Hello, my name is Frostmaniac, I'm currently Platinum IV (I now) omw to Diamond on EUNE. I started leveling this account just before S4 ended. I never seen Silver and hopefully I'll never see it, this thanks to Rengar and Annie. With this 2 champs mainly I manage to carry myself to Platinums in 30 games in first placement in preseason. Now with Rengar and Jinx I started S5 in Platinum V and I'm continueing to carry myself with Rengar to Diamond. This is my guide to Rengar, The Grumpy Cat. I'll get into tips and tricks, the chapter that is the most important of this guide.

Pros:
- extremely powerful early/mid game
- high burst => good assasin
- easy to pick lonely targets
- ulti has huge range to see enemy champions
- can 1v2
- high versability
- can easily give kill potential on other lanes

Cons:
- somewhat dependent on bushes
- fairly weak without empowered abilities
- bush dependent to engage without ulti
- skill dependent
- his power drops in late
- dependent on team positioning to initiate

This are the standard runes that gives highest damage and protection early game.
MR/lvl can be used if facing an AD enemy, but take into consideration if jungler is AD or AP and how often will you meet him in early.
In hard match ups where low chance of dominating the lane, arm pen runes can be used, this runes boosting a little the dmg in mid game ( in comparison to flat ad runes ).

Something to mention is that most of the times in early, is important to buy more Doran Blades. Most of the times you start with Doran Blade or Doran Shield. Is good to buy 1 or 2 more Doran Blade, because Rengar has enought dmg from abilities that stack good with AD, and Doran Blade's hp and lifesteal gives Rengar a very good 1v1 all in.

Tiamat > Last Whisper > Yomumu Ghostblade
When the enemy team doesn't have armor after you have your Tiamat and thinking about second item, you can go directly to Yomumu Ghostblade.

Tiamat -> gives lane clear/push abilities + sustain, making possible the roaming
Last Whisper -> Boost to dmg, makes Rengar dangerous vs offtank or even main tank
Yomumu Ghostblade -> Arm Pen go really well with Last Whisper, the ability to crit is incredible as Rengar, cooldown reduction is welcomed, and the active that makes the engage from ulti-ing much more easy because enemies won't be announced by the "!" until is very too late and they can't react ( also, the active won't break stealth ).

Sometimes a hexdrinker must be squeezed before finishing the core, but this is up to you when and why. Even after the core, most of the times, I recommend Maw of Malmortius ( the exception is just when the single ap in the enemy team is the underfed support, prefferably Janna or Soraka :)) ).

For last item is totally up to you. As for a personal opinion, if you must do alot of dmg because your team is underfed, i would recommend for Ruined king, the attack speed gives the opportunity to 1v2 or 1v3, also greatly increases your chance to take down tanks, Botrk has immense synergy with Last Whisper + Yomumu Ghostblade.

One more thing, on rengar is a waste of gold to get lifesteal early just because he is not counting on long duels. If he manages to get down a target, it will go down in less then 2 seconds; if the target failz to die in less then 2 seconds, there are high chances it won't die at all. That's the reason I didn't put any lifesteal items in the core.

For boots upgrade:
- Boots of mobility: -> cheaper, easier engage with ulti, the moving speed helps roaming. Used on higher mmr because of the engage in ulti, also when you have a hard laning phase;
- Ionian Boots of Lucidity -> highly recommended when ahead + brutaliser will give you an opportunity to ulti often because of the cooldown reduction, helping alot the other 2 lanes;

Is highly recommended to have atleast 30 matches in draft pick or team building before starting ranked play. Rengar is skill dependent and needs alot of practice of early if it is to be mastered.

1. Master the autos from bush. You can demoralise and make them feel overwhelmed when attacking repeatedly from the bush, making them not retaliate. I'll recommend what to look on the web in the finish of this chapter.

2. Always roam. Doesn't matter if you dominated the lane or not, when you have your lane pushed, after lvl 6, roam. See where, mid is pushed ? bot is pushed ? where could the enemy jungler be to gang him ? answer this question and go.

3. Know your enemy. There are champions that Rengar dominate easy, skill based encounters and champions that dominate Rengar almost with no skill. By knowing who you dominate and who dominates you allow to trade offensive or play defensive. With experience, you know how to proper trade with someone that you dominate to land the kill at lvl 2.

4. Learn the art of kill at lvl 2. When the creeps come into lane, you always take the lead of enemy creeps to draw them closer to a bush, this permits to stack fury and farm without the risk of being harassed. Also see point 1. Also the bush gives Rengar a high chance of pursuit a fleeing enemy ( from a bad trade ) by leaping all the time.
Try to trade once or twice on lanes you can dominate pre 2. When hitting 2, you should have 4 or 5 fury stacked already => Empowered Q, bola, auto, Q again, move in front of him ( orb walking ), auto etc. Ignite when certain for a kill. Use flash if needed to finish a target.

5. Abuse Q when auto attacking. When you want to leap from bush, dont leap with Q up. Leap normal attack and then Q followed by another auto, best way to trade for max damage.

6. Rengar isn't a great split pusher anymore from the rework, but if you see your lane opponenet that just got teleported at lvl 7, you have high chance that you can get the first 2 towers until someone will come defend. When sieging towers, use Q on tower right after auto attack, it won't hit the full damage of Q, but it will do a normal attack in the tower, taking the tower faster down.

7. One of the biggest mistakes I see in low divisions is always using empowered Q in engages. I'm gonna clarify ( imo ) when to use which.
Empowered Q: Use only when the target is able to duel you and you need max damage; also the target is most likely stay and fight then try to escape. Example: Olaf, Darius, Riven etc.
Empowered E: Excepting the above, you always use Empowered E, especially from ulti. When you do Empowered E, you root them for 1.75 seconds ( time in which they can't flash or use any displacement abilities, like Graves and Lucian dash or Lissandra's Glacial's Path (E) ).

Also the Empowered E is used just exactly when Rengar leaps, so you have time to do Q exactly when you arrive at the target. In the moment you arrive, the empowered E will hit the target in the same time ( if you do it exactly when you leap ) with your normal Q for huge amount of damage. You can equeeze an auto attack just before the normal Q, but this needs some practice and most of the times not needed.

One thing that noone reads is that empowered abilities are not dependent on the skill level, so if I have 1 point in E or 5 points in E, empowered E will do same damage; the damage is given by Rengar's level.

8. Learn to master the Bola Strike. Especially the Empowered Bola Strike makes the difference between a kill or missing an important chance. Also when you need to use Empowered Q vs someone that can kill you, don't do right after the engage the E, wait for double Q and one auto for the Tiamat to clear the creeps, then do the bola because that bola will prevent the target from running.
But if you miss sometimes bola, never forget that even LCS players miss that, you can't be perfect, you can just improve the chances of hitting with it by picking the moment better.

9. Because of the nature of Rengar to pick anyone from the enemy team with his ulti, always target the most valuable target of enemy team. If you open with Empowered E ( to don't give them the ability to flash or escape ), your target will die in the next 0.8 seconds ( more or less ).

10. You don't have to engage every time you use ulti. Sometimes you won't find a good engage, the enemy will have a too good positioning, or maybe they placed a pink, or your team is badly positioned, whatever the reason, if you find a reason to don't engage, try to think fast if is worth engaging. Is better to lose just a ulti then lose a ulti and die, or even badder to lose an entire team fight because you initiated badly and all your team followed.

11. Always try to take a fast eye on the mini map when ulti ing. You can see in a huge area all enemy champions in stealth or not. You can see reasons to don't engage, see point 10.

12. Always have a ward. Rengar is vulnerable to gangs, his only true escape is his ulti; but if you blow your ulti to escape, you won't have it to get kills on roaming, early the cooldown on ulti is pretty high. Especially. I highly recommend to have a ward on lanes that you dominate because there is most likely that the enemy jungler will come. Sometimes you can 1v2 if you know he is coming.

I'll write more as I remember things that I find important.
Recommend to see Ryan Choi's stream or youtube movies with Rengar. At the moment is considered one of the best Solo Q Rengar's in the world.

Hopefully I gave you an insight on how to play top Rengar as an assasin.
As a mention, in lower tiers Rengar does exceptionally because people tend to solo farm, being the perfect target for Rengar. I'll improve this build as often as I can.

I await feedbacks on what to improve at this guide.
If you want to find me for more discussions, add me, Frostmaniac on EUNE.