaver, DD, boots, GA and tank item.
trying to figure out how to be more aggro.. I gank a lot but the "high" dmg is not really what I want and there to push the jgs out or have "true" impact. I feel the black cleaver puts me behind as it does not contribute too much dmg but shred, hp and cdr.
I never build Serrated Dirk or its upgrades on Rek'Sai. Imo if you're fed enough to get away with a full damage item like that without getting punished in team fights, you're going to win the game either way. In closer games, you'll need more defenses to team fight.
Don't focus too much on Cleaver's armor shred. It's a nice bonus effect but not the main reason why the item is popular. The stats are more important.
I've done Trinity Force before and it's okay. The main issue is it's really expensive and doesn't offer as much HP as Black Cleaver even when you complete it. I'd expect it'd be more useful for top lane Rek'Sai if anything. Maybe you can squeeze it into the build if you're really really fed early. I'd rather have Triforce than Duskblade anyway.
Death's Dance is another really expensive damage item. In the vast majority of games, you'll get more out of defensive stats for your final items. If you're super fed and unkillable, DD is a decent option for damage.
If you're lacking in damage, you might be underleveled or behind in gold. Rek'Sai gains a lot of flat damage from levels and items, so you'll feel stronger if you can get ahead in tempo and get your power spikes faster. When you're fed, you can kill a squishy target pretty easily just by rotating through all your abilities and finishing them with R.
There are other items like Serrated Dirk and Duskblade of Draktharr that provide stronger damage spikes, but the issue is you'll be made of paper and won't be able to live through team fights. Other champions are a lot better at abusing lethality since most of them have ways to survive fights, and Rek'Sai only has her R which takes her closer to enemies.
Ultimately you can build whatever you want if you're strong enough that the enemy can't punish you, but when you're struggling, I'd recommend going with a more standard build.
In fights, Conqueror definitely makes a big difference, especially if your opponent isn't a Conqueror user. The keystone is warping the meta a little bit imo. I don't think Hecarim would be such a strong pick without it.
I didn't know about Hecarim, I thought people still used Predator on him, at least in the jungle. Maybe I'll try it meself. Btw, your little trick for clearing camps is still very useful, like the day I first read the guide.
I still build it occasionally but for the most part I think it's better to rush Warrior and Cleaver since both are good power spikes. It also means you get more CDR earlier. :)
I was thinking about playing rek'sai top (since I'm a god-awful jungler), so I have a couple of questions: would you change something in the rune setup/item priorities/item pool (excluding obviously the jungler item)? And with which matchup do you think rek'sai can do good?
Conqueror with Bone Plating and Demolish secondary would probably work. Grasp of the Undying might be okay as well. I'd start with Conqueror and see how it goes.
Get Tiamat into Titanic Hydra and Black Cleaver. From there you can get Guardian Angel or Sterak's Gage or a resistance item if necessary. Defensive boots.
You'll have to play a bunch of games to see what matchups work. I can already tell you she'll be awful into Quinn, Gnar and other ranged bullies that can get away from your Tunnel engage. She likely loses to really strong melees like Renekton and Illaoi as well. Might be viable into Camille if you can reliably interrupt her dash. Probably works okay into tanks, maybe decent into Riven and Aatrox but I'd have to play the matchups to know for sure.
Let me know how it goes!
And after a quick search I see what you mean with her old ult, now her ult icon makes more sense-
Feel free to try out both and use whatever's working for you though.
I've tried both Conqueror and the new fixed Hail of Blades and... I like both of them. I'm liking more the second one, but the first one I guess is nearly necessary vs. tanks. Hail of Blades permits quicker trades without waiting for the 4-second wind-up that Conqueror has, but you don't have any help other than making Queen's Wrath faster.
Other than that I still need to figure out if to run Resolve secondary every time or not and I need to get accustomed to Rek'Sai AAs.
I just saw the post on S@20 and it seems that they want to put fury generation into Prey Seeker, so it will actually help Rek'Sai in the lane by simply poking when Burrowed. Something I want to ask: how do you manage the Burrowed/ Unburrowed time? When should I switch to one to the other? I found myself dying a lot when Burrowed just because I couldn't keep up with my opponent's movements (moreover with the jungler movements when he ganks), but if I stay Unburrowed I'll lose the ms boost and the ability to knock-up an opponent.
If you get ganked, you should Burrow and Tunnel towards your tower. You can also Unburrow for the CC and walk away if they're very close to you. Generally stay Burrowed for the extra speed unless you can hit your pursuers with a knockup.
In lane, Burrowing consumes your fury to heal yourself and lets you poke with Prey Seeker or threaten your opponent with an Unburrow. You should be able to use minion vision to see your lane opponent. It's good to start burrowed if you're looking for a long trade, since you can start with a knockup and get most of your combo off for free.
Staying Unburrowed lets you last-hit with basic attacks and, if your fury is fully charged, go for quick trades with Furious Bite. You'll probably have to be Unburrowed whenever you're last-hitting, which is a big chunk of the laning phase. If you want to threaten a full combo when an enemy walks up to last-hit, just Burrow as they approach the minion and knock them up if they get in range for a last-hit.
Against ranged champions you can't really do that of course, so just focus on getting last-hits and trying to stay healthy. Once you're at least level 3, you can start looking for trades with Tunnel into Unburrow, but you'll need to make sure the enemy minion wave isn't too big that it'll lose you the trade. A good time to go in is when only a few caster minions remain for each team (3 minions per side) and the next minion wave hasn't arrived yet.
Against ranged champions with CC or mobility, you might just be screwed until you can get a jungle gank or if your opponent makes a mistake. Champions like Gnar, Vayne and Quinn can disengage from your approach with Tunnel so I'd avoid picking her into those kinds of matchups.
Anyway, thank you for your tips! I'll try to play a bit more her and I'll wait for the Rek'Sai's buffs.
There are some Rek'Sai buffs on the PBE but I have my doubts that they'll go live (they look really strong). Hopefully I'm wrong and we can enjoy some buffs in a patch or two. :)